100 Books Like Food First

This is an oldie but a goldie. Written in 1962, it helped me understand why we are in the corrupt, red-hot mess we are in in terms of the food and climate crisis. It gave me a historical lens on why we are getting sicker, why the land is struggling, and why so many creatures are becoming extinct.

Rachel was slammed for this book at the time, and I feel we need to resurrect her and give her a platform and time in the sunshine to change our modern-day madness. At first, I had to listen in ‘grabs’ because the content was so utterly disturbing. We didn’t listen then! She cites so many actions by government agencies that sanctioned deadly chemicals sprayed over everything and everyone… and it’s happening today with increasing vigor because corporations wield so much power! After listening to the audio, I read the hard copy—it gives… show more.

I appreciated the author’s voice as a farmer speaking from experience and from the heart. Writing from his tiny farm, Fukuoka pushes back with flair against emerging agro-food paradigms.

I also found this book to be a window into mid-20th century Japan, a culture and period I simply did not know much about. Perhaps the best part of the book is the author's withering rants against industrial, modern agriculture. 

This book opened me up to how our food system and modern agribusiness work.

I read this while in between my studies in horticulture and agriculture. I was so taken by the book that I sought him out. I discovered that he was teaching organic horticulture at a small college down the coast near Santa Cruz. I went there and studied horticulture in his class. I gained a great deal of knowledge from him. He was a valuable resource.

This book is a primer on the Biodynamic/French Intensive method of growing. Although it is a bit too scientific for me with lots of data, it was the only thing written on the subject. It walked me through the method and offered easy concepts on how to adapt to this system of growing.

I later was able to visit and work at Alan Chadwick’s Garden at the University of California Santa Cruz, which changed my whole approach to growing. Jeavon’s method is an adulterated version of what he learned from Alan Chadwick, yet remarkably effective.

Farmer and author Wendell Berry is a personal hero of mine. From his home in Kentucky, Berry has been writing about regenerative agriculture for decades. The Art of the Commonplace gathers together twenty of his best essays. They articulate a compelling vision for people dissatisfied with the stress, anxiety, disease, and destructiveness of contemporary life. Berry is also the author of numerous works of poetry and fiction.

I love this book as it illustrates the importance of developing a great love, appreciation, and understanding of what you study to make significant advances in your field.

Lockwood's passion and beauty for what he studies (grasshoppers) is delightfully shared. If this same passion and beauty for learning were shared by those who help others learn, our world would greatly benefit.  

The course I took from Paul Shepard in college was one of the most thought-provoking courses I ever experienced. Find an image of the original cover of the book and you'll see what I mean—it's a strange synthesis of a post-modern bow hunter emerging from his paleo ancestor. Shepard contends that the key to understanding human happiness is recognizing that we are genetically hunters and gatherers living in a post-modern age. Reclaiming our hunting and gathering impulses will help us lead fuller lives. He does a fascinating job, in this book, of describing what hunting and gathering culture childhoods looked like and then suggesting how we should parent our children with these old genetic impulses in mind. 

Any reading on nature spirits has to include a book or two from the Findhorn community or Dorothy Maclean - one of its founders and plant spirit communicator. I recommend this one as it contains not only insights from many plant devas and landscape devas, but a broad overview of the formation of the Findhorn Community itself - which occurred in direct communication and cocreation with the plant devas themselves. A fascinating and eye-opening read. 

Twelve-year-old Emmaline and her mother are desperate for help with their farm and agree to take on Angus who has just been released from a hospital for patients with mental illness. At first they have the same fears and prejudice as people in town, but they come to learn that Angus is gentle and extremely knowledgeable. Thanks to him they have the best crop they’ve ever had. The most heroic point in the story is when one of the locals, Harry Record, leaves Angus far from town during a snowstorm with the expectation he will die. But as Angus struggles for safety he finds Harry’s little boy who was accidentally stranded in the storm and near death and gets him to the hospital in time to save his life. 

Quote: "That man is from the mental, stay away from him." 

This book was lovely to read because it was written… show more.

While several books have been written about the horrors of industrial livestock production, none have moved me more than Blanchette’s Porkopolis.

With unforgettable stories and startling photographs, Blanchette details how workers perform all manner of intimate tasks to make industrial pigs reproduce and stay alive. I also love how he flips common-sense ideas of efficiency on their heads, showing how industrial meat production is anything but wasteful. Every bit of those pigs is used somewhere to the extent you wish they weren’t.

I have taught this book three times in my politics of food classes, and it never fails to blow my students away.