
Feed the People!
Why Industrial Food Is Good and How to Make It Even Better
Basic Books · Print & ebook · February 17, 2026
Why Wendell Berry, Michael Pollan, and other slow-food-loving locavores are wrong about food in America—and why Waffle House can save us all. “This book is sustenance for your mind as it imagines more democratic and delightful ways we can all fill our stomachs.” —Astra Taylor, author of Democracy May Not Exist, But We’ll Miss It When It’s Gone The food industry is a major driver of climate change, pollution, obesity, animal suffering, and workplace exploitation.
We earn from qualifying purchases.
- Who it’s for
- Jan Dutkiewicz and Gabriel Rosenberg argue for improving industrial food with smart technology and commonsense policies.
- Genres
- Agriculture & Food Policy, Agriculture & Food Systems, The Food Business
- Published
- Basic Books, February 17, 2026
Nearest books
Matched by what the books are about, then ordered by what their readers also loved. Most of these share its genre: Agriculture & Food Systems.
The Eating InstinctVirginia Sole-Smith60% match
Food, Inc. 2Participant, Karl Weber65% matchAlso shares Agriculture & Food Policy and The Food Business
Fair FoodOran B Hesterman65% matchAlso shares Agriculture & Food Policy
The Last SupperSam Kass63% matchAlso shares Agriculture & Food Policy
Regenerating EarthKelsey Timmerman63% match
The Fate of FoodAmanda Little63% match
For younger readers: The Story of Seeds, What the World Eats, Farming Is Female
Start with three books, and this one can be the first.
Members get a new edition every morning: a route out from their books to essays, research and talks, with the reason for each.
Start with this bookAbout this book
Why Wendell Berry, Michael Pollan, and other slow-food-loving locavores are wrong about food in America—and why Waffle House can save us all. “This book is sustenance for your mind as it imagines more democratic and delightful ways we can all fill our stomachs.” —Astra Taylor, author of Democracy May Not Exist, But We’ll Miss It When It’s Gone The food industry is a major driver of climate change, pollution, obesity, animal suffering, and workplace exploitation.
Continue reading
Many food writers blame the industrial food system and tell individual eaters to fix these problems by buying local, artisanal food from small farmers—a solution most Americans can’t afford. But, as food-policy experts Jan Dutkiewicz and Gabriel Rosenberg remind us, modern technology has made food more affordable, abundant, varied, and tastier than at any other time in history. In Feed the People!, they argue that modern food pleasures like Waffle House waffles, and the industrial systems that make them possible, are actually good. With smart technology and commonsense policies, we can make them even better. Dutkiewicz and Rosenberg have traveled around the United States to find the people changing the way we make and eat food, from the innovators behind plant-based burgers to the cooks serving free school lunches to the labor organizers unionizing fast food joints. They show that building a food system that works for everyone will take more than just eating your vegetables. Feed the People! invites you to sit at the table and join this delicious movement.
Industrial Food
Jan Dutkiewicz and Gabriel Rosenberg argue for improving industrial food with smart technology and commonsense policies.
Come here for
- The case for affordable, abundant industrial food
- Plant-based burger innovators and free school-lunch cooks
Expect
- A challenge to local, artisanal food as a solution for everyone
- Food workers organizing unions in fast-food restaurants
Where it sits
| Agriculture & Food Policy | 73% |
|---|---|
| The Food Business | 40% |
| Agriculture & Food Systems | 36% |
Percentages are BookFrontier’s reading of the book.
Publisher categories
- Agriculture & Food Policy
- Agriculture & Food Systems
- Food Packaging & Processing
- Authors
- Jan Dutkiewicz, Gabriel N. Rosenberg
- Publisher
- Basic Books
- Published
- February 17, 2026
- Format
- Print & ebook
- Reading lane
- Agriculture & Food Policy