Articles by Tom Philpott
Tom Philpott was previously Grist's food writer. He now writes for Mother Jones.
All Articles
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Fast Food Nation author says the sustainable food movement should consider labor
Few Grist readers need an introduction to Eric Schlosser. His 2001 book, Fast Food Nation, helped galvanize interest in the politics and ecology of food production. Since that time, he’s used his increasingly high profile to illuminate one of the most shadowy crannies of the food system — working conditions in the vast monocropped fields […]
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Only GMOs and agrichemicals can ‘feed the world,’ don’t you know?
People involved in the sustainable food movement have been debating the best ways to promote what Wendell Berry recently called “local adaptation” with regard to food and agriculture. The point is to shift away from a paradigm of relying on a fossil fuel-powered agriculture system to feed people living far away from the actual farms […]
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Stuffed and Starved author on the myth of consumer choice
Raj Patel, author of the searing book Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System, is one of the most trenchant critics of industrial food. According to Patel, one billion people in the world don’t have enough to eat, while another billion suffer from the consequences of too many low-quality calories. The […]
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Energy politics take a weird turn
Kate Sheppard mentioned it in her tireless coverage of the Republican convention, but it bears highlighting again: The official GOP presidential platform calls for an end to the biofuel mandate. Now, politics makes strange bedfellows, and sudden Republican opposition to biofuels stems largely from meat-industry shrieks about high grain prices. For example, Texas Gov. Rick […]
