Fads Pose Dangers, Don’t Listen to Dietary Fads

However, we need to be careful on this question of diet. Many different ideas are prevalent today. Don't believe all you hear. There may be some elements of truth in a few of these dietary fads, but usually there is some foolish notion hidden underneath that is neither in harmony with science nor with common sense. Don't be misled.

Regardless of the many fantastic claims that you may hear, there is no one perfect food. There is none that will meet all the needs of the body any more than there is one perfect material that will serve every purpose in building a house. The best diets are those in which there is plenty of variety. Then if any particular element is lacking in one food, it may be amply provided in another. This is one excellent way of avoiding deficiencies in your diet.

Variety is most important. But it is not the complete answer. We must also use discretion in the choice of foods. Some things that may look tasty are not always healthful and nutritious. Foods that are highly refined are less likely to contain the vital elements to meet the needs of the body. Modern food processing may have its good points. But sometimes the vitamins and minerals are lost in the refining process. It is better to use fresh foods whenever they are available. But be sure that they are really fresh.

Some people tend to think that malnutrition is a problem among the less-favored classes of the world. While this is true, it is surprising how often those with higher incomes also suffer from a different type of malnutrition. They eat plenty of food, but mostly of the wrong type. This so-called "hidden hunger" is very common in large cities, where more artificial living conditions prevail. Modern methods of marketing are providing a wider range of foods. But far too many people still prefer to live on devitalized foods that are woefully inadequate. It is these devitalized foods that lead to hidden hunger.

Such diets fail to provide the body with the right building materials that will keep it functioning properly. Foods that contain a high concentration of sugar and other carbohydrates may provide energy, but other important elements are usually lacking. Soon the organs begin to lose their normal powers of operation. The vital processes of the body are slowed down, and a toxic condition develops. The delicate balance of nature is upset, and the whole body suffers.

It is amazing the amount of food that one person may consume in his lifetime. Someone has estimated that we eat up to 1,400 times our own weight in a lifetime of seventy years! Think of how much money we spend in buying all this food! Surely such an expenditure as this is worthy of our closest study. Are we buying health, or weakness and disease? A balanced diet is the very best type of insurance against those degenerative diseases so common today.

It is true that diet alone is not the answer to all of our health problems. Other things must also be considered. But a well-balanced diet will always help to restore those body tissues that have been laid waste by serious disease. And what fun we can have while we are getting well again! So much depends on the attitude of the mind.

Mental Attitudes Important

Centuries ago the wise man gave us a great scientific truth when he said, "A merry heart doeth good like a medicine." This is absolutely true. It is the optimistic person who usually makes a good recovery. Because he is happy in himself and confident in the future, his health naturally begins to improve. His whole body responds to the sheer joy of living.

But the wise man did not stop there. He also added these significant words: "A broken spirit drieth the bones." This observation is just as true as the other. A pessimistic attitude soon affects the whole body. It slows down the circulation of the blood. It interferes with good digestion. It takes all the joy out of living. In the end, it may so completely change the individual that he becomes old and worn out long before his time.

Our mental attitudes are very important, particularly as they affect this question of diet. Many of us are shortening our lives without fully realizing what we are doing. Some of us eat too much, often for no other reason than to soothe our injured feelings. Or perhaps we do not take time to eat sensible meals. We grab something and run. We are in too much of a hurry. Then we wonder why we are weak and sick. We do not seem to realize that our diet has much to do with our endurance and also with our ability to resist disease. All the vitamin pills in the world will not make up for the lack of a sensible way of living.

Millions of people are spending fortunes trying to win back their lost figures and restore their flagging energies. All they needed was to apply a little common sense in the first place. No one can hope to have an attractive appearance, a healthy skin, and a clear mind unless he is willing to use discretion in choosing his meals. Even good foods, if taken to excess, may destroy the vitality of the body. Anything that is overdone may cause trouble, even too many vitamins.

A balanced diet is the very foundation of good living. To keep the body functioning smoothly and efficiently, it must be supplied with a constant stream of essential nutrients. This must be clear to all. Yet, it is a shocking fact that many farmers and dairymen are more interested in how they feed their cattle than in how they feed their children! Of course, it pays to see that cattle are well fed. But isn't it time we begin to think about ourselves and our children as well?

