Chelsea Green Publishing

Foraging Ideas. Cultivating Change.

Summer  2019
“I simply want to remind myself and others
that another way exists. I’ve been lured down
that path and I’ve discovered personal success
by emulating the apple trees along the road.
They are becoming wild.”
­—Andy Brennan
 CHELSEA
GREEN PUBLISHING
CONTENTS

the politics and practice of sustainable living

Wild Apples, Real Cider, and the
Complicated Art of Making a Living 4
Since 1984, Chelsea Green has been the leading publisher
of books about organic farming, gardening, home- Learning from Our Arboreal Allies 5
steading, integrative health, sustainable living,
socially responsible business, and more. Ok-RAH-RAH-RAH! 6
Now employee-owned.
Okra Marshmallow Delights  7
SUMMER 2019, ISSUE 5 Notes on Gull Watching and
Trash Picking in the Anthropocene 8
Copyright © 2019 by Chelsea Green Publishing
Front cover photograph by Marie Viljoen from Forage, Harvest, Feast. The Insatiable Call of Composting 9
Photograph on page 2 courtesy of Andy Brennan.
Photograph on page 3 courtesy of Emmet Van Driesche. Resilience and the Lost Art of
Photograph on page 4 by Noah Kalina. Agricultural Inventiveness 10
Photographs on page 5 courtesy of Paul Sisco (top), Jeff Zarnowski
(middle), and Akiva Silver (bottom).
Photograph on page 6 courtesy of Peter Taylor.
Happy Pigs! 11
Photograph on page 7 courtesy of Chris Smith.
Illustrations on page 8 and 9 by Greg Poole How to Cook Simple and Delicious
Photograph on page 11 ©Blue Horse Photography, by Kristin Dillon. Recipes with Whole Foods on
Photographs on page 13 courtesy of Thomas C. Webb. a Restrictive Diet­—with Love! 12
Photograph on page 14 by iStock.com/GibsonPictures.
Photograph on page 15 courtesy of Marc Bubbs.
Photographs on page 17 courtesy of Emmet Van Driesche (top), Melissa
Vanilla Strawberry Beet Smoothie  13
Patterson (middle), and Emmet Van Driesche (bottom)
Illustration on page 18 courtesy of Michael Ströck. The New Science of Athletic
Photograph on page 19 by Tony Eprile. Performance That Is
Photograph on page 20 by iStock.com/Douglas Rissing (background). Revolutionizing Sports 14
Photographs on page 21 by iStock.com/Jillian Cooper (middle right),
PEN America (bottom right).
Photographs on page 23 by iStock.com/gorartmd (top),
Flawed Studies, Misleading Advice,
Michael Metivier (bottom). and the Real Science of
Back cover photograph courtesy of Melissa Patterson. Human Metabolism 15

Our Commitment to Green Publishing Lessons in Resourcefulness and

Chelsea Green sees publishing as a tool for cultural change and ecolog- Craft from an Unusual
ical stewardship. We strive to align our book manufacturing practices Christmas Tree Farm 16
with our editorial mission and to reduce the impact of our business
enterprise in the environment. We print our books and catalogs on chlo-
rine-free recycled paper, using vegetable-based inks whenever possible.
A Bid for the Sky 17
This magazine was printed on paper supplied by Echo Communications
that contains 100% postconsumer recycled fiber. Using Fire to Cool the Earth 18

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visit chelseagreen.com Articles are adapted from our books.
Wild Apples, Real Cider,
and the Complicated Art
of Making a Living
by Andy Brennan

Andy Brennan owns Aaron Burr Cider in New York’s Catskills region.
Since its founding in 2011, Aaron Burr Cider has become well known
among cider enthusiasts for its natural approach to cider making using
wild apples and yeasts. As a prominent figure in the growing US cider
movement, Andy has been featured in print media and on television,
radio, and podcasts. He regularly speaks about natural apple growing
and cider production at museums, trade events, festivals, restaurants,
and anywhere local food enthusiasts are found.

When I was almost three years old, I said my held a special place in our collective uncon- apple trees anymore, the bond still strongly
first word: “Apple.” This was in the autumn scious. It continues to emerge and reemerge, exists. And what great satisfaction it brings
of 1973, nearly 100 miles from Washington, as it has for thousands of years. The tree is me to see examples of this reunion, like when
DC, in the rugged landscape of western mysteriously part of who we are, even now, property owners begin clearing land and dis-
Maryland where the Appalachian ridges well into the modern era. cover an apple tree. Determined as they are
ripple like a series of long waves, unfolding The easiest way to appreciate our cultur- to chop down everything in sight, suddenly
one after the next toward the headwaters al connection to apple trees is to draw simi- the chain saw goes silent when they happen
of the Potomac. Dotting the hillsides were larities between two species: Malus domestica upon an apple tree! Even very old, sick trees
homestead farms, and below in the valley (the modern apple) and Canis lupus familiaris. are spared and nursed for dozens of years.
floors there remained old brick villages that The latter, the common dog, is our compan- I’m a sucker for this. But a frightful prop-
osition rises in me: As the general population
expands and we are increasingly removed
“Loving apples or cider is not a prerequisite for from farming, how will that empathy erode?
And if it vanishes for the apple tree, what does
loving this book. All that is needed is the willingness that say of our empathetic connection with
to follow a vibrant narrative voice driven by other living beings? Fearful as I am, I can also
imagine the opposite happening: Couldn’t we
the pursuit of dreams.”—Alice Feiring also expand upon our empathy for apple trees
(as we seem to for dogs) and allow that com-
passion to reach other living beings, endan-
appeared just as they had when General Lee ion animal, while the former, the common gered creatures, and all of nature?
stormed up, bringing the fight to Union soil. apple tree, is our companion plant. One is
Outside the town hall in one of these ham- “man’s best friend,” and the other is “the giv-
lets, a giant pome sculpture served as the fo- ing tree.” Although we immediately relate to
cal point of the lawn just the way an obelisk the animal kingdom, we can also relate to the
or water fountain would. It was this sight, plant kingdom in profound ways. We are all
the giant apple, that piqued the interest of living beings with shared goals. The relating
the boy in the backseat. Most children are is slower and more obtuse, but we have de-
saying full sentences long before their third veloped a great language for relating with ap-
birthday, but I was waiting for the vision of ple trees, greater than with any other plant.
an apple to start talking. No doubt we still have uncommon compas-
To modern folks apples are considered sion for them.
a healthy snack, and not much more. But How rare is it that we can empathize with
beyond the tempting fruit, the tree has long a plant! Though hardly anyone lives with Hardcover • $24.95
4 • Chelsea Green Publishing
Learning from
Our Arboreal Allies
by Akiva Silver

Akiva Silver owns and operates Twisted Tree Farm, a homestead,

nut orchard, and nursery located in Spencer, New York, where he grows
around 20,000 trees per year using practices that go beyond organic.
His background is in foraging, wilderness survival, and primitive skills.
He has been observing nature intensively for the last 20 years,
cultivating a deep appreciation for life.

