Prepare yourself book club aficionados. July is offering unprecedented opportunities for lots of great reading. Our three book club participants are all reaching out in different directions this month. Join the Linden Hills Coop as they kick off their book club with Hungry Planet, by Peter Menzel and Faith D'Aluisio. Mississippi Market will be reading the book Food Inc. by Karl Weber, and will be showing the film at their end of the month meeting. If you are in the Bemidji area, join Harmony Cooperative as they read Living Downstream by Sandra Steingraber, and will watch the documentary film based on the book. Perhaps we should offer official book club hero status to anyone who can attend all three of the Simple, Good and Tasty book clubs this month!
Here are the places and times:
- Hungry Planet at the Linden Hills Cooperative: Wednesday, July 27 from 6:30-8:30.
- Food Inc. at Mississippi Market Cooperative: Thursday August 4th, 7-9pm in the Selby Community Room. Anyone is welcome to come watch the film - reading the book is not necessary but compliments the film nicely. The film will be followed by a brief discussion period of both film & book.
- Living Downstream at Harmony Cooperative in Bemidji: Thursday, July 28th, 6:00. Since we will be watching the movie, we will once again be meeting in the home of one of the members. Anyone interested in the book or movie is welcome to attend. For more information, call 218-766-8926.
- Hungry Planet: The age-old practice of sitting down to a family meal is undergoing unprecedented change as rising world affluence and trade, along with the spread of global food conglomerates, transform eating habits worldwide. Hungry Planet profiles 30 families from around the world--including Bosnia, Chad, Egypt, Greenland, Japan, the United States, and France--and offers detailed descriptions of weekly food purchases; photographs of the families at home, at market, and in their communities; and a portrait of each family surrounded by a week's worth of groceries. Featuring photo-essays on international street food, meat markets, fast food, and cookery, this captivating chronicle offers a riveting look at what the world really eats.
- "Food, Inc." is guaranteed to shake up our perceptions of what we eat. This powerful documentary deconstructing the corporate food industry in America was hailed by "Entertainment Weekly" as "more than a terrific movie--it's an important movie." Aided by expert commentators such as Michael Pollan and Eric Schlosser, the film poses questions such as: Where has my food come from, and who has processed it? What are the giant agribusinesses and what stake do they have in maintaining the status quo of food production and consumption? How can I feed my family healthy foods affordably? Expanding on the film's themes, the book "Food, Inc." will answer those questions through a series of challenging essays by leading experts and thinkers. This book will encourage those inspired by the film to learn more about the issues, and act to change the world.
- Living Downstream: With this eloquent and impassioned book, biologist and poet Sandra Steingraber shoulders the legacy of Rachel Carson, producing a work about people and land, cancer and the environment, that is as accessible and invaluable as "Silent Spring"--and potentially as historic. In her early twenties, Steingraber was afflicted with cancer, a disease that has afflicted other members of her adoptive family. Writing from the twin perspectives of a survivor and a concerned scientist, she traces the high incidence of cancer and the terrifying concentrations of environmental toxins in her native rural Illinois. She goes on to show similar correlation in other communities, such as Boston and Long Island, and throughout the United States, where cancer rates have risen alarmingly since mid-century. At once a deeply moving personal document and a groundbreaking work of scientific detection, Living Downstream will be a touchstone for generations, reminding us of the intimate connection between the health of our bodies and the integrity of our air, land, and water.
Some questions to consider...
- What memories do you have of your family dinners?
- What is the value of the family dinner in your life?
- Which family or culture in Hungry Planet was most surprising to you and why?
- What are the next steps we can take in order to apply the lessons learned in Food Inc.?
- What changes has Food Inc. inspired you to make in your own life?
- Do you think films such as Food Inc. are a good medium to communicate the problems with our food system to the general public?
- What was the most "awakening" moment in Living Downstream?
- How does science show up in the book? How does that compare to how science is used in the real world to "inform" us about toxins in the environment?
Thanks for your interest and participation in the Simple, Good and Tasty book club and...happy reading!
Guatemalan photograph by Peter Menzel, from Hungry Planet.
Lawrence Black is a writer and editor at Simple, Good and Tasty. He can be reached at lawrence@simplegoodandtasty.com.
