VeggieHeadOnline -- Interview with Frances Moore Lappe

An Organic Interview

with Frances Moore Lappe

By Amber DiNenna

Thirty years ago, Frances Moore Lappe wrote a book titled Diet for a Small Planet, alerting a new generation about food scarcity and guided people on the path to choosing the best diet for their bodies and also for the planet. Hope's Edge is a book published in 2002 by Frances and her daughter, Anna, that picks up where Diet for a Small Planet left off. It covers Frances' and Anna's many travels to different countries and the things they learned along the way. I was able to enjoy a wonderful conversation with Frances Lappe, where she shared a few of her great ideas and advice.

Bangladesh , Kenya and Brazil are some of the places Anna and Frances visited and wrote about in Hope's Edge. As I read about these places, cultures, and people they described, I wondered how it could it be possible for any one person to make a significant difference in our world? Surely, any small changes and choices I make in my personal life are not going to affect an entire world!

Frances Lappe offered one word on how to make a difference: recognition. We need "recognition that in every choice we make we relate to the world. We are shaping the world every day," she said.

"Whether we do it consciously or unconsciously, we are affecting the world with our choices every day. Every time someone stands in the produce section of the supermarket and decides that frozen broccoli is more convenient than fresh, organic broccoli, farmers around the world are impacted."

One of the most important lessons Lappe offers for a person trying to make a difference is "just becoming aware we can make choices."

"The big myth is that you have to have a doctorate to eat healthy," she said. "People take one look at the organic section of the grocery store, don't understand the ingredients, and make a run for the familiar. Ideas of how to lose weight, become healthy, and stay fit are swirling all around us. It's no wonder we become frustrated and confused about the best way to make choices regarding our bodies and our health."

Hope's Edge lays it all out for us, plain and simple. "Eating organic is essential," Lappe suggests. "Eating plant-based food and unprocessed food is all it takes."

That doesn't sound too difficult, does it? As she put it to me in our interview, "it's not rocket science!"

The following quote is an excerpt from Hope's Edge:

"Because eating is such a personal choice, and one we make many times every single day, I believe that consciously choosing what we put into our bodies, based on the knowledge of what is good for us and for the earth, has tremendous power. It strengthens us in every sense of the word. What a delight I took as a young woman experimenting in the kitchen with new recipes with ingredients I'd never even heard of before much less seen, smelled, or tasted. What a delight in feeling healthier as well as clearer about my place on the planet."

It is interesting who knows so much about organic food and healthy eating did not always know everything she does now. It is safe to assume that although learning how to make wise food choices is easy, it will require time. Hope's Edge contains two wonderful sections of vegetarian and whole-food recipes that look delicious and are easy to follow. They will expand your horizons as well as your taste buds! See the end of this article for a great list of other resources regarding healthy food.

A great piece of advice from Lappe is that "we cannot ever say that something is impossible." So many things have happened in recent years that people would have said was impossible 30 years ago.

"We can each say that we have seen the most amazing things happen that never would have been predicted, she said." To do what they love instead of calculating the possibilities - people doing things to make a change.

These are the kinds of people that we each need to strive to be. That is how we can make a difference in our world, by just doing it. So many ideas come to each of us, and then leave before we realize what has happened. Calculating possibilities, and weighing pros and cons, is not going to do anybody any good. "The possibilities and the journey you take with us" while reading Hope's Edge, is something that Lappe deeply wants to share with readers.

I asked Frances what she thought the biggest American influence was that she saw during her travels. She answered, "Materialism and consumerism -- the idea that we are happy because we have all this stuff. The message we are spreading is, happiness is about acquisition." How true that seems when we stop and think about it. All of our media and culture surround us with the need to do what is right for each individual. The more money you make, the skinnier you are, the higher up on the ladder you climb, the happier you will be. Lappe explains: "throughout most human evolution, the sharing of food is the way the species survived. Each person did his and her part, and everything was shared." She sees one of the biggest threats to our world and our survival is a "material world view."

As quoted in her book: "hope is a choice." Lappe offers another story of hope:

"When I left home, I thought I could use Bangladesh to prove somehow that hope is justified even in one of the world's poorest societies. But instead, Bangladesh used me to teach a deeper truth. It taught me that no one can 'justify' hope by proving something good and positive. Hope is more verb than noun - an action, not a stance. It is movement. It is jumping into the messiness of it all. It is listening, learning trying, stumbling; it is false starts and contradictory evidence. Bangladesh taught me a kind of disturbing hope - hope I can't let go of but that leaves me restless. A hope that doesn't satisfy but gnaws at me to keep pushing."

If that doesn't make you want to just run outside and shout to your neighborhood that you have a new hope, I don't know what will! What an awesome way of demonstrating that hope is not something that we can just 'claim.' It is something that we must be active about; something we must choose to keep alive.

One of the most important things that Lappe received from the experience of writing Hope's Edge , was that "the journey primarily helped us see that we shouldn't be so depressed by the news that comes to us through the US media. Our journey helped us gain some immunity. It makes us immune because we have to look elsewhere to learn to keep our hope alive. US reports in the news do not cover anything that we cover in our book."

Frances and Anna were able to travel into the heart of other cultures. They experienced first hand the hardships and the joys that other parts of our world experience. We all need to realize that the world does not end on the coasts of the United States . There are many other people out there who have many things to teach us. It would be ignorant of us to rely on our six o'clock news as gospel. Lappe writes, "the journey has reinforced my spiritual beliefs. It has reinforced my own commitment to bringing more love into the world."

To read more about Frances and Anna Lappe, visit their website at: www.dietforasmallplanet.com .

Helpful Resources recommended by the Lappes:

Web sites:

www.localharvest.org

www.factoryfarm.org

www.thefoodalliance.org

Books:

Fast Food Nation , by Eric Schlosser

Food Politics , by Marion Nestle