Just Food: Where Locavores Get It Wrong and How We Can Truly Eat Responsibly

We suffer today from food anxiety, bombarded as we are with confusing messages about how to eat an ethical diet. Should we eat locally? Is organic really better for the environment? Can genetically modified foods be good for you?

JUST FOOD does for fresh food what Fast Food Nation (Houghton Mifflin, 2001) did for fast food, challenging conventional views, and cutting through layers of myth and misinformation. For instance, an imported tomato is more energy-efficient than a local greenhouse-grown tomato. And farm-raised freshwater fish may soon be the most sustainable source of protein.

Informative and surprising, JUST FOOD tells us how to decide what to eat, and how our choices can help save the planet and feed the world.

"Eager to dispel the mythology surrounding local and organic foods, historian McWilliams (A Revolution in Eating) outlines the shortcomings of contemporary ideology regarding 'food miles' and offers a series of prescriptive ideas for a more just, environmentally sustainable food system. The rational and data-driven argument-presented with chatty asides-tackles the conventional wisdom about transportation, aquaculture, and genetic engineering. McWilliams urges concerned consumers to move beyond the false dichotomies that have come to characterize the debate-global vs. local, abundant vs. deficient, organic vs. conventional-and imagine a middle ground within the existing system, even if it runs the risk of 'selling the sustainable soul.' He presents thought-provoking ideas about food reform, sulfur fertilizers, and eating meat. At times, McWilliams shortchanges his own arguments by failing to disclose the financial or institutional backing of his sources (including various talking heads, esoteric-sounding think tanks, and scientific journals), leaving readers to comb extensive footnotes and web links to determine how the evidence stacks up. McWilliams's perspective acts as a welcome foil to folksy, romanticized notions of the food revolution, using sound rhetoric and research to synthesize an examination fit for anyone who takes seriously the debate over a sustainable food system." Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

McWilliams, a former locavore who teaches environmental history at the Texas State U.-San Marcos, challenges ideas that eating locally is better for the environment and argues that it is not a viable option to sustainable food production on a global scale. He argues that instead, it can be harmful to the environment in some cases and proposes ways that readers can make responsible food choices. He discusses the issue of food miles, noting that transporting produce from thousands of miles away may be more energy efficient; genetically modified foods, which he says should be reconsidered; and the emphasis on organic crops, an obstacle to building more inclusive models of sustainable food production for feeding more people. He does propose that people should eat less meat, and addresses the need for farm-raised fish, liberalized and regulated trade policies, and sustainable ranching, contending that the answer to global food issues lies in the center rather than one extreme or another. Annotation ©2009 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

"Just Food" does for fresh food what "Fast Food Nation" did for fast food, challenging conventional views, and cutting through layers of myth and misinformation.