My new book, Pig Tales: An Omnivore’s Quest for Sustainable Meat, won’t be released until later this year, but word is already getting out. This from the Denver Post’s coverage of the Cochon 555 cook-off event that will take place on March 8 in that city:

If all this pork talk triggers a hunger to know more, be on the lookout for Pig Tales: An Omnivore’s Quest for Sustainable Meat by Barry Estabrook (W.W. Norton) . . . .

Estabrook, winner of a James Beard award for magazine feature writing, delves into the world of pigs and pig farmers, looking at modern pork production, from industrial pigs to heritage breeds, like those raised at Flying Pigs Farm, which produces some of the “finest meat I’ve ever tasted,” he writes. “My chop was transcendent, deep-red in color, and well marbled with strands of delicious fat that made it tender, juicy, and sublimely ‘porky.'”

Pig Tales is now available for pre-order. CLICK HERE

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I vowed never to touch another Thai-farmed shrimp after attending a panel discussion recently at Sea Web’s Seafood Summit in New Orleans.

Steve Trent, the executive director of the Britain’s Environmental Justice Foundation, described a multi-billion-dollar industry with a financial model that would not be viable slave labor. “It’s the most horrific situation I have seen in more than 25 years of monitoring human rights abuses around the world,” he said.

The victims, according to Trent, typically come from poorer countries near Thailand such as Burma, Cambodia, and Laos, which supply 90 percent of the 300,000 shrimp workers in Thailand. Some are lured by promises of well-paid factory jobs only to be forced aboard fishing boats where they are held as captives. Others are kidnapped by traffickers. Fishing boat owners can conveniently order slaves from criminal gangs just as they order nets, engine parts, and fuel from suppliers, although humans are not as expensive as a new net or a tank of diesel. The going price for a human being in Thai fishing ports ranges between $375 and $960–cheaper than a pure-bred dog.

Once aboard the boats and in international waters, the unpaid workers remain trapped, often for several years, according to the United States State Department’s 2014 Trafficking in Persons Report, in which Thailand was relegated to the lowest category among 188 countries examined. More than half of Burmese workers in one Thai fishing port reported to state department officials that they had experienced slave conditions.

Shrimp slaves are fed as little as one bowl of rice a day, are forced to work for 18-hour shifts, and often endure beatings—or worse. More than half of workers on Thai fishing boats surveyed by the United Nations reported that they had seen fellow workers murdered while at sea. Slaves too weak or too ill to work are often simply tossed overboard.

Thailand’s slavery problem was caused by rampant, uncontrolled overfishing. Catches there have dropped to 14 percent of levels a few decades ago, and most of what’s caught consists of small “trash” fish that are sold to companies that make the fishmeal fed to Thailand’s shrimp farmers. In order to profit in face of the plummeting catches, boat owners kept cutting crews’ wages until they hit zero and could cut no farther. To keep itself afloat, the industry became reliant on slavery rings for labor.

Despite its unsavory underpinnings, the Thai shrimp industry generates $6 billion in export earnings. Much of that profit comes from shrimp sold to the United States. Shrimp is the most popular seafood in this country, and we import more than 90 percent of the shrimp we consume. For most of the last decade, Thailand has been our biggest source of imported shrimp, accounting to one-fourth of the total. After the conference I visited the Shaw’s supermarket in my New England hometown. Half the bags of frozen shrimp there were imported from Thailand. I could have found them at the stores of very major supermarket chain and companies like Costco and Walmart.

Thai government officials are doing little, if anything, to combat the problem. According to the Guardian, many regulators work in cahoots with the boat owners and slavers. Trent said that there has never been slavery conviction as a result of slavery on a Thai fishing boat. “The countries that Thailand exports to are the only way to pressure Thailand to take action,” he said. “The market can provide sustainable long-term solutions to these problems.”

Which means that American consumers should refrain from buying Thai shrimp until the country cleans up its act.

Avoiding them is easy—at least in supermarkets. Regulations require that unprocessed seafood is labeled with the country of origin.

