Day 81: The Spectrum of Diet
An Evolutionary Dietetic with David Rainoshek, M.A., Post-Vegan Health Advocates
Welcome to Day 81!
What follows is my brief synopsis of The Spectrum of Diet, which I have been teaching and developing for clients and students over the last decade. What you are about to see began to take form in 2006, when I began studying Ken Wilber’s work while finishing my M.A. in Vegan/Live Food Nutrition with Dr. Gabriel Cousens, M.D., working as his Research Assistant on There is a Cure for Diabetes.
After many years of nutritional practice, research, writing, and coaching, I have arrived at an overall map of the various ways we eat. I call it The Spectrum of Diet: Integral Transformative Nutrition, which is an Integral approach to Diet, Nutrition, and Health.
In our modern era, most of us are dietarily confused, caught between a dizzying carnival of make-believe mythic cereal-box and fast-food characters, reductionistic-science flavorist-created Excitotoxin-laden foods superstimulating our biochemistry, ad-agency sexed up electric kool-aid commercialization, conflicting scientific studies professing the importance of food and lifestyle – no, genes! – on our health. We live in a wasteland of food and nutritional/medical/holistic health approaches, in bad need of a good map, a vehicle (better than the Oscar Meyer Wienermobile) to navigate the territory, with directions more fundamental, and all-inclusive…
THE SPECTRUM OF DIET (TM)
Inspired by the Integral Approach of Ken Wilber and the Integral Institute, and using my expertise (both personally and professionally) across the Spectrum of Diet, from Junk Food (I used to pour sugar in my Coca-Cola) all the way to Raw/Live Plant-Based Nutrition and an Integral Dietetic, I have used Ken’s Integral Approach as a guiding means to develop The Spectrum of Diet: Integral Transformative Nutrition. For a good overview of Ken’s work, visit www.IntegralLife.com and www.KenWilber.com.
When you count all the foods, diets, and advocates out there, what you find are dizzying thousands of possible dietary permutations—many of which give you a piece of the puzzle, but don’t offer much help in putting their own suggestions into a larger dietary perspective.
One is left without a map of the territory, and is therefore often lost in a dietary wasteland for decades, still no better suited in understanding how far up the Spectrum one needs to go—or can go—to transform their health challenge, and in short create increasing order and depth as a holon (an organized whole of integrated, lower-order wholes).
Every dietary methodology in existence will fit predominantly into one stage, or level of the Spectrum of Diet.
While many diets and practitioners will advocate higher levels or condone “moderation” at lower levels, we should think in terms of the center of gravity of a diet or practitioner.
As we will discover, when it comes to prevention of disease, and particularly reversal of our health challenges, the conventional understanding of moderation and its’ attractive appearance of intelligent balance is anything but prudence and wisdom, and more like arrested development, reductionism, quadrant absolutism…
Even integrative nutritional approaches generally lack an understanding of personal interior and collective interior developmental states and stages (such as one’s stages of cognitive, moral, interpersonal, values, or worldview development and a culture’s development of collective worldviews).
A GROWTH HIERARCHY
The Spectrum of Diet can be functionally used as a growth hierarchy of dietary development, essentially based on a continuum from low life-force foods to high life-force foods, or shallow food heaps and holons to Deep Food holons (or Deep Foods, as I call them), with benefits that arise internally and externally for individuals and groups, including the individual-interior, exterior-physical, cultural, and social).
For our discussion here, this hierarchy is suited to westernized cultures who have progressed—ha-ha!—far enough to have seen the near simultaneous arising of both ends of the spectrum, Twinkees to Spirulina, Junk Food to and Raw/Live Plant-Based and finally Juice Feasting (which is more of a periodic Life Practice).
A CRITICAL METHODOLOGY
The Spectrum of Diet, once established, becomes a critical methodology for assessing the nutritional approach of practitioners or even activists (social or cultural) aiming to heal specific conditions (individual, collective, ecological, etc).
Every practitioner or advocate will find their center of gravity somewhere on the Spectrum of Diet, and that can help us identify where they are doing well, and where they may be partial vis-à-vis goals of health in any quadrant, line, level, state, and type.
INTERVIEW: KEVIN GIANNI INTERVIEWS DAVID RAINOSHEK on THE SPECTRUM of DIET (2011)
After Kevin Gianni’s admirable Great Health Debate in 2011, I contacted my colleague Kevin to share my insights and experiences with the raw food diet over the past 10 years or so. With so many knowledgeable - yet seemingly divergent - nutritional perspectives and practices offered during the Great Health Debate, I thought it might be helpful for a conversation on how to bring it all together for everyone.
We chatted on the phone for a while, set up and interview, and this was my first public explanation of The Spectrum of Diet including a stage beyond Raw/Live Vegan, that of practicing an Integrated or Integral Approach to Food and Nutrition.
What Kevin and I recorded was a 2 hour interview, which you can enjoy and download below to get a more conversational presentation of The Spectrum of Diet.
SHORT SYNOPSIS OF MAIN POINTS on THE SPECTRUM of DIET
In this short synopsis of the Spectrum of Diet, I will be using some ideas from the work of American philosopher and writer Ken Wilber. If you have not read the work of Ken Wilber, there are terms and conceptions used below that may need some unpacking for you. I highly suggest reading Ken Wilber’s book A Theory of Everything to get an excellent background on the Integral perspectives I am applying to what follows.
Okay, here we go:
The developmental line of nutrition in westernized societies unfolds as a stages progression, involving a shift in values from self care to universal care; or from me to us to all of us. Seeing nutrition as a line of development is a very, very useful orientation. One could argue, however, that with the prevalence of infant formula use such as Similac, and parents feeding their kids Coca-Cola that we are almost starting at the Junk Food level).
