Blessing the Hands That Feed Us: What Eating Closer to Home Can Teach Us About Food, Community, and Our Place on Earth

by Vicki Robin Narrated by Vicki Robin

Overview

Taking the locavore movement to heart, bestselling coauthor and social innovator Vicki Robin pledged for one month to eat only food sourced within a ten-mile radius of her home on Whidbey Island in Puget Sound, Washington. Her sustainable diet not only brings to light society's unhealthy dependency on mass-produced, prepackaged foods but also helps her reconnect with her body and her environment.



Like Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and the bestselling books of Michael Pollan, Blessing the Hands That Feed Us is part personal narrative and part global manifesto. By challenging herself to eat and buy local, Robin exposes the cause and effect of the food business, from the processed goods laden with sugar, fat, and preservatives to the trucks burning through fuel to bring them to a shelf near you.



Robin's journey is also one of community as she befriends all the neighboring farmers who epitomize the sustainable lifestyle. Among them are Tricia, the prolific market gardener who issued Robin's ten-mile challenge; Britt and Eric, two young, enthusiastic farmers living their dream of self-sufficiency; and Vicky, a former corporate executive turned milk producer.



Featuring practical tips on adopting your own locally sourced diet, Blessing the Hands That Feed Us is an inspirational guide and testimonial to the locavore movement and a healthy food future.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

10/28/2013
In September 2010 veteran sustainability activist Robin (co-author of Your Money or Your Life) consumed only food from her neighbor's small market garden or made within a 10-mile radius of her home on Whidbey Island in Puget Sound, Wash to see if she could survive solely on locally produced food. She recounts how confronting her food beliefs and habits was the "last bastion" in her quest to live frugally and with integrity. The challenge drew her back into the world, calmed her own tendencies to overeat, and taught her the real meaning of community. Despite the restrictions of a 10-Mile Diet and costly government regulations that cripple small famers, Robin presents the ultimate freedom of self-sufficiency attractively, attributing a wide range of benefits to what she calls "relational eating"—from losing weight and ensuring good health, to forming lasting friendships and helping those in need. Readers may smile when hyper-frugal Robin decides that paying $5 a pound for locally raised chicken is well worth the money, and breathe a sigh of relief when she realizes that "local" is as much a state of mind as a geographical location. This is an idealistic yet practical effort, offering tips for creating sustainable communities and recipes from Whidbey chefs utilizing the island's bounty. Agent: Beth Vesel, Beth Vesel Literary Agency. (Jan.)

From the Publisher

"An entertaining and informative memoir/self-help guide to living well on locally grown food." ---Kirkus

From the Publisher - AUDIO COMMENTARY

"An entertaining and informative memoir/self-help guide to living well on locally grown food." —Kirkus

Library Journal

12/01/2013
Part memoir, part guidebook, and part cookbook, this title provides some insight into the eating habits of Americans. Robin (coauthor, Your Money or Your Life) takes readers along with her on her month-long journey of eating hyperlocally, a term she defines for herself as only consuming food that was raised or grown in a 10-mile radius of her home on Whidbey Island in Puget Sound, WA. Writing candidly and humorously, Robin expertly describes the community of farmers and makers who are involved in providing for the dinner table, breaking down the business of food and showing readers the relationships that can be forged and salvaged through eating locally. VERDICT This locavore read puts its money where its mouth is. Robin deftly combines strong storytelling with recipes, and those interested in eating locally themselves will find concrete steps they can take.—Cassidy Charles, Morristown & Morris Twp. Joint Free P.L., NJ

FEBRUARY 2014 - AudioFile

Author and narrator Vicki Robin chronicles how, after being diagnosed with cancer, she embarked on a ten-mile experimental diet that turned her from a self-described “food slut” into a conscientious and mindful eater. Robin’s resonant and flowing voice evokes her love for her work. Her animated reading balances the serious and humorous aspects of her endeavor while her characterizations of the people who fed and educated her about local food reveal her fondness and respect for them. There are some mispronunciations, such as “voilà.” Additionally distracting are frequent mouth noises that detract from an otherwise enlightening introduction to sustainability. M.F. © AudioFile 2014, Portland, Maine

Kirkus Reviews

2013-11-03
One woman's experiment to eat only local foods. While grazing at a potluck table loaded with food, Robin (co-author: Your Money or Your Life: 9 Steps to Transforming Your Relationship with Money and Achieving Financial Independence, 2008) decided to take up a local farmer's challenge to eat only the food she could provide herself. But after some more consideration, the author realized that might be too limited, so the plan expanded to include any food produced within a 10-mile radius. She planned to live on that and a few "exotics"--tea, salt, spices, oil, lemons and limes--for a month and see what happened. What unfolds in Robin's homey, conversational prose was far more significant than she ever expected. She sought to lose a few pounds, get healthier, make new friends, grow closer to nature, and gain a better understanding of the amount of physical, emotional and environmental energy required to produce food. The author encourages readers to explore their own relationships with food; examine how it was prepared and eaten during their childhoods; find what local sources of food exist in their neighborhoods; learn to cook from scratch for healthier and less expensive food; and figure out how to continue this new way of eating for far longer than just a month. Throughout the book, Robin includes helpful information on how to set up "Transition Towns…a citizen-led approach to bulking up community resilience, a tool for people who wake up to the power communities have to respond proactively as global resources, finance, and climate change prove ever more unstable." Recipes from Robin's local growers round out this call-to-action plan to buy local and live healthier and more responsibly. An entertaining and informative memoir/self-help guide to living well on locally grown food.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940170603916
Publisher:	Tantor Audio
Publication date:	01/07/2014
Edition description:	Unabridged

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