One of the smartest animals, pigs get a bad rap — most live their complete lives in horrid conditions until they reach their ultimate destiny as part of your breakfast, your pizza topping or your barbecue sandwich.
Out of sight—out of mind
After close to 700 consecutive daily blogs, I have written about the needless suffering of animals 27 times. But lately, I have been writing mainly about sustainability issues and the need for corporate CEOs to take the lead when it comes to leading America away from our unhealthy, wasteful, harmful and barbaric western diet-style.
The primary motivation for those corporate CEOs will be to save money on healthcare; thereby improving the profitability of their enterprises.
But with every one of their employees that adopts a health-promoting plant-based diet, the lives of thirty farm animals will be saved. Thirty animals that will not have to live their entire lives in agony—only to face a brutal death at the end.
And, don’t kid yourself, we’re not just talking about the “meat” animals like pigs and cows. We’re also talking about the egg and milk producers—the ones that many vegetarians don’t think have to suffer. They might change their mind after watching what “retirement” is like for dairy cows who’ve spent their entire lives making milk, cheese, yogurt and ice-cream for human consumption.
Warning! This content may be disturbing for some. It was for me.
Promoting health, hope and harmony on planet Earth—and the longterm sustainability of the human race.
Humans—the infestation of planet Earth. What a mess us late-comers have created. There have been about 100 billion people that have ever lived on this planet. Seven billion of us are alive today—yet we’re now torturing and killing two billion fellow Earthlings every single week for our dinner tables. And that’s just to feed their meat and dairy products to the wealthiest 50% of our seven billion population.
This way of life is grossly unsustainable for much longer—and this entire mess has been created in just the blink of the eye of history. Consider that there has been life on Earth for roughly four billion years, but we humans have only been here for less than 5/1000th of one percent of that time.
Yet in that brief period, we have taken over every square inch of the planet and have claimed all land and waters as belonging to us humans. As the only species in the history of the world who has failed to live in harmony with the planet, we have completely ignored or violently abused the other million species of Earthlings who share our home.
The Bottom Line. I am embarrassed to be a part of such a selfish lot—and am striving to all that I can to help us all move aggressively back in the direction of harmony with the rest of the planet. As more and more people become aware that the future sustainability of the human race is what’s at stake, they will be more receptive to the inevitable change.
Fortunately, when we do wonderful things for our own health, we also do wonderful things for our fellow Earthlings and for the planet—and for her continued ability to sustain our species. Make the decision to take charge of your health today—the lives of your great-grandchildren are riding on that decision. (Today is consecutive daily blog #638)
Handy 4-piece take-charge-of-your-health kit—from Amazon.com
- The movie that’s changing the lives of millions: Forks Over Knives DVD
- Healthy Eating, Healthy World, The “big picture” about food (our book)
- An essential scientific resource: The China Study by Dr. T. Colin Campbell
- Dr. McDougall’s new book, The Starch Solution, with lots of great recipes.
Want to find out how healthy your family is eating? Take our free 4Leaf Diagnostic Survey. It takes less than five minutes and you can score it yourself. After taking the survey, please give me your feedback as it will be helpful in the development of our future 4Leaf app for smartphones. Send feedback to jmorrishicks@me.com
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J. Morris Hicks, working daily to promote health, hope and harmony on planet Earth.
For help in your own quest to take charge of your health, you might find some useful information at our 4Leaf page or some great recipes at Lisa’s 4Leaf Kitchen.
Got a question? Let me hear from you at jmorrishicks@me.com. Or give me a call on my cell at 917-399-9700.
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Blogging daily at hpjmh.com…from the seaside village of Stonington, Connecticut – Be well and have a great day.
—J. Morris Hicks, board member, T. Colin Campbell Foundation
J. Morris Hicks, engineer. writer. big picture guy. 
Wow that was a horrible video, back to soy and almond milk for us. I couldn’t even look at the milk in the store without thinking of those poor cows. The only meat my family eats is what we hunt so venison and turkey. I think if families really measured their meat consumption in terms of how many cows, chickens and pigs a family eats in year they would be surprised at how much they consume. Two deer and two turkey is it for us.
