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Wednesday, January 1, 2020

Time to Save the Planet - WFPB Diet

Time to Save the Planet
I have been on this Whole Foods Plant Based (WFPB) diet now since 9/2018. I started on it primarily to cure my heart disease. If you want to know a lot more about that, here is the blog entry: https://carlscheider.blogspot.com/2018/10/serious-cardiac-disease-and-hopeful.html 

January 1, 2020
I am writing this on the first day of 2020 because yesterday, the last day of 2019, I learned something that changed my mind - which is a rare event if you talk to people who know me well. What I learned is that this WFPB diet is our best hope for saving the planet from climate disaster. I used to think that the PETA and VEGAN people were extremists, and they should cut back the rhetoric, and just encourage people to adopt this diet more from health and well-being issues. I watched “Forks Over Knives”, and I ignored the second half of the film.

But I was wrong
I realize that no one is going to change their view just because I changed mine, so here are the facts that moved me.
  • 51% of greenhouse gases come from the production and consumption of livestock - cows, pigs, poultry. That is a conservative number - the reality could be much higher.
  • 80% of our agricultural land is used to feed or produce livestock.
  • In 2013 CO2 in the atmosphere exceeded 400 ppm, considered the tipping point. With current rates, it could get to 1500 ppm within this new century.
Instead of giving citations for each of these facts, I offer instead a fine talk by Dr. John McDougall, who is well known for promoting “the starch diet” - a plant based, carbohydrate diet. In 2009, he decided to dedicate himself to saving the planet - as he said - for his grandchildren. He cites the above facts in a very persuasive way. You can watch his most recent talk here: https://youtu.be/TJbYvcv860A 

For text read this: https://www.drmcdougall.com/misc/2006nl/dec/itruth.htm
For more see this page:
https://www.drmcdougall.com/2019/09/23/essential-for-solving-the-current-climate-emergency/
For a Dr. Greger, Nutrition Facts take on these facts, with charts, etc., watch this one - transcript also pretty good: https://nutritionfacts.org/video/flashback-friday-diet-climate-change-cooking-up-a-storm/

Agriculture as Big Business
To understand the business side of this, and the legal support, subsidies and lobbying efforts, watch this short video: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/01/opinion/climate-sustainability-agriculture-lobby.html

For Our Grandchildren
As he says this is for our grandchildren. If you have grandchildren you will understand. They are our priceless treasure and hope for the future. But their future will be bleak with 18 feet of sea rise, and 3 or more degrees of temperature to destroy our weather and agriculture. The planet will survive, and life will continue, but without homo sapiens in any recognizable form. Nature will adapt, even if we cannot.

I had been putting faith in our technology and ability to block the sun, and reduce or  remove greenhouse gases - but that is a very long process, demanding even more political will than we currently have to even counter racial prejudice and hate. It ain't going to happen.

The good thing about the diet is that YOU can do something major all on your own. YOU can seriously reduce your carbon footprint on the future with one simple step - stop eating animals. Please. So  . . . look at the problem. Understand that you are part of the problem- and decide to be part of the solution. If we don’t solve this problem, NOTHING else is going to matter.

Other References
For a moving book on this topic, probably the most important book you and I will ever read, see: We are the Weather, by Jonathan Safran Foer. Foer is an excellent writer - a novelist. He puts ideas into stories and history that makes you want to read them. And he is persuaded that this diet is the most important thing you and I can do that will ultimately save the planet. Scary book. You likely will not read it, and even if you do read it, you likely will not change your diet. I know - I have given books on the diet to more than one medical professional, and only one has even read it. They are emotionally unable to even consider the possibility.
           Are you?  And that is precisely the point of the book. 
Foer does a fine job explaining the research, but if you need more, here is a technical analysis of the possible alternative scenarios. Bottom Line - not a great prognosis of our future. The authors are not aware of the animal impact;
https://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/renewables/what-it-would-really-take-to-reverse-climate-change

AND - another piece worth reading -
https://www.ecowatch.com/researchers-say-only-way-to-guarantee-enough-food-in-2050-is-if-the-wo-1891121933.html
AND - one more - thanks Jane: https://foodrevolution.org/blog/climate-change-food-sustainability/

Another reason to stop raising animals is that almost ALL of our diseases are coming from domesticated animals - which is made even worse when the animals themselves are treated so poorly. See this piece - a video by Dr. Greger:
https://nutritionfacts.org/video/pandemics-history-prevention/
For an even scary future projection, here is Dr Greger again - what if a very high mortality virus became as infectious as Covid 19? You may not want to watch this before bed.
STOP buying chicken! 

How To Start
If you want a quick start to the diet - read my “how to” blog entry here. https://carlscheider.blogspot.com/2019/01/plant-based-diet-how-to-get-started.html

Don't Cheat!
I also think that Foer is wrong - if you cheat even a little bit on this diet, you give up. I know a few friends who are "kind of" doing the diet, as Foer recommends. It simply doesn't seem to stick. You have to think of this like an addiction - cold turkey - no cheating - QUIT.

I wish you well, as always. We really are all in this together, and I am counting on you. Think of your grandkids.

Another Perspective - Religion and Respect for LIFE
If nothing else works, think about the animals. These marvelous, wonderful beings, who clearly feel the same emotions that we experience. And we kill them and eat them. Really?! Watch this little preview. The full movie is on Amazon Prime - A Prayer for Compassion.

Check out this graphic from the movie - how we have changed the balance of the planet in the last few thousand years:

Those animals that we raise for our consumption consume twice as much food as we do. 80% of our agriculture feeds them - so they can be our food. The planet cannot sustain that without profound damage. If you don't think those animals have a soul - you have never loved a dog. There is a reason our culture does not consume canines. We need to spread that value to all living things. Except . . .  maybe . . .  those pesky mosquitoes.

2020.06 Update Phoney Meat etc.
The people who created JustEgg - a plant based egg substitute, published a report where they say they have sold the equivalent of 40 million eggs, and saved 1.48 billion gallons of water, just under six million kgs of CO2 emissions, and 2,435 acres of land.
https://www.plantbasednews.org/lifestyle/just-sells-vegan-equivalent-of-40-million-eggs
JustEgg has a bit of oil in it, so you won't cure your heart disease eating it - BUT you will avoid the cancer causing components of eggs, and you will help save the planet.

JUST also announced that they are working on REAL phoney meat. Real meat cells, grown in a lab or factory, and not in animals on the ground. This may also help the planet, but it will not help you avoid diseases and other health problems, because it is STILL MEAT!

Beyond Meat and Impossible Burger have their primary focus on saving the planet  - which I heartily applaud. They are convinced that people are NEVER going to go vegan - so they have to eliminate animals as food by creating substitutes that taste even better than animals, and are cheaper. I think they may be right, but their products have way too much oil for cardiac repair.
https://www.dw.com/en/vegan-meat-the-future-of-planet-saving-plant-based-eating/a-51054861

So  . . . now you can choose. Save the planet and yourself - or just the planet. I'll accept either. And thanks for that.