Diet for a Hot Planet: The Climate Crisis at the End of Your Fork and What You Can Do About It

by Anna Lappe

Overview

Forty years after her mother's work changed the way we eat, Anna Lappé's Diet for a Hot Planet changed the way we think about food production and global warming.

Fifty years ago, Frances Moore Lappé's Diet for a Small Planet sparked a revolution in thinking about the social and environmental impact of what we eat. Ten years ago, her daughter, Anna Lappé, controversially picked up the conversation with Diet for a Hot Planet, examining another hidden cost of our food choices: the climate crisis. Lappé predicted that food system-related greenhouse gas emissions would be catastrophic unless we radically shifted the trends of what we ate and how we produced it. She exposed the political interests with a stake in our food system, and foresaw the spin food companies would use to avoid system-wide reform. She visited the pioneering farmers of a future food system where good could outweigh harm, demonstrating the potential of sustainable farming. She also offered six eternal principles for a climate friendly diet.

This measured and intelligent call to action is the perfect companion to the fiftieth anniversary edition of Diet for a Small Planet; like her mother before her, Lappé reminds us that food, and our perilously large food system, is still a powerful access point for solutions to the climate crisis.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781608191307
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Publishing
Publication date:	04/23/2010
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	352
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

Anna Lappé is the co-author of Grubb and Hope's Edge (with her mother, Frances Moore Lappé). She is currently host for MSN's Practical Guide to Healthy Living and is co-host for the public television series, The Endless Feast. Named one of Time magazine's "Eco-Who's Who," she is a founding principal of the Small Planet Institute. Anna's writing has been published in the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, International Herald Tribune, and Canada's Globe and Mail. She writes a bi-monthly column on sustainability for Spirituality and Health and contributes book reviews to the San Francisco Chronicle and the New Scientist. Her Web site is www.takeabite.cc.
Anna Lappé is the co-author of Grubb and Hope's Edge (with her mother, Frances Moore Lappé). She is currently host for MSN's Practical Guide to Healthy Living and is co-host for the public television series, The Endless Feast. Named one of Time magazine's "Eco-Who's Who," she is a founding principal of the Small Planet Institute. Anna's writing has been published in the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, International Herald Tribune, and Canada's Globe and Mail. She writes a bi-monthly column on sustainability for Spirituality and Health and contributes book reviews to the San Francisco Chronicle and the New Scientist. Her Web site is www.takeabite.cc.

Table of Contents

Foreword Bill McKibben xiii

Introduction: Why This Book? xv

How to Read This Book xxiii

I Crisis

1 The Climate Crisis at the End of Our Fork 3

2 The Shape of Things to Come 42

II Spin

3 Blinded by the Bite 59

4 Playing with Our Food 85

5 Capitalizing on Climate Change 115

III Hope

6 Cool Food: Five Ingredients of Climate-Friendly Farming 129

7 Myth-Informed: Answering the Critics 151

8 The Hunger Scare 165

9 The Biotech Ballyhoo 174

IV Action

10 Eat the Sky: Seven Principles of a Climate-Friendly Diet 201

11 Beyond the Fork 230

Conclusion 249

Afterword: Biting into a Gloom and Hope Sandwich 253

Acknowledgments 257

Acronyms 259

Notes 261

Selected Bibliography 289

Action & Learning Resources 293

Index 303

Editorial Reviews

Lappé, daughter of green food writer Frances Moore Lappé, evokes her mother's 1971 classic, Diet for a Small Planet, to critique industrial farming and its carbon costs and give her own updated, upbeat prescription for a climate-friendly food system. Chock-full of statistics, how-to lists, and stories from her wide-ranging investigative travels, Lappé's book proposes a farming method that is “nature mentored, restorative, regenerative, resilient, and community empowered”; and a diet to reduce carbon and cool the planet. “Put plants on your plate,” she advises; go organic, avoid packaging, eating out, and wasting food. Much of this will sound familiar to Michael Pollan's readers, and unfortunately, Lappé pales by comparison. Her stories tend to be shallow, unfinished, and sometimes marginally relevant, and her prose is sloppy. And although the book's message may have been ripe when Lappé began her research, extensive media coverage on the subject since may have put this book past its freshness date. (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly

Until recently, conversations about climate change have often overlooked the global food systems impact; this book is designed to change that. Lappé, whose mother wrote the now-classic Diet for a Small Planet in 1971, asserts that global food production accounts for as much as 30 percent of human-caused global warming effects. Contending that Western-style industrial agriculture causes most of the damage, the author proposes numerous ways big agricultural companies can improve their environmental track records. She rightly points out that consumers wield tremendous power in forcing companies to change, and she provides a helpful list of principles for a climate-friendly diet. Unfortunately, most of Lappé's arguments are one-sided rather than nuanced, a disappointment with such a complex public policy issue. Lacking scientific rigor, the book should be viewed as a consciousness raiser for general readers rather than those in an academic setting. VERDICT Lappé is a well-known environmental advocate, and her book will be heavily marketed; expect demand. Readers seeking practical advice on cooking and eating in environmentally healthy ways may prefer Mark Bittman's Food Matters or Kate Heyhoe's Cooking Green.—Kelsy Peterson, Prairie Village, KS

