The Locavore’s Bookshelf: The Omnivore’s Dilemma

Everyone is reading Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Naturaly History of Four Meals, and talking about it. And, everywhere you go in the media, Michael Pollan is there, talking about the ethics of eating. It seems that I cannot open a newspaper, magazine or look at a blog without Pollan’s name, book, byline or […]

The Locavore’s Bookshelf: Holy Cows and Hog Heaven

This self-published book, subtitled, The Food Buyer’s Guide to Farm Friendly Food, by Joel Salatin is probably one of the most important books a locavore can own. In a mere 129 pages, Salatin, the self-described Christian libertarian environmentalist capitalist farmer of Polyface Farm in Swoope, Virginia, explains the hows and whys of supporting local farmers […]

The Locavore’s Bookshelf: What to Eat

When Marion Nestle sets out to write a consumer’s guide to food, she doesn’t mess around. She writes a big ole doorstop of a book, filled with facts and figures and some more facts and figures, and if you get tired of them, she throws a few more facts your way. The woman is a […]

The Locavore’s Bookshelf: The $64 Tomato

When I started this series of book reviews last August, I chose titles that I assumed folks who wanted to eat locally would want to know about, including Brian Halweil’s Eat Here and Gary Paul Nabhan’s Coming Home to Eat. Both of these books are specifically about local foodsheds and the process by which individuals […]

The Locavore’s Bookshelf: Organic, Inc.

Samuel Fromartz’ excellent and well-researched book, subtitled, Natural Foods and How They Grew, takes a look at the rise of organic foods from its its infancy as a niche agricultural method practiced by a very few who were often laughed off as cranks and crackpots, to the continually growing, increasingly corporate sector of the food […]