52 of 54 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Not just about the canning jars, October 27, 2009
This review is from: Independence Days: A Guide to Sustainable Food Storage & Preservation (Paperback)
Independence Days is a book about food security. Like Sharon Astyk's two previous books (Depletion and Abundance; A Nation of Farmers), this one focuses on the need to assume personal responsibility for food self-sufficiency and for shortening the supply chain from farm/garden to table. Unlike Asktyk's previous books, this one is also a how-to, as well as a why-we-should, complete with helpful instructions for creating and managing a food storage pantry, preserving fresh foods, and cultivating a frugal and self-reliant life style.
Astyk's arguments for the importance of personal food security ("one of the central issues of our time") are compelling. A looming energy crisis, soil and water depletion, and the threat of global warming--these are all reasons to be concerned about the reliability of our food supply and the need to take personal control, as far as possible, over the food we put on our family's table. "Independence days" (a concept Astyk borrows from Carla Emery) are days when we're eating food we grow ourselves or obtain locally. For Astyk, true independence is freedom from the industrial food system that feeds most Americans.
Hence this book, which recommends various methods for food preservation (canning, pickling, dehydrating, fermenting); for purchasing, stocking, and storing food in pantry, root cellar, and freezer; for acquiring tools and equipment, in addition to adequate supplies of water, medicine, and other necessities; and for creating and using community resources. All of this advice is sound, helpful, and inspiring. It is also very credible, for Astyk practices what she preaches, and it's good to know that she has tried the methods that she advocates. The various sections are also illustrated with recipes, more or less effectively. Some of the recipes contain non-local foods--coconut milk, quinoa, salmon--which I found distracting in a book about shortening the supply chain, and not all of them illustrate the principle she'd like to teach: baked apples and cranberries are good comfort food but the recipe doesn't fit very comfortably in a section on medicines. Recipes/formulas for home-grown herbal remedies would have been a better choice.
But these are minor quibbles. I like Sharon Astyk because she always tells me why I should do something, before she tells me how, and this book continues that practice. "This isn't just about the rice or the garden or the canning jars," she says. "This is a small but important step in making a better way of life." Yes, truly. I learned from Independence Days, and it strengthened my desire to be as independent as possible. If you're concerned about food security, this is a good book to read and use. If you're not, read it anyway. You'll learn why the American food supply should be at the top of your list of things to think about.
by Susan Wittig Albert
for Story Circle Book Reviews
reviewing books by, for, and about women
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17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
preparedness, January 6, 2010
This review is from: Independence Days: A Guide to Sustainable Food Storage & Preservation (Paperback)
Great book on being prepared for any emergency that may arise - without hitting the panic button. Easy and fun to read with great advice on getting started with food security for yourself and hopefully expanding to your neighbors and beyond. She is pragmatic about the learning curve, with a good sense of humor. I would recommend this to friends.
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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
It's not really a guide to preservation..., August 25, 2010
This review is from: Independence Days: A Guide to Sustainable Food Storage & Preservation (Paperback)
It's not that I didn't like this book, or find some of the information presented useful. I'm all for preservation and sustainable eating, buying from farmers and growing your own if possible. That's why I was interested in this book. However, I was looking for a preservation how-to, which, based on the title, this book seems it would be. It's not. It's mostly telling you why you should store six months worth of food for everyone you live with ... ok ... moving on. Or not, in the case of this book. I think that food preservation stands on its own merits, and shouldn't need the threat of impending doom to make people interested in it, which the author clearly does. By the third time she had mentioned that children and the elderly can die from the shock of dietary changes in the event of the apocalypse, I was a little weary of the impending doom, myself. If you are looking for a practical guide to preservation and storage, look elsewhere. If you are looking for the political motivation for said storage, read on.
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