Trees in fog stand without leaves, dark
stems in a maze of inexhaustible intricacy.
Patterns laid upon patterns in a seeming
randomness that gives way to a single beau-
tiful scene. These life fountains spring from
the ground, rising from a dark and mysteri-
ous world fully charged with life. They rise
and rise and then spread. From the end of
every branch tip drip the fountains. Seeds
rain down, feeding birds and mammals. We
breathe these trees through our lungs, shel-
ter ourselves with their wood, and fill our
bodies with the energy of their fruit.
These fountains of life are incredible
beings that perform so many services for
free and indefinitely. They have the ability
to reproduce themselves, run on sun and
rain, build wood out of carbon in the sky,
create flavors, carbohydrates, proteins, fats,
medicine, and vitamins. We are just tiny an-
imals scampering beneath them, picking up
their gifts as fast as we can, because there is
not enough time to keep up with the rain
of presents. The feel of autumn in the wind
pushes us to gather faster, filling bucket after
bucket. The harvest looks staggering. It fills
trucks and porches. Where will we put it all?
and How will we have time to process all this?
are some of the thoughts we have, and still
there is so much more lying on the ground.
Millions of pounds in my county alone.
The heart of the gatherer is one of grati-
tude and amazement. I have been astounded
so many times harvesting. As I start to pick
up the first bushels of wild pears, I realize
just how much is there. I sell wild pears to
a cidery that presses them into perry (pear
wine, which is a very excellent drink with a
long history in Europe). Last fall my fami-
ly and a friend gathered over 3,000 pounds
of wild pears from a handful of trees in two
days. Over 1,000 pounds came from a single
tree. Seeing that much fruit does something
to you. It is impossible not to be impressed
even if you aren’t interested in pears. But we
are interested; it’s a part of our livelihood, and
each bushel is cash. We gather with speed and
efficiency, sometimes chatting, sometimes
working silently. It is good work, work our
bodies and minds were built for. At night we
see pears when we close our eyes. We have a
connection to those trees. We care what hap-
pens to them. To us, it seems like a good idea
to plant more of them. The highest level of
appreciation comes through participation.
Life circles around trees; it is drawn in
like a magnet. One crab apple tree in the
middle of winter will pull in birds, possums,
mice, deer, raccoons, wild children, and
countless other forms of life. Animals and
people will travel for miles to gather persim-
mons and chestnuts. Songbirds will flock to
mulberries. These are magnetic trees, foun-
tains of life that shower Earth with abun-
dant gifts. When we become aware of these
trees, we can begin to work with them and
elevate the level of abundance in our world
to staggering heights. Paperback • $24.95
chelseagreen.com • 5
 Ok-RAH-RAH-RAH!
by Chris Smith

Expert okra enthusiast Chris Smith writes regularly for The Heirloom Gardener,
the Mother Earth News blog, and the Farmers’ Almanac blog. His presentations
on the versatility of okra have delighted audiences at food and farming festivals
and fairs throughout the Southeast. He is the Communications Manager for Sow
True Seed in Asheville, North Carolina, and serves on the boards of The People’s
Seed and Slow Food Asheville. A native of the UK, Smith has a master’s degree in
creative writing from the University of Manchester. His short stories have been
published in Nashville Review, Mid-American Review, and The Manchester Review.

A good friend of mine who leads wild food walks
is fond of describing the forest as a big party, and
he likens wild food identification to meeting
new people at that party. Now, if I were at a
party, I would never walk up to someone and
say, “Hi, my name’s Chris, how best can I use
you?” I’d want to get to know the person, I’d
ask some interesting questions, and we’d have
a conversation. The same is true of plants, and
okra is one plant I’ve met (in the garden, not
the woods) that I really liked.
I grew up in a world void of okra (South-
port, England), but I found myself inexplica-
bly wanting to meet it again and again. I had
so many questions. As a self-educated bota-
nist, I love the history and the taxonomy and
the botany of food crops; I am concerned
about climate issues and our continuing abil-
ity to feed ourselves healthy and nutritious
food. I’m a homesteader and a seed saver and
I love stories. As a white British guy, I am ful-
ly aware that okra is not a part of my culture
or heritage. While okra is grown and enjoyed
around the globe, my experiences with it are
in the American South, and so I must always
remember and honor all the terrible things
that happened to allow okra’s presence and my
eventual connection with it. I must remember
and honor the incredible influence of African
Americans on our food culture, and okra is just
a small part of it. I am not King Okra, I am okra’s
humble servant, and as the stars align I find myself
stumbling upon discovery after discovery, story
after story, variety after variety, use after use, of
this completely amazing crop called okra, gumbo,
bhindi, lady’s fingers, and ochro.
Okra lays claim to nutritional and medicinal
qualities that remain uncelebrated. It has a pan-
oply of culinary traditions all over the world.
Okra is easy to grow and highly productive. But
it’s the multiple culinary uses of a single crop
that really appeals to me. Okra is abounding in
food. I’m a permaculturist at heart, and I love it
when I find secondary, tertiary, and quaternary
yields from the things I grow: Radish seedpods
are spicy and yummy, corn silks are medicinal,
broccoli stems are great peeled and roasted.
When it comes to multiple yields from single
crops, I put okra on a pedestal and say to all the
other vegetables, “Look at the wondrous Okra,
you could really learn something.” With okra,
you can eat the pods, the leaves, the flowers, and
the seeds. And we’re not just talking famine food;
we’re talking superfood. The plant is packed with
vitamins and minerals and phytonutrients.
Paperback • $29.95

6 • Chelsea Green Publishing

Okra Marshmallow Delights
Recipe by Katrina Blair
This creative recipe falls squarely into the you’ve-
got-to-try-it-to-believe-it category. For anyone
already familiar with Blair’s book The Wild Wisdom of
Weeds (Chelsea Green, 2014), that should come as no
surprise. I have a mind to keep a stash of these per-
fectly sweet, deep green, chewy treats in my bag at
all times so I can hand them out whenever someone
tells me they don’t like okra (which happens a lot).
Katrina noted that the mixture tends to flatten out
while dehydrating, which is why she created strips
(a little like making fruit leathers) and formed the
marshmallow shapes afterward. If you don’t have a
dehydrator, you could follow the same process using
an oven at its lowest temperature setting; check
regularly so the okra doesn’t overcook. The aim is
tacky-chewy, not hard-crunchy. Makes 15–20 pieces.
2 cups (200 g) sliced fresh okra
1 cup (225 ml) water, plus more if needed
1/2 cup (170 g) honey
2 tablespoons vanilla
1/2 cup (60 g) cashews, raw or roasted
Blend the okra with the water, honey, and vanilla in a
high-powered blender until it creams up and becomes
thick. Pour the mixture onto a dehydrator sheet in long
strips and dry at 115°F (45°C) for about 6 hours. The mix-
ture is dry enough once it can be peeled off the dehydra-
tor sheet. Remove the strips from the sheet and tightly
roll them up. The rolls can then be cut and formed into
marshmallow-esque pieces. Powder the dry cashews in
a food processer. Transfer the powder to a shallow bowl
and roll the individual pieces in the powder until they
appear white. These marshmallow treats can be eaten
raw or skewered on a stick and warmed over a fire.
chelseagreen.com • 7
Notes on Gull Watching
and Trash Picking in
the Anthropocene
by Tim Dee

Tim Dee is a radio producer, television broadcaster,

acclaimed author of Four Fields and The Running Sky,
and editor of the anthology Ground Work.

