From the Ground Up
by Elizabeth Ferry

This Organic Life:
A Book Review

Joan Dye Gussow is a renowned nutritionist and professor emerita of nutrition education at Columbia University. She’s also a board member of the Chef’s Collaborative, a leading organization in the Slow Food movement. When her most recent book, enticingly titled This Organic Life, was published by Chelsea Green Press in White River Junction, Vermont, I was eager to pick it up.

Gussow explores "when, where, how, and perhaps most of all, why" it is ethically, environmentally, and nutritionally beneficial to eat locally grown food. She is well-read and articulate on the subject, and her message is ultimately hopeful. The book includes several enticing recipes to bridge the space between theory and practice.

My one criticism of the book is that it rambles; or maybe it is better to say that the content evolves organically. The first five chapters relate the saga of moving out of a house that had never suited her and her husband into one that they thought would be a perfect match. While they established extensive vegetable gardens in the new location, they found that the house was unworthy of renovation and they must rebuild from scratch. That her husband, Alan, died a year and a half after they found this location is one of the sad twists of life. From this point on, the book focuses more intently on food and garden issues.

Gussow’s professional interest in nutrition has, over time, led her to garden. Now in her seventies and retired, Gussow grows most of the fruits and vegetables that she eats in a year’s time. It takes dedication, but it is certainly possible. "It never ceases to amaze me what even a small piece of land lovingly tended can produce," she comments. Her affection for the garden and for cooking with fresh, local ingredients gives the book another unarticulated theme: how gardening nurtures attachment to a particular piece of land and to the regional ecosystem.

The author gives three reasons why she prefers to eat locally grown food in season: the taste and vitality of fresh food, frugality, and a deep concern for the state of the planet. "When I concluded many years ago that eating locally was a morally responsible way to use the planet’s resources, I also assumed that it would mean sacrifice," Gussow reflects. "I was ignorant, but ready to put my ethics into practice. My (homegrown) peaches are among the many things that have convinced me that deliciousness is the best reason to eat food grown nearby and in season."

Critics of the Slow Food movement often accuse its adherents of being either martyrs of sacrifice or self-indulgent hedonists. Gussow’s writing rebuffs both of those criticisms, while acknowledging that this type of eating is counter-culture. "Unless we’re poor or temporarily jobless, we don’t see any need to be cautious spenders or cautious users, especially where food is concerned. It’s too cheap. Trying to behave differently puts you in conflict with the culture, makes you feel alienated… and often makes you feel that you’re wasting your time." Her personal preference is to grow and cook her own food anyway, in part for the deep personal satisfaction that she derives from it.

As a nutritionist, Gussow is concerned about the nutritive quality of the food; as a scientist, she is worried about global warming from the careless use of petroleum to transport food. She does not argue that all food should be grown and consumed locally. Rather, she advocates that the fruits and vegetables that can be raised locally should be. "While all of this scientific fooling around has been going on, we’ve been convinced that our lives and diets have steadily improved as refrigeration and air freight have eliminated our dependence on what can be produced near home," the author writes.

"The high water content of these foods (88 percent of a peach is water) and their tendency to rot if they get warm means that we are, in effect, burning lots of petroleum to ship cold water around. Because the value of unfettered global trade is unquestioned and petroleum is artificially cheap, these sorts of costs are not being examined… I’m supposed to ignore the energy cost of chilling, packaging, air-shipping, and trucking those flawless-looking objects to my neighborhood."

The pleasures of eating local food depend on the existence of someone who can, and will, prepare the food. "Judging from their behavior, it looks as if most people in many circumstances don’t and won’t. They seem to have decided that cooking doesn’t pay — although buying lavish cookbooks does. According to time-use studies, what has replaced cooking for females is television and grooming; men didn’t have that much cooking to replace," she reports.

While personal preference does play a role in this discussion, the issue is bigger than one person telling another what to eat. The economics of cheap food pushes small, local farmers out of business. As it becomes economically impossible for small farmers to survive, we all lose the choice to eat locally except for what we raise ourselves.

Gussow’s garden demonstrates both the variety and the quantity of food that can be grown for year-round enjoyment in the northeast. She advocates home freezing and drying as ways to preserve the bounty of the harvest beyond its natural season. And don’t dismiss her work on the grounds that her garden has a longer growing season than we do in the Upper Valley. Even warm-weather produce like artichokes and peaches can be — and are — grown in the Upper Valley by determined farmers and home gardeners.

"Less than half a dozen farmers are left in our county on the edge of New York City — their property is so valuable as potential suburban lots that it’s hard to imagine any of them will hold on for another generation," she writes. ".…. I’d rather they didn’t use pesticides, but more than anything I want them to stay in business, because if we lose all our local farmers we’ll have to depend completely on apples and other foods shipped from far away."

For consumers who want to know more about growing food or suggestions of ways to prepare it, This Organic Life provides both inspiration and practical advice. It contains a helpful bibliography as well. And if facts and logic don’t convince you, try the recipes. As she observes with simple profundity, "Eating fresh, seasonal food changes you."

Caption with photo: For consumers who want to know more about growing food or suggestions of
ways to prepare it, This
Organic Life provides
both inspiration and
practical advice.

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