Ten Lessons for a Post-Pandemic World
Fareed Zakaria - 2020
CNN host and best-selling author Fareed Zakaria helps readers to understand the nature of a post-pandemic world: the political, social, technological, and economic impacts that may take years to unfold.In the form of ten straightforward “lessons,” covering topics from globalization and threat-preparedness to inequality and technological advancement, Zakaria creates a structure for readers to begin thinking beyond the immediate impacts of COVID-19. Ten Lessons for a Post-Pandemic World speaks to past, present, and future, and, while urgent and timely, is sure to become an enduring staple.
How Did We Get into This Mess?: Politics, Equality, Nature
George Monbiot - 2016
Without countervailing voices, a better world can never materialise. Without countervailing voices, wells will still be dug and bridges will still be built, but only for the few. Food will still be grown, but it will not reach the mouths of the poor. New medicines will be developed, but they will be inaccessible to many of those in need.” George Monbiot is one of the most vocal, and eloquent, critics of the current consensus. How Did We Get into This Mess?, based on his powerful journalism, assesses the state we are now in: the devastation of the natural world, the crisis of inequality, the corporate takeover of nature, our obsessions with growth and profit and the decline of the political debate over what to do. While his diagnosis of the problems in front of us is clear-sighted and reasonable, he also develops solutions to challenge the politics of fear. How do we stand up to the powerful when they seem to have all the weapons? What can we do to prepare our children for an uncertain future? Controversial, clear but always rigorously argued, How Did We Get into This Mess? makes a persuasive case for change in our everyday lives, our politics and economics, the ways we treat each other and the natural world.
Savor: Mindful Eating, Mindful Life
Thich Nhat Hanh - 2010
But somehow we get stalled. We start on a weight-loss program with good intentions but cannot stay on track. Neither the countless fad diets, nor the annual spending of $50 billion on weight loss helps us feel better or lose weight.Too many of us are in a cycle of shame and guilt. We spend countless hours worrying about what we ate or if we exercised enough, blaming ourselves for actions that we can't undo. We are stuck in the past and unable to live in the present--that moment in which we do have the power to make changes in our lives.With Savor, world-renowned Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh and Harvard nutritionist Dr. Lilian Cheung show us how to end our struggles with weight once and for all.Offering practical tools, including personalized goal setting, a detailed nutrition guide, and a mindful living plan, the authors help us to uncover the roots of our habits and then guide us as we transform our actions. Savor teaches us how to easily adopt the practice of mindfulness and integrate it into eating, exercise, and all facets of our daily life, so that being conscious and present becomes a core part of our being.It is the awareness of the present moment, the realization of why we do what we do, that enables us to stop feeling bad and start changing our behavior. Savor not only helps us achieve the healthy weight and well-being we seek, but it also brings to the surface the rich abundance of life available to us in every moment.
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life
Barbara Kingsolver - 2007
Part memoir, part journalistic investigation, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle is an enthralling narrative that will open your eyes in a hundred new ways to an old truth: You are what you eat.
Meat: A Benign Extravagance
Simon Fairlie - 2010
The world's meat consumption is rapidly rising, leading to devastating environmental impacts as well as having long term health implications for societies everywhere. Simon Fairlie's book lays out the reasons why we must decrease the amount of meat we eat, both for the planet and for ourselves. At its heart, the book argues, however, that the farming of animals for consumption has become problematic because we have removed ourselves physically and spiritually from the land. Our society needs to reorientate itself back to the land and Simon explains why an agriculture that is most readily able to achieve this is one that includes a measure of livestock farming.
Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water
Marc Reisner - 1986
It is a tale of rivers diverted and dammed, of political corruption and intrigue, of billion-dollar battles over water rights, of ecologic and economic disaster. In Cadillac Desert Marc Reisner writes of the earliest settlers, lured by the promise of paradise, and of the ruthless tactics employed by Los Angeles politicians and business interests to ensure the city's growth. He documents the bitter rivalry between two government giants, the Bureau of Reclamation and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, in the competition to transform the West.Based on more than a decade of research, Cadillac Desert is a stunning expose and a dramatic, intriguing history of the creation of an Eden—an Eden that may be only a mirage.
