Read Diet For A New America by John Robbins!
He was the heir to the Baskin-Robbins fortune - and turned his back on the whole deal based on his beliefs.
http://images.amazon.com/images/P/0915811812.01._PIdp-schmooS,TopRight,7,-26_PE32_SCMZZZZZZZ_.gifhttp://www.amazon.com/gp/product/product-description/0915811812/ref=dp_proddesc_0/102-3339947-6569707?%5Fencoding=UTF8&n=507846 Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
This well-documented expose of America's "factory farms" should prompt even die-hard meat-and-potatoes lovers to reevaluate their diets. Asserting that "we are ingesting nightmares for breakfast, lunch and dinner," Robbins, who is medical director of the California Institute for Health and Healing, details how livestock is raised under increasingly industrialized conditions by "agribusiness oligopolies." Grazing and foraging have given way to debeaking, tail-docking, dehorning and castration, and treatment with pesticides, hormones, growth and appetite stimulants, tranquilizers and antibioticswhich, in turn, are assimilated by humans. The author correlates our "protein obsessed" society with a higher incidence of arteriosclerosis, osteoporosis, cancer and other degenerative diseases, as well as freakish occurrences like premature puberty from estrogen contamination. As Robbins debunks nutritional myths perpetuated by the powerful meat and dairy industries (indicting as well his family's Baskin-Robbins ice-cream empire), this is sure to prove controversial. Photos not seen by PW.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Vegetarian Times magazine
From the outset of reading this volume I was enthralled. The book is a pleasure to read, as engrossing as the most exciting novel. Yet this is no novelit deals directly with the most important personal issues and decisions of our lives. When I finished reading Diet for a New America, I knew that in my hands lay one of the most profound studies ever written of how our eating habits affect our lives, and indeed all of life on our planet . . . If you read only one book this year, let it be this one.
Dr. John McDougall, Author, The McDougall Plan
Diet for a New America is excellent! I can't speak highly enough of it. This book is a breakthrough in the science of health and a joy to read. No one who suffers (or whose loved ones suffer) from the diseases of our time can afford to ignore this potent message. In his captivating style, John Robbins shows us how to create health for ourselves, our children, and the world we live in.
Cleveland Amory, President, Fund for Animals, Author, The Cat Who Came for Christmas
Every so often a book comes along which has the capacity to awaken the conscience of a nation. Silent Spring was one such book: I believe John Robbins volume is destined to be another. With consummate intelligence, thoroughness and skill, Robbins takes us on a multifaceted journey which should cause all sensitive people to question their eating habits most searchingly. I couldnt put it down.
Laura Huxley, Author, This Timeless Moment
Diet for a New America will vitalize the awakening of America. This easy-to-read yet mind-boggling book has its place in the kitchen and in the doctors office, in every classroom, from preschool to university. For those involved in ecological and political issues, this book is a mustso it is for all of us who long for a practical economical way to foster a more sane, ethical and loving world.
Frances Moore Lapp, Author, Diet for a Small Planet
In a tender, not strident, voice Robbins shows us why a humane society cannot be built upon an inhumane system of food production. Robbins does not play on our guilt, but shows us how our own well-being is linked to the development of radically new sensibilities to non-human life. I promise youwhat you perceive behind the supermarket meat counter will never be the same after reading Diet for a New America.
Gary Zukav, Author, The Dancing Wu Li Masters
Diet for a New America is a powerful tool on the journey towards consciousness and compassion. I recommend it without reservation, and hope that many, many people will read it.
Harvey and Marilyn Diamond, Authors, Fit for Life
A reading must for all caring Americans.
Andrew Weil, M.D., Author, Spontaneous Healing
Diet for a New America is a powerful indictment of our dietary practices that should be read by everyone interested in healthy living. It is a well-researched, well-documented and eye-opening account of the myths and truths about meat, milk, fat and protein. I will recommend this book to patients, friends, and relatives.
Book Description
From John Robbins, a new edition of the classic that awakened the conscience of a nation. Since the 1987 publication of Diet for a New America, beef consumption in the United States has fallen a remarkable 19%. While many forces are contributing to this dramatic shift in our habits, Diet for a New America is considered to be one of the most important. Diet for a New America is a startling examination of the food we currently buy and eat in the United States, and the astounding moral, economic, and emotional price we pay for it.