Today, thanks to modern medical discoveries, we have less to fear from serious infections. But degenerative diseases are becoming more frequent on every hand. How can these be avoided in your own particular case? This is something you should feel free to discuss with your own family doctor. He is the best one to advise you on such matters. But there is no question that a good, sensible diet will always help. And when we follow such a program, we will feel stronger and more energetic, our mealtimes will be happier, and we can look forward to enjoying better health for years.

Indifference - the biggest enemy?

Against the background of all this evidence and the educational efforts of authorities worldwide, what are the chances that in the decades to come, people will change their eating patterns to protect themselves against cancer? Unfortunately, the experts agree that these chances are slim indeed. For one thing, they say, there is no record of any population ever changing from a palatable diet high in fat to a less palatable one which is lower in fat, for health's sake.

To justify this pessimism, it has to be admitted that despite all the evidence and the urging of respected authorities such as those mentioned above, statistics show that people in Western nations are not cutting down on their food and fat intakes. In fact in many countries - such as the US and Australia - obesity is rising. South Africa is no exception in this regard, since several reports havetestified to the high frequency of obesity in our inter-ethnicpopulations, especially among women. Obviously, food consumption in prosperous Western nations - and in 'higher-class' Third World urban populations - is governed mainly by pleasurable taste and hedonisticattraction.

The Cabbage Patch Diet

There has been a lot of discussion in the media about the valuable anti-cancer properties of fruit and particularly of 'cruciferous vegetables'. These are vegetables which have four leaves at the base of the stalk in the shape of a cross - hence the name. Cabbage, brussels sprouts, broccoli and cauliflower all fall into the group. These vegetables also provide us with a large amount of fibre. Along with many other fibrous foods, cruciferous vegetables are rich in vitamins A, beta-carotene, C and E. It has recently been discovered that these vitamins act as important defence mechanisms against damage to tissues and the impairment of their function due to 'free radicals' - compounds which are produced in the everyday working of our bodies.

The vitamins, which act as 'anti-oxidants' or scavengers, tend to lessen the damaging effects of bacteria and other parasites and also have an inhibiting effect on the development of cancer and other degenerative diseases. While these findings may tempt you to rush out and stock up on multivitamins, all authoritative dietary bodies are emphatic that it is infinitely preferable to increase your vitamin intake by eating more plant foods rather than by popping pills. (This applies particularly to vitamin A, which can be toxic in large doses.)

This is borne out by the well-known experience of some populations during World War II. During that time there was a significant drop in the consumption of fat and sugar - simply because they were not freely available - and a marked increase in the intake of less refined bread and of vegetables and fruit. In the populations most affected, there were varying decreases in dental caries, obesity, diabetes, coronary heart disease, constipation and appendicitis. Admittedly there was no clear-cut evidence of a fall in diet-related cancers, perhaps because the length of time these changes were in operation was too short. But the point of this story is that once wartimerestrictions were removed, dietary patterns reverted and frequencies of all the disorders and diseases mentioned returned to their former levels - and then increased.

A recent survey by the American Cancer Society showed that 'only 15% of those polled (white persons) reported that they had made significant changes in the foods they eat because of theirunderstanding of a possible diet-cancer link'. In the Tecumeseh Diet Study (also in the United States) in which peoples' perceptions of change were assessed after a 15-year interval, there was no fall in the intakes of fats and oils. And a survey in the Netherlands indicated that only 4% of the population were consuming a 'prudent' diet.

With increasing urbanization and prosperity, energy and fat intakes are rising in Third World populations to the levels consumed by their white brothers and sisters. Simultaneously, fibre intakes are falling to levels even below those of white populations. Education among urban Third World populations has certainly created an understanding that nutritional deficiency diseases, mainly in children, such as proteinenergy-malnutrition (marasmus, kwashiorkor), can be fought by making appropriate changes, and that adult nutrition is very important in the control of tuberculosis. However, to suggest that their increasingly palatable diet, with higher intakes of animal products, should now be modified to lessen their chances of developing 'killer' diseases in later life seems like a contradiction, and is largely ignored.

In the American Cancer Society study referred to, it came to light that blacks and Hispanics were less inclined than whites to alter their diets so as to reduce their risk of getting cancer - even though these minority groups appeared to be just as aware of the link between nutrition and the reduction of cancer risk. One reason stated was that blacks and Hispanics are more likely than whites to feel that they cannot afford the required nutritious diet. (In America, brown bread costs more than white bread and breakfast cereals, vegetables and fruit are comparatively expensive.)

