Books : Plenty: One Man, One Woman, and a Raucous Year of Eating Locally

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by: Alisa Smith, J.B. Mackinnon

: Plenty: One Man, One Woman, and a Raucous Year of Eating Locally

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Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 641.56309711
EAN: 9780307347329
ISBN: 030734732X
Label: Harmony
Manufacturer: Harmony
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 272
Publication Date: April 24, 2007
Publisher: Harmony
Release Date: April 24, 2007
Sales Rank: 296196
Studio: Harmony



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Product Description:
Like many great adventures, the 100-mile diet began with a memorable feast. Stranded in their off-the-grid summer cottage in the Canadian wilderness with unexpected guests, Alisa Smith and J.B. MacKinnon turned to the land around them. They caught a trout, picked mushrooms, and mulled apples from an abandoned orchard with rose hips in wine. The meal was truly satisfying; every ingredient had a story, a direct line they could trace from the soil to their forks. The experience raised a question: Was it possible to eat this way in their everyday lives?

Back in the city, they began to research the origins of the items that stocked the shelves of their local supermarket. They were shocked to discover that a typical ingredient in a North American meal travels roughly the distance between Boulder, Colorado, and New York City before it reaches the plate. Like so many people, Smith and MacKinnon were trying to live more lightly on the planet; meanwhile, their “SUV diet” was producing greenhouse gases and smog at an unparalleled rate. So they decided on an experiment: For one year they would eat only food produced within 100 miles of their Vancouver home.

It wouldn’t be easy. Stepping outside the industrial food system, Smith and MacKinnon found themselves relying on World War II–era cookbooks and maverick farmers who refused to play by the rules of a global economy. What began as a struggle slowly transformed into one of the deepest pleasures of their lives. For the first time they felt connected to the people and the places that sustain them.

For Smith and MacKinnon, the 100-mile diet became a journey whose destination was, simply, home. From the satisfaction of pulling their own crop of garlic out of the earth to pitched battles over canning tomatoes, Plenty is about eating locally and thinking globally.

The authors’ food-focused experiment questions globalization, monoculture, the oil economy, environmental collapse, and the tattering threads of community. Thought-provoking and inspiring, Plenty offers more than a way of eating. In the end, it’s a new way of looking at the world.



Customer Reviews
Average Rating: out of 5 stars

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars - When you would kill for some wheat flour!
In Plenty, authors Alisa Smith and J.B. MacKinnon tell their story of living for a year eating only foods produced within 100 miles of their home in Vancouver. This book is also published as Plenty: Eating Locally On The 100 Mile Diet; and The 100-Mile Diet: A Year of Local Eating.

I think they are all the same. Regardless, I read the "Plenty: Eating Locally On The 100 Mile Diet" version.

So two vegetarian writer/journalists get the bug to eat locally. Gone is olive oil from Italy, sea salt from Hawaii, wine from Australia, or grapes from Chile. Unfortunately, living in the Vancouver, British Columbia area, this also means that wheat is in short supply, salmon is abundant, and most fruits and vegetables are very seasonal.

Here are some tidbits, and comments:

- "We were living on a SUV diet" (p. 5 in Plenty). The 100 mile diet was born.

- "We had a single ironclad rule: that every ingredient in every product we bought had to come from within 100 miles" (p. 10). They did have a "social life amendment" which allowed them to break these rules in social situations.

- As they looked in the grocery stores, they noted "Yet here we were in the modern horn of plenty, and almost nothing came from the people or the landscape that surrounded us. How had our food system come to this" (p. 13).

- "There is a term for the experience of tugging your little red wagon through a strawberry field, and that term is 'traceability'. It's a measure of how close or distant one is from one's food" (p. 54).

- "We never will accept the idea that animals can be treated like machines that produce meat, milk, and eggs" (p. 70). Unfortunately, there are both well cared for machines, and poorly cared for machines. Smith and MacKinnon consume plenty of eggs and dairy products, shellfish, fish, birds, and, eventually, small quantities of beef.

- "If you wish to make an apple pie truly from scratch, you must first invent the universe" (p. 107). I just liked this quote from Carl Sagan!

- "That even Hebda was unaware that [California] condors were reported in the Fraser Valley into the twentieth century illustrates a ket fact about our past. We forget. The effect has been described as a double disappearance. We lose a species, or the abundance of a species, and then forget what it is we have lost" (p. 143). This is also called the "shifting baseline syndrome."

- When they learned they had to freeze their corn immediately, Smith wrote "It sounded, at best, like a Mormon's idea of a good-time Saturday night..." (p. 151). I thought this was a bit rude.