I usually play it safe by buying wild American shrimp. They cost more. But it’s a small price to pay to know that I’m not supporting slavery.

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Last summer, I stood on a bridge over the flooding Middle Raccoon River in Iowa and watched thick mats of brownish foam surging downstream. They had been created by hog manure washed from fields into the river by heavy rains.

Later, when I asked him about the froth, William Stowe, Chief Executive Officer and general manager of the Des Moines Water Works, smiled ruefully and informed me that I was going to be drinking that very water in my hotel room.

Pollution from hog farms and other agricultural operations has become a steadily worsening problem for Stowe and the 500,000 customers he serves.

For several months in 2013, levels of agricultural nitrates in the Des Moines water supply hovered at levels just below the maximum limits set by the Environmental Protection Agency, even though the Water Works kept machines designed to remove the pollutants—which can cause “blue baby” disease and have been linked to cancers—operating at full capacity. Keeping the water barely potable cost ratepayers $7,000 a day.

In early 2014, Water Works wrestled to control ammonia pollution in the water supply caused by hog manure, again bumping up against safe limits. Since early December, the utility’s denitrification facilities have once again been in operation 24/7.

There are few more concrete examples of what critics of industrial agriculture call “externalizing costs.” Not only are residents of Des Moines paying to clean up the pollution caused by highly profitable factory farmers, but they face the possibility of suffering health consequences from problems that are created hundreds of miles away. Pollution from the Raccoon flows into the Mississippi, where it effects St. Louis, Memphis, and New Orleans and contributed to the vast, lifeless dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico.

This week the Water Works decided that it has taken enough shit. It filed a notice of intent to sue the Boards of Supervisors of three upstream counties under the Clean Water Act unless they stop discharging pollutants within 60 days.

Monitoring at 72 sites in the three counties showed nitrate levels nearly four times the EPA limit. Water Works claims that the counties are responsible for a system of ditches, pipes, and drainage tiles that whisk runoff from fields and confined hog operations directly into drinking water sources.

The Water Works’ notice of intent is the latest in a series of legal actions taken by Iowa citizens after their concerns were shrugged by a state government where politicians of both major parties are deeply beholden to agribusiness. In 2012, the Sierra Club, the Environmental Integrity Project and Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement, threatened to sue the federal Environmental Protection Agency unless it forced the state Department of Natural Resources to strengthen its oversight of pollution from factory farms.

In 2013, the Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement, a grassroots organization, sued Maschhoffs, LLC, a pork producing company that dumped thousands of gallons of manure into a creek. If successful, the suit would require the company to obtain a Clean Water Act permit that would require  it to adhere to strict regulations—and perhaps set a precedent that other big operations will have to follow.

These were important victories. That they were achieved in courts of law rather than in the statehouse says a lot about the cozy relationship between agricultural polluters and the government officials charged with policing them.

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It’s Sustainable Santa, writing. Wee Barry Estabrook is preoccupied with putting together a new book proposal, so Santa thought it was a good idea to help him out (and lighten Santa’s sleigh) by stepping into this space to dash off a few words about Santa’s favorite books of food journalism for 2014—dandy gifts for the food lovers on your list.

Santa’s image consultants insist that Santa maintains the physique of a fat, jolly, old elf, so it should come as no surprise that he takes food ve-r-r-r-r-r-y seriously. And because Santa expects to be embarking on his annual sleigh ride for many more millennia, it should also come as no surprise that he has a vested interest in the long-term sustainability of our food system.

 

The Third Plate by Dan Barber

Which brings Santa to this year’s first book. (Always fair-minded, Santa will proceed in alphabetical order.)

Aptly subtitled Field Notes on the Future of Food, Young Dan Barber’s The Third Plate makes a perfect gift for the deeply thoughtful eaters on your list, the ones who gobbled up Michael Pollan’s Onmivore’s Dilemma when it came out. In fact, Santa will go so far as to say that The Third Plate is the most important book to come out about our food system since Pollan’s seminal work.

