Dave Gilson

Senior Editor

San Francisco native, word wrangler, data cruncher, chart drawer, pun maker. Recent areas of interest: campaign finance, income inequality, prison riots.

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Dave Gilson has worked at Mother Jones since 2003. Previously, he worked for the San Francisco Bay Guardian, the Center for Investigative Reporting, and the Northern California bureau of the New York Times.

Chew the Right Thing

The philosopher talks about ethical eating, fast-food burritos, and why local food is overhyped.

—By Dave Gilson

| Wed May. 3, 2006 12:00 AM PDT

For Peter Singer, the unexamined meal is not worth eating. Over the past three decades, the Australian philosopher has challenged the idea that eating is simply a matter of convenience or enjoyment, making a case that it is a profound ethical choice—particularly if you’re a meat eater. In 1975 he published Animal Liberation, a pioneering defense of the rights of animals that concluded that veganism is the most ethically justifiable diet. The book established Singer as the intellectual godfather of the animal rights movement and, as an Oxford philosophy lecturer put it, took what had been viewed as “the concern of eccentrics and little old ladies with too many cats” and transformed it into a “respectable moral cause.”

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Sticker Shock: Where Does Your Food Come From?

—By Dave Gilson

| May/June 2006 Issue

If you want to find out where your T-shirt was made, just look inside the collar. Finding out where the food in your fridge comes from may not be so easy. Though some food sellers are eager to advertise their products’ local origins or exotic ingredients, much of the American food industry is reluctant to tell consumers where in the world it gets the $24 billion worth of meat and produce it imports every year. “Food labeling is turning into a huge fight,” says Jean Halloran of Consumers Union, which supports the introduction of mandatory country-of-origin labeling, also known as COOL. Under a provision in the 2002 Farm Bill, domestic and imported meat, fish, fruit, and vegetables must be labeled with the country—or countries—they come from. For example, a COOL sticker on a typical package of ground beef might disclose that its contents come from Australia, Mexico, and the United States. Consumer advocates say such labels help shoppers make informed choices, and point to the use of COOL by eight states and 48 of the United States’ trading partners. But the meatpacking and food-processing industries claim the requirement unfairly targets imports and would raise food prices; the Produce Marketing Association claims the program offers “no benefits to consumers.” So far, the food industry has convinced Congress to backtrack: House Republicans have twice postponed COOL’S rollout for meat and produce, leaving diners in the dark until September 2008.

Any Tort in a Storm

—By Dave Gilson

| Mon May. 1, 2006 12:00 AM PDT

Over the years, Mississippi senator Trent Lott made a name for himself as an opponent of lawsuit “abuse,” decrying his home state as “the center of jackpot justice” and declaring, “What disgusts me most is the lawyers that the abuse has made super-wealthy.” That was then. After Hurricane Katrina ruined his Gulf Coast home, Lott changed his tune, joining thousands of Mississippians in a class-action lawsuit against their insurance companies. The suit is headed by legendary plaintiffs’ lawyer Richard Scruggs, who observed, “Funny how frivolous lawsuits stop being frivolous when it’s you.”

I'll Take Menhaden

Should this threatened fish be an essential part of your healthy diet?

—By Dave Gilson

| March/April 2006 Issue

People and menhaden generally don’t mix well. If the fish’s legendary stench doesn’t scare off adventurous diners, its bony flesh probably will. Yet in its relentless quest to wring profit from the tiny, ecologically vital fish, Omega Protein, a Houston-based company, has done the near-impossible: It has not only made menhaden edible—it’s gone one step further and turned it into a health food.

Omega Protein, which holds a virtual monopoly over the menhaden fishery along the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts, understands that most Americans have little use for the products that make up the bulk of its bottom line, such as fertilizer. So it’s tried to base its public image on the versatile fish’s use as a rich source of omega-3 fatty acids. Hence a company name that evokes not scenes of industrial fishing but images of glowing health. “We’re Not Making Health Claims… We’re Too Busy Making Headlines,” trumpets the website for OmegaPure, the company’s brand of fish-oil supplements. As the site explains, OmegaPure is meant to appeal to “health-conscious consumers” who add its odorless, tasteless, and organic capsules to their diet. The marketing might be smart, but it’s debatable whether OmegaPure is as indispensable as it sounds.

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Lust in the Dust

—By Dave Gilson

| March/April 2006 Issue

Lucy Mannion’s troubles begin when she awakes in a dimly lit tent somewhere in the Middle Eastern kingdom of Dahman. The petite English secretary quickly realizes that she’s been drugged and kidnapped by Sheikh Hakim Bin Taimur Al Fulani, a man “so outrageously exotic and arrogantly masculine that his presence seemed to fill the tent and overpower her.”

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