A BBC Radio Four Food Programme Book of the Year 2024
‘Julian Baggini engages with food in a way that nobody else does. He’s the most important thinker we’ve got on food in the UK’ Tim Hayward, author of Steak.
Listen to me discussing the book over lunch with Jack Aldane on The Booking Club podcast
‘How the World Eats is an enormously wide overview of how people throughout the entire world – from hunter-gatherers to NASA astronauts – view, exist within, manage, and try to improve their food systems. Baggini’s philosophy makes sense. We need sustainable food systems to feed the world’ Marion Nestle, Professor of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health, Emerita, New York University, and author, most recently, of Slow Cooked
Listen to an interview about the book with food policy expert Geoff Tansey.
‘Baggini’s method is to balance insightful, rational analysis of our disastrous food system with inspiring examples of people who are working to make it better. His particular genius is to level a philosophical gaze across this murky, disjointed complex in order to think the unthinkable: an economically coherent, healthful and compassionate food world. How The World Eats brings a cool compress to our feverish world, and leaves us hopeful for a cure’ Pen Vogler, author of Stuffed: A History of Good Food and Hard Times in Britain
‘A refreshingly balanced and nuanced survey of the complexities and realities of food today. Baggini explores the global reach of what we eat and weighs up competing voices to give some clarity of thinking amongst the clamour and crises’ Hattie Ellis, author of What to Eat: 10 Chewy Questions About Food
‘Julian expertly takes the reader on a wonderful journey and exploration through philosophy, culture, and gastronomy across the globe. A must-read for anyone passionate about food, culture and connections’ Dr Rupy Aujla, author of The Doctor’s Kitchen
A profound and important book about our broken food system and how we might fix it. Baggini treats a thorny and complex issue with balance, clarity and a leavening of wit’ Ned Palmer, author of A Cheesemonger’s History of the British Isles
‘With increasing globalisation of food culture, advances in nutritional sciences, the challenges from ecological crises, there is a growing interest in how we provision our food in a sustainable way, how we share it, and how to eat more tastily and healthily. However, the complexity of our food world makes it a very difficult landscape to travel around. Enter Julian Baginni, who, drawing on his wide range of knowledge on political economy, food science, and climate science, provides us with a global food philosophy that immensely help us negotiate this difficult terrain. This is a very informative and highly enjoyable book’ Ha-Joon Chang, SOAS University of London, author of Edible Economics
Buy from my bookshop, your local bookshop, Hive, Waterstones, Blackwells, Foyles, or (if you must!) Amazon.