Barbara Kingsolver and The Ethics of Eating [On Being]

The Ethics of Eating

July 15, 2010

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Barbara Kingsolver on the longings and lessons of a year in which she primarily ate what she could grow herself. Her book about that experience is now a staple in our cultural reappraisal of the ethics of eating. And food, she says, is a moral arena in which the ethical choice is often the pleasurable choice.

About the Image

A Vermont couple spent an evening shelling a bushel of peas from their neighbor's garden, with a tabbed copy of Kingsolver's book on the table.

+ (photo: Rick Scully/Flickr)

Program Details

Unheard Cuts

» Unedited Interview with Barbara Kingsolver (mp3, 64:17)

Selected Writing

» "The Last Wild Food"
In this essay, the famous restaurateur and slow-food advocate Alice Waters describes her experience of a bouillabase in France and how it influenced her shopping habits and seafood selection on the menu.

Hear the Music

» On Being Playlist ¦ listen to full-length tracks of each song played in the program

About the Image

A Vermont couple spent an evening shelling a bushel of peas from their neighbor's garden, with a tabbed copy of Kingsolver's book on the table.
(photo: Rick Scully/Flickr)

First Person

» Your Approaches to Eating

Many of us are asking new questions about the food we eat and challenging ourselves to eat differently. We selected some of our favorite responses from fellow listeners for you to hear and read.

Pertinent Posts from the On Being Blog

» What's for (Vegan) Supper?
A meat-eater in a vegan household reevaluates her held and lived values — and her recipe box.

» Restoring Life's Balance Through Soil and Friends
A guest contributor shares his reflections about reconnecting to the earth in an urban environment.

» Is "Sustainability" Sustainable?
Krista reflects on the listener response and skepticism following the 2008 rebroadcast of the Barbara Kingsolver interview.

» Super Size Me: How the Last Supper Became a Banquet over 1,000 Years
"...the artistic renditions of the Last Supper over the past thousand years show that the size of the plates and the amount of food being eaten by Jesus Christ and his disciples have grown significantly over the centuries."

Like-Minded Shows

» Land, Life, and the Poetry of Creatures

Biblical scholar Ellen Davis is helping to shape a new approach to thinking about human domination of the Earth and its creatures. With her friend, the farmer and poet Wendell Berry, they speak to our collective grief at destruction of the natural world and nourish a "chastened" yet "tenacious" hope.