Blessing the Hands That Feed Us: Lessons from a 10-Mile Diet by Vicki Robin

Blessing the Hands That Feed Us: Lessons from a 10-Mile Diet Reviews

• 
  Jennybeast

  Meh. I am struggling to get through this book. There is a ton of good information in it, but you have to get past the author, with her clumsy self-revelations and preachy patronizing tone. I can't tell you how irritating I find it that I agree with her on almost everything, given how little I'm enjoying reading this book.
• 
  Kay

  I loved this book! Vicki Robin's earlier book, Your Money or Your Life, was a great help to me in getting connected to my core values and making changes in the way I spent my money and the value of time. I was following her blog before Blessing the Hands was published so knew it would be about her experiment in eating hyper-locally for a month and expected to be encouraged to toward a more local relationship with food, which I have already been doing to some extent for years. I was surprised by how much more this book offered than just a journey of 'relational eating'. I found it Interesting, inspirational, comforting and challenging. I had read Animal, Vegetable, Miracle when it came out and loved it too, but that story was a bit impractical for me to be as inspired by it. Kingsolver and her family moved to an old family farm in an agricultural area so although the journey was interesting I couldn't see myself doing that, and they already had a mature orchard and gardening land, for instance. Robin's journey is much more personal and relates to a process each of us could go through no matter where we live in any town or city, as a family or a single person -- maybe not eating within 10 miles but 50% within 50 miles or 100 or 200 miles as she explores philosophically later in the book. And the personal connections with the producers of food she cultivated and the meaningfulness of those relationships was also an important point. It reminded me of the young farmers I used to buy fruit from at the farmer's market and how they educated me on how to know when a fruit is sweet from looking at it, and their pride in their produce. How did I fall back into shopping at my local health food store, but lost the commitment to going to the market every week? Too busy? How much does it matter? This book makes you think about your choices seriously. Following Robin through all of her steps and inner processes is relevant as we each consider where we fall on the health/consciousness/local movement continuum and what makes sense for us personally and for the direction of the country (the world?). I feel she provides a very entertaining and readable account of her awakening process, the balance between simplicity, frugality and the need for quality food and a sustainable agricultural system, as well as what needs to be the logical next step for each of us, which is to make choices for a healthier connection to food, to each other and to the earth. I was delighted and surprised to find the book included so much more than just the experience of her 30 days: her preparation to find sources for various essentials, the relationships and the people involved, the statistics and science about food sustainability, her own personal life stories and healing from cancer, recipes from excellent chefs, and some very funny passages as she faces her own food demons ... stories most of us can relate to. Learning to eat locally, and more healthily, and creating a community based food infrastructure is complicated and filled with tough choices. Vicki somehow makes it seem more personal and manageable. Even though I 'try' to eat locally and have been health food conscious for decades, I still learned a lot and felt inspired to do more, knowing that if we begin to make better choices at the local levels we can slowly turn our food world in a new more sustainable direction.
• 
  Naomi

  Ugggg, this is such an important topic, but seriously, can I get just one of these books that I don't feel like I have some elitist talking down to its reader?!?! Even AFTER the author let readers know that it wasn't going to be that type of book...she proceeded to do it.
  
  Truly rough to get through and I proceeded to skim...just to see if I could walk away with anything! I couldn't!
• 
  Sara

  So I ended up taking a few breaks while reading this, due to being busy with school. It has been a while since I picked it up last. I will try to write as good of a review as I can, but I did read most of this a long time ago.
  
  The premise of the book fascinated me when I first saw it in a free book pile at my university and I knew that this was a book that I would enjoy reading. Especially because Vicki Robin is from Washington as well as the idea of doing an experiment where she could only eat food from a 10-mile radius. It sounded challenging and a bit fun! I wanted to see how Vicki was going to navigate this and how it was going to go.
  
  Vicki formatted her book in a way that was understandable and made her journey clear. It started by telling of how Vicki decided on doing her challenge, through each week of her challenge, and important information that she learned throughout the challenge as well as afterwards. By doing this, Vicki takes us on a journey, through her struggles and triumphs, letting us in on what she has learned and how we can be better.
  
