jane goodall

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Jane Goodall's Do-Good Message
Dateline: From Africa to Your Table

For more than 40 years, naturalist Jane Goodall has championed the rights of chimpanzees and advocated the protection of the world's endangered habitats. The newest endangered habitat she has trained her binoculars on: the world's farms and supermarkets.

Goodall's newly released book, Harvest for Hope: A Guide to Mindful Eating (Warner Books, $25), is a clarion call, as she terms it, to rouse ourselves from "spineless acceptance of the status quo." What status quo is she speaking of? She charges that we no longer know — or care — where our food comes from. And, she says, as multinational corporations buy up family farms and plant genetically modified crops, as the level of treatment of our livestock continues to plummet, and as we continue to allow that livestock to ingest growth hormones and antibiotics, the world is becoming seriously out of balance.

What Goodall advocates is not earth-shattering but can be hard to do: She says we should support sustainable resources at every opportunity. She spotlights some real heroes who are making a difference and offers simple and, yes, obvious things we can all do to slow down the rampant destruction of our farmland and counteract unhealthy practices.

Chief among her suggestions are shopping in farmers' markets, buying only organic foods, eschewing fast food, using water filters instead of bottled water, and adopting a vegetarian diet. Goodall reminds us that we are the lucky stewards of the earth, and whether it is saving one chimpanzee in the forest or refusing to buy products with genetically modified ingredients, we can all help turn the tide toward a more healthy way of being.