With 20 Books, Let’s Make Our Food System Action Meaningful

Danielle Nierenberg

Danielle Nierenberg 

Greetings from London!

The Food Tank team is here for London Climate Action Week. Today, we’re bringing together 180+ chief sustainability officers and high-level leaders to discuss how we can replace commitments with real, scalable, implementable action plans for the future of the food system. And in a dynamic and creative workshop that you can still join in-person tomorrow (more info HERE), we’ll be exploring what “regenerative” truly means in our lives.

Look, our food systems face serious challenges, and it’s vital that we step up and take action. But here’s a truth we cannot forget: Meaningless action—empty gestures, commitments for decades in the future—are no better than nothing at all. 

We can’t just take action for action’s sake. We need to embrace solutions that are specific, urgent, and create long-lasting change—which means ones that are rooted in deep understanding. 

This is a guiding principle for the 20 books on Food Tank’s summer reading list. Storytelling, cultural foodways, practical guidebooks, perspectives on sustainability, and other food books do more than just pique our interest: They strengthen the impact we can have as citizen eaters. 

Here are the books we’re reading this summer that are changing how we stand up for plates, people, and the planet. (These titles are listed in alphabetical order.)

• Braided Heritage: Recipes and Stories on the Origin of American Cuisine by Jessica B. Harris

• Change the Recipe: Because You Can't Build a Better World Without Breaking Some Eggs by José Andrés with Richard Wolffe 

• Every Purchase Matters: How Fair Trade Farmers, Companies, and Consumers Are Changing the World by Paul Rice

• Gleanings from the Field by Dan Trudeau, William Moseley, and Paul Schadewald

• Green Gold: The Avocado's Remarkable Journey from Humble Superfood to Toast of a Nation by Sarah Allaback and Monique F. Parsons

• Green with Milk and Sugar: When Japan Filled America's Tea Cups by Robert Hellyer

• Little Red Barns: Hiding the Truth from Farm to Fable by Will Potter (Forthcoming July 2025)

• Nettles and Petals: Grow Food, Eat Weeds, Save Seeds by Jamie Walton

• Regenerating Earth: Farmers Working with Nature to Feed Our Future by Kelsey Timmerman

• Serving the Public: The Good Food Revolution in Schools, Hospitals, and Prisons by Kevin Morgan

• Tanoreen: Palestinian Home Cooking in Diaspora by Rawia Bishara

• The Editor: How Publishing Legend Judith Jones Shaped Culture in America by Sara B. Franklin

• The Fish Counter by Marion Nestle

• The Food Forward Garden: A Complete Guide to Designing and Growing Edible Landscapes by Christian Douglas

• The Last Sweet Bite: Stories and Recipes of Culinary Heritage Lost and Found by Michael Shaikh

• The Nightcrawlers: A Story of Worms, Cows, and Cash in the Underground Bait Industry by Joshua Steckley

• The Omnivore's Deception: What We Get Wrong about Meat, Animals, and Ourselves by John Sanbonmatsu

• We Are Eating the Earth: The Race to Fix Our Food System and Save Our Climate by Michael Grunwald (Forthcoming July 2025)

• What is Queer Food? How We Served a Revolution by John Birdsall

• What We Eat: A Global History of Food edited by Pierre Singaravélou and Sylvain Venayre, translated by Stephen W. Sawyer (Forthcoming August 2025)

You can learn more details about these books by CLICKING HERE. 

I truly believe that education is a form of action, and I hope the books on this list empower you to step up however you can! Be in touch, too: Share the books, movies, podcast episodes, articles, and more that have helped you become a stronger advocate for food systems and the well-being of our communities. As always, I’m at danielle@foodtank.com, and I look forward to hearing from you—and cracking open my next book!

(Danielle Nierenberg is the President of Food Tank and can be reached at danielle@foodtank.com)