  Her writing was easy and enjoyable to read, breaking down things into sections or ideas, but also could be beautiful and philosophical. I like her writing style and it fit this story. She wrote in-depth about food and the food industry, making us think about something that surrounds us at all times, but we might not often think about. Including history and laws that I did not know about added and shocked me. At times, I felt as if her writing was too deep or too much to take it, often coming across to me as not authentic, but for the most part, her writing was gorgeous and reflective, perfect for what she was telling me and trying to get across.
  
  I really enjoyed reading this book, it gave me perspective and ways for me to take action. It was also just a really good and interesting read. It made me think about my consumption of food and my relationship with food and where it comes from in general.
• 
  Lena

  I listened to this book as an audiobook read by the author which I recommend doing because it makes the book feel more personal. I enjoyed reading the book although it felt more slow paced than other books. The first half of the book was particularly interesting because it focused on the author's experience with eating only foods within 10 miles of her home on Whidbey Island.
  
  I found that particularly interesting partially because I love Whidbey Island and the store that she frequented is one I've been to in the lovely town of Langley. The information shared as well as the "now it's your turn" sections felt more personal since I live basically where she lives and so I know I have access to all the resources she talks about.
  
  The 2nd half of the book is more about relational eating and how to be a better steward of local farmers in a more general sense. I found this section to be slower going for me. Part of the issue again was having to return the book to the library and getting distracted with life so take it what you will.
  
  I always get inspired by books of this sort with my favorite being "Animal, Vegetable, Mineral" by Barbara Kingsolver. I also really enjoyed Michael Pollan's "The Omnivore’s Dilemma". This book finds a home in that genre of literature and what is extra helpful for me is that it takes place near Seattle.
  
  I recommend reading it maybe after you get inspired by one of the other books I mentioned. You definitely have to be in the right space to enjoy it thoroughly.
• 
  Mel

  As an experiment the author agrees to have a local gardener feed her for an entire month. They created a 10 mile rule and a 10% exotic clause.
  The experiment taught the author a lot about where our food comes from, laws, politics, processing, etc.
  Where does our food come from? Where should it come from? And should we allow the government to control our food? Should small farmers be confined to the same regulations as big commercial farmers?
  As much as we may not want politics in our food, sadly it is. Do you want fresh food or faux food?
  The book includes recipes and how many people take the time to cook home fresh food anymore? How many people even KNOW HOW?! It isn't just about following a recipe, but knowing what to do with random ingredients and create a meal.
  This was a good book. The only thing I disagreed with about the author on is Bill Gates saving the world with his foundation. 'nuff said about that.
• 
  Ilsa Hinsley

  I received an advanced proof of this book through a Goodreads giveaway.
  
  I finished this book last night, and as a result, I was up until 3:00A - just couldn't get the wheels in my brain to stop turning. While that's typical for me this time of year (I'm a gardener, so it's getting close to "crunch" time), this book really got me thinking about what I could do beyond my little pea patch in the back yard. Oh sure, I grow vegetables, herbs, flowers, and fruit, but what about the bigger picture? My neighborhood, my town, my county, my state ...
  
  Robin gives insightful, yet practical advice about how we can change our overall food supply system, one community at a time. It's all well and good to sit back and complain, use phone apps to tell us whose pockets we're lining, etc., but we can do so much more.
  
  I love the idea of a micro-cooperative. Not sure I could feed a family of five on the 10-mile diet, but mapping out local farmers/ranchers in a 50-mile, 100-mile, even the USDA 400-mile radius is an exercise I'm truly excited about. Most of us have local resources - we just don't know it. Farmers markets, CSAs, a few "sprouts in the window" ... while I was wide awake in the wee hours of the morning, I jumped on line & found several organizations w/in 20 miles of my zip code that are fighting the good fight.
  
  Definitely thought-provoking, and I'm looking forward to digging into the additional material that she references in order to learn more.
  
