What I'm Reading: The Revolution Will Not Be Microwaved

What I’m Reading: The Revolution Will Not Be Microwaved

Scott Kustes on 25 Mar 2008 08:00 am

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Table of contents for Book Reviews - 2008

I finished The Revolution Will Not Be Microwaved: Inside America’s Underground Food Movements by Sandor Ellix Katz last week. The gist of the book is all of the many ways used by people to remove themselves from the corporate food supply. Katz himself lives in what they call an “intentional community” with some twenty other people. They come and go as they please, inhabitants dwindling in the summer months and growing in the winter months. They grow much of their own food, raising goats, chickens, etc and growing plants. It seems like a pretty nice setup for a group of like-minded people.

Onto the topics discussed in the book. Katz really takes aim at the industrial food supply, the myriad packaged products in the stores that have pushed real food off of people’s tables. But beyond that, he also shows how in the name of “food safety,” many methods of controlling your own food supply have been outlawed. Raw milk is very difficult to come by due to laws. Baking and selling bread from your home is illegal. Farmers slaughtering their own animals is illegal. You can’t save seeds from certain plants because somewhere along the lines the government decided that seeds were patentable.

Of note on the issue of patentable seeds was the many farmers that have been sued by Monsanto for possessing some of Monsanto’s genetically modified crops amongst seeds they were saving. That wouldn’t be such an issue if these farmers had actually planted the Monsanto seeds. Instead, their crops were contaminated from neighboring fields and they were forced to pay Monsanto.

So Katz walks through some of the many ways that people are skirting the laws. From CSAs for produce to herd share programs for real milk, people are finding ways to be in control of their own food destinies. There was even a chapter on eating roadkill and freeganism. Vegetarianism (he’s not a vegetarian), factory farming, monocropping, even our water supply - all discussed in the book’s 340 pages. His rant on “free trade” was interesting. He’s a big fan of free trade, but he makes note of several inconsistencies of what is commonly called “free trade,” namely that there are so many restrictions keeping small producers and countries out of the market.

Overall, I give it a 7.5/10. There was some good information that I was unaware of, but having been reading and looking locally for my food for some time now, much of it wasn’t all that enlightening. Most of what I didn’t already know wasn’t of much consequence to me, unless I decide to stop and pick up a dead deer from the side of the road. It was a well-written, easy to read, and enjoyable book. I’m more looking forward to getting ahold of his previous book, Wild Fermentation.

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Tags: CSA, freeganism, genetic modification, herd share, raw milk, Sandor Katz, The Revolution Will Not Be Microwaved

Filed in Eating Locally 7 Comments so far

7 Responses to “What I’m Reading: The Revolution Will Not Be Microwaved”

Terry on 25 Mar 2008 at 8:30 am #

Another to add to my reading list.

Some of the food laws do exist for good reasons even though they are irritating at times. Raw milk when produced by healthy cows that are regularly tested is great but it only takes one sick cow to contaminate a lot of milk that can kill. Many “underground” food producers can’t afford that kind of testing.

The food laws do vary by state. In some places famers can slaughter their own animals; they just aren’t supposed to sell it to the public. But, that doesn’t keep people from buying the animal alive, hiring a slaughterer and having it taken to a butcher to be cut and wrapped.

I have never heard of a law that prohibits baking and selling bread from home. Ridiculous! So are laws that prevent producers from selling their farm fresh eggs to retail outlets like coops.

Also, picking up road kill is illegal in some states. That’s supposedly to prevent hunting using vehicles as weapons.

As for patentable seeds, I was under the impression that most seed produced by Monsanto and ADM were hybrids that won’t breed true in the field. So then you have to buy seed from them every year. Many people are worried that some of the genetically modified stuff will cross pollinate with neighbors open pollinated crops and counter the efforts to maintain the older, hardier crops, not to mention reducing genetic diversity of beneficial insects, butterflies and such.

Jay on 25 Mar 2008 at 10:14 am #

Half way through the book, it’s a pretty good read.
I really like his Wild Fermentation book.
Thanks for the review.

Scott Kustes on 25 Mar 2008 at 11:54 am #

Don’t worry Terry…I’m not actually going to go out and pick up roadkill. I just thought it was interesting. I’ll stick with local, grass-fed meats. I think you are right about some of the patentable seeds, but I think I heard that it’s the children of the parents that are infertile. Therefore, the seeds can germinate and contaminate other plants with infertile children and Monsanto has just happened to show up and test non-GMO farmer’s seed stocks and find Monsanto seeds from adjacent fields. I could be wrong on the fertility thing though.

Jay, no problem. Thanks for pointing out Wild Fermentation over on the CF forum.

Cheers
Scott

Anna on 25 Mar 2008 at 12:03 pm #

Thanks for the reminder to pick up the book again and finish it. I got sidetracked by some other books. Like you, Scott, not so much of this is new to me because of my other reading and investigations, but I like his writing style and perspective.

For a more complete story on GMO crops and the havoc they wreak on neighboring fields and farmers, see the movie The Future of Food, by Deborah Koons Garcia. Netflix.com has the rental dvd, and I was able to buy a used copy from Amazon.com.

I love the Wild Fermentations book. I have other fermentation and culturing books that are more specialized, but WF is the best all around book both for beginning fermenters and as a primary info source.

By the way, I am currently reading the book discussed on Dr. Mike Eades (www.proteinpower.com) blog, Mistakes Were Made (but not by me), and it is fascinating. Cognitive Dissonance Theory goes a long way towards explaining why the food system is the way it is, and why it is so difficult to get people to see things differently and make their own changes.

Debs on 25 Mar 2008 at 1:30 pm #

I’ll have to check this out, thanks. I’ve used recipes from Wild Fermentation and want to buy my own copy. Looks like now I have another book of his to add to my list.

Food Is Love

Marc on 25 Mar 2008 at 4:18 pm #

Thanks for the review Scott.
I have Wild Fermentation, but don’t think I’ll be getting this one.
Your history with reviews scores high in my book. You are usually dead on.

Marc

Scott Kustes on 26 Mar 2008 at 9:13 pm #

Thanks Marc. I realized while writing this post that I haven’t given any books really bad marks. Then I figured that had to do with the fact that most of the books I’m reading have been recommended by others, so the bad ones tend to get weeded out. Though I have read a flop or two in my life.