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Food Justice
In today's food system, farm workers face difficult and hazardous conditions, low-income neighborhoods lack supermarkets but abound in fast-food restaurants and liquor stores, food products emphasize convenience rather than wholesomeness, and the international reach of American fast-food franchises has been a major contributor to an epidemic of "globesity." To combat these inequities and excesses, a movement for food justice has emerged in recent years seeking to transform the food system from seed to table. In "Food Justice," Robert Gottlieb and Anupama Joshi tell the story of this emerging movement.
A food justice framework ensures that the benefits and risks of how food is grown and processed, transported, distributed, and consumed are shared equitably. Gottlieb and Joshi recount the history of food injustices and describe current efforts to change the system, including community gardens and farmer training in Holyoke, Massachusetts, youth empowerment through the Rethinkers in New Orleans, farm-to-school programs across the country, and the Los Angeles school system's elimination of sugary soft drinks from its cafeterias. And they tell how food activism has succeeded at the highest level: advocates waged a grassroots campaign that convinced the Obama White House to plant a vegetable garden. The first comprehensive inquiry into this emerging movement, " Food Justice" addresses the increasing disconnect between food and culture that has resulted from our highly industrialized food system.
A food justice framework ensures that the benefits and risks of how food is grown and processed, transported, distributed, and consumed are shared equitably. Gottlieb and Joshi recount the history of food injustices and describe current efforts to change the system, including community gardens and farmer training in Holyoke, Massachusetts, youth empowerment through the Rethinkers in New Orleans, farm-to-school programs across the country, and the Los Angeles school system's elimination of sugary soft drinks from its cafeterias. And they tell how food activism has succeeded at the highest level: advocates waged a grassroots campaign that convinced the Obama White House to plant a vegetable garden. The first comprehensive inquiry into this emerging movement, " Food Justice" addresses the increasing disconnect between food and culture that has resulted from our highly industrialized food system.
290 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2010
33 people are currently reading
633 people want to read
About the author
Robert Gottlieb
13 books1 followerProfessor of Urban & Environmental Policy, Emeritus, Occidental College.
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Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews
March 1, 2011
Are you frustrated with the agrarian nostalgia implicit in the food movement? Are you worried as much about farm workers as you are about farmers? Does the organic movement strike you as elitist? Do you care about food deserts and wonder about the ways eating sustainability as become a marker of socio-economic status? Robert Gottlieb and Anupama Joshi have written the book for you.
What is food justice? “The interpretations of food justice can be complex and nuanced, but the concept is simple and direct: justice for all in the food system, whether producers, farmworkers, processors, workers, eaters, or communities. Integral to food justice is also a respect for the systems that support how and where the food is grown – an ethic of place regarding the land, the air, the water, the plants, the animals, and the environment. The groups that embrace food justice vary in agendas, constituencies, and focus, but all share a commitment to the definition we originally provided: to achieve equity and fairness in relation to food system impacts and a different, more just, and sustainable way for food to be grown, produced, made accessible, and eaten” (223).
The first half of the book offers a food justice framework for the problems facing our food supply. The first chapter looks at growing and producing food, the second at accessing food, and the third at consuming food. The forth chapter examples food politics from the farm bill to the school lunch counter while the fifth chapter considers the impact of neoliberal globalization. The second half of the book examines the struggles to achieve food justice. It looks at the solutions communities have already begun. What I particularly value about this section of the book is the way it integrates a food justice perspective into already existing threads of the food movement – rather than throwing out core concepts like slow food and local food. I also appreciated their attention to questions of gender in discussing an example of the complex relationship between women and food at domestic violence shelters. The chapters in the second half look at farms (including community gardens, immigrant farmers, urban farmers), new food routes (including farmers markets and CSAs), slow food & local food, local & national food initiatives, and a discussion of vision and direction for the “emerging movement.”
What is food justice? “The interpretations of food justice can be complex and nuanced, but the concept is simple and direct: justice for all in the food system, whether producers, farmworkers, processors, workers, eaters, or communities. Integral to food justice is also a respect for the systems that support how and where the food is grown – an ethic of place regarding the land, the air, the water, the plants, the animals, and the environment. The groups that embrace food justice vary in agendas, constituencies, and focus, but all share a commitment to the definition we originally provided: to achieve equity and fairness in relation to food system impacts and a different, more just, and sustainable way for food to be grown, produced, made accessible, and eaten” (223).
The first half of the book offers a food justice framework for the problems facing our food supply. The first chapter looks at growing and producing food, the second at accessing food, and the third at consuming food. The forth chapter examples food politics from the farm bill to the school lunch counter while the fifth chapter considers the impact of neoliberal globalization. The second half of the book examines the struggles to achieve food justice. It looks at the solutions communities have already begun. What I particularly value about this section of the book is the way it integrates a food justice perspective into already existing threads of the food movement – rather than throwing out core concepts like slow food and local food. I also appreciated their attention to questions of gender in discussing an example of the complex relationship between women and food at domestic violence shelters. The chapters in the second half look at farms (including community gardens, immigrant farmers, urban farmers), new food routes (including farmers markets and CSAs), slow food & local food, local & national food initiatives, and a discussion of vision and direction for the “emerging movement.”