Dan, of course, is the James-Beard-Award-Winning chef-owner of the two Blue Hill restaurants in the New York City area. His cooking is earthy, imaginative, intellectual, sometimes playful, and always interesting, yet he never lets diners forget that his culinary tours de force begin in some nearby barnyard. The same could be said of his writing.

It seems a little unfair that such a talented chef writes as well as he cooks, but those of us who are unable to make it to a Blue Hill should be delighted we have the opportunity devour Dan’s masterful prose.

 The Third Plate: Field Notes on the Future of Food, by Dan Barber, $29.95

 

 

 

In Search of the Perfect Loaf by Samuel Fromartz

Santa freely admits to having a sweet tooth. He’s always delighted to find a few cookies left out on hearths. But each Christmas Eve after sliding down Sam Fromartz’s chimney, Santa head directly to the kitchen, where inevitably Sam has left a few fresh loaves of his just-baked bread.

Sam happens to be a journalist, and a very good one at that. But he is also one of the very best bread bakers in the land. His baguettes beat out those of all the professionals in a bake-off in his home town, Washington, DC, and when Alice Waters hosted a benefit in the capitol, she insisted that Sam make the bread.

In his book, In Search of a Perfect Loaf, Sam mixes practical advice and age-old wisdom and leavens combination with interesting characters and irresistible writing. What arises is an absolute must-have book for the bread baker on your list (Santa guarantees he or she will love it—and love you all the more for being so thoughtful). But it is also a page-turning read for anyone with a vicarious curiosity about how this miracle food is made.

In interest of full disclosure, Sam has edited Wee Barry’s work and supported his reporting through the Food and Environmental Reporting Network.

In Search of the Perfect Loaf: A Home Baker’s Odyssey, by Samuel Fromartz, $26.95

The Chain by Ted Genoways

Santa, back again for Wee Barry Estabrook who is supposed to be toiling away on a new book proposal but seems to be wasting a lot of time on social media instead.

As you know, Santa tends a small herd of domestic ruminants himself, so he has a soft spot for all livestock. After reading The Chain: Farm, Factory, and the Fate of our Food, Ted Genoways’ scathing investigative report on factory pig farming, Santa will be stuffing several large, dirty lumps of coal in his bag to be put into the stockings of the executives at Hormel Foods and other corporate pork producers.

From the dismal working conditions inside slaughterhouses to the rundown Midwestern “barrios” that house immigrant workers, Ted takes on Big Pig with investigative vigor and muckraking gusto not seen since Little Upton Sinclair lashed out at the same industry in The Jungle. Santa’s been around a long time. It saddens him to see how little has changed.

Give this eye-opener to all of the meat lovers on your list as well as those who shun animal products.

The Chain: Farm, Factory, and the Fate of our Food, by Ted Genoways, $26.99

 

Labor and the Locavore by Margaret Gray

As the CEO of a worldwide company that gives its products (toys) away for free, Santa is well aware of how bottom-line realities can put pressure on worker wages and benefits. Nonetheless, Santa makes sure his elves make at least minimum wage, have full medical coverage, receive overtime, and have generous vacation schedules. He expects all farmers to follow his example.

Alas, Labor and the Locavore, Maggie Gray’s investigation of the growers who supply pretty products to New York City’s farmers’ markets, shows that those Carhartt-clad neo-agrarians under the pop-up tents hide the reality that unseen migrant laborers do the real work. The men and women who tend and pick urbanites’ upscale fruits and veggies live anything but upscale lives, without benefits, overtime, medical insurance—or even a guarantee that they will make minimum wage. Naughty, naughty.

Give this book to all farmers’ market shoppers on your list and ask them to share what they learn with their favorite vendors.

Labor and the Locavore: The Making of a Comprehensive Food Ethic, by Margaret Gray, $29.95

 

American Catch by Paul Greenberg

Santa considers himself fortunate. With much of the Bering Sea and Alaska lying within his foodshed, Santa has ready access to plenty of pollock, Arctic char, wild salmon and other local seafood.

