Where does our food come from? How does it get to us? Are organic foods really healthier? What about local foods or growing your own? As a convenience eater, I have to be convinced to give up grabbing a fast food meal and take up cooking. These books are all very entertaining reads about the state of our food today. While walking, I've enjoyed each of these books in audiobook form.
1. The Omnivore's Dilemma
If you only have time for one book, make it this one by Michael Pollan. He explores the origins of food in four different meals: a typical McDonald's meal; a meal of organic ingredients from a Whole Foods Market; a meal of items produced on a small, sustainable farm; and a meal he hunted and gathered himself. It's funny and packed with facts. As he learns, we learn. Above all, we learn there are no easy answers, but it's a book "safe" enough for conservatives, liberals, carnivores and vegetarians. Sit back and enjoy it -- I couldn't stop. Actually, I listened to it while walking. The audiobook is narrated by my favorite reader, Scott Brick. It made me walk to a small u-pick farm for some fresh food.
2. Fast Food Nation
Eric Schlosser tells the story of fast food and of all of the ingredients that go in to a typical fast food meal. You will learn about feed lots, cattle slaughtering processes and potatoes being turned into french fries by a highly mechanized system. Did you know that the typical burger doesn't come from only one animal (as it did 40 years ago), but that it is probably a mixture of bits from 100 different cows? That makes contamination more likely. Some parts of the book reminded me of The Jungle by Sinclair Lewis. Beyond the food, the exploration of how entrepreneurs built fast food empires is fascinating. After this book, I still eat fast food, but I am wiser.3. Animal, Vegetable, Miracle
Barbara Kingsolver moves her family to a small farm in Appalachia, and they spend a year eating only what they can grow or buy from others who produce it locally. We learn about what fresh local food really means to the grower as well as to the meal planner and cook. I think I fell in love with Barbara, because she isn't some urban dilettante playing farm; she is a farm girl returning to her roots. She gives a very fact-based defense of eating meat while vowing never to eat feed lot animals. By the third chapter, I was buying more patio pots to grow more of my own salad greens and was thankful I could buy a CSA farm share. I don't think my neighbors will let me raise chickens, though.4. The Botany of Desire
Michael Pollan is at it again with another fascinating book I couldn't put down. Are plants exploiting us as much as we are exploiting them? He takes a deeper look at apples, tulips, potatoes and marijuana to see how we have changed them and they have changed us. You get a great history romp and learn eye-popping facts. You also realize that the simple things we eat or appreciate for their beauty are complex organisms that use their chemical wiles to seduce us into helping their species spread. Danger: You may turn into a know-it-all given to lecturing about each apple tree you encounter. The read is worth the risk, though.5. Reefer Madness: Sex, Drugs, and Cheap Labor in the American Black Market
The "cheap labor" chapters of this Eric Schlosser book relates to edible agriculture (strawberries). That portion is highly enlightening about how our food is grown on "big agriculture" farms and how it relies upon migrant laborers who enter the US illegally. There are no easy answers. I harvested my neighbor's strawberries and blackberries professionally from ages 6 to 14. I saw firsthand that the laws against local child labor (enacted after I was an adult) forced even small farmers to rely on a migrant workforce. The results look a lot like slavery. This book may help urban dwellers think deeper about who grows and harvests their food and think twice about laws that disrupt rural traditions.
