Animal, Vegetable, Miracle (Post 4)

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As reading Barbara Kingsolver's "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle", there was something in particular that really interested me, TOMATOES! I am a tomato fanatic, and to read about how "the first tomato of the season brings (Kingsolver) to (her) knees" (196), really hit home. I love it! I want one of her tomatoes from the fifty plants that she has at her farm. Sounds like a party to me.

I had no idea that tomato farming was so profitable, but learned that from Kingsolver's accounts. After doing some reading online, and actually browsing through a farmer's forum :), I found that Kingsolver's pocket is not the only one that loves August, which is "all about tomatoes, every year" (198). According to many farmers, tomatoes are the crop that yield the most profit, and although they require some uptake, it is worth the time.

The other part of my tomato reading that really intrigued me was when Kingsolver talks about the company Appalachian Harvest. Although when first describing the company Kingsolver makes it sound like the Montsanto of fruits, we see her give credit to them at the end of the few pages, making me feel better about my precious tomatoes. The Appalachian Harvest packing house is in charge of "slapping one of those tedious stickers on every one of the thousands of" (205) tomatoes. Through her sarcastic tone, I see that Kingsolver is not very fond of industry becoming involved in local farming.

Also at the packing houses, produce must "conform to certain standards of color, size, and shape" (205) to make it to the supermarkets with the ever coveted organic sticker. Of course, in this tedious process, many deformed, but just as amazingly delicious tomatoes are tossed into "mountains of wasted food" (205). However, we see that hope is not lost as with the help of some local churches and social justice groups, Appalachian Harvest set up a system of delivering "'factory second' vegetables" (205) to families of low income. Sometimes these families have not been able to afford organic food before, so the exposure is genious. As we saw in Food Inc., these families actually end up spending more money on diabetes pills then they would be if they just bought organic food. As Kingsolver makes clear, "throwing away good food makes no sense" (205), and this is a great way to make food of this imperfect food.