AFTERWORD

A basic requirement for the pursuit of happiness is good health, and the minimum requirement for good health is clean water and uncontaminated food. Human beings as a civilization have been struggling with the former since urbanization. Only in recent times has civil engineering led to sustainable solutions. Tragically, the circumstance with the latter is the opposite. After significant technological progress with food preservation, particularly in regard to refrigeration, we have been losing ground due to the pressure for increased food quantity and lower prices. Intensive farming and animal rearing practices have actually created new, frightful forms of contamination and threaten to spawn more. It is a problem that cries out for attention. For those people who would like to learn more about this serious situation and the havoc it wreaks, I strongly recommend they read:

Fox, Nicols, Spoiled: What Is Happening to Our Food

Supply and Why We Are Increasingly at Risk

(Basic Books, 1997; Penguin, 1998).