A Natural History of Four Meals….

This has been one of the slower reads than I have had in a very long time. Normally, I would finish a book in a day or so, but I have been working on this book for over two weeks now, which means I am racking up some hefty late charges.  Our little library was able to find it for me on Interlibrary loan, so that means it cannot be re-checked.

Several times while reading, I have thought to myself, “this would make a great post”…but then I would not stop to actually write the post. Today, something I read made me think of a post from Anita at Prairie Dreams about a couple who were planning to live off-grid and eat locally. She and I have had discussions about how it is somewhat difficult to eat locally in our area partly because there are few CSAs near and mostly because farms in our areas are monocultures of corn, wheat, or soybeans.

I wish to share a paragraph from chapter 13 (my favorite number, by the way) of Michael Pollans’, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, titled The Market, “Greetings from the Non-Barcode People”.
“The supermarket wants all its lettuce from Salinas Valley, all its apples from Washington State, and allits corn from Iowa.  (At least until the day it decideds it wants all its corn from Argentine, al its apples from China, and all its lettuce from Mexico.) People in Iowa can eat only so much corn and soybeans themselves. So when Iowans decide to eat locally, rather from the supermarkets, their farmers will quickly learn to grow a few other things besides. And when they do, they’ll probably find that they can give up most of their fertilizers adn pesticides, since a diversified farm will produce much of its own fertility and its own pest control.”

Throughout the book, Michael Pollan paints vivid imagery of our food chain and its journey to our table. He explores Pokey Feedyards in Garden City, Kansas to view the feedlot process of mass producing beef, which is then counterbalanced with a stay at Polyface Farms in Virginia. Given the choice betwen the two, I choose “clean meat” from Polyface.

What do you think?