Christopher D. Cook - Christopher D. Cook is an award-winning investigative journalist. He writes on labor, agribusiness, welfare and other issues for publications such as Harper's, The Economist, Mother Jones, The Nation, and the Christian Science Monitor. In 1998 he won an Aronson Award for an investigative report on welfare agencies requiring recipients to work in dangerous meatpacking plants. Other honors include a 2001 Project Censored Award, finalist for an Investigative Reporters and Editors Award, and two-time finalist for the Livingston Award. He has also reported for The Oakland Tribune and United Press International, and worked as news editor for The San Francisco Bay Guardian.
Christopher Cook discusses Diet For A Dead Planet: Big Business and the Coming Food Crisis.
Intensively researched, Diet For A Dead Planet examines how - and why - American agribusiness has become so deadly to our health, our economy, and the environment. Investigative journalist Cook goes beyond fast food and GMOs to show how our entire food system, from field to dinner table, is in crisis - from large-scale farms emitting toxic pollutants and relying on precarious fossil fuels, to misguided farm subsidies and the disturbing rise of food-borne illnesses. Cook investigates the true costs of a seemingly cheap food supply controlled by a handful of powerful corporations. He proposes broad changes in the way we eat, the way we produce, and the way we think about food.
Chris Cook has written on labor, welfare, agribusiness and other issues for Harper's, The Economist, Mother Jones, The Nation, The American Prospect, and others; he has won numerous awards, including the 2001 Project Censored Award.
Click on any word within the transcript to jump to that point in the program.
Mr. Cook’s descriptions of the sweatshop-like work conditions endured by immigrant workers in the food industry are especially poignant. I was shocked to learn that up to 30% of food industry workers are injured on the job each year.