Diet For a Small Planet

What Hacker News says

1. DoreenMicheleMar 2022
   Diet for a small planet and the followup book by I believe her sister called Recipes for a small planet for which she wrote the intro.

   The first half of the first book is about the political causes of hunger in the world and advocates for vegetarianism as an antidote to such. The intro to the followup book states that protein complementarity is easier than she made it out to be and she regretted making it sound harder than it is.

   It's one of the reasons I eat a semi vegetarian diet. Changing my diet has had a big impact on my health and feeling like how I live makes a difference helps protect me from the sense of doom about climate change and what not that many people seem to have.

   It also made me feel like there is no need for this to be such a polarizing us-vs-them topic. She talks about how "eating one less (grain fed) hamburger " makes a difference , so we can change the world with relatively small changes to our own behavior. It doesn't require extremist positions.

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2. bwanabMay 2019
   I highly recommend Frances Moore Lappe's book Diet for a Small Planet to anybody who's interested in eating inexpensive, nutritious food.
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3. DoreenMicheleSep 2018
   You might enjoy reading Diet for a small planet. It gets remembered as a vegetarian cookbook, but the first half of the book is about international politics and how food aid is part of the problem.
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4. lkrubnerAug 2018
   "Very confusing."

   I agree that you are confused.

   "But then go on to suggest that OECD countries are attempting to limit production unfairly?"

   I never suggested that there was anything unfair about this. But that the advanced nations warehouse large amounts of food, and then dispose of it when it has gone bad, is well known and has been much discussed elsewhere.

   "Food is perishable."

   Annual production exceeds annual demand. Even when this year's food goes bad, next year there will be more, and it will be in excess of demand.

   This is a big topic and I can not provide you with a full education on this topic. I'll recommend one book that I like, which is Diet For A Small Planet, by Frances Moore Lappe:

   https://www.amazon.com/Diet-Small-Planet-20th-Anniversary/dp...

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5. DoreenMicheleJul 2018
   If you want to understand it, read Diet for a small planet. It is famous for being a vegetarian cookbook, but that's only the last half of it. The first half is a political piece about how no country at that time was incapable of feeding its own people -- assuming they stuck to traditional local diets, had peace, etc.

   Starvation is often caused by war. It is often essentially a means to beat one side without going to battle.

   When aid is sent, it may rot on the docks or be resold to fatten the pockets of local corrupt politicians.

   When it gets distributed at all, it is typically Western fare. You now have locals who could afford the traditional local vegetarian diet craving hamburgers and French fries that they can't afford.

   When loans are given to developing countries, the need for hard currency to pay it back means locals raise beef to sell to other countries to pay the loans while people go hungry at home.

   Etc

   And I have just realised this book is part of why I didn't really want a handout while homeless. This book is why I understood I needed earned income of my own, not charity, and how insidious charity can be in destroying your ability to make your own life work.

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6. MzNov 2016
   Start by just eating less meat and more "sides," like vegetables, at meals. If you eat a lot of overcooked ("Southern style") veggies as sides, expose yourself to stirfries, shishkebab, lightly grilled and other preparations that help preserve the nutrient value. Raw is also good. Learn to eat more fresh produce.

   As you improve the nutrional value of the non meat items in your diet, meat will matter less to you.

   Diet for a Small Planet is a good source of info. Protein complementarity can help satisfy your hunger. On the upside, most traditional vegetarian diets already practice that. She eventually concluded it isn't hard as her first edition made it sound. But it was useful to me to know some of the nutritional science behind it.

   You do not necessarily need to go vegan. Cutting back on meat and eating cleaner meats (Kosher, grass fed, organic, etc) may resolve your health issue with less of a burden in terms of making extreme changes, trying to maintain it, etc.

   Best.

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