Comments on: The Locavore’s Bookshelf: Real Food

By: I like Nina. I do. « The Cleaner Plate Club

I like Nina. I do. « The Cleaner Plate Club — Tue, 22 May 2007 16:42:24 +0000

[...] (for a good review of Nina’s book from someone who’s actually finished it, check out this post from Tigers and Strawberries.) [...]

By: Morgan

Morgan — Wed, 11 Apr 2007 22:48:59 +0000

I just found your site today (and should really pull myself away from your archives and go back to work!) and when I read this article I think I actually said, “exactly!” out loud when I read your point about the exercise. It was a very curious blank in her book, and one that I found pretty upsetting.

As well, she didn’t really factor in the fact that if you live in -30 temperature for much of the year as the Inuit do, you NEED a high level of body fat so you don’t like, freeze to death. And that living in extreme cold takes a lot of energy. Or that hunter gathers move around constantly. I found I kept coming back to that, and I think it made me cast more doubt on the book than was fair. I did really like it though, and I’m pretty much convinced never to buy margarine again (not that I use almost any, but still!)

By: Anita

Anita — Wed, 02 Aug 2006 05:58:56 +0000

While the good effects of industrialization have largely been confined to the industrialized nations, the ill effects have travelled far. Developing countries not only have to contend with cheaper food stuff (grain and other ‘value-added’ products)that kills (this is not figurative, hundreds of farmers kill themselves all over rural India)the small time farmer, makes it even more difficult to grow ‘organically’ in the face of cheap fertilizers and pestisides (guess who is supplying…) and lopsided World Bank ‘help’. All this only make the matter more complex. To top this, we now have to fend off Monsanto that is undertaking field trials for brinjal and corn, amongst other crops, in India. Local varieties are threatened, local livlihoods are at peril. And to this, if we also add the fact that sizable portions of the population are uneducated (and undernourished) you can see which part of the world, North or South, is going to be eating GM foods.

Some of you may be aware of the stand India and Brazil took at the recently failed WTO talks – it was the industrial nations wanting the ‘third world’ (I don’t like this term, as if it is in some universe far far away) to (further) open their markets to their subsidized farm goods and let the local farmers (many of whome are already at the brink of commiting suicide) compete with industrial scale farming. No wonder the talks failed, because this ‘other world’ is waking up to its size and figuring out ways to trade amongst themselves on their terms. How long they can hold out…depends…

By: Hadar

Hadar — Wed, 02 Aug 2006 04:08:29 +0000

I concur with your comments on exercise, Barbara. My recent “get healthy” efforts have taught me that one has to address both diet and physical activity – it doesn’t work if you only do one or the other!

By: Erica

Erica — Tue, 01 Aug 2006 22:43:33 +0000

Sounds like an interesting read. Thanks for the insight!