The Blue Plate: A Food Lover's Guide to Climate Chaos by Easter, Mark (Author) , Myint, Anthony (Foreword by) , O'Farrell, Liam (Illustrator)

Ecologist Mark Easter offers a detailed picture of the impact the foods you love have on the earth. Organized by the ingredients of a typical dinner party, including seafood, salad, bread, chicken, steak, potatoes, and fruit pie with ice cream, each chapter examines the food through the lens of the climate crisis. Not a cookbook, but instead, gathered like guests around the table, you will find the stories of these foods: the soil that grew the lettuce, the farmers and ranchers and orchardists who steward the land, the dairy and farm workers and grocers who labor to bring it to the table. Each chapter reveals the causes and effects of greenhouse gas emissions, as well as the social and environmental impact of out-of-season and far-from-home demand.

What can you do to eat more sustainably? Food lovers everywhere will be happy to know that the answer is not necessarily a plant-based diet. For each food group, Easter offers not recipes but low-carbon, in-season alternatives that make your favorite foods not only more sustainable but also more delicious.

The first step, however, is an understanding of how food is grown, produced, harvested, and shipped. In stories both personal and entertaining, the author offers a full understanding of what's for dinner.

Mark J. Easter is an ecologist who has conducted research in academia and private industry since 1988. He received a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Purdue University in 1982 and a M.S. in Botany from the University of Vermont in 1991.

Anthony Myint is an American restaurateur, chef, activist, author, and food consultant based in the Mission in San Francisco. He is a founder of Mission Chinese Food, "The Perennial," Mission Street Food, Mission Cantina, "Mission Burger," "Lt. Waffle," and "Commonwealth Restaurant." He is a pioneer in the environmental and charitable restaurant movement.

An illustrator in ink and watercolor, Liam O'Farrell's clients include Tatler, Knight Frank LLP, The Times, Liberty London, Perspectives in Architecture, BBC Books, Macmillan, The Big Issue, One Housing Group, and Meed.