What to Eat? | Granta

  • Published: 03/05/2012
  • ISBN: 9781846274374
  • Granta Books
  • 448 pages

What to Eat?

Hattie Ellis

Deciding what to eat is no longer a simple matter of instinct and appetite. Every choice we make about the food we put on our plates is complicated. Is meat good or bad for me? Is buying local always best? Is organic worth it? WHAT TO EAT? asks all these questions and more: some are specific, going back to the nature of particular foods such as milk, meat and fish. Some are more general and challenging, examining the green and the good at a time when money is short and choices matter.

The book also offers answers. This is a refreshingly practical guide to the stuff of everyday living, from the ingredients up: Hattie Ellis exposes the myths and unveils the truth about how food is produced, what gives us most value for money, what it does to us, and what we have done to it.

It's rare to see a book about food politics so well researched, so current, spanning so many issues and so clearly well informed... an excellent book by one of the county's leading food writers and thinkers

Guy Dimond, Time Out

[Ellis'] arguments are highly relevant and helpful... the book feels as much a record of a personal journey as a didactic exercise

Mina Holland, Observer

Refreshingly honest, readable and engaging

Bee Wilson, Daily Telegraph

The Author

Hattie Ellis’ Planet Chicken won the Derek Cooper Award for investigative writing, 2008; her Sweetness & Light: the mysterious history of the honeybee covered the natural and social history of food; the research for Best of British Fish (Winner, Guild of Food Writers’ Award) taught her about fishing and marine ecology, and Eating England took her into social history and farming. She has also investigated diets of all sorts for TV, and worked for the Maggie’s Cancer Caring Centres, exploring the connections between food and health. She writes for newspapers including the Saturday Telegraph, the Guardian’s G2 food pages, the Times magazine, FT Weekend, Time Out, Waitrose Food Illustrated, Kew Gardens magazine and also online for the BBC and others.

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