Diet for a Small Planet

Wow, this book was excellent. I found it to be probably the most comprehensive book about food politics that I've read. It encompasses a lot of important points and really takes a thorough look at all of the intricacies of our current food system. For example, the author makes all of the important connections and leaves no stones unturned. She explains how our current food system leads to overproduction, environmental devastation, hunger and questionable food products. She makes the connection between today's farming and food production systems and global capitalism. These are all important connections to make that many authors overlook.

What I found most amazing about this book is how accurate it still is 20 years after it was written, show more and I read the 20th anniversary edition. People knew about all of these things since the 1970s and haven't changed anything! It's depressing if you think about it like that, and really opens my eyes to how entrenched our food policies are. I find it strange that people are reading Michael Pollan as if he's coming up with these brand new ideas, and here they are published already in 1991. (Not to say that Pollan is plagiarizing this book, just that his ideas are hardly novel.)

For the vegan, you will probably lament the lack of animal rights consciousness in this book. The author doesn't eat meat, and explains how meat consumption is inefficient, bad for the environment and helps lead to global poverty, but doesn't take much of an animal rights perspective. (Read John Robbins for that.) She ultimately states that including a small portion of meat in one's diet isn't counter to the ideas in the book. As well, many (if not most) of the recipes do contain animal ingredients. That said, the recipes are probably still a good resource for people looking to eliminate meat from their diets. show less

Excellent book, read back in the 70s. I understand that she later recanted her emphasis on incomplete proteins and the need to combine. But it seemed no one got the memo. Still, the book was hugely successful in getting many Americans off their meat obsession.

Now that we're reeling from climate change, the message is more relevant than ever.

This book is part political and economic justification for vegetarianism, part "how to" on combining proteins for the most efficient use of resources.

The main argument is that vegetarian foods are a more efficient use of the environment and can produce more protein per acre than meat when the entire cost of production is taken into account. The way toward ending world hunger is to stop mass producing meat.

Unfortunately as a cookbook, this isn't the most inspired book out there. It's low on taste, high on "efficiency".

In spite of its weaknesses, it's still one of the foundation works of modern western vegetarianism. The passion it lacks in the recipes is more than made up for by the passion the author has for the topic.

This is the book that began the practice of combining specific plant foods in order to ensure vegetarian meals contained adequate protein. Some of Lappé's ideas are no longer considered valid, but this is still a good compendium of vegetarian recipes and an eloquent argument for vegetarianism, based on the economics of eating the grains as opposed to eating the animals that eat the grains.

Loved this book. This was one of the first vegetarian books I read, and it was truly inspiring. Lappe has changed some of her views since writing this (food combining), but it's a wonderful primer on animal rights and vegetarianism. I haven't tried any of the recipes, but they sound good.

Somewhat to my surprise, Lappe's are probably my most-used vegetarian cookbooks, by which I mean that - as a veggie - I have not only made, but continue to make more recipies found in their pages than in any other. If you're into complementary proteins, this book should be on your shelves.

The classic has been updated, containing the author's prognosis of the world hunger situation and the continuing need for eating "lower on the food chain"; the recipes have been made easier, more varied, and tastier.