Fresh Choices by David Joachim and Rochelle Davis is much more than a mouth-watering collection of recipes. Chock full of inspiring interviews, useful bits of "Choice Advice" and cooking tips in the form of "Helping Hands," it's an incredibly informative fresh food primer. Fresh Choices is an invaluable introduction to learning about where our produce, meat, seafood and dairy comes from and what choices we can make for healthful food, even if organically raised food is out of reach financially or geographically. Author Joachim recently shared some of his thoughts on kids, food, farming, and even candy with LIME.

In The Omnivore's Dilemma, Michael Pollan does for corn what Rachel Carson did for DDT in Silent Spring ; that is to say, he totally demonizes it. After you read this book, the words "corn-fed" will sound more like a barnyard epithet than an evocation of rustic wholesomeness.