To Kill or Not to Kill

To Kill or not to Kill, that is the question.  Killing has become so commonplace for people today that they don't even think about it.  We watch violent movies, play violent video games and violence is the top of the news.  The killing I'm referring to though is the kind that is killing us.

I've blogged about Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead.  The most exciting part of that movie for me was the new food pyramid that they said is the most successful in all history for losing weight and keeping it off.  In the food pyramid you were allowed to eat unlimited veggies, fruits, beans and legumes.  You were allowed limited daily amounts of nuts and seeds.  Meat was recommended once or twice a week.  One of our customers was kind enough to loan me a copy of Forks over Knives, the new movie that is released.  The movie is a documentary by two medical doctors, one who is a surgeon.  They talk about the china study and it's results tracking cancer and disease and their connection to diet.  In all of their research they found that 20% casein in your diet promotes the growth of diseases such as stroke, cancer and diabetes.  5% casein in the diet didn't seem to elevate these risks at all.  Where does casein come from?  Meat protein and dairy.

Let's break it down.  When we kill animals or eat animals that someone else has killed for us on a daily basis it is easy to consume 20% casein in our diet if one of our meals per day is half meat, like in a burger and fries.  Unfortunately, most Americans on the S.A.D. diet or M.A.D. diet, Standard American Diet and Modern American Diet consume meat at every meal, i.e. bacon and eggs with toast, hamburger or chicken burger or chicken salad for lunch and meat, potatoes and overcooked veggies for supper.  That is at least a whopping 30-50 percent meat in their daily diet.  Do you know that the USDA recommends a 5 ounce portion of meat as a serving, the typical steaks served at restaurants are 12 ounces.  So at one meal, you can eat two or more portions of meat.  The result: all this animal killing is killing us.  Sad fact is that for 25% of heart attack victims, death was their first symptom that anything was wrong.

Plant based diets are the answer as Forks over Knives clearly illustrates.  More than that like Woody Harrelson's documentary illustrated SOL living is the solution, Simple Organic Living.  David Wolfe, raw foodist whose parents are both doctors said that Genesis 1:29 is very specific about what kinds of fruits and veggies we should eat.  He said that it is fruit bearing seeds that were given to us.  Therefore seedless varieties or genetically modified foods are not optimal for our bodies because that was not what was provided for us.

In Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead, the man who had heart surgery resumed his old ways of eating and knew that food was going to kill him.  He didn't much care about missing out on 5 or 10 years of his life.  Cancer patients are "cured" of their cancer and continue eating in the manner that caused cancer to grow in the first place as Forks over Knives illustrates.  The result? Cancer returns. 

Folks, we're slowly killng ourselves with the food that we eat.  We're killing animals, we're killing our soil with pesticides and we're killing the air and water that support life.  Most of us would never dream of killing ourselves with a bullet and yet, worse than that, we're killing ourselves and all the things that sustain life by the way we eat.  Each of us is personally responsible for the food we spend our money on and what we put into our bodies.

I love what Woody Harrelson said at the end of his movie: Go Further.  I'm going to close this blog with his words, because they are inspiring:

I feel like an alien creature for which there is no earthly explanation. In money we trust in which there is no happiness. Like a genetically modified, irradiated Big Mac is somehow symbolic of food. Morality is legislated, prisons overpopulated, religion is incorporated, the profit motive is permeated all activity. Can you imagine clean water, food and air, living in community with people who care? Do you dare to feel responsible for every dollare you lay down, are you going to make the rich man richer or are you going to stand your ground? You say you want a revolution, a communal evolution, to be a part of the solution? Maybe I'll be seeing you around.