Frances Moore Lapp茅: Why I Wrote 鈥淒iet for a Small Planet鈥�

In 1969, experts said the cause of hunger was world overpopulation. Frances Moore Lapp茅 showed they were wrong.

When Frances Moore Lapp茅 first published Diet for a Small Planet in 1971, she began a revolution that connects our personal food choices to the rest of the world. In this adapted excerpt from the book鈥檚 50th updated anniversary edition, she reveals how it all began.

Having made a D on my first college English paper, never did I imagine becoming a writer. No, never. But somewhere along the way I felt I had no choice.

Twenty books later, here鈥檚 how it happened.

As a child of the 1960s, I graduated from college not long after Kennedy鈥檚 assassination, and Martin Luther King鈥檚 March on Washington, and during intense conflict over the Vietnam War. At the same time, Lyndon Johnson鈥檚 civil rights legislation, as well as his and , triggered new hope and big dreams for many.

I was one of those many. In my first job I became a 鈥渃overt agent鈥� in Johnson鈥檚 war. Hired officially by the city of Philadelphia as a housing inspector, my real job assigned by radicals in the housing authority was to go door-to-door in a North Philadelphia neighborhood. My goal was to help single mothers trying to survive on meager welfare payments to connect with each other to realize their united power.

My savvy bosses understood that their city program to transform renters鈥攙ictimized by slumlords and racist redlining鈥攊nto homeowners could succeed only as renters knew their rights and felt strength through their common bonds.

Within months, the women had formed a chapter of the brand-new to address the indignities and inadequacies of our welfare system. In the process, we all became close friends. I did have a favorite friend, though, Lilly. Despite her daily struggle to keep her young kids fed, clothed, and warm, her plucky spirit warmed and inspired me.

Then one day the phone rang. 鈥淟illy has died of a heart attack,鈥� her dear friend told me. 鈥淲ould you come to the funeral and wake?鈥�

Lilly鈥檚 death hit me hard, but I always knew what really killed my young friend: the stress of poverty and racism combined. This truth stayed with me the following year, as I moved across the country to begin a graduate program in social work at University of California, Berkeley.

But soon came the moment鈥攆or me, the 鈥淟illy鈥檚 truth moment.鈥�

My graduate program at the University of California involved working on fair housing in racially segregated Oakland, but one morning I woke up with this 鈥渁h ha鈥�: I can鈥檛 actually help our troubled world until I understand how my action contributes to tackling the root causes of the injustices that killed my friend.

But where do I start? I knew the roots of racism, poverty, and powerlessness lay deep in economic and political relationships; but how could I even begin to untangle all that?

At the time, our culture was being hit with a scary message: Experts were predicting imminent famine, as we humans were overwhelming the Earth鈥檚 limits. Paul Ehrlich鈥檚 book, , had just exploded, and another book with the ominous title (including the exclamation point) had also hit the stands.

Food! The first thing every species does is feed itself and its offspring. But we, the brightest species, are failing at this most basic task. What does that tell us? My hunch was that, if I could answer this question, I could untangle the mysteries of economics and politics鈥攁nd find my path.

In 1969, burrowing in at UC鈥檚 agricultural library鈥攚ith the help of a great librarian leading me from source to source鈥擨 kept adding up the numbers. To my great surprise, I discovered the experts were wrong. There was for all. Even more shocking, I learned that what we counted (and still count) as available food was what was left over after we devoted vast crop and grazing land to feeding livestock that return to us only a tiny fraction of what they eat.

I found then that for every 21 protein calories going into cattle we got back only one calorie in the meat we eat. (Now, years later, an academic confirms the estimate.)

Wow, I thought. We cannot blame nature鈥檚 skimpiness. We are not bumping up against natural limits. We humans are creating the experience of hunger, and that means we can end it. What fabulous news. So, I circulated a one-pager proclaiming my discovery.

Looking back now, I鈥檝e come to appreciate the advantage of 鈥渇resh eyes,鈥� as I had then鈥� meaning that I arrived at my question without preformed assumptions limiting what I could see. Hmm, I thought, maybe it was precisely because I was untrained鈥攁nd thus had no blinders鈥攖hat I saw what 鈥渆xperts鈥� had missed.

Very soon after the release of Diet for a Small Planet in 1971, I began to summarize my message this way: Hunger is not caused by a scarcity of food but by a scarcity of democracy, as people are denied power even over life鈥檚 essentials. I wanted to focus my readers on power.

I could see that Lilly鈥檚 early, needless death resulted from the economic and political assumptions and rules and racism that keep power tightly held鈥攈ere in my own country as in all other countries experiencing hunger. So, over the decades I鈥檝e worked to redefine democracy itself from 鈥渆lections plus a market鈥� to what I call 鈥渓iving democracy鈥濃€攁n ongoing journey to realize three conditions. They are: First, a culture of inclusive power in which we each have a voice. Second, transparency essential to accountability in public affairs; and third, mutual accountability. By that third point, I mean that because we鈥檙e all connected, we鈥檙e all implicated. As Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel : 鈥淪ome are guilty, but all are responsible.鈥� Simply blaming is not enough to sustain democracy. We citizens must be solution-builders.

Diet for a Small Planet launched me on a lifelong journey pursuing root-cause questions and enabled me to keep striving for a systemic vision in which bottom-up citizen engagement fosters transformative, democratic progress.

I hope Diet for a Small Planet helps each of us to realize the power that is ours鈥攖o know we can make food choices based, not on what鈥檚 most advertised, but on what is best for our bodies, the Earth, and those who work to bring us food. And that taste of power can embolden us to work ever harder for democracy strong enough to transform public policies to guarantee all eaters real, nutritious choices.

How liberating this learning has been in my life.

Adapted from the book by Frances Moore Lapp茅. Copyright 漏 2021 by Frances Moore Lapp茅. Published by Ballantine Books, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York. All rights reserved.

Frances Moore Lapp茅 is the author or co-author of 20 books about world hunger, living democracy, and the environment, beginning with Diet for a Small Planet in 1971. She has been featured on numerous media and news outlets. Frances is the cofounder of three organizations including Food First and the Small Planet Institute, which she leads with her daughter, Anna Lapp茅. The pair also co-founded the Small Planet Fund, which channels resources to democratic social movements worldwide. For more information visit聽www.smallplanet.org聽and聽www.democracymovement.us