Animal, Vegetable, Miracle Part 1
But getting the crop from seed to harvest takes only one-fifth of the total oil used for our food. The lion's share is consumed during the trip from the farm to your plate. Each food item in a typical U.S. meal has traveled an average of 1,500 miles....a quick way to improve food-related fuel economy would be to buy a quart of motor oil and drink it."
Stephen L. Hopp
Our plan was to spend one whole year in genuine acquaintance with our food sources."
Well, here we are! Part 1 of Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver. If you recall, the CHICKS from Chicken Librarian Reads Book Group demanded, yes, demanded, that we read this book. I joke. They didn't demand. They kindly asked if we could read this book and I wholeheartedly agreed! I had listened to the book a few years ago and really enjoyed it. It is read by the author and her husband. And boy what a book this is! And how timely. If you've read my past few posts, starting with this one, you'll know how timely this book is for me.
I don't think we're going to follow a particular book group discussion format. I think we'll just share our thoughts in the comments and just discuss that way. We can pose questions to each other, to me, for future discussion or for discussing now. With that said, let's get to it!
If you've ever thought about where you food comes from and wanted more information, this is a good book to pick up. Even though this book is about a year in the life of Barbara Kingsolver and her family eating locally, they provide so much information about all facets of food, where it comes from, how we became a society that doesn't care about our food (my words, not theirs). I've been slowly reading and listening to this book and in fact, might not make it through chapter 5 before discussing. It's that good. I listen to a few pages while I'm working on a project, then I stop it and have to think about it. I'm more mindful now of where my food comes from than I was just a few short years ago when I first listened to this book. And I think that makes a difference. When your eyes are truly open to where something comes from, how it's grown, how far it traveled, a book like this can really be helpful. And if you don't know all this, this book can be eye-opening. Either way, it can set you on the path to finding out more about your food.
As you know if you've read the blog or checked out that link above (or clicking here), my eyes were opened to our local food source and our wild game in the area. This lead me to thinking more and more about where we are getting our food from. As I've been listening to the book this past week or so, the Mister has been in the room. That's led to some really good conversations, not just between me and him, but with other people as well. I also started digging around for other ways to learn more about how our food is produced, grown, how far it travels.
If every U.S. citizen ate just one meal a week (any meal) composed of locally and organically raised meats and produce, we would reduce our country's oil consumption by over 1.1 million barrels of oil every week."
Stephen L. Hopp
Have you ever heard of the Netflix show Rotten? It's good. It's oh, so good. And it seems to really go along with what Kingsolver is getting at in her book. Let's also remember that Kingsolver wrote this book before there was the big locavore movement. I believe she wrote the book in 2007 or so. Anyway, Rotten covers different food products that have stigma attached to them-think large scale poultry, milk, avocados, honey. I watched the honey episode a few months back and it was all kinds of interesting. It involved scandal over importers mixing honey with things other than honey so they could make more money. Bee hives were stolen (to the tune of 120,000 or so hives on the bed of a trailer just vanished from an almond farm. That's someone's livelihood). Then fast forward a few months until this week. I sat down to watch the episode on avocados. Bear with me. This has a point, I promise. Anyway, avocados. Did you know that there are cartels that control big avocado business? People die from growing avocados! It's easy to not think about this since they are grown so far away. But people are dying or being extorted in Mexico. Water supplies are running out in Chile. And California is getting their water from the Colorado River, hundreds of miles away from where the avocados are grown. So even though they are not immediately affected they are affecting someone else who relies on the river. Same in Chile. Water is privately owned so the big businesses came in and snatched up all the water. Rivers are dry. People have to now pay for their water. Chileans , even those who aren't in the avocado business, don't have access to water.
What does this have to do with the book and book discussion? It has everything to do with it. When you eat locally and seasonally, you are supporting small farmers. You're growing your own food. You're more aware of where your food comes from. You are not relying on big ag from hundreds, if not thousands, of miles away. When we watched the episode on avocados, the ending was pretty bleak. There's nothing to be done. How do we know which avocados are grown by the cartels? Or the big growers in Chile who are taking all the water? Are we supporting the growers in California who are taking water from a river hundreds of miles away? If we stop eating avocados all together, won't that impact the small growers first? There are so many questions and so few answers but one answer is clear. If we are eating locally, seasonally, these are not issues that we face. Yes, they're still issues, but we are not contributing to the problem.
Don't expect baby asparagus tips any time other than March, April, or May, unless you live in New Zealand or South America....for most of us, if we see asparagus in any month far removed from April, we're looking at some hard traveling."
Okay. So now back to the book! Kingsolver and her family decide to eat as locally as possible-growing their own food, shopping at farm markets for one year. They each get a free card for things such as coffee, hot chocolate, and dried fruit. They substituted sugar with honey. They still used olive oil and grains that weren't local. They started their experiment in April when things, such as asparagus, are just started to poke out of the ground, but the weather is still so unpredictable that you can't really set out a garden. I really like this since it's January here in the Northeast. We're definitely not growing much. But there are a couple of farm markets open year round. So even though I'm not growing the food, I can travel a short distance (less than 50 miles) and find fresh, locally grown food.
It also gives us time to formulate a plan. We can start our process of eating locally and seasonally now, but like Kingsolver, we can also take a couple of months to come up with a plan. Why do we need some planning time? I'm not naturally good at coming up with substitutions. So if a recipe calls for X I can't readily look in the cabinet and say I don't have X but I have Z and that will work. One of the things I'm wanting to explore, especially now that I am running low on sugar, is using honey or maple syrup as the alternative. I mean, wouldn't maple syrup make the most sense since I make it myself from trees on the homestead? But I also know where my honey comes from so it's not a bad alternative either. There's lots of good information on the internet on the substitution ratios.
Our highest shopping goal was to get our food from so close to home, we'd know the person who grew it. Often that turned out to be ourselves as we learned to produce what we needed, starting with dirt, seeds, and enough knowledge to muddle through. Or starting with baby animals, and enough sense to refrain from naming them."
Okay. What else. Maybe this wasn't so much a critique of the book, but listening to it, ruminating on it, sure led to some interesting discussions and thoughts this past week. And no, I didn't make it to chapter 5! My apologies! I'll try to do better for next time.
And as a reminder, here's our schedule:
January 7, 2020: through chapter 5
January 21, 2020: chapters 6-10
February 4, 2020: chapters 11-15
February 18, 2020: chapters 15-20 and wrap up
Share your thoughts and your experiences in the comments below!