Must read.

1. The Ominivore’s Dilemma, by Michael Pollan
2. In Defense of Food, by Michael Pollan
3. The End of the Wild, by Stephen M. Meyer

Should read.

1. When the Rivers Run Dry, by Fred Pearce
2. Citizenship Papers, by Wendell Berry

Could read.

1. Field Notes From a Catastrophe, by Elizabeth Kolbert
2. Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, by Barbara Kingsolver

Skip it.

1. The World Without Us, by Alan Weisman
2. Coming Home to Eat, by Gary Paul Nabhan

This last book I’m working my way through now, and it’s a bit wandering and self congratulatory without imparting any real knowledge or sense of experience.  At best.  Which is disappointing because I had high hopes: It recounts a guy’s attempt to consume only what he can get from within 220 miles from his Arizona home (a bit far for “local”, but a great goal).

I have a “to read” stack on my desk that includes The End of Food, by Paul Roberts; Hot, Flat, and Crowded, by Thomas L. Friedman; Fast Food Nation, by Eric Schlosser; and Second Nature, by Michael Pollan.  That’s where I’ll be heading next, trying to read as many as I can before the spring semester starts and my reading turns back to student work.

If there’s anything else I should read, or any of the above that I’ve misread — drop me a note.

I like the idea of fewer intermediaries between my food and I.  This preference has many reasons behind it, but for the most part it boils down to a concern and a belief: the earth cannot sustain 6 billion (let alone 9 billion by 2040) people living a business-as-usual lifestyle; the actions of one person are not in vain, but significant, in dealing with global issues.

Business as usual includes consuming outside of seasons (a New Yorker buying summer oranges and winter asparagus) and regions (that same individual buying an avocado any time of year), and blindly supporting a massive industrial food machine that manufactures everything from McDonald’s to Wheat Thins to corn with little transparency and against which consumers have little recourse.  More on all of this down the line.

We’re coming up on something fast and the effectiveness of a single person’s actions in mitigating that something cannot be ruled out.  The degradation of the environment and the decline in the quality of life that accompanies it is a global problem that seems to require a coordinated, global solution.  But what is apparent is that people think in terms of themselves most often because that is a rational, practical way to get through the day.  Big solutions become daunting, hard to imagine and relate to, and can be defensively forgotten.  What is needed, then, is 6 billion individual decisions to live differently, to consume differently.  In this, the individual act is essential, and all hope and responsibility for the future is not diffused within the crowd of a city, state, country, or hemisphere, but instead rests about a foot above the shoulders of every person, where real decisions are made.

So, where do we go from here?  Where I go is toward producing a significant portion of my wife and I’s daily calories at home.  I’ve set 15 percent as my first benchmark, which seems low and high at the same time.  Looking at that number I can’t help but think of all the scenarios where such an achievement would be pathetic.  I can’t help but think about the other 85 percent of my food (a far more robust number) and where it might come from.  I wince at the usual channels that are most likely.  Some who stumble across this effort might wonder why I don’t shoot higher, try for 50 percent or 100, even.  Those numbers almost certainly start getting into grains and meats.  I have every intention of growing some grain — look forward to it, in fact — but it takes up a lot of space, and I just don’t have the room for a subsistence-level effort.  As for the meats, honestly, I can’t really see myself butchering anything — at this point — and I’m not sure I’m zoned for slaughter.

However, I do hope that the 15 turns into 20 or 25 percent.  But that’s getting ahead of the now.  Just hitting that first mark is going to be a challenge.