Lappe helped me eat more sensibly. ( )

zzz ( )

Whole wheat and soy, p. 181, 4 to 1.

20 years later, still wonderful, updated 1991. ( )

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, 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. ( )