Joan Gussow

Joan Dye Gussow is a nutritionist, educator, writer and gardener. She was one of the first experts to advocate, as early as the 1970’s, that we “eat locally, think globally.” She has inspired many prominent figures in the local food movement, including Alice Waters, Michael Pollan and Barbara Kingsolver, who said of Joan: “Her writings and creative thought have shaped the history and politics of food in this country.”

Joan has written books and articles for both academic and mainstream audiences advocating sustainable, healthy agricultures. She teaches a popular course on food and ecology at Columbia University and grows her own food in her backyard garden overlooking the Hudson River.

She studied pre-med at Pomona College and, after graduating in 1950, moved to New York City. There she took a job as a researcher for Time magazine; it was the only professional job Time offered women at the time–all the writers were men. In New York, she met artist Alan Gussow and they married. With the birth of their first son, the Gussows moved thirty miles up the Hudson to Congers, New York, where they bought a large Victorian home and started growing their own food to save money. Before long, Joan was hooked on gardening. After five years as a suburban wife and mother, she decided to continue her education. She wanted to pursue a path that would allow her to write in her own voice. “I didn’t want to work for any more great men and write their books for them,” she said. She earned an M.Ed. and an Ed. D. in Nutrition Education from Columbia’s Teachers College (she would later became Chair of the department).

Soon she became a leading thinker not just about food, but also about how consumerism damages the planet. By 1971, the year after she published her first book on the relationship between nutrition and children’s performance in school, Joan was invited to testify before Congress about Saturday morning cereal commercials and the confusing, harmful messages they send to children and families about food.

Now in her eighties, Joan still lives the sustainable lifestyle she advocates. In 2010, her garden, where she grows seasonal produce for her own consumption, was flooded by Superstorm Sandy and destroyed. With the help of friends, she rebuilt the garden two feet higher to protect it from future storms. Her most recent book, Growing, Older:  A Chronicle of Death, Life, and Vegetables, tells the story of her husband’s death and her experiences with gardening as her body grows older.