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

by James McWilliams

Book Overview

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 did for fast food, challenging conventional views, and cutting through layers of myth and misinformation. For instance, an imported tomato is more energy-efficient...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0316033758
• ISBN13: 9780316033756
• Release Date: June 2010
• Publisher: Back Bay Books
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.6" x 8.7"

Customer Reviews

Great book if you're interested in food or the environment

This book was not entirely what I expected, but I loved it! The author talks about various popular food movements, such as eating local or organic, and how these fads impact the environment. Before reading this book I had some pretty strong opinions of my own, and this book opened my eyes to a different perspective. If you're interested in food and environmental sustainability, this book is the way to go!

Green reality

Beautifully researched, argued, and written, this is a realistic comprehensive Green strategy for world food. It changed my mind (away from meat, among other things).

A key discussion point in any library concerned with green movements in general and food consumption

JUST FOOD: WHERE LOCAVORES GET IT WRONG AND HOW WE CAN TRULY EAT RESPONSIBLY counters the myths of the locavore movement and use facts to tell the truth about fresh food, challenging myth and misinformation to reveal that the 'greenest' food choices may not be as presented. Transporting fruits and vegetables from thousands of miles away, for example, may be more energy efficient than growing locally. This and other truths are provided in a title sure to be controversial - and a key discussion point in any library concerned with green movements in general and food consumption habits in particular.

Thought-provoking and thoughtful

It seems to me a lot of the criticisms leveled at this book are regarding McWilliams' assertion that a reduction in meat-eating would provide the most substantial way to reduce carbon emissions and bring food to a population that indeed will ultimately overrun its range. This is like telling the obese that they must eat less; i.e., a highly unpalatable truth that is nonetheless simple and to the point. The U.S. leads - and the rest of the world is indeed following - in meat consumption and this catching up could very well overtax an already burdened system to the point of collapse. I do not read McWilliams' calling for an instant cessation of meat-eating. Nor even a conversion to organic farming methods. What he does suggest is that even a small change in meat-eating patterns could have a significant impact, and I point to a parallel in the gradual conversion of incandescent bulbs to fluorescents... and LEDs. These come about as processes, not instant changes, but nevertheless substantive changes. Just Food is an extremely well-considered, well-told account, and one that does not aver from the fact that many issues are intertwined in complex relationships. Unfortunately, habits die hard, as even the author will attest in the account of his own dietary changes and this is perhaps the point on which most of the "offended" will meet impasse: a reduction in meat-eating is a choice to be made by each person and not one to simply be legislated or delegated. What? Us change our behavior and actually take personal responsibility (falls out of giant SUV) ?? Very compelling reading; I could not put it down until the end.

Elephants in the Garden

Just Foods is an important book in the continuing (and continually escalating) debate over how we should grow our food and what we should eat. Environmental historian and reformed locavore James McWilliams, invites us to think logically and dispassionately about some of the most important food issues of our time--and of the future. Having read two of McWilliams' previous books, I expected a controversial, detailed, and well-documented discussion. I wasn't disappointed. In summary, McWilliams argues 1) that global food production is more fuel-efficient and more economically necessary (for developing countries that need export markets) than is local food production/consumption ("locovorism"); 2) that organic farming is no more healthy for people and for the land than is "wisely practiced" conventional agriculture; 3) that genetically-modified crops, in the right hands, are not to be feared and are in fact necessary to feed the ten billions of people who will live on this planet by 2050; 4) that we must drastically reduce our production and consumption of meat animals and non-farmed fish; 5) and that we must get rid of "perverse" subsidies that undercut fair trade. Informed readers will likely find themselves in near-total agreement with McWilliams' last two points. Factory-farmed beef consumes 33 calories of fossil fuel for every single calorie of meat produced, as well as creating huge amounts of air, soil, and water pollution and--on the other end--causing serious health problems in those who over-consume. Other animals, including range-farmed animals, may be less damaging to the environment and to their consumers, but still require (by a 3-to-1 ratio) more energy to produce than they offer in return. Wild fish stocks have been harvested to the brink of extinction, and ecologically-sensitive fish-farming may be our only alternative, short of giving up fish altogether. Many readers may agree with McWilliams that "conscientious eaters must radically reduce current rates of consumption" of meat and wild fish if the world's ecosystems are to be saved. Many will also agree that an end must be put to wasteful government incentives such as corn subsidies. But those same informed readers will find much to argue with in this book, for McWilliams overlooks several hugely important problems--elephants in the garden. As I see them, here they are. The first elephant: fossil-fuel depletion. While I am sympathetic to McWilliams' arguments that we need to be sensible about "food miles" and make more effort to save energy in food selection and preparation, I feel that he has overlooked one of the most important argument against continuing and/or increasing our dependency on global food markets and conventional fossil-fueled agriculture: that over the next decade or two, oil will become so expensive that food will no longer be shipped halfway around the world. Conventional farming, with its reliance on fossil-fueled equipment, fertilizers, and insecticide,