Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life

Book review by Jane
The purpose of this book is to document an effort Ms. Kingsolver and her family made during a year that they pledged to live on foods they either grew themselves or acquired locally. They did decide to make certain exceptions at the start, but kept to the plan otherwise. This idea appealed to me because I recently made some serious changes in my eating habits. It occurred to me through reading this book, that more can be done, and Ms. Kingsolver pointed out some ways that a person who lives in the city can buy locally. They definitely appeared to eat healthy foods in the process.

While this book documented their days, it also is jam packed of information about ecology and biology. In what must be a tradition of this author, it was also full of humor. I say that because I enjoyed her book, The Bean Trees, reviewed on the site. There are laugh out loud passages in the book, and especially funny turkey mating stories.

One thing I can say is that this book made me hungry every time I picked it up. The recipes sound delicious and it seemed like this family had great meals throughout. It made me long to be a better cook and also made me reflect upon the meals we had at home when my kids were younger. The author and her family had a pizza night, and we had a similar night as well. I haven’t made a pizza in years, but just might have a night and invite the kids. The author seems to have a good handle on how food can bring the family together and she goes into explaining how this is so. The book also made me feel somewhat foolish for being part of the machine in which we have lost the knowledge of the seasons to which foods belong. But, no fear, the book goes into great detail, also about when to put seeds into the ground. It is chuck full of information.

There are sections written by Steven Hopp about issues surrounding food production, etc. Camille Kingsolver provides valuable information, recipes, and family antidotes to round off the chapters.

Any person who eats could get valuable information from this book. Why would a family decide to take this approach to eating? I wondered that when I first picked up the book. After reading it, though, it is clear there are many advantages and it also provides a family a chance to contribute to the world we live in. It really did make me think, which I can’t say too many books I read introduce something that dramatically changes the way I think on something. I think part of the reason the book has such an effect is that when things are introduced with humor they tend to stick. The author’s creative writing skills give the biological information a flare and make it interesting.

I recommend this book to anyone interested in where our food comes from or anyone wanting to make some educated decisions about food choices.

Jane.