Early morning Bristol. The bars along the cling containers, a waste food tub, and a The idea that gulls might be good animals
street where I live recycle their glass emp- wheelie-bin for non-recyclable rubbish. to think with and to write about first oc-
ties of last night. It is the sound I most of- The system worked for one week. My curred to me around twenty years ago,
ten wake to: a raucous shuck and slide, a suite of emptied units never made it back when I noticed how herring and lesser
bright and broken glissando, poured into to my front door or anywhere near it. All black-backed gulls had set up shop in the
a cavernous bin. Perhaps the city gulls are was lost in a melee at the roadside. There middle of Bristol. There had been large
gulls on the city’s waters for many years; it
is only a few miles from the sort-of sea of
“An important and entirely brilliant book. the Severn Estuary, while the River Avon,
It’s a love letter to gulls and their charged relationship a tidal finger, drives daily into the heart
of the place. Among Bristol’s sound-sig-
with humans, but it’s also a deep meditation on difficulty natures are the birds’ marine yelps as they
and waste, on the beauty of the disregarded, and on what navigate the Avon and the Feeder and the
Cut and the other channels that broker
we make of matter out of place. There’s love and death the meeting of fresh and salt water. But
here, fear, fascination, hope, and the breaking of the world. in the years of a stretched decade around
Dee has written an absolute triumph.” the 1980s, when I left the city (to study,
and before I returned with a young family,
—Helen Macdonald to work), the two gulls had started some-
thing new: breeding on rooftops across its
alerted by it too, for at this time, before and then I gave up. Nowadays, I carry my centre. In that time, well within the lifes-
the morning traffic builds and the pave- paper waste, my glass and plastic to the pan of individual birds, a profound change
ment fills with people, herring and lesser old house where my children sometimes gripped both species, and urban gulls came
black-backed gulls come most days and still live and where bin protocols prevail. of age.
patrol the street for the leftovers of last My food scraps mess with everything else
night’s fun. They fly back and forth at the I shed at home into an old supermar-
height of a double-decker bus, eyes down ket carrier bag that I then drop into a
and silent, with something in their action street-bin one hundred steps from
both futuristic and ancient—drone ops my door. It is possible that my
and dinosaur stares. Much of my life hap- lumped and unsorted offer-
pens here, next to the bins and the gulls, ing, joining every pedestri-
in a flat on a busy shopping street. Below an’s discards, and collected
my room are a mobile phone repairer and by a council worker with a
an e-cigarette shop. Half of the pavement trolley, is bait for those
is taken up by big and locked dumpsters morning gulls. If not, I
used by the neighbouring bars and cafes. think my rubbish ends
About a decade ago the city council issued up as landfill.
the residents of my building with recy-
8 • Chelsea Green Publishing

Nowadays gulls are trash birds. Their
coming among us has lowered their sea-
bird status. By moving toward us, they’ve
risked becoming like us. But it turns out
more substantially that the meeting of
gulls and people is exuberant. It has an ex-
cess that could be called joyous.
As the birds worked our utility plac-
es and our waste, I saw that birders were
processing the gulls, picking through
them, finding new things to know and
to understand, finding value in creatures
otherwise labelled shoddy or dreck. That
means, though the gullers don’t often ad-
mit it, new things to love. This enthusi-
astic organising of life in the midst of the
organising of what we could call death (the
sorting and rendering of our waste) is grip-
ping. Landfill means more than just a tip
for the end of things. It is also a descrip-
tion of how we have worked the rest of the
living world, learned about it, named and
catalogued it, and have thus occupied or
planted our planet, filling the land.
Hardcover • $25.00
The Insatiable Call
of Composting
by James McSweeney
James McSweeney is a composting consultant and educator who
has been an ardent proponent and collaborator in the community
composting movement in the United States. Through his work at
the Highfields Center for Composting and current consultancy,
Compost Technical Services, James has worked with hundreds of
composters, large and small, on everything from site planning,
design, and management to compost heat recovery and livestock
feeding systems. With a background in agroecology and perma-
culture, restoring ecological integrity to our local farm and food
systems is at the heart of James’s work.
The definition of composting that I have been using for a number of years, which
is a combination of several definitions I’ve come across, is: The return of organic
materials to a rich, stable, humus-like material through a managed oxidative de-
composition process that is mediated by microbe metabolism.
But compost is much trickier to define. If you’ve ever purchased compost, you
may have ended up with any number of things: rotted manure rife with weed
seed; mulch that someone tried to pass off as compost; leaf mold; or beautiful,
mature, organic-matter-rich, earthy, crumbly, black, life-giving . . . well, what else?
. . . compost.
For many people the need to compost, once awakened, is insatiable. Com-
posting calls, it speaks from the beyond, drawing in believers. Seriously, farmers
and others who make compost often describe the positive effects composting
has on their minds and spirits almost like a meditation or yoga practice. A large
number maintain a deep belief in composting as part of a holistic way of life. I
share this for a few reasons. First, if you are an inadvertent member of the Cult
of Compost, know you are not alone. We are legions strong and spreading from
root to sky. Second, you should know that a species of soil bacterium (Mycobacte-
rium vaccae) releases serotonin. And there are no doubt other microbes with
similar effects. Third, to define compost strictly as a sub-
stance that has undergone biologically mediated
oxidation misses the fact that there is a huge so-
cial aspect to composting. Similar intersections
between technology, social order, and microbial
communities have a long and beautiful histo-
ry (I’m thinking of the fermentation traditions
of the Tarahumara and Lacondon peoples of
Mexico). Those traditions are also a path to
both community and the divine. This is all to
say, composting may play a more important role
than we recognize in creating greater wellness
in our communities. Hardcover • $59.95
chelseagreen.com • 9
Resilience and the Lost Art
families but for others on a sufficient scale to
feed them for a time—then we have to farm
for production’s sake. Almost inevitably, in

of Agricultural Inventiveness today’s circumstances, that means farming

for a market of some sort. We may want to
build all sorts of reciprocity into that—bar-
by Michael Foley ter, exchange, giving. But above all, for the
long haul and for right now, we need to build
resilience, and that means we have to build a
farm that makes economic sense in the here
A New Farmer Library Book and now.
Doing so, however, does not necessari-
After twenty years in academia, Michael Foley began farming first in ly throw us back into the sterile logic of the
southern Maryland, and then in Willits, California, where he, his wife, and marketplace, the one all those farm advisers
oldest daughter currently operate the small, diversified Green Uprising Farm. venerate. “Economic sense” will depend upon
the circumstances that each of us brings to
Foley is cofounder of the School of Adaptive Agriculture, a farmer training
farming: other sources of income, other vo-
and education program where he is a board member and teacher. cations, our hold on the land we work, and
He currently manages his local farmers market, and has served as so on. And “economic sense” should include
vice president of the Mendocino County Farmers’ Market Association. our own livelihoods, not just the profits, and
perhaps wages, we wrest from the market.
Here is how Berry accounts the success of
Food systems are not just about the produc- of both natural and human-made challenges, his “marginal” farm: “As income I am count-
tion, distribution, and processing of foods. and continuing invention, and grounded in ing the value of shelter, subsistence, heating
They represent distributions of land and the reciprocity and fellow feeling of living fuel, and money earned by the sale of live-
power, wealth and poverty, plenty and fam- communities. Understanding the alterna- stock.” Thus, “once we have completed its
ine. As farmers we can buy into the food tives that human societies have devised in restoration, our farm will provide us a home,
system we are born to and try to rise to the the past is essential to enlarging our vision of produce our subsistence, keep us warm in
top in a usually losing game, or we can try farming for the long haul. winter, and earn a modest cash income. The
to change the system and the practice of We don’t know what future farming will significance of this becomes apparent when
farming itself. The contemporary sustain- look like, but if we have a passion for farm- one considers that most of this land is ‘un-
able agriculture movement is an attempt to ing, for caring for a piece of land and even farmable’ by the standards of conventional
change one very complex and powerful food reclaiming it from the destruction past hu- agriculture, and that most of it was produc-
system. But we will fight against odds of our man uses have wrought upon it, then we ing nothing at the time we bought it.” Such a
own making, and not just those devised by start by doing what we love—what we love farm may or may not produce all the income
that system, if we accept its premises, if we and what we know is right. As Wendell Berry one currently needs, but it is a farm that
suppose there are no alternatives to strug- often insists, we can’t save the future; we can produces resilience. It is a farm that will be
gling to make it in the market economy. And only do what is right for the present. And as better equipped to survive the uncertainties
there is a third option: We can return to the Berry also insists, what is right must be right of the market economy, may creatively ad-
norm of the successful agricultural societies for the land and the people of the land. dress the implications of climate change, and
of past centuries that were based on a strat- If we have a passion for farming—for could provide one small contribution to the
egy of subsistence first, resilience in the face producing food not just for ourselves and our resilience of the larger community.

