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Christian Ideas Influencing US Food Movements

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Religion, Sustainability, and Place
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Abstract

The US food system is not environmentally, socially, or economically sustainable. And yet improvements have occurred, thanks to nineteenth- and twentieth-century reformers, many of whom based their campaigns on Christian ideas. Their ideas continue to support the drive to make the US food system sustainable. This chapter is about the ideas of food movement leaders who linked Christianity to sustainability since the late 1700s. I consider leaders in five movements: food safety, vegetarianism, organic farming, food justice, and the local food movement. The locally-focused agrarianism of the late twentieth century, led by Wendell Berry, builds on these ideas and on the four older movements. In this synthesis, we can see how both place and Christian ideas become critical to sustainability discourses.

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Correspondence to Edward H. Davis .

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Davis, E.H. (2021). Christian Ideas Influencing US Food Movements. In: Silvern, S.E., Davis, E.H. (eds) Religion, Sustainability, and Place. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-7646-1_13

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-7646-1_13

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore

  • Print ISBN: 978-981-15-7645-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-981-15-7646-1

  • eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)

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