The Eco-Foods Guide: What's Good for the Earth is Good for You!

by Cynthia Barstow, Frances Moore Lappé (Foreword by)

We are what we eat, as the saying goes. So it follows that if we want to be healthy, we should buy healthy foods. And for foods to be healthy, the earth they grow in also needs to be in good health. This might seem like Ecology 101, but it’s what many supermarket shoppers are grappling with nowadays as they try to decide what to feed the family. The Eco-Foods Guide is a lively conversation with consumers that takes the gloom out of our grocery choices and empowers shoppers to vote with their food dollars for the environment and for a safe future for their grandchildren. Frankenfoods and more have made food shopping so frightening and complex that the result has often been paralysis or denial. But in this optimistic and even humorous jaunt through the topic, sustainable agriculture expert Cynthia Barstow encourages readers to walk away bubbling with opportunities to buy what’s best—most of the time—and to even engage with the many others working to effect change in agriculture. In a straightforward style, The Eco-Foods Guide ex-amines the pesticides and growth hormones, biotechnology and processed foods, manufacturing concentration and animal husbandry, and the overuse of nonrenewable resources. At the same time, it highlights alternatives and solutions, • Eating seasonally • Buying local • Reforming school cafeteria menus • Shopping at farmer’s markets • Eating at Chef’s Collaborative restaurants • Supporting labeling, organic, and IPM production methods • Regarding our food again as sacred Cynthia Barstow is adjunct faculty at the University of Massachusetts and an environmental/sustainable agriculture marketing consultant and speaker. Previously VP of marketing for a $3 billion Manhattan restaurant, her clients have included the World Wildlife Fund and the University of Wisconsin Madison "Protected Harvest" eco-label program.

288 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2002

About the author

Sustainable agriculture marketing consultant and teacher.

Reviews

[Alina · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book read like an undergrad's thesis. And a bad one at that. Lots of paragraph chunks of quoted material, with nothing but an end note to see where the info came from. My favorite part of the entire book was a 4 page insert written by the author's husband about his personal feelings about raising their own pigs for consumption. The author didn't know much more than I did, and it showed; I felt as though I should just read the authors she was quoting, rather than waste my time with her. Not a worth-while read, in my humble opinion.

[Alexis · Rating 2 out of 5]

Completely frustrating, because most of the information in this book only applied to an American audience. It referred to a lot of brands and products that don't exist in Canada.

The two stars are for chapters where I learned about Integrated Pest Management, and biotechnology,