Each stage of the Spectrum of Diet involves including and transcending, with the subject of one stage becoming the object of the subject of the next, and playing out the four factors for vertical transformation, Fulfillment, Dissonance, Insight, and Opening.
Looked at from the perspective of The Great Nest of Spirit (matter to body to mind to soul to spirit), food is lower, and thus more fundamental to higher growth and development up the Great Nest. If nutritional development is not taken into account, it can act as a stage pathology that will prevent higher growth.
The predominant orientation to diet and nutrition is translative (make me happy with whatever food I want) as opposed to transformative (help me develop my health, AQAL).
Health is more importantly an ability instead of a state. Health is the ability of a Holon to maintain and restore order, and not merely a state of apparent wellness.
A food or dietary approach that honors the most depth in each quadrant (interior, exterior, individual, and collective), and considers the development of other developmental lines and their stages, states, and types are Deep Foods. See these 4 quadrants below:
We can also speak of diet and nutrition in terms of Depth and Span: Caloric Span and Nutrient Depth. The western diet has pathological Caloric Span, and insufficient Nutrient Depth. The higher we move up the Spectrum of Diet, the more appropriate the Caloric Span is, and the deeper the Nutrient Depth can be.
Flatland nutrition is the predominant methodology in the western world – and is RH reductionism (see the two right-hand quadrants in the image at left) that arose with orange modernity (or scientific materialism focused on or held as more real physical externals rather than immaterial internals of individuals and groups).
Foods that themselves are deep holons, and maintained as such through growth, delivery, and preparation will maintain order of the human holon.
The Law of Complexity and Consciousness is definitely in play when it comes to food and its effects on human development – including stages of consciousness.
The Law of Complexity and Consciousness was coined by Teilhard de Chardin to signify the way evolutionary unfoldings occur in the Kosmos. As the organized complexity of any holon increases, the amount of consciousness behind the development of that holon, and the behavior of the consciousness grows to higher levels of being and knowing. For example a single cell is wonderful, but a group of cells forming your liver is more wonderful, and more significant than your liver is the human being using it for even higher-level capacities and expressions). So, the “deeper” your food is, the more consciousness is contained within, and the greater mind it develops when eaten.
There exist potential stage pathologies, dietary shadows, and disowned dietary voices at every level of the Spectrum of Diet.
Boomeritis Diet and Nutrition is rampant. (Read Ken Wilber’s book Boomeritis for more on that topic). Basically, Boomeritis is a high capacity for knowledge and awareness combined with a rampant narcissism (self-love in ignorance of the needs of others). In other words, there is a lot of healthy eating going on out there for self alone… and yet many of us are focused on Eating as An Act of Love for all beings.
Every non-pathological nutritional practitioner speaks the truth from level of the Spectrum of Diet from which they are speaking.
The Spectrum of Diet, because of its approach using Integral Methodological Pluralism (basically, honoring a multitude of truth-claims and perspectives), serves as both a developmental sequence and a Critical Methodology including every dietary approach ever practiced in the western world, helping us understand the multiplicity of dietary methodologies, their place in the Spectrum of Diet, and thus where they are right, partial, and confused.
When it comes to masculine and feminine types, masculine freedom eats what it wants (leading to more opportunist male eaters and very hard-won nutritional discoveries among men), and feminine fullness can find itself fused with food (leading to more eating disorders among women and more conscious eating among women).
The mainstream media and thus much of society do not know the difference between prerational dietary madness (such as the bulimic vegan) and postrational dietary excellence (such as an informed Plant-Based or Integrated eater). We need a developmental and Integrated approach to dietetics that explains both health and pathologies of diet at every level of the Spectrum of Diet.
There are means to encourage and accelerate nutritional development through stages, without creating stages pathologies, and part of that involves The Spectrum of Diet’s proper placement in ILP.
The Spectrum of Diet has benefits at every stage:
Junk Food / Enjoyment
Fast Food/ Efficiency
Standard American / Communion
Whole Foods / Nutrition
Vegetarian / Kindness
Vegan / Compassion & Empathy
Raw-Live Plant-Based / Vibrance and Life
Integrated / Inclusiveness, Re-Integration, Understanding
As we move up the Spectrum, it is important to include each of the positive aspects (listed above) from our prior dietary practices. Your life is not one of dietary indiscretions – everything you have ever done has meaning and purpose that you can put to good service for yourself and others now and for the rest of your life!
For more on the Spectrum of Diet, be on the lookout for the book on this incredibly important topic from David Rainoshek!
See you in The Green Room!
Integral Poetry: “Prologue to HOWL” by Alan Ginsberg, read by James Franco in the film, Howl.
This is a MUST-SEE for today’s topic.
Moved Beyond 100% Raw/Vegan: Denise Minger and The Raw Brahs
Angela Stokes, an Juice Feasting student, colleague, and friend of David Rainoshek, has announced her move beyond Raw Veganism… important stuff. Take a look!
Ken Wilber on an Integral Awareness and Divine Pride.
Ken does it again! He manages to sum up the challenge of our times and gives insight into how we might cultivate a positive attitude towards change and our evolving idea of who we are and who we can be.
Today’s Downloads
post vegan
by David Rainoshek, M.A.
This is an ongoing list of Vegan advocates past and present who studied, wrote, taught, ate, and lived a Vegan and/or Raw/Live Vegan lifestyle, and chose after some years of doing so to skillfully re-integrate a degree of animal products into their diet.
That being said, many of the persons you will read about below still maintain what we call a Center of Gravity on a plant-based diet (Center of Gravity being a term from Ken Wilber’s work on Integral Theory to designate an approximate stage of development one might be at in a particular developmental sequence.)
