Rattling the Food Chain

A cornucopia of new books tells us where our food comes from

Posted by Bricolage at 12:15 PM on 31 Aug 2006

The local-food movement is growing like a runaway basil plant these days, and organic has hit the big time thanks to companies from Whole Foods to Wal-Mart. The publishing industry, ever on its toes, has churned out a passel of books in response to the public's hunger for food-related reading. Today, Tom Philpott offers a rundown of some of this year's most lip-smacking tomes.

new in Arts and Minds: Rattling the Food Chain

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Food & Politics 2006: The China Study

I was disappointed not to see Dr. Colin Campbell's landmark 2006 work THE CHINA STUDY on this shortlist. It is not specifically about how our food is produced, but it does strike at the core of the politics of food in America, the myriad health crises (including the cost-of-health-care crisis) directly related to the "great American diet" and ongoing corporate promotion of same, and what we can all do about it right now!

It's past time we all got into the game!

by julieann at 1:14 PM on 31 Aug 2006

food books

"it's a long road to a tomato" by keith stewart is another wonderful book about being an organic farmer and trying to buck the trend. i recommend it.

nurse jules wants to make everyone better. even if they don't know it. or deserve it.

by jules at 7:54 PM on 31 Aug 2006

Rattling the Food Chain

Until the glamor of having a useless, pristine lawn gets overtaken by genuine public interest in devoting the same dedication of time and resources resources to growing your own food instead, the industrial food conglomerate will dictate what the American masses eat.

It may take a wave of either terrorism attacks on our food supply, or a widespread disease similar to mad cow in the vegetable world, to generate this kind of movement.

I've always enjoyed growing my own food; I like knowing what I'm eating, and gardening is akin to religion for me.

by TBiscaia at 8:53 AM on 01 Sep 2006

idea: a wiki on eating locally grown food

Let's build on the momentum generated by these great books by creating an Eat Local Wiki, where we all research and document who is doing what to promote local food in our towns, and on our campuses. Is your school doing enough to serve locally grown food? If so, add it to the eat local wiki and tell everyone how the school does it. If not, write about that too. Do you know of restaurants that strive to serve locally grown food...list 'em! Is there a pod of "localvores" near you -- people who have challenged themselves to eat only locally grown food for a week, a month, three months, etc! List 'em! I've got the very beginning of the wiki going at WikiForGood.org.

Rob

by rberr at 5:18 PM on 05 Sep 2006

Tomatoes Still Great, Think About Canning

It is great to have locally produced food. In order to take advantage of this bounty later on, when the tomatoes lose their flavor, I have canned up some tomato sauce this Labor Day weekend. FIrst time I have done it myself. It was with some sense of pride I added those pint jars of my own tomato sauce to a cool spot under the house. Think I will put up another batch this next weekend as well.

I encourage others to give canning a try.

by ffletcher at 10:50 PM on 05 Sep 2006

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