Warning: Deep food geekery

Christopher and I have been (together) reading "The Omnivore's Dilemma" and he's been reading "Collapse" and I've been reading "The Best Food Writing 2006". And Frances Moore Lappe is in Belmont this week.

For those who don't obsessively follow the politics, trends, science, sociology, etc. of food, Ms. Lappe wrote "Diet for a Small Planet." The book is ... well, I like the theory but the practice of her ideals resulted in much of the culinary sadism of the 70s. The general idea is that we should eat lower on the food chain. Meat, beef in particular, is bad for the environment because it takes some alrge number of plant colories to create one meat calorie.

The result, alas, was vegan carob-chip cookies made with wheat germ and safflower oil.

Ick.

Omnivore's Dilemna is a more cogent book on the same lines. The author -- Michael Pollan -- talks about how ridiculosu the American farming policy is and how it encourages a glut of Type 2 Field Corn and hwo that corn is being milled into cheap, bad-for-you food. How it takes 3.6 gallons of oil -- in pesticides, fertlizers and whatnot -- to make one bushell of corn. Even so-called "organic" food is for the most part enormousely wasteful And how we're killing the environment to get all thsi cheap food.

Collapse is about how abusing the environment traditionally leads to the downfall of civilizations.

You can see where this is leading.

And, here's the thing, I know it's not news. This is stuff we've been talking about for decades. But now I have a daughter, damnit, and I've got to do something about it.

The solution seems to be eating locally. And organically, but locally seems just as if not more important at this moment than organically. So I'm trying.

Not a whole-sale ban on non-local food, fo course. And certainly not this winter. If there's one thing that Yankees (the people, not the baseball team) have known for centuries, it's that it takes a lot of thought and preparation to live on the land through a New England winter.

So I'm going to buy shares in a CSA come spring. And I'm going to buy my red meat -- beef and lamb -- from River Rock Farm. And I'm going to lok for a local source of eggs, milk, and chickens. And cheese. (Please let me know if you know of one!)

And I'm going to tell you all that you need to read these books. In particular "The Omnivore's Dilemma." Or borrow it from me. It should be mandatory reading for ... well, everyone who eats. I was going to buy everyone a copy for Christmas but Chrisotpher made me promise not to. So this is the compromise. But my daughtyer is about to inheret this world and it is, to quote Terry Pratchett, awfully manky. So I need you people to haul your own freight if I'm going to change the world, damnit.

That's terribly depressing I know.