"With much courage and compassion, McMillan explores the lives of those at the bottom of our food system. Here is a glimpse of the people who feed us--and the terrible price they pay. If we want to change the system, this is where we must begin."

—Eric Schlosser, author, Fast Food Nation

"Tracie McMillan has written an extraordinary book. We are of course, all a part of the industrial food system because we all eat from it. But McMillan became a deeper part. Undercover, as a farm laborer, Walmart stocker and fast food worker, with grace, intelligence and soul, she uncovers the stories behind cheap food—stories about health and the environment, and stories about poverty and privilege. They are stories we need to change.”

—Josh Viertel, President, Slow Food USA

“This is an amazing book. Tracie McMillan will take any reader into new territory.  The implacable fierceness of farmwork, the slovenliness behind the produce section at Walmart—prepare to be submerged in harsh little worlds and shocked. But McMillan keeps her cool, always presenting the context and the content of her struggles with enough analytic detachment to rough out a complete, and convincing, vision of food as a social good. Read her book and your dinner will never look the same.”

—William Finnegan, author, Cold New World

“Tracie McMillan has written a remarkable book for right now—a book that smartly tells us what is wrong with what we eat and how we might improve it. But what is even more remarkable about the book is how deeply engaging it is. With her intimate and confident portraits of American food workers, she crafts a touching, emotional narrative that will stay with you long after you have finished the last page.”

—James Oseland, editor-in-chief, Saveur; author of Cradle of Flavor

"These tales lay bare the sinews, the minds, and the relationships that our food system exploits and discards. In a work of deep compassion and integrity, Tracie McMillan offers us an eye-opening report on the human cost of America’s cheap food."

“This is a wonderful introduction to the triumph and tragedy of the American food industry. Mixing compassionate participant observation with in depth, up-to-the-minute background research, Tracie McMillan takes us for an eye-opening, heart-rending tour of the corporate food chain. Along the way we meet unforgettable people who, at great personal cost, labor hard so that we can eat cheaply and easily. Having seen what it takes to move our meals from farm to table, the reader will emerge shaken, enlightened, and forever thankful.”

—Warren Belasco, president, Association for the Study of Food and Society; editor, Food, Culture & Society

“This is the book I’ve been waiting for ever since I started teaching about the American food system. It pulls you in with compelling stories of the real people who do the work, often exhausting and dangerous, that makes our American way of eating possible. And once it has your attention, it educates you about the details of our food system, from field to table. It is simultaneously a valuable contribution to the academic field of food studies and a personal narrative of discovery that will  engage even the casual reader. Three cheers for Tracie McMillan!”

—Janet Poppendieck, author, Free for All: Fixing School Food in America and Sweet Charity: Emergency Food and the End of Entitlement

“Tracie McMillan is gutsy, scrappy, and hard-working—you'd have to be to write this book. The American Way of Eating takes us local in a new way, exploring who works to get food from the field to the plates in front of us, what they are paid, and how it feels. It's sometimes grim but McMillan doesn't flinch; I especially appreciated her openness in telling us what she spent in order to get by (or not). A welcome addition to the urgent, growing body of journalism on food.”

—Ted Conover, author, New Jack: Guarding Sing Sing and The Routes of Main: Travels in the Paved World

"To uncover the truth behind how our modern food system works, Tracie M. McMillan took jobs in a supermarket produce section, a chain restaurant kitchen, and the fields along side migrant laborers. If you eat, you owe it to yourself to read this masterful book."

—Barry Estabrook, author of Tomatoland: How Modern Industrial Agriculture Destroyed Our Most Alluring Fruit