Any building or neighborhood that considers itself sustainable must consider its food source in order to remain truly environmentally and economically sustainable.
For now, let’s consider the following books to get started:
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Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser analyzes how the American Fast Food diet came to be. He reveals how corporations have hijacked the American food supply. The first chapter starts out scary and each successive chapter gets more and more unbelievable…but true.
Omnivore’s Dilemma is one of the best books I have ever read…about any subject. Michael Pollan is an investigative journalist who turned his attentions to the American food chain. The length of the food chain in each of 4 chapters gets successively shorter until he describes how he hunted and foraged his own dinner. He covers topics such as organic chemistry, conventional farming, a wonderful chapter about a “grass farm” and leaves the reader with a deep respect for how food arrives on the table.
Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle is a journal of a year in her family’s life when they decided to grow their own food and eat only locally obtained ingredients in SW Virginia. She describes the arc of vegetable farming from seeds to harvest with love and appreciation and (almost) makes you want to chuck it all and move back to the land.
