Not On the Label: What Really Goes into the Food on Your Plate

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER THAT SHOWED US WHAT WAS REALLY IN OUR FOOD

Felicity Lawrence

In 2004 Felicity Lawrence published her ground-breaking book, Not on the Label, where, in a series of undercover investigations she provided a shocking account of what really goes into the food we eat. She discovered why beef waste ends up in chicken, why a single lettuce might be sprayed six times with chemicals before it ends up in our salad, why bread is full of water.

And she showed how obesity, the appalling conditions of migrant workers, ravaged fields in Europe and the supermarket on our high street are all intimately connected. And, when the horsemeat scandal hit the headlines in 2013, she uncovered how the great British public ended up eating horses.

Her discoveries would change the way we thought about the UK food industry for ever.



'A brave examination of the calamities caused by a policy laughingly called one of 'cheap food'' Jeremy Paxman, Observer 'Book of the Year'

'Challenges each and every one of us to think again about what we buy and eat. It's almost like uncovering a secret state within the state' Andrew Marr, BBC Radio 4's Start The Week

'A thorough, complex and shocking insight into the food we eat in the twenty-first century . . . Perhaps this should be sold as the most effective diet book ever written' Daily Mail

Did you know...

• That half the chicken on sale in UK supermarkets is contaminated with campylobacter, which causes food poisoning?
• That much of the chicken we eat has been illicitly injected with pork and beef proteins?
• That ready-to-eat bagged salad has been washed in a solution of chlorine twenty times stronger than that of a swimming pool; that the processing destroys the vitamin content; that in one government study 13.5% of bagged salads were found to contain E coli bacteria?
• That perhaps 30% of the workforce in the food industry is in the UK illegally, controlled by a violent mafia-style network of gangmasters and paid far less than the minimum wage?
• That the average Briton has between 300 and 500 chemicals in their body not present 50 years ago, many of which are capable of hormone disruption in the womb?
• That the incidence of obesity in the UK trebled between 1980 and 1998 to 21% of women and 17% of men. Almost one third of children are obese or overweight?
• That 30-40% of cancers could be prevented through better diet?

A devastating expose of the state of the food production industry in Britain, Not On The Label will change the way we eat and the way we think about what we eat.

Looking at some of our most popular foods, the author systematically exposes their production and marketing, showing how the food industry causes ill health, environmental damage, urban blight - and starves smallholders in Africa and Asia, and exploits illegal labourers in Britain.

About the Author

Felicity Lawrence is an award-winning journalist and editor who has been writing on food-related issues for over twenty years. She is consumer affairs correspondent for the Guardian and lives in London.

Get the latest insights in nutrition and brain health