Food, Sex and Salmonella: The Risks of Environmental Intimacy

Leila I. Wallenius is a reference librarian in the J.-N. Desmarais
Library at Laurentian University.

This witty and entertaining look at the environmental risks associated
with the food that we eat also poses some philosophical questions about
how we provide food for ourselves and others and the differences among
cultures. Early in the first chapter there appears a clarification of
the book’s somewhat mystifying title: “What sex is to interpersonal
relationships, eating is to the human- environment relationship, a daily
consummation of our de facto marriage to the living biosphere.”
Waltner-Toews clearly demonstrates that there are many more
environmental risks associated with food—risks resulting from the
pesticides and fertilizers we use—than is commonly supposed. His
purpose in writing this book is to show the reader how to minimize those
risks.