Publisher's Weekly Review
Having been a part of the movement since the 1970s, serving as (among other positions) the executive director of the Hartford Food System, Winne has an insider's view on what it's like to feed our country's hungry citizens. Through the lens of Hartford, Conn.-a quintessential "inner city" bereft of decent food options apart from bodegas and fast food chains-he explains the successes he witnessed and helped to create: community gardens, inner city farmers' markets and youth-run urban farms. Winne concludes his tale in our present food-crazed era, giving voice to low-income shoppers and exploring where they fit in with such foodie discussions as local vs. organic. In this articulate and comprehensive book, Winne points out that the greatest successes have been "an informal alliance between sustainable agriculture and food security advocates... that shows promise for helping both the poor and small and medium-size farmers." For the most part it is a calm, well-reasoned and soft-spoken call to arms to fight for policy reform, rather than fill in, with community-based projects and privately funded programs, the gaps left by our city and state legislators. (Jan.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
In the midst of a bountiful land, many Americans are not sure where their next meal will come from, and others are just plain hungry, writes activist Winne, who wants to supply provisions for people who can't get the groceries they need and deserve. There are at least 15 different federal food programs to feed the undernourished, notes the author, yet they are so inadequate that many people suffer from "food insecurity." Clinging to frayed safety nets, they send their kids to friends and neighbors at mealtime. They employ dumpster-diving as a potluck mode of shopping. But how many grocery bags will they be able to carry on the bus after the last nearby inner-city market leaves? Endemic obesity, heart disease, hypertension and diabetes vex the poor. It's not only Big Cola and the junk-food forces that are to blame; also at fault are supermarket economics, wavering support of the public sector and, it seems, those of us who don't set the table with local produce and organic fare. Winne tells of fighting the good food fight for 25 years in Hartford, Conn., and environs. The earnest activist, now living in New Mexico, explains what he and his friends have done in various soup kitchens, food pantries, farmers' markets, co-ops, food banks and--revivified from World War II--victory gardens. He salts his personal history with pertinent reportage. But he is not a puritanical moralizer passing judgment on anyone "who chooses to pay $30 a month for cable TV rather than shop regularly at Whole Foods," where $30 buys two pounds of grass-fed beef. What's needed, avers Winne, is a unified federal program, less dependence on food banks, more slow food and more investment in healthy viands. It boils down to "projects, partners and policy." Meanwhile, eat your parsnips. Worthy fare, served with much apple piety. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
As director of Hartford Food System, author Winne witnessed at close range the breakdown of America's food distribution system that failed to move adequate supplies of foodstuffs into the hands of the nation's neediest families. He casts a jaundiced eye on the sorts of processed foods that dominated supermarkets in the closing decades of the twentieth century. He deplores the rise of corporate agriculture, whose drive to conquer hunger with mass production and consumption has ironically afflicted Americans with chronic obesity. Private largesse tried to make up for cutbacks in government support in the Reagan era, but it failed to reach its targets. Some urban areas responded by forming cooperative food systems in conjunction with nearby farmers to ease the state of hunger. Winne advocates even closer relationships between consumers and producers, as well as making better tasting, more nutritional food available to the poor so that not just the rich have access to organically raised foods.--Knoblauch, Mark Copyright 2007 Booklist
Choice Review
A common and fair criticism of the alternative food system is that local, healthy, sustainable food is for those who can afford it. Winne (independent scholar) answers that criticism by exploring promising practices and recommending policies that take class and access into consideration in providing good food for all. Winne had a long tenure as executive director of the Hartford Food System in Connecticut, and he merges his professional experiences with a broader history and overview of the emergency food system in the US before detailing his recommendations, namely, to shift the focus of the problem from hunger to poverty, integrate assistance programs, and change a food system that is racist, classist, and sexist. Winne has a scholar's mind but writes as a practitioner, which makes for an engaging read. Scholars may be frustrated with the thin endnotes and penchant for anecdotal evidence. This book is a useful, needed update to Janet Poppendieck's Sweet Charity?: Emergency Food and the End of Entitlement (1998), and a class-conscious complement to Patricia Allen's Together at the Table: Sustainability and Sustenance in the American Agrifood System (CH, Jun'95, 42-5973). Summing Up: Recommended. General readers; academic audiences, upper-division undergraduate and up; professionals. J. M. Deutsch CUNY Kingsborough Community College
Library Journal Review
"Nearly every urban community in America, and countless rural areas as well, has confronted the failure of the retail food industry to adequately serve its citizens." From Winne's own experience as executive director of the Hartford Food System in Connecticut, he writes about the lack of options for many elderly and poor people in the United States. He discusses strategies tried by numerous communities to combat this problem-e.g., farmers' markets, community gardens, food pantries-pointing out where, why, and the various ways in which these strategies have managed to fail or succeed. Chapter content ranges from largely factual accounts of various food-systems projects to memoirlike accounts of the author's experiences in Hartford and elsewhere. The book closes with a call to action to "re-store America's food deserts" by looking at the larger picture rather than focusing too narrowly on one aspect of the problem. More suitable for academic readers than general audiences; recommended for academic and larger public libraries.-Mindy Rhiger, Minneapolis (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.