November 11, 2019
What an interesting read! Gleaning information from Holyoke, MA and New Orleans, LA, as well as various other activist communities from around the United States, Gottlieb and Joshi analyze just what food justice is and how activists align their actions with a vision in which the structure of food is reworked into something more sustainable and local.
I found that their analyses were well-thought out and cited, and I learned so much that I'd just never even thought of before, such as how neoliberal globalization have affected the ways that our food is grown, our farmers, and the manner of transporting and accessing such foodstuffs.
With this addition of knowledge under our belts, and with a new means of analyzing our food framework, hopefully we can work towards making such dreams and theories of academia into a reality. Only time and action will tell!
Review cross-listed here!
I found that their analyses were well-thought out and cited, and I learned so much that I'd just never even thought of before, such as how neoliberal globalization have affected the ways that our food is grown, our farmers, and the manner of transporting and accessing such foodstuffs.
With this addition of knowledge under our belts, and with a new means of analyzing our food framework, hopefully we can work towards making such dreams and theories of academia into a reality. Only time and action will tell!
Review cross-listed here!
January 23, 2020
As a person somewhat confused with what the words food and justice meant when attached to each other, this book was hugely impactful. The book outlined exactly what food justice is in much broader terms than I was expecting. Robert Gottlieb and Anupama Joshi take readers from local farming operations in small communities of color, to ruthless international companies bent on dominating the food industry regardless of the cost. While it isn't a riveting read, I would recommend this book. It accomplishes what it sets out to, which is to elaborately describe the topic of food justice.
June 20, 2022
Like the book Fastfood Nation, Food Justice exposes the injustices of our current food system, the atrocities that people experience growing and harvesting our food and the inequity of who has access to quality food. It's an informative book about how the current big players in our food system (Wal-Mart, PepsiCo, McDonalds, etc) have globalized our food system to our detriment and are currently appropriating and changing the language around "organic" and "healthy".
And while Food Justice does a great job of exposing these injustices, it also seeks to provide hope in providing visibility to the organizations and movements trying to change our food system to something more just. It's a bit of a dry read in that regard, but I found parts to be highly informative and inspiring. I was really moved in reading about farm-to-school initiatives to help fill current nutrition inadequacies. Reading about the connection of food to terroir and community-building really resonated with me.
And while Food Justice does a great job of exposing these injustices, it also seeks to provide hope in providing visibility to the organizations and movements trying to change our food system to something more just. It's a bit of a dry read in that regard, but I found parts to be highly informative and inspiring. I was really moved in reading about farm-to-school initiatives to help fill current nutrition inadequacies. Reading about the connection of food to terroir and community-building really resonated with me.
June 12, 2019
There is a contradiction at the heart of this book, and one that is quite common when one is dealing with the artifacts of leftist thought. That is, this book is not really about justice at all. The food injustices that the authors write about are simply ways that the authors wish to justify their own particular leftist ideals and to bolster the activist class that they are a part of. Ultimately, the authors could not care less about the quality of food for consumers or even the well-being of farmers and farm workers except insofar as it allows for the glorification of union agitators and attacks at the legitimacy of companies whose profits are based out of their food production lines. The authors avoid talking about the sort of small farmers that are best served to create local food except for those small farmers who happen to be immigrants of frequently dubious legal status and cultural assimilation, showing that it is identity politics and leftist agitation rather than food justices that is the real subject of this book. The concerns about food, serious though they may be to the reader, are merely the pretext on the part of the authors for pushing their own political agenda.
This short book of almost 250 pages is divided into ten chapters and numerous smaller sections as well as two larger parts. After a series foreword the book begins with an introduction that seeks to define the author's view of food justice and look at some activism on the part of New Orleans students regarding school food. The first part of the book then focuses on the authors' view that the contemporary food system is unjust (I), with chapters on growing and producing food (1), the limited access to good food that many people have in an age of superstores and eating out (2), the way that food is consumed both at home and in fast food restaurants that has high calories but low nutrients (3), the politics of food as it relates to farm bills and school food (4), and the role of globalization in the food system (5). The second part of the book looks at various leftist agitation for food justice (II), including chapters on the battles and conflicts that seek to promote justice in the growing of food (6), the desire to forge new food routes from farm to consumer (7), the transformation of the food experience with slow food and local food initiatives (8), a desire for a leftist food politics (9), and encouraging a change agenda among the reader (10), after which there are notes and an index.
I went into this book knowing that I would not appreciate its approach simply because the authors are so relentlessly biased towards the left and my own political bias tends in the opposite direction. Nevertheless, a book like this is good oppo research because the authors are so transparent about their agenda. Only a naif would, upon reading this book, think that the authors are really interested in justice in the sense of a sustainable and peaceful and harmonious relationship between farmers, logistics firms, restaurants, consumers, and lawmakers. On the contrary, the authors make it clear that their agenda is to promote a leftist view of justice that involves a permanent hostility to family farms run by conservative white folk or businesses involved in making money. Likewise, the interests in slow food and local procurement of food often involve a hipster appeal that aims at high class leftists rather than the farm workers who the book appeals to via other means. Ultimately, a book like this is not about justice or consistency, but rather about appealing to various leftist constituencies whose aims and status are different but who can be trusted to agree that mainstream culture and private enterprise in food or anything else is a bad idea.
