Ending Hunger by Anthony Warner

Ending Hunger - The Quest to Feed the World Without Destroying It, is a book written by Anthony Warner and published by One World Publications in 2021. After graduating from university, Anthony worked as a professional chef for many years in kitchens across the UK and London. He is also the author of a famous book called the Angry Chef (which I have not read but plan to do so) and maintains a very active blog on food which can be accessed at https://angry-chef.com/

Ending Hunger is a fantastic book and provides innumerable insights into the world of food, diets, society, eating & nourishment trends and dispels a lot of popular myths around something very basic namely food. The book touches on pretty much all the key aspects around food and reveals arguments from both sides of the aisle; namely the quest to appropriately feed a burgeoning population and the environmental impact of an ever growing food production system. 

Normally when I review a book, I will highlight important facts, learnings, insights and conclusions. In some cases I may not agree with all the conclusions and will state where I disagree. For this book review there will be no deep insights or conclusions. So why did I decide to deviate from the approach? 

This book is about food, hunger, feeding us as individuals and feeding the world at large. Food is a basic human function that we all take for granted. Whilst awareness levels around food and nutrition have been rising; on an individual basis we still appreciate very little about the food that we eat. It is for this fundamental reason that I implore people to read this book.  

As a book on food and hunger, it goes into the history of food, hunger, famines, food systems and their developments and transformational events that have led to the modern system that we know of. It also goes into the challenge of feeding an ever growing population, the demands this is making on the environment and some harsh trade offs we shall face if we don't change course. The book also covers what we have done well in the recent past and some of the more horrific mistakes that have caused millions to suffer and die. Despite all this, the book is most definitely not alarmist!

Sustainability, pollution, carbon & GHG emissions and the degradation of land and water are front and center of every discourse these days. The book covers these topics in extensive detail and will give the reader a panoramic view of all these key issues in reasonable depth. Reading these chapters will most definitely provide you with unique perspectives across each of these key challenges. After reading these chapters, I hope the next time you engage in a discussion around these topics, you will base your arguments on facts rather than emotion outbursts or social media posts.

Meat, chicken, beef and GHG emissions are also covered in depth. The sustainability versus the suitability arguments around eating meat and growing livestock is a hotly contested topic in today's world with extremely polarising views. By reading the chapters around meat, you should be able to secure sufficient facts, reject a few common myths and form your own view on this topic, which I hope is a balanced one.

If you have been shopping for your food, especially in developed markets, two words that seem to be very popular are 'local & organic'. Whilst its natural to gravitate towards shelves that are lined with local and organic produce; we know little about the impact and challenges especially achieving scale when it comes to organic farming. With a whole chapter dedicated to local and organic, you will get up, close and into the specifics of local and organic food production concepts. 

Up next is GMO. If organic has its dedicated following of warriors, GMO has a wider & even more vocal and vehement collection of detractors. I knew little of GMO till I attended a talk by Sydney Brenner in Singapore. Brenner was born in South Africa, won a Nobel prize in medicine, worked closely with Watson & Crick and lived the latter part of his life in Singapore. His talk on many things including GMO was very illuminating and the book re-enforced his views on the subject. GMO is a complicated topic and I am glad Warner has spent a fair detail around GMO to give the reader a more accurate or dare say a more balanced picture around GMO. Once you know more about GMO then its natural for you to ask more about artificial proteins and the rise of companies like Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods. Fret not, cause this is also covered and Warner shares a glimpse of what the future beholds in this regard. 

If we are talking about food, the development of food and food systems, meat v/s vegetables, GMO, local, organic etc, the one thing that is common across all of them is 'wastage'. If anyone is keen to know more about food, it's a must to know about food wastage. Closely linked to wastage is 'single use plastic' and again the author does a wonderful job to present a balanced and fair view to the reader. 

By now you have guessed that I have enjoyed this book. Yes, I have learnt a lot, and a few (maybe quite a few) myths have been blown away. My approach to food, whether its buying it or eating it or realising the impact of the food that we eat is transformed after reading this book. The wonderful parts about the book are the final few chapters. They detail what we can do as a community and as an individual to improve and enhance the food system of the world. 

We owe it to ourselves and the future generations that the dual purpose is met; namely a growing population is better fed but also the earth where all our food comes from is taken care of and nurtured.  What better way to sum this up than with a quote from the book - "A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they know they shall never sit" 

Read this book and you wont be disappointed! 

https://www.amazon.com/Ending-Hunger-quest-without-destroying/dp/1786079267