false 16940 3507618 1596915374 9781596915374 41 <![CDATA[Fruitless Fall: The Collapse of the Honeybee and the Coming Agricultural Crisis]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1255657000m/3507618.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1255657000s/3507618.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3507618.Fruitless_Fall_The_Collapse_of_the_Honeybee_and_the_Coming_Agricultural_Crisis 4.25 110 How the disappearance of the world’s honeybee population puts the food we eat at risk.

Many people will remember that Rachel Carson predicted a silent spring, but she also warned of a fruitless fall, a time when “there was no pollination and there would be no fruit.” The fruitless fall nearly became a reality last year when beekeepers watched one third of the honeybee population—thirty billion bees—mysteriously die. The deaths have continued in 2008. Rowan Jacobsen uses the mystery of Colony Collapse Disorder to tell the bigger story of bees and their’ essential connection to our daily lives. With their disappearance, we won’t just be losing honey. Industrial agriculture depends on the honeybee to pollinate most fruits, nuts, and vegetables—one third of American crops. Yet this system is falling apart. The number of these professional pollinators has become so inadequate that they are now trucked across the country and flown around the world, pushing them ever closer to collapse. By exploring the causes of CCD and the even more chilling decline of wild pollinators, Fruitless Fall does more than just highlight this growing agricultural crisis. It emphasizes the miracle of flowering plants and their pollination partners, and urges readers not to take for granted the Edenic garden Homo sapiens has played in since birth. Our world could have been utterly different—and may be still.

]]> 16940 4.14 145 53 2008 704501 1596913258 9781596913257 7 <![CDATA[A Geography of Oysters: The Connoisseur's Guide to Oyster Eating in America]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1177446190m/704501.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1177446190s/704501.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/704501.A_Geography_of_Oysters_The_Connoisseur_s_Guide_to_Oyster_Eating_in_America 3.96 26 Passionate and playful, this is the first comprehensive guide to identifying, serving, and savoring one of America’s original and most delicious foods.

Considered one of the great sensual foods since the time of ancient Rome, eaten in the United States since its earliest human habitation, oysters are now seeing an American renaissance. Like wine and cheese, they owe much of their flavor to terroir, or the specific environment in which they grow—indeed, oysters are the food that tastes most like the sea. Today, there are at least two hundred unique oyster “appellations” in North America, each producing oysters with a distinct and consistent flavor—some merely passable, others dazzling.
</div><div>Beautifully written and illustrated, A Geography of Oysters is an indispensable guide to the oysters of America, describing each oyster’s appearance, flavor, origin, and availability. Readers will learn how to shuck, how to pair wines and oysters, and how to navigate a raw bar with skill and panache. The book includes recipes, maps, black-and-white photos, and a color guide, as well as lists of top oyster restaurants, producers, and festivals. Painting a picture of the quirky characters who farm oysters and the gorgeous stretches of coast where these delicacies are found, A Geography of Oysters is both terrific reading and the guide that foodies of all types have been waiting for.</div></div>]]> 16940 4.14 145 53 2007 88463 1931229317 9781931229319 1 <![CDATA[Chocolate Unwrapped: The Surprising Health Benefits of America's Favorite Passion]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1171135028m/88463.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1171135028s/88463.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/88463.Chocolate_Unwrapped_The_Surprising_Health_Benefits_of_America_s_Favorite_Passion 3.00 5 In a word, yes. Evidence is piling up that chocolate has a list of health benefits few foods can match. We're all familiar with antioxidants, the compounds found in fruits, vegetables, red wine, and tea that prevent heart disease, cancer, and premature aging. What we don't hear is that chocolate has the highest concentration of antioxidants of any food on the planet—ten times that of spinach, five times that of blueberries, and four times that of green tea. Chocolate Unwrapped explains the science behind chocolate's health benefits, then goes on to dispel the myths swirling around chocolate. Chocolate does not cause acne, allergies, migraines, or hyperactivity. Chocolate has much less caffeine than most people think. And tannins in chocolate actually help prevent cavities, making chocolate better for teeth than other sweets.

Though there is no proof for chocolate's reputation as an aphrodisiac (both Casanova and the Aztec emperor Montezuma drank it for that purpose), chocolate has clear effects on the brain and mood. Chocolate contains anandamide, a substance that activates the same receptors in the brain as marijuana, as well as other chemicals that causes feelings of excitement and well-being, explaining the natural craving many people feel for it.

Chocolate Unwrapped not only explains the positive physical and psychological effects of chocolate, but goes on to explore the colorful history, botany, and chemistry of chocolate, so you'll understand what to look for and what to avoid. A recipe section provides a multitude of healthy ways to eat chocolate, from flourless chocolate cake to Mexican mole, and a comprehensive list of resources tells you where to find the best-quality chocolates in the world. All this and more makes Chocolate Unwrapped a book that will change the lives of chocoholics everywhere.

]]> 16940 4.14 145 53 2003 6541816 1596916842 9781596916845 4 <![CDATA[The Living Shore: Rediscovering a Lost World]]> http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-111x148.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-60x80.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6541816-the-living-shore 3.75 4 The Sea of Cortez, a slim, beautiful volume containing a goodnews environmental story about how an oyster could help restore our oceans.
In the 1990s, a marine scientist named Brian Kingzett was commissioned to survey Canada’s western coast. He saw amazing sights, from the wildest, most breathtaking coasts to the smallest of marine creatures. Along the western side of Vancouver Island, Kingzett nosed into an isolated pocket beach where he found something unusual. Amid the mussels, barnacles, and clams were round oysters—Olympias. Kingzett noted their presence and paddled on. A decade later when he met Betsy Peabody, executive director of the Puget Sound Restoration Fund (PSRF), he learned that this once ubiquitous native oyster was in steep decline, and he knew that together they would return to this remote spot.
Rowan Jacobsen, along with Kingzett, Peabody, and a small group of scientists from PSRF and the Nature Conservancy, set out last July to see if the Olys were still surviving—and if they were, what they could learn from them. The goal: to use their pristine natural beds, which have probably been around for millennia, as blueprints for the habitat restoration efforts in Puget Sound. The implications are vast. If Peabody and her team can bring good health back to Puget Sound by restoring the intertidal zones—the areas of land exposed during low tide and submerged during high tide, where oysters live—their research could serve as a model for saving the world’s oceans.
During a time when the fate of the oceans seems uncertain, Rowan Jacobsen has found hope in the form of a small shelled creature living in the lost world where all life began.]]> 16940 4.14 145 53 2009 7050737 161556764X 9781615567645 0 <![CDATA[Look Great, Feel Great]]> http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-111x148.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-60x80.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7050737-look-great-feel-great 0.0 0 8352 4.18 3697 796 16940 4.14 145 53 3020475 3.47 15 3 3139290 0.0 0 0 2006 7247701 0641947747 9780641947742 0 <![CDATA[Walk Away the Pounds]]> http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-111x148.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-60x80.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7247701-walk-away-the-pounds 0.0 0 420893 4.28 58 19 16940 4.14 145 53 2004