A “crescendo of intensity, like a relentless drum beat”

Posted on 08/11/2011 by J. Morris Hicks

Much to my delight, a reader (and new friend) on the Isle of Wight recently used the above phrase to describe what my blog has become. While a “relentless drum beat” could drive some people crazy, maybe it will positively resonate with enough people so that together we can take down the single biggest barrier to the mainstream acceptance of the blinding flash of the obvious solution to our health crisis in the Western world.

In my opinion, that “barrier,” is the simple fact that over 90% of the people in the Western world still truly believe that we humans “need” to eat animal protein to be healthy.

Once that misconception is changed in the minds of our top elected officials, scientists, business executives, environmentalists, medical doctors, journalists, and educators — things will begin to change in a hurry. When the brightest and best-educated people in the world suddenly realize that we can promote our own health, save up to 80% of our health care dollars, reduce fossil fuel consumption by 30%, stop the erosion of our land, restore our forests, save our water, feed twenty times more people on the same amount of land and so much more — they will lead the world back to eating the kind of food that we were supposed to be eating in the first place.

Relentless drum beat...

Quite simply, as the drum beats, we’re eating the wrong food, the wrong food, the wrong food. Incredibly, as the self-described smartest animals that have ever lived, we humans of the Western world are the only species in history who haven’t yet figured out what we should be eating. I was first exposed to this incredible fact back in 2002 and 2003 — at the ripe old age of 57. To be honest, up until then, it had never even crossed my mind. Then, after a few more years of study, I wanted to summarize what I had learned for my loved ones — so I wrote an article in 2007 with this introduction:

In 2002, when I began learning all about the powerful impact that what we eat has not only on our health — but also on the environment, world hunger, the energy crisis and so much more; I began to wonder how we got into this mess in the first place. Realizing that I had stumbled onto a very BIG and POWERFUL topic, I wanted to make sure that I wrote it all down and tried to simplify what I had learned for all of my loved ones.

The title of that article is Give me thirty minutes and I’ll give you thirty years; which is a clue to about how long it might take you to read it carefully. At your leisure, you can read that complete thirty-point article on my Big Picture page.

J. Morris Hicks, working daily to promote health, hope and harmony on planet Earth.

One more thing; I have failed to mention the chefs of the world who will play a crucial role in helping us eat more of the right foods. For they are the ones who will make our journey one of celebration, not deprivation. Quite simply, they will make sure that we truly enjoy our new (and natural) way of eating. Bon Appetit!

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. 

Posted in Big Picture | 1 Comment

FOOD — World’s brightest are missing the main point.

Posted on 08/10/2011 by J. Morris Hicks

When it comes to our food, most of the world’s brightest still believe we “need” to eat animal protein. We don’t. In fact, it’s killing us and it’s taking a huge toll on our planet at the same time. 

Julian Cribb, author, journalist and agricultural consultant

And the sooner our global leaders, scientists, doctors and journalists realize that simple fact; the sooner we can get some real traction on fixing the mess that we have created since 1492. At the request of my friend on the Isle of Wight, I watched an interesting video (23 minutes) of Julian Cribb yesterday. An Australian agricultural journalist, he is the author of The Coming Famine, the Global Food Crisis and What We Can Do to Avoid It. Although we had researched his book extensively last year while writing ours, I had not yet seen him on video.

For your convenience, I have provided that video for you below, but first I want to tell you about Mr. Cribb and what he had to say in the video. More importantly, I want to tell you about what he did NOT say in that video. Mark Bittman of the New York Times reported on Mr. Cribb’s book in August of 2010 (Link to article below my signature):

Like many other experts, he argues that we have passed the peak of oil production, and it’s all downhill from now on. He then presents evidence that we have passed the peaks for water, fertilizer and land, and that we will all soon be made painfully aware that we have passed it for food, as wealthy nations experience shortages and rising prices, and poorer ones starve.

Indeed, Mr. Cribb does paint a pretty bleak picture of what is happening to our world’s food supply, but like most of our world leaders, scientists and journalists; he comes up way short in telling us the blinding flash of the obvious solution to the global food crisis that we face. He misses the vital few — or should I say the vital “one,” — of simply returning to the natural diet for our species.

Mr. Cribb's book, one that we researched extensively for our book

After reading his book last year, I suspected that he had not yet learned the simple truth about nutrition. I was right. Midway through the video he talks about the need to come up with another 100 million tons of “protein” (per year) from either the ocean or the land. And, in his case, when he says “protein,” he is talking about some form of flesh — either livestock or fish.

While he covers peak oil, water shortage, environmental damage, feeding the world’s hungry and other crucial topics that we address in our book; he says very little about the importance of eating more plant foods. He does mention the fact that humans only consume a small fraction of the number of edible plants, reporting that there are 6,000 species of edible plants in Australia alone, yet they’re only eating five of them.

While Mr. Cribb appears to be an authority on many subjects, he is not an authority on plant-based nutrition. With the most powerful solution not even appearing on his radar, he talks extensively about the need for new scientific breakthroughs for producing food, new sources of energy, better technology, changing the economics of agriculture, new bio cultures & algae farming, and better education about food in our school system. Once again, one of the world’s brightest is missing the main point.

To summarize, I would say that this video (and his book) are very good sources of information on this crucial topic — except when it comes to the obvious solution.

