Showing results by publisher "Audible studios" in Agricultural & Food Sciences

Without our domesticated plants and animals, human civilization as we know it would not exist. We would still be living at subsistence level as hunter-gatherers if not for domestication. It is no accident that the cradle of civilization - the Middle East - is where sheep, goats, pigs, cattle, and cats commenced their fatefully intimate associations with humans.

As historian Mark Essig reveals in Lesser Beasts, swine have such a bad reputation for precisely the same reasons they are so valuable as a source of food: they are intelligent, self-sufficient, and omnivorous. What's more, he argues, we ignore our historic partnership with these astonishing animals at our peril.

We need to produce more food. With water and food shortages already being felt in some parts of the world, this might sound like an insurmountable challenge, but all is far from lost. You may not have heard about it, but the sustainable food revolution is already underway. Amanda Little unveils startling innovations from the front lines around the world: farmscrapers, cloned cattle, meatless burgers, edible insects, super-bananas and microchipped cows.

Human efforts to move crops from one place to another have been a key driving force in history. Crops have been on the move for millennia, from wildlands into fields, from wetlands to dry zones, from one imperial colony to another. This book is a bold but approachable attempt to redefine historical inquiry based on the “cropscape”: the assemblage of people, places, creatures, technologies, and other elements that form around a crop.

Unser Ernährungsstil ist nicht nur schlecht für die Gesundheit sondern - wir haben es schon geahnt: er überfordert auch unseren Planeten. Hat das große Fressen bald ein Ende? Wie sieht das Menü der Zukunft aus und müssen wir uns von der Currywurst verabschieden? Klimawirkung, Wasserverbrauch, Flächenbedarf : Der WWF hat unsere Lebensmittel auf den Öko-Prüfstand gestellt und einen kulinarischen Kompass für eine gesunde Erde vorgelegt. Vegan, fleischbasiert oder flexitarisch: Der Report über eine nachhaltige Ernährung macht sich auf die Suche nach dem den Speisezettel von morgen.

Tausche Sportschuhe gegen Gummistiefel: Eine Familie wagt den Neuanfang als Selbstversorger. Als Sara und Michael ihre Karriere als Leistungssportler beenden, ahnen sie noch nicht, dass sie schon bald knietief in Erde und Schlamm stecken. Nachdem die Kölner 3-Zimmer-Wohnung mit der Geburt ihres zweiten Kindes einfach zu eng geworden ist, verlieben sich die beiden Großstädter 2019 in das 250 Jahre alte Gut Neuwerk: ein großes Anwesen mit viel Charme und Renovierungsbedarf, sechs Hektar Land und Wald in echter Eifel-Idylle.

Marine algae are the supreme eco-engineers of life: they oxygenate the waters, create habitat for countless other organisms, and form the base of a food chain that keeps our planet unique in the universe as we know it. In this audiobook Josie Iselin explores both the artistic and the biological presence of 16 seaweeds and kelps that live in the thin region where the Pacific Ocean converges with the North American continent - a place of incomparable richness.

Profiling owners, winemakers, and personalities from around the country and the world, Behind the Bottle is a fun and intriguing look at the people who have made Long Island into one of the hottest wine regions in the country.

From ancient empires to modern economics, veteran journalist Andrew Lawler delivers a sweeping history of the animal that has been most crucial to the spread of civilization across the globe - the chicken. Queen Victoria was obsessed with it. Socrates’ last words were about it. Charles Darwin and Louis Pasteur made their scientific breakthroughs using it. Catholic popes, African shamans, Chinese philosophers, and Muslim mystics praised it.

Part documentary, part reality-television, the story of the Deadliest Catch’s Alaskan crab fishermen risking their lives in the Bering Sea to make a buck and feed their families has captivated the world. Giving the Finger follows the life of the spirited young captain who has emerged as one of the most talked-about figures on the show: Scott Campbell, Jr., who leads the crew of the Seabrooke. As this book - a prequel to Junior’s ascent to fame - shows, the trials of crabbing are not limited to living at sea and working the most dangerous job on the planet, but carry over to family and friends.

