table talk / By Bob Doran

Groceries for a Small Planet

Frances Moore Lappé on food and democracy

(March 6, 2008)  It was all part of someone’s insidious plan, and I fell for it. As I wheeled my cart through the door of the supermarket, I saw the display of carefully arranged peaches, looking, well, just peachy — and in February. Knowing full well that peaches are a summer fruit, which meant these came from halfway across the planet, I succumbed to temptation and bought one. I knew better, but I did it anyway.

I confessed my sin this morning while talking with Frances Moore Lappé, author of Diet for a Small Planet. Part cookbook, part vegetarian manifesto, her 1971 book sold more than three million copies. In it she offered a fairly simple solution to international food scarcity, a shift away from an inefficient system that feeds much of the world’s grain to animals so that man can eat beef. Her ideas influenced countless lives, even if they did not lead to a wholesale switch away from a meat diet.

Frances Moore Lappé. Photo By Richard Rowe.

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I read her book in the ‘70s, and while I probably added more rice and beans to my diet (as per her advice), I remained an omnivore. And I’ll admit, I’m not always a conscientious shopper. I try to think global and buy local, but there’s the occasional imported South American peach (and worse).

Lappé’s response to my confession was somewhat unexpected. She said nothing of the international trade aspect of my purchase, asking only, “Did it taste good?” It did not. It had not tasted like anything at all.

“For me, a big part of my writing and my speaking is not that you should shape up and do the right thing,” said Lappé. “I’m suggesting that we shed a belief system that makes us feel like victims, makes us feel powerless. It makes us part of a world that’s not good for ourselves, or others. It’s really a mater of realizing we’ve been sold a bill of goods.”

I met Lappé six years ago when she came to Humboldt County to address a national convention of the Consumer Cooperative Management Association. After her Saturday morning talk I shepherded her around the Arcata Farmers’ Market and took her to meet some of the area’s organic farmers. (See the Journal story “Frankie and the Farmers,” June 20, 2002.)

At the time she’d just published Hope’s Edge: the Next Diet for a Small Planet, a 30th anniversary sequel to her ‘70s bestseller. Hope’s Edge followed Frankie and her daughter Anna around the world as they looked at the economics of the food industry and met individuals making positive changes in the way food is produced and delivered.

Lappé’s latest book, Getting a Grip: Clarity, Creativity and Courage in a World Gone Mad, came out last fall. This time she takes the long view of world problems, advocating fundamental changes in the way we relate to power and suggesting that we need to make a paradigm shift in modern democracy. That’s what she’ll be talking about when she comes to town on Sunday for a discussion and booksigning in Arcata.

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