This post could save your life.
Seriously, and not to mention our so-called civilization on this planet. For a long time I’ve thought that the root of all the great problems of our world boil down to selfishness. Greed is what gets most of the attention, but that’s really just a subsection of general selfishness. We can be selfish by doing things just to make our lives easier in other ways, choosing paradigms that allow us to feel guilt-free. I’m not going to sit here and tell you that I am an unselfish person, but I can sit here and tell you that I try my best to realize when I’m doing something selfish and stop it.
This post stems from some recent books that I’ve read and plan on re-reading that every single one of you should read. They were both sent to me by my Dad and if I could send each of you a copy of them I would. The first one will most directly impact your immediate life and the lives of those around you. It’s called The China Study by T.Colin Campbell. It explains in simple terms the mountains of scientific evidence that point to animal protein as the leading promoter of cancer, heart disease, diabetes, breast cancer and the majority of the most common and sinister diseases that seem to be plaguing our society. He was able to actively turn on and off cancer growth by changing the diet of mice. 23 of 24 type II diabetes patients no longer had to inject themselves with insulin after 3 weeks on a whole foods/plant-based diet. Heart disease can actually be reversed with a diet.
It seems to be a common misconception that we need as much protein as we can get and the best and pretty much only place to get that is from meat. This is completely untrue. In actuality we only need about 5% of our diet to be protein to replace the protein that our body wears out. The average American eats a diet of about 20% protein, the vast majority of which is animal protein. Unknown to many people, plants have more than enough protein to cover that 5%, depending on the plant of course. In fact, plant protein even in large percentages is harmless, but any diet with over 10% animal protein is in serious trouble.
The China Study was this giant health and diet study that was done in China(shocker), where the experiment done with the mice was basically compared to humans, and it was found to be exactly the same. The thing is that in China they don’t or didn’t until recently eat very much meat and so there were extremely low rates of cancer and heart disease. The people they did find with high rates of cancer and other diseases of affluence were the wealth Chinese.
Now this is the part where I get back to the selfishness that I was talking about earlier. If I were to go out on the street and tell your average American that he/she could avoid Cancer, Heart Disease, Diabetes, Alzheimers, Breast Cancer, Prostate Cancer, and basically all of the major killers in our country simply by eating a whole foods/plant-based diet the response I would get 90% of the time would be this. “You mean, I’d have to give up cheese, milk, and steak? I’d rather enjoy myself now and just not live as long than give all of that up.” While it’s absolutely their right to do that, they are completely ignoring every single person that cares for them. It is completely selfish to trade years of having your loved ones what you painfully and slowly dieing so that you can enjoy the flavor of some food that you like. We have to realize that just because we like something doesn’t mean it’s good for us, and we ought it to ourselves and the people that love us to make the best decision. I’m sure that heroine users really enjoy heroine, does that mean that they should do it?
So, that’s the first book that could save your life and potentially many peoples lives if you go so far as to encourage others to read it. Because I can not do it justice with a page of text, you need to see the graphs, the charts, the conclusive evidence that says, this is why you’re going to get cancer if you don’t change your lifestyle. Sure, it would be nice to not have to give up things that give us some brief fleeting happiness, but the extra pain-free years you can spend with your loved ones should more than make up for it. Not to mention the weight-loss and overall sense of well-being and health. In case it’s not clear, I’m through with meat, eggs, and dairy. I’ve toyed with the idea before, but now that I’ve had the case laid out clearly to me, that’s it. Does it mean that I’m going to be picking through ingredient labels looking for the slightest sign of them. Absolutely not, I’m simply going to avoid the food that clearly contains large amounts of them, it’s really just as simple as that. My diet has much more variety now and I don’t feel that I’ve given up much in the way of flavor. I am however looking for vegan and vegetarian recipes. So if you’re sitting on some, hit me up.
The second book may save your life as well, but on a planetary level. It’s called Plan B 2.0 by Lester R. Brown. He basically goes through all of the major problems that we face as a planet, explains their causes and likely outcomes if nothing is done. It’s very informative and puts facts and clear explanations to all things such as global warming, falling water tables, the looming oil crisis, poverty, and overpopulation. I have to say that the first half of the book is fairly depressing. The problems seem so monumental and the mind set necessary to change course is just not there in our world. We have this sense that the world is in trouble, but the individualism that capitalism promotes has us all so focused on our own lives and problems that there seems to be no way to really organize and do something cooperatively, which is really the only way it can be solved.
I’m going to get to selfishness a little bit faster on this book because it just seems to stare you down. We like to tout our individualism, especially in the west, as this badge of freedom. While the world would be a horribly boring place if everyone were the same, we should understand that the things we own are not what make us individuals, simply being and thinking in the ways that come naturally to us are all the individualism we could ever need. I feel that capitalism in general breeds this unhealthy form of individualism, and instead of sitting somewhere on the middle of having both a sense of self and a sense of community we are pushed by advertising and an enveloping mentality that we are what is important. Not the community. This is selfishness.
I think that currently the only way people will begin to act on a global scale is when the problems cause such catastrophic effects that they invade so many people’s personal life bubbles that they will all recognize that they have something in common. They are a community whether they would like to forget it or not. This is unfortunate because while we may learn a valuable lesson, it will undoubtedly be at a great expense and there will be no guarantee that the problems will be solvable by that point.
So let me get back to the book. He doesn’t call it Plan B for nothing. He shows that we have well within our means to solve virtually all of these problems. He roughly estimates that it would cost about $160 billion/year to begin to reverse the processes we have set in motion. This is a very minimal sum considering the U.S. spends $460 billion/year on the Military alone. Frankly, I think that if you ignore the Military/Industrial complex for a moment, that the most effective way to fight a ‘War on Terrorism’ is to take the fire out of their argument. How could they justify attacking a country that is actively and effectively eliminating poverty, illiteracy, and inequality? It would be the best money the Military had ever spent; the problem is the money would not be going into their own pockets.
To sum it all up then, you owe it to yourself and the people you love to read The China Study and you owe it to the World, including yourself and the people you love, to read Plan B 2.0. If you like them and feel at least a fraction as strongly as I do about them, then you’ll pass along your own review to friends and family. Start the revolution!