I just revisited an important and compelling book—Hope’s Edge: The Next Diet for a Small Planet by Frances Moore Lappe and her daughter, Anna Lappe. Frances Moore Lappe in the early 1970s wrote the classic Diet for a Small Planet, which opened a huge dialogue on world hunger, dietary choices and democracy. That book is still widely read and hotly debated. Now, 40 years later, mother and daughter traveled five continents to interview people who have taken control of their own food, environment, and communities. This book presents real people who have the courage to and reap the rewards of working on global problems with local solutions.
When Organic Style Magazine interviewed the Lappes the interviewer asked them “What makes food such a compelling entry point for dealing with larger political issues?” The eloquent answer was, “. . .the act of eating, throughout the history of our species, has been what has linked us in ritual to one another and directly with the earth more than once a day. Of all the concerns about our planet, it seemed to me that food is both the most personal and planetary at once—it’s both the singular and the universal, the personal and the public. Choosing consciously to eat in a way that nourishes my body and is good for the earth is a constant reminder.”
A later question posed was: “Buying organic and eating locally makes me feel great personally, but sometimes I despair of its larger significance. Is my small economic gesture really doing anything, or is it just a drop in the bucket?” The response was brilliantly stated—“If there is no bucket and your drop is going into the sand, nothing accumulates. If there is a bucket, a drop is very significant because it doesn’t take long for drops to fill the bucket. So, it’s not really the size of the drop that’s the problem; it’s not having a bucket. How do we create the bucket? I think that is what the book is trying to show.”
This so resonates with how I try to live my life—-one little drop in the bucket in a world which often seems so senseless. It is the only way I can stay sane.
