Rating: 4 stars
Cover Synopsis: Barbara Kingsolver and her family sweep readers along on their journey away from the industrial-food pipeline to a rural life in which they vow to buy only food raised in their own neighborhood, grow it themselves, or learn to live without it.
I've often thought about whether I could survive if our nation's food transporation system were interrupted, due to war, natural disaster or other drastic event. Here is a manual.
I grew up in a home where gardening, canning and storing were a part of life. Our backyard was packed with fruit trees, and the rest of the yard was a huge vegetable garden. Plus, I married a man who is a gardening genius. So this book wasn't entirely foreign (I did know that potatoes have above-ground plants attached), but it was fascinating to learn more about the food seasons and how to survive around them. The beauty of this, though, is that Kingsolver and her family don't just survive, they live quite well.
The book does meander a bit into tangents, and the family does cheat on a few things (they still buy international coffee, for example) but for the most part it's an interesting look at our nation's industrial food system, and what I can do -- even in small steps -- to decrease my dependence on it, and increase my self sustainability.
