Podcast
How I Built This with Guy Raz
In two live episodes featuring Seth Tibbott, the book was highlighted as the first work to expose how feeding grains to livestock wastes resources and contributes to habitat loss. Tibbott credited it with shaping his decision to become vegetarian, noting the stark conversion loss from grain to meat. The hosts presented it as a pivotal, eye‑opening read for anyone interested in sustainable food.
Episode: Live Episode! Tofurky: Seth Tibbott (2019)
It was discussed as the first book to highlight the inefficiency of grain-fed animal agriculture for human consumption, particularly impacting Seth Tibbott's decision to become a vegetarian.
This was a book by Frances Moore Lappe and she was the first person to point out to the American public and to me personally that there was no sense of feeding all of these grains through animals.
You take 15 pounds of grains and put it into an animal and you get maybe 8 ounce or a pound of meat as opposed to if you feed grain directly to people, boom, you've saved so much grain and resources and land and everything.
Episode: Live Episode! Tofurky: Seth Tibbott
It was discussed as being the first book to highlight the inefficiency of feeding grains to animals for human consumption, and its emphasis on habitat loss had a significant influence on Seth's decision to become a vegetarian.
Around this time, you're in your early 20s, you come across this book, Diet for a Small Planet, which has this huge effect on you. What is the book for people who don't know it? And what did you learn from that book?
Well, this was a book by Frances Moore Lappe. And she was the first person to point out to the American public and to me personally, that there was no sense of feeding all of these grains through animals.