This is the story of how human beings have consumed the resources they need for their own future. It examines the original "future eaters" who were the first people to leave the Afro-Asian homeland and travel down the chain of islands to Australasia and became the Aboriginal, Maori and other Polynesian peoples. They changed the flora and fauna in ways that seem inconceivable. The book then continues on to discuss how Europeans have made an even greater impact and how today "future eating" is a universal occupation.