Book #93: Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

Book #93: Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver (with Steven L. Hopp and Camille Kingsolver)

June 27, 2014


One goal that I have this summer, of course, is to read as many books as I possibly can. My slow pace at reading this particular book is not due to any lack of enjoyment...I loved it, in fact. My reading time has been taken up lately, until a couple of days ago, by my preparation for comps. I'm finished with all that, I have the green light to graduate and get my master's, which is awesome, and now I have several weeks ahead of me of virtually no responsibilities, apart from keeping myself and my dog alive.

Another goal of mine this summer, which I started a few weeks ago, is to drop some weight. I'm 10 pounds down, not bad, and my "ideal" weight is about 25 pounds less than what I weigh now (a number I haven't spent much time at in the last decade). I try to keep it simple when I seek to lose weight, and this time around I've been very lax on the diet, in hopes that, even if I drop weight more slowly, I'll form sustainable habits and be able to keep it off, at long last. Yes, I've yo-yo'ed, and while I've never fallen in to any crazy fad diets, I have limited my calories in the past (or worse, especially as a teenager). This time around, I'm not counting calories. I am trying to be better about the foods that I eat. Between the dieting and my binges on fast food (something I should know to have knocked completely from my diet years ago), I'm committed many food crimes against my body. And, according to this book, to my local economy as well. And so, I'm planning on accomplishing at third goal this summer, inspired by this very book.

So obviously, I'm not like the Kingsolver-Hopps. I don't have access to land to farm on; I don't even have a little patio to keep a modest little vegetable garden on. But I'll admit, for years I've been fascinated by the idea of gardening, especially vegetables, and I know that when I can finally afford a place of my own, with a little yard, that I'll finally start my own garden. But the book has still inspired me to become a more responsible consumer. For Kingsolver, a woman with a family, she was driven to support local foods for the health of her family, and for the future of our economy. For her, it wasn't quite enough just to stick it to the man (in this case, the food corporation); but for me, that's almost motivation enough. For years, I've had a mistrust for greedy corporations; I feel a stab of guilt any time I walk into a certain store whose name rhymes with "doll fart." I love the idea of living the way that the Kingsolver-Hopps do; not entirely self-sufficient, but able to get by on what they can grow and raise and buy from local farmers. But the book, through Kingsolver's suggestions and Hopps's sidebar informational pieces, recommends ways that urban apartment dwellers like myself can still support farms.

I live in Iowa. While there is corporate farming here, there are still a lot of smaller local farms. In my city, there's an indoor farmer's market that runs a few evenings a week, year-round, as well as a big one that runs every other Saturday morning during the summer months that takes up two city blocks. Eating well is within my grasp, and Hopps provided a great plan to get me started:

-First, use the farmer's market as a main source for food. Go without a plan, and buy what's in season.
That's where things get a little tricky for me, though. What's awesome about this book is that Camille, Kingsolver's daughter (she wrote her post-chapter commentaries while she was a freshman or sophomore in college!), provides some great recipes, and apparently there are more on the book's website. I think my next step would be to check out the recipes and find ones that fit with the foods that I'm able to procure.

-Use the grocery store for supplementary items, and try to find ones that are produced in-state or close by, or that are 'fair trade.'
I've been aware for some time, to some extent, of how much of the food in my local grocery is imported from elsewhere, but it didn't disturb me so much until I read this book. The Kingsolver-Hopps "cheated" a little with eating only local products, but not by much; some items were must-haves, while others (like imported bananas), they could do without, and they did.

-Get the necessary equipment to make bread, can and store items, etc.
This is where I get a little intimidated. I think I can do the bread making with a decent bread machine, so I'm excited to take that step. But canning and preserving fruits and vegetables? It's going to take some practice, but I think I'd like to try my hand at it.

So that's my plan for the rest of the summer: move away from purchasing imported foods, and start doing a better job of supporting local farmers. I have the perfect profession for this; it sounded like Kingsolver was busiest in the summer with all the preserving and stuff, but it just made her winter that much easier. Well, my summer just so happens to be pretty free. I just need to get off my ass and stop playing stupid electronic farming games (yup) and actually go out and give some love to real farmers.

I want to make one note about the title of the book. I was repelled by it at first, but as I read the book, I came to appreciate it, and its double-meaning. On the one hand, what the Kingsolver-Hopps did wasn't a "miracle" at all. Raising and growing your own food...that's something people have been doing since before recorded time, after all. But considering the world that we live in today, the America that we live in, it actually is pretty miraculous. They raised turkeys to their second generation; that is unheard of with domestic turkeys. They grew and stored enough food to make it through the winter, and looked forward to another spring of planting and summer and fall of harvesting. And they cut ties with greedy corporate food, which wastes fuel, kills species of vegetables, and pumps the remaining full of chemicals. Geez, and I thought eating fast food was bad enough. The world, as it is described in this book, is scary and accurate, and kind of world that I don't want to raise a family in. But Kingsolver is optimistic; she loves her daughters, and they both love vegetables. She sees that as a hopeful sign, that the world can be changed in a positive way. I want to believe that, too.