NEW FARMER LIBRARY

The N E W F A R M E R L I B R A R Y
series is a collection of proven techniques
and philosophies from experienced voices
committed to deep organic, small-scale,
regenerative farming. Each book in the series
offers the new farmer essential tips, inspi-
ration, and first-hand knowledge of what it
takes to grow food close to the land.

10 • Chelsea Green Publishing Paperback • $20.00 Paperback • $18.00 Paperback • $18.00

Happy Pigs!
by Alice Percy

For ten years Alice Percy operated a commercial hog operation on her farm
in Whitefield, Maine, becoming the largest certified hog producer in the
state. Percy has mentored hog farming startups through the Maine Organic
Farmers and Gardeners Association (MOFGA), and helped to develop the
association’s Raising Organic Pigs fact sheet. She has presented workshops
on organic hog husbandry at MOFGA events and the annual NOFA Summer
Conference. Percy currently works as the manager of the Organic Growers
Supply division at Fedco Seeds and served on the board at MOFGA. Paperback • $29.95

Few Americans have a direct connection to because it is allowed to be a pig (and a hap-
how their food is produced anymore, or think py pig, at that!) instead of just a production
much about where their BLT came from, but unit. Like its ancestors, it gets to experience
most are sentimental to some degree about sunshine and free movement and exercise its
animals and want them to be treated well. natural instincts. The environment benefits
Most also want their great-grandchildren to because small-scale farms are well adapted
have water to drink, food to eat, and air to to composting manure instead of handling it
breathe. When confronted with the negative as liquid effluent, turning farm “waste” into
impact of the modern livestock industry on a resource rather than a contaminant. If you
the environment and animal welfare, some grow or purchase organic feed, the environ-
consumers will absolutely go into ostrich ment benefits doubly because your farm sup-
mode rather than change their buying habits, ports crop production practices that conserve
and some will decide to avoid meat entirely. soil quality and avoid toxic synthetic materi-
Others, though, learn about alternative ways als. Consumers benefit from the satisfaction
of getting meat to the table and decide either of a connection with the source of their food,
to raise their own meat or to support produc- the comfort of knowing that their bacon hab-
ers who are dedicated to environmental pro- it doesn’t come at the expense of animal wel-
tection and animal welfare—and they under- fare, and above all from an improved dining
stand that those principles come at additional experience—happy pigs really do taste better!
financial cost. This demand creates a genuine
opportunity to start creating a better system.
Alternative methods of hog production
(including certified organic, pasture based,
and other extensive methods) on homesteads
and family-scale farms benefit the farmer,
the hog, the environment, and the consum-
er. High-welfare hog production benefits the
farmer because the product distinguishes it-
self on the market. Competing in the main-
stream markets as a small producer is most
likely a nonstarting proposition, and definite-
ly a losing game, especially if you are com-
mitted to maximizing animal welfare (the
margins in mainstream production are too
slim to allow this commitment). As a niche
producer, however, you can exercise some
control over your scale, your markets, and
your profitability. The pig obviously benefits

chelseagreen.com • 11
How to Cook Simple and
Delicious Recipes with Whole Foods
on a Restrictive Diet­—with Love!
An Interview with Leah M. Webb

Leah M. Webb, MPH, obtained her health coach certification from the Institute
for Integrative Nutrition. She has worked in nutrition and gardening education since
2009 with a focus on engaging children in healthy eating habits through experiential
learning and discovery. Leah started and runs the Deep Rooted Wellness blog, on
which she posts stories and tips regarding nutrition, gardening, and healthy fami-
lies. She lives in the mountains of North Carolina with her husband, T.C., and their
two children, Owen and June. Owen has a life-threatening anaphylactic allergy to
wheat, and June has cystic fibrosis, a genetic disease severely impacting the lungs
and pancreas. Leah’s commitment to a restrictive, nutrient-dense diet has played an
important role in her children’s integrative care. Paperback • $34.95

Your children’s severe health complica-
tions prompted your family to embark
on a highly restrictive diet. What would
you say to those individuals who don’t
have such a compelling reason to stick
to it—those who find the outside temp-
tations too overwhelming, the prepa-
ration too arduous, the prospects too
dissatisfying?
The biggest thing I always try to convey to
people is that when they’re thinking about
a restrictive diet, they’re often just think-
ing about deprivation and all of the things
they’re missing out on. I think the bigger
picture is that when you go on these restric-
tive diets, you end up making a lot of space
for foods that you wouldn’t necessarily have
eaten otherwise, and when you do make that
space for those new foods, you start to feel
really great. The restrictive diet that my fam-
ily follows is extremely nutrient dense—it’s
focused on nourishment. We are a society
plagued by chronic disease, and the majority
of that disease has been developed through
eating foods that are not supporting our
healthiest version of self. So when people talk
about trying to change their diet, I always tell
them, Think about how you feel—how does it
make you feel? It’s not about what you should
be doing, or what you need to be doing, it’s
about how these things make you feel and
how they support a better version of you.
What is the most important tidbit of
advice you would offer busy families at-
tempting to follow a restrictive diet?
You can see the historical string of events
that’s led to where we have less time to pre-
pare healthy meals. It’s very apparent that
we’re a busy society, and that we don’t have
the same amount of time we used to.
I would say that if I could only give
somebody one piece of advice, it would be to
rethink their idea of meal planning and prep,
to really think in bulk. When you are trying
to prepare meals from scratch, it becomes a
labor-intensive process very quickly. But a lot
of foods can be frozen that people don’t nec-
essarily realize can be frozen. If you prepare
large quantities of food and eat some now,
eat some for leftovers, and then have some to
freeze, you’re setting yourself up for success
in the long run.
What advice do you have for people
with limited access to fresh, healthy
produce? Are there particular foods that
are perhaps more important to avoid—
or to make an extra effort to consume?
My advice to these families would be to try to
focus on buying as many real ingredients as
you can. It doesn’t necessarily have to be or-
ganic, it doesn’t necessarily have to be grass-
fed, it doesn’t necessarily have to be the best.
I think that good enough, sometimes, can be
the best, depending on the situation you’re
in. Families that are able to access frozen or
canned vegetables—that’s better than noth-
ing. Trying to find as many real foods in your
realm of access is probably the best thing you
can do.
What changes have you noticed in the
public’s perception of nutrition during
your career in the field?
I’ve been doing this type of work, in varying
capacities, for a little over ten years, and I
think the biggest change I’ve seen is that peo-
ple are starting to think about bioindividuali-
ty. They’re challenging traditional nutritional
beliefs, thinking about how their body me-
tabolizes macronutrients and different food
groups, and then using that information to
heal their bodies and also help keep their fam-
ilies healthier. I used to get this a lot: When
people heard that I was into nutrition, they
assumed I was a vegetarian. And I was a vege-
tarian for a while because that was the trendy
thing to do. But now the focus has changed to

12 • Chelsea Green Publishing

 Vanilla Strawberry Beet Smoothie

“Beets and strawberries?!” Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it!

