Diet for a Small Planet

“A small number of people in every generation are forerunners—in thought, action, spirit—who swerve past the barriers of greed and power to hold a torch high for the rest of us. Lappé is one of those.”—Howard Zinn, author of A People’s History of the United States

“Since the publication of [Diet for a Small Planet,] a movement dedicated to the reform of the food system has taken root in America. Lappé’s groundbreaking book connected the dots between something as ordinary and all-American as a hamburger and the environmental crisis, as well as world hunger.”—Michael Pollan, The Nation

Auteur

Frances Moore Lappé is the author or co-author of twenty books about world hunger, living democracy, and the environment, beginning with the three-million-copy Diet for a Small Planet in 1971. She has been featured on the Today show, Hardball with Chris Matthews, Fox & Friends, The Wall Street Journal, NPR, the CBC and BBC, and other news outlets. Frances is the cofounder of three organizations including the Oakland-based think tank Food First and the Small Planet Institute, which she leads with her daughter, Anna Lappé. The pair also cofounded the Small Planet Fund, which channels resources to democratic social movements worldwide.

Texte du rabat

"Discover the eating plan that revolutionized the way Americans think about their meals, updated for its fiftieth anniversary with new recipes for the modern meatless chef. "In the . . . years since the publication of Diet for a Small Planet, a movement dedicated to the reform of the food system has taken root in America. Lappâe's groundbreaking book connected the dots between something as ordinary and all-American as a hamburger and the environmental crisis, as well as world hunger." --Michael Pollan. Upon its release in 1971, Diet for a Small Planet was truly groundbreaking. This extraordinary book taught America the social and personal significance of a new way of eating: environmental vegetarianism. World hunger was not a matter of lack of food, it argued, but of lack of justice in our food systems. Half a century later, it is still a complete guide for eating well in the Twenty-First century. Sharing her personal evolution and how this revolutionary vegetarian-focused book changed her own life, world-renowned food expert Frances Moore Lappâe offers a fascinating philosophy on changing yourself--and the world--by changing the way you eat. This edition features 85 modern meatless recipes, including more than a dozen new entries by celebrity chefs such as Mark Bittman, Padma Lakshmi, Alice Waters, Josâe Andrâes, Bryant Terry, Mollie Katzen, and Sean Sherman"--

Résumé
Discover a way of eating that revolutionized the meaning of our food choices and sold more than 3 million copies—now in a 50th-anniversary edition with a timely introduction plus new and updated plant-centered recipes
 
“Frances Moore Lappé is one of the few people who can credibly be said to have changed the way we eat—and one of an even smaller group to have done it for the better.”—The New York Times
 
In 1971, Diet for a Small Planet broke new ground, revealing how our everyday acts are a form of power to create health for ourselves and our planet. This extraordinary book first exposed the needless waste built into a meat-centered diet. Now, in a special edition for its 50th anniversary, world-renowned food expert Frances Moore Lappé goes even deeper, showing us how plant-centered eating can help restore our damaged ecology, address the climate crisis, and move us toward real democracy. Sharing her personal journey and how this revolutionary book shaped her own life, Lappé offers a fascinating philosophy on changing yourself—and the world—that can start with changing the way we eat.

This new edition features eighty-five updated plant-centered recipes, including more than a dozen new delights from celebrity chefs including Mark Bittman, Padma Lakshmi, Alice Waters, José Andrés, Bryant Terry, Mollie Katzen, and Sean Sherman.

Échantillon de lecture
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An Entry Point

No one has been more astonished than I at the impact of Diet for a Small Planet. It was born as a one-page handout in the late 1960s, and became a book in 1971. Since then it has sold close to two million copies in a half dozen languages. What I’ve discovered is that many more people than I could ever have imagined are looking for the same thing I was—a first step.

Mammoth social problems, especially global ones like world hunger and ecological destruction, paralyze us. Their roots seem so deep, their ramifications endless. So we feel powerless. How can we do anything? Don’t we just have to leave these problems to the “experts”? We try to block out the bad news and hope against hope that somewhere someone who knows more than we do has some answers.

The tragedy is that this totally understandable feeling—that we must leave the big problems to the “experts”—lies at the very root of our predicament, because the experts are those with the greatest stake in the status quo. Schooled in the institutions of power, they take as given many patterns that must change if we are to find answers. Thus, the solutions can come only from people who are less “locked-in”—ordinary people like you and me. Only when we discover that we have both the capacity and the right to participate in making society’s important decisions will solutions emerge. Of this I am certain.

But how do we make this discovery?

The world’s problems appear so closely interwoven that there is no point of entry. Where do we begin when everything seems to touch everything else? Food, I discovered, was just the tool I needed to crack the seemingly impenetrable facade. With food as my grounding point I could begin to see meaning in what before was a jumble of frightening facts—and over the last ten years I’ve learned that my experience has been shared by thousands of others. Learning about the politics of food “not only changed my view of the world, but spurred me on to act upon my new vision,” Sally Bachman wrote me from New York.

To ask the biggest questions, we can start with the most personal—what do we eat? What we eat is within our control, yet the act ties us to the economic, political, and ecological order of our whole planet. Even an apparently small change—consciously choosing a diet that is good both for our bodies and for the earth—can lead to a series of choices that transform our whole lives. “Food has been a major teacher in my life,” Tina Kimmel of Alamosa, Colorado, wrote me.

The process of change is more profound, I’m convinced, than just letting one thing lead to the next. In the first edition of this book I wrote,

Previously when I went to a supermarket, I felt at the mercy of our advertising culture. My tastes were manipulated. And food, instead of being my most direct link with the nurturing earth, had become mere merchandise by which I fulfilled my role as a “good” consumer.

Feeling victimized, I felt powerless. But gradually I learned that every choice I made that aligned my daily life with an understanding of how I wanted things to be made me feel more powerful. As I became more convincing to myself, I was more convincing to other people. I was more powerful.

So while many books about food and hunger appeal to guilt and fear, this book does not. Instead, I want to offer you power. Power, you know, is not a dirty word!

Here’s how it began for me . . .

In 1969 I discovered that half of our harve…