Dear Jim, this is an excellent blog. Philip Wollen passed on your email message to me – and asked that I acquire all the books you recommend and place them in the Kindness House library so all the NGOs in the building have access to them. Philip would have contacted you himself but right now he is very involved with the Sea Shepherd anti-whaling campaign right now. I know that he has all the material you mentioned in his personal library. . . . . in fact he organized a film night in the Kindness House Theatre for F.O.K and has also purchased copies of the Colin Campbell and John McDougall books which he gives away as presents!
Great reminder post, Jim, thank you. I’ve been vegan for a little over a year now (with some lapses here and there with dairy products and fish) and I have to say that the compassion aspect of a plant-based diet is a significant one, and one that I’ve come to appreciate. I was first inspired to try going fully plant-based for strictly health reasons after reading “The China Study”, which just resonated with what I somehow knew was the case after earlier seeing “The Corporation” and learning what Monsanto and other global agri-businesses were doing. I then read Fuhrman’s “Eat to Live” which further solidified and convinced me on the health-aspects of going vegan and gave more ideas on nutrition. I then went “down the rabbit hole” as they say reading Robbins’ excellent “The Food Revolution”, which really woke me up to the compassion aspect as he termed it so well — “misery on the menu”. I was shook and then watched “Earthlings” and things have never been the same. Robbins’ book was also what introduced me to the environmental devastation aspect and to the UN report “Livestock’s Long Shadow”. My wife who went vegan with me has always seen and felt the compassion aspect more keenly, and has awakened that for me as well. She introduced me to the inspirational work of Gene Baur and Farm Sanctuary, and we really liked the gentle, symbolic act of adopting a turkey last year (http://www.farmsanctuary.org/giving/adopt-a-turkey/), it helped us solidify our new compassionate way of seeing life. I never thought it would feel so good to *not* have turkey on Thanksgiving, but it really did… the mashed potatoes and brussel sprouts never tasted so good! We also visited a Farm Sanctuary this past summer and we’d recommend it to everyone as a way of getting in touch. They have locations all over the country. Best wishes, Jim!
Jim and all — Here are more links to the source of the video —
http://www.cok.net/californiacows/
http://www.tryveg.com/cfi/toc/
A free pamphlet that you can download:
Click to access vsg0501.pdf
OK – The video is there now. I don’t know why I found a blank white space a few moments ago.
JIm – The cow cruelty video is gone now.????? Bill K. 12:35 PM Eastern new time.
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TO JIM HICKS: There appears to be no hope that the Paleos/Atkins “Gang of Nine” have sense enough to go to the “DIET FOR ALL REASONS!”
http://www.amazon.com/review/R2W7KWZKQY6BGJ?_encoding=UTF8&asin=1439190275&cdForum=FxZJ813G2J60B7&cdMSG=addedToThread&cdPage=1&cdSort=newest&cdThread=TxCB0L17B0KXSQ&newContentID=Mx3KZ6DRJABI9AQ&newContentNum=3170&store=books#CustomerDiscussionsNRPB
Even reading this May 2004 tutorial by Dr. McDougall, they don’t get it!!!!!!!
http://www.drmcdougall.com/misc/2004nl/040500puatkinsresearch.htm
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The Atkins Scientific Research – Deceit and Disappointment
Atkins has funded sufficient research to persuade doctors, media personalities (like Neal Cavuto of Fox News Channel), and as many as 15% of the population of the USA, to believe that eating pork rinds, fried cheese, and lobster dripping in butter is good for body, heart, and soul… Etc. . . .
ENDING:
You Can Have Weight Control and Health, Too . . . . Etc. . .
Give them 6 months! They’ll soon realize how their health has been impacted – higher lipid numbers, weight gain, energy loss.
Re the cruelty to animals – so tragic. We, humans, seem to objectify every living creature. If we don’t make drastic changes, we will pay a severe price, as evidenced with Sandy’swrath destructive power!
Jim,
Other than nuclear war, this is our ultimate folly. Torturing animals and killing them so that we can eat them, suffer and kill ourselves is the worst lose, lose situation imagineable. As they get richer poorer coumtries want to eat an increasingly animal-based diet with, unsurprisingly, the same results that we have experiemced. And we think we are so smart – a misplaced confidence indeed.
Nigel