Hope's Edge: The Next Diet for a Small Planet

by Frances Moore Lappé and Anna Blythe Lappé

Hope’s Edge follows the author of the classic Diet for a Small Planet and her daughter as they travel the world, discovering practical visionaries who are making a difference in world hunger, sometimes one village at a time.

Thirty years ago, Frances Moore Lappé started a revolution in the way Americans think about food and hunger. Now she and her daughter, Anna, pick up where Diet for a Small Planet left off. Together they set out on an around-the-world journey to explore the greatest challenges we face in the new millennium. Traveling to Asia, Africa, Latin America, and Europe, they discovered answers to one of the most urgent issues of our time: whether we can transcend the rampant consumerism and capitalism to find the paths that each of us can follow to heal our lives as well as the planet.

Featuring nearly seventy recipes from celebrated vegetarian culinary pioneers—including Alice Waters, Mollie Katzen, Laurel Robertson, Nora Pouillon, and Anna Thomas—Hope’s Edge highlights true trailblazers engaged in social, environmental, and economic transformations.

Praise for Hope’s Edge: The Next Diet for a Small Planet:

“Tough-minded but optimistic, they capture the ills of genetic engineering, pesticides, and corporate concentration, as well as successful efforts by local people to restore their dignity and interconnection to life… Essential for all public and academic libraries.”

—Karen Munro
Library Journal

“Hope’s Edge is a deep, thoughtful, and provocative look at how we feed ourselves and how our diet affects our bodies, our communities, and our fragile and ever smaller planet. It issues an imperative to act; to support our local farmers; to teach the value of true democracy; to treasure our environment and to savor the gift of healthy, whole food. Read it and pass it on to a friend. As Diet for a Small Planet did for many of us thirty years ago, it could change your life.”

—Organic Consumers Society

“Thirty years ago, Frances Moore Lappé’s groundbreaking Diet for a Small Planet challenged Western assumptions about hunger. Lappé was the first to argue systematically for the rejection of meat-based eating and cultivation in favor of a system where ‘corn becomes filet mignon’ and eating lower on the food chain (i.e. more grains and vegetables) is crucial the key to ending worldwide hunger, since non-meat proteins are much more efficient and sustainable to produce. Her new book, co-written with her daughter, comes into a world still grappling with the problem. Describing their journeys through Brazil, Pakistan, Holland and the U.S., the Lappés continue to question the economic status quo as well as discuss the way different countries handle food production in times of scarcity and plenty. By focusing on their individual journeys and choices, the Lappés bring intellectual concepts to a personal level, and in doing so, challenge us to do the same. What we eat directly, they argue, connects us to the earth and people around the globe. ‘Food has a unique power,’ Lappé writes. ‘With food as a starting point we can choose to meet people and to encounter events so powerful that they jar us out of our ordinary way of seeing the world, and open us to new, uplifting and empowering possibilities. They call us to travel hope’s edge.’ Recommended for those interested in a better understanding of the world hunger crisis and personal ways to make a difference and for healthy cooks too: a recipe section features delicious vegetarian, organic and whole-foods dishes from celebrated restaurants such as Chez Panisse and Angelica Kitchen.”

—Publishers Weekly

“In a bleak time, sick time, Hope’s Edge is more than a palliative. It offers a way toward a cure.”

—Studs Terkel
Radio Personality and Author

“Mother and daughter make an informed and impassioned case for new, visionary approaches to feeding ourselves and the world.”

—Magical Blend Magazine