The powerful liver-detoxifying properties of raw beets are subtly
paired with refreshing strawberries and hints of vanilla. The high
antioxidant content of this deep red smoothie will get a big
thank-you from your body’s detoxifying mechanisms. It’s one of
my favorites, given its rich color and powerful health benefits.
Try subbing the strawberries with frozen dark sweet cherries and
blueberries for a sweeter, darker smoothie.

Ingredients for 2 smoothies

2 large handfuls spinach
2 small beets, peeled and roughly chopped
2 cups (130 g) frozen strawberries
2 tablespoons hemp hearts
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
Dash of cinnamon
2 cups (475 ml) water

Combine all the ingredients

nutrient density and how foods behave, chem-
ically, in your body. I’ve seen a change in the in a blender and blend
way people think about their macronutrients. until completely smooth.
Enjoy within 2 hours.
Were there particular moments that
gave you confidence in this diet and its
impacts on your family’s health?
With kids it’s really hard to tell what’s working
or not working, because they don’t have the
awareness that adults have. They really just
can’t communicate to you how certain things
impact them. My son seems to be less sensi-
tive than he used to be. With my daughter, I
can’t really tell if the diet is what has kept her
so healthy, or if it’s some of the medications
she’s on, or if it’s just her genetics. The very
obvious improvement that we saw was actu-
ally with my husband. He has been on asth-
ma medication as long as he can remember.
After we had eliminated gluten and grains for
about a year, my husband stopped taking his
allergy meds for the first time in his entire life.
That doesn’t mean that he doesn’t still have a
little bit of trouble, but he is no longer on daily
medications, and his norm is not to have trou-
ble with his asthma, unless he ends up eating
gluten again! So we were able to identify a ma-
jor trigger for a health issue that he’s had for
his entire life. And we weren’t even doing it for
him! That was unexpected!

chelseagreen.com • 13
The New Science of Athletic Performance
That is Revolutionizing Sports
by Dr. Marc Bubbs, ND, CISSN, CSCS

Dr. Marc Bubbs, ND, CISSN, CSCS, is the Director of Nutrition for the
Canadian men’s national basketball team, a speaker, and a former strength
and conditioning coach. He is also the host of the Dr. Bubbs Performance
Podcast, connecting listeners with world experts in nutrition, training,
functional health, and mental performance. Dr. Bubbs regularly presents at
health, fitness, and medical conferences across Canada, the United States,
UK, and Europe and consults with professional sports teams in the NBA,
NFL, NHL, and MLB. He practices in Toronto, Canada, and London, England,
helping athletes and clients struggling with obesity, diabetes, and metabolic
syndrome improve their health. Hardcover • $27.95

Roger Federer was bent over in pain. It was
2013, and he was struggling with chron-
ic back injuries, failing to reach a major
tournament final for the first time in 15
years. It was the start of a decline for the
greatest tennis player of all time. In 2016
he saw another setback. As Federer began
to rediscover his game and gain some mo-
mentum, he was sidelined by a knee in-
jury that required surgery. The questions
started ruminating around the tennis
world. Will Federer even win another ma-
jor? Is Federer finished? After more than
a decade of total domination in tennis
and winning major championships at an
unprecedented rate, it looked as though
time had caught up to Federer. It looked
like the competition had also caught up to
him; tennis isn’t kind to athletes over 30.
Then something surprising happened: In
2017, at the age of 35, Federer turned back
the clock. It seemed as if he had found the
fountain of youth. He won the Australian
Open major championship, his first major
since five years earlier. Did he catch light-
ning in a bottle? Then he had another ma-
jor win in 2017 at Wimbledon, in totally
dominating fashion. He defended his title
to win the Australian Open again in 2018,
which reaffirmed him at the top of tennis.
How was this possible at the age of 36,
when contemporaries of his vintage were
“Peak is a masterpiece of
nutritional science from one
of the world’s leading au-
thorities on athletic health
and performance. It’s a fan-
tastic resource that provides
a road map to reaching true
wellness.”
—Dr. Rocco Monto
in the booth calling the action and not on
the court? Rumors emerged that Roger
Federer had discovered a secret weapon to
preserve his stamina, accelerate his recov-
ery, sharpen his quickness, and keep his
mind agile. Rumors were this secret weap-
on was so impactful in the years build-
ing up to his reemergence that Federer
refused to talk about it. But what was it?
In the end, we found out: The secret was
Federer’s relentless focus on sleep.
Peak takes you behind the scenes and
introduces experts who influence the
games’ top performers. What will you
uncover? A heavy emphasis on the fun-
damentals (not the fads), the importance
of consistency (not extreme effort), and
the value of patience (not rapid transfor-
mation). It might not seem sexy at first,
but the mind-blowing feats of athleti-
cism and record-breaking performances
you see on TV highlight reels are rooted

14 • Chelsea Green Publishing


in this approach. Peak will connect you
with the “best of the best” experts in
sports and show you how they achieve
world-class success. Regardless if you’re
trying to improve your physique, pro-
pel endurance performance, or improve
team sports and athlete success, Peak will
lay out the blueprint for how elite sport
scientists, performance nutritionists, and
coaches unlock athlete potential.
No longer can we look at sports and
nutrition apart. No longer can we think
that stress and mindset are separate from
performance. Sleep matters. The food you
eat during halftime matters. It all matters.
Flawed Studies, Misleading
Advice, and the Real Science
of Human Metabolism
by Richard Feinman, PhD
Richard David Feinman, PhD, is a professor of cell biology at
the State University of New York Downstate Medical Center in
Brooklyn, where he has been a pioneer in incorporating nutrition
into the biochemistry curriculum. Dr. Feinman is the founder and
former coeditor-in-chief (2004–2009) of the journal Nutrition &
Metabolism. He’s currently researching the application of
ketogenic diets to cancer.
What should I eat? This question invariably comes up during my lectures to
medical students, during presentations at conferences, and even in private con-
versations about scientific experiments. Depending on my audience, I will go
into different levels of technical detail, but the bottom line is always the same:
The best diet is the one that works. Any expert can tell you how their diet the-
oretically conforms to widely accepted science, and how it is “healthy,” “moder-
ate,” and a “bargain”—but if it doesn’t work in practice, if you don’t lose weight,
if your blood sugar doesn’t go down, then it’s no good at all. There is little evi-
dence that the diets recommended by government and private health agencies
have provided much help for the current epidemic of obesity and diabetes, but
they keep pushing them anyway. Defenders usually tell you that it is because
people are not really following the guidelines. What they don’t say is how they
know the recommendations are good if nobody follows them. So here I’ll give
you three basic rules of nutrition that I propose as a guide, and I’ll show you a
few principles that will help you follow them.
Rule 1. If you’re OK, you’re OK.
Rule 2. If you want to lose weight, don’t eat. If you have to eat, don’t eat carbs.
Rule 3. If you have diabetes or metabolic syndrome, carbohydrate restric-
tion is the “default” approach—that is, the one to try first.
The story of nutrition has proved to be an almost unbelievable tale of poor and
irresponsible science within the medical community, one of the most respected
parts of our society. However hard it is for scientists to distrust ex-
perts, it is even harder for the general population.
I was astounded when I saw a question on an
online diabetes site that said, “My morning
oatmeal spikes my blood glucose. How much
carbohydrate should I have?” People with di-
abetes cannot adequately metabolize dietary
carbohydrate (starch and sugar) so it seemed
like an easy question. The answer from the
experts, however, was waffling and tedious,
and it didn’t include the obvious advice: “Lim-
it your oatmeal consumption to a level that
doesn’t spike your blood glucose.” Paperback • $24.95
chelseagreen.com • 15
 Lessons in Resourcefulness and Craft
from an Unusual Christmas Tree Farm
An Interview with Emmet Van Driesche

Emmet Van Driesche and his wife, Cecilia, operate the Pieropan Christmas Tree
Farm in Western Massachusetts. When he’s not working on the tree farm or
editing scientific manuscripts, he spends his time carving wooden spoons
and teaching others to do the same. You can learn more about him
at www.emmetvandriesche.com.

