Did you know that the leading killer in America, cardiovascular disease, is directly linked to meat consumption? Or that you save more water by not eating one pound of beef than you would by not showering for a whole year? Diet for a New America simply and eloquently documents these ecological concerns and more, as well as the little-known horrors that animals experience during factory farming. Few of us are aware that the act of eating can be a powerful statement of commitment to our own well-being, and at the same time to the creation of a healthier world. In Diet for a New America, you will learn how your food choices can provide ways to enjoy life to the fullest, while making it possible that life, itself, might continue. Heeding this message is without a doubt one of the most practical, economical, and potent things you can do today to heal not only your own life, but also the ecosystem on which all life depends. Reading this book will change your life.

The book that started a revolution in the way Americans eat The extraordinary book that taught America the social and personal significance of a new way of eating is still a complete guide for eating well in the twenty-first century. Sharing her personal evolution and how this groundbreaking book changed her own life, world-renowned food expert Frances Moore Lappé offers an all-new, even more fascinating philosophy on changing yourself—and the world—by changing the way you eat. The Diet for a Small Planet features: • simple rules for a healthy diet • streamlined, easy-to-use format • food combinations that make delicious, protein-rich meals without meat • indispensable kitchen hints—a comprehensive reference guide for planning and preparing meals and snacks • hundreds of wonderful recipes

The remarkable, amusing and inspiring adventures of a Canadian couple who make a year-long attempt to eat foods grown and produced within a 100-mile radius of their apartment. When Alisa Smith and James MacKinnon learned that the average ingredient in a North American meal travels 1,500 miles from farm to plate, they decided to launch a simple experiment to reconnect with the people and places that produced what they ate. For one year, they would only consume food that came from within a 100-mile radius of their Vancouver apartment. The 100-Mile Diet was born. The couple’s discoveries sometimes shook their resolve. It would be a year without sugar, Cheerios, olive oil, rice, Pizza Pops, beer, and much, much more. Yet local eating has turned out to be a life lesson in pleasures that are always close at hand. They met the revolutionary farmers and modern-day hunter-gatherers who are changing the way we think about food. They got personal with issues ranging from global economics to biodiversity. They called on the wisdom of grandmothers, and immersed themselves in the seasons. They discovered a host of new flavours, from gooseberry wine to sunchokes to turnip sandwiches, foods that they never would have guessed were on their doorstep. The 100-Mile Diet struck a deeper chord than anyone could have predicted, attracting media and grassroots interest that spanned the globe. The 100-Mile Diet: A Year of Local Eating tells the full story, from the insights to the kitchen disasters, as the authors transform from megamart shoppers to self-sufficient urban pioneers. The 100-Mile Diet is a pathway home for anybody, anywhere. Call me naive, but I never knew that flour would be struck from our 100-Mile Diet. Wheat products are just so ubiquitous, “the staff of life,” that I had hazily imagined the stuff must be grown everywhere. But of course: I had never seen a field of wheat anywhere close to Vancouver, and my mental images of late-afternoon light falling on golden fields of grain were all from my childhood on the Canadian prairies. What I was able to find was Anita’s Organic Grain & Flour Mill, about 60 miles up the Fraser River valley. I called, and learned that Anita’s nearest grain suppliers were at least 800 miles away by road. She sounded sorry for me. Would it be a year until I tasted a pie? —From The 100-Mile Diet

This toothsome classic takes on the combined challenges of discovering the meaning of the universe and eliminating fat at the same time. Its topic sentence contains a promise that should sell millions: In this book, I tell how to take weight off and keep it off. He doesn't stop there, but continues, The book also embodies a philosophy of life. The weight program is the content of the book, the philosophy of life is its form. If Descartes had sat down to write a treatise on losing weight as a metaphor for maintaining discipline amidst life's vicissitudes, it would have read much like this.Clearly, Mr. Watson has not written a low-fat, new-age, easy-fix solution for the weight challenged. After all, losing weight is hard work. But for our money, it is the most erudite, fascinating, and eccentric book ever written on the subject of weight control, a combination of common sense (driven by human experience), Cartesian philosophy, and the presumption that understanding the mysteries of weight loss and the universe are somehow compatible, even sympathetic, ambitions.The author is (of course) a professional philosopher, and this extraordinary exegesis is at once a moral manifesto, a philosophical discourse, and a practical manual (although the chapter on How to Live and How to Die take it a few steps beyond the ordinary). We love this book for its humor, its iconoclasm, and its weird and wacky mixture of high seriousness and low humor. Read it. Even if you're not overweight, it's a book to treasure.