Where Am I Eating? An Adventure Through the Global Food Economy

The local food movement is growing, but not as fast as the global food movement. The United States now imports twice as much food as it did a decade ago. What does this reliance on imported food mean for us, and for the people around the globe who produce our food?

Kelsey Timmerman, author of the acclaimed Where Am I Wearing?, decided to find out. He traveled around the world on a quest to meet and work alongside the farmers and fishermen who feed us.

He followed his Starbucks coffee to Colombia where he met farmers Starbucks didn’t want him to meet, loaded lobster boats in Nicaragua for divers who have the world’s deadliest job, discovered that slavery is alive and well in the cocoa industry of the Ivory Coast, shouldered loads of bananas with Costa Rican workers who longed for the good ol’ days of banana farming, met apple farmers in Michigan fighting against a changing climate and the global economy, and apple farmers in China who were thrilled to have cornered the apple juice market.

In Where Am I Eating?, Timmerman explores the global food economy and the issues surrounding it—including workers’ and human rights, rural poverty, the loss of cultural and bio-diversity, climate change, and fair trade—through the lives of the workers he met along the way. Timmerman argues neither for nor against the globalization of food, but personalizes the issue by observing the hope and opportunity, and the lack of both, which the global food economy gives to the world’s poorest producers. Before you scoop your next batch of coffee into your French press, indulge in a mid-afternoon chocolate bar, or slice a banana, discover how each of your small choices has shaped the lives of a worker thousands of miles away.

Praise for Where Am I Eating?

“Where Am I Eating is a candid travelogue describing one of the noblest, and most imperative, culinary adventures of our time. With remarkable curiosity and compassion, Kelsey gives voice to the millions of people who produce the food we eat every day. By uncovering the realities of our global food economy, he empowers readers to turn the trade of essential commodities into a powerful lever for poverty alleviation and social change. You will never look at a bar of chocolate or a cup of coffee the same way again.”
—PAUL RICE, President & CEO, Fair Trade USA

“In an ideal world, all of us would travel to the factories and farms where our food is produced and grown. Barring that, Kelsey Timmerman’s eco-culinary adventure provides a comprehensive, scenic, and enlightening look into the real costs and hidden consequences of filling our fridges.”
—Dan Koeppel, author of Banana: The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World