You are both a Christmas tree farmer and a spoon
carver. What is it about carving and working with trees
that you find interesting?
One aspect I enjoy is the actual process of making something.
With the spoons, it’s the combination of aesthetics and design
and skill. With the trees, it’s much more—it goes back to my
farming roots. How do you maintain a landscape? What’s your
relationship to that landscape, historically? How is your rela-
tionship to the landscape dependent on that of the people who
came before you? These are all questions that have interested
me, even before I came to this farm.
What I discovered through taking this opportunity is an
interesting new way of thinking about work. One of the most
important things about why this work is good for me is that it
suits me temperamentally. I love the physical work, and I love
the way that it’s just a series of decisions that need to be made
quickly and are inconsequential in and of themselves. The most
important thing is that you just keep making them and making
them and don’t get bogged down. And I think that really suits my
temperament. I didn’t know that going into this.
How long had you been selling trees and wreaths when
you started carving and selling spoons? What was the
genesis of that activity for you?
I had this moment where I was watching my one-year-old daugh-
ter crawl around the yard. I was standing on the porch next to
all the firewood, and I thought, I feel like making something right
now, and I could sell it. We were poor, we needed money, and I
had already made these spatulas for our kitchen. I thought, I bet I
could make some of those and sell them. And so I did. I just started
making them, and that first year I sold them for $10 a piece and
they all sold, so that was about $300. At the time we were paying
around $625 in rent, so that was half a month’s rent—that’s what
the mentality was through the first bunch of years. At that point
I wasn’t looking at the landscape and thinking, Here’s this thing
I could get from the land. It hadn’t even occurred to me to think
that holistically yet.
And then the spoon carving built over a couple of years. I
came across enough resources online, even though I wasn’t on
social media and didn’t have a cell phone and we had barely any
internet at the house. I remember I would put my daughter to
sleep and just sit on the floor with my laptop, out of sight, and
read this blog and stalk people’s Instagram accounts. I fell down
that rabbit hole and became more and more excited about it.
Even though there are disparate parts to what you
do—from Christmas trees, to wreaths, to scythes, to
spoons, to lessons—they all seem to be connected
through wood or trees. Is this how you see it?
For a long time I felt like I didn’t have a job I could easily explain
to people. It was always so strangely mixed together—I didn’t
know how to articulate it, or even how to think about it. But as
I did it more, and it started to work, I came to realize that all the
things I was doing were supporting each other in a way where
they didn’t have to be so obviously aligned. For example, for
common woodworkers, they make one woodworking product,
and the way they diversify is by making another product—first
you do cutting boards, then you do rolling pins, then you do
bowls, right? But from the beginning I’ve always found myself
pulling together the different things that interest me and then
figuring out how they can be cross-marketed, rather than stick-
ing within a genre. And the interesting thing for me has always
been how disparate things can support each other in ways you
didn’t necessarily anticipate.
I was a multidisciplinary major in college because I was a
sailor and just wanted to learn about the ocean, so I made up a
major that I could twist in such a way that allowed me to think
about the ocean. I take the same approach now: I’m taking
whatever my situation is and twisting it around so that I can
work for myself. And that’s the thread that ties it all together.

16 • Chelsea Green Publishing

A Bid for the Sky
by Emmet Van Driesche
The air is cold enough for my breath to show, but I’m
breaking a sweat. I’m harvesting balsam branches,
grabbing each with one hand and cutting them with
the red clippers in the other. I grasp each new branch
with the same hand until my fingers can’t stretch
around any more, then shove my arm through the
middle of the entire handful and keep going. I work
fast and don’t stop until my arm is completely stacked
with branches and sticking straight out, and I look like
a kid with too many sweaters on under his jacket. Piv-
oting on my heel, I stride back to my central pile of bal-
sam boughs and dump the armload on top, eyeballing
it to gauge how much the pile weighs. I decide I need
more and head off in another direction into the grove.
The balsam fir grows from big, wild stumps in
thickets that can stretch 20 feet around. The trees
crowd so closely together, in no apparent order or pat-
tern, that their branches interlock. Instead of single
trees, each stump has up to three small trees of differ-
ent ages growing off it. They are pruned as Christmas
trees, and I am a Christmas tree farmer.
My Christmas tree farm is unlike any you have ever
seen or imagined, however. For one thing, my trees do
not march in rows across a field, but rather spring out
of the ground in loose affiliations knit together by a
lacework of paths. But the biggest difference is that my
trees are coppiced, growing out of the top or sides of a
stump that has a thick skirt of branches. These branch-
es keep the stump alive; each year the stump sends out
dozens of new shoots, each one vying to be the new
tree. Unlike conventional Christmas tree farms, my
problem isn’t buying enough seedlings to meet de-
mand ten years down the road, or keeping newly plant-
ed stock alive through a summer drought. My problem
is abundance, the sheer exuberance of nature that tries
to produce a dozen trees where I want
just one. Shoots erupt
from the rim of the
stump, from the bark
on the sides, and from
the tops of branch-
es. Sometimes whole
branches start to curve
up and make a bid for
the sky.

Hardcover • $28.00

chelseagreen.com • 17
 Using Fire to Cool the Earth
An Interview with Albert Bates and Kathleen Draper

Albert Bates is one of the founders of the intentional community and eco-
village movements. A lawyer, scientist, and teacher, he has taught village
design, appropriate technology, and permaculture to students from more
than sixty countries. Kathleen Draper routinely collaborates with biochar
experts from around the globe as a board member of the International
Biochar Initiative (IBI), moderator for IBI’s biochar education webinar series,
and the US Director of the Ithaka Institute for Carbon Intelligence. She has
lectured on biochar in several countries and provides consulting services to
companies entering the biochar industry.

