Why Does McWilliams Lambast Locavores When His Real Beef Is With Meat Eaters?

Just Food: Where Locavores Get It Wrong And How We Can Truly Eat Responsibly is the literary equivalent of a turd blossom, the Texan term for a flower that pops up out of a cow patty. James McWilliams, an associate professor at Texas State University, has written a cogent critique of America's unsustainable addiction to meat and then buried it in a mound of manure about 100-mile diet diehards who want to take us all out to the foodshed and paddle us senseless with fresh, local, organically grown produce.

Just Food is framed as the lament of a lapsed locavore, a simple, sustainably minded guy who's been driven into the arms of Agribiz by food mile militants who, according to McWilliams, number in the millions. These legions of rabid locavores are abusing their purchasing superpowers in a diabolical plot to deprive the world of out-of-season strawberries, genetically modified monocrops, and other wonders of industrial agriculture. In fact, the original subtitle of McWilliams' book was How Locavores Are Endangering The Future of Food And How We Can Truly Eat Responsibly.

The new subtitle is still a bit inflammatory, as McWilliams even acknowledged on NPR's Science Friday last week. McWilliam's contrived contrarian take on the eat local movement won't surprise anyone who followed the flap over his disingenuous op-ed in The New York Times alleging that free-range pork poses greater health risks than pork from factory farms.

After it was pointed out by Marion Nestle and others that the study McWilliams relied on to bolster his argument was funded by the National Pork Board, the Times amended the op-ed with an "oops, we goofed" editor's note admitting that McWilliams should have revealed his source.

McWilliams does nothing to repair his credibility with Just Food, which contains enough straw men to build a straw bale house. He trots out a tiresome twist on the mythic Cadillac-driving welfare queen: the SUV driver with the self-righteous hemp shopping bag who routinely drives miles out of her way to purchase locally grown heirloom tomatoes. Just Food also poses hilariously boneheaded questions such as:

What would happen to local traffic patterns if every consumer in Austin made daily trips in their SUVs to visit small local farms to buy locally produced food?

When he's not scratching his head over such pointless ponderings, McWilliams is busy bending over backwards, and then some, to advance his contrarian schtick. Folks like Michael Pollan are fond of noting that the farmers market is the new town square, where eaters and farmers meet up and have meaningful exchanges, as opposed to the soulless commerce of the supermarket.

But things are not so sunny in the parallel universe where McWilliams researched his book; according to him, farmers' markets are a potential hotbed of civic unrest where a shortage of gourmet produce is liable to spark ugly disputes between haute chefs and home cooks.

I've been going to New York City's Union Square Greenmarket several times a week for literally decades, and I have yet to see Greenmarket regulars/celebrity chefs Dan Barber or Peter Hoffman come to blows with other buyers over who'll get the last bunch of baby fennel or Japanese turnips.

Moreover, I don't know anyone who actually attempts to adhere to a strictly local diet, unless you count Colin Beavan, aka No Impact Man, who limited his family's diet to local foods for a year as part of his experiment to minimize their carbon footprint.

But food miles were only one part of the equation for Beavan, as the film about his endeavor makes clear; of equal importance were the relationships he formed with the farmers and other vendors at the Greenmarket and his desire to eliminate excess packaging from his food purchases.

McWilliams ignores both these aspects of buying local and dwells obsessively on food miles, presumably because he couldn't acknowledge these benefits of shopping at farmers' markets without undermining his own arguments. This pattern is repeated throughout the book; McWilliams selectively cites the facts that support his claims and omits those that don't. The valid points that he does make -- organic doesn't necessarily mean toxin-free, biotech could be a boon in non-corporate hands, aquaponics offers a sustainable source of protein -- get lost in this cynical, sales-grabbing shuffle -- collateral damage in his war on locavores.

It's too bad, because, sandwiched between the caricatures of loco locavores and McWilliams' hey-ho-GMO cheerleading, lies the meat of the matter; we can't go on eating animals at our current consumption levels, regardless of whether they're raised in factory farms or on grass.

In Chapter 4 of Just Food, "Meat--The New Caviar," McWilliams tallies up the cost of our unprecedented appetite for animal products and concludes:

Environmentalists who ignore the ecological costs of producing meat are in denial of one of the greatest threats to the world's ecosystems and to the prospect of eating ethically.

As responsible consumers, we really have no choice but to confront the reality bluntly articulated by World Watch: "It has become apparent that the human appetite for animal flesh is a driving force behind virtually every major category of environmental damage now threatening the human future." Unlike so many other environmental issues, our response here can be direct and personal. As Gidon Eshel, a geographer at Bard College, writes, "However close you can be to a vegan diet and further from the mean American diet, the better you are for the planet."

And therein lies the needle in McWilliams' hyperbolic, straw man-stuffed haystack: if you want to eat ethically, ease up on the meat, dairy and other animal products. McWilliams evidently made the calculus that it would be more lucrative to demonize farmers' market fanatics than mindless meat eaters, but his opportunistic posturing ultimately overwhelms the more thoughtful analyses contained in this book. Just Food is a tedious, tendentious read that doesn't compel and probably won't sell.

