Green Read: Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

We like reading about food; the cooking of it and the eating of it. We're about halfway through Heat by Bill Buford and have enjoyed every page. Next up for us: Barbara Kingslover's new book; Animal, Vegetable, Miracle.

We heard about it on Sew Green, and were immediately intrigued. Especially when we read this self-deprecating and humorous beginning:

"As the U.S. population made a statistical mad dash for the Sun Belt, one carload of us jumped off that ship and headed for the promised land, where water falls from the sky and green stuff grows all around. Our family was about to begin the adventure of realigning our lives with our food chain.

Naturally, our first stop was to buy junk food and fossil fuel."

This non-fiction account tells the story of the families' year of eating close to home:

"This is the story of a year in which we made every attempt to feed ourselves animals and vegetables whose provenance we really knew . . . and of how our family was changed by our first year of deliberately eating food produced from the same place where we worked, went to school, loved our neighbors, drank the water, and breathed the air."

A green way to go that sometimes seems insurmountably tough to pull off - we're hoping for ideas and inspirations to help our own family eat greener more often.

If you've read it, or plan to , let us know in the comments...

Comments (7)

Mixed reviews on Goodreads. Sounds overall informative but preachy, based on these:
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25460.Animal_Vegetable_Miracle_A_Year_of_Food_Life

posted by Llllacy on September 12th 2007 at 8:19am
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It's not particularly preachy, although very informative. It's excellent, though. Well researched and extremely easy to read.

posted by rsilverman on September 12th 2007 at 9:10am
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related to the book, this week is Green City Market's Localvore Challenge. More info here: http://chicago.localvores.org/ and here: http://chicagogreencitymarket.org/events_public.asp?eventType=&a=r&id=479

posted by menina on September 12th 2007 at 9:29am
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I read it, being a huge Kingsolver fan, but didn't love it. The beginning was good, the middle slowed down, and then it sort of picked up again at the end. I think it would have made a better long magazine article than a book, as there wasn't that much to keep going. On the other hand, I do know some people who loved it. It has made me think about my consumption, though, and try to consume more locally grown products. And I will do my garden again next Spring.

posted by 95864 on September 12th 2007 at 9:55am
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i read it and enjoyed it. i've been buying organic foods whenever i can, but never gave much thought to the importance of buying local or "in-season." i thought it was great that everyone in the family was on board, not just the one person or the parents.

posted by jhayne on September 12th 2007 at 11:54am
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I highly recommend reading Sandor Katz's book ' The Revolution Will Not Be Microwaved" which goes into detail about the development of local food movements. He was interviewed along with Michael Pollan on NPR recently. You can find more info about his two books and some workshops he is doing at http://www.wildfermentation.com

posted by timothybee on September 12th 2007 at 8:47pm
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I read it a few months ago and really enjoyed it. I thought it was funny as well as informative. I was really in suspense over whether or not Kingsolver could teach the turkeys how to have sex...

I didn't find it preachy because there wasn't any finger-wagging in it - the first two paragraphs as quoted here give a good idea of her self-deprecating attitude, I think. Anyone who likes Michael Pollan's writing would enjoy Kingsolver's book. [I wrote a review of the book on my blog, the blog is linked in my profile.]

posted by stringy on September 13th 2007 at 4:12am
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