May 2023

“What Kind of Ancestor Do You Want to Be?” is a thought-provoking book that encourages readers to consider their impact on future generations and the environment. This collection presents the idea that we are all ancestors-in-waiting and that the choices we make today will shape the world that our descendants inherit. It draws on insights […]

As a chocolate lover and morning coffee drinker, I worry about the impacts a changing climate will have on my favorite foods. Those same concerns are what inspired Michael Hoffmann, an entomologist studying biological control, writer Carrie Koplinka-Loehr, and Danielle L. Eiseman, who once worked as a chef, to collaborate on this book. They structure

“How to Sell a Poison: The Rise, Fall and Toxic Return of DDT” by writer and medicine historian Elena Conis is a meticulous chronicle of the complex forces that brought the insecticide DDT into prominent use, eventual disuse, and more recent resurgence. Though DDT is the focus of Conis’ research, ultimately, this is a story

This slim and well-referenced book offers a compelling description of what a truly sustainable community looks like. Author Sumanas Koulagi (full disclosure: I’m a personal acquaintance) examines an old concept called “swaraj” to define and then demonstrate how a community can practice self-sufficiency. This vison can apply to food production as easily as it does

Mary Boone got interested in entomophagy (eating insects) about a decade ago when the United Nations issued its report on using insect protein to feed the world’s growing population. When she later traveled to Vietnam and Cambodia, Boone had opportunities to snack on fried grasshoppers at a local market. They were surprisingly tasty, and she