An Organic Wave Worldwide Part 3

WHAT YOU CAN DO

When we buy local sustainable foods we support a new food paradigm where local communities reap the benefits of trade, rather than a few multinational corporations. This doesn't mean we have to stop all food trade or no longer buy special foods from other regions of the world. But it does mean shifting our priorities so that we create a staple of local foods wherever possible. This way, food is only imported in places where local resources can't sustain the community.

Buy Fair-Trade and Organic Imports

It is important, when we buy food from other countries, particularly from the developing world, that we make sure the product was grown and harvested in an environmentally and socially ethical way—which means buying fair trade and organic as much as possible. When any of us eats from local, organic food sources, we are less likely to contribute to the exploitation of another country's people or precious natural resources. Not every region or community can or should produce all its food. But it doesn't make sense for poor, underdeveloped areas of the world to grow cash crops for other countries when their own people go hungry. Nor does it make sense for wealthy countries to import cash crops when they are already growing the same kinds of foods in abundance.

Drink Ethical Coffee

If you are a daily coffee drinker, like I am, then every morning you can do something to reduce your chemical exposure, support safe farming practices, and protect our tropical forests. For instance, by purchasing shade-grown coffee, you invest in a crop that was grown by a farmer under the umbrella of a rain forest—protecting the jungles and even migratory birds of the world. If it's not shade-grown, your coffee could very well be grown on a clear-cut, factory-style plantation, completely dependent on agrochemicals.

Shade-grown coffee requires less and sometimes no chemical fertilizers because the plants that are part of the forest's complex ecosystem naturally add nutrients to the soil. Even water irrigation isn't necessary because the canopy of trees provides enough shade to slow the water loss from evaporation. In Peru, a farmer who grows coffee in the shade of a forest can earn 30 percent of his income from other sales, such as firewood, fruits, and medicinal plants— all natural features of the shade system. If you want complete assurance no agrochemicals were used on the crops, then certified organic is the way to go.

Fair-trade coffee means that you invested in a system that pays growers a "fair price" for the coffee painstakingly grown. Shockingly, companies that don't practice fair trade pay the average coffee grower less than $3 a day. Imagine— each day farmers have to feed their families, educate their children, and maintain their homes and business with the same amount of money that the average Americans pays for a latte. If everyone were to insist on only drinking ethical coffee, we would help rural farmers retain their dignity as well as ownership of their land (keeping it out of corporate control). We would reduce the amount of chemicals polluting the planet. We'd protect the future of migratory birds. And we could preserve almost 25 million acres of rain forest a year.

One cup at a time we can help reverse the trend of forest destruction. Forests and woodlands can and will grow back in most cases—not immediately and not exactly as they were before—but nature is resilient and eternally creative. So each time you buy a bag of beans or sip a cup of coffee you can fully enjoy its roasted, aromatic pleasures, knowing that you are protecting the world's tropical farmers and their precious landscapes.

An OrganicWave Worldwide Part 1

"Humans merely share the earth. We can only protect the land, not own it."

-CHIEF SEATTLE

Why should we be concerned about what is happening around the world? Don't we have enough problems at home without worrying about Africa or India or China? Unfortunately, as corporate globalization stretches its grasp ever further across the face of the earth, we find that the demands of the urban elite seriously and negatively impact the poor in developing countries. As when the Brazilian rain forest is destroyed in order that cheap hamburgers can be sold on the American market. Or when large areas of traditional farmland in Africa are sold to foreign companies to grow coffee or tea, the sale of which is unlikely to benefit those who live in the area.

Looked at from another perspective, the government subsidies for farmers growing corn in America, which result in flooding the U.S. market and lowering prices to the extent that small-scale farmers are going out of business, also means that cheap grain is available for famine relief overseas. And while this may be of the utmost importance—inmany cases saving thousands of lives—there can also be a downside in that local farmers in famine-stricken areas will be unable to sell their crops. Which may be devastating.

Finally, the amount of food shipped between countries has quadrupled since the 1960s, but this hasn't been a boon for the small local farmers in either the exporting or importing countries. Instead, it's perpetuated a situation where people in wealthier nations are consuming more and ever more of the food resources of poorer nations. We now have a global corporate structure where less developed nations are struggling with overpopulation, poverty, and hunger while they deplete their land and natural resources to feed people in other, wealthier parts of the world, and to put foreign exchange into the often corrupt pockets of government officials. And the small family farmers in the importing countries cannot compete with cheaper imported produce. Moreover, while the children in poorer parts of the world are often starving, even dying of hunger, the children of the developed world face an epidemic of obesity. Clearly something must be done.

