BTW: you might have missed this, but the entire world adopted a "plant-based" diet last night. This has freaked-out global markets and promoted high-level fiscal concern for most countries as economies across the world are now drastically collapsing; billions of people are suddenly without work, and small farmers don't have the capacity to deal with the demand for whole, unprocessed, non-GMO'd, real food. Issues of what to do with, literally, billions of tortured factory farmed animals is suddenly a major concern on many levels.
It's not clear what the cognitive tipping point was in helping people understand that the best medicine for most of what ails them is preventative and restorative from whole, unprocessed, real food. Certainly Drs. Caldwell Esselstyn, John McDougall, Neal Barnard, Michael Greger, Fuhrman, and T. Colin Campbell, among others, may be culpable in their dedicated, scientifically documented, and tirelessly consistent efforts to point out that a plant-based diet can effectively prevent, let alone reverse, many types of cancer, heart disease, diabetes, obesity, and hyper-tension in humanoids. They been ridiculed for years, and maybe now they'll get the praise they deserve for swimming up the so-called nutritional knowledge stream for so many years.
However, the sudden collective recognition and ability to separate emotional attachment to food from logical recognition of nutritional value and source implications of what we consume, has staggered the industrial-food complex. They cannot make money on whole plant-based foods, without adding, to varying degrees, oil, sugar, and salt... these food-like products proven to be tremendously detrimental to human long-term health. Their corporate holdings are now collapsing as fast as an artery with an ill-fit heart valve stent.
The impact of so many people consuming primarily healthy whole foods, eschewing processed food-like products, and embracing a wholistic plant-based dietary lifestyle has been devastating to the financial and political status quo. Millions of people in restaurants, support businesses, and fast food venues are being laid off, while said businesses must close their doors from lack of customer interest and purchase. They were not ready for what obviously had to happen, they were not prepared. There was no long-term strategy based upon the many nutritional realities that have emerged over the past decade. The Health Care Industry is possibly beyond repair.
Civilization, as we conceive of it, has been irrevocably transformed, and the resulting implications cross across literally all human devices, endeavors, and support systems. What we eat is fundamental to our existence, and the food corporations have been messing with the concept in irresponsible manners long enough, solely concerned for short-term profits and not long-term health. Their bluff has been called, they cannot force us to buy their products.
Even so, we be in deep nitrogenous do-do, people. And we must get past our collective political, mental, and emotional biases to deal with this serious New Reality. Politicians grandstanding on TeeVee eating cheese, drinking milk, and gnawing on steaks isn't going to change this inevitability nor sway us from the understanding and final awareness that meat, dairy, and highly processed food, are killing us by the millions.
It's not going to be easy, such a mega-paradigm shift is going to generate a lot of collateral damage in the manifestation process. But given the stakes at hand, the entire human race and the ability of our planet to support carbon-based lifeforms, it's abundantly clear that we have no choice.
We have to transcend. We have to accept transformation of our consciousness from one predicated by lower-based taste addictions to one embracing our knowledge of a healthier way to live, to thrive, and to love.
We... just... have... no... choice...
Namaste, Mark
[This is my personal "Happy Anniversary" post... as one of the very first vegan bloggers, today "marks" my 8 year anniversary. I started my blog to (1) promote a plant-based diet, (2) communicate well-referenced and related scientific studies/evidence supporting such, (3) to force myself to write regularly (which led, eventually, to my book), and (4) to torque people and organizations when I deemed it necessary. Of course, too, it became a wonderful vehicle for ranting on occasion, but also, as I've learned, a vehicle for personal transformation of sorts. I do apologize, somewhat, to those I've pissed off in the process of growing up.
The post above is an "Einstein Thought Experiment" of sorts, and, I believe, suggests all kinds of interesting implications. As noted in a recent interview, I LIKE TO THINK. We all need to think more about the ramifications of our belief structures. I obviously don't have all the answers, which also upsets me at times, as we are collectively headed for a major global conflaguration involving lifestyle, the environment, the animals, and the ability of our planet to support carbon-based lifeforms. It's going to happen, of this there is no doubt.
Are we going to be prepared? That's the really tough question. It's the question that Congress should be answering, i.e., our water, air, soil, health, and food, in the future, instead of spending an absolutely assinine and absurd amount of time passing over 40 bills to de-fund something, Obamacare, that they cannot do.
Anyway, as a personal indulgence for a day or two, here's a couple of links to some of my favorite posts the past 8 years, along with a link to a special short-term discount for purchasing an autographed copy of my book.
I hope to be around in another 8 years to see what's happened, how I've hopefully grown, and that maybe this civilization can start acting as though they've been blessed by their very existence instead of abusing same. You are what you eat and don't excrete, to put it bluntly. The human body has had 4.5 billion years of testing to learn how to optimize good matter input into long-term health. That conclusion has become inescapable, and imho, is of vital importance to our species if we're going to be around here in any significant numbers several years from now. We MUST embrace these changes in thinking. We literally "have no choice."
I love you all.... Mark
About the Hex Globe
"The Milk Cellar at Chez Ignorante"
"My Sojourn to Burger King"
"Heart goes BAM!"
"My Vegan Tipping Point"
"Identify This Vegetable and Win Something"
"The Experimental G-BOMBS V-12 Pizza Prototype"
A Special "Heart Healthy Pizza" Cookbook Anniversary Discount