Customer Reviews

Hope's Edge: The Next Diet for a Small Planet

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Be careful. This book could change your life. The people you meet and the ideas you encounter here will challenge your perceptions about the world and the choices you make every day, not only about the food you eat but about the other priorities in your life as well. This dynamic mother/daughter team use their journeys through five continents to introduce to you people and communities who have broken out of their boxes, who have chosen to create life-sustaining alternatives to corporate globalization. You meet today's pioneers in Brazil, Kenya, Bangaladesh, Kerala, Michigan, The Netherlands who have transformed their lives and their communities into vibrant greenhouses of sustainable democracy.

But even more important than these inspiring examples of the possibilies for nurturing our planet, as well as ourselves, the Lappes provide us with new ways of thinking about the mental prisons in which most of us live our daily lives. They ask us, why do we as a society blithly permit hunger and suffering and disease in the lives of others on our small planet that we as individuals abhor and would never permit? Why do we daily make choices that run counter to our inner values? Their answer is that we habitually make invalid assumptions about the way life must be. They uncover several powerful "mind traps" that, like landmines, keep us fearful of choosing different pathways. They show us that we, like the remarkable people we meet in this book, can choose more caring, sustainable and hopeful lives by simply having the courage to choose a new possibility.

This is not a cookbook, even though it has many recipies for delicious vegetarian dishes from some of the world's greatest chefs. Rather it is a map of the Lappe's journeys to greener, more hopeful pastures than most of us have imagined. This is a journey that you too will be tempted to follow. So, be careful. Don't buy this book unless you are ready to choose a new and different life for yourself and your community. You are forewarned.

This is one of the most creative, courageous books I've read in a long time, drawing lessons from something as essential as food to renew our hope in an era of anxiety, cynicism, and learned helplessness. Hope's Edge offers a welcome alternative to a world increasingly dominated by global capitalism, where more is often spent on processing, packaging, and promotion than on the nutritional value of the food itself and where American citizens are becoming unwary guinea pigs for GMO foods.
From their grassroots research spanning five continents, Frances and Anna Lappe bring heartening evidence that democracy is still alive, that our personal choices can add up to make a tremendous difference, and that, as Margaret Mead once said, "a small group of highly committed people can change the world." I recommend this book highly for its compelling vision of creativity, community, and positive social change.

I wanted to give you some feedback about an extraordinary book that you sell. Just out a few months ago, written by Frances Moore Lappe (author of Diet for a Small Planet), Ms. Lappe and her daughter Anna traveled 5 continents to write the stories of people in communities that are"doing the right thing" - benefiting their communities in sustainable ways as well as themselves and serving as inspiration for those of us who work to create more healthy and sustainable communities. Hope's Edge is even better than Diet for a Small Planet, and serves as a remarkable guide in a world that has become much harder to live in.

Two books that have really changed the way I think about the world are Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point and Hope's Edge, by Frances Moore Lappe and Anna Lappe. Thank you for carrying books that introduce constructive avenues toward social change and move people to positive action.

Given the subject matter, one can be forgiven for expecting Hope's Edge to be a depressing read--after all we are pushing our planet to its absolute limit and hope sometimes seems a great folly. But rather than increase my sense of helplessness, the mother-daughter team of researchers and writers (Frances Moore-Lappe and Anna Lappe)have inspired me and indeed pushed the edge of hope a little further. With its documentation of individual lives and community-based solutions, the book reminds me about the importance of our individual decisions. It is easy to become complacent when I live in one of the wealthier parts of the world. It is just as easy to feel helpless and apathetic and to not see the impact I can make simply by supporting my local organic farmers and making other conscientious consumer decisions. Hope's Edge eloquently points to the power of imagination, of envisioning new ways of living and working in community. Thanks Anna and Frances for making the journey and sharing it with the world!

Many authors can and have articulated the problems of today's society. It is important for those problems to be exposed and explained - but where does that leave us? As someone all too familiar with the problems, and struggling to live with my ideals in today's America, it is easy to feel like there is no hope and the world's people are just accepting their fate at the hands of the multi-nationals. That's when a book like Hope's Edge begins to reveal its meaning and importance: it not only covers the problems, more importantly, it uncovers stories of people who are overcoming the problems.

