Fair Food by Oran B. Hesterman, PhD Growing A Healthy, Sustainable Food System For All
This is not going to be an actual book review…just a little about the book and why I think EVERYONE should read it. I actually won this book through a contest I wasn’t aware I’d entered…seriously! I was on Twitter one day and saw a tweet from @SlowFoodUSA asking how people intended to eat better and help fix our food system. I just replied back that I was simply going to grow my own organic veggies, support organic companies & sustainable agriculture and share as much information about all of this as possible with ANYONE who would listen. A few days later they sent me a message saying I’d won a free copy of Fair Food, and I graciously accepted! If you ask me, this is the only way to win…I’m not big on entering giveaways and such, too much work, lol! Rest assured that if I ever start giving things away on the blog, I won’t make you jump through hoops…I’ll just employ the old “draw a name from the hat” method!
On with the non book review! I’m basically recommending this book, because it left me feeling HOPEFUL FOR OUR FOOD! Let’s face it, most of the things you hear and read these days in relation to that subject tend to be negative, and it’s important to know this information….BUT food is supposed to be a good thing…a beautiful thing. This book left me feeling like it really is possible to get our food system back on the right track before it is too late. It is incredibly informative on the many issues that have led us to where we are now, such as corporate concentration, factory farming, pesticide use, GMOs, etc. Most importantly, this book presents solutions as well, as he writes about what steps, small and large, are necessary to restructure our food sytem. He writes about changing not just how we eat, but how we grow, package, deliver, market, and sell our food. In a post on the Fair Food Network’s website, there is a short Q & A with the author, and here is the passage that pushed me to get busy reading this book:
“In 1988, it would have been nearly impossible to find a political analyst predicting the fall of the Berlin Wall. Yet, a point occurred in 1989 when enough activists had been at work with their tools that the political infrastructure and the foundation of the wall were sufficiently weakened, and the wall came tumbling down. In the same way, we have had food systems activists chipping away at the current broken food system for many years. Countless farmers, gardeners, leaders, students, teachers, writers, politicians, businesspeople, academics, and moms and dads, with the equivalent of chisels and hammers in their hands, have been challenging the current food system brick by brick. Every time someone decides to get their food at a farmers market, establishes a small-scale organic farm, or develops a new sustainable supply chain for their company, they are attempting to change the current system, one step at a time.”
That’s just beautiful…and so true. You can read the rest of that post called Perspectives: Food Activism HERE on FairFoodNetwork.org, and I suggest you do…if you don’t have time to read the book just yet, this post will leave you feeling hopeful and inspired too! If you’re ready for the book or just want to read more about it, you can click HERE for a link through Amazon.
