Joan Dye Gussow

Celebration of Life Videos

Biography

Joan was born in 1928. She often reminded people that this was when there were only 800 items in the grocery store, compared to over 40,000 today. Her child-hood was spent in sunny California and she attended Pomona College. Joan was quick to say that her college years were during the McCarthy era and she did not join anything or speak out. In 1950 she moved to New York City and worked at Time Magazine, at a time when women were the fact checkers and men were the
writers. It was in her first floor New York apartment that she started to garden, but it didn’t thrive, due to lack of sunlight.

After marrying Alan Gussow in 1956 and having her first child, Adam, in 1958 the family moved “to the country” in Congers, NY. Joan and Alan soon had their second child, Seth in 1959. Joan became interested in nutrition, reading books by Adele Davis, such as Let’s Have Healthy Children. She happened to live near Larry Cremin, the president of Teachers College, Columbia University. When she decided to get a doctorate in nutrition, Larry persuaded her to attend Teachers College and told her that he would make her Department Chair when she graduated. True to his word, Joan became Department Chair two days after she completed her doctoral degree and later the first Mary Swartz Rose Professor of Nutrition and Education. Joan first made waves in the nutrition field by speaking out about children’s television advertisements. She was appalled that they were persuading kids to eat “Screaming Yellow Zonkers” and other sugary cereals and processed food products.

By about 1970, Joan realized that the nutrition profession had little concern for agriculture nor anything that happened to food, “before the swallow.” She started to “clip articles” and try to organize them to make sense of our “food system.” This began the course, and the field, of “Nutritional Ecology.” Joan continued to teach Nutritional Ecology until 2021. Generations of students have called that course “transformative.” During her decades of teaching, Joan also gave numerous speeches and interviews, many of which were published. She also wrote many books. She was known for always speaking out and for telling the truth, even when the truth was sobering. Yet, Joan remained optimistic and believed that we can transform the food system. Throughout her life, her passion for gardening grew. She expanded her garden at the family home in Congers, NY and then took her gardening to a new level - eating primarily what she grew - at her home on the Hudson River in Piermont, NY.

Joan will be remembered and cherished as a mother, friend, colleague, mentor, and teacher. Joan, we miss you, but your legacy and influence will long endure.