Hope's Edge_ The Next Diet for a Small Planet - Frances Moore Lappe [19]
A Symbol and a Symptom
The more I learned, the more I realized that a grain-fed-meat diet is not the cause of this resource waste, destruction, and dependency. The “Great American Steak Religion” is both a symbol and a symptom of the underlying logic of our production system—a logic that makes it self-destructive.
Our farm economy is fueled by a blind production imperative. Because farmers are squeezed between rising production costs and falling prices for their crops, their profits per acre fall steadily—by 1979 hitting one-half of what they had been in 1945 (figures adjusted for inflation). So just to maintain the same income farmers must constantly increase production—planting more acres and reaping higher yields, regardless of the ecological consequences. And they must constantly seek new markets to absorb their increasing production. But since hungry people in both the United States and the third world have no money to buy this grain, what can be done with it?
One answer has been to feed about 200 million tons of grain, soybean products, and other feeds to domestic livestock every year. Another, especially in the last ten years, has been to sell it abroad. While most Americans believe our grain exports “feed a hungry world,” two-thirds of our agricultural exports actually go to livestock—and the hungry abroad cannot afford meat. The trouble is that, given the system we take for granted, this all appears logical. So perhaps to begin we must stop taking so much for granted and ask, who really benefits from our production system? Who is hurt, now and in the future?
In this book I seek to begin to answer such questions.
Diet for an Abundant Planet
The worst and best thing about my book is its title. It is catchy and easy to remember. (Although one irate customer stomped into my parents’ bookstore to complain that she’d thought she was buying a gardening book, Diet for a Small Plant.*) But the title is also misleading. To some it connotes scarcity: because the planet is so “small,” we must cut back our consumption. So when my next book, Food First,† came out, with the subtitle Beyond the Myth of Scarcity, many people thought I had done an about-face. Yes, my thinking evolved, but for me the message of Diet for a Small Planet is abundance, not scarcity. The issue is how we use that abundance. Do we expand the kind of production which degrades the soil and water resources on which all our future food security rests? Do we then dispose of this production by feeding more and more to livestock? The answers lie in the political and economic order we create. The “small planet” image should simply remind us that what we eat helps determine whether our planet is too small or whether its abundance can be sustained and enjoyed by everyone. My book might better be called Diet for an Abundant Planet—now and in the future.
The Body-Wise Diet
Another part of the good news in this book is that what’s good for the earth turns out to be good for us, too. Increasingly, health scientists throughout the world recommend a plant-centered diet. They report that six of the ten leading causes of death in America are linked to the high fat/high sugar/low fiber diet embodied in the Great American Steak Religion. (See Part III, Chapter 1.)
For me, living a diet for a small planet has meant increased physical vitality. And the hundreds of letters I have received testify that my experience is not unique.
The Traditional Diet
Over the years many people have been surprised when meeting the author of Diet for a Small Planet. I am not the pray-haired matron they expect. Nor am I a back-to-nature purist. (Sometimes I even wear lipstick!) But mouths really drop open when I explain that I am not a vegetarian. Over the last ten years I’ve hardly ever served or eaten meat, but I try hard to distinguish what I advocate from what people think of as “vegetarianism.