THE WORLD PEACE DIET: Eating for Spiritual Health and Social Harmony, by Will Tuttle, (Lantern Books, 2005).
If there were a “What would Gandhi Read?” section in the bookstore, you’d certainly find Will Tuttle’s The World Peace Diet shelved there. Unlike the Raw Foods Diet or The South Beach Diet, the World Peace Diet is no prescription for what to eat. Instead, the book outlines the cultural, spiritual and environmental consequences of the choices we make every time we put something in our mouths. In a tone that is both personal and omniscient, the author helps us examine exactly what—or who—we eat, to consider how our food choices reflect and propagate our worldview.
Tuttle questions, “What is so simple as eating an apple? And yet, what could be more sacred and profound?” The way he describes food elevates the act of eating from a necessary, “pedestrian” means of consumption to an opportunity to achieve spiritual illumination. “Eating,” Tuttle muses, “is directly partaking of the infinite order that transcends our finite lives.”
The book journeys through chapters like “Sacred Feasts,” “Inheriting Cruelty,” “The Vegan Revolution,” “The Meat-Medical Complex,” “The Toxins in Animal Agriculture” and “Healing the Earth and Economy,” making a strong case for compassionate vegan living as a personal health choice and an antidote to environmental destruction. Tuttle’s notes, resources and selected bibliography catalogue a comprehensive canon of vegan literature.
Longtime vegans will welcome the The World Peace Diet to their home libraries, but the book is also a great first stop for those newly intrigued by vegan philosophy. If, as Gandhi proclaimed, the table fork is truly the most violent weapon on earth, The World Peace Diet is a gentle primer for us all to lay down arms and celebrate earth’s bounty together. —Jolia Sidona Einstein
BLACK MARKET: Inside the Endangered Species Trade in Asia by Ben Davies with foreword by Jane Goodall (Earth Aware Editions, $29.95)
Few books so graphically depict man’s inhumanity to beast as this volume by Ben Davies. The author’s insightful text and Patrick Brown’s photos provide a disturbing look at the unsanctioned global trafficking of rare animals. It documents the mass annihilation of tiger, rhino, Asiatic black bear, pangolin, python, Kouprey, orangutan, chiru (Tibetan antelope), fox bat, python, elephant and others.
Besides documenting poachers’ activities and offering eyewitness accounts of illegal trade, the book profiles a wildlife collector and explores the insatiable demand for black market trophies and herbal potions.
Even more alarming than the images of mangled carcasses, and caged and sedated animals is the portrayal of man’s greed and cruelty to other living beings. Amidst images of sorrowful primates locked in cages, bloody severed bear paws, countless ivory tusks and tiger pelts, the photo of a businessman gleefully punching a sedated tiger in front of a laughing crowd shows homo sapiens at his very worst.
Goodall, Davies and other preservationists warn that we must act now or lose that which is wild, unique and most precious. “We need to do more than act as custodians,” Goodall pleads. “We desperately need to save what is left of the natural world and heal the wounds. We must do it for our children.” —Susan DeGrane