In future versions of this file, we will go into details on the nature of their evolutionary move into a Post-Vegan approach.
Online Articles
Victoria Boutenko on Not Being Raw by Victoria Boutenko
“I noticed feeling progressively more sensitive when talking to people who were struggling to stick to a 60%, 70%, 80%, or whatever % raw diet. All of a sudden, I realized that my book 12 Steps to Raw Foods (first edition) contained fanaticism about 100% raw foodism. Soon I completely revised this book and published the second edition, which I find to be a much kinder book, and perhaps more useful because of that. I shredded and recycled the left over copies of the old edition.”
Great Books
This section is done differently than all the other Great Books sections on JuiceFeasting.com. The following books are listed according to their Center of Gravity on the Spectrum of Diet, starting with Fast Food and moving through to Integrated. I have placed books that explore both the good news and the limitations of each stage of our dietary evolution. Enjoy!
Fast Food/Standard American
By Eric Schlosser
On any given day, one out of four Americans opts for a quick and cheap meal at a fast-food restaurant, without giving either its speed or its thriftiness a second thought. Fast food is so ubiquitous that it now seems as American, and harmless, as apple pie. But the industry’s drive for consolidation, homogenization, and speed has radically transformed America’s diet, landscape, economy, and workforce, often in insidiously destructive ways. Eric Schlosser, an award-winning journalist, opens his ambitious and ultimately devastating exposé with an introduction to the iconoclasts and high school dropouts, such as Harlan Sanders and the McDonald brothers, who first applied the principles of a factory assembly line to a commercial kitchen. Quickly, however, he moves behind the counter with the overworked and underpaid teenage workers, onto the factory farms where the potatoes and beef are grown, and into the slaughterhouses run by giant meatpacking corporations. Schlosser wants you to know why those French fries taste so good (with a visit to the world’s largest flavor company) and “what really lurks between those sesame-seed buns.” Eater beware: forget your concerns about cholesterol, there is–literally–feces in your meat.
Schlosser’s investigation reaches its frightening peak in the meatpacking plants as he reveals the almost complete lack of federal oversight of a seemingly lawless industry. His searing portrayal of the industry is disturbingly similar to Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle, written in 1906: nightmare working conditions, union busting, and unsanitary practices that introduce E. coli and other pathogens into restaurants, public schools, and homes. Almost as disturbing is his description of how the industry “both feeds and feeds off the young,” insinuating itself into all aspects of children’s lives, even the pages of their school books, while leaving them prone to obesity and disease. Fortunately, Schlosser offers some eminently practical remedies. “Eating in the United States should no longer be a form of high-risk behavior,” he writes. Where to begin? Ask yourself, is the true cost of having it “your way” really worth it?
By Morgan Spurlock
The nauseating truth from the producer, director, and guinea pig of the Academy Award-nominated documentary Super Size Me.
Just when you figured it was safe to scarf fries again comes the factpacked and funny new alarm bell from the man whose month-long McDonald’s diet became the subject of an Oscar-nominated, box-office-bonanza documentary. Here Morgan Spurlock examines everything from school lunch programs and the marketing of fast food to the decline of physical education. He looks at why fast food is so tasty, cheap, and ultimately seductive-and interviews everyone from surgeons general and kids to marketing gurus and lawmakers, who share their research and opinions on what we can do to offset a health crisis of supersized proportions.
By Steve Ettlinger
A pop-science journey into the surprising ingredients found in most common packaged foods
Like most Americans, Steve Ettlinger eats processed foods. And, like most consumers, he didn’t have a clue as to what most of the ingredients on the labels mean. So when his young daughter asked, “Daddy, what’s polysorbate 60?” he was at a loss—and determined to find out.
From the phosphate mines in Idaho to the oil fields in China, Twinkie, Deconstructed demystifies some of the most common processed food ingredients— where they come from, how they are made, how they are used—and why. Beginning at the source (hint: they’re often more closely linked to rock and petroleum than any of the four food groups), we follow each Twinkie ingredient through the process of being crushed, baked, fermented, refined, and/or reacted into a totally unrecognizable goo or powder—all for the sake of creating a simple snack cake.
An insightful exploration of the modern food industry, if you’ve ever wondered what you’re eating when you consume foods containing mono- and diglycerides or calcium sulfate (the latter a food-grade equivalent of plaster of paris), this book is for you.
By Charles Wilson and Eric Schlosser
In the New York Times bestseller Chew on This, Eric Schlosser and Charles Wilson unwrap the fast-food industry to bring you a behind-the-scenes look at a business that both feeds and feeds off the young. Find out what really goes on at your favorite restaurants—and what lurks between those sesame seed buns.
Praised for being accessible, honest, humorous, fascinating, and alarming, Chew On This was also repeatedly referred to as a must-read for kids who regularly eat fast food. Having all the facts about fast food helps young people make healthy decisions about what they eat. Chew On This shows them that they can change the world by changing what they eat.
Whole Foods Books
By Micheal Pollan
In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto is a 2008 book by journalist and activist Michael Pollan. It was number one on the New York Times Non-Fiction Best Seller List for six weeks. The book grew out of Pollan’s 2007 essay Unhappy Meals published in the New York Times Magazine. Pollan has also said that he wrote In Defense of Food as a response to people asking him what they should eat after having read his previous book, The Omnivore’s Dilemma. In the book, Pollan explores the relationship between nutritionism and the Western diet, postulating that the answer to healthy eating is simply to “Eat food. Not too much. Pollan argues that nutritionism as an ideology has overly complicated and harmed American eating habits. Pollan recommends that Americans spend more money and time on food, and buy locally.
