Blessing the Hands that Feed Us: Lessons From a 10 Mile Diet with Vicki Robins

Could you live – for even a month – eating only food grown within 10 miles of your home? Why would you even want to? Vicki Robin, bestselling author of Your Money Or Your Life, will join the Jamaica Plain Forum and share her experience of pledging to only eat food sourced within a 10 mile radius of her home.

Robin’s new book, Blessing the Hands that Feed Us, is part personal narrative and part global manifesto. Her sustainable diet not only brings to light society’s unhealthy dependency on mass-produced, prepackaged foods but also helps her reconnect with her body and her environment. By Challenging herself to eat and buy local, Robin exposes the cause and effect of the food business, from the processed foods laden with sugar, fat and preservatives to the trucks burning through fuel to bring them to a shelf near you. Robin’s journey is also one of community as she befriends all the neighboring farmers who epitomize the sustainable lifestyle.

Vicki Robin is co-author of the perennial best-seller, Your Money or Your Life. Called the “prophet of consumption downsizers” by the NYTimes, Robin’s radical common sense approach to money, food and life inspires people to think deeply and act with integrity. She’s a prolific social innovator, having helped launch Sustainable Seattle, Awakening the Dreamer Symposium, New Road Map Foundation, Conversation Cafes, and Transition Whidbey, among many other projects. Robin designed and launched the 10-Day Local Food Challenge for eaters who want to kick-start their shift to local eating.  She’s an entertaining and inspiring speaker, and has been featured in hundreds of media outlets, including Oprah, NPR, NYTimes, WSJ, Utne, People. Her popular TEDx talk is on “Relational Eating.”