Human
Health and Planet Health—Same Solution
An amazingly simple
win-win opportunity stares us in the face: a
global switch to a plant-food-based diet will
solve the diseases of overnutrition and put a
big dent in global warming with one U-turn—since
the up-to-now insatiable appetite for
foodstuffs made from livestock (cows, sheep,
pigs, and chickens) are at the root of both
disasters.
The
human health crisis is pandemic with more than
1.1 billion people overweight and 312 million
obese, 197 million have diabetes, and 1 billion
have hypertension.1 One final and
fatal result of these three chronic conditions is
18 million people die of heart disease
annually.*1 You would think by now
world leaders would have launched serious
measures to reverse all this human suffering by
attacking the primary cause—eating meat and
dairy products.
Mounting levels of
sickness march side by side with escalating
environmental catastrophes: Extremes of weather
are intensifying with droughts and
severe flooding, many
species of plants and animals are threatened
with extinction, diseases are spreading, and
crops are failing. Fatalists predict that our
only salvation will be a radical reduction in
the earth’s present population of over 6.5
billion people by nuclear war or a viral
pandemic. Let’s hope our species is
sufficiently advanced to reach less severe
answers—like, for one, eating far less meat and dairy.
*All of this sickness
fails to reduce population growth because these
diseases kill only after the reproductive
years—not only are children born, but deadly
eating habits are passed on to the next
generation.
Our Unique Perspective
The
solutions will come from governments,
businesses, local groups, and yes, individuals
changing behaviors—people wanting to do the
right thing. Worldwide,
multidisciplinary
efforts are being made to reduce the use of
fossil fuels (coal, oil, and natural gas), out
of control forest fires, and industrial wastes.
The war on chronic diseases is being fought with
strategies to reduce smoking, alcohol, illicit
drugs, environmental chemicals, and infectious
diseases (such as HIV). But almost nothing is
being done to fix the food. That battlefront has
been left to us who have already made the
change—and know the enjoyment, practicality, and
benefits of eating a low-fat, plant-food-based
diet.
Have
you ever talked to a cigarette smoker about
their addiction? My 83-year old mother has
smoked a pack a day throughout her adult life.
She does not believe that the health messages on
smoking apply to her. When smoking was banned
from restaurants she considered the action a
personal attack on her liberties. Hotels that
ban smoking are off limits for her. In other
words, her habit blinds her from truth and
responsibility. Fortunately, in our society 79%
of people are non-smokers, who understand the
importance of curbing this form of pollution.
(By the way, in spite of some emphysema, my
mother at 83 can run circles around people in
their 20s, in part because she has eaten the
McDougall diet for nearly 3 decades.)
The matters of eating
meat and dairy products are complicated by the
fact that only 3% of the population considers
themselves vegetarians and most of these people
still consume milk, cheese, and eggs.2
This leaves you and me, about 1% of the
population, who can clearly see the problems
created by livestock for the environment—and the
obvious solution. As the character played by
Nicolas Cage in the film National Treasure
said, “…if there is something wrong,
those who have the ability to take action, have
the responsibility to take action.”
Go to this website for a humorous perspective on
our planetary responsibilities.
The Real Solution Is
Ignored
The 2006 United
Nations report,
Livestock’s
Long Shadow –Environmental Issues and Options,
concludes “Livestock have a substantial impact
on the world’s water, land and biodiversity
resources and contribute significantly to
climate change.” Yet a search of this 407
page document reveals only 4 sentences with the
word “vegetarian,” and each sentence contains no
meaningful discussion of this obvious answer.
Search for the word “vegan” (a diet without
animal foods) and you will find no responses.
Henning Steinfeld,
Chief of Food and Agriculture Organization’s
Livestock Information and Policy Branch, and
senior author of the UN livestock report said: “Livestock
are one of the most significant contributors to
today’s most serious environmental problems.
Urgent action is required to remedy the
situation…Encouraging the global population to
become vegans is not a viable solution, however.” Why
not?
The solutions
offered by this report are only half measures,
such as improvements in grazing, manure, and
water management; and a diet for cows, pigs, and
sheep that reduces the toxicity of their burps,
farts, and feces. Although this report’s plans
may seem politically correct—offending few
people—the recommendations will have little
impact on the environment. What are these
people thinking?
