Animal, Vegetable, Miracle- My Non-Fiction Novel

Do you know what you eat? Do you realize what your food does to you? In Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, she discusses her unique one year nutritional journey in the southern Appalachians. Her entire family and she decided to take a bold step in food consciousness by only eating local food for a year. This eye-opening book reveals the plight of food companies and the benefits of eating locally. The genetic modification forced onto fruits, vegetables, and meats to survive long travels is a source of nutritional deficit. In several parts of her book, Barbara Kingsolver implies the taste superiority in local foods and the benefits they bring to our environment. Overall, this was an eye opening non-fiction read that truly informed me on the United States' food corporations.

Barbara Kingsolver's novel was very uniquely written. Throughout her book she presented small articles on relevant nutritional facts or local food producers contacts. With every point she made, Kingsolver would use "How to Find a Farmer" and "The Price of Life" by Steven L. Hopp to enforce her point and inform the reader. In addition, Kingsolver included in each chapter at least one article written by her own daughter, Camille Kingsolver. Each anecdote related to the month or subject at hand rendering the book into a beautiful whole.

Each chapter represented a month with its beautiful difficulties and rewards. Times such as March presented challenges with the beginning of the harvest; only a meager handful of green onions and meats were attainable. In the August chapter, the tomato and squash plight occurred. Kingsolver would spend days chopping, cooking, and canning these vegetables to use over the winter. Each chapter had its own personality and provided a unique piece of information.

Overall, this book did a great job at presenting information. The author took care in using her own personal experiences to expose and teach the reader. For example, Kingsolver explained explicitly the details of grocery store foods. All year, California sends millions of pounds of fruits and vegetables all over the United States. This provides U.S. citizens vegetables that are normally out of season onto the food provider shelves. In the middle of winter when no tomato sprout would dare speak its name, you will find ripe and shiny red tomatoes in your grocery store. Unless you live in California, this fruit was shipped to you from thousands of miles away --and if you didn't know, tomatoes aren't in season in December--. This all-year-round process consumes a lot of energy. By buying these shipped goods, you consume gallons of petroleum. Over 10% of our oil intake is used for food transportation. In this way, Kingsolver took care in well informing the reader.

Although the author does take many stern opinions throughout the book, the reality of the situation still stands; global warming isn't a question of if anymore but when. In her humble opinion, if you can avoid wasting energy by eating only local foods all year like she did, do it. But if you can't, do your best. Try to eat more locally. Recycle a bit more. Buy a hybrid. Bike to work. "This (global warming) is a now-or-never kind of project"(345). Barbara Kingsolver's ultimate point was very clear in the end. She has tried to help the world. Maybe if we all tried, we could save this earth from a less catastrophic outcome and give us more time on this spinning block. This was an eye opening book.