Review 478: Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver
My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars

The book was a challenge for me, as it started out strongly in moralizing us Americans how poorly we eat, which may be true, but it's hard to read being constantly chastised. It eased maybe a little as the book went on, or I started to just ignore that part and enjoy reading about how Kingsolver and her family grew their own food and ate locally for a year.

Kingsolver’s husband Steven Hopp owned a farm in the southern Appalachians when they married, but they lived in Tucson, Arizona for many years, visiting the farm during the summer months, growing some food. After some years they decide to move permanently to the farm. Then they came upon the idea of eating locally for a year, with the majority of their food coming from their own farm, which did include some animals like chickens and turkeys.

The book included side bar essays by Steven Hopp and end of chapter small essay by the daughter Camille along with some recipes and examples of meals they would eat.

Certainly the goal of this book is to educate people on how food is grown, and how the monoculture is destroying the land. The book is slightly dated now. Eating local and organic foods are something people are now aware of more than a decade or so ago, right? My local grocery stores have produce labeled grown local and a section for organics that I didn’t see when I was younger, so things are changing, but yes we can do better. I can do better.