The Serious Side of Food: A Virtual Book Group

[Adult] This reading and discussion series will explore an aspect of our culture that often gets taken for granted: food. Food provides both nourishment and pleasure, but under the surface of each meal lies a series of complex interactions and entanglements. Working with histories, novels, and journalism, this series exposes some of the issues that lie on our plates. 

The League of Women Voters of Albany County and Albany Public Library invite you to participate in a five session online group reading and discussion series of the Serious Side of Food.

The Serious Side of Food examines each of the four themes (exploitation of labor; corruption in the food industry; concerns about health and diet, responsible eating) in this series looking at  different aspect of these persistent food-related problems. This discussion group will read and discuss the following historical accounts, novels, and narrative nonfiction:

February 13- The Jungle, Upton Sinclair’s
March 12- Food Politics by Marion Nestle
April 9- Diet Cults by Matt Fitzgerald
May 14- The Third Table: Field Notes on the Future of Food by Dan Barber
June 11- Wrap up meeting speaking about the connecting themes with further reading guides 

The discussion is led by Ramón Borges-Méndez, PhD, Associate Professor of Community Development & Planning

Registration is required as a limited supply of  copies of the book are available to borrow. 

Please call 518-427-4300 x 0302 to arrange for a copy. The first 15 registrants will have the first access to borrowing the materials for the duration of the series.

You'll be emailed a Zoom link upon registration and on the day of each session. There will be five  once a month evening sessions 6:00 -7:30pm . For more information or questions, write an email to us at lwvac@lwvalbany.org with Serious Side of Food  in the subject line.

This series is made possible by a Humanities NY grant.