  
  
  
• 
  Naomi

  Arising from Transition Town conversations, Robin's two local food challenges - 90% sourced from within 10 miles & 10% exotics and 50% sourced from within 50 miles - helped her think about and approach the issues of global trade and rebuilding local food systems in new ways. Sharing her journey, Robin invites readers to try the same, and to consider their local foods system and where they need redevelopment. As a farmer, three things about these challenges capture my attention: (1) they occur in one of the richest local food ecosystems in the United States and yet Robin still struggles; (2) I know I can't meet the challenge where I live, despite working on a diverse growth farm and orchard and having the rich resources of a rural New England area (I need 300-350 miles to gather significant amounts of grains into my vegan diet, though wheat, barley, and oats are being grown again in the western mountains, just not in large quantities); and (3) people choosing to eat more local food is only one part of rebuilding that food ecosystem and will require larger producers as well as smaller ones to truly feed everyone. The journey to truly resilient local food systems in the U.S. has a long way to go and is far more complex than many imagine. I'm glad Robin sheds some light on that complexity, and deepens the conversation.
• 
  Tima

  There seems to be a lot of focus on locally grown foods, non-GMOs, and harmful food additives in the news and conversations right now. The author has taken a potentially dry subject and infused it with humor and personal stories. What began as a personal story to find out more about the food industry and locally grown products turned into an inspiring book about farmers, gardening, and people in local communities.
  
  
  
  I am interested in a healthy alternative to all of the pre-packaged options out there. But I'll admit some reluctance to reading a book about it. But the author has done a great job of capturing the reader's attention while still imparting useful information. I finished the book inspired to change some of my eating habits, work on growing my garden, and checking out some of the local farmers.
  
  I received this book free of charge from Goodreads in exchange for my honest review.
• 
  KM

  I couldn't stand the voice of the author. I found her obnoxious, negative, and pretentious; which isn't surprising considering she had to remind you how much of a nuisance you are to the planet every other paragraph. I was so close to giving up on this book just for how many times she said zackers (zucchini crackers) and cukes (cucumbers). Her perspectives for being an omnivore were just totally out of perspective. If you can't afford the best, local meat, then you shouldn't eat it. And you should only eat around 1/2 a pound of meat per person a week. Right. Towards the end of the book I just skipped large chunks because I was tired of reading about how right she is and how wrong the rest of us are. There are a thousand books about health and nutrition out there, go ahead and skip this one.
• 
  Patricia

  I loved her advise on conscious eating. Most important to slow down and savor your food. It seems we gulp our meals down because we are always in a hurry. But I think taking it slowly and with some gratitude makes our food healthier for us.
  I also appreciated her friends that helped provide her meals were named Tricia and Kent, like my myself and my husband and also live in Washington state. Although we aren't farmers the way they are, I learned more of what it would be like to grow our own foods for ourselves and our communities.
  This book would be helpful for anyone wanting to learn how to eat closer to home!
• 
  Stefanie

  If I weren't already an advocate for re-localizaton and eating local food fresh and in season, this book would go a long way in convincing me to change my eating ways. Robin, who also wrote "Your Money of Your Life," has an easy-going, conversational, upbeat voice that sometimes got on my nerves, but overall was like chatting over a cup of tea made from locally grown herbs. The book came out of a challenge to eat food for a month that was grown within 10 miles of her. She allowed herself a few "exotics" like oil, salt and a couple other spices, but 95% of her diet fell within a 10 mile radius. Prior to the experiment she was a dedicated omnivorous industrial food eater. Her experiment changed the way she saw food and the people who grow it because she got to know all the people who grew her food and you start to think about things differently when food becomes relational.
  
  After her experiment, she dedicated herself to learning about food systems and began working with local food producers and eaters to create a larger, more resilient local food system for everyone. Throughout the book she provides recipes, tips, suggestions, meditations, and things to consider as a food eater as well as things you can do if you want to become a local food advocate.
• 
  Suzy

  Her experience going through the 10-mile and 50-mile diet was super interesting to read as someone who lives in the Puget Sound too (she's on Whidbey Island and we're in Seattle). I paused to pick up due to "blessing" in the title. Ugh - I have issues with that word and people claiming how "blessed" they are. It was a little preachy (talking about praying and whatnot - I feel like she would say it's spiritual but to us non-spiritual folks it all kind of sounds the same).
  
