Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

A Year of Food Life

By: Barbara Kingsolver, Camille Kingsolver, Steven L. Hopp

Narrated by: Barbara Kingsolver, Camille Kingsolver, Steven L. Hopp

Length: 14 hrs and 35 mins

Publisher's summary

When Barbara Kingsolver and her family move from suburban Arizona to rural Appalachia, they take on a new challenge: to spend a year on a locally-produced diet, paying close attention to the provenance of all they consume.

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle follows the family through the first year of their experiment. They find themselves eager to move away from the typical food scenario of American families: a refrigerator packed with processed, factory-farmed foods transported long distances using nonrenewable fuels. In their search for another way to eat and live, they begin to recover what Kingsolver considers our nation's lost appreciation for farms and the natural processes of food production. Americans spend less of their income on food than has any culture in the history of the world, but they pay dearly in other ways: losing the flavors, diversity, and creative food cultures of earlier times. The environmental costs are also high, and the nutritional sacrifice is undeniable: on our modern industrial food supply, Americans are now raising the first generation of children to have a shorter life expectancy than their parents.

Part memoir and part journalistic investigation, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle makes a passionate case for putting the kitchen back at the center of family life and diversified farms at the center of the American diet.

©2007 Barbara Kingsolver (P)2007 HarperCollins Publishers

Critic reviews

"Kingsolver has the ear of a journalist and the accuracy of a naturalist." (Publishers Weekly)

loved everything about this book

Was a great story that I learned a lot from. my family is going to try the 100 mile diet and see how it turns out...

Phenomenal primer on eating well

A very pleasant all-out-from-every-angle warm bath of why to eat well and how--complete with clever, realistic humor. One practically needs a doctorate in grocery shopping to fill their fridge with guilt-free food these days!!! This book helps beginners as well as seasoned vets find the middle way of a healthy diet boot camp. More than anything, the constant break-down of such a complicated subject as the modern diet leaves a very strong echo of conviction that is sure to make even the staunchest "unbeliever" of eating well think twice about every bite--in the most pleasant of ways. If you care about the future of food (a.k.a. are a human being) you owe it to yourself to listen to this pleasant meditation on the most ancient and most basic connection that we have to one another and the earth: Food.

Really interesting

If you could sum up Animal, Vegetable, Miracle in three words, what would they be?

Educational, Enlightning, funny

Have you listened to any of the narrators’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

no

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

no

Any additional comments?

It's a little over the top in some area. its good information to have. She definetely has an agenda. its inspiring as well.

Enjoyable but troubling

I know this book was written a long time ago, but it glorifies a sort of libertarian ideal of independence and “self-reliance” without much interrogation of how this way of life came to be or what its implications are for others. For all the talk of symbiosis and the circle of life, the cottage-core thing is really all about disconnecting, isolating, and letting someone else deal with the struggle that ultimately sustains your bubble. Kingsolver poo-poos buying hamburger grown far away in terrible conditions…Ok. But buying local grass fed beef only creates a separate elite market—it doesn’t dismantle the existing one, and does NOT help the people who have no choice but to depend on the low-end mass market. People with privilege withdrawing and segregating themselves because they don’t like the icky poors’ way of living derails progress for everyone EXCEPT those who can afford and/or are allowed admission into the organic BPA-free clubhouse.

Eye opening

I really enjoyed listening to this book. I'm actually glad that I listened to it instead of reading it--I think listening forced me to slow down and really absorb everything the book says (I tend to read pretty fast). The juxtaposition of the different voices of the authors (Barbara K., Stephen H. and Camille K.) worked very nicely. Some of the points do get repeated a bit throughout the book, which did get a little annoying. However, that did not interfere with my enjoyment.

The book struck such a chord with me. When I was a child, there wasn't so much transportation of produce and I do remember how excited my mother would get when certain things came "in season." This book really brought all that back. I wish I had read this book in August or July, instead of November! I also appreciated the insight into the corporate food industry. The book makes me want to investigate further.

Started out good; but then let me down

I really liked the way the book began; chronicling the year of local food and discussion of the food industry in this country. I started to lose it, however, when she went into making their own cheese and then the tours of some small farmers' operations. It started to get too preachy and seemed to prattle on without the realization that most readers would not be interested in making their own cheese (or sausage or whatever), and she just kept going on about it. Also had a touch of one of the "simple life" books which I have enjoyed in the past, it is true, but I don't expect here because she is a best selling author and presumably well off. I thought the "asides" by the daughter were absolutely not necessary and preachy as well and I have a hard time being preached to by a girl in her teens or early twenties.

Refreshing

This was one of the best audiobooks I have ever listened to. I was so inspired by this book! If we could all follow this path, just think what our future would look like. This is also one of the rare times when the author is the BEST person to narrate. Thank you!

excellent

i can only hope that a trend begins where everyone who reads this book recommends it to ten friends.

interesting book

made me think about our food and where it comes from.

amazing read

This book was awesome. Made me want to go dig in the dirt, plant all kinds of vegetable gardens in my yard, start going to Farmer's Markets, raise chickens, make my own cheese, and never buy meat from commercial farmers again. I have always admired Barbara Kingsolver, but this book gave me insight into her family's resolve to live according to their principles and to make a positive impact on their health and the earth. I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to connect with the earth and make positive changes for their families.