Readings

[OD] = Pollan, Michael. The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals. The Penguin Press, 2007. ISBN: 9780143038580.

[EWWE] = Singer, Peter, and Jim Mason. The Ethics of What We Eat: Why Our Food Choices Matter. Rodale Books, 2007. ISBN: 9781594866876. [Preview with Google Books]

Course readings.
SES #	TOPICS	READINGS
1	Introduction	Keating, Joshua. "How Food Explains the World." Foreign Policy, May/June 2011. Camp, Julie C. Van, Jeffrey Olen, and Vincent Barry. "Moral Reasons." In Applying Ethics: A Text with Readings. Wadsworth Publishing, 2010, pp. 3–5. ISBN: 9780495807957.
I. Overview of Issues and Challenges
2	Challenges	[OD] Introduction: Our National Eating Disorder. Nestle, Marion. "Introduction: The Food Industry and 'Eat More'." In Food Politics: How the Food Industry Influences Nutrition and Health. 2nd ed. Revised edition. University of California Press, 2007. ISBN: 9780520254039. Recommended [EWWE] Introduction: Food and Ethics.
3	Food and culture	Murcott, Anne. "The Cultural Significance of Food and Eating." Proceedings for the Nutrition Society 41, no. 2 (1982): 203–10. Fisher, M. F. K. "The Social Status of a Vegetable." In The Measure of Her Powers: An M. F. K. Fisher Reader. 2nd ed. Edited by Dominique Gioia. Counterpoint, 2009. ISBN: 9781582435565. Recommended Revisit the following and browse the comments: Keating, Joshua. "How Food Explains the World." Foreign Policy, May/June 2011.
4	Human welfare overview: health, hunger, and exploitation	Estabrook, Barry. "Politics of the Plate: The Price of Tomatoes." Gourmet, March 2009. McWilliams, James. "PTSD in the Slaughterhouse." The Texas Observer, February 7, 2012. World Health Organization: Obesity and Overweight Fact Sheet Brown, Lester. "The New Geopolitics of Food." Foreign Policy, May/June 2011. Recommended O'Neill, Onora. "A Kantian Approach to World Hunger." In Disputed Moral Issues: A Reader. Edited by Mark Timmons. Oxford University Press, 2006. ISBN: 9780195177633. Thomson, Peter. "A Man With Plastic Shoes and Ironclad Principles: Peter Singer Interviewed." May 28, 2007. utilitarian.net. World Hunger and Poverty Facts and Statistics, worldhunger.org. UNICEF Inspired Gifts, unicefusa.org. Oxfam America Ambinder, Marc. "Beating Obesity." Atlantic Magazine, May 2010. Parker-Pope, Tara. "The Fat Trap." New York Times Magazine, December 28, 2011. LeDuff, Charlie. "How Race Is Lived in America: At a Slaughterhouse, Some Things Never Die," New York Times, June 16, 2000. Kunichoff, Yana. "Florida Farmworkers Win Chipotle's Support in Bid for Improved Conditions." October 4, 2012. truth-out.org. Dunn, Rob. "Human Ancestors Were Nearly All Vegetarians." July 23, 2012. scientificamerican.com. Parker-Pope, Tara. "How the Food Makers Captured Our Brains," New York Times, June 22, 2009. Solomon, Avi. "Working Undercover in a Slaughterhouse: An Interview with Timothy Pachirat." March 8, 2012. boingboing.net.
5	Environmental impact and animal welfare overview	[OD] Chapter 1: The Plant: Corn's Conquest. [OD] Chapter 2: The Farm. [OD] Chapter 4: The Feedlot: Making Meat. Foer, Jonathan Safran. "Take A Deep Breath." In Eating Animals. Back Bay Books, 2010. ISBN: 9780316069885. Recommended "Ethical Food: Good Food? " The Economist, December 7, 2006.
6	Moral frameworks overview	Van Camp, Julie C., Jeffrey Olen, and Vincent Barry. "Moral Reasons." In Applying Ethics: A Text with Readings. Wadsworth Publishing, 2010, pp. 5–23. ISBN: 9780495807957.
