Growing up in the mountains outside of Boulder, I was raised to have a deep appreciation of nature and healthy food by both my mother and father. Going to an elementary school that was run by peace and nature loving hippies, I learned about recycling and composting toilets by age 12. My first job was selling organic lettuce to the neighbors for $1 per bag. We didn’t call it organic back then, but the only things that fed the plants in our garden were: Rocky Mountain well water, sunshine and a little good old horse manure (from our pasture fed horses).

In the past few years I’ve read a handful of books by some inspiring folks that have helped re-direct my life in a very healthy and green direction.

First, I read Harvest for Hope, by Jane Goodall. In this enjoyable tome our famous chimp lover takes her experience with the natural world and her chimp and nature conservation efforts to show the average American how we might live our lives in a more ethical and environmentally friendly manner. Goodall advocates eating less, eating locally and eating ethically.

Next, I read Plenty: One Man, One Woman, and a Raucous Year of Eating Locally, by Alisa Smith and JB McKinnon. This 30 something vegetarian couple from Vancouver took a year long pledge to eat only what they could find in a 100 mile radius of their home. Their diet was a bit extreme at times (lots of potatoes), but it also introduced them to the wealth and pleasure that comes from eating food whose story you know intimately. They were forced to eat some meat and fish, to get adequate protein, but they also made exciting discoveries, such as a local pecan orchard and a man who grows and mills his own wheat.

Over the holidays, I finished reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, by Barbara Kingsovler, her husband Steve and her daughter Camille. Parallel to the efforts of Alisa and James, the Kingsolvers embarked on the goal of not only eating locally, but of in fact doing their best to raise all their food stuff (both animal and vegetable) themselves. Their journey really brought home how distanced we have become from the life cycle of our diet, both plant and animal based.

One of the various disturbing ideas presented in the book is that with the advent of artificial insemination the basic instinct to reproduce is being bred out of our animals. Even heritage turkeys are bred through artificial insemination and incubated/raised by human means. In the book Barbara explains how they had to practically walk their turkeys through each stage of the breeding and incubating process. Fortunately, by the time the little turkey chicks hatched, the momma turkeys had figured out the game plan, and hopefully the next time around things will be easier for all involved.

On a more optimistic level the book provided me with lots of motivation and insight to bring my own family closer to our food. I am not quite ready to raise and harvest my own turkeys; however, Iggi and I have decided to sign up for a CSA again (we did this a few years ago) and if all goes well I will can up a storm this summer from the CSA and the farmers market, which is just down the road from our home.

The book (and their website) includes a variety of easy recipes to make delicious food at home. Over the weekend I made the pizza crust recipe and a veggie pizza for Iggi and myself. It was delicious and very easy to make. Even if you are not a big into cooking or baking, you should at least give the pizza dough a whirl. It took no time at all (except 45 minutes to rise) and was so much more delicious than any gourmet pizza I’ve had of late!

I highly recommend reading all three of these books, or at the least, the Kingsolver book. John Robbins has a book titled Diet for a New America, but I think that Animal, Vegetable, Miracle really provides a more realistic and optimistic diet for Americans and people around the world. The common thread between all of the mentioned books, is that they consider the effects of how we eat on the environment.

I am concerned with both the health of the environment and the health of the human body and hence, I have created this blog.