Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

Animal, Vegetable , Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver is my new favorite book. I don't get much chance to read a book through but I "listen" to them in the car while I drive all day for work. I had listened to this one earlier in the year and I just re-listened to the whole thing and I love it even more. This is one that got me motivated to do the garden. She is an award winning writer who decided to write about her family's experience homesteading and eating mostly local foods in western Virginia. They moved from Tucson where things don't grow easily to the lush mountains of Appalachia. They gave up things that they could not find locally like bananas and mostly ate what they grew themselves or bought from local sources. It took them about a year to get the resources set up and they started the next spring. They even raised their own chickens for eggs and meat and started a flock of heirloom turkeys for the meat. Parts of the book are very funny like when her turkey hen started to woo her husband since they imprinted on humans as their "family". It also explained the current politics and growing practices of the 99% of our current food supply. Most of which I already new was bad for the planet and for people. It turns out that the majority of food grown conventionally (with pesticides, herbicides, growth hormones, antibiotics, and herbivore meat animals forced to eat other animal remnants) is much, much less nutrient forcing us to take supplements to meet our nutritional needs. Like regular eggs have a lot of cholesterol and saturated fats. But free range (not the same as cage free, believe it or not) chickens produce eggs with more of the good cholesterol and unsaturated fats and are naturally high in omega 3 oils ( I used to wonder how they got those omega 3s into the egg with cartons labeled "higher in omega 3s").

I have to say that we are really enjoying our garden produce and are already planning for the fall garden. This book is well written as are all her books and was a big inspiration to getting out there and just doing it. My new prescription of Nasonex also helped since I don't have the side effects of allergies like I did last summer. I would even think of getting a few hens for the eggs but I think at this point that would be biting off more than I can chew. Maybe when I "really" go part time. She also has a nice little website with meal ideas and recipes.