Change You Can Bite Into

In 1971 Frances Moore Lappe released her now-classic book, “Diet For A Small Planet”. This groundbreaking book helped millions of readers understand the root causes for hunger and her core message was that food remains the central issue through which to understand world politics. As a continuation of her message of how the food system is broken and what needs to happen to fix it, her daughter Anna Lappe recently wrote a powerful book focusing on a different cause but the same solution.

Anna Lappe’s thought provoking book, Diet for a Hot Planet: The Climate Crisis at the End of Your Fork and What You Can Do About It is clearly one of the most important books of the year. Her message is simple: “If we are serious about addressing climate change, we have to talk about food.”

Lappe confronts the major role industrial agriculture plays in the climate crisis. Her responsibly researched investigation into a broken food system proves that the global use of hazardous chemicals, biotech crops, concentrated animal feeding operations and processed foods is destroying the eco-system.

In this book, Lappe lays out 7 principles of a climate friendly diet in an attempt to make her pursuit for environmental reform OUR pursuit for environmental reform. Informative and inspiring, Lappe is convinced that eating a plant based diet will influence the marketplace in ways we cannot imagine in addition to helping in the quests to end world hunger and combat climate change.

Read about the causes of the food-climate connection and learn how you can be a part of the solution!

Obama Administration Using Harlem Children’s Zone Project As Program Model

I accompanied my daughter, Jacquelyn, to New York City in May for her medical school interview at TouroCOM, which is located on West 125th Street in Harlem. Subsequently, she was accepted for admission and begins her studies this week!

Back to Harlem~I spent four or five hours the day of Jacquelyn’s interview attempting to read  and do some computer work at the Starbucks across the street from the college. And I wholeheartedly agree with a line on the Starbucks website that states, “There’s a lot going on inside at Starbucks.”

This particular day I ordered my Tall Capuccino and settled in at a table in the corner looking out the big picture window onto the street. People briskly walked by briefcase in hand obviously on the way to work or some important meeting. A couple of colorfully dressed characters spent the day with boom boxes perched on their shoulders weaving in and out of traffic dancing to the music. The police were called in, twice, to the Starbucks to evict drug addicts from the restroom.

I have to say with all that went on in those hours I felt like I had been transported to a movie set~it was all surreal to ME but normal in the lives of the people whose domain I had invaded. As I prepared to leave to meet Jacquelyn following her interview so we could be on our way to the airport, I felt so saddened. I felt like such a failure, I cried.

We use our business model at Organic Bug to promote positive change and we work really hard to help~help fight climate change, help people in developing countries, help to empower others through education and awareness. But, on this day, I did not feel empowered. It was a stark reminder of how much work there is to do in our own country, for our own people.

Then, this past weekend I read an uplifting article in the Washington Post by Staff Writer Robin Shulman. Geoffrey Canada knows first hand the vicious cycle of poverty that ensues when one is born into an underpriviledged set of circumstances in America and deprived of what the rest of us take for granted. He is from a poor, sometimes violent, neighborhood in the South Bronx.

Vowing to lift himself out of his presumed destiny, Geoffrey excelled academically, eventually earning a master’s degree in education from the Harvard School of Education. As an advocate for children and families in some of America’s most devastated communities, he has become nationally recognized through his work with Harlem Children’s Zone, an ambitious project targeting a specific geographic area in Central Harlem. The project starts at birth and follows children to college, combining educational, social and medical services, creating a safety net that is nearly impossible for children to slip through.

The Obama Administration is using this successful program model to launch its Promise Neighborhoods program in 20 cities across America and has set aside $10 million in the 2010 budget for planning. Read the full article…