SUSTAINING HOPE

All around the world we find hopeful examples of successful sustainable farming operations in poor, rural communities. And when we say sustainable, we mean, of course, the deep organic farming we've discussed, where the soil is nurtured through composting, biological pest control, and rotation of crops and livestock without the use of chemical pesticides or fertilizers. One such project linked farmers from the impoverished Makuyu community in Kenya with the Kenya Institute of Organic Farming. Before this partnership was established, the Makuyu farmers were using agrochemicals on depleted soil, and were struggling to grow enough food to feed their families. After learning sustainable, organic methods—similar to their old, traditional way of farming—they found that vegetable crop yields not only increased by 60 percent, they actually had a surplus of food.

But the good news didn't end there. The farmers decided to start a local food co-op, so they could sell surplus food and put the profits back into the community. As a result, the Makuyu co-op was able to buy dairy goats, beehives, rabbits, and poultry for community members as well as plant 20,000 trees, including 2,000 mangoes, to help revitalize areas that had been deforested. Meanwhile, the mood of the community shifted from despair to optimism. The Makuyu organic farmers have since gone on to teach other farmers in the region how to farm sustainably.

This is not an isolated example. Jules Pretty, director of the Centre for Environment and Society at the University of Essex and author of The Living Land: Agriculture, Food and Community Regeneration in Rural Europe, researched communities all over the world where farmers are replacing synthetic farm chemicals with sustainable, organic methods. He found that those who are no longer dependent on expensive imported farm chemicals can increase their yields while lowering their production costs. And because sustainable farming is often labor-intensive, it provides more employment for local and regional communities.

Pretty writes about projects that affect some 45,000 farmers in Guatemala and Honduras who now use organic farming and have tripled their corn yields. By also diversifying their upland farms, they created more local business and wealth, which helped spur a remigration back from the cities. He also reports that a million wetland rice farmers in Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Vietnam changed their farming methods to nonchemical sustainable agriculture, and increased their yields by about 10 percent.

But there is danger here. Increased food yield must be balanced by an optimization of the population in a givenarea. However carefully farmed, no land can produce enough food, by any method whatsoever, to keep pace with human population growth as it exists today in many parts of the world. When the number of people living in a given area is too great for the carrying capacity of that area they will try to move to new places. In many cases this is already impossible—there are simply too many people. If they are wealthy and can buy food from elsewhere, then they are depleting the natural resources in other areas. If we do not impose limits on our population growth, life as we know it, on this planet, will no longer be possible. Even if we could, theoretically, feed many more times the number of people than those on the planet today, how many of us would like to live on a planet where villages, towns, and cities meet and merge in one great urban sprawl across the face of the globe?

Junk Foods, Sugar, and Violence

My little great-nephew Alex (the one who became a vegetarian at four years old) has a horrifying reaction to sugar. Within minutes of consuming even small amounts—in drinks or food—a charming little boy becomes an uncontrollable child, shouting and even hitting people. And it seems that he is one of many, as several of his friends at school are also on sugar-free diets.

My son Grub has a friend who was diagnosed with bipolar personality disorder. As he is a very large man there were times when his behavior was frightening—he actually chased his father around the kitchen table with a knife during one of his manic episodes. It was just after this that Grub read an article about the effect of sugar on the metabolism of some people, and convinced his friend to cut out sugar from his diet. The result was amazing—he became a much calmer person immediately. So I was fascinated to read about a study linking sugar and violence among prisoners.

Stephen J. Schoenthaler, Ph.D., a sociology professor at the Stanislaus campus of California State University, had a hunch there was a link between three alarming statistical curves: the number of incidences of useless violence, the increased consumption of fast foods, and the increased consumption of processed sugars. He convinced a large-scale prison facility in Virginia to help him conduct a study with inmates. Initially the prisoners were fed a typical American diet that included white bread, hamburgers, sausages, fried potatoes, cookies, sweet snacks, and soft drinks. After a few days they were switched to a whole food diet that included plenty of fresh vegetables, fruits, whole meal bread, as well as fish and lean meats.

The results were remarkable. Once they moved on to healthy foods, behavior problems, such as violence and verbal abusiveness, immediately decreased. When they were switched back to the soft drinks and fatty foods, behavior problems returned. The findings created a stir in the national prison network, and Schoenthaler became a much sought after nutritional advisor. He also conducted an interesting study with approximately 8,000 teenagers at nine juvenile correctional facilities. In each site, the standard diet—high in sugar and other refined carbohydrates—was switched to include plenty of fruits, vegetables, and whole grains, as well as vitamins and mineral supplements. During that year, the facilities reported that the incidence of physical violence, verbal abuse, and escape and suicide attempts decreased by almost half.

