From Josh Tickell, one of America’s most celebrated documentary filmmakers, comes a “fascinating, easy-to-follow blueprint for how eating in ways that nourish and regenerate the soil can not only help reverse global warming, but also bring greater vitality to our lives” (Wolfgang Puck).
“A must read for anyone committed to healing our bodies and our Earth” (Deepak Chopra), Kiss the Ground explains an incredible truth: by changing our diets to a soil-nourishing, regenerative agriculture diet, we can reverse global warming, harvest healthy, abundant food, and eliminate the poisonous substances that are harming our children, pets, bodies, and ultimately our planet.
This “richly visual” (Kirkus Reviews) look at the impact of an underappreciated but essential resource—the very ground that feeds us—features fascinating and accessible interviews with celebrity chefs, ranchers, farmers, and top scientists. Kiss the Ground teaches you how to become an agent in humanity’s single most important and time-sensitive mission: reverse climate change and effectively save the world—all through the choices you make in how and what to eat. Also a full-length documentary executive produced by Leonardo DiCaprio and narrated by Woody Harrelson, “Kiss the Ground both informs and inspires” (Marianne Williamson, #1 New York Times bestselling author)
Editorial Reviews
Review
“Kiss the Ground gives us the most practical solution to reversing climate change. The soil is a vital and untapped resource. A must read for anyone committed to healing our bodies and our Earth.” -- Deepak Chopra
“Through my life as a chef, one of the most important lessons I have learned is that we have to take care of our Earth, or it won’t be able to go on taking care of us. Every one of us—farmers and chefs, parents and children, business people and world leaders—must play a part in keeping our planet healthy so that it can go on keeping us healthy. That’s why I’m so happy to discover Kiss the Ground, which offers a fascinating, easy-to-follow blueprint for how eating in ways that nourish and regenerate the soil can not only help reverse global warming but also bring greater vitality to our lives. “ -- Wolfgang Puck
“Kiss the Ground is a powerful, provocative new look at how we can all participate in honoring Mother Earth. Our food is the source of our life and the soil is the source of our food. This book shows the simple steps each one of us can take to restore the health of our bodies and our planet.” -- Woody Harrelson
“Food, soil, even eating itself…all are fundamental issues in the effort to live a more enlightened life. Kiss the Ground both informs and inspires, as it connects biology and geography and species diversity to the yearnings of the human heart.” -- Marianne Williamson, #1 New York Times bestselling author
“Our food choices not only impact our personal health, but the health of the world we all live in. Kiss the Ground is the first book to connect our health to what is going on in the atmosphere. If you care about your kids, about the food you’re feeding them and about the future of the planet, you need to read this book.” -- Vani Hari, New York Times bestselling author and creator of FoodBabe.com
“Kiss the Ground paints a hopeful yet achievable picture of a way of growing food that makes our soil healthier, makes us healthier, and ultimately could make our climate healthier too. As somebody who’s thrown his hat into the new ‘regenerative movement’ I recommend this book to anyone wanting to heal themselves and our planet.” -- Kimbal Musk, co-founder of The Kitchen
“The book Kiss the Ground shines a beacon of light on the growing global 'regenerative agriculture’ movement, illuminating a new path toward carbon sequestration and hopefully, a path toward a balanced climate. With clear, accessible language, wit and humor, this book gives readers powerful tools to overcome humanity’s greatest challenge." -- Terry Tannimen, CEO of Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation and former Secretary of the California EPA
“Kiss the Ground re-imagines conventional wisdom and adds to our armory in our existential duty to slow and reverse climate change. We know that we must aggressively reduce our carbon footprint. But as we learn in this profound, timely, and important book, we can also pursue traditional solutions to harness the carbon already in our atmosphere—and replant it here on earth. A simple composting program and healthy soils can be a key weapon in saving our planet (from ourselves).” -- Gavin Newsom, Lt. Governor of California
“Tickell entwines his explanation of the new agriculture in vivid reportage…[his] vision is captivating.” ― Publishers Weekly
“A journalist, activist, and filmmaker examines how soil-conscious farming practices may affect climate change…refreshingly, the narrative is richly visual.” ― Kirkus Reviews
About the Author
Josh Tickell is a journalist, activist, author, and award-winning film director whose movies (Fuel, The Big Fix, Pump, Good Fortune) have been shortlisted for Academy Awards, shown in the White House, won awards at the Sundance Film Festival, and have been viewed by over 50 million people worldwide.
