Hope's Edge: The Next Diet for a Small Planet. - book review

Natural Health, April, 2002 by Cheryl Redmond

BY FRANCES MOORE LAPPE AND ANNA LAPPE

TARCHER/PUTNAM; $25.95

WHEN FRANCES MOORE Lappe wrote Diet for a Small Planet in 1971, conventional wisdom warned that the world was in danger of running out of food. Lappe countered that there was enough to go around, but that mismanagement of resources had created a situation in which millions starved as others went on diets. Thirty years later, the myth of scarcity is still alive and Lappe is still working to convince us that the real cause of hunger isn't a shortage of food but our own passivity. Because we don't believe that we can affect world hunger, we forsake the search for creative solutions and trust experts who tell us that we need chemicals and genetic engineering. Her voice is as compelling in her latest book, Hope's Edge, as it was in her first.

Like Diet for a Small Planet, Hope's Edge is a blend of anecdotes, statistics, and recipes, but this newest offering is also an account of a journey across five continents that Lappe and her daughter, Anna Lappe, took to learn how hunger and inequality are related. Along the way they introduce us to people who are in such dire circumstances that they could be said to be living on the edge of hope, but who are taking action to better their lives. In Kenya, they meet women who have planted millions of trees to ease drought and provide themselves with firewood for cooking. In India, they meet the leader of an effort to protect native seeds from patenting by foreign companies. And in France and the American Midwest, they meet farmers who are reducing soil erosion and pollution by switching from chemical to organic production.

The Lappes hope that these stories will inspire us to take political action. At the end of the book is a list of all the organizations mentioned, along with contact information. Proceeds from book sales will go to the Small Planet Fund, which the authors created to benefit the groups they profile.

They also encourage us to switch to a plant-based diet, which they believe better preserves the world's resources. The vegetarian recipes in Hope's Edge are from chefs like Mollie Katzen and Alice Waters, who are famous for championing food that is organic and vegetarian and delicious. These recipes serve to remind us that eating well is not only a political right, but also a human pleasure.