Thank you President Clinton…but there’s one more thing

Posted on 04/18/2011 by J. Morris Hicks

Dear President Clinton,

You may not realize it, but you have already had a tremendously positive impact on the emerging grassroots revolution to help humankind move back to the natural diet for our species. For that, I am joined by Dr. T. Colin Campbell of Cornell and Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn of The Cleveland Clinic in thanking you.

My name is J. Morris Hicks and here is the cover of my upcoming book -- with the foreword by Dr. T. Colin Campbell and his son Nelson.

Both of these great men are friends of mine, and Dr. Campbell and his son have written the foreword to my book (shown here) — and that’s where you come in…as you have been the single most prominent beneficiary of their work and the work of Dr. Dean Ornish.

By announcing on CNN that you had changed your diet — not to lose weight — but to enable your heart to heal itself — you have provided much-needed legitimacy and authenticity to a diet-style that most Americans still consider weird or extreme. To be sure, most Americans continue to truly believe that they “need” to eat some animal protein to be healthy. But as we now know from Campbell, Esselstyn, Ornish and others — nothing could be further from the truth.

As I am sure you know, if everyone in the U.S. started eating the way you do now, that we could shave about $2 trillion off of our annual health care bill. At the same time, we could do some wonderful things for the planet. We just need to keep spreading the truth to as many people as possible — helping them take charge of their own health — and in so doing — help to nurture our fragile environment, conserve fossil fuels, feed the world’s hungry and end the suffering of 60 billion animals a year that we raise for our dinner tables.

Here’s how you can help. I would like to invite you to consider writing a blurb for our book that will hit the stores in October (published by BenBella Books). It is entitled Healthy Eating – Healthy World and in a nutshell offers the following “big picture” examination of the following information — in a 4-hour read that can be understood by any 8th grader:

  • The relationship between the food we eat and how that directly affects our health and our nation’s cost of health care
  • How our our food choices also affect our water, forests, arable land, biodiversity, and climate change.
  • Separate chapters devoted to how our food choices affect the impending energy crisis, the age-old problem of world hunger and finally — the needless suffering of 60 billion animals — a totally unsustainable situation.

This book describes a “big picture” view of the global issues for the readers — and how their choice of food impacts those issues. With this book in enough hands, we can change the world for the benefit of all. And with your name and comments on the book, it will reach millions more people than it will reach without it.

Just give me the word and I will hand-deliver a complete manuscript of our book to your New York office within hours. In the meantime, after 72 consecutive days of blogging on this subject, here are a few of my blogs that you might find interesting:

  Where is Bill Clinton getting his protein these days?

Michelle Obama…coming up short on healthy eating

Dean Ornish, M.D., one of three who influenced Bill Clinton to trade his burgers for whole plants

Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn, Jr….a true American hero

Barbara Walters…A Missed Opportunity

Earth Day — Want to REALLY start making a difference?

J. Morris Hicks, just trying to do my part to help people everywhere take charge of their health -- and so much more.

Helping the human race return to the natural diet for our species is a really BIG and crucially important deal. As I said in the last paragraph of the book’s Introduction, “I am convinced that there has never been anything more important in the history of the world.”

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, Bill Clinton, Celebrities | Leave a comment

Earth Day — Want to REALLY start making a difference?

Posted on 04/17/2011 by J. Morris Hicks

The official logo for Earth Day 2011

This year, Earth Day falls on Friday, April 22 — but Earth Week begins now. Coincidentally, I received an e-mail just this morning from the man who has arguably done more than any other human to preserve our planet for future generations of people and all other forms of life.

His name is John Robbins and he just asked me to send him a copy of my manuscript — in response to my inviting him to consider writing a blurb for the cover of our book. John, whose father started Baskin-Robbins, had zero interest in selling ice cream and took a completely different route — among many other things, he founded EarthSave and has written many books, but is best-known for his first really big book — Diet for a New America, published in 1987.

I first read that book in 2003 and it has had a HUGE impact on my life. It opened my eyes to how the entire world is connected and that almost everything we humans do is simply not in harmony with nature. (Read more about John in a previous post.)

This image may help remind you of what is at stake the next time you sit down to dinner -- reminds me of our "apple planet" on the cover of our book.

But, of all the things that we do, the single greatest opportunity for us to begin loving our planet would be to aggressively move in the direction of a plant-based diet. Over half the world’s seven billion humans still eat plant-based — it’s the western world that has begun eating meat and dairy three meals a day and is currently raising 60 billion animals a year for that purpose.

As If first learned in Diet for a New America, our method of feeding ourselves in the western world is about the most harmful and inefficient process imaginable. Not only does it drive up to 80% of our cost of health care, it also:

  • Requires 20 times more energy per calorie than do plant-based foods.
  • Requires 20 times more land to feed the same amount of people — compared to plant-based eating.
  • Contributes mightily to all sorts of environmental issues like global warming, water pollution/waste, land degradation, and disruption of many forms of  biodiversity throughout the world. (Recent post on water)
  • Involves the suffering of 60 billion animals per year to feed us — a number projected to increase to double to 120 billion by the year 2050.
  • Is totally unsustainable — by almost any measure.

