Avocado anxiety And other stories about where your food comes from

Choosing a carrot, a tomato, or a pint of berries can produce so much angst! Information overload leads to confusion regarding how best to eat for our health and enjoyment as well as for Earth's longevity. UK-based environmental journalist Gray (The Ethical Carnivore, 2016) explores the planetary cost of our most basic food consumption, her research proving that no one choice is as simple as it seems. Eating locally isn't always for the best; tomatoes imported to the UK from the Netherlands take less CO2 to produce than those grown in the UK's hothouses in the off-season. Organic farming might be better for the land, but on a wider scale, it's not efficient at feeding the masses. This easy-to-read, if not easy-to-digest, collection offers plenty to educate both conscientious foodie readers and the merely curious. Like a just-ripe avocado beckoning to shoppers from the grocery shelf, this eye-catching title begs to be picked up. Illuminating the shades of gray in our evolving food system, it will encourage informed thoughts and choices to help make the system sustainable.

An exploration of the backgrounds of our favorite fruits and vegetables and examination of ways to minimize the carbon impact of what we eat. Gray is a journalist based in Scotland who specializes in food and environmental issues, and she is not afraid to get her hands dirty. Her acclaimed 2016 book, The Ethical Carnivore, recounted her year of eating meat and fish that she had killed herself. In her latest, she writes about her journey across Britain visiting farms and suppliers to track down the origins of the produce in her local supermarket--and to assess the environmental effects. "The fact is that eating most things nowadays makes us anxious," she notes. "Never before have we had so much food to eat, watched so many cookery programs or read so many cookery books. Yet, for many people, food is not a source of joy but a source of worry." Thankfully, the author finds plenty of positive stories, including farmers who are changing their growing practices for soil restoration, the resurgence in foraging for wild foods, and experimentation with new varieties. Gray also engagingly investigates the history of potatoes, bananas, tomatoes and, of course, avocados. She acknowledges the difficulty in working out the environmental footprint of foods, especially the carbon costs of transport, and she is wary of the emphasis that some environmental activists put on buying only locally grown food, which can hurt struggling producers in developing countries. It all makes for a complex equation requiring tolerance and trade-offs. Gray advises that readers stay informed, make the best decisions you can, keep an open mind, and don't attack other people for their choices. She concludes each chapter with an illustrative, unusual recipe; the honey roast tomatoes on toast sounds particularly tasty. With comprehensive research and intelligent, fair-minded writing, this is an informative, optimistic read. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.