Food is one of the primary necessities of life in any society. However, modern man in most cases has an extremely vague idea of the path his food takes before it reaches the table. In his book, journalist and author Mark Bittman examines how the desire to provide food for ourselves led humanity to slavery, colonialism, famine, genocide and how we arrived at today's situation, when the largest food companies devastate the planet and poison its inhabitants by deceiving consumers with ersatz products. created for the sake of fabulous profits. However, the author does not consider the situation hopeless: summing up the positive experience of the agroecological program and peasant agriculture, he sees prospects in a world free from the dictates of global monopolies and appeals to ordinary people, activists and governments of all countries with a call to change the existing system.