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4.1 AVERAGE
4.1 AVERAGE
I listened to about half of this on book-on-CD, and need to finish up. Kingsolver is an exceptional writer, and hopefully, this will make people think a bit more about the nature of agribiz and how it's ruining the planet, and how to eat sustainably which will, in turn, awaken our appreciation for terroire (the taste of place in our food).
really difficult to read, due to the subject content. It's the kind of book that you have to read a sentence, and then go think about it for a while, before continuing on. It has hard truths.
I love Barbara Kingsolver and this book was perhaps her finest yet. It was very inspirational and showed us many ways to take everything we are currently trying to do with urban gardening to a whole new level. While we could never imitate what she and her family did for a year, we did find some new ways to be even more supportive of locally grown foods and ways to eat in-season food all year round. This was the perfect book to read as winter was winding down and we start planning our garden for this summer. I may need to read it every winter to jumpstart my gardening motivation.
A bit on the preachy side (but really, that was expected), but a good introduction to some of the reasons for eating locally and organically. Lots of stuff I didn't know (or didn't realize), and resources for further study.
Must be good to make me want to keep chickens in my backyard...
Must be good to make me want to keep chickens in my backyard...
Those of you who know Martin and I very well, know that we love cooking. Food is important to us, and we love making a great meal from scratch, even going to the extremes of making our own salt, grinding wheat to make homemade noodles, or harvesting all of our meal's ingredients out of the garden. So I am kind of surprised that I didn't like this book.
I liked what it said, and I really enjoyed several sections--including a lot of the information about our current food system and the wonderful ending about turkey reproduction--but I kept getting upset by the book.
I was upset that she included so little information about how difficult it was for her family to spend the entire year eating locally. She hardly touched on the cravings they must have had for chocolate or oranges, didn't mention any physical discomfort her garden caused her, and even more important to me, she never once mentioned the mountains and mountains of dirty dishes that her new lifestyle forced her(or somebody) to clean daily.
I wanted to read the parts of the story that weren't included in the book. And her focus on the positives--great eats, fresh air, long luxurious vacations to Tuscany--felt unreal.
I can't say I hated this book, but I also can't say I loved it. In the end it left me feeling nostalgic for a life I won't be able to have until I am a rich international best-selling novelist married to a professor with two supportive daughters who (unless she left this part out of the story, which I suspect) never fight, complain or give me hard time. Oh, and I need a farm.
Maybe all of these things are in my future(I hope so), but right now I am a poor student's wife with a small garden and no travel budget. I guess this book just left me feeling more frustrated than inspired.
I liked what it said, and I really enjoyed several sections--including a lot of the information about our current food system and the wonderful ending about turkey reproduction--but I kept getting upset by the book.
I was upset that she included so little information about how difficult it was for her family to spend the entire year eating locally. She hardly touched on the cravings they must have had for chocolate or oranges, didn't mention any physical discomfort her garden caused her, and even more important to me, she never once mentioned the mountains and mountains of dirty dishes that her new lifestyle forced her(or somebody) to clean daily.
I wanted to read the parts of the story that weren't included in the book. And her focus on the positives--great eats, fresh air, long luxurious vacations to Tuscany--felt unreal.
I can't say I hated this book, but I also can't say I loved it. In the end it left me feeling nostalgic for a life I won't be able to have until I am a rich international best-selling novelist married to a professor with two supportive daughters who (unless she left this part out of the story, which I suspect) never fight, complain or give me hard time. Oh, and I need a farm.
Maybe all of these things are in my future(I hope so), but right now I am a poor student's wife with a small garden and no travel budget. I guess this book just left me feeling more frustrated than inspired.
Maybe I just don't like Barbara Kingsolver, but this book just irritated me with its preachiness.
Very enlightening. As a vegan, the animal "harvesting" was difficult to read, but this book did inspire me to get up on Saturday morning and shop my farmer's market first, and menu plan more seasonally.
Overall I found this book to be a great combination of advice, insight, wit, commentary and informational resources. It has definitely inspired me to be more conscious of my food sources, and I will be changing my diet/shopping accordingly.
It's important to remember that this is not a "how-to" book on becoming a locavore. This is a record of one family's attempt to do so with a smattering of resources for beginning to make your own well-informed changes. For most people who will read this book, it's just not feasible to move to a farm and grow their own food. Also, it isn't until the end of the book that she very clearly states that her family's changes were focused on local vegetables and meat, which is why she didn't address grains and dairy very often.
As a life-long vegetarian, I found her chapter on vegetarianism interesting and thought-provoking. It didn't make me want to go back to eating meat (even humanely treated, grass-finished meat), but it did offer a nice middle step between the extremes of just eating any old meat that's available and not eating any meat at all.
It's important to remember that this is not a "how-to" book on becoming a locavore. This is a record of one family's attempt to do so with a smattering of resources for beginning to make your own well-informed changes. For most people who will read this book, it's just not feasible to move to a farm and grow their own food. Also, it isn't until the end of the book that she very clearly states that her family's changes were focused on local vegetables and meat, which is why she didn't address grains and dairy very often.
As a life-long vegetarian, I found her chapter on vegetarianism interesting and thought-provoking. It didn't make me want to go back to eating meat (even humanely treated, grass-finished meat), but it did offer a nice middle step between the extremes of just eating any old meat that's available and not eating any meat at all.
Kingsolver's love of food is made clear on every page of Animal, Vegetable, Miracle through her poetic writing style. She challenges the current food system without being overly preachy or political. She simply encourages us readers to enjoy our food and challenges us to think about where our food comes from and why we settle for less than the best - good quality, flavorful food, raised locally in season that sustains the economy and the environment. This book is a beautiful story that made me think and laugh out loud. After reading this book, I am very aware of the miracle of food - how God designed creation to nourish and sustain us if we care for it the way we were intended to.