Food Justice Essay

Introduction

The book that I read for the required assignment is titled Food Justice, written by two authors. The authors of the book are Robert Gottlieb and Anupama Joshi. The book, in my opinion seemed to be a series of historical and somewhat current stories. The stories in the book discussed how different individuals were affected, whether it be farmers or consumers. Food Justice teaches us that growing and eating food are political acts that challenge a system that is neither good, nor clean, nor fair.

About the Authors

Robert Gottlieb, is the main author of Food Justice. He is the director of the Urban & Environmental Policy Institute and Professor of Urban & Policy at Occidental College. Aside from Food Justice, he is the author of Reinventing Los Angeles: Nature and Community in the Global City, and Forcing the Spring: The Transformation of the American Environmental Movement. He is the editor of two series: Urban and Industrial Environments, and Food, Health, and Environment. He is also a long-time food and environmental justice activist and historian of social movements.

Anupama Joshi is the co-director of the National Farm to School Network, and is based at the Urban & Environmental Policy Institute at Occidental College. She has invested in building and strengthening the Farm to School movement in the U.S., drawing from several years of food systems work in various countries. She has authored several publications and articles and speaks regularly at national and regional conferences. Food Justice is her first book.

Book Review

Through examining local, national, and global organizing for food justice, this book demonstrates the meaning and results of participatory action research (PAR) for food justice, a component ...

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...ut book. I really enjoyed how the author separated the chapters based off of how unjust the system is, to how it can change or has changed. I am not saying that just because a person loves food that they should read this book, but it documents how rich we are in creating changes to the unjust food system. The thing I enjoy most about this book is that anyone can learn something from it, since relates to different subjects. It discusses physics and biology, and even social sciences and humanities. The food justice movement already exists, with documented successes. It would be something grand if we all could share in that hope. The food justice movement is revealing and challenging the industrial food alliances in their passion to feed profits and not humans. Food justice teaches us that food is not a product for monetary speculation, but rather, a basic human right.