In their book, “Feed the People! Why Industrial Food Is Good and How to Make It Even Better,” Jan Dutkiewicz and Gabriel N. Rosenberg argue that demonizing food produced, processed, and distributed on a large scale — i.e., industrial food — undermines our ability to build a fairer, healthier, more sustainable food system.
While U.S. food production in the past was not “industrial,” Americans also suffered from malnutrition, a lack of food, and inequality. This book makes a case for improving the food system we already have rather than fantasizing about one that never really existed.
The authors critique nostalgic and naive accounts of small farms and rural populations, pushing back against the belief that small‑scale, artisanal, farm‑to‑fork food production can a model for larger towns and cities. This viewpoint frequently ignores labor justice, affordability, and treats the enjoyment people get out of eating food with suspicion.
Rather than insisting people avoid fast or processed food, they ask: how do we as a society make the food people already eat better?