Library Journal

MSN "Practical Guide for Healthy Living" host Lappe elaborates on her mother's conviction, elucidated in the classic Diet for a Small Planet (1971), that individual food choices can lead to massive social consequences. The author convincingly argues that food is "the integrating lens" for the innumerable responses to climate change. At three meals or more per day, Lappe writes, we are faced with either supporting or resisting industrial food production. So-called conventional food production and distribution-ecologically and economically fragile-contributes to nearly one-third of total human-caused global warming and paradoxically creates hunger out of plenty. Organic, local, plant-based foods, on the other hand, have the potential to not only mitigate but ultimately repair this damage. Lappe bolsters her support for a local, organic diet with a substantial bibliography of peer-reviewed science, studies, policies and interviews. Her journalism and science is rock-solid, as are her clear-headed critiques of scare-mongering by corporations (like Monsanto or Dow) invested in biotech or industrial food production. The author offers simple solutions to our near-future food security and climate stability-eat real foods, mostly plants, from organic, local sources. Yes, Michael Pollan owns this territory, but Lappe helpfully recontextualizes the argument, noting that one mealtime choice, multiplied by millions, offers benefits toward planetary health and food security. Accessibly written, rationally argued and focused on action over rhetoric, the book will interest parents, foodies, economists, committed vegetarians, moral omnivores, environmentalists, health enthusiasts and anyone interested inactually doing something about climate change while government responses stagnate. An essential toolkit for readers looking for a pragmatic climate-response action plan of their own. Author tour to San Francisco, Los Angeles, Portland, Ore., Seattle, Durham, N.C., Ann Arbor, Mich., Minneapolis, Northampton, Mass., Boston, Washington, D.C., New York. Agent: Sam Stoloff/Frances Goldin Literary Agency

Kirkus Reviews

[This book] is a wake-up call to happy, complacent eaters, not unlike Rachel Carson’s iconic Silent Spring. Lappé shows how modern agriculture contributes to global warming and how we can and should work to adapt it but also eat around it. Like her mother, food activist and writer Frances Moore Lappé, Anna Lappé’s scope is global. This is not a book about where to get the best goat cheese. It’s about how to keep people around the world from starving while we in the Western world die of diabetes.” - Los Angeles Times

“Anna Lappé’s message is timely and empowering. Instead of waiting for politicians to do the right thing, we can make simple changes to our diet, enjoy it, and help change the world.” - Eric Schlosser, author of FAST FOOD NATION

“Nothing is more important than connecting the way we eat to global warming. After all, food is an everyday need for everyone. Anna Lappé shows us that eating with intention is our responsibility and our pleasure.” - Alice Waters, chef and owner of Chez Panisse

“Anna Lappé’s Diet for a Hot Planet does for the present generation what her mother’s Diet for a Small Planet did for the last: empower us to think in a new way about how food affects our own health as well as that of the planet. Her inspiring book makes it clear that food choices matter to climate change and that each of us, voting with our forks, can make a real difference in ensuring a more sustainable food system. I want all my students to read this powerful book.” - Marion Nestle, author of FOOD POLITICS

“In this tour-de-force, Anna Lappé provides readable, lively, and much-needed answers to question that all too few of us understand: how does our food affect the planet?” - Raj Patel, author of STUFFED AND STARVED

“Anna Lappé has written a critique of our food system that will not make you lose your appetite, and a book about climate change that will actually give you hope!” - Jim Harkness, Director of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy

“Diet for a Hot Planet should revolutionize our debate—and our diet—just as much as Diet for a Small Planet did back in 1971.” - Jill Richardson, author of RECIPE FOR AMERICA

“Responsibly researched and cogently articulated . . . Lappé decodes food labeling, dissects Big Ag's 'greenwashing' tactics, and offers 'seven principles of a climate-friendly diet' in an impeccable, informative, and inspiring contribution to the quest for environmental reform.” - Booklist (starred review)

“Diet for a Hot Planet exposes the myths of industrial agriculture and focuses attention on the greenhouse gas emissions embedded in our current food system. It should be required reading for all environmental activists looking for practical steps to address climate change by reforming food production, processing, and distribution.” - Nevin Cohen

“This book has the power to lift us out of our despair and propel us toward a sustainable future. With the dexterity of a true story-teller, Anna Lappé clearly outlines the complexity in the connections between our food system, our health, and the health of our planet.” - Ana Joanesl

“Accessibly written, rationally argued and focused on action over rhetoric, the book will interest parents, foodies, economists, committed vegetarians, moral omnivores, environmentalists, health enthusiasts and anyone interested in actually doing something about climate change while government responses stagnate. An essential toolkit for readers looking for a pragmatic climate-response action plan of their own.” - Kirkus Reviews

“This is an excellent book, well-worth the read, and likely to change our discourse about the role of sustainable agriculture not only as a source of food but as a way of mitigating the emissions of greenhouse gases.” - J Agric Environ Ethics, vol 24

From the Publisher

In this tour-de-force, Anna Lappé provides readable, lively, and much-needed answers to question that all too few of us understand: how does our food affect the planet? By guiding us with a sure hand through the fog of claims-and-counterclaims around climate change and agriculture, she inoculates us from the corporate lies that stand between us and a just, sustainable, and delicious food system. Although this diet is easily gobbled in a single sitting, its lessons will stay with you for a lifetime.

author of The Value of Nothing and Stuffed and Sta Raj Patel