II. Food: More or Less
7	Eating the American way	[EWWE] Part 1: Eating The Standard American Diet.
8	The distant needy	Hardin, Garrett. "Lifeboat Ethics: The Case Against Helping the Poor." (PDF) Psychology Today 8 (1974): 38–43 and 123–6. Singer, Peter. "Famine, Affluence, and Morality." Philosophy and Public Affairs 1, no. 3 (1972): 229–43. Recommended Video Eidos84. "Peter Singer's Ethics." November 27, 2010. YouTube. Accessed March 15, 2013. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVViICWs4dM
9	Ethics vs. politics of food	Banjerjee, Abhijit, and Esther Duflo. "More Than 1 Billion People Are Hungry in the World." Foreign Policy, May/June 2011. Kuper, Andrew. "More Than Charity: Cosmopolitan Alternatives to the 'Singer Solution'." Ethics & International Affairs 16, no. 1 (2002): 107–28. Singer, Peter. "Poverty, Facts and Political Philosophies: Response to 'More Than Charity'." Ethics & International Affairs 16, no. 1 (2002): 121–4. Kuper, Andrew. "Facts, Theories, and Hard Choices: Reply to Peter Singer." Ethics & International Affairs 16, no. 1 (2002): 125–6. Singer, Peter. "Achieving the Best Outcome: Final Rejoinder." Ethics & International Affairs 16, no. 1 (2002): 127–8. Recommended Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, "Moral Relativism." 2008. plato.stanford.edu. Sayre-McCord, Geoffrey. "Kant's Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals." (PDF) De Young, Raymond. "Tragedy of the Commons: Adaptive Muddling and Durable Behavior." August 28, 2012. personal.mich.edu. "Tragedy of the Commons? A Special Issue." 2003. sciencemag.org.
III. Food: Conscientiously Considered
10	Conscientious omnivorism? Screening: American Meat	[EWWE] Part 2: The Conscientious Omnivores.
11	Environmentalism?	Baxter, William F. "People or Penguins: The Case for Optimal Pollution." Chapter 37 in Exploring Ethics: An Introductory Anthology. Edited by Steven M. Cahn. Oxford University Press, 2010. ISBN: 9780199757510. Devall, Bill, and George Sessions. "Deep Ecology." In Environmental Ethics: What Really Matters, What Really Works. 2nd ed. Edited by David Schmidtz and Elizabeth Willott. Oxford University Press, 2011. ISBN: 9780199793518. Recommended Hill, Jr., Thomas E. "Ideals of Human Excellence and Preserving the Natural Environment." Environmental Ethics 5 (1983): 211–24. Leopold, Alan. "The Land Ethic." In A Sand County Almanac and Sketches Here And There. 2nd ed. Oxford University Press, 1968. ISBN: 9780195007770. Taylor, Paul W. "The Ethics of Respect for Nature." Environmental Ethics 3 (1986): 197–218. "Five Principles For Feeding The Planet," oxfamamerica.org. "Hidden Costs of Industrial Agriculture." ucsusa.org.
12	Is "green agriculture" a solution?	[OD] Chapter 10: Grass: Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Pasture. [OD] Chapter 11: The Animals: Practicing Complexity. Johnston, Rob. "The Great Organic Myths: Why Organic Foods Are An Indulgence The World Can't Afford," The Independent. May 1, 2008. Recommended [EWWE] Chapter 14: Going Organic. Pretty, Jules. Agri-Culture: Reconnecting People, Land and Nature. Routledge, 2002, pp. 3–10 and 126–45. ISBN: 9781853839252. Manning, Richard. Food's Frontier: The Next Green Revolution. University of California Press, 2001, pp. 191–207. ISBN: 9780520232631.
13	Is "locavorism" a solution?	Desrochers, Pierre, and Hiroko Shimizu. "Introduction." In The Locavore's Dilemma: In Praise of the 10,000-mile Diet. 1st ed. PublicAffairs Press, 2012. ISBN: 9781586489403. ———. "The Globalization of the Food Supply Chain and Its Discontents." Chapter 1 in The Locavore's Dilemma: In Praise of the 10,000-mile Diet. 1st ed. PublicAffairs Press, 2012. ISBN: 9781586489403. Recommended ———. "Myth #3: Locavorism Heals The Earth." Chapter 4 in The Locavore's Dilemma: In Praise of the 10,000-mile Diet. 1st ed. PublicAffairs Press, 2012. ISBN: 9781586489403.
