Book Review: ‘How the World Eats,’ by Julian Baggini

One of his frequent themes is that organic practices do not work well for all crops in all places, and have little chance of cranking out enough food for the whole planet, while high-tech intensive farming isn’t always as harmful as critics make it out to be. Nitrogen fertilizers derived from fossil fuels are anathema to environmentalists, but Baggini argues that synthetic fertilizers “could be produced indefinitely using renewable energy.” No-till agriculture, which relies on highly mechanized equipment for sowing seeds and applying pesticide, can make for healthier soil.

Shades of gray like these don’t often creep into our conversations about modern food networks. It’s welcome to get a tour of the food world from a writer who is not in any camp except that of reason.

At times Baggini’s evenhandedness can be tough on the reader, who has to slalom through pages on which nearly every sentence is staked with “but,” “still” or “however.” More seriously, some of his conclusions are striking in their blandness. After walking us through the commodity markets’ exploitation of those coffee and cacao workers, many of whom are essentially enslaved, he concludes: “A more equitable food world should be everyone’s goal, but realistic reform requires a fairer commodity market, not its abolition. That is easier said than done.”

A high tolerance for nuance can be more helpful in tracing the shape of a problem than in figuring out solutions. Here is where the cosmic scope of Baggini’s project comes back to bite him. Describing child slavery, cultured meat, deforestation, caged chickens, gene editing and zoonotic disease outbreaks is one thing. Wrapping all of them — and much more — into what he calls “a theoretically coherent and conceptually clear whole” is something else entirely, and at times “How the World Eats” seems like a “Key to All Mythologies” written for people who buy fair-trade coffee beans.

If one thread runs through all the networks Baggini invokes, invisibly molding and directing them, it’s power: corporate power, obviously, but also the power of governments, NGOs, commodities markets and throngs of consumers. He recognizes this, but never quite wrestles with it, though he does admit that “the question of where power lies in any system is always important.” As critiques of institutional forces go, this is not exactly Foucault.

Baggini’s research into how the world works turns out to be more interesting than his reflections on what it all means. But for eaters with an appetite for facts, there is much to enjoy. The abstract ideas are meant to be the point, but it’s the concrete details that make “How the World Eats” absorbing.

HOW THE WORLD EATS: A Global Food Philosophy | By Julian Baggini | Pegasus | 443 pp. | $30