Greed and
Gluttony Are Still Winning
There is
three-way, schizophrenic-thinking in the United
Nations—one branch is promoting pollution and
disease, while two others are fighting against
both:
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The
International Finance Corporation, the
private equity arm of the World Bank
(which is a specialized United Nations
agency), is presently in the
process of approval of a $90 million
loan to the Brazilian beef exporter
Bertin to double production at its
Amazon forest facilities. |
ü |
The World
Bank also supported the founding works
that led to the 2006 UN Report,
Livestock’s Long Shadow. |
ü |
The World
Health Organization, a major branch of
the United Nations, is also well aware
of the burden of human disease caused by
livestock, and has concluded that in
2002, the leading chronic diseases
caused 29 million deaths worldwide.3 |
Witness
how incorrect information about “meat being
necessary for protein” and “milk for calcium”
persists even when solid scientific research
clearly and consistently states the opposite.
How often have you heard “I could never become a
vegetarian; they look weak, pale, and
sickly?”—and we all know better.
Ignorance and greed have created an
unprecedented health crisis and catastrophic
damage to our environment—and change will not
come easily because
people don’t like being told that their eating
habits are destructive. In the background,
trillions of dollars are invested in “staying
the profitable course.”
Yes, There will Be
Sacrifice
Have you heard
this boast, “I would rather die than give up my
meat”? The present-day question is, how many
people are there who are so self-centered that
they will claim, “I would rather destroy Planet
Earth, and the futures of all of the children
who would have ever been born, than give up my
beef”? I believe, faced with ominous
catastrophe, and fully informed, most of us will
decide that one more grilled cheeseburger is not
worth suffering a heart attack, or covering half
of Florida under six feet of water.
Which
would you rather give-up? Your meat and
dairy or…
The chance
to drive a car anywhere ever again
Taking a trip to visit relatives on an
airplane forever
Vacationing anywhere by bus, train, or
airplane
Watching television (even football
games) ever again
The chance to show your children
wildlife in the forest
The opportunity to swim with your
children and fish on colorful coral
reefs
The good fortune to say, “Gorillas,
panda or polar bears are not extinct.”
One-third of the world’s land mass
The rainforests of South America
Security to live without being invaded
by people who have lost their homes to
flooding
Living free of constipation? Heart
failure? Diabetes? Cancer?
The opportunity to live 10-healthy-years
longer (Vegetarian 7th Day
Adventists live 10-years longer than the
average Californian4)
Pleasant body odor (meat stinks)
Is giving up meat all that much of a
hardship? |
Actions to Be
Taken
Some years back
when I owned a big black Lincoln Navigator, a
man approached my gas guzzling behemoth with a
sign reading, “Stop Polluting.” I heard the
message. Now we all need to start carrying
signs that say, “Stop Polluting with Your Meat
and Dairy Habit.” These words do not have to be
on a cardboard placard, but should be in the
forefront of your thoughts and be easily formed
on your lips. Ultimately, meat- and dairy-
eating must become vilified as “dirty,
destructive habits,” worse than cigarette
smoking and public drunkenness—because they are.
Personal
Activities to Put on Your Schedule:
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Forward
the December 2006 and January 2007
McDougall newsletters to
everyone—friends, family, and
politicians. |
ü |
Write and talk to
everyone you know. Talk about this
subject in church, synagogue, and at any
other religious
fellowship—these people are like family.
Bring this subject up at Rotary, Lions
Club, and all other appropriate, and
even, inappropriate meetings. Call talk
radio shows, and write editorials for
your newspaper. When the time comes,
join
protests in the street. |
ü |
Encourage
everyone you know to consume healthy and
non-polluting food. Go so far as to
inform friends who follow
environmentally-polluting weight loss
programs, such as Atkins, South Beach,
the Zone, Jenny Craig, and Weight
Watchers. Even if these diets were
effective in the long-term (and they are
not), they all rely heavily on livestock
for their meals. |
ü |
Stop
listening to corporate lies. The food
industry buys researchers who craft “scientific” reports (advertisements)
published in nutrition and medical
journals that damage your family’s
health. (See the article in this month’s
(January 2007) favorite five).
