Not on the Label

A devastating analysis of the food business' says Sunday Telegraph of this book. I have to agree. Not on the Label by Felicity Lawrence shows how our food is made, and what's wrong with it. She goes undercover in farms and food processing units, investigates the fields of fresh veg in Spain, travels along with a huge food lorry, and sees how a bread factory works.

This book reveals the incomprehensible tricks and scams the food business makes, and the effects to our health and weight, the farmers income, the people in Africa or South Europe. Did you know that they fill chicken with water? If you buy 1 kg of chicken, you will actually only get 500 grammes of chicken and 500 grammes of added water and other ingredients that keep the water in the chicken. The same happens with bread and a lot of other products too.  

That prawn growing has practically destroyed big parts of Vietnam I didn't know either. Nor that my salad has been sprayed with pesticides 16 times before I eat it, and that some people spraying them in Spain or Italy have no protective gear against the poisons. An English farmer can't sell his apples to the supermarket he sees from his house, but has to bring the apples to a delivery centre somewhere else, and have the lorries bring it to the supermarket. What nonsense!

This book is heavy stuff. I recommend, no, insist that everyone read it, and have a think about what they eat, and what system they support. If I hadn't been vegetarian, and preferred organic before this book, I certainly would now.