- Smith wrote, "I'm thirty-three years old, always broke, and merely 'existing' in what, without having been sealed by formal wedding vows, had become a traditional marriage. ...My only drama was in my daydreams" (p. 164). Throughout this book, I was continuously reminded that Smith and MacKinnon seemed to have no other life than to look for, prepare, store, and eat food. Their drama seemed to revolve around food, with a few references to being challenged by a bear and some family-related adventures. Few people can devote the time necessary for this type of experiment.

- "The mark of an empire, it seems, is to eat its length and breadth" (p. 198). Interesting idea.

- The differences between locally grown and imported (less fresh) foods? "'There will be nutritional differences, but they'll be marginal,' said [New York University professor Marion] Nestle. 'I mean, that's not really the issue. It feels like it's the issue - obviously fresher foods that are grown on better soils are going to have more nutrients. But people are not nutrient-deprived. We're just not nutrient-deprived'" (p. 229). This is a key point of the book. If it is not nutrients or food quality we are after, then the theme is that a local diet affects... what? Carbon in the atmosphere and its impact on global and local climate change? Self-sufficiency in case of disaster? Open space? Variety? One-upmanship? Supporting local businesses? Bragging rights? What? For example, the authors write "When at last we were together again, it was in Merida, the cultural capitol of the Yucatan Peninsula, in Mexico. Minnesota, Malawi, Mexico" (p. 244). The energy consumed and CO2 released from this travel... how can you say no to winter grapes from Chile?

Remember "We're just not nutrient-deprived"? We are deprived of knowledge of where food comes from. We are deprived of the color of local farmers' markets. Many, many people are deprived of their health from ill-advised food choices (locally produced foods can also be part of a poor diet plan).

So... interesting book. Not THE book. Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma and In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto ("Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants") will probably give you a better idea of your position in the global and local food chain.


Rating: 5 out of 5 stars - Best Memoir I've Read
I thought "Plenty" was a fantastic book. I had downloaded and read their journal from online before the book came out and loved it. The book was frosting on the cake with its primary data and documentation which support their (and our) efforts to relocalize our eating. Alisa and James' search for local food echos our own in an efforts to personally relocalize in a town that doesn't have much insight into what's happening in the world. Ya done good, kids! You go!


Rating: 2 out of 5 stars - They needed a Wife!
This was enjoyable, but not as good as Animal,Vegtable,.. the biggest lesson, they needed a wife to shop, cook and preserve food, it was almost a full time job. This came as a big surprise, and was not addressed directly in the book. I think they expected just a little more local shopping effort. As the year progressed they got needed attention for writing careers.
Please do not can or preserve any food using their advice, and their ancient cookbook. Please buy and follow the directions of Ball canning. I felt they came very close to food/potamine posioning due to careless food handling.
I grew tired of all their personal problems, can anyone write a book without throwing in all their personal garbage? none of which advanced the book.
I am a locavore, bake all my own bread, have four chickens and a small greenspace for veggies and my 76 year old mom and I can/freeze some food in the fall.I live in the city, and I will not spend 17$ for salad greens. Food is a local issue and its a job/work,,, one many Americans have forgotten about. The book did not address the longterm issue of how much work it is to grow, find , cook ,pereserve food. After all they were only in it for a year of publicity.


Rating: 4 out of 5 stars - Two excellent writers tell a personal and informing tale
Even if you want to eat at McDonald's every day and your idea of eating local is only going to Costcos within 20 miles, you will enjoy this book (and you might even gain from some reflection inspired by the book). The authors are very gifted and share personal and interesting events and reflections in a narrative that is a page-turner. Kudos for that alone. Their dedication to their 100 mile pledge, and their tenacity and smarts at following it, while growing through a challenging patch in their personal relationship, is admirable and makes for compelling reading. Some pages do wax preachy, but only a few. Sometimes James overdoes the metaphors, and he makes a wry nod to this possibility late in the book when he admits that maybe sometimes a walnut is just a walnut. Now and then the two come off as a little precious, but nothing wrong with that -- better a real picture than an altered one. Interestingly, until the book gave cues of their age, I thought they were in their late 40s or so -- the early chapters are written in the voices of people who have lived awhile. On the one hand, I assume there is a maturity and depth in these 30 somethings that I should have had at that age; on the other hand, I do hope they lighten up sometimes. The takeway, however, is that this is a terrific read.


Rating: 5 out of 5 stars - Satisfying to Stomach and Soul

Makes you hungry for REAL food
Opens a new world, hidden away for too long
Beautiful and truthful
Essential for here and now and the future of our food supply
Tasty & worth reading!!

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