14	Genetically modified organisms (GMOs)	Thompson, Paul B. "Shall We Dine? Confronting the Strange and Horrifying Story of GMOs in our Food." Chapter 14 in Food and Philosophy: Eat, Think, and Be Merry. 1st ed. Edited by Fritz Allhoff and Dave Monroe. Wiley-Blackwell, 2007. ISBN: 9781405157759. Recommended ———. "Can Agricultural Biotechnology Help The Poor? The Answer is Yes, But with Qualifications." June 8, 2009. scienceprogress.org.
15	Free trade Guest Lecturer: Daniel Fireside, Capitol Coordinator, Equal Exchange	Fireside, Daniel. "Equal Exchange's Radical Approach to Corporate Social Responsibility." Summer 2011. greenmoneyjournal.com.
IV. Food: The Meatless Way
16	The vegan option	[EWWE] Part 2: The Vegans.
17	Moral theory and animal warfare	Singer, Peter. "All Animals Are Equal." In Animal Rights and Human Obligations. 2nd ed. Edited by Tom Regan and Peter Singer. Pearson, 1989. ISBN: 9780130368645. Steinbock, Bonnie. "Speciesism and the Idea of Equality." Philosophy 53, no. 204 (1978): 247–56. Recommended Norcross, Alastair. "Puppies, Pigs and People: Eating Meat and Marginal Cases." Philosophical Perspectives 18, no. 1 (2004): 229–45. Bittman, Mark. "Rethinking the Meat-Guzzler," New York Times, January 27, 2008. Pollan, Michael. "An Animal's Place." New York Times Magazine, November 10, 2002. Wenz, Peter S. "An Ecological Argument for Vegetarianism." Ethics and Animals 5, no. 1 (1984): 2–9
18	Pain vs. death	Scruton, Roger. "Eating our Friends." 2006. catholiceducation.org. Harman, Elizabeth. "The Moral Significance of Animal Pain and Animal Death." Chapter 26 in The Oxford Handbook of Animal Ethics. Edited by Tom L. Beauchamp and R. G. Frey. Oxford University Press, 2011. ISBN: 9780195371963. [Preview with Google Books]
19	The environmental omnivore?	[OD] Chapter 17: The Ethics of Eating Animals. Sagoff, Mark. "Animal Liberation and Environmental Ethics: Bad Marriage, Quick Divorce." In Environmental Ethics: What Really Matters, What Really Works. 2nd ed. Edited by David Schmidtz and Elizabeth Willott. Oxford University Press, 2011. ISBN: 9780199793518.
V. Food, Ethnicity and Culture
20	Ethnicity and food	Kalcik, Susan. "Ethnic Foodways in America: Symbol and the Performance of Identity." In Ethic and Regional Foodways in the United States: The Performance of Group Identity. Edited by Linda Keller Brown and Kay Mussell. University of Tennessee Press, 1984, pp. 37–9, 44–50 and 54–6. ISBN: 9780870494192. Menzel, Peter. "What The World Eats, Part 1." Photo gallery, time.com.
21	Food and gender Screening: FLOW: For Love of Water	Allen, Patricia, and Carolyn Sachs. "Women and Food Chains: The Gendered Politics of Food." International Journal of Sociology of Food and Agriculture 15, no. 1 (2007): 1–23. Recommended Seid, Roberta Pollack. "Why Thin Is Never Thin Enough." Chapter 12 in Never Too Thin: Why Women Are at War With Their Bodies. Prentice-Hall, 1991. ISBN: 9780136156000.
