Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

Short for “concentrated animal feeding operations,” CAFOs are industrial feedlots that house at least 1,000,000 pounds of live animal weight at a time (91). These feedlots generally house hundreds of animals in a relatively small area, as regulated by federal law. The point of CAFOs is to produce as much meat for consumption as quickly and cheaply as possible. As a result, the animals often receive diets that are not usual for their species, are pumped with antibiotics to ward off disease, and are generally unhealthy until their slaughter. Kingsolver and her family argue strongly against CAFOs from every angle. They represent huge fuel costs, are inhumane to the animals, produce meat that is less healthy and less flavorful than other modes of farming, and represent a threat to farmers who do produce meat humanely. 

Mentioned by Steven L. Hopp as a good way for urbanites to eat local, a CSA is an arrangement in which “subscribers pay a producer in early spring and then receive a weekly share of the produce all season long” (37). This system supports local farmers and does away with the common argument against local and organic eating: that it is too much of an inconvenience. 

In Chapter 15, Kingsolver and Hopp take a trip to Italy and spend a lot of their trip staying at a fattoria in Tuscany. This is a farm hotel, where visitors stay with a family who run a working farm. It is a chance to escape the urban lifestyle and experience life on a farm. Kingsolver and Hopp observe their host’s farming methods and various crops they cannot grow, such as olives. It is an Italian form of agritourism.

This refers to any plant unnaturally altered at the DNA level in a laboratory. Unlike plants created through natural hybridization or through natural evolution, the point of a GM plant is to create a variation of the plant that has genetic traits that do not occur naturally in the species. For example, some plants are genetically modified to include “a ‘terminator gene’ that causes the crop to commit genetic suicide after one generation (47). Therefore, farmers who grow these plants must buy new seeds every year, rather than saving the seeds, which increases profits for the company that owns the patent on the GM plant. Other common genetic modifications increase the plant’s resistance to herbicides, making it easier for industrial farms to spray to kill weeds, leaving the produce untouched. Modified plants also better withstand shipping.

However, GM plants do not taste as flavorful as heirloom varieties and may have serious health implications for consumers as well. Additionally, the huge prominence of GM plants gives conglomerates almost complete control over the farmers who grow these items. As Kingsolver also points out, genetic modification has also drastically reduced the variety of produce grown, which could have its own disastrous effects.

The opposite of GM plants, heirloom plants are the species that humans have never altered or hybridized; these remain pure year after year by farmers who grow them, save seeds, and plant them again. Heirloom means they are “open-pollinated—as opposed to hybrids, which are the onetime product of a forced cross between dissimilar varieties in a plant” (46).

These plants are healthier and more flavorful, according to Kingsolver, but are in danger of dying out forever as the industrial farms grow more and more GM crops—usually just corn and soy. Heirloom plants are also better able to withstand pests and disease, due to the fact that they evolve naturally.

A locavore is someone who eats only food sourced from within a certain radius of where he or she lives. According to the book, this can be a dozen or a hundred miles or so, depending on the area. The book chronicles the Hopp-Kingsolver family’s attempt to become locavores and to encourage others to do the same. According to the book’s argument, local eating is really the only ironclad way to be sure you are eating healthy, sustainably-grown food that supports a local farmer, because “locally-grown; is a denomination whose meaning is incorruptible;” corporations cannot fake it (123).

Organic produce is food grown without pesticides and with processes that recycle resources, protect biodiversity, and are ecologically-friendly. Not industrially processed, these foods cannot contain additives. The food cannot be genetically modified either.

Kingsolver supports organic farming, but warns that industrial corporations have found ways to follow the letter of the law on organic farming as well. This means that the “organic” label does not always guarantee that the produce has not traveled hundreds of miles, wasting fuel in the transportation process. This organic food also does not support the family farm community, as it comes from the conglomerates.

This is an international organization that works to protect heirloom species from “the homogenization of modern fast food and life” (55). Founded in Italy, it is now worldwide; Kingsolver and her family are a part of it. One of the many things Slow Food International does is to give people access to heirloom plants so that they can grow them and keep the species going.

They also keep the Ark of Taste, which is an online catalog of traditional foods that are at a high risk for extinction. They have saved over 1,000 fruits, vegetables, dairy products, and animals so far.