This unethical behavior is equivalent to
ExxonMobil Corp. giving $16 million to
43 ideological groups between 1998 and
2005 in an effort to mislead the public
by discrediting the science behind
global
warming. |
ü |
Buy
locally grown foods. Vote with your
shopping dollar for grains, fruits and
vegetables—even better buy products that
are organic, “rainforest friendly,”
sustainable, and family-farmed. Plant a
garden (and some trees). |
ü |
Begin cooking
and health education classes in your
communities, churches, and schools. |
ü |
Keep your
focus—We will make a difference. |
Ask Your
Government to:
ü |
Enact
pollution, sewage, and/or pesticide
taxes on livestock, seafood, and
animal-feed businesses. |
ü |
Place a
direct to consumer “disease tax” on
foods: Add a dollar to each pound of
beef, chicken, fish, and cheese, and to
each gallon of milk. Spend this new
revenue for education directed at
disease prevention and treatment by
using a healthy diet and lifestyle—and
for programs that rejuvenate our
environment. |
ü |
Stop
dishonest advertising from the food,
pharmaceutical, and polluting
industries. |
ü |
Ban
lobbyists and “earmarks” favoring
polluting, pharmaceutical, and unhealthy
food industries. |
ü |
Provide money for public
education on proper human nutrition
through TV, radio, newspapers, and
documentaries. |
ü |
Serve plant-food centered
diets in schools and government
institutions, including the military—53.9%
of the US military personnel over the
age of 20 are overweight. |
ü |
Stop grain
and livestock subsidies, which have
helped large agribusiness, not the small
farmer, and have made sickening
foodstuffs affordable for everyone. |
ü |
Change
government subsidy programs for the poor
to encourage consumption of plant
foods. Restrict food stamps to healthy
items only—no more colas, cheddar
cheese, or chuck roast. |
ü |
Enact laws
to reduce lands available for use of
livestock. |
ü |
Enact laws
to preserve our natural resources. |
ü |
Enact tax breaks for
those who provide plant foods to
consumers. |
ü |
Require
hospitals to stop serving the very foods
that brought the patients there in the
first place. (Not too long ago
cigarettes were sold in hospital gift
shops—that’s finally stopped—today
McDonald’s sell sickness in hospitals.) |
ü |
Require
foods to be properly labeled with health
risks. For example, cheese should be
sold with this statement: “Warning from
the Surgeon General: “This Food is Known
to Damage Your Arteries Causing Strokes
and Heart Attacks.” |
ü |
Add
environmental labels to meat and dairy:
“Cattle Pollute Lakes, Rivers, and the
Ocean.” |
ü |
Offer
financial incentives for students who
choose a “green career,” working to
improve the environment. |
ü |
Promote
lifestyle medicine. Offer financial
incentives for young doctors to choose
general practice based on treatment with
a plant-food-based diet, physical
activity, and clean habits. |
ü |
Require
all drug and surgical treatments to be
directly compared—and shown equal or
superior—to treatments with a
plant-food-based diet and proper
lifestyle before being approved for use. |
Any changes that can be made in
the right direction are worthwhile—like with our
personal health, the more we can replace animal
foods with plant foods the better off Planet
Earth will be—this is not an all or nothing
approach.
Shifting the
Wealth
Many people
believe saving our environment is too difficult
and will be too expensive. A report by economist
Sir Nicholas Stern suggests that global warming
could shrink the global economy by 20%.
But taking action now would cost just 1% of
global gross domestic product. The
financial burdens from diseases of overnutrition
threaten the world’s largest economies; most
notably the USA and countries of Western
Europe—even China now has twice as many
overweight people as it did in 1991.4
In truth, giving up eating animals is a
fundamental step necessary to avoid economic
collapse from the burdens of disease and
environmental disasters.
While
appearing on a talk radio show one evening I
received a call from a distraught dairy farmer.
“Dr. McDougall, you are destroying my family
with your claims about the dangers of drinking
milk. I have children to feed and to put through
school, and you may make that impossible.” I
told him I was sorry for his predicament, and
then asked him, “What if you were a tobacco
farmer?—should I not tell people the
killing-truth about tobacco so your family
prospers?” People in the business of destroying
lives and the planet must find new work.
Innovations that result in plant-food-based
eating practices will cause new people to rise
to power and new fortunes to be made. Many will
be displaced:
cardiologists, bypass surgeons, oncologists,
diabetes specialists can use their doctor skills
for fighting malaria and other infectious
diseases in Africa. People who now make their
living from beef and dairy farms, slaughter
houses, and processing plants will find cleaner
work in grain- and vegetable-based agriculture.
Family farms will return as corporate
agribusiness disappears. A few cattle barons
may be left destitute, but the rest of us will
be much better off economically—enjoying
excellent health on a habitable planet.
References:
1)
Hossain P, Kawar B, El Nahas M.
Obesity and diabetes in the developing world--a
growing challenge. N Engl J Med. 2007 Jan
18;356(3):213-5.
2) Only 3% are
vegetarians: (http://www.vsc.org/1103-How-Many-Veggies.htm).
3)
Yach D, Hawkes C, Gould CL, Hofman KJ.
The global burden of chronic diseases:
overcoming impediments to prevention and
control. JAMA. 2004 Jun
2;291(21):2616-22.
4) Fraser G. Ten
years of life. Is it a matter of chance?
Arch Intern Med 161:1645-52, 2001.
5)
Dobson R. China may have twice as
many overweight people as in 1991. BMJ.
2007 Jan 27;334(7586):173. |