I started reading a book the other day that has seriously impacted my life, and I’m only on chapter 3.
The book is “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle” by Barbara Kingsolver. I bought it last Wednesday for a book club discussion on Friday. It didn’t matter that I hadn’t finished the book in time for the discussion, because there’s plenty to talk about after just the first few pages.
The book is Kingsolver’s nonfiction account of the year she and her family decided to only eat local, in season foods. She begins the book by talking about the food industry in our nation — the single crop farms that grow only corn and soybeans to be added into just about everything, the synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, genetic modification and a conversion of farming from naturally based to a highly mechanized production system.
Kingsolver says that U.S. farmers now produce 3,900 calories per U.S. citizen, per day — twice what we need and 700 calories a day more than they grew in 1980. On top of that, 85 cents of every food dollar we pay goes to the processors, marketers and transporters — not the farmers. Her point is that the land will not be able to sustain this, and the farmers can’t afford to keep it up either.
So Monday, I started digging up a small section of our yard for a vegetable garden — something I’ve avoided doing for years. (I’m not really a gardener). Yesterday, I planted tomatoes, beans, peas, cucumbers, zucchini, peppers and melon. Jonah helped me, and I’m hoping in having a hand it the effort — he may actually end up eating a vegetable or two. (If the squirrels don’t eat them all first).
I also had my husband buy organic milk the other day at — gasp — double the price that we usually pay for milk. My neighbor buys organic, and I’ve always thought she was nuts. But then I started reading the book. I know now that that more of the cost will go to the farmer and, hopefully, less additives and hormones will go into my children.
And today, I’m going to go to our local farmer’s market for the first time ever. I’m actually kind of excited.
I’m hoping my small efforts will make a difference. It won’t change the planet or send a big message but, according to Kingsolver, I’m joining what could be called a movement toward a genuine food culture — where there is an affinity between people and the land that feeds them.