Bestselling author Barbara Kingsolver returns with her first nonfiction narrative that will open your eyes in a hundred new ways to an old truth: You are what you eat.
"As the U.S. population made an unprecedented mad dash for the Sun Belt, one carload of us paddled against the tide, heading for the Promised Land where water falls from the sky and green stuff grows all around. We were 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. . . ."
Hang on for the ride: With characteristic poetry and pluck, Barbara Kingsolver and her family sweep readers along on their journey away from the industrial-food pipeline to a rural life in which they vow to buy only food raised in their own neighborhood, grow it themselves, or learn to live without it. Their good-humored search yields surprising discoveries about turkey sex life and overly zealous zucchini plants, en route to a food culture that's better for the neighborhood and also better on the table. Part memoir, part journalistic investigation, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle makes a passionate case for putting the kitchen back at the center of family life and diversified farms at the center of the American diet.
"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."
Customer Reviews
Average Rating:
Rating: - not so sure
I have read all of Kingsolver's books, and greatly enjoyed them. This one was not so easy. My real problem with it was the assumption that we all have "family" to have meals with, cook with, and hang out in the kitchen or garden with. I would love that, but it just isn't the case, and I'm sure that is so for many others. So many are single person households now, with no family, or no family close by. So I guess I would have to say it brought into full focus how alone I feel. I agree with another ... Read More
Rating: - Surprisingly Inspirational!
A friend in my book club recommended this and so I decided to read it not knowing too much about it. But as a mom of two young children, I had been feeling like I should focus on feeding them better. I thought this was just going to be a book about how living on vegetables for a year made them so healthy. But it was a fascinating and capitivating story because of not only what they went through during that year, but also because of her revealing insights into the food industry - how meat is produced for ... Read More
Rating: - Guided my thinking about what/how to eat
I've struggled with my weight for years which tells you that I've also struggled with food for the same time. I've recently let my underlying distaste (pun intended) for factory-farmed animals rise to the surface and am exploring other ways to eat that don't involve inhumane treatment for animals and the world we're putting at risk. Kinsolver's book was one I started, put aside as "too hard", picked up, put aside, and picked up again as I really got serious. I doubt I can ever emulate her experience, but ... Read More
Rating: - Hand to mind to mouth
The less you know about the food you eat, the more urgent your need to read this book. Organized around Kingsolver's family decision to eat-local for a year, the tale she tells is much larger--encompassing as it does the entire relationship between food, energy, nutrition, corporate agriculture, marketing, global climate change and the sexual habits of turkeys. The novelist brings all of her writerly experience to the task and she is at her best in barbed asides about the forces that force feed Americans ... Read More
Rating: - Good story, real life
Although I was questioning nearly every food choice while reading this book, it is fascinating! Not everyone will feel this way: a friend said she could not get into it because she doesn't like asparagus, and that is what the book was about (!?). Now that I have had time to fully digest the book (pun intended), I am able to be more mindful of my food choices without being completely overwhelmed. I enjoyed the recipes, and the notes on where to find more information on several of the issues presented. ... Read More
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