But as Paul Greenberg points out in American Catch: The Fight for Our Local Seafood, Santa is the exception among Americans. Despite controlling more ocean than any other country, the United States imports in excess of 85 percent of its seafood. And at the same time as the country is bringing in all those fish from who-knows-where, it is exporting fully one-third of the fish that come from its waters. Alaska alone produces enough fish to feed the nation. How did this come about? Why don’t Americans give their seafood the respect it deserves? Why, oh why, does the definition of “locavore” stop at the high-tide mark? What’s the catch? The American catch.

Paul, who has to be one of the most amiable narrators taking on serious food issues today, uses this paradox as a stepping off point for a lively exploration of America’s complex relationship with the marine resources at its doorstep, from the oyster beds of the Northeast, to the salmon runs of Alaska. He encounters lots of problems and threats along the way, but ends on a hopeful note, which Santa might sum up as, “Yes, America, there is a way to have your seafood and eat it too.”

Give this book to anyone who loves to catch fish, dines on seafood, or enjoys the coastal waters of the United States.

American Catch: The Fight for Our Local Seafood, by Paul Greenberg, $ 26.95

 

Defending Beef  by Nicolette Hahn Niman

When Santa stamps back into the house after his annual rounds, he looks forward to sitting down at the dinner table with Mrs. Claus for a beautiful standing rib roast accompanied by her unbeatable Yorkshire pudding.

So Santa’s been feeling a little conflicted lately, trying to justify his love of good beef in the face of all the human health and environmental horrors that have been attributed to cattle production over the last several years.

Leave it to Nicolette Hahn Niman—lawyer, environmentalist, rancher, mother, and (Santa isn’t kidding) practicing vegetarian—to lay out a vigorous, intellectually robust argument in favor of beef. With one huge caveat: Meat has to be raised the right way. From an environmental point of view, Nicolette argues, there is a huge difference between grass-fed, pastured cattle and those that consume a diet based on corn (and a host of chemicals) in massive feedlots.

At the same time, Nicolette presents a convincing case that sugars and simple carbohydrates, not cows, might be the real culprits behind the national epidemic of obesity and cardiovascular disease.

For the committed carnivores on your list as well as the environmentalists and vegetarians who aren’t adverse to a little food for thought.

Defending Beef: The Case for Sustainable Meat Production, by Nicolette Hahn Niman

 

The Meat Racket by Christopher Leonard

By the powers vested in me as the one and only Santa, I hereby declare 2014 to have been the year of sustainable meat books. Christopher Leonard set the pace early in the year with the publication of The Meat Racket: The Secret Takeover of America’s Food Business.

Like Ted Genoways in The Chain, Christopher looks at meat production through the lens on a single company, in this case Tyson, which grew from a one-man, one-truck operation in tiny Springdale, Ark., in the early 1930s, to a vertically integrated chicken, pork, and beef colossus, one of a handful of corporations that control most of the meat Americans eat today. Collectively, these corporations damage the environment and destroy the economic and social fabric of rural communities, all in the name of cheap food—which isn’t all that cheap anymore. The most abused victims group are the folks who raise corporate animals despite the ever-present prospect of bankruptcy. They are called “contract farmers.” Back in Santa’s younger days, people who toiled under the conditions Christopher describes were simply called serfs.

The Meat Racket is a great gift for meat lovers with a taste for business books or anyone curious about how livestock production in America became controlled by a heartless oligarchy.

The Meat Racket: The Secret takeover of Americas Food Business, by Christopher Leonard, $28.00

 

Delicious! By Ruth Reichl

During long winter nights, Santa loves to immerse himself in a deftly-plotted novel full of vivid characters. He also enjoys evocative writing about his favorite topic—food.

