FoodWise: A Whole Systems Guide to Sustainable and Delicious Food Choices

(Paperback)

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The definitive guide for food lovers on how to make the right food choices amidst a sea of ever-changing information, and an invitation to return to the joys of garden and kitchen We live in a culture awash with advice on nutrition and eating. Who do we believe And what does it really mean to eat healthy Food Wise is for anyone who has felt unsure about how to make the "right" food choices. It is for food lovers who want to be more knowledgeable and connected to their food, while also creating meaningful dining experiences around the table. Professor and food fanatic Gigi Berardi shows readers how to buy foods and prepare meals that are W.I.S.E- Whole, Informed, Sustainable, and Experienced with friends and family. She offers insights on how to comb the aisles of the local food market with confidence and a renewed excitement, and debunks the questionable science behind popular diets, sharing some counterintuitive tips that may surprise you (such as the health benefits of eating saturated fat). Food Wise is an invitation to return to the garden and the kitchen. It will revolutionize how you think about healthy, enjoyable, socially conscious cuisine.

Reviews

"FoodWISEis full of wisdom."
Michael Pollan via Twitter

"This guide to sustainable and delicious food choices points to the value of the home garden and kitchen, and questions the benefits of popular diets."
FOODTANK.COM, highlighted inForbes

"Against a deluge of dieting suggestions, fads, and conflicting studies on nutrition, [FoodWISE]suggests adopting a strategy in which you stop, think, and act considering what works best in terms of both budgets and personal values. The title acronym, WISE, stands for Whole, Informed, Sustainable, and Experienced The books mission is most of all one of self-discovery."
ForewordReviews

It is often asked whether we should eat to live or live to eat. Gigi Berardi persuades us that we can and should do both, as eating FoodWISE is good for our health, good for the animals and environment in our care, and also profoundly enjoyable. That conclusion is based both on scienceremembering that food production is primarily a biological rather than a technical processand on empathy. As Berardi demonstrates, empathy for other living beings can and should be extended to the animals and people involved in food production round the world, to other workers in the food chain, and to our families and friends sharing our foodthrough the deeply personal principles, stories, and recipes she shares with us in every page of this life-affirming book.
Michael Appleby, OBE, professor, Jeanne Marchig International Centre for Animal Welfare Education, University of Edinburgh

Often the world of food is complex and confusing, with marketing messages that mislead even engaged consumers.FoodWISE empowers interested eaters with tools to approach their food in a more thoughtful, sustainable, and healthy way, all the while illuminating some of the pitfalls of our current food system. No fad diets herejust a call back to whole foods and mindful eating.
MarieBurcham, JD, director of domestic policy, The Cornucopia Institute

Food scholar Gigi Berardi wades into the troubled waters of advice about what to eat and proposes some truly wise and inspired guidance.FoodWISE offers the nuanced, honest answers youll never get from a diet book, with a possibilist spirit reminiscent of Frances Moore Lapp.
LizCarlisle, author ofLentil Underground andGrain by Grain

Gigi BerardisFoodWISEmovesbeyond inflexible notions of black and white to criticallyand unapologeticallyexamine the grey. By the end of the book, I realized thather seemingly common-sense approach had led me to a profound knowledge abouthow to be a self-conscious and responsible consumer.
Jason W. Cornell, MS, cheesemaker (affineur), and food connoisseur

For all of us who find ourselves overwhelmed with food choicesWhich apple is most sustainable Ethical Affordable Should I even be eating an apple in AprilBerardisFoodWISE provides a clear set of unpretentious and practical ideas to guide our eating and cooking. Interspersed with compelling case studies, personal experiences, and sound science, the book reflects an ethic of care for the people and ecological systems that coproduce our food.
Kate J. Darby, associate professor of environmental justice and sustainability at Western Washington University

If you want to be an informed consumer of food, heres your definitive guide. So many answers to so many questions! Berardi gives background to the backgroundperspective to the perspectiveproviding a rare, detailed guide to the food world nexus. If you cant figure out what to eat after readingFoodWISE, you might as well just stop eating.
Steve Ettlinger, author ofTwinkie, Deconstructed

Berardi gently and often humorously guides readers through the intricate threads of the food web from soil to eater, that is, from manure and soil to me and you. Her goal is to share her own expanding pleasure based on a lifetime of the experience: that eating is more rewarding the more we are connected to the source of our food. You and I can tug on threads of the food web if we stop, think, and act based on awareness of mostly invisible people, practices, and relationships that placed an egg or lettuce or a Twinkie before usespecially if we reacquaint ourselves with cooking and gardening. This is a guide, partly about how to choose how we engage with the food system but even more about how to think and act based on knowledge, experience, and good judgment. Although changing direction of the food system requires comprehensive social and policy changes, Berardi helps us make ourselves healthier and the food system more sustainable by aligning our choices toward emerging ways of doing food WISEly.
Harriet Friedmann, professor emerita of sociology, Munk School of Global Affairs and PublicPolicy, University of Toronto

