During this holiday weekend, my primary task is the final proof-read of our Healthy Eating – Healthy World manuscript. And as I read through all of that powerful information one more time, I am feeling the need to summarize — so that people everywhere can grasp the “big picture” quickly.

The Mystic, CT, Starbucks at sunrise — where I normally start my day and the site where a large portion of my book and my blog was created

Lying in bed this morning, I was thinking that maybe a top-ten list would be in order; but then decided that it would be too long for most audiences to grasp quickly; so I decided to cut it in half. It’s now 6:47 AM and I am sitting in my favorite chair at the Mystic Starbucks ready to create that “Letterman-style” Top Five List of reasons why humankind must return to the natural diet for our species — as quickly as we can.

By way of definition, that natural diet-style is one that consists primarily of whole plant foods; not necessarily vegan or vegetarian. In our own 4-Leaf Program, we encourage people to strive for the consumption of over 80% of their daily calories from these most nutritious foods.

If you’ve spent a few hours or more on this blog site, you already know about the many problems that our diet-style has created. You also know about what we should be eating and you know that that there are many “authoritative but contradictory voices” out there who will continue to make it difficult for us to change the system.

That’s exactly why the only answer is a grassroots revolution led by people like you and me — people that know, beyond a doubt, that we are on the right track. Here are my TOP FIVE reasons why you might want to join that revolution:

#5 — Taking Charge of Our Own Health. We can enjoy vibrant health now, reduce or eliminate our medications, reverse our coronary artery disease and type 2 diabetes that we might have now (but may not know it), enjoy effortless weight-loss, save money and reduce our chances of of ever having to spend a single day in a nursing home.

#4 — Promoting the health of our planet. We’re talking land, water, climate and biodiversity here. Almost everyone claims to “care” about the environment, yet our generation (in just the last 50 years) has done more damage to the fragile harmony of nature than all previous generations of humans for the past 200,000 years. And much of that damage is directly related to how we have chosen to eat in the Western world — a harmful, wasteful and grossly unsustainable diet-style that (per calorie) requires 20 times more land, 20 times more fossil fuel energy, and way over 20 times as much water — than does the natural diet for our species — whole plant foods.

#3 — Feeding the world’s hungry. With roughly 8 billion acres of arable land and 7 billion people, there is just over one acre per person today; soon there will be less than one acre as the population grows and more land is eroded away. So what’s the big deal about one acre per person? The big deal is that it requires over three acres for one person to eat our typical Western diet. You get the picture now?

#2 — Ending the madness of animal suffering in factory farms. Since almost everyone says they love animals, this has always been a case of out-of-sight, out-of-mind; but once you know about what’s happening, what are you going to do about it? To feed less than 2 billion of the world’s wealthiest people, we are now raising 60 billion animals in horrid conditions — a process that we all support with every piece of meat, dairy and eggs we put in our mouth. If everyone in the world ate like we do, even with no population growth, we would need to kill 200 billion animals. When does this madness end?

#1 — For our children, their children and all future generations. This really is the bottom line. We have screwed things up royally on our watch; and time is running out for us to make things right for our descendants. Now that you know all of the above; what would you say to your adult grandchild on your 90th birthday if she asked you, “Grandfather, if you knew about all of the problems of our harmful, wasteful, and unsustainable diet-style way back in 2011, why didn’t you change what you were eating and why didn’t you make sure that my mother learned the truth, back when the truth was not very popular?

In case you missed it…here is my recent post on “the children.”

Children — NOTHING is more important than what they eat!

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J. Morris Hicks, the “big picture” guy when it comes to healthy eating

What’s it going to take for the smartest people in the Western world to lead the way towards making things right? As I said in the Introduction to our book, “I am convinced that there has never been anything more important in the history of the world.”

If you like what you see here, you may wish to join our periodic mailing list. Also, for help in your own quest to take charge of your health, you might find some useful information at our 4-Leaf page. From the seaside village of Stonington, Connecticut – Be well and have a great day.

If you’d like to order our book on Amazon,  visit our BookStore now.

—J. Morris Hicks…blogging daily at HealthyEatingHealthyWorld.com

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