By Aldo Leopold
Published in 1949, shortly after the author’s death, A Sand County Almanac is a classic of nature writing, widely cited as one of the most influential nature books ever published. Writing from the vantage of his summer shack along the banks of the Wisconsin River, Leopold mixes essay, polemic, and memoir in his book’s pages. In one famous episode, he writes of killing a female wolf early in his career as a forest ranger, coming upon his victim just as she was dying, “in time to watch a fierce green fire dying in her eyes…. I was young then, and full of trigger-itch; I thought that because fewer wolves meant more deer, no wolves would mean hunters’ paradise. But after seeing the green fire die, I sensed that neither the wolf nor the mountain agreed with such a view.” Leopold’s road-to-Damascus change of view would find its fruit some years later in his so-called land ethic, in which he held that nothing that disturbs the balance of nature is right. Much of Almanac elaborates on this basic premise, as well as on Leopold’s view that it is something of a human duty to preserve as much wild land as possible, as a kind of bank for the biological future of all species. Beautifully written, quiet, and elegant, Leopold’s book deserves continued study and discussion today. –Gregory McNamee
By David Steinman
Like Silent Spring, Diet for a Poisoned Planet took on an entire industry and went onto become a classic work of environmental writing. Now reissued in a new millennium edition, the work’s in-depth look at the contaminants in individual food items is updated with the latest Total Diet Study findings. A motivating book, Diet for a Poisoned Planet changes people viscerally. Steinman tells his own story of fishing in the Santa Monica Bay as a child and how he went on to testify before Congress as an expert witness on the contamination of his own body by the fish he ate. The book is written by a true expert who has been a member of a National Academy of Sciences committee to advise Congress on seafood safety legislation.
By Roderick Nash
Roderick Nash’s classic study of America’s changing attitudes toward wilderness has received wide acclaim since its initial publication in 1967. The Los Angeles Times has listed it among the one hundred most influential books published in the last quarter century, Outside Magazine has included it in a survey of “books that changed our world”, and it has been called the “Book of Genesis for environmentalists”. Now a fourth edition of this highly regarded work is available, with a new preface and epilogue in which Nash explores the future of wilderness and reflects on its ethical and biocentric relevance.
By Randall Fitzgerald
In a devastating exposé in the tradition of Silent Spring and Fast Food Nation, investigative journalist Randall Fitzgerald warns how thousands of man-made chemicals in our food, water, medicine, and environment are making humans the most polluted species on the planet. A century ago in 1906, when Congress enacted the Pure Food and Drug Act, Americans were promised “better living through chemistry.” Fitzgerald provides overwhelming evidence to shatter this myth, and many others perpetrated by the chemical, pharmaceutical, and processed foods industries. In the face of this national health crisis, Fitzgerald also presents informed and practical suggestions for what we can do to turn the tide and live healthier lives.
Consider this:
• The average American carries a “body burden” of 700 synthetic chemicals
• Chemicals in tap water can cause reproductive abnormalities and hermaphroditic birth
• A 2005 study of lactating women in eighteen U.S. states found perchlorate (a toxic component of rocket fuel) in practically every mother’s breast milk
By Weston A. Price
An epic study demonstrating the importance of whole food nutrition, and the degeneration and destruction that comes from a diet of processed foods.
For nearly 10 years, Weston Price and his wife traveled around the world in search of the secret to health. Instead of looking at people afflicted with disease symptoms, this highly-respected dentist and dental researcher chose to focus on healthy individuals, and challenged himself to understand how they achieved such amazing health. Dr. Price traveled to hundreds of cities in a total of 14 different countries in his search to find healthy people. He investigated some of the most remote areas in the world. He observed perfect dental arches, minimal tooth decay, high immunity to tuberculosis and overall excellent health in those groups of people who ate their indigenous foods. He found when these people were introduced to modernized foods, such as white flour, white sugar, refined vegetable oils and canned goods, signs of degeneration quickly became quite evident. Dental caries, deformed jaw structures, crooked teeth, arthritis and a low immunity to tuberculosis became rampant amongst them. Dr. Price documented this ancestral wisdom including hundreds of photos in his book, Nutrition and Physical Degeneration.
By Marion Nestle
Nestle (chair, nutrition and food studies, NYU) offers an expos‚ of the tactics used by the food industry to protect its economic interests and influence public opinion. She shows how the industry promotes sales by resorting to lobbying, lawsuits, financial contributions, public relations, advertising, alliances, and philanthropy to influence Congress, federal agencies, and nutrition and health professionals. She also describes the food industry’s opposition to government regulation, its efforts to discredit nutritional recommendations while pushing soft drinks to children via alliances with schools, and its intimidation of critics who question its products or its claims. Nestle berates the food companies for going to great lengths to protect what she calls “techno-foods” by confusing the public regarding distinctions among foods, supplements, and drugs, thus making it difficult for federal regulators to guard the public. She urges readers to inform themselves, choose foods wisely, demand ethical behavior and scientific honesty, and promote better cooperation among industry and government. This provocative work will cause quite a stir in food industry circles. Highly recommended. Irwin Weintraub, Brooklyn Coll., NY
silent spring
By Rachel Carson
Silent Spring, released in 1962, offered the first shattering look at widespread ecological degradation and touched off an environmental awareness that still exists. Rachel Carson’s book focused on the poisons from insecticides, weed killers, and other common products as well as the use of sprays in agriculture, a practice that led to dangerous chemicals to the food source. Carson argued that those chemicals were more dangerous than radiation and that for the first time in history, humans were exposed to chemicals that stayed in their systems from birth to death. Presented with thorough documentation, the book opened more than a few eyes about the dangers of the modern world and stands today as a landmark work.
