Never Out of Season: How Having the Food We Want When We Want It Threatens Our Food Supply and Our Future

by Rob Dunn

Did you know that 10 plants make up 80% of our plant-based food supply? That the bananas we eat today were standardized in the 1960s, into one consistent strain, and that they are succumbing to a pathogen that might wipe them out? That an $8 cup of coffee is just around the corner?

Our food supply is heavily and increasingly corporate, streamlined for efficiencies from seed to store. Those efficiencies make bananas and coffee cheap; make wheat, rice, and beef prevalent; and all but guarantee that food tastes the same every time we eat--and they also mean that the foods we depend on most are one bug or virus away from disappearing.

The lesson, as told by science writer and biologist Rob Dunn through rich history and science and via characters and scenes, is to eat the way we always used to--locally, in season, and with an eye towards preserving food quality for the human race. Rigorously researched and highly provocative, this is the book to read if you want to know about the future of our food.

• ISBN10: 031626072X
• ISBN13: 9780316260725
• Publish Date: 30 March 2017
• Publish Status: Out of Stock
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Little, Brown & Company
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 320
• Language: English

Reviews

[Jeff Sexton]

Interesting Yet Only Tangentially Related To Title. This is a book primarily about plant pathogens and the history of the study of plants and specifically their pathogens, mostly centering on the roughly 200 ish years between the beginnings of the Irish Potato Famine in the mid 19th century to the bleeding edge research being done by Dunn and other scientists in the later early 21st century. Dunn bemoans the fact that the food supply of the world basically comes down to a dozen or so key varieties of key species in the beginning... while later backdoor praising that very same thing as saving the world from certain pathogens, at least - as Dunn claims- "temporarily". Overall the book, at least in the Audible form I consumed it in, was engaging and thought provoking, and despite being vaguely familiar with farming due to where and when I grew up, Dunn highlights quite a bit here that I was never aware of. Things that adventure authors like David Wood, Rick Chesler, or Matt Williams could use as inspiration for some of their stories - but also other real world events that could serve as inspiration to Soraya M. Lane and other WWII era historical fiction authors. Ultimately the book becomes quite a bit self-serving, highlighting work done by Dunn and his colleagues and friends in the years preceding writing the books. And yet, again at least in Audible form, there was nothing truly objective-ish wrong here to hang a star deduction on, and thus it maintains its 5* rating. Recommended.