Selects: Are crickets the future of food?

Have you ever wondered how we calculate happiness levels among different countries or the amount of fossil fuels it would take to switch to renewable energy? Have you considered what unemployment numbers and infant mortality rates say about a population? In Numbers Don’t Lie, scientist and economist Vaclav Smil wants to help you understand the world by understanding numbers and statistics. Numbers can help you see the world more clearly, but only if you know what they’re actually saying.

Smil examines commonly used metrics like GDP, vaccination rates, and fertility rates and asks what they say about countries like the US, China, and Japan. He also reviews humanity’s impact on the planet through the energy, transportation, and food sectors. In our guide, we’ll go over these numbers, metrics, and statistics and provide additional scientific and historical context to help you understand the world around you even better.

What do the food on your plate, the electricity that powers your home, and the plastic in everything from your clothes to your car have in common? They all require large amounts of fossil fuel.

In How the World Really Works, scientist Vaclav Smil argues that our current way of life relies so heavily on fossil fuels that the only way to reduce our dependence on them and slow down climate change is to do so gradually and at great expense. But we can’t engage in any intelligent discussion about how to solve the problem of climate change unless everyone has a shared understanding of how the world works.

In this guide, we’ll explore Smil’s ideas about the functioning of four critical aspects of our world: energy, food production, manufacturing, and the environment. Throughout the guide, we’ll compare Smil’s analyses to those of other experts and examine current research and potential solutions to the issue of climate change.

Plant-based diets are better than meat-based diets when it comes to human health, animal welfare, and the environment. This article explains why.

In Silent Spring, biologist Rachel Carson condemns the widespread use of pesticides in the 20th century, arguing that these chemicals threaten to devastate the natural environment and poison animals and humans alike. Carson advocates stricter regulation of pesticides by the US government, limited spraying, and the use of biological (rather than chemical) controls. Though Carson’s book was controversial and widely condemned by chemical companies, it’s been credited as an inspiration for the environmentalist movement of the 1970s, the formation of the US Environmental Protection Agency, and the banning of the pesticide DDT.

This guide will explore Carson’s criticisms of pesticides and proposals for change, including discussions of what pesticides do, how they’re used, and what alternatives exist for pest control. We’ll also discuss evolutions in science since the book was published in 1962, backlash to and criticism of Carson’s findings, and the book’s influence on American environmental policy.

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.

An urgent report shows that invasive species are costing the world hundreds of billions of dollars every year. We’ll explain how this happened, what governments are doing about it, and how you can help.

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.

The average price of eggs jumped 60% last year—one of the largest percentage increases of any food US good or service. Is it true that eggs’ soaring cost is the result of collusion between large US egg producers who have taken advantage of Americans’ durable love of eggs, as some allege?

Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal shows how the fast food industry has reshaped the American economic system and imprinted itself on the nation’s culture since the 1950s. The industry has profoundly reshaped how American food is produced, marketed, and consumed. The book explores fast food’s exploitative marketing and labor practices, destruction of the nation’s independent farmers, responsibility for the spread of deadly foodborne pathogens like E. coli, and creation of a national obesity epidemic. Fast Food Nation shows us how fast food has exerted a decidedly negative influence on American life.

If you’ve ever tried to lose weight, you’re probably aware of all the conflicting advice about what you should eat. Should you go on a low-carb diet, a low-fat one, or a liquid one? Eat one large portion in the morning, smaller portions throughout the day, or practice fasting?

In How Not to Diet, Michael Greger, physician and best-selling author of How Not to Die, adds a much-needed voice of clarity to the world of weight loss. He draws on extensive scientific research to explore the healthiest and most efficient way to lose weight and keep it off.

This guide explores Greger’s advice, covering:

• How eating processed foods and animal products leads to weight gain
• Why eating plant-based foods and legumes reduces the calories your body stores as fat
• What dietary changes will help you shed excess pounds and keep them off

Additionally, we’ll expand on each of Greger’s ideas with research, advice, and actionable ideas from other health practitioners and weight-loss specialists.

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.