Explore the four different meals with which the author tries to feed himself and family from four different food chains, complete with compelling tales from farmers, chefs, and his own adventures in eating. 1) Industrial Food Chain 2) Organic Industrial Food Chain 3) Beyond Organic/Natural Food Chain 4) Wild Foraging/Gardening/Hunting Food Chain Totally fascinating!

A somewhat skewed film that dwells on certain topics (especially meat and food safety) but nonetheless provides a good introduction and wakeup call for novices and a less than feel good cheerleading flick for the rest of us.

Find out what happens if you eat McDonald's for a month straight and confine your exercise to the typical American level - very sedentary, that is. Don't dismiss the film as far-fetched; there are many Americans for whom the McDonald's is the closest "restaurant" they can afford, and the supermarket is a distant 100 miles away and broccoli is four times as expensive, to boot.

This is a very neutrally written account of familiar ingredients (soy lecithin, anyone?) of a very familiar processed food. It will scare you out of buying processed food, but it's written is such a way that it's not as depressing or scary as other books. It actually lets you make your own judgements! A welcome relief from the more advocacy-geared books.

Joel Salatin makes an appearance in Food, Inc. the film and The Omnivores Dilemma (also on the list). Read about the most frustrating and ridiculous aspects of the local organic food movement from a policy perspective. Then go write your congressman.

Again, not about food per se, but it does deal with the problems of pollution and crowding, which industrial ag was supposed to prevent but actually exacerbates.