Real Food: What to Eat and Why
Nina Planck - 2006
The country's leading expert on farmers' markets and traditional foods tells the truth about the foods your grandmother praised but doctors call dangerous.Everyone loves real food, but they're afraid bacon and eggs will give them a heart attack--thus the culinary abomination known as the egg-white omelet. But it turns out that tossing out the yolk isn't smart. Real Food reveals why traditional foods are not only delicious--everyone knows that butter tastes better--but are actually good for you, making the nutritional case for egg, cream, butter, grass-fed beef, roast chicken with the skin, lard, cocoa butter, and more.In lively, personal chapters on produce, dairy, meat, fish, Nina explains how the foods we've eaten for thousands of years--pork, lamb, raw milk cheese, sea salt--have been falsely accused. Industrial foods like corn syrup, which lurks everywhere from fruit juice to chicken broth, are to blame for the triple epidemic of obesity, diabetes, and heart disease, not real food.Nina Planck grew up on a vegetable farm in Virginia and learned to eat right from her no-nonsense parents: along with lots of local fruits and vegetables, the Plancks drank raw milk and ate meatloaf, bacon, and eggs with impunity. But the nutritional trends ran the other way--fat, saturated fat, and cholesterol were taboo--and in her teens and twenties, Nina tried vegan, vegetarian, low-fat, and low-cholesterol diets, with unhappy results.When she opened the first farmers' markets in London, Nina began to eat real food again--for pleasure, not health--and to her surprise she lost weight and felt great. She began to wonder about the farmhouse diet back home. Was it deadly, as the cardiologists say? Happily for people who love food, the answer is no.Real Food upends the conventional wisdom on diet and health. Prepare for pleasant surprises on whipped cream and other delights. The days of deprivation are over.(from the flap)
Don't Even Think About It: Why Our Brains Are Wired to Ignore Climate Change
George Marshall - 2014
What is the psychological mechanism that allows us to know something is true but act as if it is not? George Marshall’s search for the answers brings him face to face with Nobel Prize–winning psychologists and Texas Tea Party activists; the world’s leading climate scientists and those who denounce them; liberal environmentalists and conservative evangelicals. What he discovers is that our values, assumptions, and prejudices can take on lives of their own, gaining authority as they are shared, dividing people in their wake.With engaging stories and drawing on years of his own research, Marshall argues that the answers do not lie in the things that make us different, but rather in what we share: how our human brains are wired—our evolutionary origins, our perceptions of threats, our cognitive blind spots, our love of storytelling, our fear of death, and our deepest instincts to defend our family and tribe. Once we understand what excites, threatens, and motivates us, we can rethink climate change, for it is not an impossible problem. Rather, we can halt it if we make it our common purpose and common ground. In the end, Don’t Even Think About It is both about climate change and about the qualities that make us human and how we can deal with the greatest challenge we have ever faced.
Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think
Brian Wansink - 2006
Food psychologist Brian Wansink revolutionizes our awareness of how much, what, and why we’re eating—often without realizing it. His findings will astound you. • Can the size of your plate really influence your appetite?• Why do you eat more when you dine with friends?• What “hidden persuaders” are used by restaurants and supermarkets to get us to overeat?• How does music or the color of the room influence how much—and how fast—we eat?• How can we “mindlessly” lose—instead of gain—up to twenty pounds in the coming year? Starting today, you can make more mindful, enjoyable, and healthy choices at the dinner table, in the supermarket, at the office—wherever you satisfy your appetite.
The Long Emergency: Surviving the Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-First Century
James Howard Kunstler - 2003
A controversial hit that sparked debate among businessmen, environmentalists, and bloggers, The Long Emergency by James Howard Kunstler is an eye-opening look at the unprecedented challenges we face in the years ahead, as oil runs out and the global systems built on it are forced to change radically.
Banana: The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World
Dan Koeppel - 2007
Americans eat more bananas than apples and oranges combined. In others parts of the world, bananas are what keep millions of people alive. But for all its ubiquity, the banana is surprisingly mysterious; nobody knows how bananas evolved or exactly where they originated. Rich cultural lore surrounds the fruit: In ancient translations of the Bible, the 'apple' consumed by Eve is actually a banana (it makes sense, doesn't it?). Entire Central American nations have been said to rise and fall over the banana. But the biggest mystery about the banana today is whether it will survive. A seedless fruit with a unique reproductive system, every banana is a genetic duplicate of the next, and therefore susceptible to the same blights. Today's yellow banana, the Cavendish, is increasingly threatened by such a blight -- and there's no cure in sight. Banana combines a pop-science journey around the globe, a fascinating tale of an iconic American business enterprise, and a look into the alternately tragic and hilarious banana subculture (one does exist) -- ultimately taking us to the high-tech labs where new bananas are literally being built in test tubes, in a race to save the world's most beloved fruit.