Make this years Earth Day a day to remember! Everybody claims to care about the environment -- its time to put that "care" into action.

Want to do something great for your planet, for your family that follows you, and for the continuation on life as we know it — make a pledge today to start the process by doing something wonderful for yourself.

Start by taking charge of your own health by shifting to a diet that derives the vast majority of its calories from whole plants. Then, while enjoying the plethora of benefits that vibrant health will deliver — start sharing this good news with everyone that you care about.

Ready to get started?

  1. Take a half day and read everything on this blog and watch all the videos under the Video Tab.
  2. Order a copy of Diet for A New America and The China Study from Amazon.
  3. Use our 4-Leaf Program to start taking charge of your own health.
  4. Subscribe to this blog in the top right corner. This way, you’ll get daily reminders and encouragement for those days when you might be second-guessing yourself.
  5. Tell your friends and family about what you have learned and encourage them to do the same — because we’re going to need a few more million people driving this change.

J. Morris Hicks, participating in an environmental friendly form of recreation off Newport, Rhode Island

While everyone claims to care about the environment, the vast majority of humans in the western world are simply unaware of the kind of damage that the human race is inflicting. Warning! With knowledge comes responsibility as you “become the change you want to see in this world.”

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 Environment, Sustainability | Leave a comment

NY Times…getting it right when it comes to the cost of “disease care”

Posted on 04/16/2011 by J. Morris Hicks

J. Morris Hicks -- Its real simple, eat the natural diet for our species and effortlessly promote health, hope and harmony on planet Earth.

It’s not very often that I applaud an article in any newspaper — on the topic of the cost of health care in this country and what to do about it. But on April 12, Mark Bittman of the New York Times published a terrific article on the “Fiscal toll of treating lifestyle diseases.” (See link at end of this post for his complete article.)

Here are a few quotes that I liked:

  • “Disease Care.” He actually said in the article that our “health care system is better-termed disease care.” You don’t see that very often in the Times.
  • On lifestyle diseases like cancer, heart disease and diabetes. Treating these diseases — and futile attempts to “cure” them — costs a fortune, more than one-seventh of our GDP.
  • Preventable and reversible. Type 2 diabetes is projected to cost us $500 billion a year come 2020, when half of all Americans will have diabetes or pre-diabetes. Need I remind you that Type 2 diabetes is virtually entirely preventable?”
  • The facts on heart disease. The INTERHEART study of 30,000 men and women in 52 countries showed that at least 90 percent of heart disease is lifestyle related; a European study of more than 23,000 Germans showed that people with healthier lifestyles had an 81 percent lower risk.
  • Bottom line. The best way to combat diet-related diseases is to change what we eat. 

As Mark has proven in the past, he knows that our health care problems are driven by what we eat. He also knows that we can save trillions of dollars by eating a much better diet. But, sadly, even though he doesn’t say it, I think he is one of the 95% of Americans who truly believe that we actually “need” to eat some animal protein in order to be healthy. If you’ve watched his food shows or read his cookbooks, he certainly is eating nowhere near the 4-Leaf level that more closely resembles the natural diet for our species — and there’s a whole lot of dead animals in his recipes.

Like the rest of our “system” of government, medicine, insurance, and food producers, Mark comes up short when it comes to telling the American public exactly what we should be eating for optimal health. On the other hand, he’s doing a great job in planting the seeds of change — and creating a more accepting attitude toward the type of information that you’ll find on this blog every day. For that, I applaud him — I also posted the following at the end of his article. He got hundreds, if not thousands of comments on this great article; I was #245.

Hooray for Mark Bittman. As someone who blogs every day on this topic, I can’t thank you enough. You are a huge part of the solution to our health care mess. You are reaching the mainstream masses that have never been told that we really don’t “need” to eat animals to be healthy and that we can reverse chronic disease with a superior whole foods, plant-based diet. In a recent blog, I spoke about Bill Clinton…

He knows that eating whole plants is curing his heart disease and probably helping with his E.D., but he probably doesn’t yet know that those two simple words — WHOLE PLANTS — hold the key to dramatically reducing our cost of health care, easing the energy crisis, saving the environment, feeding the world and ending the needless suffering of 60 billion animals per year. Once his lightbulb goes on, he can be a tremendous influence on all of these crucial global issues.

Not only can we save an easy trillion dollars, we can also save the planet. Thank you Mark. Sincerely, J. Morris Hicks

Click on the image to visit our 4-Leaf Page

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. 

The Fiscal Toll of Treating ‘Lifestyle Diseases’ – NYTimes.com.

Posted in Cost of Health Care, Food Policy | Leave a comment