About book Hope's Edge: The Next Diet For A Small Planet (2003)
Ten years ago when I was a vegetarian, I read Diet for a Small Planet. After reading this book, I think I may have sort of missed the point of it. I was looking for diet recommendations, but I missed its political and humanitarian message.So here, after reading a lot of Michael Polan recently, I was looking for a treatise on the food choices we make, maybe a case for vegetarianism. Not exactly.This book is about change. It's about Gandhi's "being the change you wish to see in the world." The Lappes travel to several different locales in the world where people are having the courage to stand up to the regime that exists - Brazil, Bangladesh, India, Kenya, and back to the US. In each case food is involved in some way. She is passionate about food as a RIGHT for every human being. But I was most inspired by the courage demonstrated by these people in other parts of the world. Kenya especially was inspiring to me, with the joy they express despite the challenges they face.The fact that we have "plenty" here in the US does not mean we have no people who are hungry or undernourished. I find it terribly sad that there IS plenty and yet so many of our chronic health problems stem from our horrific diet, and that it should be so much cheaper to eat processed crap (excuse the term) than it is to eat simple, real, healthy food. So ultimately, this IS about choices but it is about making a difference in a bigger way as well. It's inspiring and a highly recommended read.
Excellent book. Very well written and both authors make an excellent case for a locally grown, worker respecting food system. Only criticism: the last chapter is very redundant of the rest of the book and doesn't give a lot of new info, so the end is mildly unexciting. Luckily, she finishes the book with a spread of FANTASTIC recipes, so that is an excellent read for any cook or food lover. Quote: "Today, consumers don't realize we pay for our food not just once, but many times. We pay at the store, yes. But we pay again in taxes going to subsidies for the biggest producers, who don't need them. We pay a third time in the costs of pollution we endure from large farms destroying our soil, water and air. Then we pay again in social services for those squeezed out by factory farms. And we pay again in the costs of uran crowding and sprawl.... So, sure, [...] producing sustainably costs more in labor, for instance- but conventional foods are not really less expensive. It's just that their costs are hidden."
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The five stars are for importance. As much as I agree with a lot of what the authors have to say, I can't say I enjoyed reading it. It's filled with the stories of passionate people committing themselves to changing the world, and indeed effecting some change. Enough to stop or even significantly slow the world's rush toward disaster? I don't think so. Still, that doesn't absolve each of us from doing what we can to preserve the environment so that as many of the human race as possible can survive for as long as we can. Tying the book to the author's earlier influential book may have helped with name recognition, but also limits it if people assume they know what this book contains. Food is just the entry point to show how most of our political and economic systems have grown unbalanced. In that way, though a 2002 imprint, it ties in neatly with the debate about inequality that has recently come to the fore. Well worth reading. Some may find it uplifting. Certainly enlightening.
—Nell
I did not finish reading this book. Based on the first 150 pages or so I knew I would only grow more irritated if I continued. It is clear that there is plenty to learn from this book. Unfortunately, Lappe is an overly dramatic, doomsday, activist type and I just can't enjoy reading stuff like that. Fear mongering is no good no matter what side of the fence you're on. If you're going to be for (or against) something make your statement solution-based with a positive impact (eg, Alice Walker, her restaurant, and edible school gardens...which are mentioned in this book).
—Kelly
If you're feeling despairing about the state of things in the world, this is a good antidote! There are people all over the world doing inspiring, meaningful, social change work. This book highlights some of those efforts. There's a woman in Brazil, for example, who determined that no one in her city would be hungry anymore, and she set about (pretty successfully) to do that. The Grameen Bank, which just won the Nobel Peace Prize, is also covered, as well as food to school programs. There are whole chapters on these movements, so you really get a sense of the details, which I found helpful.
—Mary
