Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: Our Year of Seasonal Eating

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It’s a lot to think about. And you’re probably wondering what you can do about it. Sure, you can buy organic, but what if you could know the source of your food? Or better yet, what if your garden could be that source? Most of us have lived in the city for so long we don’t actually know a lot about food creation. A lot of our foods have additives we can’t pronounce, or are genetically modified. For the most part, we don’t even think about local farmers. In each chapter, Kingsolver uses stories of her family’s experiences to explore larger cultural issues that have led them to conduct the experiment in the first place. For example, she shows the difficult transition and change in mindset required to eat local to reveal how much waste the current food industry contributes to, as the year-round transport of food is a global phenomenon. You’ve also probably heard about genetically modified food or GMOs. These are plants that are genetically modified to increase production. Maybe you’d like to avoid them, but you are probably eating them unknowingly since they are widely used and not required to be labeled as such. Lesson 2: If we start early in the spring and are diligent, we can have a plentiful summer harvest.

If you start potatoes early, by April they can be ready to harvest. Spring is a great time to plant onions, peas, spinach, cabbage, broccoli, kale, and more. Use these to take advantage of fresh spring salads. Kingsolver’s family undertakes this experiment out of a growing concern for the planet and the massive fuel waste and pollution that results from the current food industry. Additional concerns, such as the relative health concerns associated with processed foods and the inhumane treatment of conventionally farmed animals, contribute to this decision. Notably, the entire family agrees to take on this challenge, and all contribute to the growing and preparing of food throughout the year. Barbara Kingsolver wrote most of the book herself, but her husband, Steven L. Hopp, and elder daughter, Camille, also contribute essays throughout. In this way, the book, like the central experiment in eating local, is a family affair. If you’re ready for better tasting, healthier, and more environmentally friendly food, it’s time to start growing it yourself. Kingsolver gives a plan that will help you have your own veggies all year long. March is the time to start planting. You can start indoors if it’s too cold to plant outside and transplant them later.She does understand that not everyone has the space for a huge garden. But, for example, if you live in the city, you can use a balcony as a place to plant vegetables and herbs to add to your plate. She believes all of it have it within us a desire to grow and cultivate our own food as our ancestors once did. Factory farms” have been exposed for their horrific treatment of animals, yet when we see the more expensive price of the organic meat, we choose to keep buying meat that comes from these sources. The reason organic meats are more expensive is simple: these animals were treated and fed better. Harvesting an animal implies respect because it requires planning and making the animal’s life as good as possible before it’s slaughtered. Sentence-Summary: Animal, Vegetable, Miracle gives ways to improve your health and the environment by learning how to garden, cook, and eat more fruits and vegetables.

Kingsolver encourages all of us, even if we can’t grow everything we eat, to start doing what we can to source our own food. Many bright people are really in the dark about vegetable life. Biology teachers face kids in classrooms who may not even believe in the metamorphosis of bud to flower to fruit and seed, but rather, some continuum of pansies becoming petunias becoming chrysanthemums; that's the only reality they witness as landscapers come to campuses and city parks and surreptitiously yank out one flower before it fades from its prime, replacing it with another. The same disconnection from natural processes may be at the heart of our country's shift away from believing in evolution. In the past, principles of natural selection and change over time made sense to kids who'd watched it all unfold. Whether or not they knew the terms, farm families understood the processes well enough to imitate them: culling, selecting, and improving their herds and crops. For modern kids who intuitively believe in the spontaneous generation of fruits and vegetables in the produce section, trying to get their minds around the slow speciation of the plant kingdom may be a stretch.” Growing your own food is a great way to encourage you to prepare your own meals, which will help you be healthier and save money. Cooking your own food can be therapeutic and forces you to think more about what you’re putting into your body. Lesson 3: Autumn is the time for meat and preparing for winter.This doesn’t mean we don’t want to eat locally or make sure our food is clean, sometimes we just make the easier choice. Supermarkets have all the food we need, all in one place, and at a cheap price. Often we forget about the effect this has. Most people don’t. This disconnection from the source of the food we consume has allowed for some pretty unhealthy and unethical things to happen to our food, which is now mostly mass-produced. Something that was a little harder for Kingsolver and her family to do was harvesting their animals come fall. t can be a pretty controversial process, but she talks about how it can be done with respect. As the year wears on, the family confronts challenges—like if they can find any fruit in winter—but also find that some of the problems they expect do not happen. For example, January and February, the “hungry months,” are not in fact hungry; there is still plenty of food around.