22	Diet and obesity Screening: Gary Taubes lecture	Fitchen, Janet M. "Hunger, Malnutrition, and Poverty in the Contemporary United States: Some Observations on Their Social and Cultural Context." Food and Foodways: Explorations in the History and Culture of Human Nourishment 2, no. 1 (1987): 309-33. Freedman, Alex M. "Deadly Diet: Amid Ghetto Hunger, Many More Suffer Eating Wrong Foods." Wall Street Journal (1990). ———. "Habit Forming: Fast Food Chains Play Central Role in Diet of the Inner-City Poor." Wall Street Journal (1990). ———. "Poor Selection: An Inner-City Shopper Seeking Healthy Good Finds Offerings Scant." Wall Street Journal (1990).
23	Waste	Bloom, Jonathan. "Waste from Farm to Fork." Chapter 1 in American Wasteland: How American Throws Away Nearly Half of Its Food (and What We Can Do About It). DaCapo Lifelong Books, 2011. ISBN: 9780738215280. ———. "Does Food Waste Really Matter? Why You Should Care." Chapter 2 in American Wasteland: How American Throws Away Nearly Half of Its Food (and What We Can Do About It). DaCapo Lifelong Books, 2011. ISBN: 9780738215280. ———. "From Traylessness to Demand Tracking: Ideas and Innovations to Reduce Food Waste." Chapter 10 in American Wasteland: How American Throws Away Nearly Half of Its Food (and What We Can Do About It). DaCapo Lifelong Books, 2011. ISBN: 9780738215280. ———. "If I Were the King of the Forest: Big Changes." Chapter 12 in American Wasteland: How American Throws Away Nearly Half of Its Food (and What We Can Do About It). DaCapo Lifelong Books, 2011. ISBN: 9780738215280. Recommended Wenz, Peter S. "Just Garbage." In Faces of Environmental Racism: Confronting Issues of Global Justice. Edited by Laura Westra and Peter S. Wenz. Rowman and Littlefield, 1995. ISBN: 9780847680450. Zizek, Slavoj. "Ecology." In Examined Life: Excursions with Contemporary Thinkers. Edited by Astra Taylor. New Press, 2009. ISBN: 9781595584472. Giles, David HGB. "Dumpster-Divers and the Smoothies of Wrath." January 6, 2012. foodanthro.com. Essig, Laurie. "Fine Diving." June 11, 2002. salon.com. Weissman, Adam. "Urban Foraging: Liberating Our Consumption, Liberating Our Lives." 2008. Freegan.info. Eighner, Lars. "On Dumpster Diving." New England Journal of Public Policy 8, no. 1 (1992): Article 7 Bloom, Jonathan. "Resources." In American Wasteland: How American Throws Away Nearly Half of Its Food (and What We Can Do About It). DaCapo Lifelong Books, 2011. ISBN: 9780738215280. Videos theperennialplate. "Dumpster Diver: Episode 84 of The Perennial Plate." February 12, 2012. YouTube. Accessed March 18, 2013. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8v9I-mu2ew Taste the Waste. Directed by Valentin Thurn. Color, 92 min. 2010.
24	Food activism: urban agriculture thefoodproject.org	Aikon, Alison Hope, and Julian Agyeman. "Introduction: The Food Movement as Polyculture." In Cultivating Food Justice: Race, Class, and Sustainability. MIT Press, 2011. ISBN: 9780262516327. Amin, Samir. "Food Sovereignty: A Struggle for Convergence in Diversity." In Food Movements Unite! Strategies to Transform Our Food System. Edited by Eric Holt-Giminez. Food First Books, 2011. ISBN: 9780935028386. Recommended NewsOne Staff, "America's Worst 9 Urban Food Deserts." September 22, 2011. newsone.com. "If You Build It, They May Not Come." The Economist, July 7, 2011. Bornstein, David. "Time to Revisit Food Deserts," New York Times, April 25, 2012. Video Kirstendirksen. "Internet of Food: Ardunio-based, Urban Aquaponics in Oakland." June 25, 2012. YouTube. Accessed March 18, 2013. http://www.youtube.com/watch?&v=3IryIOyPfTE
25	Food activism: art works Guest lecturer: Andi Sutton, Coordinator, Graduate Consortium in Women's Studies, MIT	No reading
26	Student presentations of final projects	No reading
27	Final lecture wrap-up	No reading