Listen free for 30 days

Listen with offer

Preview
  • Feeding Britain

  • Our Food Problems and How to Fix Them
  • By: Tim Lang
  • Narrated by: Roy McMillan
  • Length: 12 hrs and 53 mins
  • 4.1 out of 5 stars (21 ratings)

£0.00 for first 30 days

Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Feeding Britain

By: Tim Lang
Narrated by: Roy McMillan
Try for £0.00

£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £12.99

Buy Now for £12.99

Pay using card ending in
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.

Summary

Brought to you by Penguin.

How does Britain get its food? Why is our current system at breaking point? How can we fix it before it is too late?

British food has changed remarkably in the last half century. As we have become wealthier and more discerning, our food has Europeanised (pizza is children's favourite food) and internationalised (we eat the world's cuisines), yet our food culture remains fragmented, a mix of mass 'ultra-processed' substances alongside food as varied and good as anywhere else on the planet.

This book takes stock of the UK food system: where it comes from, what we eat, its impact, fragilities and strengths. It is a book on the politics of food. It argues that the Brexit vote will force us to review our food system. Such an opportunity is sorely needed. After a brief frenzy of concern following the financial shock of 2008, the UK government has slumped once more into a vague hope that the food system will keep going on as before. Food, they said, just required a burst of agri-technology and more exports to pay for our massive imports.

Feeding Britain argues that this and other approaches are short-sighted, against the public interest and possibly even strategic folly. Setting a new course for UK food is no easy task but it is a process, this book urges, that needs to begin now.

©2020 Tim Lang (P)2017 Penguin Audio
activate_Holiday_promo_in_buybox_DT_T2

Listeners also enjoyed...

Ravenous cover art
Why You Should Give a F*ck About Farming cover art
Rooted cover art
The Seed Detective cover art
The Lost Rainforests of Britain cover art
Land Healer cover art
Food for Life cover art
Dirt to Soil cover art
Any Way You Slice It cover art
There Is No Planet B cover art
Animal, Vegetable, Junk cover art
Unprocessed cover art
Saying No to a Farm-Free Future cover art
Grass-Fed Beef for a Post-Pandemic World cover art
In Denial cover art
Who Owns England? cover art

Critic reviews

"Tim Lang has performed a public service." (Simon Jenkins, Sunday Times)

What listeners say about Feeding Britain

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    9
  • 4 Stars
    7
  • 3 Stars
    3
  • 2 Stars
    2
  • 1 Stars
    0
Performance
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    9
  • 4 Stars
    5
  • 3 Stars
    2
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0
Story
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    7
  • 4 Stars
    4
  • 3 Stars
    2
  • 2 Stars
    2
  • 1 Stars
    1

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Stinking book

Full of data, detail and context. A wake-up call. For the IK. Read it twice!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

important and detailed

Like so many areas of our lives that we have abdicated to inscrutable corporations, the scale of the perverse incentives which drive our behaviours is masked by shiny happy sales techniques. This book uncovers how globalised food markets have led to self perpetuating inequities in health, wealth and ultimately sovereignty. For an island, this is a precarious position to be in. One which pandemics, climate change and the increasingly rapid onset of ecological breakdown will expose our fragile resilience. And it's not just a matter of the Royal Navy securing supply lines. The book takes us through a revealing tour of the history of British food resilience. The reading aloud of detailed supporting statistics some might find detracting, but they are also astounding.
A must read to understand how to avoid further food system and national health deterioration. Solutions provided.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars

A missed opportunity - a deeply frustrating book

The author’s knowledge of his specialty is fantastic, and the book has some brilliant sections. However, he desperately needs an editor to keep him focused on his areas of knowledge. Instead the book gets lost in shallow attempts to cover the entire spectrum of economics, politics, inequality, and ecology.

For example, whole areas of economic policy are dismissed out of hand with simplistic one line assertions, when any child taking a GCSE in economics could tell him that these are nuanced debates that have occupied the world’s brightest minds for centuries.

This book has the ingredients to be THE text that teases out the complexities in our food system. Such a shame it is ruined by a lack of focus.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

Quite literally the same few things repeated over

Quite literally the same few things repeated over. In fact, it's fair to say once you have listened to the introduction then the rest is quite unnecessary.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!