He all but wolfed down Delicious!, the bestselling debut novel by Ruth Reichl, the author of popular food-related memoirs and the former editor of Gourmet magazine. Santa views Ruth’s novel as her personal twist on a genre made popular by Lauren Weisberger’s The Devil Wears Prada, but with gravy-stained aprons instead of designer clothes. It’s the story about the trials of a young woman who comes to New York to work at a quirky food magazine. No one writes about food as well as Ruth, and few authors tell as good a story.

Wee Barry Estabrook, who worked for Ruth for several years, wanted to make sure that Santa told readers of this review that he had no hard feelings about being the real life model for Richard, the creative director character, who the narrator describes as “the most attractive man I’d ever met. His olive skin, emerald eyes, and chiseled cheekbones gave him the languid, unshaven arrogance of a model . . .” Santa is not so sure.

For fiction lovers and food lovers and lovers of Ruth’s memoirs—especially those who might be looking forward to some relaxing beach time in the not-too-distant future.

Delicious! A Novel, By Ruth Reichl, $27.00

 

 

American Spirit by James Rodewald

Santa is never averse to sitting back in his big, comfy chair with a noggin of something to warm his insides (it gets damn cold up here). And he supports any trend that adds cheer to the season. So he has been a big booster of the craft distilling movement that has sprung up in the wake of the craft brewing upsurge a couple of decades back.

Alas, Santa has been disappointed at some of the naughty boys (most are boys) in the “artisanal” booze business. Far too many of them are not distillers at all. Instead they buy tanker truckloads of generic whiskey or neutral spirits from huge, industrial distilling corporations, pour the hooch into quaint bottles and slap on labels with olde-fashioned typefaces that mislead consumers into thinking that they are buying lovingly made, local tipple.

In American Spirit James Rodewald, former spirits editor at the late lamented Gourmet magazine (a tough job, but somebody had to do it), separates the phonies from the real McCoys through firsthand visits to and vivid profiles of more than twenty still masters across the country who are fully transparent about how their products are created. No “craftwashing” here, to use Rodewald’s expression. They are a merry bunch, all great raconteurs, who, even though their trade is now legal, maintain the swashbuckling attitude of bygone bootleggers. Santa raises a glass to each and every one of them.

Ideal for anyone on your list who loves honest liquors and well-made cocktails—and a must for any small-batch whiskey aficionados.

American Spirit: An Exploration of the Craft Distilling Revolution, By James Rodewald, $24.95

 

The Big Fat Surprise, by Nina Teicholz

“Fat-is-good/carbs-are-bad” has become a nonfiction genre in and of itself in recent years, a direct reaction to the “fat is evil” doctrine that has become the establishment’s dietary mantra over the last few decades. The Big Fat Surprise is the first book in the genre that merits serious attention.

Santa has been around long enough to know that all entrenched wisdom should be viewed with a measure of skepticism. Nina brings that and more to the subject.

What pleased Santa the most is the depth and soundness of the research behind Nina’s claim that fat is not the poison it’s been made out to be. She takes readers back to the earliest studies demonizing fat, and shows how government, university, and NGO types (many with serious conflicts of interest) launched career-destroying ad hominem attacks on anyone who questioned their anti-fat contentions. Despite all but being blackballed by academia, a few researchers managed to publish work that refutes the blanket condemnation of dietary fat. Fat, in fact, may be good for us. It’s a bold claim. But Santa has yet to see a serious, scientific refutation of the assertions in The Big Fat Surprise.

Give to anyone on your lists who has followed conventional low-fat diets without losing weight—or anyone who is interested in nutrition and not afraid to question the status quo.

That’s it for book suggestions from Sustainable Santa this year. Happy holidays to all, and to all a good read.

The Big Fat Surprise: Why Butter, Meat and Cheese Belong in a Healthy Diet, by Nina Teicholz, $27.99

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The Big Fat Surprise, by Nina Teicholz

“Fat-is-good/carbs-are-bad” has become a nonfiction genre in and of itself in recent years, a direct reaction to the “fat is evil” doctrine that has become the establishment’s dietary mantra over the last few decades. The Big Fat Surprise is the first book in the genre that merits serious attention.