Drawing on findings from leading health researchers as well as conversations with both chemical and organic farmers from coast to coast, Maria Rodale irrefutably outlines the unacceptably high cost of chemical farming on our health and our environment. She traces the genesis of chemical farming and the rise of the immense companies that profit from it, bringing to light the government's role in allowing such practices to flourish.

As China comes into its own as a world economic power, a new, huge consumer class is emerging, hungry for all things Western. In this land where 25 years ago most of the population had never tasted chocolate, five icons of Western business are now slugging it out in a battle royal to see which will become the Emperor of Chocolate in China.

Bottled & Sold shows how water went from being a free natural resource to one of the most successful commercial products of the last 100 years - and why we are poorer for it. It's a big story and water is big business. Every second of every day in the United States, a thousand people buy a plastic bottle of water, and every second of every day a thousand more throw one of those bottles away. That adds up to more than 30 billion bottles a year and tens of billions of dollars of sales. Are there legitimate reasons to buy all those bottles?

Tracing culinary customs from the Stone Age to the stovetop range, from the raw to the nuked, this book elucidates the factors and myths shaping Americans' eating habits. The diversity of food habits and rituals is considered from a psychological perspective. Explored are questions such as 'Why does the working class prefer sweet drinks over bitter?', 'Why do the affluent tend to roast their potatoes?', and 'What is so comforting about macaroni and cheese anyway?'

This dirt-under-the-fingernails portrait of a small-time farmer follows Zack Killebrew over a single year as he struggles to defend his cotton against weeds, insects, and drought, as well as 21st-century threats such as globalization.

Sugar substitutes have been a part of American life since saccharin was introduced at the 1893 World's Fair. In Empty Pleasures, the first history of artificial sweeteners in America, Carolyn de la Pena blends popular culture with business and women's history, examining the invention, production, marketing, regulation, and consumption of sugar substitutes such as saccharin, Sucaryl, NutraSweet, and Splenda.

Picking up where she left off in Where the Blind Horse Sings, Kathy Stevens regales us with more tales of the rescued animals at Catskill Animal Sanctuary (CAS), some touching, some hilarious, all provocative. We meet Barbie, the broiler hen found hiding under a blue Honda in Brooklyn who falls for the animal ambassador Rambo, a ram with an uncanny sense of what others need. Then there’s Norma Rae, the turkey rescued from a "turkey bowl" just before Thanksgiving.

America is in the midst of a meat zeitgeist. Butchers have emerged as the rock stars of the culinary world, and cozy gastropubs serving up pork belly, lamb burgers, and sweetbreads rule the restaurant scene. If butchers are our new rock stars, then Berlin Reed is their front man. Through the lens of Berlin's personal story, The Ethical Butcher educates listeners about how they can improve the meat industry by participating in it.

James Dearsley’s wife thought he had lost his mind when he announced his intention to become a beekeeper. But like many interested in the self-sufficient lifestyle, he loved gardening and growing vegetables on his allotment and the old romantic in him had idealistic notions of teaching his little boy where honey came from, so he set himself what seemed a reasonable goal: to get, in a year’s time, just one jar of honey.

"Al termine della prima settimana, seicento assaggi avevano già azzerato ogni mia volontà di capirci ancora qualcosa. In quattro, cinque giorni mi spazzolavo la storia del Barolo o dell'Amarone, pretendendo anche di giudicarla. Era come stilare la classifica dei migliori film della stagione, fermandosi ai titoli di testa. Il mio spettacolo non andava mai oltre l'unghia del bicchiere. E seduti di fronte a me, non vedevo più colleghi e collaboratori, ma polli da batteria, costretti a beccare senza sosta." Con tono schietto e pungente, Tiziano Gaia ci conduce nel mondo dei vini.