Barbara Kingsolver

"Mom is losing, no doubt, because our vegetables have come to lack two features of interest: nutrition and flavor. Storage and transport take predictable tolls on the volatile plant compounds that subtly add up to taste and food value. Breeding to increase shelf life also has tended to decrease palatability. Bizarre as it seems, we've accepted a tradeoff that amounts to: "Give me every vegetable in every season, even if it tastes like a cardboard picture of its former self.""

3 likes

Source: Barbara Kingsolver (2010). “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: Our Year of Seasonal Eating”, p.54, Faber & Faber

About the author

Barbara Kingsolver

Barbara Kingsolver

Author, Biologist

Barbara Kingsolver is an acclaimed American author known for her novels that intertwine themes of nature, community, and social justice, notably 'The Poisonwood Bible'.

All quotes by Barbara Kingsolver →

Same author

More quotes by Barbara Kingsolver

See all →
Barbara Kingsolver Author, Biologist

"There's a graveyard in northern France where all the dead boys from D-Day are buried. The white crosses reach from one horizon to the other. I remember looking it over and thinking it was a forest of graves. But the rows were like this, dizzying, diagonal, perfectly straight, so after all it wasn't a forest but an orchard of graves. Nothing to do with nature, unless you count human nature."

Read quote
Barbara Kingsolver Author, Biologist

"Finally, cooking is good citizenship. It's the only way to get serious about putting locally raised foods into your diet, which keeps farmlands healthy and grocery money in the neighborhood."

Read quote