FoodWISE
A Whole Systems Guide to Sustainable and Delicious Food Choices
- 2020 INDIES Finalist
- Finalist, Health (Adult Nonfiction)
Gigi Berardi’s passion for food is apparent in her guidebook FoodWISE.
Against a deluge of dieting suggestions, fads, and conflicting studies on nutrition, Berardi’s book acknowledges that it can be hard to know which aisle to choose at the grocery store. She suggests adopting a strategy in which you stop, think, and act when it comes to purchases and meal choices, sticking to the circumference of a market and staying out of its aisles, which often contain processed products.
The title acronym, WISE, stands for Whole, Informed, Sustainable, and Experienced. It promotes an attitude toward food purchases and consumption that revolves around making the best decisions possible. These decisions might include supporting farmers who are committed to eschewing pesticides and avoiding genetically modified, or engineered, organisms.
The book suggests investigating foods’ origins, the nutritional benefits of particular farms, and foods’ carbon footprints and transportation costs. It advises finding out what fertilizers are used, and whether animals were treated humanely. Farm visits are encouraged. For those wanting to take it further, gardening or raising chickens at home is presented as an option.
The text also encourages considering what works best in terms of both budgets and personal values. It features a range of activities that can lead to a more WISE existence, acknowledging that individual choices will vary and that differing circumstances play a role in how far people are willing or able to go to be WISE. The book’s mission is most of all one of self-discovery.
With a grocery list providing guidance for WISE shopping, inspiring suggestions, and recipes that further underscore connectedness to food, FoodWISE is an illuminating title that uncovers uncomfortable truths about convenience lifestyles with relation to eating.
Reviewed by
Tanisha Rule
Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The publisher of this book provided free copies of the book to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. No fee was paid by the publisher for this review. Foreword Reviews only recommends books that we love. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
