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Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle - Week 3
In continuing our discussion of Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, I want to turn to the obstacles that often stand in the way of our choosing to eat sustainably. While it can be easy to read about how other people switched to organic or local food habits, making that transition in our own lives can prove to be a challenge. I have not fully made that transition, but I have learned to do what I can. What I discovered along the way were that there are a number of common obstacles (or excuses depending how one looks at it) that I had to overcome. These included -

1. Information - I had to discover what was good to eat and where I could find it.
2. Cost - I had to adjust how and what I ate in order to pay the full price of the food I was eating.
3. Time - I had to be willing to sacrifice convenience in order to grow, make, and eat sustainably.

In reading Kingsolver's account, the time issue seemed to be the most all consuming factor. Not everyone can grow all of their own food. But they did discover that by putting their own effort into the process they saved significant amounts of money over the course of the year. For them it was all about developing a different perspective and making it work.

What obstacles stand in your way? Are they too big to overcome? What has helped you overcome them?

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posted by Julie at 5:44 PM ¤ Permalink ¤ 6 comments
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle - Week 2
"Take a minute to study this creation – an imaginary plant that bears over the course of one growing season a cornucopia of all the different vegetable products we can harvest. We’ll call it a vegetannual ..."

As Barbara Kingsolver and her family embark on a year of living off the land, they realize that they will be eating whatever the land is offering at that particular time of year. If the asparagus are in season, you eat a lot of asparagus. And for the times of year when the land isn't offering up much food, you prepare ahead by freezing, drying, and canning the harvest grown for just that reason. In December one didn't go to the grocery story and buy a tomato that was picked unripe in South America, shipped thousands of miles in refrigerated storage, and made to look red with ethylene gas that doesn't taste like much of anything. No they ate the fruits of their own garden that had ripened naturally and they had taken the time to preserve for the winter. They ate a much better tasting tomato and didn't waste the transportation gas and refrigeration energy to get it either.

But eating food in season from local sources is not the norm for most Americans. Kingsolver writes, "It had felt arbitrary when we sat around the table with our shopping list, making our rules. It felt almost silly to us in fact, as it may now seem to you. Why impose restrictions on ourselves? Who cares?" Kingsolver advocates the pleasures and ethics of seasonal eating, but she acknowledges that many people would view this as deprivation "because we've grown accustomed to the botanically outrageous condition of having everything always."

Do you believe that American society can—or will— overcome the need for instant gratification in order to be able to eat seasonally? How does Kingsolver present this aspect in Animal, Vegetable, Miracle? Did you get the sense that she and her family ever felt deprived in their eating options? How can eating seasonally be seen as a spiritual discipline?

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posted by Julie at 12:27 PM ¤ Permalink ¤ 4 comments
Tuesday, May 06, 2008
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle - Week 1
Today we start our discussion of Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. Telling the story of her family's experiment at being locavores for a year, this book turns one's thoughts to the food we eat. Kingsolver and her family chose to move to an area where they could connect with the community and the land. Their goal was to grow or raise most of their own food and get the rest as locally as possible. In essence, they took the plunge to put into practice their commitment to sustainability, family, and community. Personally, this was one of the most engaging books I read this past year. I enjoyed her storytelling ability to chronicle their day to day adventures and struggles and still manage to be engaging as they detailed the ecological, economic, and justice reasons for why they chose to do this.

In her own words -
"This is the story of a year in which we made every attempt to feed ourselves animals and vegetables whose provenance we really knew . . . and of how our family was changed by our first year of deliberately eating food produced from the same place where we worked, went to school, loved our neighbors, drank the water, and breathed the air."

For more information about the book and eating local, check out the book's website at www.animalvegetablemiracle.com.


To kick off our discussion, I have a few questions -

- Have you ever considered where your food comes from or done the research to find out?

- Is eating healthy, ethically, and humanely a priority for you as a Christian?

- What do you know about sustainability and eating locally?

I look forward to our discussion this month as we use this narrative to explore these issues.

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posted by Julie at 11:33 AM ¤ Permalink ¤ 8 comments