  Other than the Christian-y feel to it at times it was super interesting to follow her journey and learning although some of it was repetitive.
• 
  Vovka

  Hard to stomach the unconscious privilege that pervades this food book, and also the subtle unconscious racism of the Pacific Northwest. In one line, which I can't quote because I returned the book to the library already, she seems to show more grief for the lost of the PNW forests that settlers clear-cut than for the thousands of natives that were killed, tortured, and chased off their ancestral lands by those same criminal settlers. Her subsequent epiphanies about the importance of connection to the land ring hollow as a result. Overall, the book feels selfish, self-indulgent, and narcissistic. Which is a shame, because the core messages aren't bad at all.
• 
  Barb

  Based on the title and synopsis, I thought this would be more of a personal recounting of what it is like to eat only food from within 10 miles of where she lived. A tiny fraction of the book is that. And at first I was grumpy that it wasn’t that and almost stopped reading. But then she got passionate about the local “systems” that feed us and about the method, need, and equity to have locally sustainable food systems in place. This may have been published in 2013 when peak oil was a thing but now the pandemic is a thing and her points are equally applicable. So it want what I expected but got me more fired up about this concern.
• 
  Sara

  I can't help it, I'm a sucker for books written about taking on personal challenges, especially sustainability challenges. I'm also a sucker for personal challenges. Now I want to make an eat local challenge for myself!
• 
  Elizabeth Gilliam

  Amazed I got to page 124 yes there is a lot of good information in this book and I do agree with a lot of what I've read but the writing does not flow smoothly it's very choppy and it makes it hard to focus for me to actually finish this book.
• 
  Amy

  Pretty difficult (boring and poorly constructed) but insightful. It’s a personal ramble that could provide so much more if the writing took a different approach. With that, I did enjoy it as it prompted some great questions and conversations that I took to the world to discover on my own.
• 
  Susan Strayer

  As a concept I appreciate the idea of a 10 mile diet. As a book it rambled and didnt have much focus on the millions of people who dont live or Whidby island Washington.
• 
  Houston

  hot start, cooler middle. Great read!!
• 
  Tony Parsons

  This book brought back some childhood memories. My biological mother had long since went back to her mother country. Along comes a beautiful Apache step-mom. We lived on a rural farm, raised goat everything, chickens & I was almost too little to help in the garden. Dad & I hunted wild game. Step-mom was 1 helleva cook. As was my paternal grandmother, & my step-father, & 2 foster moms. I learned from the best. Later we moved to the city. My job was to cut firewood & me & my adopted sister did the majority of tending the huge 2 acre garden. Step-mom canned & put up stuff. Gee dad had it rough he tilled it up every yr. But he worked 3 jobs.
  
  My undergrad I had an elder-emeritus philosophy Professor explain to the class the fundamentals of how the earth evolved. & know not the big bang theory. I have never forgot that. He even had transparencies on the overhead. Yep I’m old.
  
  Fast forward; my big shot MBA son has a new G/F. She is a rabbit food eater. She is slowly changing him some. When we have family gatherings though we all eat meat except her. We all do welcome the rabbit food she brings. The 2 of them love all types of, salad stuff, & berries. They tend to shop more at the expensive grocery stores like Whole Foods, etc.
  
  He runs triathlons, about to run his 2nd Iron Man?, works out at the paid gym at lunch time 5 days a week, & plays indoor/outdoor soccer yr. round. They both watch their diet.
  
  My LCMSW daughter, & VB coach is very slim & trim. She exercises & eats right every day of the week. My 2 granddaughters are active in school & sports & mom/dad make sure they eat right also.
  
  I fix 99% of my meals. Are they healthy, well for the most part? I also cook 1 meal a month, or the holidays for the elderly. I am a constant price watcher when I go to the store. It probably takes me longer than most PPL. I use the local farmers market religiously during the summer months. I do splurge & eat out maybe once a month. The delis at the local groceries most of that stuff is not fit for human/animal consumption.
  
  I’ll shut up now!
  
