Read Online Hope's Edge: The Next Diet for a Small Planet by Frances Moore Lappé; Anna Lappé - Free Book Online
Authors: Frances Moore Lappé; Anna Lappé
Tags: General, Cooking, Health & Fitness, Economics, Political Science, Business & Economics, Philosophy, Nature, Globalization, Diets, Capitalism, Social Aspects, Healthy Living, Ecology, Vegetarian, Globalization - Social Aspects, Capitalism - Social Aspects, Vegetarian Cookery, Environmental Ethics, Ethics & Moral Philosophy
Ads: Link
there anything left? Any motivation? Any direction? I was skeptical—and afraid.
What gave me the courage to discover my own path? Two things. I knew I couldn’t go on as I was; I was just too miserable. At the same time, I was married to a person who gave me absolute emotional support. I was sure Marc would love me even if I never saved the world.
I started studying modern dance and reading political economy—books that attempted to explain the causes of poverty and underdevelopment. Very soon, after only a few months, I began to hone in on food.
Why food? In part I was influenced by the emerging ecology movement and the “limits to growth” consciousness. The first Earth Day was in 1970. Paul Ehrlich’s book The Population Bomb exploded during this same period, and books like Famine 1975 appeared. Newspaper headlines were telling us (as they still are) that we had reached the limits of the earth’s ability to feed us all.
But part of the reason I chose to focus on food was more personal. I became aware of people around me in Berkeley eating differently from the way I did. Some of the foods I had never heard of—bulgur, soy grits, mung beans, tofu, buckwheat groats. What were all these strange things? I was attracted by the incredible variety of colors, aromas, textures. I remember devouring my first “natural foods” cookbook as if it were a novel. Barley, mushrooms, and dill together? Cheddar cheese, walnuts, and rice? How odd. What would that taste like?
Beyond the Food Battle
As I started experimenting, I found my entire attitude toward food changing. Food and I had always been in battle and had reached a stalemate at about ten pounds more than I really wanted to weigh. To hold that line I had to count calories and feel guilty about what I shouldn’t eat. But when I started to learn about food, appreciating the incredible variety I hadn’t known before and eating more unprocessed foods, I stopped battling. My appetite began to change. I stopped counting calories. I stopped feeling guilty. I had just one rule: if I was hungry, I would eat; if I wasn’t hungry, I would say no. I no longer made the decision about whether to eat based on something external to me, only on how I felt inside.
Dancing also helped me make this change. If food and I had been battling, so had my body and I. In the culture I grew up in, the messages were so powerful that my girlfriends and I were wearing girdles to school by the time we were in junior high. When I began to dance, the old battle—me versus my body—was transformed. Instead of being just a problem to reshape and control, my body became a source of satisfaction and pleasure.
My diet was changing. My feelings about myself were changing. At the same time, I was learning about “world food problems.” Soon I was reading everything I could find on food and hunger. Something told me that because food is so basic to all of us, if we could just grasp the causes of hunger we would clear a path to understanding the complexities of politics and economics that overwhelm and paralyze so many.
Following My Nose
I read, took notes. I audited courses from soil science to tropical agriculture. And I found an ideal little study niche in the agricultural library at Berkeley. In the quiet basement corridors no one bothered me. No one asked me what I was studying for. The librarians were friendly and helpful.
There I learned to “follow my nose”—a research technique that has served me well for the last twelve years. For me, this meant not having a grand scheme, not knowing exactly where I was going. Instead, I responded to the information I was learning, letting it lead me to the next question.
Overall, I wanted to find out for myself just how close we were to the earth’s limits. I wanted to find out for myself the causes of hunger. I wanted to find out what were the important questions to ask.
Then, in late 1969, in my library-basement hideaway, I came across certain
What gave me the courage to discover my own path? Two things. I knew I couldn’t go on as I was; I was just too miserable. At the same time, I was married to a person who gave me absolute emotional support. I was sure Marc would love me even if I never saved the world.
I started studying modern dance and reading political economy—books that attempted to explain the causes of poverty and underdevelopment. Very soon, after only a few months, I began to hone in on food.
Why food? In part I was influenced by the emerging ecology movement and the “limits to growth” consciousness. The first Earth Day was in 1970. Paul Ehrlich’s book The Population Bomb exploded during this same period, and books like Famine 1975 appeared. Newspaper headlines were telling us (as they still are) that we had reached the limits of the earth’s ability to feed us all.
But part of the reason I chose to focus on food was more personal. I became aware of people around me in Berkeley eating differently from the way I did. Some of the foods I had never heard of—bulgur, soy grits, mung beans, tofu, buckwheat groats. What were all these strange things? I was attracted by the incredible variety of colors, aromas, textures. I remember devouring my first “natural foods” cookbook as if it were a novel. Barley, mushrooms, and dill together? Cheddar cheese, walnuts, and rice? How odd. What would that taste like?
Beyond the Food Battle
As I started experimenting, I found my entire attitude toward food changing. Food and I had always been in battle and had reached a stalemate at about ten pounds more than I really wanted to weigh. To hold that line I had to count calories and feel guilty about what I shouldn’t eat. But when I started to learn about food, appreciating the incredible variety I hadn’t known before and eating more unprocessed foods, I stopped battling. My appetite began to change. I stopped counting calories. I stopped feeling guilty. I had just one rule: if I was hungry, I would eat; if I wasn’t hungry, I would say no. I no longer made the decision about whether to eat based on something external to me, only on how I felt inside.
Dancing also helped me make this change. If food and I had been battling, so had my body and I. In the culture I grew up in, the messages were so powerful that my girlfriends and I were wearing girdles to school by the time we were in junior high. When I began to dance, the old battle—me versus my body—was transformed. Instead of being just a problem to reshape and control, my body became a source of satisfaction and pleasure.
My diet was changing. My feelings about myself were changing. At the same time, I was learning about “world food problems.” Soon I was reading everything I could find on food and hunger. Something told me that because food is so basic to all of us, if we could just grasp the causes of hunger we would clear a path to understanding the complexities of politics and economics that overwhelm and paralyze so many.
Following My Nose
I read, took notes. I audited courses from soil science to tropical agriculture. And I found an ideal little study niche in the agricultural library at Berkeley. In the quiet basement corridors no one bothered me. No one asked me what I was studying for. The librarians were friendly and helpful.
There I learned to “follow my nose”—a research technique that has served me well for the last twelve years. For me, this meant not having a grand scheme, not knowing exactly where I was going. Instead, I responded to the information I was learning, letting it lead me to the next question.
Overall, I wanted to find out for myself just how close we were to the earth’s limits. I wanted to find out for myself the causes of hunger. I wanted to find out what were the important questions to ask.
Then, in late 1969, in my library-basement hideaway, I came across certain
Similar Books
