Monday, September 28, 2009
Monday, September 14, 2009
7 Sustainable End of Summer Reads
[[[c&p'ed from Food Democracy Now: http://www.fooddemocracynow.org/?p=482]]]
It’s that time of year when many are enjoying the ripe harvest of summer gardens and a bounty of fresh fruits and vegetables from farmers markets across the country. In the tradition of supporting a sustainable food future, here at Food Democracy Now! we’d like to encourage you to enjoy a new crop of dynamic authors that will improve your time between weeding and eating locally sourced, organic meals with family and friends.
If you’ve already devoured Wendell Berry’s The Unsettling of America and plowed through Michael Pollan’s In Defense of Food, it’s time that you added some new books by today’s leading food policy advocates to your diet.
We’re glad to recommend the following new books by these insightful authors:
1. Recipe for America: Why Our Food System is Broken and What We Can Do to Fix It – by Jill Richardson
First on our list is Jill Richardson’s Recipe for America; the perfect read if you’re looking for a quick history of our nation’s food system, some of the major problems American’s face when looking for a healthy, affordable meal and a list of solutions for creating a sustainable food system for the 21st century.
To catch up on the latest in food policy or a great recipe, you can follow Jill over at her blog – La Vida Locavore, where Jill has some of the best, most up to date commentary on food politics around.
Never one to miss a story or pull a punch, over at La Vida Locavore, Jill leads a pack of opinionated food policy wonks as they scour America’s food system, keeping watch on corporate ag and looking for local, organic and sustainable solutions.
2. Deeply Rooted: Unconventional Farmers in the Age of Agribusiness – by Lisa Hamilton
In Deeply Rooted, Hamilton takes her readers on a lush journey into the heart of sustainable agriculture with farmers and ranchers who have challenged today’s commodity system by adopting organic and sustainable farming methods that enrich the land and renew rural communities while providing an honest living for their families.
Learn about the life, struggles and joys of sustainable agriculture by following the work of an African American dairy farmer in eastern Texas who marvels at his ancestors’ ability to carve out a place in the segregated south, follow a 10th generation Latino cattle rancher in New Mexico whose family once owned 40,000 acres and then read the story of two white wheat farmers in North Dakota who turn their backs on the extractive practices of commodity agriculture.
If you want to see pictures of hope in our current food system, Hamilton’s Deeply Rooted is a must read for capturing both the vision of these brave farmers and the rich lands that they inhabit and cultivate with such care.
3. Food Matters: A Guide to Conscious Eating – by Mark Bittman
So this summer’s big hit, Food Inc., got you thinking about how your food was grown – what next? Fortunately for those concerned about how to eat for health and at the same time protect the environment and stop global warming, author Mark Bittman’s Food Matters was released just in time for you to put your money where your mouth is.
In Food Matters, Bittman not only describes how modern food production is creating a record obesity epidemic, climate change and a health care crisis, he provides simple solutions to these weighty problems.
On Planet Bittman – if you know what’s good for you and Mother Earth – you should consume less processed foods and industrial animal products and eat more whole, plant-based foods.
As a legendary food writer at The New York Times, Bittman has coaxed millions of readers back into the kitchen with his simple recipes and no-nonsense style, reminding us that cooking can benefit our sense of home and community, while also improving our health.
Bottom Line: If you want to save the world – change how you eat. Once you devour Food Matters, you can follow Bittman on the conscious eater’s journey over at his NYT blog Bitten or watch his popular cooking videos at the Minimalist.
4. Righteous Porkchop: Finding a Life and Good Food Beyond Factory Farms – by Nicolette Hahn Niman
Join Nicolette Hahn Niman as she recounts her perilous adventures in uncovering the worst and best in American animal agriculture today.
Niman begins as a hesitant environmental attorney on assignment for Bobby Kennedy, Jr.’s Waterkeeper Alliance and uncovers pollution, abuse and corruption in America’s factory farm system only to find refuge and love in the arms of Bill Niman, founder of Niman Ranch, one of America’s leading naturally raised meat companies that raises its animals humanely and without artificial hormones or antibiotics.
For those looking to learn more about how the meat on their table is produced, Righteous Porkchop is a great read, offering hope and redemption at the end of a long, dark tunnel. Please note: two of our friends and favorite farmers are featured prominently in this story as well, Niman Ranch Pork Company founder, Paul Willis and his lovely wife Phyllis.
5. The Unhealthy Truth: How Our Food Is Making Us Sick and What We Can Do About It – by Robyn O’Brien
Robyn O’Brien began her discovery of America’s food system when her youngest daughter had an allergic reaction to something as common as eggs. Using her skills as an MBA educated equity analyst and her motherly instincts, O’Brien investigated how the food that Americans are feeding their children may be the single largest factor making them sick.