  What a fabulous journey on how to make your lifestyle healthier, be more community oriented, appreciate what a farmer/rancher goes through & help save the environment. Filled with recipes & helpful tips on growing your own produce.
  
  A very awesome book cover, great font & writing style. A very well written resourceful personal food consumption book. It was very easy for me to read/follow from start/finish & never a dull moment. There were no grammar/typo errors, nor any repetitive or out of line sequence sentences. Lots of exciting scenarios, with several twists/turns & a great set of unique characters to keep track of. This could also make great documentary movie, PP presentation or mini TV series (A & E, History channel, food channel network). I found the book quite interesting. A very easy rating of 5 stars.
  
  Thank you for the free Goodreads (ARC) book
  Tony Parsons MSW (Washburn)
  
• 
  Jay French

  I came across this book and wanted to read it in large part because of the author's previous work. Her "Your Money or Your Life" was groundbreaking in describing living below your means in order to speed "retirement", there were plenty of additional frugality and personal finance books that owe a great debt to that book. I was hoping for some of the same common sense from YMOYL in this one, aimed at food. It didn't really meet these expectations, but I found the book interesting.
  
  First, I was surprised at what I'll call the casualness of this book. This is more a diary with some essays on her thoughts along the way. This seemed more like other popular food books of recent vintage, like "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle". This one felt a lot like the Kingsolver book, although Robin combines her narrative with a lot of stories about community activism around food and some personal philosophy. And a few recipes and checklists, but these were minimal. I was expecting more of a detailed how-to like her other book. She also approached her two months of local eating as a type of "extreme sport". She kept repeating this, and I kept thinking she could as easily have taken on hot dog eating or some other extreme food "sport", and I couldn't help but imagine the book that would come out of that. From the title I'd expect her experiment to be more lead by spirituality or a sense of community, but that extreme sport aspect kept interfering with her message, and she took that as a reason to complain a lot in her first few weeks of her local diet. As I read, I also felt a circularity in her writing -- Robin approached the same topics from multiple perspectives, writes about what she thought or did, and ends up in the same place. Some parts felt a little repetitive.
  
  I was also surprised that the discussions of costs were so unrealistic. I expected the financial aspects to be quite sharp based on her other book, but I found that very weak here. She prices out fast food assuming her own situation is a good example, it is inconvenient because she works out of her house on a rural island. Last I checked, that isn't that common.
  
  Where the book excelled, though was in the descriptions of how she handled sourcing of local food. With her example you can see that local food may well be possible to find almost anywhere (though you may have to change your definition of local). I also surprisingly liked her descriptions of the variety of small non-governmental organizations trying to cause change in the community she lives in. I was surprised at the sheer number of these organizations and their focus, probably a reflection of her neighborhood, an island near Seattle.
  
  I won a copy of the ARC for this book in Goodreads First Reads contest.
• 
  Heather

  This book was different from what I thought it would be, but I did enjoy it. Based on the title and cover picture I assumed that this book was going to be a book expressing why we should eat local, organic and more naturally produced foods. I didn’t realize that this book was about the authors experience eating foods grown and produced within a 10 miles radius of her home for one month. I did receive a free copy from the Goodreads First Giveaway and was excited to read it.
  
  The author was put up to a challenge by her neighbor, a farmer, to eat foods that could only be grown or supplied from farms/animals/plants within a 10 miles radius of her home. The fact that she lived on an island made this challenge a little bit easier then those of us living in the city.
  
  There were some great things that I learned from this book. Some top things I learned was that the USDA classifies local food as anything produced 400 miles from source to store. This is not quite what I had in mind of the term “local.” I had always thought that local meant a range of 100 miles from source to store.
  
  There was also a persuasive letter from a farmer expressing the need to eat from local farms and small framers not the huge companies that seem to over rule all.
  
  After reading this book I started to wonder about organic foods. I try to only purchase organic fruits and vegetables. However, reading this book taught me how hard it is for smaller farmers to get the government’s organic stamp of approval.
  
