Good Eats

32 Writers on Eating Ethically

Jennifer Cognard-Black, Melissa A. Goldthwaite

• Publisher: NYU Press
• Year: 2024
• Print ISBN: 9781479821792
• eBook ISBN: 9781479821808
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literary Essays
• Index: Literature

A collection of insightful and personal essays on the role of food in our lives

In an age of mass factory farming, processed and pre-packaged meals, and unprecedented food waste, how does one eat ethically?

Featuring a highly diverse ensemble of award-winning writers, chefs, farmers, activists, educators, and journalists, Good Eats invites readers to think about what it means to eat according to individual and collective values. These essays are not lectures about what you should eat, nor an advertisement for the latest diet. Instead, the contributors tell stories of real people—real bellies, real bodies—including the writers themselves, who seek to understand the experiences, cultures, histories, and systems that have shaped their eating and their ethics.

A wide array of themes, topics, and perspectives inform the selections within Good Eats, contributing to an enhanced understanding of how we eat as individuals and in groups. From factory farming and the exploitative labor practices surrounding chocolate production, to Indigenous foodways and home and community gardens, the topics featured in this collection describe the wider context of sustenance and ethical choices.

Good Eats will encourage you to become more mindful of what and how you eat—and to consider the larger systems and cultures that shape that eating. These essays turn mundane meals into remarkable symbols of how we live, encouraging each of us to find food that is both sustaining and sustainable.

Contributors include Ross Gay, DeLyssa Begay, Lynn Z. Bloom, Michael P. Branch, Nikky Finney, Shirley Geok-lin Lim, Barbara J. King, Aimee Nezhukumatathil, Leah Penniman, Adrienne Su, Ira Sukrungruang, Tina Vasquez, Nicole Walker, Thérèse Nelson, Lisa Knopp, Jane Brox, Maureen Stanton, Taté Walker, and many others.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Introduction: Ethical Eating: Conversations, Collaborations, and Commitments
• Part I: Nature and Nurture
• Part II: Appetite and Restraint
• Part III: What’s Eating Us?
• Part IV: Our Pasts Are Present
• Acknowledgments
• Notes
• About the Contributors