After twenty years of studying nutrition and behavior at juvenile and adult correctional facilities and in public schools, Schoenthaler is now convinced that the effects of diet are so powerful that everyone should be held responsible for what they eat, just as they are for what they drink when driving. Which means we must do a better and better job of educating people, and ensuring that all these junk foods that we know are causing so many problems are removed from the stores and from our kitchen cupboards.

WASTE NOT, WANT NOT

One of the main threats to our health and the health of our planet is overconsumption. More than a billion of the most poverty-stricken people in the world are suffering and in some cases dying from lack of enough food. Meanwhile, it's estimated that a billion of the wealthiest people in the world are at risk of debilitating diseases and death partly because they are eating too much of the wrong kinds of food.

A person living in an industrialized country consumes, on average, twice as much grain, three times as much meat, nine times as much paper, and eleven times as much gasoline as someone in a developing country, according to the World Resources Institute. With all this consumption comes a huge amount of waste. Timothy W. Jones, an anthropologist at the University of Arizona, spent ten years studying food waste, examining farms and orchards, warehouses and retail outlets, dining rooms and landfills. His research shows that an average family of four currently tosses out $590 per year in meat, fruits, vegetables, and grain products. Nationwide, he says, household food waste alone adds up to $43 billion.

When I first returned from Tanzania, having experienced true poverty firsthand, to the so-called developed world, the thing that utterly shocked me was the waste. The waste of packaging. The throw-away this, that, and the other. And the waste of food. That was the greatest shock of all. The size of the portions of food served, especially in America. The amount left over in restaurants, after school meals, in the homes I visited. And the reason for my distress was not only that I had just spent many years living among people who had almost nothing, but also because I can never forget the lean war years of my childhood. We were taught that waste was one of the greatest sins.

WHAT YOU CAN DO

Tempting and convenient as it can be, we should all avoid fast foods whenever possible and I certainly have given you plenty of incentive for doing so. Each one of us can also make a concerted effort to create as little waste as possible, each day. We can remember to start with smaller piles of food on our plates and ask for reduced portions at social gatherings and restaurants. We can always order more food or go back for seconds. Why not begin small and keep adding if you are still hungry?

When we bring groups of students together for a Roots & Shoots summit, we provide buckets for recycling various waste products, including food. After the first meal we carefully weigh this bucket of food scraps. The kids are horrified when they realize how much they have put on their plates, only to throw it out afterward. The amount of waste is then equated to how long that amount of food would feed a family living in poverty.

If you have a garden, you can make compost from food waste, as we do at my home in Bournemouth. But you can compost even if you do not have a garden. I met a group of youngsters from South Central Los Angeles, in the inner city, who collected food scraps from local residents, and broke it down by using worms. This is known as vermiculture—which can actually be located in the living room for there is no smell! Moreover, it gives the very best quality soil, which the children sold to local parks and greenhouses. They had created a flourishing business!

Put our Harvest on Hope: Hope in People

It is important that we talk, often and enthusiastically, about the positive developments that are going on around the world. For one thing, it does seem that more and more people have woken up to what has happened to our food, have begun to comprehend the almost unbelievable mess we have made. And so people are starting to protest. To protest against the insults being perpetrated, in the name of progress, against people, animals, and the environment, and the unsustainable demands that are being made on our children's future, the future of our planet. Some of these protesters took on awesome tasks: like Percy Schmeiser, who took on Monsanto; and the two New York teenagers Jazlyn Bradley and Ashley Pelman who stood up to McDonald's. Of course, there are countless cases when people have fought against injustice and lost. Robert Kennedy won his case against the pork barons, only to have the rug snatched from under his feet when the legislation was subsequently changed to allow them to continue polluting. But every time a stand is made there are more people who hear aboutwhat is going on. More people who can work in their own way to make a difference.

I find hope in the people who join forces to buy farmland to save it from development and those who pull genetically modified crops out of the ground. Others organize and operate the farmers markets and cooperatives. Some are involved in the Slow Food movement, and many restaurateurs, such as Alice Waters of Chez Panisse and Tod Murphy of the Farmers Diner, are changing the world one plate at a time. It seldom makes front-page headlines when a company opens an organic food line, when a restaurant chain commissions its produce from a local organic farmer, or a household decides to join a Community Sponsored Agriculture group, a CSA, yet these are the actions that bring me hope, for they are already making change in the world.

