3 Quotes & Sayings By James Mcwilliams

James McWilliams is the author of The War on Food: How the Food Industry Is Destroying Our Families and What We Can Do to Save Them. A resident of rural Virginia, he has taught at the University of Virginia since 1987 and served as director of the university's African American studies program from 1996 to 2000. He is a member of Phi Beta Kappa.

1
..no matter how rhapsodic one waxes about the process of wresting edible plants and tamed animals from the sprawling vagaries of nature, there's a timeless, unwavering truth espoused by those who worked the land for ages: no matter how responsible agriculture is, it is essentially about achieving the lesser of evils. To work the land is to change the land, to shape it to benefit one species over another, and thus necessarily to tame what is wild. Our task should be to deliver our blows gently. James McWilliams
2
We instinctively feel an overwhelming desire to take sides: organic or conventional, fair or free trade, "pure" or genetically engineered food, wild or farm-raised fish. Like most things in life, though, the sensible answer lies somewhere between the extremes, somewhere in that dull but respectable placed called the pragmatic center. To be a centrist when it comes to food is, unfortunately, to be a radical. James McWilliams