The challenges are formidable, but there is great hope on the horizon.

Fifty-four days until our book-launch party on September 29

While proofing our book for the final time yesterday, I stopped and asked myself a question. How it could be possible for any person to not want to take action — after learning about the staggering toll that our Western diet is taking on this world? In one of the last sentences in the book, I asked this question:

Given what you now know—if you don’t take action—what will you tell your adult grandchildren someday when they ask why you didn’t?

Then, I remembered the single biggest obstacle to change that we are facing — the fact that over 90 percent of the adult population in the Western world still believe that we truly “need” to eat animal protein to be healthy. They also know that their food is very important to them and, armed with that perceived “need” for protein, they are not likely to make many changes — regardless of how compelling the reasons.

One of my favorite campuses in New England, Harvard University in Cambridge, MA

But there is great hope on the horizon. It’s the young people of the world who care about the environment, care about the animals, care about their fellow man and care about doing the right thing for all concerned. And they absolutely love to get behind a “cause,” particularly one with the potential to change the world.

While researching for our book, I found that America’s college students (18 to 24) who totaled 17.5 million in the 2000 census are six times more likely to describe themselves as vegetarian as compared to all adults in the country. A whopping 18% described themselves as such last year — compared to just 3.2% for all adults. That is HUGE — and it is great news for the prospects of making some big changes in the way we feed ourselves in the Western world.

While I was surprised (and delighted) to find that 18% statistic last year, I have known for a long time that young people are much more likely to take action if they have enough information. During my eight years of study on this topic, it became abundantly clear to me that the young folks truly “get it” in much greater numbers than do people in the older generations. The old folks are still clinging to their “out of sight — out of mind” mentality, whereas the young are ready to take action. The good news here is that they are the leaders of the future and comprise the primary audience to whom I was speaking as I wrote the 57,000 words of our book.

The leaders of the grassroots revolution to change the world...one bite at a time.

With an estimated 20 million college students today, my dream is that our book will become somewhat of a “field manual” for the collegiate army that will lead the grassroots revolution to reclaim our health and our planet and end the global madness that has been driven by our harmful, wasteful, cruel and unsustainable Western diet.

In the absence of true leadership among our elected officials and captains of industry, we must look to the young to lead us out of the incredible mess that our generation has created. Want to help get this thing rolling? Please forward this post to every person under 30 that you know. While waiting for our book, they can take a look at the complete Introduction that I provided in yesterday’s post.

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

PS: Occasionally an unauthorized ad may appear beneath a blog post. It is controlled by WordPress (a totally free hosting service). I do not approve or personally benefit whatsoever from any ad that might ever appear on this site. I apologize and urge you to please disregard.