Big Fat Disaster for our health, ecology and our future as a species

Normally, I don’t give books like the Big Fat Surprise the dignity of providing them any mention on my website.

But yesterday, when I saw Dr. Sanjay Gupta actually recommending that everyone read this book, I decided that I should at least tell my readers what I think. First, here’s the 4-minute CNN segment (6-9-14) with Dr. Gupta interviewing the author.

To be fair, on the broadcast, Sanjay gave a little time to America’s most famous “real doctor,” (Dean Ornish) who said that books like this one are dangerous. But that won’t keep people from buying them. Whether it’s Atkins, South Beach, Dukan, Paleo or this book, people are always looking for good news about their bad habits.

Promoting health, hope & harmony on planet Earth—with the “Save the world” diet. Plant-based foods.

But NONE of those diet books ever mention anything about what our food choices are doing to the environment—and what that means for our future. As I’ve stated many times on this blog,

“even if one of those high protein diets were the healthiest possible way for humans to eat, it wouldn’t really matter—because they’re grossly unsustainable.”

It’s simple third grade arithmetic. On average, meat, dairy, egg and fish (MDEF) calories require over ten times as much land, water and energy to produce as do plant-based calories. For the past forty years, we’ve destroyed over thirty million acres of rainforest a year—mostly to provide land for growing animal-based foods. When does this madness end?

Let’s not forget the lifetime suffering of billions of animals in factory farms so that we may eat their flesh.

We’re now torturing, slaughtering and eating about 100 billion land animals a year for our dinner tables. When the rest of the world catches up with our madness, that number will be over 300 billion. If you count the fish we eat (and the fish we feed to the fish we eat), we’re destroying trillions of creatures—unnecessarily—every year. When will the madness end? 

Not anytime soon as long as our trusted celebrities like Dr. Sanjay Gupta and Dr. Mehmet Oz keep featuring the “diet gimmick of the month” on their shows and advising their viewers to purchase the product. But not everyone is buying this crap. Here’s an excerpt from one of the not-too-favorable reviews on Amazon.

Big Fat Surprise (BFS) is yet another book in a long line of books that informs the reader that everything you thought you knew about nutrition is wrong: saturated fat from animals is actually quite good for you, cholesterol isn’t really important, the government lied to you, nutritionists and dietitians lied to you, the American Heart Association lied to you, etc… Leaving aside the concept of that kind of a conspiracy actually existing is really absurd, what I’m surprised about is that publishers can keep churning out books like this and people are gullible enough to keep buying them.

J. Morris Hicks

Don’t buy this book. Normally, when I mention a book in my blog, I provide a link to Amazon where you can conveniently buy it. But, since I get a modest commission from my Amazon sales, I simply don’t want a commission on this book. That would mean that I would benefit financially for rewarding this author and Simon & Schuster for misleading the innocent public.

Want to read the truth about “the Low Carb Fraud?” Read Dr. Campbell’s new book by the same name. The Low-Carb Fraud

When will the madness end? When our civilization collapses and all of our descendants are spending their final days in absolute misery—fighting for their lives.

Why aren’t Gupta and Oz telling us this “inconvenient truth?”

Relevant to this blogpost, here are a few from the past:

• Dr. Oz—still promoting the diet gimmick of the month (posted 12-14-12) one of my most-viewed blogs of all time.
• Do you breathe air, drink water and have sex? (posted 7-1-13) Features a video debate between Dr. Colin Campbell and Dr. Eric Westman, co-author of the latest Atkins book.
• NOTHING is more important than SUSTAINABILITY!  (posted 1-25-14) By comparison, all else shrinks to insignificance.

The following five books and one DVD can be purchased on Amazon for a grand total of less than $60—and will enable you to understand the overwhelming challenges we face—along with the single most-powerful solution of all.

Six-Pack from Hicks—for health, hope & harmony on planet Earth

1. Healthy Eating, Healthy World, The “big picture” about food (our book)
2. A life changer for millions, including James Cameron. Forks Over Knives DVD 
3. An essential scientific resource: The China Study by Dr. T. Colin Campbell; the primary book that influenced Bill Clinton to adopt a whole food, plant-based diet.
4. What have we done to our planet? Full Planet, Empty Plates by Lester Brown
5. A horrifying wake-up call for leaders. TEN BILLION by Dr. Stephen Emmott
6. Food choices are the primary cause of our environmental problems, yet our world leaders, scientists & experts are Comfortably Unaware, by Richard Oppenlander.

Why should we be eating mostly plants? The “big picture” in 4 minutes.

Want to find out how healthy your family is eating? Take our free 4Leaf Survey. It takes 2 or 3 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.

To order more of my favorite books—visit our online BookStore now For help in your own quest to take charge of your health, visit our 4Leaf page and also enjoy some great recipes from 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.

—J. Morris Hicks, board member since 2012; click banner for more info: