Nutrition Today explored the work of Dr. Joan Gussow, Mary Swartz Rose Professor Emerita of Nutrition Education at Teachers College. Dr. Gussow pioneered the concept of food sustainability, promoting a diet that is healthy not only for the individual but the planet as well. Dr. Gussow is still on the forefront of this movement promoting the advantages of whole foods, eating locally produced food, and growing your own food. Gussow stresses the dangers of monoculture, which makes it more likely that a blight can wipe out a whole crop. She gives the example of the potato; Peruvian Indians knew and used 3,000 different varieties of the potato plant while only 6 are grown commercially in the United States today. Similiar conditions caused the Irish Potato Famine, which destroyed much of the country's food supply.

Education is an important part of the food sustainability movement. Two programs, LIFE (Linking Food and the Environment) and EarthFriends, work with children to make healthier, more sustainable food choices.

The article, entitled "Moving Toward Healthful, Sustainable Diets" appeared in the Month May edition of the Nutrition Today.

Published Thursday, May. 8, 2003