Julie Guthman weighs in on obesity

I came across a book I'm pretty excited to read, via the Rams Horn. It's entitled "Weighing In: Obesity, Food Justice, and the Limits of Capitalism" and it's by Julie Guthman, who gained fame in academic foodie circles with "Agrarian Dreams: The Paradox of Organic Farming in California".

How can it be anything other than excellent, with a quote like this:

"Fast and convenient food has been a triply good fix for American capitalism. It entails the super-exploitation of the labour force in its production, it provides cheap food to support the low wages of the food and other industries by feeding their low-wage workers, and it absorbs the surpluses of the agriculture economy, soaking up, as it were, the excesses of overproduction to keep the farm sector marginally viable."

Triple whammy!

(And, for academic foodies, also quite reminiscent of Sidney Mintz.)