Kelsey Timmerman’s Where Am I Eating? Book Review

Where Does Our Food Come From, Really?

Do you ever grab a (reusable) cup of Starbucks  and wonder about the lives of the farmers who harvested the coffee beans that make your caffeine fix possible? Have you ever taken a bite of a banana and pondered a typical Costa Rican banana farmers day to day work that allows Americans to enjoy this oh so versatile fruit?

It’s okay if the answer is no. In Kelsey Timmerman‘s latest book  Where Am I Eating: An Adventure Through the Global Food Economy he addresses these issues and more.

We talk a lot about organic food, the local food movement, avoiding GMOs and farm to table dining these days. I often feel optimistic that our country is making strides towards an environment in which we can identify where what’s on our plates came from. But the reality is America imports twice as much food now then it did ten years ago.

Kelsey Timmerman calls himself a curious person who began to wonder about where the food he ate to fuel his life came from.  After a sudden desire to find out where and how his morning java made it’s way to his cup he became enamored with food and it’s origins.  He embarked on a mission to investigate and work alongside the farmers and fishermen who provide so much of our food.

Where Am I Eating? Travels and Tone

In Where Am I Eating? Timmerman travels to Colombia, Costa Rica, the Ivory Coast, Nicaragua, and China and recounts fascinating details of the lives of the workers he met.

You can’t get much more hands on then Timmerman does on his expedition.  He spends days as a banana worker in Costa Rica, a coffee harvester in Colombia, and an apple juice “investigator” in China.

I found his stories eye-opening and his tone conversational. He is not preaching nor advocating for or against the globalization of food. Timmerman writes as (I imagine) he speaks – resulting in an approachable read.

As someone who can admittedly get a little intense about food labels and expiration dates I found the book interesting, and also humbling. I may have known about the origin of my daily grub but I realized I was ignorant to the lives of those people that are responsible for it. I have a deeper appreciation for food and for issues such as fair trade, immigration and slavery after reading this book.

 Where Am I Eating is available on Amazon and most bookstores as of April 2013. Timmerman is also author of Where Am I Wearing? A Global Tour to the Countries, Factories and People That Make Our Clothes.  

 

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