Category: Books

That rosy tomato perched on your plate in December is at the end of a great journey—not just over land and sea, but across a vast and varied cultural history. This is the territory charted in Fresh. Opening the door of an ordinary refrigerator, it tells the curious story of the quality stored inside: freshness. We want fresh foods to keep us healthy, and to connect us to nature and community. We also want them convenient, pretty, and cheap. Fresh traces our paradoxical hunger to its roots in the rise of mass consumption, when freshness seemed both proof of and an antidote to progress.

Ask children where food comes from, and they’ll probably answer: “the supermarket.” Ask most adults, and their replies may not be much different. Where our foods are raised and what happens to them between farm and supermarket shelf have become mysteries. How did we become so disconnected from the sources of our breads, beef, cheeses, cereal, apples, and countless other foods that nourish us every day?

Logsdon explains historically effective grazing practices and new techniques that have blossomed during the past decade. His narrative is enriched by profiles of successful grass farmers and by his experience as a “contrary farmer” on his own artisan-scale farm.

While this book is often considered a tool for farmers and ranchers, the holistic decision-making process is applicable to personal and business decision-making across the board.

Food Movements Unite! is a collection of essays by food movement leaders from around the world that all seek to answer the perennial political question: What is to be done?

Those are not your grandfather’s potato chips. As debate rages over the costs and benefits of genetically engineered crops, noted agroecologist Miguel Altierilucidly examines some of the issue’s most basic and pressing questions.

Michael Pollan’s Food Rules began with his hunch that the wisdom of our grandparents might have more helpful things to say about how to eat well than the recommendations of science or industry or government. The result was a slim volume of food wisdom that has forever changed how we think about food. The new rules underscore the central teaching of the original Food Rules, which is that eating doesn’t have to be so complicated, and food is as much about pleasure and communion as it is about nutrition and health.