Links

The Artful Hippie -- Jeff's other blog, with photos of his art, and ramblings about life, art, beer, and everything in between.

The Weston A. Price Foundation for Wise Traditions in Food, Farming and the Healing Arts -- Weston A. Price was a cool dude, and the foundation in his name is pretty cool, too. He was a nutrition pioneer, and studied the diets of non-industrialized people, who were generally in optimal health. (His research even states that once, when studying the indigenous fisher-people of a Scandinavian country, he scraped a layer of green gunk off their teeth to reveal magnificently healthy gums and teeth. Even though they didn't have the oral hygiene of western countries, they had healthier teeth, because of their diets.) Anyhow, it's a great foundation, so check it out.

Larga Vista Ranch -- This is the farm where we get our (raw) milk, (raw) cream, free-range eggs, and organic, free-range pork and beef, year-round, and some produce in the summers.

Recommended Reading

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver -- Barbara Kingsolver has long been one of my favorite authors, so when I saw this book of hers, I picked it up. Little did I know that it would change our lives forever. I highly, highly recommend you read this book, if for no other purpose than to educate yourself about food, food culture, and the way that the eating habits of Americans and an increasing number of others around the world are destroying far more than just our waistlines.

The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals by Michael Pollan -- A fascinating study of food. Pollan takes 4 meals from start to finish, from the farms, etc. where they started to the plate: a fast food meal at McDonalds, an "industrial" organic meal (from big organic company farms, the kind of things you'd buy in the freezer section of a supermarket), a meal produced entirely on Polyface Farms, (a small farm in Virginia that does everything from lamb to lettuce) and a meal that he procures entirely himself, wild boar he hunted, mushrooms he hunted/picked, vegetables grown in his garden, and he even attempted to collect yeast from the San Francisco area air to make bread with. Funny, educational and startling, this is a must-read for anyone interested in where their food's been.

In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto by Michael Pollan -- A follow-up to The Omnivore's Dilemma, and a lighter, quicker read. It consists basically of Pollan's philosophies on food, what and how to eat. It pretty much boils down to "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." But it's so much more, and again, Pollan's writing style makes for a very enjoyable read.


Under construction...keep checking back for more links and awesome books. -Anna