The book arms us with examples of people and strategies that are working, that are making progress. It didn't leave me feeling like we're all doomed no matter what we do, it didn't leave me feeling that I can sit back and relax because someone else is making things ok, it simply gave and gives me hope, examples and evidence that it is possible to create healthy communities and empower people in the face of fear, oppression and poverty. That is the seed of true power, the knowing it is possible. For that I thank Ms. Lappé and her daughter and highly recommend their book.

What a truly inspiring book! Frances and Anna Lappe put words to the previously not-so-well-articulated feelings of "stuckness" that lead so many of us -- and, therefore, the world -- to perpetuate unhealthy and unsatisfying patterns in our lives and in our communities.

The off-the-beaten track tour of Brazil, Bangladesh, India, Kenya, and parts of Europe and the United States, gives an inside look at the growing movement of amazing people doing amazing things to attempt to reverse the increasing despair-ity in our world. These are the stories that rarely make it into the "news", but are so important to hear in order to give us hope.

The recipes sound wonderful, however, I cannot find many of the ingredients here around my home in East Africa. So, in the true spirit of the book, I am substituting local ingredients to create globally-inspired cuisine. I can't wait to teach the mamas in the village how to use some of their traditional medicinal herbs to make a cream topping for their beet soup!

If there has ever been a time for reflecting on how we are all linked-up, this book gives some wonderful insights and clues to how to make sense of it all...and, how to finally make the leap towards making a difference.

I won't say much here, because the other reviewers have described the book well. All I will say is that this is one of the very best books I have ever read. Not only does Lappe have an incredible way with words, but she summarizes her profound insights in such a way that really organizes one's thoughts for genuine reflection. Add to that a well-documented and researched approach, as well as fascinating stories of different communities around the world which they themselves visited.

Hope's Edge is a Must Read for Everyone! The book puts it all together in an easy-to-understand, personal and honest fashion: the connection between consumerism, 'brainwashing', oppression, global economy, poverty, exploitation etc. etc. The concepts presented in this book are sophisticated and have depth. I liked the personal tone of the book, the story telling. The book is very honest, the stories told utterly inspiring. Frances and Anna never 'whitewash' the porlbmes the projects they are describing are facing. This truth-telling makes the stories even more impressive, more credible. The very existence of these projects defy the global systems as we know them. The way they do 'business' defies the global system of exploitation and competition. This book makes us take an honest look at ourselves, our values, the daily choices we make, what we consume, how we live. This is not just 'about food' or poverty or world hunger, this is truly food for thought and inspiration of how to create a better world."

Hope's Edge : The Next Diet for a Small Planet
by Frances Moore Lappe, Anna Lappe picks up where Diet For A Small Planet left off than in my opinion this is what makes the authors true geniuses and part of the movers and shakers of the past and present. They are not comfortable sitting on their laurels and are instead what I would call true visionaries and brave souls when you consider what the world is like in 2002.

On page 11 I read "I still believe food has this unique power. With food as a starting point, we can choose to meet people and to encounter events so powerful that they jar us out of our ordinary way of seeing the world, and open us to new, uplifting and empowering possibilities. They call us to travel "hopes edge." Thus this is where the title comes in.

The way the writers share their journey to other lands and others states here in the U S is so interesting. Learning about the different eating styles and even in a broader sense how people often eat to deal with pain when in decades past it was a communal thing. People used to eat to live and now as the countries skyrocketing obesity rates show people not only live to eat but they eat to deal with issues that once were dealt with by talking them out. Someday I hope someone writes a book on food as a tranquilizer and how food has become the PC (politically correct) substitute for alcohol.

In the 70's and 80's when Diet for a Small Planet was so popular (and still is) we were in a period where alternative health and eating choices were the venue of the quirky, hippie, even geek world. Now in 2002 we face genetically engineered foods, disease in cattle and now poultry in Asian countries and the authors are now more of a must read than ever.

