Selects: The Quinoa Revolution!

The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan explores how we answer the question, “What should we eat.” It traces four types of food chains from a food’s origin to the dinner table. He focuses on how food production in the U.S. has evolved from small farms to a mass production system of huge corn and animal farms operated on factory-based principles. This system has produced cheap, tasty but less healthy foods, while making it difficult for us to make better choices by obscuring our food’s origins and ingredients.

We have a viable alternative in true organic food, but to make better choices and influence change we must do the work of educating ourselves and giving up our addiction to convenience and unhealthy foods.

Ukraine is an important source of wheat, barley, and other foodstuffs for many poor and developing nations. Russian blockades have prevented Ukrainian exports from reaching the rest of the world, driving food shortages and price increases globally. A recent agreement between Ukraine and Russia has allowed exports to resume, but it’s shaky, and the crisis highlights key weaknesses in global supply chains.

American society is inundated with food. There are thousands of options of what to eat and a myriad of ways to eat it. So why does food need defending? In In Defense of Food, Michael Pollan distinguishes between real food and processed food and how the reliance on the latter leads to a society plagued by Western diseases.

From our reliance on industry and science to dictate what we should and shouldn’t eat to the loss of traditional food cultures, the Western diet has wreaked havoc on Americans and created one of the unhealthiest societies in the world. But we can reverse the damage if we repair our relationship with food and support the health of the food chain.

Americans might be the heaviest, sickest people in the world. The China Study suggests that we can lose weight and lower disease rates by removing animal foods from our diets.

What sets the whole foods, plant-based diet apart from the fads is the extensive research behind it, detailed and distilled in this book. The evidence is compelling and the message clear: Animal foods lead to disease; plant foods prevent and treat it.

Learn how a plant-based diet can give you more energy, reverse your heart disease, decrease your cancer risk, outsmart your genes, and make your life longer and healthier.

In Western culture, you may find yourself overwhelmed by food industry ads, diet fads, and popular science articles about the latest superfoods. It can be difficult to keep up with what foods are “good” and “bad”—especially when these labels seem to change every week. Despite these mixed messages about nutrition, many experts agree that if you want to improve your physical health, eating well can be boiled down to two simple guidelines:

• Adopt a largely whole-food, plant-based diet.
• Avoid highly processed and high-sugar foods.

In this master guide, we’ll cover a range of expert advice on why eating plant-based whole foods can help prevent chronic illnesses, why processed and sugar-added foods contribute to modern health conditions like Type 2 diabetes, and why supplements don’t work the same way as the same nutrients delivered via whole foods. We’ll also touch on why you might need to account for nuanced factors, such as the source of your food and your unique body composition.

Picture the end of your life. Do you want to die from heart disease? Cancer? Diabetes?

In How Not to Die, Michael Greger argues that a plant-based, whole-food diet has been scientifically shown to reduce the most common diseases leading to death. He then gives his recommendation for "The Daily Dozen" foods to eat to maximize health benefits.

Salt is one of the cheapest, most commonplace items: It sells for less than a loaf of bread, and during winter, we scatter it liberally on roads and sidewalks. However, there was once a time when salt was considered rare and valuable. In Salt, Mark Kurlansky argues that throughout much of human history, salt was a precious commodity—one that significantly shaped civilizations.

In this guide, we’ll present Kurlansky’s history of salt, describing the role it played in nourishing our ancestors, driving innovation, building empires—and even provoking rebellions. You’ll learn why salting food isn’t just about improving its flavor, why salt harvesting causes sinkholes, and how salt played an important role in several independence movements. Throughout this guide, we’ll supplement Kurlansky’s history of salt with relevant concepts in chemistry, food science, and geology. We’ll also update the book’s ideas with recent research on how we harvest and use salt today.

According to Peter Zeihan, the most pressing threat to civilization is the impending collapse of international trade. In The End of the World Is Just the Beginning, Zeihan predicts that a demographic implosion will trigger a crisis in global trade that spells worldwide economic disaster, energy shortages, political turmoil, and famine. While there may be no way to avoid these looming problems, Zeihan writes that if we want to survive them, we have to be fully aware of what’s at stake.

Zeihan is a strategist and consultant known for his expertise in global affairs. In this guide, we’ll present Zeihan’s argument that our current prosperity is about to end, and what difficulties we can expect in the tumultuous decades to come. We’ll also examine the views of other experts as to whether current global trends confirm or contradict Zeihan’s predictions, as well as what solutions might mitigate the challenges Zeihan foresees.

Ukraine is an important source of wheat, barley, and other foodstuffs for many poor and developing nations. Russian blockades have prevented Ukrainian exports from reaching the rest of the world, driving food shortages and price increases globally. A recent agreement between Ukraine and Russia has allowed exports to resume, but it’s shaky, and the crisis highlights key weaknesses in global supply chains.

In The Rational Optimist, science writer and journalist Matt Ridley writes that innovation has been the primary impetus for humanity’s progress and prosperity—driving the advances in technology, culture, and political organization that have made today’s society healthier, wealthier, and safer than any in human history.

Ridley writes that such a cross-pollination of ideas would have been impossible without free trade and the exchange of goods. This is because when we trade goods, we create networks of knowledge that reach beyond local communities and nations—allowing innovators to build upon each other's work.

In this guide, we’ll explore:

• How the exchange of ideas and knowledge has fostered human prosperity
• How trade promotes stable societies
• How our capacity for innovation provides a case for optimism on climate change
• Why free trade is the best way to promote growth and prosperity

We’ll supplement and compare Ridley’s ideas with insights from other writers and thinkers who’ve explored the benefits of trade and free markets, the relationship between capitalism and democracy, and more.