Get real about our capitalist food system

Food First, the Oakland-based think tank for food and development policy, is launching a new book by its executive director, Eric Holt-Giménez, called A Foodie’s Guide to Capitalism: Understanding the Political Economy of What We Eat.

After many years of work on policy and public education campaigns, Holt-Giménez came to the conclusion that addressing the problems of our food system requires closer attention to how our economic system actually works. A Foodie’s Guide aims to be a crash course in capitalism and how it produces the paradoxes and puzzles so many people are trying to solve. He writes,

The food system is not broken; rather, it is working precisely as a capitalist food system is supposed to work. That is the first thing we need to realize if we want to change it.

Food First will be doing a livestream of the launch event this Wednesday, December 6, from 6:30-8:30 pm Pacific time (9:30-11:30 pm Eastern). You can get access to the livestream by signing up as “interested” for the Facebook event.