By Janet A. Flammang
This book explores the idea that table activities–the mealtime rituals of food preparation, serving, and dining–lay the foundation for a proper education on the value of civility, the importance of the common good, and what it means to be a good citizen. The arts of conversation and diplomatic speech are learned and practiced at tables, and a political history of food practices recasts thoughtfulness and generosity as virtues that enhance civil society and democracy. In our industrialized and profit-centered culture, however, foodwork is devalued and civility is eroding.
Looking at the field of American civility, Janet A. Flammang addresses the gendered responsibilities for foodwork’s civilizing functions and argues that any formulation of “civil society” must consider food practices and the household. To allow space for practicing civility, generosity, and thoughtfulness through everyday foodwork, Americans must challenge the norms of unbridled consumerism, work-life balance, and domesticity and caregiving. Connecting political theory with the quotidian activities of the dinner table, Flammang discusses practical ideas from the “delicious revolution” and Slow Food movement to illustrate how civic activities are linked to foodwork, and she points to farmers’ markets and gardens in communities, schools, and jails as sites for strengthening civil society and degendering foodwork.
Vegetarian/Vegan Books
How current this tenth century tale is for both the young and old of today! It addresses environmental and animal rights issues with charming efficacy. A Muslim Sufi work of 10th century Iraq, translated by a rabbi into Hebrew, and rendered into Latin for a Christian king is now translated from the popular Hebrew version by Jews into English, edited by a Christian and illustrated exquisitely by a Muslim woman from India under the patronage of a Saudi princess. This is a true interfaith and multi-cultural title!
In this interfaith and multicultural fable, eloquent representatives of all members of the animal kingdom—from horses to bees—come before the respected Spirit King to complain of the dreadful treatment they have suffered at the hands of humankind. During the ensuing trial, where both humans and animals testify before the King, both sides argue their points ingeniously, deftly illustrating the validity of both sides of the ecology debate. The ancient antecedents of this tale are thought to have originated in India, with the first written version penned in Arabic sometime before the 10th century in what is now Iraq. Much later, this version of the story was translated into Hebrew in 14th century France and was popular in European Jewish communities into the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This exquisite English translation, illustrated with 12 original color illumination plates, is useful in introducing young and old alike to environmental and animal rights issues.
By Carol J. Adams
The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory explores a relationship between patriarchal values and meat eating by interweaving the insights of feminism, vegetarianism, animal defense, and literary theory. A pioneering book, it is now available Tenth Anniversary Edition. When it first appeared in 1990, Library Journal called The Sexual Politics of Meat “an important and provocative work” and predicted it would “inspire and enrage readers across the political spectrum.” True to Library Journal’s prediction, the book was hailed by CHOICE as a “’bible’ for feminist and progressive animal rights activists” and equally reviled by conservative commentators, including Rush Limbaugh, John Leo, and Cal Thomas as an example of political correctness taken to excess.
The appearance of The Sexual Politics of Meat triggered dramatic international media coverage of the book. Polity Press in the United Kingdom immediately issued a British Edition. Full page articles appeared in Australian and Dutch newspapers; reviews appeared in Italy and Norway as well as in Great Britain and the United States. The Kirkus Review concluded that it was “an intelligent polemic…Adams’s observations are telling, most are seductively sprung…the argument is both thoughtful and thought-provoking.” Publisher’s Weekly observed that “Carol J. Adams’s original, provocative book makes a major contribution to the debate on animal rights.”
By John Robbins
By John Robbins
By T. Colin Campbell, PhD
By Jeremy Rifkin
Rifkin, who seems to turn out environmental calls to arms on an assembly line, now turns his guns on beef–in this survey of the cattle culture’s destructive role in the modern world and in history. Citing the works of others, Rifkin points to paleolithic bull and cow cults, to the clash several millennia ago between peaceful matrilineal agriculturalists and nomadic cattle herders who arose around the Ukraine and spread throughout the Old World, and to the North American West–where native populations and the buffalo they lived off were displaced and slaughtered to make room for the cattle industry, much of it financed by British interests, and where US taxpayers continue to subsidize beef ranchers and packers. Readers of vegetarian and animal- rights literature will already be familiar with the points addressed in Rifkin’s subsequent indictment of our multinational- driven cattle culture with its devastating effect on the economies of developing countries; on the lives of starving Third World populations; and on the health of affluent populations who “gorge” on beef, tropical forests, the water supply, soil, and the global atmosphere. Animal Factories (1980) by Jim Mason and Peter Singer, as well as Food First (1977) and other works by Frances Moore Lapp‚ and Joseph Collins, are among the widely read works that are more forcefully and solidly argued.
By Howard Lyman
Howard Lyman’s testimony on The Oprah Winfrey Show revealed the deadly impact of the livestock industry on our well-being. It not only led to Oprah’s declaration that she’d never eat a burger again, it sent shock waves through a concerned and vulnerable public.
A fourth-generation Montana rancher, Lyman investigated the use of chemicals in agriculture after developing a spinal tumor that nearly paralyzed him. Now a vegetarian, he blasts through the propaganda of beef and dairy interests — and the government agencies that protect them — to expose an animal-based diet as the primary cause of cancer, heart disease, and obesity in this country. He warns that the livestock industry is repeating the mistakes that led to Mad Cow disease in England while simultaneously causing serious damage to the environment.
Persuasive, straightforward, and full of the down-home good humor and optimism of a son of the soil, Mad Cowboy is both an inspirational story of personal transformation and a convincing call to action for a plant-based diet — for the good of the planet and the health of us all.
By Dr. Murray Waldman and Marjorie Lamb
It’s widely accepted nowadays that memory loss comes with age. Alzheimer’s currently robs at least 15 million people of their identity worldwide. This book makes the controversial claim that eating meat may contribute to the development of the disease.