What is the carbon cycle, and where does biochar fit
into this story?
Bates: The carbon cycle has been going on since Earth cooled
enough to allow life to arise. We know it as photosynthesis, with-
out which we could not eat or breathe. Over billions of years
the planet developed a stasis between the amount of carbon re-
leased from natural sources like dead plants and volcanoes and
what could be absorbed back by oceans, growing plants, and the
weathering of minerals. When we disrupted this balance with
land use changes dating back 8,000 years, and more recently
through burning fossil fuels, one of the effects is global warm-
ing. Knowing how we are heating the planet is one thing.
Understanding how to restore the equilibrium is quite
another. We think biochar is one of the more powerful
tools we have, but there is still a lot to learn.
Draper: I think of biochar as “carbon interrupted.”
Plants breath in CO2, which is normally exhaled
back into the atmosphere during decomposition.
When you bake organic matter at sufficiently high tem-
peratures, you convert up to 50 percent of the CO2 into a
very stable form of carbon that decomposers mostly ignore.
Explain one biochar application you encountered
during your travels that you found particularly innova-
tive or effective.
Kathleen: One of my favorites is still being developed by a
group in South Africa. The concept is a biochar brick with seeds
inside that is being used to rebuild or rehabilitate dunes, mine-
lands, wetlands, etc. The bricks are only meant to last a few
years and the embedded seeds help restore biodiversity. I am
also very keen on a project I’ve been working on that uses car-
bonized coffee grounds in bioUPgradable coffee lids!
For those who are interested in experimenting with
biochar, what is one way we can incorporate it in our
daily lives?
Kathleen: I use personal care products—soap, toothpaste, de-
odorant, shampoo—that contain biochar, but at the end of the
day the amount of biochar in those products is small. I think
the best use of time is to help lobby for the use of biochar in big
markets such as livestock feed, building materials, filtration,
and so on.
Albert: Well if we are going to go big, let’s go really big. Carbon
content in the things around us should be more common than
plastics are today. Recaptured carbon should be in the con-
crete and steel in buildings and bridges. It should be un-
der and on top of roadways. It should be the fiber that
builds automobiles and airplanes—a lot of that creat-
ed by 3D printing. Some people worry that in order to
convert that much photosynthetic carbon into perma-
nent structures we would need to cut down whole forests,
or make genetically engineered plantations of fast-growing
feedstocks. Balderdash! There is ample car-
bon right now that is decaying into
greenhouse gases because we think
of it as waste or pollution. We could
be capturing and converting those
sources of pollution into useful
products and services. Think sea-
weed. Think municipal sewage. As
we say in permaculture, these so-
called problems are actually solu-
tions in disguise. We are confront-
ed with nearly insurmountable
opportunity. Hardcover • $24.95

18 • Chelsea Green Publishing

Hope for a Thirsty World
by Judith D. Schwartz

Judith D. Schwartz is a journalist whose recent work looks at soil as a hub

for multiple environmental, economic, and social challenges and solutions.
She writes on this theme for numerous publications and speaks at venues
around the world. Her 2013 book Cows Save the Planet was awarded a
Nautilus Book Award Silver Prize for Sustainability and was among
Booklist’s Top 10 Books on Sustainability in 2014. A graduate of the
Columbia Journalism School and Brown University, she lives in Vermont.

Chihuahua, Mexico’s largest state is big
ranching country. The Chihuahuan Des-
ert region, which includes parts of Arizo-
na, New Mexico, and Texas as well as the
northern Mexico states of Chihuahua and
Coahuila, is where many of the cowboy
traditions we associate with “the West”
originated. “It was the ideal place to raise
cattle,” says rancher Alejandro Carrillo,
“thanks to a sea of native grasslands and
plenty of water from year-round springs.”
I came to Chihuahua to see the birds.
Upon seeing my book Cows Save the Planet
a few months prior, Carrillo had contacted
me and told me that he and fellow ranch-
ers who practice holistic planned grazing
were working with bird conservation or-
ganizations to protect endangered migra-
tory grassland bird populations. Several
species of grassland birds, including cer-
tain song sparrows and the lark bunting,
the state bird of Colorado, have seen tre-
mendous drops in numbers—in some cas-
es upward of 80 percent. For a long time
conservationists concerned about these
birds had concentrated on the summer
breeding habitat in the Western Great
Plains. They’ve since come to realize that
the deterioration of winter habitat, where
the birds spend seven months of the year,
could represent the largest threat to their
survival. This habitat centers on the Chi-
huahuan Desert Grasslands, specifically
the central valley—Valle Centrales—where
Carrillo and his colleagues Jesus Almeida,
Octavio Bermudez, and Elco Blanco Ma-
drid work and ranch.
The good news, says Carrillo, is that
they know how to grow grass, and there-
fore create bird habitat, through holistic
planned grazing. At Las Damas Ranch “we
used to have just two species, tobosa and
zacaton,” he says, referring to native pe-
rennial grasses that can survive through
droughts and overgrazing. “Now we have
multiple grasses, some taller than myself.
People didn’t think it was possible to have
these grasses in the desert.” The result of
the renewed growth of diverse grasses is
that the ranch is “a magnet for birds. You
can see migratory, predator, nonpredator
birds. In much of the state, in February and
March there’s no grass at all.”
That this small group of ranches con-
stitutes oases of bird habitat attracted the
attention of conservation groups working
to protect threatened bird populations.
The conservation groups are now collabo-
rating with five ranchers, with the possibil-
ity of more, to monitor bird numbers and
expand the amount of land with favorable
bird habitat. Ideally, they’re seeking to cre-
ate a biological corridor that will offer pro-
tection for desert grassland birds so that
their populations can rebound.
Andrew Rothman, director of the Mi-
gratory Bird Program at the American Bird
Conservancy, has visited Las Damas Ranch
several times. “It was pretty evident right
away that the amount of grasses there
was superior to pretty much any land we’d
seen in the Chihuahuan Desert,” he told
me. “That land was different, with plenty
of vegetation and forage for cattle. What’s
good forage for cattle is good habitat for
birds.”
Rothman’s field observations in Chi-
huahua challenged some of his earlier
assumptions about wildlife conservation.
“Our perception of conservation is often
[to] set the land aside and not do anything,”
he said. “But many of our habitats are dis-
turbed.” In North American grasslands, for
instance, there would be occasional, lim-
ited lightning-kindled fires or trampling
from passing bison herds. “Cattle re-create
some of those disturbances,” he said. “This
can help regenerate the
landscape
when proper-
ly managed.”
Paperback • $17.95