FoodWISE asks us to stop, think, and then act when making food choices. Why Because every bite we take has impacts on people, place, and planet. To support us approaching our food choices in this way, Gigi Berardi takes us on a journey of self-reflection around our food values and beliefs and how these influence the decisions we make every day in relation to buying, growing, cooking, and eating food. Its also a journey of learning about our food systems, their current complexities and challenges, and what we need to make them more sustainable. Berardi grounds all this, where else but in the kitchenplacing the ability to make a difference easily within reach of the reader. This book gives us practical tools we can use every day to support FoodWISE choices right in our own kitchens.
C.K. Ganguly (Bablu), executive director, Timbaktu Collective, Chennekothapalli village, Anantapur District, Andhra Pradesh, India, and board member, IFOAM Organics International

The dairy industry has changed over the fifty years since I have been in business. The little farms are not efficient, the countryside is filled with empty silos of dairy farms, no longer milking. These small farms are being absorbed by their neighborsno matter if they are dairy or cash crop farms. The little farms go out of business and their larger neighbors get bigger. The changes in the upper air currents from the tropics and the arctic have led to severe flooding in the central United Stateswe need to understand that climate is changing. It's made the spring here in New York very wet. I believe there will be a shortage of corn for beef and poultry and hogs, and we may face food shortages and/or severe priceincreases. Gigi Berardi'sFoodWISE touches on some environmental concerns but, at its heart, really keeps the farmer in mind. That's what we need right now. Nothing's going to change unless we appreciate farmers and support policies that aid all farmers. Ed Gates, Seneca Valley Farms, Burdett, New York

If you ever find yourself in solitary confinement, or the equivalent, with one book to read, make sure itsFoodWISE. Rarely is so much wisdom, common sense, and original thinking elegantly pressed between two covers in a world hungry for food and even hungrier for the full story about the staples of life.
Charles Geisler, emeritus professor of development sociology, Cornell University

Why treat nature's food as just another manufactured consumer commodity and agbiz profit center Gigi Berardi offers a bigger, richer ethic as the centerpiece of a sustainable future.
Jim Hightower, former Texas agriculturecommissioner, populist author, radio commentator,and editor ofThe Hightower Lowdown

FoodWISE is an incredible body of workit covers several aspects that I am involved with and that are close to my heart.Berardi takes a critical look at organic farming, climate change, food marketing and fads, vulnerable communities, labor, GMO, and more. Yet,Berardis approach does not paint an apocalyptic picture of the times to come. Without glossing over the hard facts, she successfully creates a multifaceted robust framework that is absolutely logical and critical for our time. At its core,FoodWISE is a clarion call asking us to explore the omnipresent agricultural web and aid us toward an experience-based thinking relationship to food.
Manisha `Molly' Kairaly, craft and food activist, South India

More people are becoming aware that what we choose to eat and how its grown, processed, or cooked has a profound impact on the health of our families and the planet. No other purchase decisionwemakewill havea more profound impact on our present and long-term quality of lifethis book really endeavors to connect the dots.
Mark Kastel,director of the organic watchdog project at Beyond Pesticides

This book is a very accessible and far-ranging primer to help people think about food in a broad context. Gigi Berardi thoughtfully and skillfully explores the myriad ramifications of the decisions we make each day about what to eat, from a flexible whole foods approach to nutrition to important environmental, social, and economic implications. If you want to know more about important issues in food today, and how to make better food decisions, you'll love this book.
SandorEllixKatz, author ofWild Fermentation andThe Art of Fermentation

As a sensory scientist, its exciting to see a food-systems book that takes the sensory experience of food seriously and reminds the reader that the way foods taste are meaningful beyond simple matters of liking and disliking.
Jacob Lahne, assistant professor of food science and technology, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

Our small planet faces big troublesclimate chaos, hunger, obscene inequality, and much more. So, its time to dig deep, tapping the po

Author Bio

GIGI BERARDI is a professor at Western Washington University in Bellingham, Washington. In addition to teaching food and geography classes in the U.S., Mexico, and Europe, she currently homesteads 25 acres with her family in the San Juan Islands in Washington, where she milks sheep and makes cheese. She maintains a popular food blog (resilientfarmsnourishingfoods.blogspot.com) and has written numerous articles for both newspapers and scientific journals. A self-proclaimed "foodie," Gigi Berardi has over 30 years experience in food and farm studies. She received her BA in biology with high honors from John Muir College, University of California San Diego and degrees (MS, PhD) from Cornell University in Natural Resources and Resources, Policy, and Planning. Berardi was a Fulbright scholar, and her articles and reviews have appeared in newspapers such as the Los Angeles Times, the Anchorage Daily News, The Olympian, The Bellingham Herald, and scientific journals such as BioScience, Human Organization, and Ethics, Place, and Environment. Her public radio features (for KSKA, Anchorage) have been recognized by the Society of Professional Journalists. She is an elected member of the American Society of Journalists and Authors.