Frances Moore Lappe and Anna Lappe have forced their way back into the spotlight as they plug their new book, “Hope’s Edge: The Next Diet for a Small Planet.” Last week, they wrote a Los Angeles Times op-ed that blasted “the myth that cheap food comes without high costs,” and that the far more expensive “sustainable” model of agriculture — which would price many foods out of the reach of consumers — is preferable. It’s the usual line from the pro-organic crowd: that the more expensive food is, the better off the world is. As Theresa Marquez, marketing director for Organic Valley, has said: “The question is not, why is organic food so expensive. The question is, why are the foods we are eating now so cheap.”
This week, the mother-and-daughter duo celebrate Earth Day by cashing in, pushing their latest tome — an organic food cookbook. It’s a successor to Frances’s original “Diet for a Small Planet.” It’s also the latest move in her activist career. Frances Moore Lappe is an advisory board member of EarthSave International, the pro-vegetarian pet project of Baskin-Robbins ice cream heir turned diet book author John Robbins. Other advisory board members include Neal Barnard of the anti-meat Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine and PETA’s Ingrid Newkirk. (Both of these groups have ties to animal rights terrorists.)
