Food Boot Camp

From lethal baby formula to tainted peanut butter, from biofuel bonanzas to food riots, from lean and local organics to fat-loaded meals for children, food is now routinely in the news. Researchers are speaking in terms of dramatic change and possible crises on topics of how food is grown, distributed and consumed. To help journalists explain the facts to readers, the Knight Science Journalism Fellowships is offering a week-long course on some of the most important food-related issues.

Humans produce food in record abundance, and food in most places is more affordable than at any time in human history. But our progress has brought us unexpected trouble. Obesity and malnutrition now exist side by side. Farming has become an oil-intensive business and a significant contributor to the problems of climate change; the food system now uses more fossil fuel than any other sector of the economy. And, at the same time, food has become a vehicle for disease—the number of outbreaks of foodborne disease is rising, and food is moving across borders at record rates.

The Boot Camp will teach the basics of the issues and address the underlying science and the overlying social, economic and political factors. This will be an intensive course—all day, every day for a week—devoted primarily to discussions and lectures.

Some of the most knowledgeable researchers and leaders from universities, government and industry will teach in the workshop. We’ll also talk about the journalistic issues—how, in light of industry trends to make stories shorter and shallower, journalists can successfully cover the complexities of food and science.

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Faculty

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	Marion Nestle Among the most prominent food experts in America, Marion Nestle is a molecular biologist and nutritionist at New York University, and the author of many books including the prize-winning volumes Food Politics: How the Food Industry Influences Nutrition and Health, What to Eat: An Aisle-by-Aisle Guide to Savvy Food Choices, and Pet Food Politics: The Chihuahua in the Coal Mine. She blogs regularly at foodpolitics.com.
	J. Glenn Morris, Director of the Emerging Pathogens Institute at the University of Florida, J. Glenn Morris is a former officer at the Centers for Disease Control and has served on numerous National Academies of Science food safety committees. He is an expert in particular on the emergence of E. coli as a human killer that is carried in food.
	James E. McWilliams This rising star among food scholars is author of the recently published Just Food: How Locavores are Endangering the Future of Food and How We Can Truly Eat Responsibly, a re-examination of the principles behind the locavore movement. He is an associate professor of history at Texas State University.
	David Pimentel Professor of ecology and agriculture at Cornell University, Pimentel has done an extensive analysis of biofuels, and found that raising crops to make ethanol uses more energy than it gains in fuel. He was one of the first teachers of general ecology in America, and long taught a course in environmental policy.
	Michael Taylor Special Assistant for Food Safety to the FDA Commissione, Taylor's career has included stints in industry—Monsanto for example—and jobs as head of food safety at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and later as a professor of public health at George Washington University, where he specialized in analyzing FDA reform legislation.
	Robert Tauxe One of America's top food outbreak detectives, Tauxe is an MD and MPH, is Deputy Director of the Division of Foodborne, Bacterial and Mycotic Diseases at the Centers for Disease Control. His division monitors the frequency of intestinal bacterial, animal-borne and fungal types of infections in the United States. Besides investigating outbreaks, the group develops strategies to reduce the disability and death that they cause.

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