Frances Moore Lappé
The food activist considers the meaning of groceries at Harvest Co-op
Grocery shopping is a political act. At least it can be when you're walking the store aisles with Frances Moore Lappé, food activist and author of 1971's groundbreaking "Diet for a Small Planet," which argues that eating vegetarian is healthy for humans and the earth.
Lappé stops to ponder the produce in her neighborhood store, the Harvest Co-op in Cambridge's Central Square. She doesn't consider herself part of the "food police." Her job is not, she says, to scold the public, as in: "Oh, you naughty people, you've been eating junk food." Rather, she's all about "food liberation." "We can now make these incredibly wonderful choices that are creating a world that we want," she says.
Lappé loves to eat, and it shows; she speaks rapturously about grainy bread, golden beet stew, and sizzling vegetable dishes. "I've just fallen in love with fennel," she confesses as she examines the mushrooms, trying to find both the organic and locally grown. Not only that: "I've been attracted to cabbage lately."
This day, she is hunting ingredients for a Sensuous Vegetable Stir Fry from her daughter Anna Lappé's book, "Grub: Ideas for an Urban Organic Kitchen," as well as shopping for other staples.
A slender woman, elegantly attired, with chic, short hair, Lappé bubbles with energy. "Diet For a Small Planet" has sold 3 million copies, and Lappé continues to push its central argument: That raising livestock for meat is both nutritionally inefficient and harmful for the environment.
"I eat a plant-centered diet because I see our wasteful feedlot meat production system using 16 pounds of grain and soy to produce one pound of beef as a symptom and a symbol of the destructive 'one-rule economics,' " she explains.
While many of Lappe's ideas from the 1970s are mainstream today, such as eating organic fare and adding foods like soy to our diets, she hasn't rested. With her daughter, she founded the Cambridge-based Small Planet Institute and has just released the book "Getting a Grip: Clarity, Creativity and Courage in a World Gone Mad," which outlines actions citizens can take to better the planet.
Ideas tumble from Lappé as she fills her shopping cart: She chats about pesticides, the seed industry, centralized market forces, and something she calls "product narcosis" - that overwhelming feeling she used to get as a 26-year-old housewife struggling to make healthy choices in a regular grocery aisle.
Which is why she prefers to shop in food co-ops instead of being "bombarded" with options that are harmful to both people and the planet. "It makes that taking-charge experience so much easier," she says. "Start from a place where most of the things you are looking at are things you can feel great about."
Still, even in a co-op, tough choices must be made. Lappé examines several kinds of carrots - packaged, loose, and bunched - before she picks out two loose ones. She mulls over two varieties of tofu. And she has a dilemma over a loaf of Iggy's Bread, which she adores. The bread is locally made, but it's not organic, at least not according to the label. But "it might be virtually organic," she says hopefully. She finally settles on another brand.
She finds she often has to choose between organic or locally grown produce. "Intellectually, I argue local is more important because if we don't have local family farms to go organic, we've lost that whole aspect of my philosophy that concentrated economics is a problem. We've got to reclaim diversified ownership," she says. "But also I'm torn, especially if I'm buying for my grandbaby."
As she struggles to open the door to the chute that sends granola pouring into a plastic bag, she rails against those who say eating healthy is more expensive. She once compared the cost of Pringles, about $4 a pound, to the cost of organic potatoes, about $1 a pound.
"What is really expensive is processed food," she says.
After picking up split peas and green tea with peppermint, Lappé heads to the checkout line. She pays $62 for the groceries and packs them into the cloth bags she brought, including one emblazoned "Democracy or Bust."
"Every choice we are making is sending out ripples," she says, hoisting her bags to her shoulder and walking out of the store.
Lappé will speak Wednesday at the First Parish Church Meeting House as part of the Cambridge Forum of Harvard Book Store (7:30 p.m. Free. 3 Church St., Harvard Square, 617-661-1515. harvard.com) and March 27 at Porter Square Books (7 p.m. Free. 25 White St., Cambridge, 617-491-2220. portersquarebooks.com) She is also a keynote speaker at the March 30 Down2Earth: A Sustainable Living Event at the Hynes Convention Center (3:30 p.m. $10.)
rising
falling 