Pasture-raised beef & pork still cause heart disease…

Posted on 08/20/2012 by J. Morris Hicks

…among a plethora of other health and environmental disasters.

A good friend just sent me a note (forwarded from one of my blog readers) asking that I take a look at the “Teaching the Food System” project at the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University. The reader stated,

I thought Jim might be interested in exploring this; It would be nice if this could be expanded to other schools.

My response. I just took ten minutes and perused the info on the Johns Hopkins food system project. On the surface, they appear to be advocating better treatment of animals — but make no mistake, they’re still talking about eating animals—indefinitely.

It’s safe to say that ANY large, accredited, university within the greater food “system” is going to be teaching the same thing. Some may offer a kinder and gentler version of animal abuse and our “need” for animal protein—but it’s the same old USDA pyramid. How could it be anything else?

A pig is a pig is a pig. As far as your health is concerned, it makes no difference if he’s had a nice life or not.

The good folks at Johns Hopkins probably mean well, but like all of the nutritional scientists in the USA (except for one), they have chosen to support the food industry (including the meat & dairy portion) for which they work.

From the Johns Hopkins website. The glossy video provided below doesn’t fool me one bit; it just tells me that our “food system” is just getting real good at placating the animal rights folks and the environmentalists.

Ten billion animals still have to die every year in this country and we’ll all still be eating the animal-based foods (flesh, eggs and dairy) that promote cancer, diabetes & heart-disease. We’ll also still be using ten times too much land, water and energy in the process—which is grossly unsustainable for very much longer. In my view, they’re just adding to the confusion at Johns Hopkins—because they’re ignoring the wisdom of The China Study and not telling us what I learned during my “blinding flash of the obvious” moment in 2003:

“We’re eating the wrong food!!!!!!” You won’t need to watch the whole video to get the picture. From the Johns Hopkins website preceding the video:

The short film Out to Pasture: The Future of Farming? (34 minutes) contrasts raising food animals on pasture with the prevailing industrial approach. Several pasture-based farmers are profiled; they discuss how they got started in farming (three transitioned from confinement operations), what’s important about their farming methods, how their conventional-farm neighbors view them, how to keep young people on the farm, the future of the food system and other topics. The film also features Robert Lawrence, director of the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future, and John Ikerd, a leading thinker on sustainable agriculture.

The Bottom Line. Slick video. Same confusing message. Lingering question, “Should we be eating animals or not?” This is probably not the kind of feedback my  reader was looking for when she forwarded me this information about Johns Hopkins.

Regardless of the glitter of the brand, their schools of nutrition are still teaching the same old disease-promoting USDA garbage.

Herein lies our biggest problem. It’s all so confusing and people are conditioned to think they must be right if it’s got a Cornell, Harvard, Yale or Johns Hopkins brand. One final comment, this is a classic example of doing a better job on the “wrong things.”

Eventually, the Harvard, Yales and Johns Hopkins of the world are going to have to start teaching us about the “right things.” See third link below.

Just remember, you can still get cancer, type 2 diabetes and heart disease from eating animal foods that come from the pasture instead of the CAFO, industrial feedlot. Why is Johns Hopkins not telling us that? The good news is that you don’t have to wait for them.

At the rate they’re going, they may not provide any true clarity on this subject for another hundred years. But you can take charge of your health today. Oh, for the complete truth about nutrition, I recommend The China Study over Johns Hopkins 1000 to 1.

Handy 4-piece take-charge-of-your-health kit—from Amazon.com

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

International. We’re now reaching people in over 100 countries. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter or get daily blog notices by “following” us in the top of the right-hand column. For occasional updates, join our periodic mailing list.

To order more of my favorite books—visit our online BookStore now

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.

SHARE and rate this post below.

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

Posted in Activism & Leadership, Suffering of Animals | 3 Comments

Big Tobacco & Big Food — the analogy continues.

Posted on 08/20/2012 by J. Morris Hicks

With the same lawyers who brought “Big Tobacco” to its knees

I grew up in Greenville, on the big river, about 150 miles south of Memphis.

When I was a young boy growing up in Mississippi, smoking tobacco was ubiquitous. Almost everyone smoked cigarettes: farmers, executives, mechanics, ministers and doctors. Smoking was cool and every movie star of the day could be seen lighting up on a regular basis. But that was all before people realized that smoking could kill you.

As news spread about tobacco’s  scientific link to cancer and other deadly diseases, the legal profession began a forty year campaign to get rich by putting the tobacco industry out of business. From a recent article in the New York Times (see link below):

Don Barrett, a Mississippi lawyer, took in hundreds of millions of dollars a decade ago after suing Big Tobacco and winning record settlements from R. J. Reynolds, Philip Morris and other cigarette makers. So did Walter Umphrey, Dewitt M. Lovelace and Stuart and Carol Nelkin.

Ever since, the lawyers have been searching for big paydays in business, scoring more modest wins against car companies, drug makers, brokerage firms and insurers. Now, they have found the next target: food manufacturers.

Someday, we may see similar “messages” about our meat & dairy western diet.

So, it turns out, most of the lawyers didn’t really care about our health, they were just looking for a big payday. They found one with cigarette smoking and were instrumental of driving positive change.

And although the tobacco companies are still in business, they are a mere shadow of their former self—and smoking is no longer considered cool by most people.

Fast forward fifty years. Now we have an eerily similar situation with big food—but this times it’s a lot more serious. Not only is it a much bigger mountain to climb, the consequences of our not making sweeping changes in our human food model—could be devastating for the entire human race.

First, why is it a bigger mountain to climb?

