In this ambitious, myth-busting book, leading scientist and internationally bestselling author Vaclav Smil investigates many of the burning questions facing the world today:
Why are some of the world's biggest food producers also the countries with the most undernourished populations? Why is food waste a colossal 1,000kcal per person daily, and how can we solve that? Could we all go vegan and be healthy? Should we? How will we feed the ballooning population without killing the planet?
How to Feed the World shows how we misunderstand the essentials of where our food really comes from, how our dietary requirements shape us, and why this impacts our planet in drastic ways. Ultimately, this data-based, rigorously researched guide explains how we will survive and thrive long into the future.
If you want to understand food – its production, processing, distribution, consumption and waste – then what you are interested in is energy. Vaclav Smil is the world-leading expert on this topic. He is a Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of Manitoba and is the author of over forty books, including Numbers Don't Lie, Size and the New York Times bestselling How the World Really Works. He is published in more than 30 languages and no other living scientist has had more books (on a wide variety of topics) reviewed in leading scientific journal Nature. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, in 2010 he was named by Foreign Policy as one of the Top 100 Global Thinkers.
There is no author whose books I look forward to more than Vaclav Smil -- BILL GATES
A compelling, fascinating, and most important, realistic portrait of the world and where it's going -- STEVEN PINKER on NUMBERS DON'T LIE