I recently finished the book “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle” by Barbara Kingsolver. I enjoyed it and learned from it. It has inspired some changes in my own food purchases and way of living. For some time I've been trying not to buy food that was transported hundreds or thousands of miles to our locale. I'm trying to think in terms of energy cost for food production and consumption and what it means to sustainability for our planet.
The book chronicled a year in a family’s life after a decision to “eat locally”. They moved from Arizona to rural Virginia where they had inherited some land. They grew as much of their own food as possible, and kept chickens and turkeys. They supplemented that with purchases from the local farmer’s market. And to get through the cold Virginia winters, they canned, froze, dried and ‘put by’ as much food as they could from their harvest.
They did have to make some purchases at the grocery store but when they did, they tried to buy only items that were shipped less than one hundred miles to their area. They ended up making a switch to eating what was in season for their area.
Interspersed with the narrative of their efforts were essays about the commercial food industry, locavores, nutrition and recipes. Parts of the book were really funny and parts were a little dry.
Kathy
