"anna lappe" news and stories

Author Anna Lappe says that food production -- particularly Western society's love of meat packaged in Styrofoam and cellophane from the local supermarket -- is a major climate-warming offender. Forget about those stretch limos with the little hot tub in the back; turns out a double cheeseburger is a lot more harmful to the environment.

Lappe's new book called, Diet for a Hot Planet: The Climate Crisis at the End of Your Fork and What You Can Do about It, evokes the title of her mother's 1971 classic, Diet for a Small Planet. One of Time magazine's 'eco' who's-who, Lappe is a founding principal (along with her mother, Frances Moore Lappe), of the Cambridge based Small Planet Institute, an organization that does research and education on the root causes of hunger and poverty.

On one of the first gorgeous Saturdays of the spring, did Brooklyn foodies run to the park for picnic lunches or line the bars for springy cocktails?

Sure, some of 'em did. But 3,000 others, according to organizers, crammed the multicolored '70s-esque hallways of John Jay High School, aka P.S. 321, for a day of workshops, eats, panels and vendors called the Brooklyn Food Conference, promoting what a bright-yellow pamphlet trumpeted as "Local Action for Global Change."

Food world celebs roaming the halls included chef Dan Barber, speaker and TV host Anna Lappé and author-activist Raj Patel (whose classroom was so stuffed a volunteer had to turn fans away). Some attendees, all of whom attended for free, were a bit starry-eyed over certain sustainably-minded speakers. About Patel, local CSA organizer Meredith Modzelewski sighed, "I'm in love with him now."

Find out more and see photos after the jump.