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Articles by Tom Philpott

Tom Philpott was previously Grist's food writer. He now writes for Mother Jones.

All Articles

  • New book looks at economic devastation in an Iowa meat-packing town

    An Iowa house, no longer neededPhoto: McMorrIt’s become axiomatic that to peer deep into our reliance on fossil energy is to gaze upon human wreckage: bombed-out Baghdad slums, desolated Nigerian townships, or Appalachian communities eviscerated by the removal of mountaintops. The food system has its own war zones, its own spaces of suffering and despair. […]

    Tom Philpott Food

  • Must-read: urban farmer Will Allen in the NYT Magazine

    Will makes soil–and you can, too.Source: The New York TimesAnyone who wants to understand the paradoxes and promise of urban agriculture must read the luminous profile of Growing Power’s Will Allen by Elizabeth Royte, online now and forthcoming in Sunday’s New York Times Magazine. I could gush about the elegance of Allen’s farming system or […]

    Tom Philpott Food

  • Et tu, Al? Franken gulps the ethanol-spiked Kool-Aid

    “I’ve looked at this a lot, and it seems to me that ethanol already helps our carbon footprint and it’s only getting more efficient in the way it’s produced. Corn ethanol is a step on the way to cellulosic ethanol, which is also going to benefit Minnesota. I’m in the pro-ethanol camp.”— Sen. (elect) Al […]

    Tom Philpott Politics

  • The WaPo serves up a food-politics column

    Ezra KleinLindsay Beyerstein“Edible Media” takes an occasional look at interesting or deplorable food journalism on the web. Welcome to the table, Ezra Klein When I first started writing about food politics in 2005, the topic area was highly stratified–and still a little obscure. There was Eric Schlosser’s groundbreaking Fast Food Nation (2001) illuminating the topic […]

    Tom Philpott Politics