This short book of almost 250 pages is divided into ten chapters and numerous smaller sections as well as two larger parts. After a series foreword the book begins with an introduction that seeks to define the author's view of food justice and look at some activism on the part of New Orleans students regarding school food. The first part of the book then focuses on the authors' view that the contemporary food system is unjust (I), with chapters on growing and producing food (1), the limited access to good food that many people have in an age of superstores and eating out (2), the way that food is consumed both at home and in fast food restaurants that has high calories but low nutrients (3), the politics of food as it relates to farm bills and school food (4), and the role of globalization in the food system (5). The second part of the book looks at various leftist agitation for food justice (II), including chapters on the battles and conflicts that seek to promote justice in the growing of food (6), the desire to forge new food routes from farm to consumer (7), the transformation of the food experience with slow food and local food initiatives (8), a desire for a leftist food politics (9), and encouraging a change agenda among the reader (10), after which there are notes and an index.
I went into this book knowing that I would not appreciate its approach simply because the authors are so relentlessly biased towards the left and my own political bias tends in the opposite direction. Nevertheless, a book like this is good oppo research because the authors are so transparent about their agenda. Only a naif would, upon reading this book, think that the authors are really interested in justice in the sense of a sustainable and peaceful and harmonious relationship between farmers, logistics firms, restaurants, consumers, and lawmakers. On the contrary, the authors make it clear that their agenda is to promote a leftist view of justice that involves a permanent hostility to family farms run by conservative white folk or businesses involved in making money. Likewise, the interests in slow food and local procurement of food often involve a hipster appeal that aims at high class leftists rather than the farm workers who the book appeals to via other means. Ultimately, a book like this is not about justice or consistency, but rather about appealing to various leftist constituencies whose aims and status are different but who can be trusted to agree that mainstream culture and private enterprise in food or anything else is a bad idea.
September 2, 2021
I read this book when it first came out. It was on an airplane. I probably didn't give it the credit due at the time, because I remember thinking that I wasn't learning much from it. I had spoken to quite a few of the same people Anupama Joshi interviewed for the book, and I suspected we had been at the same meetings sponsored by the Kellogg Foundation. Yet it does a great job of pulling the diverse threads of the food movement together between two covers, and it is about as easy to read as idea-driven non-fiction ever gets. Why two stars, then? I re-read it cover to cover quite recently, and while I would still recommend it for newbies in the food world, I was put off by the way it felt like a recruiting pep-talk. Gottlieb and Joshi have not a single good word to say about for-profit actors, especially food retailers and agricultural input firms. And the book does not delve deeply into internal conflicts that can put activists working within the food movement at odds with one another. I think I would still put Raj Patel's Stuffed and Starved a notch above Food Justice, (but maybe it's time for me to re-read Patel, too).
March 18, 2025
Awesome book! Read for a class but super insightful and accessible, everything was organized and presented really well and it was really engaging for a nonfiction. I've never thought about some of these topics from these perspectives, and it was really cool to expand my knowledge on a topic I thought I knew something about before.
April 29, 2021
Textbook
January 2, 2023
Some really good content, but very dry and academic in style. I admit I found it hard to get through.
March 15, 2025
Eh school vibes
March 19, 2013
Comprehensive overview of the inequities and problems in the modern food system, domestically and globally. I think a fair amount of this won't be new to people already aware of the issues, but the second half of the book - describing strategies to promote food justice & reshape the system - covered a lot of heartening case studies that I wasn't yet familiar with.
July 28, 2011
History of the food justice movement from their interest in conditions of labor, growing and producing food to the use of pesticides. The damage that Wal Mart has done to the American farming communities is pretty horrible. Informative book.
December 1, 2011
Read for my book club at work. Pretty informative and good overview of food justice movement. Many case studies but no policy suggestions. Have a talk with the authors on Friday for work- will see what they have to say!
April 14, 2012
I found its many case studies truly inspiring
February 26, 2013
To be honest, if I did not have to teach this book, I likely would not have read it. BUT, I was pleasantly surprised and learned a lot and am looking forward to my students' reaction!
June 17, 2013
Motivates a call for action to stop food injustices in our communities.
July 1, 2014
I liked some of the ideas in the book, but man was it DRY. It was so hard to read. If I'dve thought it was a textbook, I never would have checked it out from the library.
September 1, 2014
Good information. I skipped around because there is just so much. The topics covered the loads of examples are a rich introduction to food and the health of communities in general.
April 20, 2015
Lots of good information, but gets a bit dry and repetitive.
October 30, 2016
Suggested by Dr Lois Stanford as an introduction to the issue of food justice.
January 5, 2017
This book is a bit dated at this point. Gives a decent status of food justices issue for the year 2013 but addresses few solutions for the future.
Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews