Oranges

“Oranges is a model for a certain type of journalism. Big food companies do not want you to know how your food is produced and who produces it. They want you to just think about it as something that arrives in your supermarket already wrapped up. This book is a model for me. Every day on his way to work McPhee passed through the train station in New York City and there was this place where you could go and they had a bin full of oranges and a machine and they would squeeze you a glass of orange juice while you waited. McPhee started to think about that and decided that he would basically follow that glass of freshly squeezed juice back to where the orange was produced. He wanted to find out all about it, the history of that type of farming. It is a short book and it is not a political book in that he is not beating any drums, he is just telling you how it is done. And you come away never being able to look at an orange in the same way again. You will look at it and know about the people who grow it who have financial problems. And it will no longer be a pretty waxed orange sitting in front of you.” Read more...

The best books on Food Production

Barry Estabrook, Environmentalist