Cross posted from alternet.org

Follow Kerry Trueman on Twitter: www.twitter.com/kerrytrueman

Comments

[Vickster]

The problems go far beyond meat. For most of us, oranges, bananas and pineapples are not local, nor is our current consumption of these fruits sustainable. Or how about the demand for "fresh" fruits and vegetables in February? Does anyone really believe our current consumption of winter salads is sustainable? The damage that has been attributed to corporate meat can also be attributed to corporate oranges, corporate lettuce, corporate strawberries, corporate rice and so on.

For the record, most of the produce consumed in the United States is grown in Florida, Arizona, California and now Mexico, the last three being arid states. I have friends who work the local farmer's market. In the winter, most of their produce is shipped in from...yep, that's right... Florida, Arizona, California and Mexico so they can afford to run their stall all year long. (Of course, local meat can always be found if you know where to look.)

[condor101]

You sound very negative. My local farmers markets are only open for 6 months because of the cold winter. But everything they sell comes from their farms.

You make it sound like farmers markets are just as bad as supermarkets. Which is not true. You're spewing a lot of bunk.

I know a lot of people who avoid supermarkets and buy at Farmers markets all the time and have their own gardens too and they can their foods for the winter months.

[Vickster]

You misunderstood. I've been a "locavore" since 1983. Of course, I have enough land to raise, gather and hunt much of my own food. I also try to buy what I can't raise or gather for myself from local farmers and homesteaders. For that reason, I support farmer markets, but I also know there are times when most of the produce sold in the local farmers market isn't raised locally because there's three feet of snow on the ground.

[sabelmouse]

most of what we eat, ireland/uk, comes from spain. i believe we are using all their water for our salad veg.
it can't go on at all.
we must eat locally and seasonally and be a lot less spoilt and wasrtefull as well.

[condor101]

Very good Critique of that appalling book.

It's shameful and despicable that he would use two terms "Just Food" and"Locavore" in his Title to demonize a movement to eat local and sustainably. The purpose of that title is to spread confusing messages and lies to the public.

I have read stories in the past few months whereby large supermarket chains are trying to deceive customers of the True meaning of "Locavore". Thousands of stores throughout america are running promotions on a handful of locally produced foods to drive traffic to their stores and they even go so far as to host their own so called "Farmers Market". And people go there believing that they are supporting local agriculture and their local farmers, when in fact most almost all of the products in the store are still shipped across thousands of miles!

In addition, all the profits of these big supermarkets are transferred out of the community and go to the headquarters of these large monstruous companies, for example, to Texas, where Whole Foods has their corporate headquarters, or to Arkansas in the case of Wal-Mart. And this all happens while these large supermarket chains pay barely liveable wages in the original store of purchase.

(continued below)

[condor101]

This book by McWilliams is part of a huge propaganda scheme by Big Agra and their food distributors, the large supermarket chains. They are waging a manipulative marketing campaign to influence peoples' thinking that being a "Locavore" means to buy at your local supermarket chain, thereby perpetuating a lie and mis-represenation of the meaning of Locavore.

Locavore” was coined two years ago by a group of four women in San Francisco who proposed that local residents should try to eat only food grown or produced within a 100-mile radius.

(continued below)

[condor101]

The “locavore” movement encourages consumers to buy from farmers’ markets or even to grow or pick their own food, arguing that fresh, local products are more nutritious and taste better. Locavores also shun supermarket offerings as an environmentally friendly measure, since shipping food over long distances often requires more fuel for transportation.

I honestly hope that people will see through the deception in the title of that book and keep walking. However, I am worried that there is a small percentage of people that are sitting on the fence of how to buy their organic food, and they just may pick up this revolting P.O.S. book and actually believe some of its' lies.

I certainly hope that someone writes a book to counter McWilliams' arguments and place the Truth about "Just Foods" and the "Locavore" movement front and center in a bookstore everywhere in America.

[BannedNBoston]

There is a lot of disinformation out there.
In New Hampster im able to get lettucce, onions green and red peppers 3 three different pottaoes and more at the farmers market.
A short drive yeilds lamb, grass fed beef, buffalo, pork.chicken, all organic

Confused About Fats?

The following nutrient-rich traditional fats have nourished healthy population groups for thousands of years:

Butter
Beef and lamb tallow
Lard
Chicken, goose and duck fat
Coconut, palm and sesame oils
Cold pressed olive oil
Cold pressed flax oil
Marine oils
The following new-fangled fats can cause cancer, heart disease, immune system dysfunction, sterility, learning disabilities, growth problems and osteoporosis:

All hydrogenated oils
Soy, corn and safflower oils
Cottonseed oil
Canola oil
All fats heated to very high temperatures in processing and frying
http://westonaprice.org/knowyourfats/index.html

[cucumber]

LOL. If you're trying to correct disinformation, the last place you want to go is the Weston Price foundation.

[jackpinesavage]

True, cucumber, but the information listed by BannendNBoston is correct so why shoot "him" down?