Book 2 of 52

Recipe for America: Why Our Food System is Broken and What We Can Do to Fix It by Jill Richardson

My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I have to confess first to being a personal friend of Jill. Though, it is her writing which attracted me 😉 As she mentions in the book, she got her start writing a food-related diary series on DailyKos called “Vegetables of Mass Destruction” I was a fan of hers from the start because she was clearly coming at this topic from a total non-scientific place. She was a food EATER more than anything else and she just wanted to learn where her food came from & how it got to her table. What was awesome was that those of us who followed her weekly diaries were learning along with her. I’ve always been impressed with her lack of ‘preaching’ on a topic that can easily because heated. She keeps her eyes and her mind open at all times.
This book feels like an extension of those diaries. A nicely written summary of all she learned presented in a way that anyone can understand. This is a complicated topic as evidenced by a little contradiction that I caught as Jill details the problems facing the industry. In most cases, the issue is one of not enough regulation, or else, not enforcing existing, perfectly solid regulations. But there was also an example of truly back asswards regulations that hinder the delivery of local, organic farm products to their nearest consumers. It just shows that where politics/power/money are involved, there is never one clear answer 🙂
Something for everyone to read as I think we should be a little more educated about the food we eat and what our options may be.
Jill continues the conversation every day at La Vida Locavore

Next up – a novel by someone else I know personally…though those who have been long enough will remember that the *only* thing I like about this guy is his writing – gonna have to be careful about how I write the review this time around – no references to anything else I may know about him !!! :-))