Julian Cribb – What are the future challenges to our food system?

J. Morris Hicks, working daily to promote health, hope and harmony on planet Earth.

So what’s it going to take for the “world’s brightest” to become aware of the most important thing that we have learned since 1492? It’s going to take a grassroots revolution led by people like you and me — along with an occasional shot in the arm from the likes of Bill Clinton, Oprah and others. It’s going to take more of us giving The China Study to our friends.

Yesterday, I visited a yacht club friend in the hospital and carried along a copy. As I left his room, I told him that if he didn’t like the book to please give it back to me. On the other hand, if he did like it, I urged him to pass it along to someone he loves. If he heeds the message in that great book, landing in the hospital this week could turn out to be the luckiest event of his life.

Click here for a much earlier post on this same topic: Widespread ignorance…when it comes to our natural diet

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. 

Posted in Energy, World Hunger | 1 Comment

Repairing the damage we’ve caused since 1492

Posted on 08/09/2011 by J. Morris Hicks

NOW is the time to start repairing the damage that we have caused.

Yesterday morning, while listening to an NPR interview with best-selling author, Charles Mann, I was reminded of the environmental horrors that humankind has inflicted on planet Earth. In his new book, 1493, Uncovering the New World that Columbus Created, Mann chronicles a period in our history that took place four or five hundred years ago…about the time that the human lifestyle was about to begin taking its toll on the environment.

Now is the time to start repairing the damage. Back in 1492, man wasn’t aware of the problems that he was about to cause. He had no idea that the horses, cows and grazing animals that the Europeans brought to the new world would lead to desertification of vast swatches of land in the Americas. He also didn’t know about the spread of infectious diseases, the impact of bees, earthworms and insects that he unknowingly brought along for the ride. He was just doing what humans always do; searching for a better life — with no idea whatsoever what that “better life” might do to the planet. From a recent article on Mann’s book in the Amherst Bulletin (See link below)…

A consistent theme throughout Mann’s work is the idea that the trade of animals and plants between the Eastern and Western hemispheres led to a series of dramatic biological changes that forged a new world, both ecologically and economically.

Listening to the NPR interview with Mr. Mann reminded me of the Pulitzer Prize winning book by Jared Diamond, Guns, Germs and Steel. The Fates of Human Societies, published by W.W. Norton in 1997. In both books, the story is all about the spread of human civilization and how it was shaped by instruments of power; such things as animals, weapons, viruses, and insects.

While man’s relentless march around the world, beginning in 1492, opened up much opportunity for a better way of life for us as a species, I don’t know of a single positive thing that has resulted from that march as far as the environment is concerned. As both books point out, many of our problems began with the domestication of animals; the creatures that have fed us and helped us win wars, but have also made us sick, degraded our land and driven the extinction of hundreds of thousands of species. Now is the time to start repairing the damage.

Back in 1492, man had no idea what kind of damage he might be causing or how it might affect the future of life itself on this planet half a millenia later. The total human population back then was less than a half billion — compared to the seven billion that we have today. We also now have sixty billion farm animals per year that are raised to feed the wealthiest third of our seven billion people. And we continue to burn a finite resource — oil (that Columbus never heard of) at the rate of 90 million barrels a day. The question is, “How has our planet dealt with all of this progress?” The short answer — not so well.

HOME, the movie, click on the image above for an opportunity to view this powerful film at no cost.

As Glenn Close told us in the 2009 movie HOME, “In just the past fifty years, less than one lifetime, the human race has inflicted more damage on the fragile harmony of nature than all other generations of humans combined for the past 200,000 years.” We can forgive Columbus and the other explorers as in “Forgive them father for they no not what they do.” But, now that we know about the damage we’re causing, we must urgently begin to reverse this deadly environmental trend — before it’s too late.

As for the damage that we are inflicting, we know that a substantial amount of it is being driven by our Western diet. Yet millions of people around the world are adopting that same harmful, wasteful and unsustainable Western diet-style every year. And I have not heard a single world leader even mention the prospect of changing that diet. Michelle Obama talks about it, but her actions speak louder than her words.

While it won’t solve all of our problems, a planned, deliberate move toward a plant-based diet is the single most powerful move that we humans can make in order to start repairing the damage that we have done. As our global population continues to grow at the rate of a new Grand Rapids, MI every day (197,000) and we lose arable land at the rate of one South Carolina every year, the world is approaching some desperate years ahead.

J. Morris Hicks, working daily to promote health, hope and harmony on planet Earth.

The time to act is now. By simply moving to a much healthier plant-based diet, on a per calorie basis, we can produce twenty times more food with the same amount of land, water and energy that we are using to produce the Western diet of meat and dairy three meals a day. Consider the staggering positive impact that would result from such a change.

Our leaders must read The China Study, talk to Bill Clinton, refer to the wisdom of Einstein and Hippocrates and ultimately realize that we don’t “need” animal protein to be healthy.  In fact, it’s killing us — and it’s doing a number on our planet at the same time. As Dr. Campbell says, “It turns out that if we eat the way that promotes the best health for ourselves, we also promote the best health for the planet.”

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. 

Food for thought books: Charles Mann’s new book: 1493.

Posted in Big Picture, Environment, Sustainability | 1 Comment