Book: Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver

I found this book in the Biography section at Powerbooks and picked it up because I have previously read The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver.  This is about her family's experiment to eat local - i.e. raising, planting the food that they will eat for a whole year, or else buying from local farmers.  I was interested in the concept and was curious about how they were able to manage it.

This book opened with the family moving from Arizona to a farm in Virginia.  Barbara talked about raising chicken and turkey, planting heirloom vegetable breeds, making cheese, etc.  It was all very interesting to me.


While the narrative was good, I appreciate this book more for the ideas that were presented.  We live in a truly global era such that the produce that is grown in one country can easily be made available in other countries.  We enjoy our choices and forget to consider the amount of fuel needed to transport these products to where we are.  We have forgotten the concept of seasonal food because we can get them whenever we want, just because it's in season somewhere in the world.

I've experienced planting/harvesting okra, tomatoes and pechay in my childhood.  We had a yard that also had (and still has) avocado tree, jackfruit, balingbing, guava.  We also raised chicken and pig for some time.  I unfortunately cannot give Neil this experience but I want to take advantage of whatever opportunity I may have to teach my urbanite kid about food origins, that he may have a greater appreciation of the whole process.  Food do not just magically appear in the grocery shelves.

Last Sunday, we attended a wedding at The Mango Farm and I pointed out the mango fruits hanging on the tree to Neil.  Some fruits have fallen to the ground and I picked one up to show him as well.  These things may seem very simple but I hope he starts to get it.

I live in a condo in the city and obviously cannot do anything remotely similar to what the author did but I can be more conscientious about my family's food choices and opt for what will be sustainable in the long run.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Filipino Friday 3: Reading Habits and Book Formats

Image
Reading Habits and Book Formats . Where and how do you read? Can you read anywhere and everywhere, or do you need a certain place/mood/state of mind to get reading? Do you read more in the morning or at night or any minute that you can? Where and how do you usually read? Are you exclusively for print, or do you go for ebooks more than print? Have you ever tried audiobooks? I am old school.  Even as most books now have digital versions, I still prefer the physical, ink-on-paper variety.  I like holding a real book, flipping the pages and being able to see my progress based on the thickness of read/unread pages.  Somehow, I feel more engaged and focused reading a physical book vs. from a gadget. I very rarely reread books so most of my collection just sit on the shelf after I'm done with them.  I feel it's a waste of precious trees if they are not shared with others.  So I started a Google doc at work where the team can list down their collections and anybod...
Read more

Trivia and Reading

Image
I am currently reading The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin and I am inspired.  It’s about the author’s year-long quest to be happier.  It’s purposeful and practical and has lot of tips that I can apply or have started doing. Rubin focused on different areas every month and for May, it was Be Serious About Play.  The author was trying to go back to activities she enjoyed as a child. This led me to also think about a favorite childhood pastime, which was collecting trivia.  The Philippine Daily Inquirer used to run a trivia section by Bong Barrameda and I would religiously cut and paste them onto scratch papers, which I would then collate and read again and again.  Nerd zone! Not only that, I also kept a trivia notebook where I researched and wrote down interesting information like areas of study, capital cities, historical figures, scientists and discoveries, everything!  That was fun for me.  I was about to say they were useless info, ...
Read more

Moonwalking with Einstein by Joshua Foer

Image
There is something to be said for collective recommendations like bestsellers list.  I found this title on such list at Fully Booked, read a few pages and decided to buy it.  I was intrigued by the theme of the book which is memory, specifically, how the author started as a journalist covering the US Memory Championships and ended up as a contender in the finals of the same competition one year later. It claims that with proper training, one's memory can be improved to be at par with the top mental athletes of the world.  Memory training has become an esoteric discipline because we practically do not need to remember a lot these days.  Information is very easy to retrieve from electronic devices and what not.  You just need basic search terms and the Google provides the information you need and more. Photo from Rainy Day Books I have to admit I rely on external memory a lot.  I can recall birthdays of my very close family members but outside of tha...
Read more