What a world, things are feeling really bad. It almost feels like it is too late. So many humans, children dying from wars and starvations, so many species lost. The biologist predict that their will be no edible fish left in our oceans by 2040. Our planet’s fellow earthlings are dying off and the waters are polluted. It is 130 in the AM, I work over 50 hours a week and I can not sleep. It is really hard to block out the realities around this. The greed, fear and disconnect. If not for myself but for my patients I try to stay hopeful and be a source of positivity and love in this crazy world. Every day it seems a battle to figure out how to get the light bulb to go off in a patients mind or how to best help one that has been obviously severely neglected. It is a battle to say present for them and truly listen, to be a role model rather than a hypocrite. One thing that keeps me going is that through my work, others will get control of their health and lives. That they may feel what optimal health feels like for them and reverse chronic diseases through progressive lifestyle changes. Beneath all of this work is my core Hippocratic belief that food should be our best medicine. For our health and that of our shared ecosystem we need to look at, awaken to and support a transition to whole food plant-based nutrition and live in a way that minimizes unnecessary suffering and violence.
I know of no other way that does not have non-violent vegan principles at its core. I know that vegan is a bad word to some, seen as too extreme and people do not want to be told how to live but compare it to tobacco use. There is now consensus that we should be able to live our lives, eat in a restaurant, fly in a plane without being exposed to second hand smoke as we know it is bad for our health. Knowing now that animal agriculture is the number one single contributor to deforestation, global warming and pollution of our land and life giving water; is responsible for the global pockets of starvation where grain is shipped to feed cattle rather than kept locally to feed humans. We know that 27 million children dying annually due to pollution. Can we agree that anything less than a radical change toward vegan living is simply planetary suicide & moral schizophrenia? Imagine a world where eating vegetables, fruit, beans, whole grains, seeds & nuts was mainstream and obvious just like brushing your teeth everyday. Why kill another being when it is absolutely not necessary? For most, it is for mere taste & habit. Fat tastes good but in excess kills. You see are brains haven’t evolved at all anatomically in the last 100,000 years and still its main job is to make sure it’s host survives the day, the long cold winters. Starvation kills and in our primal reptilian brain we are rewarded for eating fat (sugar too), rewarded for eating the most calorically dense foods because then who knew when the next meal would come. So what are we awarded with other than taste? A spike of dopamine not unlike cocaine or heroin and we feel good. So the drive is there due to the greatness of the reward. (Yes there for sex too) Survival and getting enough calories was of primary importance then but where are we now? Well at least in the West, we are addicted to animal flesh, dairy and other calorically dense foods. We don’t have to work for it compared to an average Paleolithic era human who would walk or run 10 miles a day looking for food. No today we can drive to a drive-thru and order more calories than a Paleolithic human might get in a week or month. We do no real work for it and we are addicted to that reward. Food has become our greatest addiction and now the number one cause of disease in the US is the Standard American Diet. The SAD really now should be called the DAD, the Deadly American Diet consisting of over 90% of animal flesh, baby cow’s milk, cheese and processed foods with a long shelf life. We are killing ourselves really but kept half alive, a shell of our potential, by pharmaceuticals. Think about how much corporations make off us. It is the American way to be addicted to sugar and fat in toddlerhood. Disease starts in childhood, the beginnings of heart disease have been documented in infant autopsies. We are a source of revenue for them, through our glutinous food addictions and the resulting chronic disease and a medical system that merely manages this chronic disease. Through our patronage to the mindless, static activity provided to us to either keep us asleep with distraction or incite fear and scarcity dogma through the corporate sponsored sham media & entertainment industry.
If we live simply and value connection, presence, joy and humility. In sacred union as citizens and fellow earthlings tending and in most cases just getting out of the damn way of other species. Live and let live but protect the vulnerable, the voiceless and the least among us. Live strong and reach our optimal potential on whole plant foods. Let’s save this planet. To do this we must awaken to our oneness. Color or creed we are all brothers and sisters. Our corporate ran government and military create the enemies of this country by their violent and deadly acts of force under the guise of some freedom or false flag operation. It is corporate greed and the insatiable military industrial complex that must be harnessed. There needs to be a rule of law protecting the earth and the vulnerable. An ideal greater than the greed for money and lust for power. There is more than enough land and water to feed everyone on this planet if we get back to a biologically appropriate whole food plant-based diet. For our health there is no better diet. For the planet and of course for the animals the same is true. Go vegan and live a life avoiding unnecessary suffering & violence. Practice kindness. If your religious, let your religion at least be built on and around kindness & love. Thou shall not kill and even worse pay another to do it for us. “If the slaughterhouse was made of glass walls we would all be vegan”. Do you know where many of those immigrants, that many want to throw out of the country, do for those that eat the meat of animals? They slaughter them for you. For your tastebuds and addiction so you can stay disconnected or oblivious. However they become depressed and have very high suicide rates. Most can only take the horror for so long and quit. The average lifespan for a latin male immigrant worker in this county is 56 years old. Killing is not easy for most. I would never want my repetitive desires, the food I eat, the clothes I buy, to lead to both human and animal suffering
Let’s end animal agriculture and feed the world. Let nature and genuine human being, just us being present and living reign. Let’s pray for a return to innate sacred economics and that the capitalistic model of growth for the sake of growth, the ideology of a cancer cell, takes its last breadth. When we stop using their oil and paying their interest rates and support clean energy but live in a way that uses least and truly prevent disease and optimize health through whole nutrient dense plant foods. Subsisting on plants we are energetically kinder and open to understand our true self and our connection. We are called to learn to live in balance with the natural world. To be, to feel joy. To be Kind.
Peace & Kindness. May we heal ourselves and our shared home.