The Good Karma Diet: Eat Gently, Feel Amazing, Age in Slow Motion
Victoria Moran - 2015
But as The Good Karma Diet reveals, the secret to looking and feeling great is actually quite simple: Treat our planet and all its inhabitants well. In this revolutionary book, bestselling author Victoria Moran reveals that by doing what’s best for all creatures and the planet, you align your eating with your ethics—a powerful health and wellness tool if there ever was one! The Good Karma Diet shows readers how favoring foods that are karmically good for you will help you: - Sustain energy - Extend youthfulness - Take off those stubborn extra pounds - Reflect an enlightened outlook This book also includes the inspiring stories of men and women across the country who have made this simple mealtime shift and reaped “good karma” in every aspect of their lives. Follow this wise diet and lifestyle program and you will find yourself waking up in a good mood more often and having a luminous look that bespeaks health and clean living.
The Secret Life of Groceries: The Dark Miracle of the American Supermarket
Benjamin Lorr - 2020
What does it take to run the American supermarket? How do products get to shelves? Who sets the price? And who suffers the consequences of increased convenience and efficiency? In this exposé, author Benjamin Lorr pulls back the curtain on this highly secretive industry. Combining deep sourcing and immersive reporting, Lorr leads a wild investigation in which we learn the secrets of Trader Joe's success from Trader Joe himself, why truckers call their job "sharecropping on wheels," what it takes for a product to earn certification labels like "organic" and "fair trade," the struggles entrepreneurs face as they fight for shelf space, including essential tips, tricks, and traps for any new food business, the truth behind the alarming slave trade in the shrimp industry and much more.
Grain Brain: The Surprising Truth about Wheat, Carbs, and Sugar--Your Brain's Silent Killers
David Perlmutter - 2013
Perlmutter, the devastating truth about the effects of wheat, sugar, and carbs on the brain, and a 4-week plan to achieve optimum health.In Grain Brain, renowned neurologist David Perlmutter, MD, blows the lid off a finding that's been buried in medical literature for far too long: carbs are destroying your brain. Even so-called healthy carbs like whole grains can cause dementia, ADHD, anxiety, chronic headaches, depression, decreased libido, and much more. Groundbreaking and timely, Grain Brain shows that the fate of your brain is not in your genes, it's in the food you eat. Dr. Perlmutter explains what happens when your brain encounters common ingredients in fruit bowls and bread, how statins may be erasing your memory, why a diet high in "good fats" is ideal, and how to spur the growth of new brain cells at any age. And his revolutionary 4-week plan will show you how to keep your brain healthy and sharp while dramatically reducing your risk for debilitating neurological disease -- without drugs. Featuring a blend of cutting-edge research, real-life stories of transformation, and accessible, practical advice, Grain Brain teaches you how to take control of your "smart genes," regain wellness, and enjoy lifelong health and vitality.
Just Eat It: How intuitive eating can help you get your shit together around food
Laura Thomas - 2019
It's part of a movement to give women power and control over our bodies. To free us from restrictive dieting, disordered eating and punishing exercise. To reject the guilt and anxiety associated with eating and, ultimately, to help us feel good about ourselves."Truly life-changing" Dolly Alderton, bestselling author of Everything I Know About LoveThis anti-diet guide from registered nutritionist Laura Thomas PhD can help you sort out your attitude to food and ditch punishing exercise routines. As a qualified practitioner of Intuitive Eating - a method that helps followers tune in to innate hunger and fullness cues - Thomas gives you the freedom to enjoy food on your own terms.There are no rules: only simple, practical tools and exercises including mindfulness techniques to help you recognise physiological and emotional hunger, sample conversations with friends and colleagues, and magazine and blog critiques that call out diet culture.So, have you ever been on a diet? Spent time worrying that you looked fat when you could have been doing something useful? Compared the size of your waistline to someone else's? Felt guilt, actual guilt, about the serious crime of . . . eating a doughnut? You're not alone. Just Eat It gives you everything you need to develop a more trusting, healthy relationship with food and your body.