Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

After a lot of discussion about starting a book club, we finally got one off the ground. The first selection was Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver, a book about sustainable eating. While we initially intended to start an erotica reading club, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle became the first book almost by accident since three people were already reading it. I agreed to read it, too, though I reserved the right to quit it if it were not up my alley. Growing squash isn't exactly riveting.

Fortunately, I really liked it. Kingsolver is a great writer and eir perspective and humor make the book quite readable. The book follows a year of the Kingsolver clan growing their own food and eating locally for a healthier, eco-friendly lifestyle. Occasionally, I had to put the book down when I had enough of reading about canning tomatoes, but it wasn't long before it struck my interest again. Plus, the book has a thriller of an ending: (SPOILER!) the family doesn't harvest enough food for the long, cold winter and must eat one of the children to avoid starvation. (Warning: your copy of this book might include a different, more optimistic ending.)

For a lot of reasons, the lifestyle Kingsolver models isn't practical. Most people don't have the land, resources, and time necessary to tend to large gardens and raise fowl. Nevertheless, it was an admirable example, and I looked forward to using this text as the basis of discussion. While we wouldn't focus on symbolism and character development like with other books, it was a great inspiration to discuss social and environmental issues.

Although I had read the book, I still wasn't prepared for what I encountered. Greg and Melissa offered to host the first meeting and put on an impressive showing. They made food following recipes from the book and using ingredients fresh from their garden. Their home is beautiful and I reckon it was the most legitimate dinner party I have attended in my adult life. I brought beer manufactured locally by a solar-powered brewery and Terri attempted to buy a locally made wine, but the storeowner discouraged eir, suggesting it was gross.

Though I had prepared some discussion points, they all became pretty irrelevant as we snacked in Melissa and Greg's backyard. My intention was to figure out which of the ideas from Kingsolver's book were actually achievable in our everyday lives, but Greg and Melissa were clearly already nine steps further than I expected any of us to be. Truthfully, between their garden and culinary capabilities, I was intimidated, but in a good way. I anticipated having perhaps outcome-less conversation about how to address the food situation, yet instead was met with an up-close example of real people who I know, like, and respect living out these ideals to a reasonable, practical extent. It challenges me to go beyond thinking hypothetically and actually acting.

One of the main talking points was vegetarianism, which was not an easy conversation for me to have with three vegetarians. In the book, Kingsolver surprisingly argues that meat consumption is a positive practice so long as livestock is raised humanely and purchased locally. Terri argued that it seemed like Kingsolver's pro-meat stance stands in opposition to the rest of the book and that it appears to be a justification of eir own habits rather than the most sound approach. Though I'm practically a carnivore by profession, I have to agree with Terri's perspective. As I've expressed previously, if I was being a better environmentalist, I would cut down on my meat consumption significantly; the grain required to feed animals to plumpen them up for our table could feed more people than the chicken could, for example.

One of my favorite passages from the book appears on page 90:

Of the 400 million turkeys Americans consume each year, more than 99 percent of them are a single breed: the Broad-Breasted White, a quick-fattening monster bred specifically for the industrial-scale setting. These are the big lugs so famously dumb, they can drown by looking up at the rain. (Friends of mine swear they have seen this happen.) If a Broad-Breasted White should escape slaughter, it likely wouldn't live to be a year old: they get so heavy, their legs collapse. In mature form they're incapable of flying, foraging, or mating. That's right, reproduction. Genes that make turkeys behave like animals are useless to a creature packed wing-to-wing with thousands of others, and might cause it to get uppity or suicidal, so those genes have been bred out of the pool. Docile lethargy works better, and helps them pack on the pounds. To some extent, this trend holds for all animals bred for confinement. For turkeys, the scheme that gave them an extremely breast-heavy body and ultra-rapid growth has also left them with a combination of deformity and idiocy that renders them unable to have turkey sex. Poor turkeys.

So how do we get more of them? Well you might ask. The sperm must be artificially extracted from live male turkeys by a person, a professional turkey sperm-wrangler if you will, and artificially introduced to the hens, and that is all I'm going to say about that. If you think they send the toms off to a men's room with little paper cups and Playhen Magazine, that's not how it goes. I will add only this: if you are the sort of parent who threatens your teenagers with a future of unsavory jobs when they ditch school, here's one more career you might want to add to the list.

When our family considered raising turkeys ourselves, we knew were weren't going to go there.

I think one way to make amends with my meat consumption is to eat better (sexually active?) meat rather than no meat. Now I'm at a point where I have to decide to turn my newly acquired knowledge into action. It's easy to be aware of issues, but another to do something about it. Am I going to start planting my meals? Eh, probably not. But I can resolve to take baby steps. Each week I'm going to find one new way to make my diet more sustainable, even if just slightly. Maybe it will be a trip to the farmer's market, maybe it will be finding a way to buy locally raised meat, or maybe it will be be eliminating a food product that requires being shipped across the country. If you're so inclined, ask me what I've learned or resolved in order to keep me honest about my efforts.

Oh, while I'm on the subject, I should request that you do the same with exercise. I honestly would be appreciative if you were to ask me, "How many sit-ups did you do today, fatty?" Thank you in advance.

Anyway, we finally completed our first book. Though it wasn't smutty unless you count the multiple in depth references to turkey sex, henceforth, we'll transition into an erotica book club. The next selection is Insatiable by Heather Hunter. It's a fictional account of Heather Hunter's own life and rise to porn stardom. It's so intense that many of the passages make me blush or just laugh. If you think you've heard every nickname for genitalia or read literature's worst examples of figurative language, then I challenge you to take on this book. The LA county liberry has 32 copies for your convenience... and wildest desires. Anyone interested in joining our mailing list should let me know. As with any orgy, the more the merrier!