Diet for a Small Planet is a 1971 bestselling book by Frances Moore Lappé, the first major book to note the environmental impact of meat production as wasteful and a contributor to global food scarcity. She argued for environmental vegetarianism—practicing a vegetarian lifestyle out of concerns over animal-based industries and the production of animal-based products. The book has sold over three million copies and was groundbreaking for arguing that world hunger is not caused by a lack of food but by ineffective food policy. In addition to information on meat production and its impact on hunger, the book features simple rules for a healthy diet and hundreds of meat-free recipes. "Its mix of recipes and analysis typified radicals' faith in the ability to combine personal therapy with political activism." Structure Part I: Earth's Labor Lost—Protein in United States agribusiness Part II: Bringing Protein Theory Down to Earth—Protein in human nutrition Part III: Eating From the Earth: Protein Theory Applied—Includes tables of food values, and explanations relating proteins to caloric and economic factors Part IV: Combining Non-Meat Foods to Increase Protein Values—Guidelines and recipes Appendices, Notes, Index Protein combining Knowing that her audience would be skeptical that a vegetarian diet could supply sufficient protein, much of the book is devoted to introducing the method of protein combining. With this method of eating, different plant foods are taken together so that their combined amino acid pattern better matches that required by our bodies, termed "net protein utilization". The general principle of combining foods for optimum net protein utilization combines adjacent pairs of the following: [dairy] with [grains] with [legumes] with [seeds]. But while Lappé was correct that combining would indeed result in a more meat-like protein profile, eating a variety of plant foods throughout the day will provide one with all the amino acids required by humans, in amounts which satisfy growth and maintenance. There is no need to combine foods at individual meals. Lappé admitted in the 10th anniversary 1981 version of the book that sufficient protein was easier to get than she had thought at first: In 1971 I stressed protein complementarity because I assumed that the only way to get enough protein ... was to create a protein as usable by the body as animal protein. In combating the myth that meat is the only way to get high-quality protein, I reinforced another myth. I gave the impression that