Six Arugments for a Greener Diet - Great Book for Health and Well-being

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Six Arguments for a Greener Diet

 

A new book by Michael F. Jacobson, Ph.D., and the Staff of the Center

for Science in the Public Interest

 

 

" Michael Jacobson offers a win-win proposition that we cannot

ignore. " --Lester R. Brown, President, Earth Policy Institute

For 35 years the nonprofit Center for Science in the Public Interest

has published hard-hitting studies exposing the dreadful nutritional

content of movie theatre popcorn, fast foods, and restaurant meals.

Its latest book is SIX ARGUMENTS FOR A GREENER DIET (CSPI, ISBN: 0-

89329-049-1)—a meticulously researched examination of scientific

studies that finds that eating more plant foods and fewer fatty

animal products can lead to extra years of healthy living. Happily,

explains lead author and CSPI executive director Michael F. Jacobson,

that same diet also leads to much less food poisoning, water

pollution, air pollution, global warming, and animal suffering.

 

Americans consume over 1 billion pounds—and one trillion calories—of

food each day. To produce the grains, meat and poultry, and fruits

and vegetables that feed a country of nearly 300 million people, our

agricultural system consumes enormous quantities of fuel,

fertilizers, water, pesticides, and enormous tracts of land—not just

for growing food for people, but mostly for producing food for

livestock. And ultimately, a diet rich in fatty animal products and

poor in whole grains, fruits, and vegetables consumes the consumer:

Higher rates of heart disease, stroke, certain cancers, diabetes, and

obesity cause hundreds of thousands premature deaths each year. SIX

ARGUMENTS FOR A GREENER DIET exposes those and other underreported

facts and carefully connects the dots between a healthy diet and a

healthy planet.

 

CSPI calls it Eating Green—and is launching a new project with that

name to help Americans toward a diet much richer in plant-based foods

such as fruits, vegetables, and whole grains.

 

Consider Eating Green by the numbers:

 

• 16 percent: the decreased mortality from heart disease associated

with eating one additional serving of fruit or vegetables each day;

 

• 24 percent: how much lower the rate of fatal heart attacks is in

lacto-ovo vegetarians compared with non-vegetarians;

 

• 50 percent: how much less dietary fiber Americans consume than is

recommended;

 

• 100 percent: how much fattier meat is from a typical grain-fed

steer than a grass-fed steer;

 

• 19 percent: the proportion of all methane—a potent greenhouse gas—

emitted by cattle and other livestock;

 

• 140 million: the number of cattle, pigs, and sheep slaughtered each

year

 

• 14 trillion gallons: the amount of water needed to produce feed for

U.S. livestock.

 

CSPI's fact-filled but engaging SIX ARGUMENTS FOR A GREENER DIET is

as suited to students and professors as it is to consumers and

policymakers. Jacobson and CSPI take long even-handed looks at the

academic literature on everything from chronic disease (Seventh-day

Adventist vegetarians live longer than non-vegetarians) to soil

science (American croplands lose 2 billion tons of topsoil to erosion

annually) to animal welfare. It offers consumers practical advice on

changing their diets, and includes food pyramids for vegetarian and

non-vegetarian diets.

 

A major difference between SIX ARGUMENTS and other recent books about

America's food system is that it not only describes the problems and

offers advice to consumers, but also proposes a menu of creative

policy recommendations to improve the public's health, the

environment, and the welfare of animals.

 

" Recognizing that not everyone would or should become a total

vegetarian, we suggest means of both obtaining healthier animal

products and improving how animals are raised, " Jacobson

writes. " Nutrition- and environment-based food and farm policies

could improve diets directly and indirectly. "

 

As former Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman says, " While there are

serious differences of opinion about issues relating to the animal

foods component of the American diet, the provocative policy

discussions in this book should be must reading for anyone interested

in the future of food and agriculture. " And, writes Robert S.

Lawrence, M.D., director of the Center for a Livable Future at Johns

Hopkins University's Bloomberg School of Public Health, " SIX

ARGUMENTS FOR A GREENER DIET is a great guide to the powerful impact

that our dietary choices—especially high meat consumption—have on our

environmental footprint. "

 

In addition to citing previous research, SIX ARGUMENTS breaks new

ground with its own calculations. For instance, the authors estimate

that the saturated fat and cholesterol in animal products are

responsible for about 65,000 fatal heart attacks every year.

 

Making several little changes quickly adds up to an overall healthier

diet. Replacing one 3.5-ounce serving of beef, one egg, and a 1-ounce

serving of cheese each day with a mix of vegetables, fruit, beans,

and whole grains would:

 

• increase the person's daily consumption of dietary fiber by 16

grams (more than half the recommended intake) and reduce the intake

of fat by 22 grams (one-third of the recommended daily limit) and

saturated fat by 12 grams (more than half the recommended limit); and

 

• spare the need for 1.8 acres of cropland, 40 pounds of fertilizer,

and 3 ounces of pesticides each year. It also would mean dumping

11,400 fewer pounds of animal manure into the environment each year.

 

Multiply those improvements by millions of people and it's easy to

see the dramatic improvements in health and reductions in pollution

that dietary changes could bring about.

 

A web-based companion to the book, www.EatingGreen.org , will let

consumers take an animated tour of the food supply, calculate the

environmental impact of their food choices and the impact their

changes may have, and score their diets on the basis of health,

environment, and animal welfare.

 

 

# # #

SIX ARGUMENTS FOR A GREENER DIET

 

How a More Plant-Based Diet Could Save Your Health and the

Environment By Michael F. Jacobson, Ph.D., and the Staff of the

Center for Science in the Public Interest

 

ISBN: 0-89329-049-1

 

Paperback $14.95

 

234 pages

 

Publication date: August 1, 2006

 

About the Authors:

 

Michael F. Jacobson, Ph.D., is co-founder and executive director of

the Center for Science in the Public Interest, the publisher of the

world's largest-circulation newsletter, Nutrition Action

Healthletter. Jacobson has written or co-authored Restaurant

Confidential, Marketing Madness, What Are We Feeding Our Kids?, and

The Fast-Food Guide. He has appeared on NBC's Today Show, ABC's Good

Morning America, CBS's The Early Show, Oprah, and all major network

newscasts, and is frequently quoted on nutrition and food-safety.

 

Jacobson's reputation is that of an aggressive, relentless reformer

and critic of the food industry. But he's also highly respected,

having been honored by the supermarket industry (the Esther Petersen

Consumer Service Award), the restaurant industry (Nation's Restaurant

News 50 most influential people), and the Food and Drug

Administration (the Commissioner's Special Citation and the Harvey W.

Wiley Medal.) Jacobson, who is not a vegetarian, says that the single

most important dietary advice is to change your diet in a healthy

vegetarian direction.

 

The Center for Science in the Public Interest advocates safe and

nutritious diets and campaigns for policies to protect the public

health and environment. It led the efforts to win passage of laws

requiring Nutrition Facts labels on packaged foods, including trans

fat labeling, and for the laws defining " organic " foods and requiring

warning labels on alcoholic beverages. It publishes attention-getting

studies, including famous exposés of the nutritional quality of movie

theater popcorn, Chinese food, and other restaurant meals.

 

 

 

Hope you enjoyed! Any other recommendations for folks would be

appreciated. If we all could only know how much diet does make a

difference in our health and well-being, and in recovery from

illness.

 

Anne Kaspar

Health and Wellness Consultant

BodyByBliss

 

O 505.474.9699

C 505.690.0169

www.bodybybliss.com

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