How the Other Half Eats: The Untold Story of Food and Inequality in America

This important book "weaves lyrical storytelling and fascinating research into a compelling narrative" (San Francisco Chronicle) to look at dietary differences along class lines and nutritional disparities in America, illuminating exactly how inequality starts on the dinner plate.

Inequality in America manifests in many ways, but perhaps nowhere more than in how we eat. From her years of field research, sociologist and ethnographer Priya Fielding-Singh brings us into the kitchens of dozens of families from varied educational, economic, and ethnoracial backgrounds to explore how--and why--we eat the way we do. We get to know four families intimately: the Bakers, a Black family living below the federal poverty line; the Williamses, a working-class white family just above it; the Ortegas, a middle-class Latinx family; and the Cains, an affluent white family.
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Whether it's worrying about how far pantry provisions can stretch or whether there's enough time to get dinner on the table before soccer practice, all families have unique experiences that reveal their particular dietary constraints and challenges. By diving into the nuances of these families' lives, Fielding-Singh lays bare the limits of efforts narrowly focused on improving families' food access. Instead, she reveals how being rich or poor in America impacts something even more fundamental than the food families can afford: these experiences impact the very meaning of food itself.

Packed with lyrical storytelling and groundbreaking research, as well as Fielding-Singh's personal experiences with food as a biracial, South Asian American woman, How the Other Half Eats illuminates exactly how inequality starts on the dinner plate. Once you've taken a seat at tables across America, you'll never think about class, food, and public health the same way again.

Author: Priya Fielding-Singh
Publisher: Little, Brown Spark
Published: 05/02/2023
Pages: 352
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.70lbs
Size: 8.20h x 5.40w x 1.10d
ISBN: 9780316427258

About the Author
Priya Fielding-Singh is Director of Policy and Programs at the Global Food Institute at George Washington University and Affiliate Faculty in the Department of Sociology. A sociologist, researcher, and policy expert, she writes and speaks about food, health, and inequality in America. She earned her PhD in Sociology from Stanford University and completed her postdoctoral training as a National Institutes of Health (NIH) Fellow in Cardiovascular Disease Prevention at the Stanford University School of Medicine. She lives in Washington, DC, with her husband and daughter. Learn more at priyafs.com.