In Dying for a Hamburger, Dr. Murray Waldman and Marjorie Lamb draw upon documentary evidence, historical testimony, and inspired speculation to suggest that Alzheimer’s:
– is a new disease–elderly people did not experience symptoms of dementia in such alarming numbers in the past
– began appearing after modern meat production techniques were introduced
– has soared in nations where these techniques are used
– hardly exists in cultures where meat consumption is low
– has been attributed to many deaths that are actually the human equivalent of mad cow disease.
By Howard Williams
Now we can join Gandhi and Tolstoy and nameless others who encountered this vigorous and invigorating book. Welcome to a company of radicals who believed we could and should stop eating non-human animals. They brought vegetarianism out of history and into the here and now”. (from the introduction). Ethical vegetarianism is no recent development, as this unrivaled historical anthology dramatizes. When it was first published 120 years ago, countless people read and endorsed “The Ethics of Diet”. But then it became a rare book, hard to find even in libraries. For countless more readers, it is at last available again. In this classic of vegetarian writing, Howard Williams presents a line of thought, a continuous thread, a tradition, a catena of protestation against living on “Butchery”. What he finds striking is the variety of the witnesses, the prophets of “Reformed Dietetics” who have “shrunk from the regime of blood”, including Gautama Buddha, Pythagoras, Plato, Hesiod, Epicurus, Seneca, Ovid, Thomas More, Montaigne, Mandeville, Pope, Voltaire, Swedenborg, Wesley, Rousseau, Shelley, Byron, Lamar-tine, Michelet, Bentham, Sinclair, Schopenhauer, and Thoreau. Their words are accompanied by the vigorous narrative voice of Williams himself, who put to rest, once and for all, the idea that vegetarianism is a fad.
Integrated Nutrition Books
By Paul Pitchford
Used as a reference by students of acupuncture, this is a hefty, truly comprehensive guide to the theory and healing power of Chinese medicine. It’s also a primer on nutrition—including facts about green foods, such as spirulina and blue-green algae, and the “regeneration diets” used by cancer patients and arthritics—along with an inspiring cookbook with more than 300 mostly vegetarian, nutrient-packed recipes.The information on Chinese medicine is useful for helping to diagnose health imbalances, especially nascent illnesses. It’s smartly paired with the whole-foods program because the Chinese have attributed various health-balancing properties to foods, so you can tailor your diet to help alleviate symptoms of illness. For example, Chinese medicine dictates that someone with low energy and a pale complexion (a yin deficiency) would benefit from avoiding bitter foods and increasing “sweet” foods such as soy, black sesame seeds, parsnips, rice, and oats. (Note that the Chinese definition of sweet foods is much different from the American one!)Pitchford says in his dedication that he hopes the reader finds “healing, awareness, and peace” from following his program. The diet is certainly acetic by American standards (no alcohol, caffeine, white flour, fried foods, or sugar, and a minimum of eggs and dairy) but the reasons he gives for avoiding these “negative energy” foods are compelling. From the adrenal damage imparted by coffee to immune dysfunction brought on by excess refined sugar, Pitchford spurs you to rethink every dietary choice and its ultimate influence on your health. Without being alarmist, he adds dietary tips for protecting yourself against the dangers of modern life, including neutralizing damage from water fluoridation (thyroid and immune-system problems may result; fluoride is a carcinogen). There’s further reading on food combining, female health, heart disease, pregnancy, fasting, and weight loss. Overall, this is a wonderful book for anyone who’s serious about strengthening his or her body from the inside out.
By Michael Pollan
The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals is a nonfiction book by Michael Pollan published in 2006. In the book, Pollan asks the seemingly straightforward question of what we should have for dinner. As omnivores – the most unselective eaters – we humans are faced with a wide variety of food choices, resulting in a dilemma. To learn more out about those choices, Pollan follows each of the food chains that sustain us – industrial food, organic food, and food we forage ourselves – from the source to a final meal, and in the process writes an account of the American way of eating.
By Joel Salatin
From farmer Joel Salatin’s point of view, life in the 21st century just ain’t normal. In FOLKS, THIS AIN’T NORMAL, he discusses how far removed we are from the simple, sustainable joy that comes from living close to the land and the people we love. Salatin has many thoughts on what normal is and shares practical and philosophical ideas for changing our lives in small ways that have big impact.
Salatin, hailed by the New York Times as “Virginia’s most multifaceted agrarian since Thomas Jefferson [and] the high priest of the pasture” and profiled in the Academy Award nominated documentary Food, Inc. and the bestselling book The Omnivore’s Dilemma, understands what food should be: Wholesome, seasonal, raised naturally, procured locally, prepared lovingly, and eaten with a profound reverence for the circle of life. And his message doesn’t stop there. From child-rearing, to creating quality family time, to respecting the environment, Salatin writes with a wicked sense of humor and true storyteller’s knack for the revealing anecdote.
Salatin’s crucial message and distinctive voice–practical, provocative, scientific, and down-home philosophical in equal measure–make FOLKS, THIS AIN’T NORMAL a must-read book.
the sheer ecstasy of being a lunatic farmer
By Jole Stalatin
Foodies and environmentally minded folks often struggle to understand and articulate the fundamental differences between the farming and food systems they endorse and those promoted by Monsanto and friends. With visceral stories and humor from Salatin’s half-century as a “lunatic” farmer, Salatin contrasts the differences on many levels: practical, spiritual, social, economic, ecological, political, and nutritional.