In Section I, John Robbins takes an extraordinary look at our dependence on animals for food and the inhumane conditions under which these animals are raised. It becomes clear that the price we pay for our eating habits is measured in the suffering of animals, a suffering so extreme and needless that it disrupts our very place in the web of life.
Section II challenges the belief that consuming meat is a requirement for health by pointing our the vastly increased rate of disease caused by pesticides, hormones, additives, and other chemicals now a routine part of our food production. The author shows us that the high health risk is unnecessary, and that the production, preparation, and consumption of food can once again be a healthy process.
In Section III, Robbins looks at the global implications of a meat-based diet and concludes that the consumption of the resources necessary to produce meat is a major factor in our ecological crisis.
Diet for a New America is the single most eloquent argument for a vegetarian lifestyle ever published. Eloquently, evocatively, and entertainingly written, it is a cant put down book guaranteed to amaze, infuriate, but ultimately educate and empower the reader. A pivotal book nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for Non-Fiction in 1987.:
From the Publisher
To our readers: The books we publish are our contribution to an emerging world based on cooperation rather than on competition, on affirmation of the human spirit rather than on self-doubt, and on the certainty that all humanity is connected. Our goal is to touch as many lives as possible with a message of hope for a better world.Hal and Linda Kramer, Publishers
From the Back Cover
Diet for a New America, the International Bestseller With More Than 600,000 Copies in Print Now Includes An Update From The Author. Few of us are aware that the act of eating can be a powerful statement of commitment to our own well-being, and at the same time to the creation of a healthier world. In Diet for a New America, John Robbins brilliantly documents that our food choices can provide us with ways to enjoy life to the fullest, while making it possible that life itself might continue.:
About the Author
John Robbins is the author of the international bestseller Diet for a New America: How Your Food Choices Affect Your Health, Happiness, and the Future of Life on Earth, and Reclaiming Our Health: Exploding the Medical Myth and Embracing the Source of True Healing. Widely considered to be one of the world's leading experts on the dietary link to the environment and health, he is the founder of EarthSave International, a nonprofit organization that supports healthy food choices, preservation of the environment, and a more compassionate world. John and his work have been the subject of cover stories and feature articles in The San Francisco Chronicle, The San Francisco Examiner, Chicago Life, The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and many of the nation's other major newspapers and magazines.
His life and work have been featured in an hour-long PBS special entitled Diet for a New America. Many of the nation's leading authorities on alternatives in health and ecology have called John's work among the most important events of the century.
The only son of the founder of the Baskin-Robbins ice cream empire, John Robbins walked away from a life of immense wealth to ". . . pursue the deeper American Dream . . . the dream of a society at peace with its conscience because it respects and lives in harmony with all life forms, a dream of a society that is truly healthy, practicing a wise and compassionate stewardship of a balanced ecosystem."
Considered to be one of the most eloquent and powerful spokespersons in the world for a sane, ethical and sustainable future, John has been a featured and keynote speaker at major conferences sponsored by Physicians for Social Responsibility, Beyond War, Oxfam, the Sierra Club, the Humane Society of the United States, the United Nations Environmental Program, UNICEF, and many other organizations dedicated to the public interest. He is the recipient of the 1994 Rachel Carson Award. The widespread media attention he has received has included numerous appearances on Oprah, Donahue and Geraldo, and other national shows. When John spoke at the United Nations, he received a standing ovation.
Excerpted from Diet for a New America : How Your Food Choices Affect Your Health, Happiness and the Future of Life on Earth by John B. Robbins. Copyright © 1998. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved
You will not find very many monuments to dogs in this world. But in Edinburgh, Scotland, in a public area known as Greyfriar Square, there stands a statue, erected by the local citizens, in honor of a little terrier named Bobby.
Why did the townspeople erect this statue? Because this little dog taught them a lesson in the years he lived with them - a most important lesson. Bobby the Scottish terrier had no owner. And as often happens to small town dogs with no master, he was kicked around by just about everybody, and had to scrounge through garbage to get anything to eat. Not what you would call an ideal life, even for a dog.