Product details
Publisher : Atria/Enliven Books; Reprint edition (September 18, 2018)
Language: : English
Paperback : 352 pages
Top reviews from the United States
Reviewed in the United States on November 15, 2017
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Healthy body, healthy planet - thanks for delivering a simple, practical and poetic blueprint to get in harmony with Mother Earth. These folks said it best...
“Through my life as a chef, one of the most important lessons I have learned is that we have to take care of our Earth, or it won’t be able to go on taking care of us. Every one of us—farmers and chefs, parents and children, business people and world leaders—must play a part in keeping our planet healthy so that it can go on keeping us healthy. That’s why I’m so happy to discover Kiss the Ground, which offers a fascinating, easy-to-follow blueprint for how eating in ways that nourish and regenerate the soil can not only help reverse global warming but also bring greater vitality to our lives. “ (Wolfgang Puck)
“Kiss the Ground is a powerful, provocative new look at how we can all participate in honoring Mother Earth. Our food is the source of our life and the soil is the source of our food. This book shows the simple steps each one of us can take to restore the health of our bodies and our planet.” (Woody Harrelson)
“Through my life as a chef, one of the most important lessons I have learned is that we have to take care of our Earth, or it won’t be able to go on taking care of us. Every one of us—farmers and chefs, parents and children, business people and world leaders—must play a part in keeping our planet healthy so that it can go on keeping us healthy. That’s why I’m so happy to discover Kiss the Ground, which offers a fascinating, easy-to-follow blueprint for how eating in ways that nourish and regenerate the soil can not only help reverse global warming but also bring greater vitality to our lives. “ (Wolfgang Puck)
“Kiss the Ground is a powerful, provocative new look at how we can all participate in honoring Mother Earth. Our food is the source of our life and the soil is the source of our food. This book shows the simple steps each one of us can take to restore the health of our bodies and our planet.” (Woody Harrelson)
Reviewed in the United States on October 30, 2019
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This is a very important book. It is a must-read for anyone with children, or for anyone who cares about the survival of live on earth beyond another ten years or so.
All of the agricultural practices learned by the human race over that last 10,000 years are all wrong, and have been destroying the biosphere of our planet at an accelerating pace the whole time. This clumsy effort at cultivating the earth for food has only managed to work at all because of the accumulated resource base of fossil fuels and topsoil built up gradually over the last hundred million years or so. Now that all of that resource has been used up, the human race has to face some stark choices.
All of the problems of the world, social, economic, and political, including climate change, the mass migration of people, demographic changes, and the price of tea in China are all caused by the declining fertility of the earth and the progressive loss of topsoil. Plant more Trees by the millions, by the billions. Implement improved agricultural practices immediately – no-till farming, multiple species cover crops (to protect the soil, fix nitrogen, and avoid the need for chemical fertilizers and pesticides), compost, mulch, earthworms, intercropping (trees with shrubs or annual crops), and managed, rotational grazing instead of the disgustingly inefficient and toxic CAFOs (concentrated animal feeding operations; feed lots) – these are the only way forward.
Of course, it is essential simultaneously to reduce greenhouse gas emissions – all combustion of fossil fuels should cease forthwith – but reducing emissions will not remove the carbon already in our atmosphere and moving into our oceans, rendering them more and more acidic, threatening the very survival of the phytoplankton that produces oxygen for the world (it is not the Amazon Rainforest that is the “lungs of the world”; it is the Ocean). To draw down the levels of CO2 in our atmosphere and oceans, we need to regenerate our soil, plant lots more Trees, totally eliminate the use of toxic chemical fertilizers and pesticides from our soil, and eliminate the use of pharmaceutical chemicals from our bodies.
Does it take a child like Greta Thunberg to point out that the Emperor is wearing no clothes (not to mention any names)? It will be a long hard road back to the fertility of the earth, even with everyone on board and moving in the right direction. This will require a whole new global political system that favors the survival of life, rather than political systems that favor the retention and aggregation of wealth and power in the hands of ever fewer robber barons whose activities are destroying the earth while we watch. On the other hand, business as usual means the accelerating death throes of our planet. Yes; we are advocating massive changes to every aspect of our planet’s social, economic, and political systems, and those changes have to happen overnight. The only alternative is to stock up on absinthe and go out happy.
