Scan barcode
lcoverosey's review
5.0
This book reminds me Food is life. Self preservation at its it's finest. I feel lucky I am from an era and European farming family that put hours into making, growing, harvesting, preserving and enjoying our local grown food at our table. Excellent writing.
kemanuel's review
5.0
Interesting read for anyone interested in learning more about eating locally. We aim to eat locally as much as we can and learning and teaching our children about where our food comes from by growing some of our own and frequenting the farmers markets and local farms. This is definitely doable however I suspect there are many areas that it would prove to be much more difficult. We are lucky to live in a greenbelt area and have access to wonderful local farms who raise and grow their food ethically and sustainably.
Definitely something I would be interested in trying when the kids are a little older.
I really enjoyed how it was not just facts and figures but emotion and feelings were shown through the book as they told their story.
This is a book I will definitely read again.
Definitely something I would be interested in trying when the kids are a little older.
I really enjoyed how it was not just facts and figures but emotion and feelings were shown through the book as they told their story.
This is a book I will definitely read again.
literallykalasin's review
4.0
This is more than about eating locally, though it is a book about food at its heart. It also interlaces a narrative of Alisa Smith and James McKinnon's relationship, the history of British Columbia's European colonisation, and a discussion of how local cuisine is created. This book makes you want to start a garden and make pasta from scratch. Be warned!
purplemuskogee's review
informative
inspiring
slow-paced
4.0
I like reading books where authors go through a one-year long challenge - I find them neat, interesting, easy to follow. This one is about a couple - James and Alisa - trying to only eat food grown from a 100 mile radius around their Canadian home, with a few rules: it is fine to eat something from further away if it is for a work event or if they are invited by someone else, and fine to use what they already own.
I normally dislike reading books co-written, where one chapter is by one author and the next one by another, but in this case I found the writing overall was coherent and it read smoothly. There were some passages that I found a bit long with a lot of information about the food industry, but I enjoyed reading about the experience overall and how difficult it is to eat locally, despite the benefits for the environment - there are so many things we don't consider, like sugar or flour which can be difficult to source and which the authors replace with honey or spend weeks trying to find.
Out of curiosity, I checked what a 100-mile radius around my London flat would entail and it is considerably smaller than I would have guessed: I would be able to use anything grown on the southern coast of England - but I don't eat fish -, a tiny corner of northern France so anything from Calais - but not including Dunkirk. Anything north of Norwich and Birmingham is out, as well as Cornwall. It would be incredibly restrictive, and I am not even sure where I would be able to buy the food nor how I would find out where it is from as food items are usually labelled by a whole country. It was interesting to think about though.
I normally dislike reading books co-written, where one chapter is by one author and the next one by another, but in this case I found the writing overall was coherent and it read smoothly. There were some passages that I found a bit long with a lot of information about the food industry, but I enjoyed reading about the experience overall and how difficult it is to eat locally, despite the benefits for the environment - there are so many things we don't consider, like sugar or flour which can be difficult to source and which the authors replace with honey or spend weeks trying to find.
Out of curiosity, I checked what a 100-mile radius around my London flat would entail and it is considerably smaller than I would have guessed: I would be able to use anything grown on the southern coast of England - but I don't eat fish -, a tiny corner of northern France so anything from Calais - but not including Dunkirk. Anything north of Norwich and Birmingham is out, as well as Cornwall. It would be incredibly restrictive, and I am not even sure where I would be able to buy the food nor how I would find out where it is from as food items are usually labelled by a whole country. It was interesting to think about though.
momo_reads86's review
4.0
This book was informative, easy to read and very interesting. It really got me thinking if I could eat entirely local food and what I would have to live without. I love non-fiction written as a narrative. For the most part it was not preachy or lecture-ish.
norynor's review
4.0
A really quick and thoughtful read, not at all what I’d expected! This book manages to talk about our crazy (and depressing) food system without actually making me depressed. There were a few things that I wasn’t a fan of but overall I enjoyed it! The statistics and scientific background of local eating and global food systems were things I was familiar with, but it was interesting to read about it from a more personal perspective, with the facts being a part of a personal experience rather than an academic text.
kickpleat's review
4.0
I really liked this story of a couple who eat within a 100 mile radius for one year. I love that they also live in my city and I'm excited to visit some of the farms that James and Alisa have been too. Right now in my own cupboards I've got local honey from the Westham Island apiary and herbs, vegetables and berries from a local farm nearby. While eating completely local for a year is something I couldn't imagine doing, this is an inspiring read and I think the rise in CSA programs and farmer's markets is just the start to how many of us should be eating.
womojong's review
3.0
3.5, thoughtful and inspiring, especially in sharing the same 100 mile radius as the authors.
sharolyn's review
3.0
I read this when newly moved to Vancouver from Brisbane so it was cool to read something local. I found the authors to be slightly annoying in some of their tone and the way they related as a couple but perhaps that's not really fair as it's not the main point of the book. I like the idea of eating locally and this made a contribution to my thinking more on the topic.