Learning to eat the healthiest diet is like learning to read. It's a process that takes time and patience. If you keep moving forward, you will succeed.
The Secret to This Journey Is One Step At a Time
Change is a learning process, not unlike mastering reading. You may remember developing your own reading skills, or maybe you’ve watched a child enjoy their increasing proficiency as they moved from one grade to another.
Generally, the student starts with learning the alphabet, reciting all the letters from A to Z. Then the child is taught the sound each letter makes. From there, he or she can start sounding out or recognizing simple words.
The child advances from kindergarten picture books to Shakespeare, but the process takes time, patience, and motivation. Certainly some ultra-gifted students can read difficult literature right after learning their ABC’s, but the vast majority of us can’t. We need to learn one step at a time.
Just as you became skilled at reading, you can master an eating plan that supports your health and a trim figure. Understanding and moving through five successive actions (more…)
Five Ways that Raising Animals for Food Accelerates Global Warming More than We Thought
In 2006, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization published the groundbreaking Livestock’s Long Shadow. This historical report focused attention on environmental facts that were long-known but studiously avoided by both consumers and policymakers.
Livestock’s Long Shadow documents the horrific environmental consequences of raising farmed animals for people to eat. Water shortages. Air and water pollution. Degraded soil. Deforestation. Extinction of wild plants and animals.
The list is heart breaking for anyone who cares about the future of our planet. I worry every day about the world my daughters are inheriting. How long
Global warming and climate change are here now
can we sustain even basic necessities on a plundered planet?
Most famously, this United Nations report documents that 18 % of greenhouse gas emissions can be directly traced to raising animals for food. This staggering impact is more than all transportation combined. You could scrap every truck, car, plane, and train on the planet – or you could stop raising farmed animals and have an even greater effect on climate change.
Now two respected researchers document that the impact of animal agriculture on global warming is almost three times worse that the UN estimated in 2006. The respected, independent nonprofit World Watch Institute published this analysis in their November/December 2009 magazine.
The study’s authors thoughtfully question what the United Nations left out or ignored. These pros have really done their homework. Their article demonstrates five major sources of greenhouse gas emissions from farmed animals left out of Livestock’s Long Shadow. The mistakes the authors found include overlooked sources of greenhouse gases, undercounted methane, and global warming contributors put into incorrect categories.
So what’s the bottom line? Over half – 51% – of global warming is directly caused by farming animals. You can have a direct, immediate impact on your kids’ future just by changing what you eat for dinner. Can you think of a single valid reason not to do this?
Changing what you eat is not nearly as hard as you think it might be. It’s not as painful as watching droughts, floods, disease, famine, and hurricanes rip people’s lives apart as global warming accelerates. Thank you World Watch Institute for these fearless insights. We don’t want to confront our comfortable habits, but we must.
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Blog posting by Janice Stanger, Ph.D. Janice authored The Perfect Formula Diet, the smart person’s nutrition book built on sustainable food choices. Enjoy six kinds of whole foods for permanent, hunger-free weight loss and health.