In today’s conventional food-production paradigm, any farm that is open-sourced, compost-fertilized, pasture-based, portably-infrastructured, solar-driven, multi-speciated, heavily peopled, and soil-building must be operated by a lunatic. Modern, normal, reasonable farmers erect “No Trespassing” signs, deplete soil, worship annuals, apply petroleum-based chemicals, produce only one commodity, erect Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations, and discourage young people from farming.
Anyone looking for ammunition to defend a more localized, solar-driven, diversified food system will find an entire arsenal in these pages. With wit and humor honed during countless hours working on the farm he loves, and then interacting with conventional naysayers, Salatin brings the land to life, farming to sacredness, and food to ministry.
Divided into four main sections, the first deals with principles to nurture the earth, an idea mainline farming has never really endorsed. The second section describes food and fiber production, including the notion that most farmers don’t care about nutrient density or taste because all they want is shipability and volume. The third section, titled “Respect for Life,” presents an apologetic for food sacredness and farming as a healing ministry. Only lunatics would want less machinery and pathogenicity. Oh, the ecstasy of not using drugs or paying bankers. How sad. The final section deals with promoting community, including the notion that more farmers would be a good thing.
By Susan Schenck
By Lierre Keith
By Donna Gates
By Shazzie
By John Robbins
By Tara Austen Weaver
Media, Films, & Documentaries
David Rainoshek on The Spectrum of Diet, Part 1
David Rainoshek on The Spectrum of Diet, Part 2
The China Study: A Critical Review | Denise Minger
Why Animal Fats Are Good for You | Chris Masterjohn
When A Vegetarian Diet Doesn't Work with Susan Schenck
Susan Schenck, author of Beyond Broccoli, discusses why she changed her mind about following a vegan diet and what you can do when a vegan/vegetarian diet doesn’t work — or stops working — for you. Topics will include:
+ Which nutrients are contained in animal foods but not in plants
+ Why a vegan diet is unsuitable for children and pregnant women
+ The benefits of consuming raw meat
+ Flaws in The China Study
+ Why the world would starve if everyone became vegetarian
Visit Susan’s website at www.livefoodfactor.com
Ram Dass: On Integrating All Planes of Being
This is one of my favorite talks by Ram Dass. This is a wonderful talk on making peace with your life, and upgrading your perspective on what it is you are here really doing.
Lierre Keith on Her Book: The Vegetarian Myth
David Getoff: Lierre Keith, the author of an excellent book entitled The Vegetarian Myth, was kind enough to let me interview her. She talks about her book and what prompted her to stop being a vegetarian and a vegan and to instead expose all the lies surrounding this unhealthy manner of eating. She also talks about the need for planet sustainability and how vegetarianism and agriculture, quite opposite to what is believed, are actually destroying everything that we hold dear. Listen and learn, then read her book for a great deal more information.
Just Eat Real Food with Jordan Rubin on Underground Wellness
Jordan Rubin, founder of Beyond Organic, stops by UW Radio to discuss what real food really is. Jordan has an amazing story to share about how he regained his health by way of eating real foods. Out of his experience came a vision to provide wholesome foods to the masses. The health and wellness community is very excited about Jordan’s lastest endeavor, as he will soon launch a company providing grass-fed meats, probiotic chocolate, cultured dairy, and more delivered to your doorstep.
[Documentary] Eating: Third Edition with Mike Anderson
This award-winning DVD covers a lot of ground very comprehensively – and now has subtitles in Spanish, French, German and English (for the deaf). Among the many highlights are interviews with Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn, Dr. Neil Pinckney, Dr. Ruth Heidrich and Dr. Joseph Crowe. Dr. Crowe and Dr. Esselstyn are from the Cleveland Clinic Foundation and know something about heart disease. These interviews will convince you that cardiovascular disease, the #1 killer in America today, can be reversed by making simple changes to your diet. What you will get is a virtual one-on-one consultation with some of the world’s leading authorities on heart disease reversal. You will also hear from Dr. Heidrich who treated her breast cancer by simply changing her diet. The DVD also covers a wide-range of other health problems, including the reversal of adult-onset diabetes with diet. It also covers the impact of typical Western diets on the environment. The Eating DVD is used in hospitals and wellness clinics throughout the world to motivate people to change their diets and restore their health.
[Documentary on YouTube] Diet for a New America with John Robbins
In Diet for a New America, John Robbins, son of the founder of the Baskin-Robbins ice-cream empire, presents his theories about how an animal-based diet is killing Americans. Abandoning the wealthy lifestyle of his family, Robbins lived in a log cabin while subsisting on a simple diet of grains, and he eventually realized his calling as a dietary evangelist. He is not without a sense of humor; at one point he describes how he broke with his family by “walking away from our ice-cream-cone-shaped swimming pool.” But Robbins takes his mission seriously, buttressing his strong opinions about how America must reform its diet with commentary from physicians and academics, including some experts from Cornell University who appear on camera. Robbins himself visits farms where pigs, cattle, and chicken are raised in hellish conditions to make the point that modern meat production is inhumane. Much of this video comes across as being commonsense dietary advice, though some of the more extreme statements by experts are no doubt debatable. And there’s no denying that footage of heart surgeries and animals cramped into filthy cages could serve as strong reinforcement to those seeking a healthier diet. –Robert J. McNamara
[Documentary DVD] Fresh (2009)
“What an Integral Farming Practice looks like.” – David Rainoshek, M.A.
The underground documentary that became a massive grassroots success, FRESH is the embodiment of the good food movement.
FRESH outlines the vicious cycle of our current food production methods, while also celebrating the farmers, thinkers and business people across America who are reinventing our food system, from a basketball player and former-executive-turned-urban-farmer to a poetic prophet of the fields who tells us: We can raise everything we need without any of the industrial food system. Director Ana Joanes takes her camera coast to coast and explores the lives of amazing Americans who are redefining the way we eat and how we live. FRESH features urban farmer and activist, Will Allen, the recipient of MacArthur s 2008 Genius Award, sustainable farmer and entrepreneur, Joel Salatin, made famous by Michael Pollan s book, The Omnivore s Dilemma, and supermarket owner, David Ball, who continues to challenge our discount superstore-dominated economy.
