In The Food Revolution, John Robbins teaches how our diet can help save our life and our world. He concludes and reflects on what the future will bring us, not only as individuals, but as a country, as a species, and as a planet. Take some time out and ponder these following questions. We are all completely connected, entangled and embedded in their answers. In fact, are we not the creators of the questions themselves?
Read them below or in the Downloadable PDF. How many do you know the answer to?
Our Food. Our Future:
- Will genetic engineering take over completely, so that all our foods will become transgenic, as Monsanto (an agrochemical corporation) is hoping? Or will organic food and agriculture prevail and become the standard?
- What will be the plight of the world’s least fortunate? Will we give up on the eternal prayer to end the great sorrow of human starvation, and wall ourselves off ever more from our fellow human beings? Or will we finally do something about this ancient scourge and find out what magnificent treasures we have in each other?
- In the years to come, will we suffer from increasing ecological havoc, with ever more devastating storms and extreme weather events, with hundreds of millions of people driven from their homes by rising seas and terrifying “acts of God”? Or will we shift to solar, hydrogen, and wind as sources of energy, move toward low-petroleum input agriculture, and plant enough trees to return the atmosphere and the climate to stability?
- Will the web of life continue to unravel, with ever more species driven to extinction? Or will we save wilderness and wildlife habitat, realizing that our lives are as dependent on the interconnected functioning of other species for survival as our brains are dependent on the interconnected functioning of our hearts and arteries?
- Will a pound of meat still sell in the supermarket for only a few dollars a pound, despite requiring astronomical quantities of water, energy, grain, and land for its production? Or will we stop subsidizing polluting industries and begin instituting environmental taxes so that the true ecological costs of production come to be incorporated into the price of all the things we buy and sell?
- Will we look at the natural world and other life forms as commodities having value only insofar as we can convert them into revenue? Or will we live with reverence for life on this planet, seeing it as a community of which we are a part and to which we owe our lives?
- Will we continue to house animals destined for human consumption in conditions that violate their biological natures and frustrate their every instinct and need? Or will we widen the circle of our compassion to include these creatures who draw breath from the same source we do?
- Will we eat ever more un-natural food, and watch our rates of obesity, heart disease, cancer, and diabetes continue to skyrocket? Or will we begin to feed ourselves and our children life-giving food with which we and they can build truly healthy and vibrant bodies?
- Will our children think that a balanced diet is a Big Mac in each hand? Or will they know where their food came from, and want to eat healthy food because their parents, whom they love and admire, have shown them the value of doing so?
- Will all our food be irradiated, and will we wash our hands, plates, and cutlery before each meal with chemical disinfectants? Or will we address the problem of food-borne disease at its source-the feedlots, factory farms, and slaughterhouses where pathogens originate and proliferate?
- Will we become even more alienated from the natural world as our food becomes even more processed, refined, and adulterated? Or will our cities be full of urban and rooftop gardens, with ever more people celebrating the pleasures of food that is wholesome, fresh, and full of vitality?
- What will You and I (We) do about it the many critical issues that these questions pose?
This Moment on Earth
So much is at stake in our times. Whether we like it or not, and whether we accept it or not, the choices we make, individually and collectively, in the coming years will make an incredible amount of difference, perhaps more so than at any other time in the history of life on this planet. It is not just the quality of our personal lives and health that depends, now, on the choices we make. The destiny of life on Earth is up for grabs. And we are each part of how it will turn out.
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