Santa has been around long enough to know that all entrenched wisdom should be viewed with a measure of skepticism. Nina brings that and more to the subject.

What pleased Santa the most is the depth and soundness of the research behind Nina’s claim that fat is not the poison it’s been made out to be. She takes readers back to the earliest studies demonizing fat, and shows how government, university, and NGO types (many with serious conflicts of interest) launched career-destroying ad hominem attacks on anyone who questioned their anti-fat contentions. Despite all but being blackballed by academia, a few researchers managed to publish work that refutes the blanket condemnation of dietary fat. Fat, in fact, may be good for us. It’s a bold claim. But Santa has yet to see a serious, scientific refutation of the assertions in The Big Fat Surprise.

Give to anyone on your lists who has followed conventional low-fat diets without losing weight—or anyone who is interested in nutrition and not afraid to question the status quo.

That’s it for book suggestions from Sustainable Santa this year. Happy holidays to all, and to all a good read.

The Big Fat Surprise: Why Butter, Meat and Cheese Belong in a Healthy Diet, by Nina Teicholz, $27.99

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American Spirit by James Rodewald

Santa is never averse to sitting back in his big, comfy chair with a noggin of something to warm his insides (it gets damn cold up here). And he supports any trend that adds cheer to the season. So he has been a big booster of the craft distilling movement that has sprung up in the wake of the craft brewing upsurge a couple of decades back. Alas, Santa has been disappointed at some of the naughty boys (most are boys) in the “artisanal” booze business. Far too many of them are not distillers at all. Instead they buy tanker truckloads of generic whiskey or neutral spirits from huge, industrial distilling corporations, pour the hooch into quaint bottles and slap on labels with olde-fashioned typefaces that mislead consumers into thinking that they are buying lovingly made, local tipple. In American Spirit James Rodewald, former spirits editor at the late lamented Gourmet magazine (a tough job, but somebody had to do it), separates the phonies from the real McCoys through firsthand visits to and vivid profiles of more than twenty still masters across the country who are fully transparent about how their products are created. No “craftwashing” here, to use Rodewald’s expression. They are a merry bunch, all great raconteurs, who, even though their trade is now legal, maintain the swashbuckling attitude of bygone bootleggers. Santa raises a glass to each and every one of them. Ideal for anyone on your list who loves honest liquors and well-made cocktails—and a must for any small-batch whiskey aficionados. Hold on! What’s this? One final book in Santa’s bag. Back tomorrow.

American Spirit: An Exploration of the Craft Distilling Revolution, By James Rodewald, $24.95

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Delicious! By Ruth Reichl

During long winter nights, Santa loves to immerse himself in a deftly-plotted novel full of vivid characters. He also enjoys evocative writing about his favorite topic—food.

He all but wolfed down Delicious!, the bestselling debut novel by Ruth Reichl, the author of popular food-related memoirs and the former editor of Gourmet magazine. Santa views Ruth’s novel as a “foodie” (Santa hates the term) twist on a genre made popular by Lauren Weisberger’s The Devil Wears Prada, but with sauce-stained aprons instead of designer clothes. It’s the story about the trials of a young woman who comes to New York to work at a quirky food magazine. No one writes about food as well as Ruth, and few authors tell as good a story.

Wee Barry Estabrook, who worked for Ruth for several years, wanted to make sure that Santa told readers that he has no hard feelings about being the real life model for Richard, the creative director character in Delicious!, who the narrator describes as “the most attractive man I’d ever met. His olive skin, emerald eyes, and chiseled cheekbones gave him the languid, unshaven arrogance of a model . . .”

For fiction lovers and food lovers and lovers of Ruth’s memoirs—especially those who might be looking forward to some relaxing beach time in the not-too-distant future.

There are still a couple of books in Santa’s sack. He’ll be back tomorrow.

Delicious! A Novel, By Ruth Reichl, $27.00.

