Most Americans accept degenerative chronic diseases such as obesity, diabetes, atherosclerosis, heart disease, osteoporosis and cancer as part of the normal aging process.

Yet it need not be this way. In her thoroughly researched and comprehensive The Vegan Diet as Chronic Disease Prevention, Dr. Kerrie Saunders documents how a plant-based diet can help prevent or alleviate many chronic diseases that affect so many Americans, often without the need for pills, surgery, or fad diets. In this thoroughly researched and comprehensive guide, Dr. Kerrie Saunders points the way to new standards of health and health care for the twenty-first century.

A vegan diet shouldn't be a cause of obsession: it should celebrate life and health. Such is the way that Victoria Moran looks at her food choices in The Love-Powered Diet, the story of how she chose healthy eating over trying to make herself feel good.

Of course, who and what we eat are profoundly political as well as psychological and ethical issues. Our need, if not obligation, to examine our food policies holistically is the core of Will Tuttle's The World Peace Diet, a powerful polemic on responsible eating.

For more information about World Food Day, click here.