In The Unhealthy Truth, O’Brien lays bare the facts on the relationship between America’s industrial food system and the sharp rise of childhood epidemics that have seen allergies rise 400%, asthma over 300%, and ADHD over 400%, while the number of children with autism-spectrum disorders explode between 1,500% and 6,000% over the past 20 years.
To understand how America’s children are potentially being fed toxic foods and what you can do about it, read The Unhealthy Truth and learn about one mother’s heroic struggle to find a solution to our nation’s industrial food system.
6. The No-Nonsense Guide to World Food – by Wayne Roberts
If you’re looking for a quick read about the global food system, The No-Nonsense Guide to World Food is a great entry point to understanding the major problems caused by the industrialization of our food supply. Join Wayne Roberts, a leading public health policy analyst as he details the systematic problems caused by cheap food policies and the bold efforts taken by nations such as Brazil, Cuba and Malawi, among others, to meet the serious challenges of feeding a country’s population while enriching both farmers and the land.
For the past several decades Roberts had led the charge for a healthier, more sustainable food supply, serving on the board of the Community Food Security Coalition and Food Secure Canada and coordinating the internationally respected Toronto Food Policy Council.
Readers will find hope in his insights as he tells the story of how Cuba created an organic agriculture revolution when the Soviet Union withdrew its monetary aid and cheap oil and how the President of Malawi changed his nation’s destiny when he rejected foreign food aid and bought fertilizer for local farmers instead.
In telling these stories, Roberts exposes the warning signs that may await U.S. agriculture in the 21st century, as farmers struggle to cope with looming energy and water shortages and the realities of climate change. Fortunately, solutions to these problems have already been explored.
7. Inquiries into the Nature of Slow Money: Investing as if Food, Farms, and Fertility Mattered – by Woody Tasch
For the past 300 years laissez-faire capitalism has been moving along at a ferocious pace. Offering a unique prescription for Western civilization’s economic practices of extractive and exploitive capitalism, Tasch, who founded the Slow Money Alliance, believes that more can be achieved by adopting restorative economics.
Rather than sit back and watch the mythical invisible hand, Tasch calls on individuals, business leaders, investors, NGOs, farmers and consumers to actively work together to build an economy where things as important as soil and individuals are not expendable.
If you want to join a movement that helps revitalize America by rebuilding our communities, our soil and our relationship with the planet by fostering a new economic vision that respects nature and humanity then Slow Money is the place to start.
It’s that time of year when many are enjoying the ripe harvest of summer gardens and a bounty of fresh fruits and vegetables from farmers markets across the country. In the tradition of supporting a sustainable food future, here at Food Democracy Now! we’d like to encourage you to enjoy a new crop of dynamic authors that will improve your time between weeding and eating locally sourced, organic meals with family and friends.
If you’ve already devoured Wendell Berry’s The Unsettling of America and plowed through Michael Pollan’s In Defense of Food, it’s time that you added some new books by today’s leading food policy advocates to your diet.
We’re glad to recommend the following new books by these insightful authors:
1. Recipe for America: Why Our Food System is Broken and What We Can Do to Fix It – by Jill Richardson
First on our list is Jill Richardson’s Recipe for America; the perfect read if you’re looking for a quick history of our nation’s food system, some of the major problems American’s face when looking for a healthy, affordable meal and a list of solutions for creating a sustainable food system for the 21st century.
To catch up on the latest in food policy or a great recipe, you can follow Jill over at her blog – La Vida Locavore, where Jill has some of the best, most up to date commentary on food politics around.
Never one to miss a story or pull a punch, over at La Vida Locavore, Jill leads a pack of opinionated food policy wonks as they scour America’s food system, keeping watch on corporate ag and looking for local, organic and sustainable solutions.
2. Deeply Rooted: Unconventional Farmers in the Age of Agribusiness – by Lisa Hamilton
In Deeply Rooted, Hamilton takes her readers on a lush journey into the heart of sustainable agriculture with farmers and ranchers who have challenged today’s commodity system by adopting organic and sustainable farming methods that enrich the land and renew rural communities while providing an honest living for their families.
Learn about the life, struggles and joys of sustainable agriculture by following the work of an African American dairy farmer in eastern Texas who marvels at his ancestors’ ability to carve out a place in the segregated south, follow a 10th generation Latino cattle rancher in New Mexico whose family once owned 40,000 acres and then read the story of two white wheat farmers in North Dakota who turn their backs on the extractive practices of commodity agriculture.
If you want to see pictures of hope in our current food system, Hamilton’s Deeply Rooted is a must read for capturing both the vision of these brave farmers and the rich lands that they inhabit and cultivate with such care.
