Food Sleuth: Foodist Focuses on Responsible, Healthy Solutions

By Melinda Hemmelgarn

Columbia Daily Tribune

July 25, 2007

Available online at: http://www.columbiatribune.com/2007/Jul/20070725Life005.asp

When I recently introduced Joan Dye Gussow as one of our nation’s most well-known and highly respected "nutritionists," she gently corrected me. "I’d rather be called a foodist," she said with a smile.

She’s right, of course. "Nutritionist" sounds stuffy, pretentious and focused on, well, nutrients. But Gussow is humble, funny and down to earth, literally. Despite impressive credentials, the professor emeritus in nutrition and education at Columbia University’s Teachers College in New York grows much of her own food. In her popular book "This Organic Life: Confessions of a Suburban Homesteader" (Chelsea Green Publishing Co., 2001), Gussow tells personal, compelling and often humorous stories about her 30 years experience growing fruits and vegetables. Meanwhile, enthralled readers learn about the vital importance of local eating and sustainable living. Recipes included.

Twenty years ago, Gussow and her close friend and colleague Kate Clancy proposed the idea of "Dietary Guidelines for Sustainability." The two rightfully thought our nation’s dietary goals should take into account not only personal health but also the effects of our food choices on our environment.

So it was no surprise that Gussow was invited to speak this month at the 20th-anniversary celebration of the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture at Iowa State University. During her talk, Gussow identified two compelling reasons to move toward an intensely localized food system: concerns about the safety of our global food supply - or the "ick factor" - and peak oil and climate change.

Citing the recent spinach debacle as one of the year’s most teachable moments, Gussow offered a sample dialogue between mother and child:

"Why can’t we have a spinach salad tonight, Mommy?"

"Because of the terrible way they raise cattle in California, Francie."

Solution: Grow your own spinach, or buy it locally from a farmer you know.

The strain of E. coli responsible for the contaminated spinach is most notably present in the intestines and manure of cattle raised in feedlots and fed large grain rations. However, instead of rethinking how and where we raise our food, Gussow said that the food industry’s answer to correcting the problem includes more government regulations and even irradiation - a solution she describes as "based on desperation."

In terms of our global energy crisis, Gussow does not believe we can grow ourselves out of irresponsible fuel consumption. In other words, we can’t produce enough ethanol to go on driving Hummers to the grocery store.

"We want to believe we can do it," she said. But she’s "scared to death that farmers are being led down a primrose path."

To engage eaters to think about where our food comes from and who produces it, we must keep agriculture local. And that’s where policy comes in.

Mark Ritchie, Minnesota’s secretary of state and the opening keynote presenter at the Leopold Center’s celebration, explained that "policy makes the future, and people make the policy."

Ritchie understands that the loss of family farms spells disaster for our society. As land falls into bigger hands, we can expect a negative effect on our democracy.

Legislators are currently debating our nation’s new farm bill. The bill influences the price and quality of every forkful of food we consume. For example, the bill determines whether agricultural policy will support national dietary guidelines. It determines the level of funding for commodity payments, farmland conservation programs, country-of-origin labeling, food stamps, school nutrition programs and more.

A "foodist" appreciates the taste of fresh food that is produced with respect for the environment and those who produce it. A foodist wants affordable, healthful food for all and a fair price for farmers. It will take farm bill reform to help reach those goals.

Learn more, and then call your legislators.

● Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy: www.iatp.org.

● "Food Fight: A Citizen’s Guide to the Farm Bill" by Dan Imhoff: www.watershedmedia.org/foodfight_overview.html

● U.S. Capitol switchboard: (202) 224-3121.