‘Diet for a Small Planet’ helped spark a food revolution. 50 years later, it’s evolving.

A thin, dog-eared paperback graced our kitchen’s bookshelf from the time I was just about old enough to see above the counter. To my child’s eyes, its title, “Diet for a Small Planet,” seemed welcoming: I was a small person, so what could be bad about a small planet?

Indeed, author Frances Moore Lappé is the first to say that her book, and the 50 years of work focused on the intersection of food and democracy that has followed, is about hope. “I’m not an optimist — I’m a possible-ist,” she says. “Everything is possible, we just have to make it happen.”