Joan Dye Gussow, a nutrition leader, environmentalist, and avid gardener, died on Friday in her home in Piermont, New York. She was 96.
Gussow was widely hailed as what the New York Times called the “matriarch of the eat-locally-think-globally food movement.” She was a trailblazer in nutrition education and a staunch critic of the industrialized food system, one of the first to emphasize the link between health and methods of food production.
Nutritionist and food policy expert Marion Nestle says that Gussow was “enormously ahead of her time,” adding, “Every time I thought I was on to something and breaking new ground and seeing something no one had seen before, I’d find out that Joan had written about it 10 years earlier.”
Gussow’s work, including her seminal 1978 manifesto ‘The Feeding Web: Issues in Nutritional Ecology’ influenced prominent food thinkers like Michael Pollan, author of ‘In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto’ and ‘The Omnivore’s Dilemma.’ “She has been a powerful influence on the food movement,” Pollan told the New York Times, “We all know nutrients are important, but Joan says, ‘Eat food.’ That’s the kernel of ‘In Defense of Food.’”
Later in life, Gussow resisted labeling herself as a nutritionist. She said so in her 2009 address to Columbia University’s Teachers College, where she served as chair of the Nutrition Education Program and taught for over half a decade.
“What people feel is not nutrients. It’s eggplants and peaches,” Gussow said. It was part and parcel of her whole-systems approach to health and food systems, one that valued connection to the origin of food. In her 1985 contribution to ‘Farm Aid, a Song for America,’ Gussow wrote of a vision for “a different [food] system, one where vibrant local economies are based on thriving family farms, small-scale business enterprises, and markets featuring fresh local food year-round.”
Gussow was born in Alhambra, California in 1928. After graduating from Pomona College in 1950, she moved to New York City and worked as a researcher for Time Magazine. She received her doctorate in nutrition from Columbia University in 1969, and began growing her own backyard produce around the same time.
In 1995, Gussow moved to Piermont with her husband, artist Alan Gussow. There she established another backyard garden to meet their fruit and vegetable needs. “The only thing I ever have to buy is onions,” Gussow told ValleyTable in 2016.
Alan Gussow died in 1997. Joan Gussow is survived by two sons and a grandson.
Gussow will also be remembered as someone who was unafraid to speak her mind. Food Tank President Danielle Nierenberg says, “I enjoyed receiving emails from Joan over the years. She would point out my mistakes in the kindest way possible. I will always be grateful for her wisdom.”
In a 2011 interview with Civil Eats, Gussow said of her legacy: “I would like to be remembered as having tried to tell the truth.”
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Photo courtesy of Rockland/Westchester Journal News
