4.5 out of 5: A charming account of living off the local land

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	• Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life (P.S.) Barbara Kingsolver, Camille Kingsolver, ... Harper Perennial, 2008 - 400 pages average customer review:based on 285 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

4.5 out of 5: A charming account of living off the local land

This book documents Kingsolver's commitment to live off the local land for one year. During the commitment year, Kingsolver, her husband, and her two daughters tended a garden and raised chickens and turkeys on their small farm in Virginia. The family supplemented their food stores with trips to the local farmers' market and with a few, strictly limited, non-local items (like coffee and olive oil). I enjoyed this charming account of the seasonality of produce, the work required to harvest and prepare fresh foods, and the family's enjoyment of their time spent on the land. Although I'm not the slightest bit tempted to plant a garden or raise livestock after reading this book, Kingsolver has a convincing argument, and I have been persuaded to begin buying produce and meat from local farmers. I highly recommend this book if you're interested in the food economy, the environment, or nutrition.

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If you want Truth and love stories...READ

I have learned so much from this book about the society, communities, stuggles, and the goodness of people. I love to live naturally and simple; this book brings out the simplicity of life. This book is full of life and the true meaning of living with and in nature. This book is full of advice and stories of those before us. Take time to treasure what we are blessed with on this Earth, and you will reap the goodness of it and learn from the mistakes with grace and strength. HAVE FUN WITH NATURE, FOOD, AND LIVING. Oh, the recipe ideas are great in this book also. The ideas for giving are wonderful.

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Everything old is new again

Kingsolver's book came just at the right time for those of us who are concerned about our environment and our food sources. I was very excited to read about the good things that are found in really "organic" or homegrown foods. It does take time and thought to find and eat foods which are grown for their nutritive value more than their sales value, but it is certainly well worth the trouble. I heard about this book on NPR and really wanted to find out more. I can honestly say it has changed my thinking and my eating habits. I am even making my own cheese with milk from local, grass-fed cows! The farmers have had it right all these years.

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Don't ridicule the small gesture

Thinking globally and acting locally, novelist Barbara Kingsolver and her family decided to move from their home in Tucson, Arizona to their farm on which they had only previously vacationed in southwestern Virginia. Appalachia. Kingsolver, who has a graduate degree in biology, and her husband, Stephen Hopps, an environmental scientist, knew that Tucson was a desert community stressing natural resources and carbon-fueled transport just trying to keep its increasing population in water and foodstuffs produced on large corporate farms hundreds of miles away. They also knew they had a place to go to where they could live more simply, closer to the land. In the spring of 2005 they began a year of eating locally--foods they grew or raised or otherwise came from within a 100-mile radius, from small farmers and businesses. This book is an account of that year.

It was a lot of work: Kingsolver and Hopps have other jobs to keep them busy, but they farmed their land and raised chickens and turkeys, for the eggs and for the meat. They were ever conscious of how every decision they made reflected back on global warming, the high price of oil, genetically modified foods, collapsing small farm economies, the obesity epidemic, endangered species, pesticide residues in food, mad cow disease, etc. Kingsolver reviews a lot of the issues, and Hopp contributes intermittent essays on policy and action, coming down on the side of small, organic and heirloom species every time. The family, which includes young Lily, who cared for the chickens and eggs, and college-bound Camille, the family cook who supplies accompanying recipes and reflection, enjoyed support from their community and extended family, which made walking the talk possible. That, and a lot of canning and freezing to get them through the winter when nothing fresh was in season.

Kingsolver finds the process of feeding individual hunger to be part of a huge dynamic and her book weaves government policy and scientific research with personal experiences like cooking, celebrating birthdays, and the other people with whom they interact. There is a chapter on the harvesting of poultry. It is honest and respectful. Not everyone can do it, but on a farm it is necessary and part of the life cycle. Kingsolver is elegiac about the lifestyle, and speaks out against our culture's celebration of urbanity as the ideal and farming as something old, simple and dirty.

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Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

This is well written and very informative. In today's world we do need to take back some of the healthy past when it comes to food. This is a great teaching tool. I would recommend this book to everyone.

reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

Author Barbara Kingsolver and her family abandoned the industrial-food pipeline to live a rural life?vowing that, for one year, they’d only buy food raised in their own neighborhood, grow it themselves, or learn to live without it. Part memoir, part journalistic investigation, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle is an enthralling narrative that will open your eyes in a hundred new ways to an old truth: You are what you eat.

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