All of the agricultural practices learned by the human race over that last 10,000 years are all wrong, and have been destroying the biosphere of our planet at an accelerating pace the whole time. This clumsy effort at cultivating the earth for food has only managed to work at all because of the accumulated resource base of fossil fuels and topsoil built up gradually over the last hundred million years or so. Now that all of that resource has been used up, the human race has to face some stark choices.
All of the problems of the world, social, economic, and political, including climate change, the mass migration of people, demographic changes, and the price of tea in China are all caused by the declining fertility of the earth and the progressive loss of topsoil. Plant more Trees by the millions, by the billions. Implement improved agricultural practices immediately – no-till farming, multiple species cover crops (to protect the soil, fix nitrogen, and avoid the need for chemical fertilizers and pesticides), compost, mulch, earthworms, intercropping (trees with shrubs or annual crops), and managed, rotational grazing instead of the disgustingly inefficient and toxic CAFOs (concentrated animal feeding operations; feed lots) – these are the only way forward.
Of course, it is essential simultaneously to reduce greenhouse gas emissions – all combustion of fossil fuels should cease forthwith – but reducing emissions will not remove the carbon already in our atmosphere and moving into our oceans, rendering them more and more acidic, threatening the very survival of the phytoplankton that produces oxygen for the world (it is not the Amazon Rainforest that is the “lungs of the world”; it is the Ocean). To draw down the levels of CO2 in our atmosphere and oceans, we need to regenerate our soil, plant lots more Trees, totally eliminate the use of toxic chemical fertilizers and pesticides from our soil, and eliminate the use of pharmaceutical chemicals from our bodies.
Does it take a child like Greta Thunberg to point out that the Emperor is wearing no clothes (not to mention any names)? It will be a long hard road back to the fertility of the earth, even with everyone on board and moving in the right direction. This will require a whole new global political system that favors the survival of life, rather than political systems that favor the retention and aggregation of wealth and power in the hands of ever fewer robber barons whose activities are destroying the earth while we watch. On the other hand, business as usual means the accelerating death throes of our planet. Yes; we are advocating massive changes to every aspect of our planet’s social, economic, and political systems, and those changes have to happen overnight. The only alternative is to stock up on absinthe and go out happy.
Reviewed in the United States on February 17, 2019
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I have read several books on the topic of living a more healthful lifestyle. I heard about this book on the Learn True Health podcast sometime in 2017-2018. Upon receiving the book, I noted the foreword was written by the Whole Foods CEO...this made me question how unbiased the book would be. After finishing the book, I can say that I enjoyed it, but it was less satisfying than others written by well-known authors within the same genre. Tickell tells several good stories throughout the book, but I have certainly enjoyed others much more.
Reviewed in the United States on November 21, 2017
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I found this book to be an incredibly readable, clear and convincing blueprint for how to tackle climate change by reinvesting in one of our greatest treasures: the dirt beneath our feet. Josh does a good job of navigating the scary world of environmental devastation with lighthearted humor but a serious and endearing approach to - literally - saving the world. A great read for fans of Michael Pollan, Masanobu Fukuoka's THE ONE STRAW REVOLUTION, Wendell Berry - or anyone who just wants to learn how to help the planet.
Reviewed in the United States on November 20, 2017
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An inspiring message at a pivotal moment in history. This book offers a clear and compelling explanation of the history of agriculture and the food we eat, as well as how we arrived at the level of environmental degradation we are currently facing. Desertification is a national emergency. Thankfully, this book also offers the most viable solution to reversing climate change that I have heard. It turns out that nature works perfectly to pull carbon out of the atmosphere and store it safely in the soil, we just need to stop impeading this process.
Reviewed in the United States on November 21, 2017
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Go read this book right now. Seriously. Go now. It will change how you view the earth, the dirt you see around you, it will change how you view your food choices, and it will give you a lot of AHA and WOW moments. If there is one book that you decide to gift yourself this season, let it be this one. Keep up the great work Josh!
Reviewed in the United States on November 30, 2017
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Excellent book, the beginning of the book, which is the history of where our use of chemicals and plowing the soil started is a little depressing. But the rest of the book is very good about explaining what sustainable farming is about and how we can make a difference by what we buy and what we eat. Makes me want to start my own farm.
