The Secret Life of Groceries
A review of

The Secret Life of Groceries

The Dark Miracle of the American Supermarket

Benjamin LorrAvery • 2020

What Price Food?

by David Meyer

Journalist Benjamin Lott examines corrupt practices, exploitation and power in the food industry.

Muckraker Benjamin Lorr – author of Hell-Bent, a critically acclaimed exploration of the Bikram yoga community that exposed guru Bikram Choudhury as a sexual predator – offers a fascinating exposé of a world people take for granted: food supply chains. He demonstrates how consumers are unknowingly complicit in unfair, inhuman and even criminal practices in the name of abundance and low prices.

Today’s Supermarket

Lorr begins in the 19th century, when food was all local and sold in season, when ripened. The 20th century brought the corrugated cardboard box, tin cans, branding and disposable packaging: a revolution in food choices for most consumers.


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