Locavore backlash

But does a new book make sense?

By Culinate staff

September 2, 2009

Has the heyday of the locavore ended? In his new book, Just Food: Where Locavores Get It Wrong and How We Can Truly Eat Responsibly, James McWilliams argues that locavorism is nothing more than an elitist escapade. And the Freakonomics guys over at the New York Times — who’ve pooh-poohed locavores before — seem to agree with him.

But Kerry Trueman (of the blog Eating Liberally) argues otherwise on AlterNet: “The valid points that [McWilliams] does make — organic doesn’t necessarily mean toxin-free, biotech could be a boon in noncorporate hands, aquaponics offers a sustainable source of protein — get lost in this cynical, sales-grabbing shuffle . . . It’s too bad, because, sandwiched between the caricatures of loco locavores and McWilliams’s 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.”