The personal journey in comprehending how MY measly diet affects the entire WORLD began with a YouTube video narrated by Alec Baldwin titled “Meet your Meat.” In the documentary Alec Baldwin describes the mistreatment of animals in the meat packing industry. As a courtesy, I will not go into any detail on this subject as it is quite graphic, but it was the turning point for me to be the change I wished to see in the world as Mahatma Ghandi would say.
My brother was the person who introduced me to the documentary "Meet your Meat", as well as the author John Robbins who is the son of the founder to Baskin Robbins ice cream. Adopting a vegetarian diet is not an easy task and just because you’re a vegetarian does not mean you’re healthy. When I first met Bridgette she was astonished that I was able to survive on a diet of frozen pizza, donuts, energy drinks, and various carbohydrate rich fast foods including beer. I still enjoy the beer. Previous to becoming an unhealthy vegetarian I lived on Carl’s Jr. double western bacon cheeseburgers and McDonalds’ sausage Mcmuffins. Looking back, I’m astonished I’m still living, maybe I will call Ripley’s Believe It or Not one of these days for an exclusive interview.
American mythologist, Joseph Campbell, once said “One way or another, we all have to find what best fosters the flowering of our humanity in this contemporary life, and dedicate ourselves to that.” Humanity is experiencing exponential population growth never before seen and Campbells’ statement could not be more relevant to our species’ survival in these modern times.
Exponential growth brings with it many dangers. The population of China is nearly 1.5 billion. Did you know that if the Chinese consumed resources like Americans;
- they would consume more paper than the world currently produces;
- they would need 100 million tons of seafood = the entire world fish catch;
- they would need over 80 million barrels of oil a day = slightly more than the 74 million barrels per day the world now produces.
The adaptation of the American lifestyle in China alone would roughly double global CO2 emissions, accelerating climate change. Surprisingly though, the most damaging CO2 emissions to our planet originate from cattle. The CO2 released from the world’s 1.5 billion cows is responsible for 18 percent of the greenhouse gases that cause global warming (astonishing to think we could create a sovereign cow country the size of China), more than cars, planes and all other forms of transport put together. I consider this to be a sobering factoid as the western lifestyle is rapidly being adopted by many foreign cultures such as the Chinese culture.
Carbon emissions aside, by abstaining from a meat based diet, you alone would be conserving 300,000 gallons of water a year used to grow cattle, it takes over 5,000 gallons of water to grow one pound of beef. "If all the grain currently fed to livestock in the United States were consumed directly by people, the number of people who could be fed would be nearly 800 million," - David Pimentel, professor of ecology in Cornell University's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.
Amounts of water needed to grow one pound of various foods
Being aware of these facts has helped me to gain a greater understanding why Albert Einstein said “Nothing will benefit human health and increase chances for survival of life on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet.”
Aside from Bridgette's dietary wisdom, the single most helpful resource for me to understand which vegetarian foods are good for my body have been derived from a book called the Engine 2 diet.
The book is not only a cookbook but also a guide for healthy living. The books’ author is a former vegan firefighter from Texas named Rip Essylstein, Rip was inspired when he learned most firefighters die from heart disease and clogged arteries, not fighting fires. He is also the son of a noteworthy cardiologist by the name of Dr. Caldwell Essylstein. Both Essylsteins are featured in a documentary named ‘Forks over Knives’. ‘Forks Over Knives’ is a life altering documentary available on Netflix or online. The documentary is a myth buster of sorts that explains why so many food related myths are simply not true. The documentary provides an abundance of data to back the claims made, but here is a website that lists some of the food related myths http://diettogo.com/blog/debunking-12-myths-about-vegetarian-diet. If you choose to view the documentary you may be shocked to discover milk is one of the leading causes of osteoporosis as it leeches calcium from the bones. Interesting factoid backed by data, Americans lead the world in cases of osteoporosis.
The documentary also features numerous patients told by their doctors they only have months to live due to coronary heart disease. The adoption of the plant based diet reverses their disease and improves their health in ways no pharmaceutical company could ever compete with.
I will step off my soap box now and hope that my blurb on Bridgette’s blog will bring readers a greater understanding of how food choices make so many differences on a personal and global scale. I now leave you with some famous vegetarians.
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