  A lot of local farmers cannot afford to pay the annual inspection fee along with the required heavy record keeping. The government has seemed again to overstep their boundaries making the small guy pay. There are often farmers that don’t use pesticides or harmful chemical on their produce they just can’t advertise that they are organic. This book helped me to understand the difference and to ask more about where and how the food I purchase is coming from.
  
  There are some recipes in the book, however most of them look a little hard for me, but I am going to give some a try.
  
  I liked the book and thought that it contained a lot of information.
  I am encouraged to eat more locally grown food. I am going to try an experiment this summer with trying to only eat local for a month.
  
  I didn’t care for reading about the author’s 10-mile diet and the struggles that she faced. I would have liked the book better if it focused more on why we should eat local food. I guess this is just not the book I was expecting it to be.
  
  
• 
  Mary Anne

  I found the title and short description of this book to be very intriguing. I've read a lot of Michael Pollan's work, and Powell's had been featuring this book. And if Powell's recommends it, I take it into serious consideration. And the book is, in general, up my alley.
  
  I was uncertain about the book about 10% of the way in. There's only so many times that an author can repeat "my bestselling book" before I get annoyed. But if you want a quick little book with tips for how to "bless the hands that feed you", this is not the book for you. And I don't think it should be a short little book, but it's certainly not long.
  
  The book is, in part, a reflection of Robin's experiment to eat super-local food within a 10-mile radius from her house. But it's not like a series of diary entries (which you can probably find on Robin's blog). Instead the book is almost a light history and explanation of the island where Robin lives with her community. There is a deeper message about getting invested in your local community, and there are several strategies and questions to answer that help the reader do just that. It isn't an easy process, but I think Robin gives a lot of useful guidance and advice for how to take the path.
  
  I like that the book is understandably focused on Robin's story, but she doesn't spend so much of the book on specific details (again, the blog probably serves that purpose). I also think the book is fairly balanced; Robin thoroughly examines why people might not want to (or can't) eat local. And she's not particularly judgmental. There is a bit of spirituality in the text, which I suppose could turn people off, but it's not heavy and actually makes a lot of sense in the context of the book. And I really liked the emphasis on resourcefulness and spending more time and attention on food. There are a lot of side topics ("eat everything on your plate" and licenses and regulations for farms, etc) that are really interesting and useful to know.
  
  Most of all, I like that Robin seems to practice what she preaches. She recognizes that she's no spring chicken (har) but still does her part. She pushes for change and participates in activism. Really interesting read. I'd recommend it.
• 
  Susan

  This is a wonderfully inspiring book by the long time sustainability activist and co author of the classic Your Money or Your Life. The author has a very warm and personal style of writing, sharing how her values and emotional struggles around food, such as her many years of dieting and being a bargain food shopper, were quite transformed by the locavore experiment she undertook.
  
  Ms. Robin describes in great detail how her decision to undertake a one month 10 mile diet experiment came about. She lives on Whidbey Island, WA and as someone already involved in the relocalization and transition movements, it was a natural for her to agree to be the guinea pig for a local farmer friend. The author and others in her community were interested to see how well their island community could survive without a grocery store. The book chronicles her challenges and successes with the experiment, sharing wonderful stories of local farmers, discovering how to cook a wide variety of veggies, and food related political issues (such as the legality of raw milk).
  
  Interwoven throughout the book are recipes, and ideas for the reader to implement in their own lives. During the experiment the author learned first hand from the local farmers the true cost of raising high quality local food, and the value of honoring the farmers and the food they produce. Ms. Robin’s relationship to her body and to food transformed, as well as her relationship with her local community. She uses the term “relational eating”, which she eloquently describes as “the shift from eating as a private affair from a vast continuous smorgasbord heaped high by the largely invisible industrial food system to eating in a living food system where food is precious because I know the farmers, the farms, the farm animals, the fruits and foraging spots, and vicissitudes of the seasons.”
  
  In week two she describes a mystical experience, which I’ll quote in part:
  “I felt something ripple through my body. I felt food. I was in it. I felt the animals and fungi and beneficial plants and ripening fruits, and felt not just my nose and eyes responding but my skin, which nigh on quivered in response.”
  
  I highly recommend this book and am very inspired to undertake her upcoming local food challenge.