A fantastic & enjoyable book about reconnecting to your local food resources.

[Lex]

by Barbara Kingsolver (you may've read her fiction novels).

In this book she talks about the ups and downs of a year of taking her family off the big agri-business food grid, and getting back to eating foods locally as they come in to season.

It's called "http://www.animalvegetablemiracle.com/">Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life" and I can't say enough good stuff about it. It teaches so much about many aspects of food, including the impact environmentally on what you choose to eat, and teaches you how to reconnect to the source of your food. Chock full of usable info.

From Booklist

Living the American consumerist's good life in Arizona's desert makes abundantly obvious how everyday existence depends on nearly limitless consumption of fossil fuel. It's not just the ubiquitous automobile guzzling gas. Even more gas is consumed by trucks that must deliver most foodstuffs, since so very little of what Arizonans eat grows locally. Those plants that manage to thrive in the desert fields require irrigation through massive diversion of rivers. Despite their genuine love of life in the Southwest, the Kingsolver family moved back to reconnect with ancestral roots in Appalachia, to a farm that has been in the author's family for years. There they have at least some chance of re-creating a profounder and more intimate relationship with the foods they put on the table. Kingsolver's passionate new tome records in detail a year lived in sync with the season's ebb and flow. Starting with spring's first asparagus, summer's chickens, and the fall's surfeit of vegetables, Kingsolver's family consumes what they and their farming neighbors produce. Writing with her usual sharp eye for irony, she urges readers to follow her example and reconnect with their food's source. To that end, she provides a bibliography, Web sites, and a listing of organizations supporting sustainable agriculture.
Mark Knoblauch

[LoZoccolo]

1. I read the introduction to this cookbook, I think it was just called /How To Cook/...

...and the author makes an interesting point in saying that cooking your own food is a subversive act; you are breaking free of the control that corporations have over your diet when you reject the way they have prepared and processed them for you.

[Nay]

2. I've got this book on reserve at my library--can hardly wait to read

it. Here in VA, we could do a lot of food shopping locally, and I plan to. Plus I have a large garden.

[SoCalDem]

3. Hey.. no fair.. she copied off my paper

:P


Taking back control over your food.

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/SoCalDem/64

Posted by SoCalDem in General Discussion
Sun May 06th 2007, 02:17 PM

I know it sounds impossible, but every little bit you do CAN help.

Many people under 40 have been raised on "fast-food" or "packaged-mixes" or "frankenfoods".

The franken-foods are harder to eliminate since the very essence of them has been manipulated at the start, but there's a LOT you can do about the others.

NUMBER ONE:.. Ignore all the glitzy ads on tv and in magazines/papers

NUMBER TWO:... Stop buying the prepared stuff

NUMBER THREE:... Invest in some old cookbooks (used book stores/flea markets/estate sales..or even online)

NUMBER FOUR:...Buy a decent food processor

NUMBER FIVE:... PURGE your cupboards and freezer of all the "combination foods".

NUMBER SIX:...Learn how to cook..(It's not rocket science, and once you get the hang of it, it actually takes less time than you would think.

NUMBER SEVEN:.. Make your OWN "frozen dinners" for times when you don't want to cook.

NUMBER EIGHT:... Plant a garden and let your kids help..Anti-veggie kids will probably eat "their" own veggies..(Mine did)

NUMBER NINE:... Buy good spices

NUMBER TEN :... Make your OWN cake mixes, pancake mixes, baking mixes (HP Make-A-Mix Cookbooks are wonderful)

Modern people think they have no time to "cook from scratch", but it's not that hard and it takes less time than one thinks.

It's not a cheap as buying $1 Banquet frozen dinners or 2/$5 Dominos Pizza, but it's a lot better for you, and so-called convenience foods are LOADED with salt and artificial flavors.

Look for canned foods that have the FEWEST "ingredients".. Choose the no salt added, if you can.. Choose UNSWEETENED when you buy canned fruits.

Buy local and buy local in-season when possible.

Unsweetened iced tea made from water & teabags is better for you than soft drinks & adulterated juices. (My own kids did not have their first taste of soda pop or koolaid until they were school age, and they still prefer unsweetened iced tea as adults.

There are many things you can make on your own that are so cheap, you cannot imagine. You probably just never tried, and don;t even know it.

Here are a few family "specials" that we have always loved..and are super fast too

Left over rice, a little chopped ham, sliced green onions, julienned carrots, a little soy sacue and some other veggies and you have instant stir fry

Peel an apple, core it, split it almost to the bottom (in fourths)..sprinkle a little cinnamon on it and zap it in the microwave (covered)..serve with a dollop of vanilla ice cream or whipped cream

Light frosting for a cake.. whipped cream with mooshed frozen strawberries blended in.. (sweetened with real sugar)

Make your own cookies.. (just about any ole recipe will yield more cookies and there's no comparison on taste)

MOST of the prepared foods actually started with a "real" recipe that has just been adulterated to accomodate the middlemen... not the comsumer.

Salad dressings take about 10 seconds to make..

If you have a breadmaker, and then buy the "mixes", you are still getting the "add-ins" from the corporate food companies.

Get a nice breadboard, and assemble the dough yourself from the basics.

If the box-mixes end up staying on grocers' shelves instead of in grocery carts, they WILL change . As long as people keep buying the stuff, it will elbow out more healthy stuff..

To us oldies, these tips are second-nature, and I am not trying to be "preachy", but I know there are busy people out there who just never took the time, or had parents who taught them to cook.

Commercials have been selling us "fast & easy" for so long that many people actually believe them.

That's a myth that needs busting..in a big way..

Read entry | Discuss (223 comments) | Recommend (50 votes)

[Lex]

4. No doubt you'll love this book!

Great post, btw. :thumbsup:

[Nikki Stone1]

5. Bookmarking

Thanks!

[Nikki Stone1]

6. Bookmarking

Thanks!

[NYC]

9. She did.

I think she owes you royalties.

:hi:

[nam78_two]

7. kick

:kick:

[electron_blue]

8. great, I'll check it out. I've been looking for a resource like this, plus I love Kingsolver.