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Author(s): Annie B. Bond, Melissa Breyer, Wendy Gordon

Should you read this book? If you are interested in the green movement and eating local, then it’s a good resource. If you want to learn more about nutrition and healthy eating, this may not be the right book to read.

I am committed to the environment and sustainable development. Yet, this book disappointed me. The first thing that caused such disappointement was more a matter of the wrong expectation. I should’ve read the back cover, maybe. I wanted nutritional information, some food science to help me change my eating habits. Instead I found an entire section on how to blanch vegetables and can them to eat in the winter (don’t get me started on the root cellar concept).

The book is extremely well written and researched, I believe, and it does contain quite some interesting facts about local eating and the slow food movement. The 8 steps mentioned in the title are: Eat Local, Eat a Variety, Go for Organic, Eat Lower on the Food Chain, Eat Fresh, Eat Whole Foods, Stocking your pantry, Green Your Kitchen. Some of the recommendations there seems to me more appropriate for non-working people. Seriously, I cannot imagine spending my weekends tending to my root cellar and delicately making preserves out of fresh berries. Already chopping vegetables takes me a million years.

As far as eating local, I fully encourage it as a means to improve the local economy, eating fresh, and protecting our ecosystems. But I refuse to never eat anything that is not grown where I live. In my case, I wasn’t born and raised in Belgium, so pardon me Nature, but I will indulge in mangoes, limes, and plantains whenever I have the chance instead of stuffing my face with witloof. No disrespect to this “most exemplary vegetable”. I believe this concept seems to have been written for people who have stayed fairly local. Those living far from the place they were raised in, will probably relate to what I’m saying.

This is a book for the local eating activists and green kitchen enthusiasts. I’ll keep contributing to the conservation of the environment by recycling, saving energy, commuting by public transport, etc. I’ll let you handle the seasonal food eating part.

Paola’s mood after reading this book: