Food For Thought

HOT READS FOR THE PRACTIONER

Title: Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

Competencies: eating/nutrition, cognitive hardiness, economics

Who benefits: any individual

Consultant Usage: health coaches, nutritionists

What’s it about? This book is about food, eating, nutrition, the economies of food, food and family life, and the social effects of personal change.  I stopped reading it about half way through.  I couldn’t stomach anymore.

Barbara Kingsolver is one angry woman.  With reason.  But I get ahead of myself.

This is a tale of two books.  On the surface it is a book about a family of four moving from Arizona to return to their roots – literally.  It is about a year of learning and eating only local foods.  It is about the joy and the pain of learning and growing. Living off the land.  It is a book about the nutritional value of foods along with some great ideas and recipes for those who enjoy cooking. 

But that is only half the book.  The other half is an exposé and condemnation of agribusiness, the mechanization of the food industry, and the critical loss of genetic diversity.  It is about myths that have been created to support big business. 

She makes a great case for the economics of supporting local foods and food growers and avoiding foods that have been transported great distances.  According to her figures, the average food item on your plate has traveled 1,500 miles to get to your stomach.  And that means about 13% of all the oil products consumed in the US are used in getting food to you and I. 

In “The Case of the Murdered Flavor” she makes a plea for us to eat ugly foods.  We like the pretty foods, but they have had their flavors removed and have traveled great distances to tempt us, yet providing blandness.  Real tomatoes aren’t perfectly round nor perfectly red…just flavorful.

One plea she makes is for more support for the more than 3,500 local farmers markets that have, dare I say, cropped up in the past 40 years. 

This is an important book about food and an eye-opener about the food industry.  So why did I stop reading mid way through?  Well, if I were more into being a cook of high quality, I probably would have finished it.  But I am not and to my thinking the book is too long by half.  This book told me everything, I mean everything, I could ever want to know about asparagus…and a whole lot more.  And for me, the book has a subtle whiny underlying tone that eventually grated on my nerves.  Stop already, I get it.

I did take away the need to be a better shopper and look for local solutions.  I found the information on the slow food movement to be of personal value.  And this could be a book of great value to someone struggling with weight/diet issues.

In summary, reading this book will give you much food for thought, leave you feeling stuffed rather than hungry for more, and frankly some of it is hard to digest.

Catch you later.    

[tags]food, diets, nutrition, health, food health, agribusiness, farmers market, farmers markets, slow food, slow food movement, slow food international, sustainable agriculture, sustainable farming, food policy, bill bradley, william bradley,  bradley[/tags]

Bill Bradley

Bill Bradley (mostly) retired after 35 years in organizational consulting, training and management development. During those years he worked internally with seven organizations and trained and consulted externally with more than 90 large and small businesses, government agencies, hospitals and schools.