Making Our Food Sustainable Series

Making Our Food Sustainable is part of Crabtree’s “Putting the Planet First” series. Using infographics, case studies, and current examples from around the world, the books in this series help readers of all ages understand the implications of everyday life choices that they and their families make.

The books all follow the standard format for nonfiction, including a table of contents, index, glossary, and lists of further resources on the topic. Measurements are included in both imperial and metric.

The text is clear and well-supported by the colourful photographs, illustrations, and graphs and charts. Each page is filled with well-laid out information. Although I am not usually a fan of text on coloured background, these books make very good use of colour without losing the clarity of the text. Readers will find the presentation of the information in these books very engaging.

Making Our Food Sustainable includes chapters on What is Sustainable Food?, Fair Trade, Where is Your Food From?, How Does Your Food Reach You?, Growing Food, Seasonal Food, Protecting the Soil, Biodiversity, Organic Food, Meat and Vegetables, The Slippery Problem of Fish, and Wasted Food.

The concepts covered are complex and arriving at a bottom line for any sustainability question is difficult. Making Our Food Sustainable does an excellent job of explaining the interconnectedness of our food choices. For example, after learning where and how food is grown, and how it is transported around the world, students are asked to imagine that they are a tomato lover in Sweden and choose between “long-haul versus greenhouse tomatoes”.

From what you learned on pages 8-11, you would probably guess the greenhouse tomatoes grown right in Sweden would create less CO2. Guess again.

Using units of grams of CO2 per kg of tomatoes for transportation, production, and fertilizers, the data clearly shows that the energy used to raise tomatoes in a greenhouse far outweighs transportation and fertilizer energy costs.

Tomatoes trucked in from Spain would cause fewer total emissions – even though the CO2 created by shipping them is more than four times as high. This is because greenhouses require a lot of energy to create heat to grow tomatoes.

Making Our Food Sustainable is an excellent resource for teachers and students. Although some students may not have given much thought as to where their food comes from and the impact of their choices on the planet, the information in presented in Making Our Food Sustainable will encourage students to ask personal questions about this very relevant topic. It may even create a change in their future decisions.