The Third Plate: Field Notes on the Future of Food

Dan Barber

“Not since Michael Pollan has such a powerful storyteller emerged to reform American food.” —The
Washington Post

Today’s optimistic farm-to-table food culture has a dark secret: the local food movement has failed to change how we eat. It has also offered a false promise for the future of food. In his visionary New York Times–bestselling book, chef Dan Barber, recently showcased on Netflix’s Chef’s Table, offers a radical new way of  thinking about food that will heal the land and taste good, too. Looking to the detrimental cooking of our past, and the misguided dining of our present, Barber points to a future “third plate”: a new form of American eating where good farming and good food intersect. Barber’s The Third Plate charts a bright path forward for eaters and chefs alike, daring everyone to imagine a future for our national cuisine that is as sustainable as it is delicious.

No Impact Man: The Adventures of a Guilty Liberal Who Attempts to Save the Planet, and the Discoveries He Makes About Himself and Our Way of Life in the Process

Colin Beavan

Bill McKibben meets Bill Bryson in this
seriously engaging look at one man’s
decision to put his money where his
mouth is and go off the grid for one
year—while still living in New York
City—to see if it’s possible to make no
net impact on the environment.
In No Impact Man, a guilty liberal
finally snaps, swears off plastic, goes
organic, becomes a bicycle nut, turns
off his power, and generally becomes
a tree-hugging lunatic who tries to
save the polar bears and the rest
of the planet from environmental
catastrophe while dragging his baby
daughter and Prada-wearing, Four
Seasons–loving wife along for the
ride. And that’s just the beginning. In
other words, no trash, no toxins in the
water, no elevators, no subway, no

products in packaging, no air-condi-
tioning, no television . . .

What would it be like to try to live
a no-impact lifestyle? Is it possible?
Could it catch on? Is living this way
more satisfying or less satisfying?
Harder or easier? Is it worthwhile or
senseless? Are we all doomed or can
our culture reduce the barriers to
sustainable living so it becomes as
easy as falling off a log? These are the
questions at the heart of this whole
mad endeavor, via which Colin Beavan
hopes to explain to the rest of us
how we can realistically live a more
“eco-effective” and by turns more
content life in an age of inconvenient
truths.