Vege-tainment

I've been listening to Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle in the car. My book group is discussing it next week. In a departure from her usual fictional format, Kingsolver, her husband and two daughters chronicle a year spent growing, buying, and consuming as many locally-grown items as possible. It's unbelievable how much petroleum it costs to grow and ship foods around the world the way we do. I also didn't know that the American Broad-Breasted White turkey -- the one with which most of us are familiar, from supermarkets to our Thanksgiving tables -- has been inbred so instensely (to ensure fat, meaty birds), that the mature birds are fully incapable of foraging for their own food or even of mating. That's right, folks: the chick that grew into your Turkey Day meal started out as the product of Artificial Turkey Insemination. There are people whose actual job it is to collect turkey sperm from live turkeys and inject it into live turkey hens.

Oh, Murky -- I promise Daddy and I will take you to real farms, where real food is grown and harvested (and where the turkeys are able to have actual sex). Or, even better, that we'll try to grow some food of our own. Not sure we're up to raising turkeys, but you get the point...