But it happened that there was in the village a dying old man named Jock. In his last days, the old man noticed the plight of the sorry little dog. There wasn't much he could do, but he did buy the little fellow a meal one evening at the local restaurant. Nothing fancy, just some scraps. But it would be hard for anyone to over-estimate the extent of Bobby's gratitude.
Shortly thereafter, Jock died. When the mourners carried his body to the grave, the terrier followed them. The gravediggers ordered him away, and when he refused to leave they kicked him and threw rocks at him. But still the dog stood his ground, and would not leave no matter what they did. From then on, for no less than fourteen years, little Bobby honored the memory of the man who had been kind to him. Day and night, through harsh winter storms and hot summer days, he stood by the grave. The only time he ever left the gravesite was for a brief trip each afternoon back to the restaurant in which he had met Jock, in hopes of scavenging something to eat. Whatever he got he would solemnly carry back to the grave, and eat there. The first winter Bobby had almost no shelter, huddling beneath tombstones when the snow was deep. By the next winter, the townspeople were so touched by his brave and lonely vigil that they erected a small shelter for him. And fourteen years later, when little Bobby died, they buried him where he lay alongside the man whose last gesture of kindness he had honored with such devotion.
If the little Scottish terrier whose monument still stands in Edinburgh is not the most selfless animal who ever lived, a dolphin named Pelorus Jack might well be. For many years, this dolphin guided ships through French Pass, a channel through the Durville Islands off New Zealand. This dangerous channel is so full of rocks, and has such extremely strong currents, that is has been the site of literally hundreds of shipwrecks. But none occurred when Pelorus Jack was at work. There is no telling how many lives he saved.
He was first seen by human beings when he appeared in front of a schooner from Boston named Brindle, just as the ship was approaching French Pass. When the members of the crew saw the dolphin bobbing up and down in front of the ship, they wanted to kill him, but, fortunately, the captain's wife was able to talk them out of it. To their amazement, the dolphin then proceeded to guide the ship through the narrow channel. And for years thereafter, he safely guided almost every ship that came by. So regular and reliable was the dolphin that when ships reached the entrance to French Pass they would look for him, and if he was not visible, they would wait for him to appear to guide them safely through the treacherous rocks and currents.
On one sad occasion, a drunken passenger aboard a ship named the Penguin took out a gun and shot at Pelorus Jack. The crew was furious, and when they saw Jack swim away with blood pouring from his body they came very close to lynching the passenger. The Penguin had to negotiate the channel without Pelorus Jack's help, as did the other ships that came through in the next few weeks. But one day the dolphin reappeared, apparently recovered from his wound. He had evidently forgiven the human species, because he once again proceeded to guide ship after ship through the channel. When the Penguin showed up again, however, the dolphin immediately disappeared.
For a number of years thereafter, Pelorus Jack continued to escort ships through French Pass, but never the Penguin, and the crew of that ship never saw the dolphin again. Ironically, the Penguin was later wrecked, and a large number of passengers and crew were drowned, as it sailed unguided through French Pass.
A San Francisco science fair recently awarded a prize to a junior high school student whose science project consisted of cutting the head off a live frog with a pair of scissors, to find out whether frogs swim better with or without their brains.
Of course, this is not the only case of frogs being treated cruelly in our schools. They are often dissected by children ostensibly learning how life works. But what did this youngster learn through his experiment? I think he learned that it is all right to treat other living things as if they have no feelings, as if they are nothing but machines. I think he learned disrespect for life. And I wouldn't call that a good thing.
The science fair judges, however, obviously disagree with me, for they commended the boy on his contributions to the forward march of science, predicted great things for his future, and rewarded him for scientifically proving that: Frogs will not swim with brain missing unless harassed. A frog swims better with head on.
The attitude we develop towards animals as children tends to stay with us through the rest of our lives. An it continues to influence our experience, not only of animals, but of other people, ourselves, and life itself. There is a great deal of evidence from all over the world indicating that people who have, as children, learned to care for animals, grow up more capable of caring for themselves, and for other people.
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