chelseagreen.com • 19
The Story and Legacy of a Radical
Industrialist and his Quest
for Authentic Change
by Ray C. Anderson and John A. Lanier
Ray C. Anderson’s Mid-Course Correction, originally published 20 years ago,
became the definitive case study for sustainable business. Now fully updated
and expanded for the twenty-first century, Mid-Course Correction Revisited
includes new chapters penned by Anderson’s grandson, John A. Lanier.
Ray C. Anderson was founder and chair-
man of Interface, Inc., one of the world’s
leading carpet and flooring producers. His
story is now legend: Anderson had a “spear
in the chest” epiphany when he first read
Paul Hawken’s The Ecology of Commerce,
inspiring him to revolutionize his business
in pursuit of environmental sustainabil-
ity. In doing so, he proved that business
can indeed “do well by doing good.” The
Georgia-based Interface has been ranked
number one in a GlobeScan survey of sus-
tainability experts, and the company has
continued to be an environmental leader
even after Anderson’s death in 2011.
John A. Lanier joined the Ray C. Ander-
son Foundation as executive director in
May 2013 to advance the legacy of Ray, his
grandfather. He is chair of the board of di-
rectors for Southface, the southeast’s non-
profit leader in the promotion of sustain-
able homes, workplaces, and communities
through education, research, advocacy,
and technical assistance.
20 • Chelsea Green Publishing
Paperback • $19.95
I have this mental picture of a mountain
that is higher than Everest. It rises steep-
ly out of a jungle that surrounds it. Most
of us, people and companies, are lost and
wandering around in that jungle, and don’t
know the mountain exists at all. Rather,
we are preoccupied with the threatening,
competitive “animals” all around us. A
few have sensed the upward slope of the
mountain’s foothills under their feet. Still
fewer have decided to follow the upward
slope to see where it leads. And a very few
are far enough along to have had a glimpse
of the mountain through the leaves of the
trees, to realize what looms ahead and
above. Very few indeed have set their eyes
and wills on the summit. What will the Ray C. Anderson
view from there, from the vantage point
of sustainability, be like? I believe it will be
wonderful beyond description, and I hope
to see it before I die. I also hope others,
still lost in the jungle or just becoming
conscious of the upward slope, even be-
ginning to explore it, will hear our cries of
joy through the foliage and rush ahead to
follow our path, someday soon to join us
at the summit (or better yet beat us there).
There’s room there for everyone, and cer-
tainly anyone headed in that direction
welcomes the companionship, as we seek
to create the prototypical company of the
twenty-first century, of the next industrial
revolution.
­—Ray C. Anderson John A. Lanier
 A Big Win
for Beavers!
On February 26, 2019, at a ceremony in New York City, author Ben Goldfarb
won the 2019 PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award for his book
Eager: The Surprising, Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matter,
now available in paperback.
From the PEN judges’ citation:
“Sometimes the best thing humans can do
for the environment is hand it over to an-
other species. While it is widely known that
beavers dam waterways, often in ways that
frustrate human plans, it is rarely acknowl-
edged that these nocturnal rodents can
radically transform vast swathes of land,
boosting biodiversity, recharging aquifers,
purifying water, reducing pollution, and
protecting against erosion and wildfires.
“Vast in scope but beautifully specific in
detail, Eager is an important environmen-
tal saga with clear implications for mod-
ern-day ecological policy. This true natural
history portrays the inequities of settler
impact on North America on a broad scale
through a particular creature and eco-
system—revealing that we once lived in
a much different world, and that we will
struggle to reclaim that world without in-
terspecies cooperation. While maintaining
a strong central storyline, Goldfarb offers
eye-opening, fascinating vignettes about
these industrious engineering rodents and
the people whose lives are devoted to re-
introducing, protecting, and championing
them.
“At times tragic and at times hopeful,
Eager is a charming, surprising, and com-
pelling lesson in the intricacies of ecosys-
tems, and the limits of human hubris.”
From Ben Goldfarb’s
acceptance speech:
“If you follow environmental news, you
know that our planet’s situation is dire.
The climate’s warming, the polluters are in
power, and three species have gone extinct
since this party began. And yet, this book
begins with 400 million beavers being
wiped out for their pelts. It ends with Jose
the beaver returning triumphantly to the
Bronx River in 2007. A century ago, you
could have roamed the state of New York
without seeing a bear, a turkey, or even a
deer. Now we’ve got coyotes in Yonkers
(don’t feed them, please). Our rivers don’t
spontaneously catch on fire. We can, for
the most part, breathe the air. The falcons
in Central Park can sit on their eggs with-
out cracking shells thinned by pesticides.
Shout out [to] Rachel Carson.
“I note this not to play Pollyanna, but
because we have to remember that prog-
ress is possible. There are congressmen
who think we should discard the Endan-
gered Species Act altogether because they
claim, falsely, that nothing ever recovers.
The default position of climate deniers is
shifting from ‘it’s not happening’ to ‘it’s
happening, but fixing it is too hard, so why
bother?’ When we point out that conserva-
tion works, we declare that attempting to
save our planet is worthwhile. To me, the
story of beavers and the story of so much
North American wildlife isn’t a distraction
from the darkness; it’s a defense of striving
for the light. Thank you to you all for help-
ing us imagine a better world.”
chelseagreen.com • 21
 Thanks for Listening
New in Audiobook

“A thorough guide to shaping your “A wonderfully thoughtful and

world not only to your own happiness, gently ironic meditation on our
but the world’s as well.” —John changing relationship with nature.”
Hodgman, author of Vacationland —The Guardian

“As delicious to drink in and as “To anyone who wants to enhance

profound as the unique and artful
ciders [Andy] makes.” —Deirdre
Heekin, vintner, La Garagista Winery;
author of An Unlikely Vineyard
22 • Chelsea Green Publishing
their performance, read this book
and thank me later!”
—Jimmy Conrad, former captain of
the US Men’s National Soccer Team
Notes from an Editor

Seeing the Trees for the Forest

by Michael Metivier

Michael Metivier has been an editor at Chelsea Green Publishing since 2013, block. An editor could tell you stories of
joining the staff after earning his Master of Science degree in environmen- discovering someone doing tremendous,
tal studies from Antioch University New England. His editing projects have world-changing work in their field, and
of praying, Say yes, say yes, say yes, say yes
included best-selling and award-winning titles such as Eager, Pawpaw, and
when making an offer for their book. Per-
Farming While Black. He is also a poet whose work has been published in haps most importantly, each copy of the
Poetry, Crazyhorse, North American Review, and African American Review, same book in the hands of a different read-
among other journals. He lives on the north side of Vermont’s Mount er itself becomes something unique, af-
Ascutney with his wife and daughters. fecting each reader’s life in a different way.
And, of course, every book printed on
In the opening chapter of Trees of Power, As an editor, I feel the same way about the
paper also contains within it the stories of
author Akiva Silver sings the praises of tree word “books.”
trees, the people who planted them, the
identification. He first describes the skill as It’s a great privilege to every day be sur-
birds and mammals that dispersed their
being “as useful to me as reading,” and lat- rounded by books—the books arrayed on
seeds, the insects that pollinated their
er promises readers that in learning to dis- the shelves behind my desk; books packed
flowers, the vast networks of fungi and mi-
cern trees by their bark, twigs, leaves, and into boxes that arrive in the office daily; the
croorganisms interacting with their roots,
silhouettes, “you will be able to read stories various archival libraries of Chelsea Green
the climate, the elevation, the aspect. Not
in the landscape.” I find neither statement dating back to 1985, curated for different
to spoil the end of Silver’s book, but the
by Silver to be fanciful or hyperbolic. purposes by different departments—but
last sentence is “Happy Planting.” To that
When I first began learning to identify describing what I do as “working with
I’d like to add “Happy Reading.”
trees in earnest, the experience was revela- books” or “editing books” can feel like re-
tory. It wasn’t just the discovery that bass- ducing a floodplain full of silver maple, box
wood buds resemble puffin heads, or that elder, sycamore, and river birch to “trees.”
the bark plates of elder sugar maples curve Technically correct and fine in a pinch, but
away from the trunk at their vertical edg- working at a small, independent publish-
es, while those of aging red maples shag er has given me insight into books not as
outward from the horizontal. My world faceless commodities, but as individuals
grew bigger. I suddenly noticed trees that with unique, complex origins and stories
had surrounded me all my life, rather than to tell beyond those within their pages.
simply seeing “the woods.” And the yellow There are stories of how the author
birches, American beeches, and chestnut found the publisher, or vice versa. There
oaks did (and do) indeed tell me stories: are stories behind the cover design, the
of 500 year-old storms, of former sheep choice of typeface, the color of the endpa-
pastures, of sapsuckers, pine weevils, and pers, the photography, the title, the mar-
fire. General terms like “trees” and “for- keting strategy, the outreach to endorsers.
ests” are necessary for efficient commu- An author might have stories about trying
nication, but alone flatten the incredible to make their deadline, about bursts of
diversity of both species and individuals. inspiration and the frustration of writer’s

chelseagreen.com • 23
 “It will take years [to build your land-based life] and still you
will be learning and doing more and dreaming bigger,
different dreams than the ones you started out with.
Give yourself that time. Life is long and full of changes.”
—Emmet Van Driesche

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