The Blue Plate - by Mark Easter (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

James Beard Award Finalist 2025, "Food Issues and Advocacy" Category

Winner, Gold Award, IBPA Book Awards

"Authoritative, entertaining, and useful -- this is the book I have been waiting for." -- Kathleen Dean Moore, author of Encouragement for Earth's Weary Lovers

Do you really know what's for dinner? The Blue Plate is the perfect dinner companion for food lovers who also care about the planet.

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.

Review Quotes

"The Blue Plate is an excellent primer on where food comes from--with a reminder that if people are what they eat, they need to be conscientious about that consumption." -- Foreword Reviews

"Author and ecologist Easter takes readers on a worldwide tour of food production--a tour that shows exactly where ecology meets the dinner plate. . . . collectively leaving readers with a sense of hope and purpose." -- Booklist

"Like everything Patagonia does, [this book] is elegant, gorgeous, and relevant." -- Lee Woodruff's Book Marks column

"While Easter is crystal clear about the massive threats facing our planet, this is a book built on the ideals of optimism, ingenuity, and taking action." -- Ed Roberson, Mountain and Prairie podcast

"The Blue Plateis more than a book--it's a call to conscience wrapped in the joy of good food. It's science for the soul, written in the tone of a wise friend who knows that change doesn't come from shame but from curiosity, compassion, and conversation. . . .It's a beautifully told, deeply researched, and emotionally resonant invitation to sit down, slow down, and look--really look--at what's for dinner. . . .Through storytelling, soil science, and lived experience, Mark offers us a graceful reminder: we are all participants in the ecosystem, not spectators." --Great Books, Great Minds

"A roadmap for eating well while making choices that matter." --The Ethicalist

"Mark J. Easter's The Blue Plate is a rare book: scientifically rigorous, politically aware, and deeply readable. It makes a powerful case that how we grow, ship, and consume food matters--not just for individual health or culinary pleasure, but for the future of the planet. By turning the dinner plate into a map of climate choices, Easter offers a vision of sustainability that is inclusive, hopeful, and urgently needed.

This is not just a book for foodies or farmers--it is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the intersection of climate, culture, and consumption. With clarity and heart, Easter invites us to see food not as a private matter but as a public opportunity for climate repair." -- Politics and Rights Review

About the Author

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.

Easter authored and co-authored more than fifty scientific papers and reports related to carbon cycling and the carbon footprint of agriculture, forestry, and other land uses. He contributed analyses to multiple reports published by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). In 2018 he was named a fellow of the Colorado State University School of Global Environmental Sustainability.

Besides his scientific work, Easter co-founded the organization Save The Poudre and is a founding board member of the organization Save the Colorado. He works with these organizations to help restore rivers to healthy conditions and protect rivers from water development. He loves to read, cook from his garden, hike and ski in wild places, and spend time with his wife, Leslie Brown and their dog, Bonny, where he lives in Fort Collins, CO.

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.