Diet for a Large Planet : Industrial Britain, Food Systems, and World Ecology

We are facing a world food crisis of unparalleled proportions. Our reliance on unsustainable dietary choices and agricultural systems is causing problems both for human health and the health of our planet. Solutions from lab-grown food to vegan diets to strictly local food consumption are often discussed, but a central question remains: how did we get to this point? In __Diet for a Large Planet__, Chris Otter goes back to the late eighteenth century in Britain, where the diet heavy in meat, wheat, and sugar was developing. As Britain underwent steady growth, urbanization, industrialization, and economic expansion, the nation altered its food choices, shifting away from locally produced plant-based nutrition. This new diet, rich in animal proteins and refined carbohydrates, made people taller and stronger, but it led to new types of health problems. Its production also relied on far greater acreage than Britain itself, forcing the nation to become more dependent on global resources. Otter shows how this issue expands beyond Britain, looking at the global effects of large agro-food systems that require more resources than our planet can sustain. This comprehensive history helps us understand how the British played a significant role in making red meat, white bread, and sugar the diet of choice—linked to wealth, luxury, and power—and shows how dietary choices connect to the pressing issues of climate change and food supply. A history of the unsustainable modern diet—heavy in meat, wheat, and sugar—that requires more land and resources than the planet is able to support. We are facing a world food crisis of unparalleled proportions. Our reliance on unsustainable dietary choices and agricultural systems is causing problems both for human health and the health of our planet. Solutions from lab-grown food to vegan diets to strictly local food consumption are often discussed, but a central question remains: how did we get to this point? In Diet for a Large Planet , Chris Otter goes back to the late eighteenth century in Britain, where the diet heavy in meat, wheat, and sugar was developing. As Britain underwent steady growth, urbanization, industrialization, and economic expansion, the nation altered its food choices, shifting away from locally produced plant-based nutrition. This new diet, rich in animal proteins and refined carbohydrates, made people taller and stronger, but it led to new types of health problems. Its production also relied on far greater acreage than Britain itself, forcing the nation to become more dependent on global resources. Otter shows how this issue expands beyond Britain, looking at the global effects of large agro-food systems that require more resources than our planet can sustain. This comprehensive history helps us understand how the British played a significant role in making red meat, white bread, and sugar the diet of choice—linked to wealth, luxury, and power—and shows how dietary choices connect to the pressing issues of climate change and food supply. "In this magisterial study, Chris Otter traces Britain's transition to a diet rich in animal proteins and refined carbohydrates like wheat and sugar, a diet that required more acreage than that of Britain itself and that, if followed everywhere, would soon deplete the planet's resources-as the title announces, this was truly a "diet for a large planet." From the late 1700s to the end of World War II, Otter accounts for the structures, practices, and ideologies generated by Britain's nutrition transition. He shows how Britain was the first nation to undergo the population explosion, urbanization, and industrialization we associate with modernity, and how it managed the unprecedented problem of how to feed its growing population. Its radical solution would be to outsource its food production, leading away from a locally produced, plant-based diet to one reliant on global markets, international trade networks, and enormous agro-food systems that would have planetary effects on famine, war, the world economy, and the wider earth-system. Not only did this phase in Britain's history make the consumption of meat, white bread, sugar, and butter a coveted diet, linked to development, luxury, and power--it also opened up a new phase in economic history, one whose dramatic effects endure to this day, whether in terms of health problems, eating disorders, or the seemingly endless world food crisis"-- Provided by publisher In Diet for a Large Planet, Chris Otter goes back to the late eighteenth century in Britain, where the diet heavy in meat, wheat, and sugar was developing. As Britain underwent steady growth, urbanization, industrialization, and economic expansion, the nation altered its food choices, shifting away from locally produced plant-based nutrition. This new diet, rich in animal proteins and refined carbohydrates, made people taller and stronger, but it led to new types of health problems. Its production also relied on far greater acreage than Britain itself, forcing the nation to become more dependent on global resources. Otter shows how this issue expands beyond Britain, looking at the global effects of large agro-food systems that require more resources than our planet can sustain. This comprehensive history helps us understand how the British played a significant role in making red meat, white bread, and sugar the diet of choice - linked to wealth, luxury, and power - and shows how dietary choices connect to the pressing issues of climate change and food supply