This is no longer about simply being nice to the land and the animals that are raised for food. It is about the worlds health, the world limited water, and money sources and how what we eat begins long before the food hits our plate.

And I am glad to see the whole uncomfortable subject of Americans skyrocketing obesity rates being discussed as well as the poison that is what I call fast food and junk food and how corporate dollars are the bottom line and that it is the ignorance of the stock holder who is being endangered by the very foods their stock investments produce.

One of these days I hope the Nobel Prize powers that be will start seeing what humanitarians people like Moore-Lappe, Dean Ornish and Paul McCartney are and that Peace Prize needs to go to people who are seeking to help save the world and not kill it. And for my family and I we have returned to a non meat diet. Thanks in part to these excellent examples.

Frances Moore Lappe has nothing more to prove to anyone, as her considerable contributions to humanity are beyond all doubt. When she first published *A Diet for a Small Planet,* her messages related to the wastefulness of a meat-centered food system were stunningly revolutionary. The materials she has contributed since related to the myths surrounding world hunger have also been marvelously convincing, and well-researched. Bravo to her!

In this updated version of her first and still highly important work, Lappe (and her daughter) have updated much of the alarming information related to politically perpetuated malnutrition coexisting with obesity, wasted grain, and the ecological perils of an food system dominated by large corporations. There are new vegetarian recipes, as well, and that's terrific.

However, there comes a point where some portions of the same old message can become hackneyed and even tiresome. The truth is that despite the contributions of Lappe and others over the past few decades, the world food system actually has moved in the wrong direction. More people than ever want to consume a meat-dominated diet, there are more dangerous chemicals than ever being dumped into our ecosystems, and the massively capitalized, juggernaut-like genetics engineering initiative rolls onward, positively frightening in its Frankenstein-esque implications.

So where is the "hope" in all of this? Lappe and her daughter try to inspire us by describing a small number of positive food-related experiments from around the world. These are interesting, and the authors describe them from a first-person perspective in lucid and entertaining fashion.

However, what I find irksome is the notion that we readers actually are supposed to find a "basis for hope" in these pitifully isolated activities. The truth is there always will be a few visionaries/eccentrics/social rebels who will devote themselves to experimental projects that appear "revolutionary." This has been true for decades, if not centuries. How significant is this really, however, in light of the overwhelming trends that are carrying us in the opposite direction?

One reason for my Scrooge-like attitude here is that I am quite familiar with one of the examples used, the "Edible Schoolyard" at King Middle School in Berkeley, California. One reason this project is so exuberantly ballyhooed is that it is the brainchild of the Infallible Alice Waters, who has delivered Exquisitely Pure and Pricey food for the toney elite at her Chez Panisse restaurant for decades now. The truth is that whereas the Edible Schoolyard is interesting and provides a modicum of educational value for some middle school students, it is largely irrelevant even to life-in-general at King Middle School. Students there are just as addicted to fast food and junk food as kids anywhere else, and the number of students whose lives are "changed" by this project is strikingly small.

I suspect the same is true of the rest of these projects, as well. There inevitably are a few purehearts who are True Believers, plus a few others who take note and make some marginal changes in their own lives. But overall, these "hopeful" experiments are almost pathetic in their overall irrelevance to the mainstream world food system.

My quarrel with the authors, then, is not with anything in particular regarding their research, their overall choice of topics, or their goals (which are laudable, certainly!) No, I take issue with their almost desperately upbeat tone/message with its absurdly naive-seeming dosage of "hope" based on consumer gestures, tiny organic experimental plots, and tasty vegetarian recipes. I can just visualize millions of well-fed Americans feeling sooo good about themselves and the global future based on their new-found allegiance to Chez Panisse cookery and a vow to swear off Big Macs. This simply will not do.

Given the horrors of what's going on politically and economically in this world currently, it might well be time for more exhortation toward basic political activism and hard-nosed resistance to the machinery of corporate domination, and less clinging to the false "hope" provided by tiny edible schoolyard plots in Berkeley.