Eating to Extinction: The World’s Rarest Foods and Why We Need To Save Them

Saladino, a BBC food journalist and broadcaster, explores the physical and cultural extinction of thousands of foods that had traditionally been part of the human diet. Even if it feels like contemporary Western societies have more access to more foods than ever before, Saladino asserts that people are missing out on the nutrition of the thousands of foods that are not part of their diets. Not only have people become distant from the sources of their food, but they often don’t know how to grow or prepare them, resulting in homogenized diets. Additionally, the mass-production of fewer foods is unavoidably altering the ecosystem. The result of research throughout Saladino’s lengthy career, this book takes readers on a global journey to taste foods at risk of extinction, like Tanzanian honey (plus fruits, vegetables, grains, meats, and even sweets and alcohols). In the resulting hefty volume, Saladino does a comprehensive job of describing the economic, cultural, and industrial forces that have impacted food production, while refraining from the shaming tone and unrealistic propositions sometimes found in similar books.