#93 - Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

Book No: 93
Title: Animal, Vegetable, Miracle
Author: Barbara Kingsolver
Genre: Non-fiction
Published: 2008
Obtained: 2008/Kindle
Completed: 12/31/08
No. of Pages: 400
Rating: 3/5*****

Barbara Kingsolver’s book details the year her family made the decision to move to their farm in Appalachia and live there full time, growing as much of their own food as possible and eating only locally grown or reared food items.

Filled with lots of information on the many ways big corporations have changed the way we consume foods this book was eye opening in many instances and filled with a lot of interesting information on the positives of eating local and or organic foods. I do try to eat organic produce, mostly because of the herbicide issue, but this book made me aware of many other valid reasons for making this choice.

So the question is why only a 3 star rating?
Well Ms. Kingsolver can sound awful preachy sometimes. There is almost smugness to her tone in describing her life choices. While I think growing your own food sounds pretty interesting, I doubt most of us have a farm waiting for us to move to, or that many of us can afford to just pull up roots, since we often have homes and jobs and don’t write books for a living. Also as much as buying locally sounds good, especially in a farming community, there are not always that many choices available. I know of one farmer’s market in my area and it is only open from late spring through fall. I also don’t can my own goods, bake my own breads, dig, plant, how , weed or reap my crops. I don’t have a greenhouse or root cellar, don’t raise chickens and turkeys. So while the overall concept may be interesting for many people it is often impractical. Also there is never much mention of just how back breaking farm work can be. I also find the waxing rhapsodic over the tobacco farmers of Virginia and the loss of their most profitable crops. It seemed a bit incongruous within the theme of most of the book. So although I did learn quite a bit and I do plan to try and eat more locally produced food I think I could have come to this decision without being made to feel that most of my lifestyle is somehow invalid.