The Food Revolution: How Your Diet Can Help Save Your Life and The World
by Larry K. Fried
(Reprinted from the Natural Choice Directory
of Puget Sound)
There are many books out on the
benefits of a plant-based diet, but it is likely that none has
impacted so many people as John Robbins' widely-read first book
Diet for a New America (Diet), this writer included. In late 1995,
I made the switch to a vegan diet five years after reading Diet,
Robbins' first book. Although I was slow to make the change to
a completely plant-based diet, the compelling and comprehensive
nature of Robbins' arguments played a very significant role in
my decision. Robbins was the first writer I came across who effectively
made the case that plant-based food choices could have far-reaching
effects not only on one's personal health, but on the health of
the planet and its creatures. It helped too that Robbins' life
story is so compelling.
As the groomed heir to the Baskin-Robbins CEO position and heir
to his father's fortune, Robbins walked away from both to pursue
his own calling. He has led a life vastly altered from his ice-cream
centered childhood and its great expectations. Add Robbins' ability
to story the true nature and beingness of animals that happen
to be raised for food (cattle, chickens, pigs), and in turn contrast
this nature with the inconceivably cruel conditions of the modern
factory farm, and I was won in spirit, if not in action, immediately.
It is as though my heart was broken and opened at once.
When Diet was released in 1987, the word "vegan" had
been heard by few ears, vegetarians were still somewhat of an
anomaly, factory farming was unknown by almost everyone, organic
foods were still considered fringe, and Mad Cow Disease had yet
to come to light. A lot has changed since then. In a sure-footed
response to those changes, Robbins' latest book, The Food Revolution
revisits the groundbreaking work of Diet for a New America, and
offers readers a timelier tome.
To a significant extent The Food Revolution is a well-researched
counter to the misinformation and attack the animal products industries
have made toward plant-based eating since Diet was released. Yet
Robbins offers so much more than that. The Food Revolution is
a fork warrior's call for a deeper understanding of the links
of what we eat to many of the most profound problems of our world-hunger,
global warming, animal and human rights, deforestation, rampant
violence, cancer and heart disease, corporate control of our food
supply, limitation of resources such as water and arable land
and pollution, to name but a few. In his introduction Robbins
says, "I have written The Food Revolution to provide solid,
reliable information for the struggle to achieve a world where
the health of people and the earth community is more important
than the profit margins of any industry, where basic human needs
take precedence over corporate greed."1
One method Robbins uses to bring conflicting views to light is
to juxtapose contradicting quotes under an "Is that So?"
heading. For example, he will have a quote from someone in the
meat or other industry followed by a quote from someone more likely
to have the public interest at heart, not profits. The difference
of view is often so stark that it leaves the industry spokesperson
looking comically absurd:
"We must be eternally vigilant to guard against those
who would undermine confidence in the health benefits of eating
meat. If meat-eaters have higher blood pressure, it's from the
stress of having to defend the perfectly reasonable desire to
chow down on a thick sirloin against the misguided and intrusive
efforts of the food police."
Sam Abramson, CEO, Springfield Meats.
"Blood pressure fell within hours of starting the (very
low-fat vegan diet) McDougall Program. Twenty percent of the people
were on blood pressure medications the day they began the program.
In almost every case the medications were stopped that day. Yet
the blood pressure dropped (significantly) by the second day.
This data is from over 1,000 participants at the McDougall Program
at St. Helena Hospital in the Napa Valley of California."
John McDougall, MD
Another format Robbins uses to provide evidence is titled: "What We Know." Under this heading, Robbins references medical or other research in distilled statements of facts that support whatever contentions he is making in the surrounding narrative.
Still it is the narrative that is the heart and bulk of this book,
and Robbins is particularly effective when he is telling a personal
story. I liked none better than his visit with a seemingly hard-hearted
pig farmer who was never the same after meeting John Robbins.
Nor was Robbins: "I consider myself privileged to have spent
that day with him (the pig farmer), and grateful that I was allowed
to be a catalyst for the unfolding of his spirit. I know my presence
served him in some way, but I also know, and know full well, that
I received far more than I gave."
The pig farmer tale reveals much about the spirituality of Robbins
and his mission. But it also lends itself to charges of sentimentality
and "New-Agey", assessments Robbins' critics have made
in the past. While I can agree Robbins is often a romantic, even
sentimental writer, frankly his work appeals to me on that level.
Maybe its because romanticism is so counter-intuitive to the harsh
realities of factory farms, degenerative disease, and environmental
degradation-realities to which Robbins devotes a lot of unromantic
ink. Maybe it is because his early life is such a storybook of
enormous privilege turned 'round to service. Yes, I think even
this romanticism is authentically Robbins. It comes out of who
he really is, and it gives me hope for the future.
The Food Revolution is divided into four parts: Food and Healing;
Animals; Our Food, Our World; Genetic Engineering.
The first three parts revisit those issues Robbins first brought
together in Diet for a New America. In persuasive detail, they
cover the three cornerstones of the case for a whole-foods, plant-based
diet: vastly improved health, compassion toward animals, and the
well-being of our planet. For those who have read Diet this will
be familiar ground. Still, even those readers are likely to find
The Food Revolution an excellent and informative refresher. Robbins
provides distilled, up-to-date information on these topics with
sections on such things as food-borne illness, preventing cancer
& heart disease, and a critique of the highly popular high-protein
diets.
The last part on Genetic Engineering is an entirely new subject
in Robbins writing. When Diet was written, the health and environmental
threats of genetically-altered crops was not yet an issue. In
fact, not a single genetically-modified seed had yet been commercially
planted. This year, 63% of the soy crop and two-thirds of the
corn crop in the U.S. will be planted with transgenic seeds. Robbins
now warns of this rapid adaptation of genetically modified organisms
(GMO's) as the opening of a "pandora's box." He joins
with millions around the world as a deep skeptic of the GMO industry,
and related US regulatory policy. Robbins' unique contribution
to this criticism is that he illuminates the extensive links between
GMO's and the animal products industry. He points out that, "ninety-five
percent of the soy meal grown in the United States, and almost
that high a percentage of corn, are used as livestock feed."
And it isn't just the animal feed.
"The animals themselves are being genetically engineered.
The goal is to produce cattle, pigs, and chickens that are 'better
suited' to the overcrowded and unsanitary conditions of factory
farming. Agribusiness dreams of pigs as large as hippopotamuses
but as docile as slugs, and featherless chickens that won't need
to be plucked and never peck."
Robbins contrasts this bed of horrors with another and much more
hopeful agricultural trend: the rapid rise of organic farming
and food production.
"By the turn of the millennium, more than 17 million acres
worldwide were planted with organic foods...the number of acres
dedicated to organic farming was ten times what it had been only
ten year previous."
So which Food Revolution is Robbins referencing in his title?
Is it the dominant corporate trends that are leading toward greater
concentration into factory farms, and toward Monsanto's dream
of 100% GMO foods; or the less pervasive, but still fast-growing
movement toward organic and plant-based food choices? Well, perhaps
Robbins means to suggest that this is a revolution that each of
us has the power of the folk to decide.
1. This and all quotes in text of article are taken from The Food
Revolution by John Robbins, copyright 2001.