A Yummy Gift Idea: Foodies Pick Most Appetizing Books

The Cornucopia Institute’s Poll Lists Scores of Favorite Food-Related Reads

CORNUCOPIA, WI — Despite the controversial November 6 defeat of California’s Proposition 37 that would have required labeling for genetically engineered food, many food-conscious consumers across the nation continue their interest in self-education on food and farming issues, reports The Cornucopia Institute.

A question posted on Cornucopia’s Facebook page asked visitors what books they’d recently read and would recommend on food-related topics.  “The response was overwhelming,” said Mark A. Kastel, Codirector of The Cornucopia Institute, adding, “our members and supporters intimately understand the challenges our nation is facing when it comes to food, and its relationship to health and the environment, and they are educating themselves on how to take action on these serious issues.”

The most popular book came from Virginia farmer and lecturer, Joel Salatin: Folks, This Ain’t Normal.  Several other Salatin books made the list as well: Holy Cows and Hog Heaven and You Can Farm.  Salatin, an outspoken advocate for grass-based livestock production and farming was featured in the 2008 Oscar-nominated documentary Food Inc., as was University of California, Berkeley professor Michael Pollan, who also made the top 10 list with his 2006 best-selling book, The Omnivore’s Dilemma.

Tomatoland: How Modern Industrial Agriculture Destroyed Our Most Alluring Fruit by journalist Barry Estabrook received several mentions as well.  “I’ll never look at a tomato the same way again,” said Cornucopia Facebook fan, Autumn T.

Novelists Barbara Kingsolver and Jonathan Safran Foer also made the list with their forays into food. Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle received numerous mentions, as did Foer’s Eating Animals, which explores his emotional and contemplative journey into vegetarianism.

Consumers are also showing a serious interest in DIY (do-it-yourself) food preparation and preservation with several mentions of Sandor Katz’s The Art of Fermentation and Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats by Sally Fallon, who is the founder of the Weston A. Price Foundation, a leading advocate for “nutrient-dense” food including raw milk from cows that graze on fresh pasture.

Activist Vandana Shiva’s book Stolen Harvest also made the list as a book “everyone should read,” according to Facebook fan Kimberly S. who added, “and then loan it to everyone you know to read, then plant a garden!”

“Our community members are not just passionate about food issues, they come to that position from a highly-educated perspective,” said Kastel.  “If corporations and regulating agencies aren’t willing to step up and protect our food system, it’s clear that the people are ready to do it themselves.”

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Cornucopia Institute Supporters Top Ten Books (Ranked by number of mentions)

1. Folks, This Ain’t Normal by Joel Salatin
2. Turn Here, Sweet Corn by Atina Diffley
3. Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon
4. Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver
5. Tomatoland: How Modern Industrial Agriculture Destroyed Our Most Alluring Fruit by Barry Estabrook
6. The Art of Fermentation by Sandor Katz
7. Plenty (Eating Locally on the 100-Mile Diet) by Alisa Smith, J.B. Mackinnon
8. Organic Manifesto: How Organic Farming Can Heal Our Planet, Feed the World, and Keep Us Safe by Maria Rodale
9. Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer
10. The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals by Michael Pollan

The complete list (ranked in order of their mention in Cornucopia’s Facebook poll)

