Is there something wrong with the way we eat?

Metro • Feb. 27, 2012

According to the panel of experts at Housing Work’s “The Anti-Food Foodies,” a discussion organized to celebrate the publication of Tracie McMillan’s “The American Way of Eating,” that answer is yes.

“The American Way of Eating” is a first person account of how food is grown, picked, and processed, and consumed in this country. McMillan starts at the farm level, picking a sorting various crops from grapes to garlic before moving on to jobs at Walmart and then finally an Applebees in New York City. Continue reading “Is there something wrong with the way we eat?”

Before the Food Arrives on Your Plate, So Much Goes on Behind the Scenes

The New York Times • Feb. 20, 2012

One of the first things to like about Tracie McMillan, the author of “The American Way of Eating,” is her forthrightness. She’s a blue-collar girl who grew up eating a lot of Tuna Helper and Ortega Taco Dinners because her mother was gravely ill for a decade, and her father, who sold lawn equipment, had little time to cook. About these box meals, she says, “I liked them.”

Continue reading “Before the Food Arrives on Your Plate, So Much Goes on Behind the Scenes”

A Food-Chain Reaction

The Wall Street Journal • Feb. 28, 2012

In 2009, Tracie McMillan, an accomplished young writer, spent nearly a year working undercover as an agricultural field laborer in California, as a produce handler at a Michigan Wal-Mart and as a kitchen worker at a Brooklyn branch of Applebee’s, the country’s largest “family style” restaurant chain. The result of her efforts is “The American Way of Eating.” The best thing about this engagingly written tract is its excellent and sometimes moving first-person narrative of the author’s experiences sharing, albeit briefly and under false colors, the daily grind of workers at the bottom of the Great American Food Chain. Continue reading “A Food-Chain Reaction”

The American Way of Eating by Tracie McMillan

GoodFood World • Feb. 29, 2012

What if you can’t afford nine-dollar tomatoes? That was the question award-winning journalist Tracie McMillan couldn’t escape as she watched the debate about America’s meals unfold, one that urges us to pay food’s true cost—which is to say, pay more. So in 2009 McMillan embarked on a groundbreaking undercover journey to see what it takes to eat well in America. For nearly a year, she worked, ate, and lived alongside the working poor to examine how Americans eat when price matters. Continue reading “The American Way of Eating by Tracie McMillan”

The American Way of Eating: Undercover at Walmart, Applebee’s, Farm Fields and the Dinner Table

Paleo Runners • Feb. 28, 2012

Tracie McMillan spent 3yrs working undercover in the food industry.  She learned a lot about the industrial food system off which we subsist.  Her pursuits’ results are in her new book: “The American Way of Eating: Undercover at Walmart, Applebee’s, Farm Fields and the Dinner Table”

Continue reading “The American Way of Eating: Undercover at Walmart, Applebee’s, Farm Fields and the Dinner Table”

Following the bumpy path of modern food: A reporter spends a year in the food industry

Star Tribune • Feb. 24, 2012

If you’ve given any thought to how food finds its way to your mouth, you won’t be surprised by Tracie McMillan’s undercover reporting.

But these pages will leave you with vivid, challenging images of how food is harvested, sold and prepared (loosely speaking) at casual restaurants. You may, like the author, reel from the heat of California’s Central Valley farm fields. Continue reading “Following the bumpy path of modern food: A reporter spends a year in the food industry”

The American Way of Eating and Food and the City

Washington Independent Review of Books • Feb. 23, 2012

We’re all just “nine meals away from anarchy.” So concludes a British report on the state of food security in the United Kingdom. The situation is the same in the United States, where our food infrastructure — the vast and increasingly monopolized system that brings food from farm to plate — operates on such a tight schedule that any serious interruption would leave grocery store shelves bare within three days. Continue reading “The American Way of Eating and Food and the City”

Dispatch From The Field: Joe says, “Ultimately, I found this book to be something of a call to arms.”

The Tattered Cover Book Blog • Feb. 23, 2012

What if you can’t afford nine-dollar tomatoes? That was the question award-winning journalist Tracie McMillan couldn’t escape as she watched the debate about America’s meals unfold, one that urges us to pay food’s true cost—which is to say, pay more. So in 2009 McMillan embarked on a groundbreaking undercover journey to see what it takes to eat well in America. For nearly a year, she worked, ate, and lived alongside the working poor to examine how Americans eat when price matters.  Continue reading “Dispatch From The Field: Joe says, “Ultimately, I found this book to be something of a call to arms.””

‘The American Way of Eating’ by Tracie McMillan

The Boston Globe • Feb. 22, 2012

With the rise of farmers’ markets and community-supported agriculture, and books like Michael Pollan’s “The Omnivore’s Dilemma’’ and Barbara Kingsolver’s “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle,’’ the drumbeat that people should be eating healthily, locally, and sustainably has gotten louder and more insistent. “The American Way of Eating’’ is Tracie McMillan’s riposte to the argument that Americans need to eat better. Of course we should – and most want to, she writes. But how can we? What are the hurdles facing us?
Continue reading “‘The American Way of Eating’ by Tracie McMillan”