DIET FOR A SMALL PLANET EATING AS IF THE WORLD DEPENDED ON IT

Course Objectives: KHAS1208 aims to equip students with an awareness of sustainable living and eating leading to better health for people and the planet. Food is the most basic thing. Everybody needs to eat, and it’s easy to calculate how much we need. We can measure it, and we can measure health from it.

At its heart, this course, based on the groundbreaking 50+ year old book by Frances Moore Lappé, Diet for a Small Planet, holds that universal access to a healthy and sustainable diet provides a global springboard to a better environment, functional democracies, stronger economies, and increased social justice.

Course Content: The book Diet for a Small Planet, by Frances Moore Lappé, sparked the beginnings of a food revolution when it was first published fifty+ years ago. A revolution which has not only evolved from her starting point, but a revolution that is becoming stronger due to additional constraints not even considered when Ms. Lappé first published her book, such as the climate crisis, chaotic migration, and the rise of political and societal divisions.

Resources: Extracts from: Diet for a Small Planet (F. M. Lappé, 1971 (2021)), and contemporary books, which influenced Diet for a Small Planet, at the time: Silent Spring (R. Carson, 1962), The Population Bomb (P. Ehrlich, 1968), and more contemporary resources: An Inconvenient Truth (A. Gore, 2006, documentary), The Omnivore’s Dilemma (M. Pollan, 2006), plus additional contemporary resources.