  1. The food industry controls our schools of nutrition. As such, there are only a handful of nutritional scientists who clearly see the link between our western diet and many chronic diseases.
  2. Most people, including the brightest and best-educated people across all walks of life genuinely believe that we “need” to eat at least some animal protein to be healthy. No one ever truly believed that they actually “needed” to smoke.
  3. Eating is essential to life whereas smoking is more of a recreational habit, more similar to drinking alcohol than eating food.
  4. Our entire “system” of politics, medicine, government, media, pharmaceutical industry will resist any drastic changes—and they will do their best to maintain the status quo.

Conagra Foods World Headquarters.

Secondly, why are the consequences of not changing our diet so much greater? As I wrote in another blog a few days ago, there’s just so much more at stake.

For starters, by consuming the western diet, we’re not only promoting chronic disease for ourselves and our families, but we’re also contributing heavily to global warming, world hunger, water shortages and a host of other environmental horrors that will affect every living creature on this planet.

Further, by teaching this harmful, wasteful and unsustainable diet-style to the next generation, we’re contributing heavily to the long-term unsustainability of the human race. 

Meanwhile, at least the legal battle has begun—and in addition to forcing some good changes within the food industry, it will also raise the awareness of the larger issues mentioned here. Here’s a status report from the article:

More than a dozen lawyers who took on the tobacco companies have filed 25 cases against industry players like ConAgra Foods, PepsiCo, Heinz, General Mills and Chobani that stock pantry shelves and refrigerators across America.

The suits, filed over the last four months, assert that food makers are misleading consumers and violating federal regulations by wrongly labeling products and ingredients. While there has been a barrage of litigation against the industry in recent years, the tobacco lawyers are moving particularly aggressively. They are asking a federal court in California to halt ConAgra’s sales of Pam cooking spray, Swiss Miss cocoa products and some Hunt’s canned tomatoes.

PAM, which is 100% oil, and therefore 100% fat, claims that each serving contains zero fat and zero calories.

The legal games have begun but the real battle is unfortunately many decades down the road. Right now, they’re focusing on minor things like Pam cooking spray. Just wait until they realize that the casein in cow’s milk is the most powerful carcinogen ever discovered.

The good news is that you don’t have to wait for the lawyers, the media, the scientists or anyone else. You can take charge of your own health today.

Handy 4-piece take-charge-of-your-health kit—from Amazon.com

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

International. We’re now reaching people in over 100 countries. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter or get daily blog notices by “following” us in the top of the right-hand column. For occasional updates, join our periodic mailing list.

To order more of my favorite books—visit our online BookStore now

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.

SHARE and rate this post below.

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

Posted in Food Policy | 8 Comments

Diet, Accidents, Suicide and Murder (Leading causes of death)

Posted on 08/19/2012 by J. Morris Hicks

And our toxic diet wins this morbid sweepstakes by a landslide.

Murder weapon of choice in the USA

A recent Mark Bittman piece (See link below) advocating gun control inspired this blogpost. He makes the point that while we’re all focused on terrorism, a far greater danger is almost being ignored here on our home soil:

Since 9/11, 33 Americans have been killed by “terrorists”; roughly 150,000 Americans have been killed by non-terrorists: that is, your run-of-the-mill murderers. Murder, like the leading cause of death — heart disease — is often preventable, through regulations, education and medical intervention.

Later in his piece, Mark points out how many lives can be saved by stricter gun control. He cites Britain as an example, pointing out that our USA homicide rate is roughly 100 times greater than in Britain where they have serious gun controls ( civilians can’t even possess pistols or revolvers). From the article:

In the United States, there are nearly three (2.98) gun murders per 100,000 people. In Britain, by contrast, where there were 18 gun homicides in 2009 (a rate of nearly zero — actually 0.03 — per 100,000 people)

Along with a tremendous amount of highly processed carbs, this is where most westerners get their calories.

The big picture about causes of death. Reading Mark’s piece got me to thinking about how murders stack up against other causes of death. So I pulled some data from the CDC and came up with the following top four causes of death in the United States for 2010. In round numbers:

  1. 1,300,000  Diet Driven
  2.     118,000  Accidents
  3.       37,000   Suicide
  4.         9,000   Firearms

As expected, by far, the leading cause of death in the United States is our toxic diet. The 1.3 million number was derived by adding up all of the deaths from diet-preventable or reversible diseases and multiplying by 80%. In other words, with an optimal diet, Dr. T. Colin Campbell and many of his colleagues estimate that 80% of all chronic disease could be prevented.

Note that Dr. Sanjay Gupta estimates that medical mistakes could account for up to 200,000 deaths/year. That would put them in 2nd place on my above list.

The Bottom Line. We are ignoring our single biggest cause of death in this country. Consider this:

For every person murdered in the United States, there are 144 people who die from chronic disease that could’ve been prevented or reversed with a whole foods, plant-based diet.

  1. Heart disease: 599,413
  2. Cancer: 567,628
  3. Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 137,353
  4. Stroke (cerebrovascular diseases): 128,842
  5. Accidents (unintentional injuries): 118,021
  6. Alzheimer’s disease: 79,003
  7. Diabetes: 68,705
  8. Influenza and Pneumonia: 53,692
  9. Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome, and nephrosis: 48,935
  10. Intentional self-harm (suicide): 36,909

So I urge you to vote for gun control, be careful & avoid accidents, promote happiness to minimize suicides and take charge of your health today.

Handy 4-piece take-charge-of-your-health kit—from Amazon.com

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

International. We’re now reaching people in over 100 countries. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter or get daily blog notices by “following” us in the top of the right-hand column. For occasional updates, join our periodic mailing list.

To order more of my favorite books—visit our online BookStore now

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.

SHARE and rate this post below.

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

Posted in Big Picture | Tagged | 3 Comments