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The Meat Racket by Christopher Leonard

By the powers vested in me as the one and only Santa, I hereby declare 2014 to have been the year of sustainable meat books. Christopher Leonard led off with the publication of The Meat Racket: The Secret Takeover of America’s Food Business.

Like Ted Genoways in The Chain, Book 3 on Sustanable Santa’s holiday list, Christopher looks at meat production through the lens on a single company, in this case Tyson, which grew from a one-man, one-truck operation in tiny Springdale, Ark., in the early 1930s, to a vertically integrated chicken, pork, and beef colossus, one of a handful of corporations that control most of the meat Americans eat today. Collectively, these corporations damage the environment and destroy the economic and social fabric of rural communities, all in the name of cheap food—which isn’t all that cheap anymore. The most abused victims group are the folks who raise corporate animals despite the ever-present prospect of bankruptcy. They are called “contract farmers.” Back in Santa’s younger days, people who toiled under the conditions Christopher describes were simply called serfs.

The Meat Racket is a great gift for meat lovers with a taste for business books or anyone curious about how livestock production in America became controlled by a heartless oligarchy.

There are still a few books left in Sustainable Santa’s sack. He’ll be back tomorrow.

The Meat Racket: The Secret takeover of Americas Food Business, by Christopher Leonard, $28.00

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Defending Beef  by Nicolette Hahn Niman

When Santa stamps back into the house after his annual rounds, he looks forward to sitting down at the dinner table with Mrs. Claus for a beautiful standing rib roast accompanied by her unbeatable Yorkshire pudding.

So Santa’s been feeling a little conflicted lately, trying to justify his love of good beef in the face of all the human health and environmental horrors that have been attributed to cattle production over the last several years.

Leave it to Nicolette Hahn Niman—lawyer, environmentalist, rancher, mother, and (Santa isn’t kidding) practicing vegetarian—to lay out a vigorous, intellectually robust argument in favor of beef. With one huge caveat: Meat has to be raised the right way. From an environmental point of view, Nicolette argues, there is a huge difference between grass-fed, pastured cattle and those that consume a diet based on corn (and a host of chemicals) in massive feedlots.

At the same time, Nicolette presents a convincing case that sugars and simple carbohydrates, not cows, might be the real culprits behind the national epidemic of obesity and cardiovascular disease.

For the committed carnivores on your list as well as the environmentalists and vegetarians who aren’t adverse to a little food for thought.

Sustainable Santa will be back tomorrow with yet another gift book suggestion.

Defending Beef: The Case for Sustainable Meat Production, by Nicolette Hahn Niman

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Book 5: American Catch by Paul Greenberg

Santa considers himself fortunate. With much of the Bering Sea and Alaska lying within his foodshed, Santa has ready access to plenty of pollock, Arctic char, wild salmon and other local seafood.

But as Paul Greenberg points out in American Catch: The Fight for Our Local Seafood, Santa is the exception among Americans. Despite controlling more ocean than any other country, the United States imports in excess of 85 percent of its seafood. And at the same time as the country is bringing in all those fish from who-knows-where, it is exporting fully one-third of the fish that come from its waters. Alaska alone produces enough fish to feed the nation. How did this come about? Why don’t Americans give their seafood the respect it deserves? Why, oh why, does the definition of “locavore” stop at the high-tide mark? What’s the catch? The American catch.

Paul, who has to be one of the most amiable narrators taking on serious food issues today, uses this paradox as a stepping off point for a lively exploration of America’s complex relationship with the marine resources at its doorstep, from the oyster beds of the Northeast, to the salmon runs of Alaska. He encounters lots of problems and threats along the way, but ends on a hopeful note, which I might sum up as, “Yes, America, there is a way to have your seafood and eat it too.”

Give this book to anyone who loves to catch fish, dines on seafood, or enjoys the coastal waters of the United States.

Santa has more recommendations in his bag. He’ll be back with another book tomorrow.

American Catch: The Fight for Our Local Seafood, by Paul Greenberg, $ 26.95

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