#Pretentious and preachy (2008-11-13) I really wanted to like this book. I agree with the author in that as a culture we ve clearly gotten out of touch with living off the land and have become a fast food society. But I struggled to even get through the first chapter. The tone of the book is much too preachy and pretentious giving it a holier than thou feel. It s hard to get past that.

#You Take the Good, You Take the Bad (2008-11-07) I m only halfway through Kingsolver s book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, so it s possible I will have a skewed opinion. Anyway, Kingsolver opened my eyes to the plight of America s food problem. I d heard of things like HFCS (high fructose corn syrup), but I d never given it much thought. I sure will now. I appreciated her discourses about the garden, the cheesemaking, etc. The information about transportation costs, etc. given in the sidebars by Steven Hopp was excellent. I will, without a doubt, make many considerations in re...

#True Inspiration (2008-11-01) This book was a complete inspiration to get better connections with our food. As years go on, it seems we ve gotten further and further away from thinking about where our food comes from. This completely dials you in to the locavore movement, and just enjoying cooking/gardening again or in a new light. A great read for anyone who cares about what they put in their body!

#Don t Believe the Hype (2008-10-27) While the author makes many valid points about the benefits of consuming locally grown food, she is guilty of one (literally) fatal error: eating animals for food is neither necessary nor healthy for humans, the environment, or, of course, the animals themselves. Moving from a vegetarian diet to a flesh-based diet is not progress, either physically or spiritually, and teaching children that slaughterhouses are bad, yet killing and eating animals whom they know is perfectly acceptable, is unconscionable. Not only is our flesh-based diet destroyi...

#Terrific book! (2008-10-24) Barbara Kingsolver has struck a wonderful balance among educating readers about gardening, slow food, food science and telling a great tale of a family s adventure of local eating. The recipes are great, too!What a revelation to learn that we have all been anesthetized by the large corporations, whether they be the corporations that produce processed food, or the seed companies with their genetically modified terminator genes in the seeds. I thoroughly enjoyed the book and we have already made changes in our food shopping. Wish this great book were still ...