xsBusiness - Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life (P.S.)

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Manufacturer: Harper Perennial

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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 641.0973
EAN: 9780060852566
ISBN: 0060852569
Label: Harper Perennial
Manufacturer: Harper Perennial
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 400
Publication Date: 2008-05-01
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Release Date: 2008-04-29
Studio: Harper Perennial

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Spotlight customer reviews:

Customer Rating:

Summary: A guide to change your eating
Comment: Barbara Kingsolver uses her very readable style to encourage us all on a journey to understand the effects of the standard American diet on our own health as well as the health of the earth. This book is a fun and heart-touching read that also contains great recipes and short insightful inserts regarding the negative impacts of the US agricultural and food production system. The authors provide hope that personal choice in selecting locally grown and natural whole foods can positively impact our future. It helped me make the move to a more healthy lifestyle. This book will also make a great gift for family and friends.

Customer Rating:

Summary: Great theme, Interesting Topics are sometimes lost in the Preaching
Comment: As some of the reviewers write, I, too, believe that the premise of this book is a good one - eat local - however, there has to be a better way to present this book than through a preachy tone. I kept reading, but also kept putting the book down, which is unusual for me.

Our family tested our gardening skills this year and have grander plans for next year, albeit nothing like Ms. Kingsolver's foray. I kept reading this book because Ms. Kingsolver would throw in some really good information on certain topics (it would have been nice if she had created a plant chart as an appendix). The recipes were interesting to look at, but I'll probably only try one or two of them because it looks like I like a much spicier dish than Ms. Kingsolver's family (or maybe the spices were allowed because they weren't locally grown?). Apparently they are available on the book website, so you don't need to buy the book if you want to see the recipes.

Cheese-making is something I'd like to explore thanks to reading this book. I might try adding to my bread ingredients too, thanks to Ms. Kingsolver's husband.

So, all in all, I thought the book was interesting because I already was in the position to want to try some of the things that Ms. Kingsolver's family did. However, Ms. Kingsolver's presentation comes out very preachy, so those who just want to read the book for entertainment may find it too tedious.

Customer Rating:

Summary: Too much preaching
Comment: How to rate this book was difficult as there were portions that I enjoyed. But by the time the friend came to visit from Arizona and I heard again about the waste of gas to bring food I felt I had been preached to too much. A shortened version of this book would be better.

Customer Rating:

Summary: Local is better
Comment: This book is very inspiring for those who are unaware or unclear about how much buying produce from far away affects our environment, our farmers and biodiversity. I loved it, and starting following the principles - they make sense.

Customer Rating:

Summary: I love this book!
Comment: Barbara Kingsolver is such a fluid writer and as this book chronicles her families' year eating only locally grown foods, I was inspired to change the way I gather, prepare and consume our meals. I probably couldn't do right now what they did for a year but I am inspired and the recipes she shared were all very very good.

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Editorial Reviews:

Author Barbara Kingsolver and her family abandoned the industrial-food pipeline to live a rural life—vowing that, for one year, theyd only buy food raised in their own neighborhood, grow it themselves, or learn to live without it. Part memoir, part journalistic investigation, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle is an enthralling narrative that will open your eyes in a hundred new ways to an old truth: You are what you eat.