Food for a small planet
What do people eat across the world? An excellent photographic answer to this question was provided by Californian photographer Peter Menzel who visited 24 countries for the book “Hungry Planet” . The thing I found most interesting from his photographs was the difference in the percentage of whole food vs. processed food that make up diets across the world. Americans eat mostly processed food and very little whole food.
The first book I read about the connections between agriculture, government, food, health, and the environment was “Diet for a small planet” written by Frances Moore Lappe in 1971. I woke up to the reality of food production and converted for a time to a vegetarian diet. Eventually I settled on my preferred diet which includes smaller amounts of high quality meat along with mostly fresh plant based food; vegetables, fruit, dried legumes, grains, nuts and seeds. I changed my diet because I wanted to eat food that was better for my health and better for the environment. There is a reason why obesity has become an epidemic in America, it is because of the food we eat. Compare the difference between an American and a European lunch. The Italian lunch contains more whole foods and more importantly less sodium and high fructose corn syrup.
I learned to cook from my mother and grandmother but I learned to cook vegetarian meals as an adult. My mother and grandmother had grown up on a small family farm where most of their food was produced, all of it high quality.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
