Frances Moore Lappé is one of the few people who can credibly be said to have changed the way we eat, and one of an even smaller group to have done it for the better.
Published in the New York Times Magazine / By David Marchese / December 21, 2019
Photograph by Mamadi Doumbouya
With the publication of her best-selling book, “Diet for a Small Planet,” in 1971, Lappé argued for the health and ecological benefits of a plant-based diet and surfaced the harmful links among meat production, increased societal consumption and environmental degradation — all of which is now widely taken as common wisdom. Lappé, a recipient of the prestigious Right Livelihood Award, often referred to as the alternative Nobel Prize, has also long been focused on the equally fundamental subject of how to make our democracy work better for more people. “I want to shift people away from thinking: Democracy, that’s for somebody else. That’s policy, wonky stuff,” said Lappé, who is 75 and whose most recent book, with Adam Eichen, is “Daring Democracy.” “It’s not. Participating in democracy is the essence of a good life.”
I was out getting lunch today, and I was walking behind these two guys who were talking about a PETA billboard for veganism. One of them was saying he didn’t want to be told that eating meat is ruining the world. Do you think about framing your ideas about ecological consequences and consumption in such a way that they might reach that guy? Well, I don’t think that’s the issue. It’s not about directly telling somebody, “You have the wrong frame.” The real question is why are we, together, creating a world that none of us as individuals would ever choose? Nobody gets up and says: How can I heat the planet today? But what is it that isn’t encouraging us to participate in the creation of the world we do want?