1. Turn Here Sweet Corn by Atina Diffley
2. The $64 Tomato by William Alexander
3. The Dirty Life by Kristen Kimball
4. The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan
5. The Hundred-Foot Journey by Richard C. Morais
6. The Everlasting Meal by Tamar Adler
7. Tomatoland by Barry Estabrook
8. The Secret Life of Food by Clare Crespo
9. This Life Is in Your Hands by Melissa Coleman
10. Plenty (Eating Locally on the 100-Mile Diet) by Alisa Smith, J.B. Mackinnon
11. Urban Homesteading-Heirloom Skills for Sustainable Living by Rachel Kaplan with K. Ruby Blume
12. Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon and Mary Enig
13. The Unhealthy Truth by Robyn O’Brien and Rachel Kranz
14. Stolen Harvest by Vandana Shiva
15. Wheat Belly by William Davis
16. Slaughterhouse by Gail A. Eisnitz
17. Righteous Porkchop by Nicolette Hahn Niman
18. Folks, This Ain’t Normal by Joel Salatin
19. The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind by William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer
20. The Art of Fermentation by Sandor Katz
21. Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver
22. Teaming with Microbes: A Gardener’s Guide to the Soil Food Web by Jeff Lowenfels and Wayne Lewis
23. Wild Fermentation: The Flavor, Nutrition, and Craft of Live-Culture Foods by Sandor Ellix Katz and Sally Fallon
24. The Viking in The Wheat Field by Susan Dworkin
25. The Phytozyme Cure: Treat or Reverse More Than 30 Serious Health Conditions with Powerful Plant Nutrients by Michelle Cook
26. An Everlasting Meal, Tamar Adler
27. Eat & Run by Steve Friedman Scott Jurek
28. Greenhorns: 50 Dispatches from the New Farmers’ Movement by Paula Manalo
29. Eat the City: A Tale of the Fishers, Foragers, Butchers, Farmers, Poultry Minders, Sugar Refiners, Cane Cutters, Beekeepers, Winemakers, and Brewers Who Built New York by Robin Shulman
30. Bread Bones and Butter, Jeffrey Hamelman
31. Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon and Mary Enig
32. Turn Here Sweet Corn
33. Obligate Carnivore
34. Eat and Run
35. Bidoche, Fabrice Nicolino
36. BET THE FARM by Frederick Kaufman
37. GUT AND PSYCHOLOGY SYNDROME by Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride.
38. Farm City by Novella Carpenter
39. A Homemade Life by Molly Wizenberg
40. The Holistic Orchard: Tree Fruits and Berries the Biological Way by Michael Phillips
41. Greenhorns
42. The 150 Healthiest Foods on Earth: The Surprising, Unbiased Truth About What You Should Eat and Why by Jonny Bowden
43. Folks, This Ain’t Normal, Joel Salatin
44. Goat: Meat, Milk, Cheese by Bruce Weinstein, Mark Scarbrough and Marcus Nilsson
45. Aquaponic Gardening by Sylvia Bernstein
46. Life Rules by Elllen LaConte
47. Folks this Ain’t Normal by Joel Salatin
48. Holy Cows and Hog Heaven by Joel Salatin
49. The Art of Fermentation By Sandor Katz
50. Organic Manifesto by Maria Rodale
51. Farewell, My Subaru: An Epic Adventure in Local Living by Doug Fine
52. The Good Food Revolution: Growing Healthy Food, People, and Communities by Will Allen and Charles Wilson
53. The Joy of Foraging: Gary Lincoff’s Illustrated Guide to Finding, Harvesting, and Enjoying a World of Wild Food by Gary Lincoff
54. Flour Power: A Guide To Modern Home Grain Milling by Marleeta Basey
55. Fateful Harvest by Duff Wilson
56. Deep Nutrition: Why Your Genes Need Traditional Food by Catherine Shanahan and Luke Shanahan
57. Save Our Soil by Christopher Bird
58. Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. Barbara Kingsolver.
59. Folks, This Ain’t Normal by Joel Salatin
60. The Ecology of Eden by Evan Eisenberg
61. Gaia’s Garden – Toby Hemenway
62. The Resilient Gardener: Food Production and Self-Reliance in Uncertain Times by Carol Deppe
63. Everything I Want To Do Is Illegal: War Stories From the Local Food Front
64. by Joel Salatin
65. The One-Straw Revolution: An Introduction to Natural Farming (New York Review Books Classics) by Masanobu Fukuoka, Larry Korn, Wendell Berry and Frances Moore Lappe
66. Beautiful Corn: America’s Original Grain from Seed to Plate by Anthony Boutard
67. The Art of Fermentation by Sandor Ellix Katz
68. Sowing Seeds in the Desert by Masanobu Fukoka
69. The Humanure Handbook: A Guide to Composting Human Manure  by Joseph Jenkins
70. The Feast Nearby by Robin Mather
71. Gathering by Diane Ott Whealy
72. The Heirloom Gardener by Jere and Emiliee Gettle
73. Nutrition by Rudolf Hauschka, Marjorie Spock and Mary T. Richards
74. Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon
75. The Good Life byHelen and Scott Nearing
76. Organic Manifesto by Maria Rodale
77. Plenty: One Man, One Woman, and a Raucous Year of Eating Locally by Alisa Smith and J.B. Mackinnon
78. 100-mile diet
79. Vegetable Gardening the Colonial Williamsburg Way by Wesley Green
80. Beating the Food Giants by Paul A. Stitt
81. Eating Animals by Jonathon Safran Foer
82. Unjunk Your Junk Food-Healthy Alternatives to Conventional Snacks by Andrea Donsky
83. Sugar Blues by William F. Duffy
84. Full Moon Feast: Food and the Hunger for Connection by Jessica Prentice
85. Silent Spring by Rachel Carson
86. The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pillan
87. Turn Here Sweet Corn by Atina Diffley
88. Folks, This Ain’t Normal by Joel Salatin
89. Salt: A world History by Mark Kurlansky
90. Nourishing Traditions
91. Pacific Feast by Jennifer Hahn
92. The Makers Diet. Dr Jordan Ruben
93. Tomatoland: How Modern Industrial Agriculture Destroyed Our Most Alluring Fruit by Barry Estabrook
94. Teaming with Microbes, Jeff Lowenfels & Wayne Lewis
95. Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer
96. The End of Overeating: Taking Control of the Insatiable American Appetite by David Kessler
97. The Weekend Homesteader: A Twelve-Month Guide to Self-Sufficiency by Anna Hess