Both an enlightening documentary and a stirring call to action, FRESH transforms the way we look at food.
[Documentary] Forks Over Knives
What has happened to us? Despite the most advanced medical technology in the world, we are sicker than ever by nearly every measure.
Two out of every three of us are overweight. Cases of diabetes are exploding, especially amongst our younger population. About half of us are taking at least one prescription drug. Major medical operations have become routine, helping to drive health care costs to astronomical levels. Heart disease, cancer and stroke are the country’s three leading causes of death, even though billions are spent each year to “battle” these very conditions. Millions suffer from a host of other degenerative diseases.
Could it be there’s a single solution to all of these problems? A solution so comprehensive but so utterly straightforward, that it’s mind-boggling that more of us haven’t taken it seriously?
FORKS OVER KNIVES examines the profound claim that most, if not all, of the so-called “diseases of affluence” that afflict us can be controlled, or even reversed, by rejecting our present menu of animal-based and processed foods. The major storyline in the film traces the personal journeys of a pair of pioneering yet under-appreciated researchers, Dr. T. Colin Campbell and Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn.
Dr. Campbell, a nutritional scientist at Cornell University, was concerned in the late 1960’s with producing “high quality” animal protein to bring to the poor and malnourished areas of the third world. While in the Philippines, he made a life-changing discovery: the country’s wealthier children, who were consuming relatively high amounts of animal-based foods, were much more likely to get liver cancer. Dr. Esselstyn, a top surgeon and head of the Breast Cancer Task Force at the world-renowned Cleveland Clinic, found that many of the diseases he routinely treated were virtually unknown in parts of the world where animal-based foods were rarely consumed.
These discoveries inspired Campbell and Esselstyn, who didn’t know each other yet, to conduct several groundbreaking studies. One of them took place in China and is still among the most comprehensive health-related investigations ever undertaken. Their research led them to a startling conclusion: degenerative diseases like heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and even several forms of cancer, could almost always be prevented – and in many cases reversed – by adopting a whole foods, plant-based diet. Despite the profound implications of their findings, their work has remained relatively unknown to the public.
The filmmakers travel with Drs. Campbell and Esselstyn on their separate but similar paths, from their childhood farms where they both produced “nature’s perfect food”; to China and Cleveland, where they explored ideas that challenged the established thinking and shook their own core beliefs.
The idea of food as medicine is put to the test. Throughout the film, cameras follow “reality patients” who have chronic conditions from heart disease to diabetes. Doctors teach these patients how to adopt a whole foods plant-based diet as the primary approach to treat their ailments – while the challenges and triumphs of their journeys are revealed.
FORKS OVER KNIVES utilizes state of the art 3-D graphics and rare archival footage. The film features leading experts on health, examines the question “why we don’t know”, and tackles the issue of diet and disease in a way that will have people talking for years.
[Documentary DVD] Food, Inc with Eric Schlosser
For most Americans, the ideal meal is fast, cheap, and tasty. Food, Inc. examines the costs of putting value and convenience over nutrition and environmental impact. Director Robert Kenner explores the subject from all angles, talking to authors, advocates, farmers, and CEOs, like co-producer Eric Schlosser (Fast Food Nation), Michael Pollan (The Omnivore’s Dilemma), Gary Hirschberg (Stonyfield Farms), and Barbara Kowalcyk, who’s been lobbying for more rigorous standards since E. coli claimed the life of her two-year-old son. The filmmaker takes his camera into slaughterhouses and factory farms where chickens grow too fast to walk properly, cows eat feed pumped with toxic chemicals, and illegal immigrants risk life and limb to bring these products to market at an affordable cost. If eco-docs tends to preach to the converted, Kenner presents his findings in such an engaging fashion that Food, Inc. may well reach the very viewers who could benefit from it the most: harried workers who don’t have the time or income to read every book and eat non-genetically modified produce every day. Though he covers some of the same ground as Super-Size Me and King Corn, Food Inc. presents a broader picture of the problem, and if Kenner takes an understandably tough stance on particular politicians and corporations, he’s just as quick to praise those who are trying to be responsible–even Wal-Mart, which now carries organic products. That development may have more to do with economics than empathy, but the consumer still benefits, and every little bit counts. –Kathleen C. Fennessy
[Documentary DVD] Food Matters
Let thy Food be thy Medicine and thy Medicine be thy Food Hippocrates. That is the message from the founding father of modern medicine echoed in the controversial new documentary film Food Matters from Producer-Directors James Colquhoun and Laurentine ten Bosch. With nutritionally-depleted foods, chemical additives and our tendency to rely upon pharmaceutical drugs to treat what s wrong with our malnourished bodies, it s no wonder that modern society is getting sicker. Food Matters sets about uncovering the trillion dollar worldwide sickness industry and gives people some scientifically verifiable solutions for curing disease naturally. In what promises to be the most contentious idea put forward, the filmmakers have interviewed several world leaders in nutrition and natural healing who claim that not only are we harming our bodies with improper nutrition, but that the right kind of foods, supplements and detoxification can be used to treat chronic illnesses as fatal as terminally diagnosed cancer. The focus of the film is in helping us rethink the belief systems fed to us by our modern medical and health care establishments. The interviewees point out that not every problem requires costly, major medical attention and reveal many alternative therapies that can be more effective, more economical, less harmful and less invasive than conventional medical treatments..