Mexican cuisine has emerged as a paradox of globalization. Food enthusiasts throughout the world celebrate the humble taco at the same time that Mexicans are eating fewer tortillas and more processed food. Today Mexico is experiencing an epidemic of diet-related chronic illness. The precipitous rise of obesity and diabetes—attributed to changes in the Mexican diet—has resulted in a public health emergency.

In her gripping new book, Alyshia Gálvez exposes how changes in policy following NAFTA have fundamentally altered one of the most basic elements of life in Mexico—sustenance. Mexicans are faced with a food system that favors food security over subsistence agriculture, development over sustainability, market participation over social welfare, and ideologies of self-care over public health. Trade agreements negotiated to improve lives have resulted in unintended consequences for people’s everyday lives.

About the Author

Alyshia Gálvez is Professor of Food Studies and Anthropology at The New School. She is the author of Guadalupe in New York: Devotion and the Struggle for Citizenship Rights among Mexican Immigrants and Patient Citizens, Immigrant Mothers: Mexican Women, Public Prenatal Care, and the Birth-weight Paradox.

List of Illustrations
Preface

1. Introduction
2. People of the Corn
3. Laying the Groundwork for NAFTA
4. NAFTA: Free Trade in the Body
5. Deflecting the Blame: Poverty and Personal Responsibility
6. Diabetes: The Disease of the Migrant?
7. Nostalgia, Prestige, and a Party Every Day
8. Conclusion: Connecting the Dots, and Bright Spots

Acknowledgments
Notes
Works Cited
Index

Reviews

“Compelling...If you want to understand what ‘free trade’ is really about—on the personal as well as the political level—this is the book to read.”
— Food Politics

"Compellingly argued.”
— Lancet

"It’s rare to encounter an academic text this engaging and creative, which uses the lens of food to go deep into both history, economics and contemporary life in Mexico. Gálvez is critical but, as she says in her introduction, always writes from a place of deep love for Mexico and its gastronomic genius."
— Electric Lit

“In this poignant ethnographic achievement, Gálvez vividly renders the complicated relationship between trade policy, migration, and sustenance. Taking into account the growing public attention paid to free trade and neoliberal policies, Eating NAFTA delves deeply into the profound and disturbing effects trade agreements have on the local and everyday lives of those most heavily impacted. Methodologically ambitious, theoretically sophisticated, and supremely engaging, this book is poised for instant success.”—Roberto G. Gonzales, author of Lives in Limbo: Undocumented and Coming of Age in America

“Eating NAFTA is a long-overdue examination of the impact of free-trade policies on food production, traditional culture, and the vulnerable bodies of Mexicans on both sides of the border. Alyshia Gálvez’s interdisciplinary approach— which combines political economy, health sciences, anthropology, cultural studies, and geography— is impressive, and her arguments are well researched and expertly sustained. The unique attraction of this book, however, is how it capitalizes on current ‘foodie’ trends in popular culture to make a wide-ranging and effective case against consumption hierarchies, wealth inequality, and neoliberal policies that deflect attention away from the inherent injustices of market-based approaches, which wind up claiming human victims.”—Ed Morales, author of Latinx: The New Force in American Politics and Culture

“Gálvez has produced a much-needed—and highly teachable—resource for activists, teachers, and scholars. Her groundbreaking study reframes discussions of food justice, food systems, and Mexican health by situating them within the economic and political realities of NAFTA, neoliberalism, and globalization.”—Luz Calvo and Catriona Rueda Esquibel, coauthors of Decolonize Your Diet: Plant-Based Mexican-American Recipes for Health and Healing

“At a time when Mexican food in the United States is more popular than ever, even as Mexicans face increased discrimination, a book like this is essential to show how we got here. Gripping, smart, and essential.”—Gustavo Arellano, author of Taco USA: How Mexican Food Conquered America

Awards

LASA Mexico Social Sciences Book Prize Honorable Mention 2019 2019, Latin American Studies Association
The Art of Eating Prize Longlist 2019, The Art of Eating

About the Book

About the Author

Table of Contents

Reviews

Awards