3. Food Matters: A Guide to Conscious Eating – by Mark Bittman
So this summer’s big hit, Food Inc., got you thinking about how your food was grown – what next? Fortunately for those concerned about how to eat for health and at the same time protect the environment and stop global warming, author Mark Bittman’s Food Matters was released just in time for you to put your money where your mouth is.
In Food Matters, Bittman not only describes how modern food production is creating a record obesity epidemic, climate change and a health care crisis, he provides simple solutions to these weighty problems.
On Planet Bittman – if you know what’s good for you and Mother Earth – you should consume less processed foods and industrial animal products and eat more whole, plant-based foods.
As a legendary food writer at The New York Times, Bittman has coaxed millions of readers back into the kitchen with his simple recipes and no-nonsense style, reminding us that cooking can benefit our sense of home and community, while also improving our health.
Bottom Line: If you want to save the world – change how you eat. Once you devour Food Matters, you can follow Bittman on the conscious eater’s journey over at his NYT blog Bitten or watch his popular cooking videos at the Minimalist.
4. Righteous Porkchop: Finding a Life and Good Food Beyond Factory Farms – by Nicolette Hahn Niman
Join Nicolette Hahn Niman as she recounts her perilous adventures in uncovering the worst and best in American animal agriculture today.
Niman begins as a hesitant environmental attorney on assignment for Bobby Kennedy, Jr.’s Waterkeeper Alliance and uncovers pollution, abuse and corruption in America’s factory farm system only to find refuge and love in the arms of Bill Niman, founder of Niman Ranch, one of America’s leading naturally raised meat companies that raises its animals humanely and without artificial hormones or antibiotics.
For those looking to learn more about how the meat on their table is produced, Righteous Porkchop is a great read, offering hope and redemption at the end of a long, dark tunnel. Please note: two of our friends and favorite farmers are featured prominently in this story as well, Niman Ranch Pork Company founder, Paul Willis and his lovely wife Phyllis.
5. The Unhealthy Truth: How Our Food Is Making Us Sick and What We Can Do About It – by Robyn O’Brien
Robyn O’Brien began her discovery of America’s food system when her youngest daughter had an allergic reaction to something as common as eggs. Using her skills as an MBA educated equity analyst and her motherly instincts, O’Brien investigated how the food that Americans are feeding their children may be the single largest factor making them sick.
In The Unhealthy Truth, O’Brien lays bare the facts on the relationship between America’s industrial food system and the sharp rise of childhood epidemics that have seen allergies rise 400%, asthma over 300%, and ADHD over 400%, while the number of children with autism-spectrum disorders explode between 1,500% and 6,000% over the past 20 years.
To understand how America’s children are potentially being fed toxic foods and what you can do about it, read The Unhealthy Truth and learn about one mother’s heroic struggle to find a solution to our nation’s industrial food system.
6. The No-Nonsense Guide to World Food – by Wayne Roberts
If you’re looking for a quick read about the global food system, The No-Nonsense Guide to World Food is a great entry point to understanding the major problems caused by the industrialization of our food supply. Join Wayne Roberts, a leading public health policy analyst as he details the systematic problems caused by cheap food policies and the bold efforts taken by nations such as Brazil, Cuba and Malawi, among others, to meet the serious challenges of feeding a country’s population while enriching both farmers and the land.
For the past several decades Roberts had led the charge for a healthier, more sustainable food supply, serving on the board of the Community Food Security Coalition and Food Secure Canada and coordinating the internationally respected Toronto Food Policy Council.
Readers will find hope in his insights as he tells the story of how Cuba created an organic agriculture revolution when the Soviet Union withdrew its monetary aid and cheap oil and how the President of Malawi changed his nation’s destiny when he rejected foreign food aid and bought fertilizer for local farmers instead.
In telling these stories, Roberts exposes the warning signs that may await U.S. agriculture in the 21st century, as farmers struggle to cope with looming energy and water shortages and the realities of climate change. Fortunately, solutions to these problems have already been explored.
7. Inquiries into the Nature of Slow Money: Investing as if Food, Farms, and Fertility Mattered – by Woody Tasch
For the past 300 years laissez-faire capitalism has been moving along at a ferocious pace. Offering a unique prescription for Western civilization’s economic practices of extractive and exploitive capitalism, Tasch, who founded the Slow Money Alliance, believes that more can be achieved by adopting restorative economics.
Rather than sit back and watch the mythical invisible hand, Tasch calls on individuals, business leaders, investors, NGOs, farmers and consumers to actively work together to build an economy where things as important as soil and individuals are not expendable.
If you want to join a movement that helps revitalize America by rebuilding our communities, our soil and our relationship with the planet by fostering a new economic vision that respects nature and humanity then Slow Money is the place to start.
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