There is hope, also, in the resilience of nature, her ability to repair the wounds we have inflicted. TACARE, the Jane Goodall Institute's program to improve the lives of the villagers living around the Gombe National Park, is a perfect example, for innovative techniques have restored life and productivity to land that had been overfarmed and abandoned, most of the topsoil washed away. It is harder, and takes a very long time and very hard work, to rescue land that has been polluted by years of chemical poisons, but it can be done.

And there is hope in the growing number of people who care, and do something about it. The wonderful mother- daughter team, Frances Moore Lappé and Anna Lappé, in their book, Hope's Edge, describe "a new social mentality" that has been developed in Belo Horizonte, the fourth largest city in Brazil. There was a time when one fifth of the children there were malnourished and poverty was rampant. Then, in 1993, Belo became "the only city in the capitalist world that has decided to make food security a right of citizenship" (my italics).

The city improved the way the food market worked. It provided all the students in the city's schools four nutritious meals per day, with ingredients mostly from local farmers. The city set up produce stands for some forty local farmers. It owns and operates the Restaurante Popular, which serves 6,000 meals a day at less than half the market price. This is all made possible by the twenty-six warehouse-sized stores that sell local produce at fixed prices—often half the price of nearby grocers. These stores are on government-owned prime urban real estate rented out to entrepreneurs at rock- bottom prices—the government reserves the right to setthe price, and the vendors must make weekend deliveries to the poor.

There is a Green Basket program that links hospitals, restaurants, and big food buyers to local, organic growers.

There is a local food council that helps to form partnerships with church and labor groups, and advises the government on ways of improving the food system. The entire program consumes only 1 percent of the city's budget and it is reckoned to be extremely cost-effective—the children do better in school with the opportunity of being productive citizenswhen they leave, and the entire population of the city is far healthier.

Indeed, the human brain, this organ—the spongy mass of gooey cells we all house in our skulls—is capable of the most wondrous technologies. Unfortunately, when there is a disconnect between mind and heart, technology can be— and has been and is being—used for evil purposes. Unless our intellect is bonded closely with our feelings of love andcompassion, although we may still be very clever, we shall not be wise.

Fortunately, my constant traveling gives me many opportunities to meet many of the wise, such as Dr. HugoHubacec and Dr. Peter Kromer, who came to see me in Vienna in the spring of 2005 to explain their remarkable technology. "SIPIN Technology" can revolutionize farming inarid conditions and greatly reduce hunger. Because no sophisticated machinery is involved it can be used easily by the local villagers.

SIPIN is a water-absorbent, natural silicate powder that is adjusted to the local conditions and used in combination with local soils. It is applied in the area around the plant's roots, and covered with local earth or sand. Over time SIPIN turns into amorphous clay minerals and stable, natural clay-soil compounds. These show high water absorption. After treating the roots of one plant, others can be planted in the same place without further applications for at least three years. It is possible to save up to 75 percent of the water otherwise used to sustain the crops, which, in a dry area, can save lives. By using SIPIN, the available water resources can nourish three to four times more people. "We do not want SIPIN to be marketed by one of the big corporations," Dr. Hubacec told me. "This is just to help people." It was an exciting meeting and we plan to work together to take this remarkable technology to places where it is so desperately needed.

CHANGING THE WORLD: ONE PURCHASE, ONE MEAL, ONE BITE AT A TIME

As marketing people tend to do, they have identified a strong force on the consumer landscape—people who value a lifestyle of health and sustainability and are willing to pay for products that support their beliefs. This group, they say, has adopted a Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability LOHAS. It's estimated that 68 million Americans, about a third of the adult population, qualify as LOHAS. Without realizing it, these people have become the most influential 7 force in the recent food revolution. And they have numerous allies, including farmers who want to create a more healthy and sustainable land, public health officials concerned about toxins and antibiotics in food products, environmentalists who are concerned about pollution from factory farming, consumer rights groups wanting more accurate labeling of food sources on food packaging, and union activists who want safe working conditions for their members who run the risk of massive exposure to toxic pesticides and chemical fertilizers.

Yes, collectively we, the people, are the force that can lead to change. Every time we go shopping for food, every time we chose a meal in a restaurant, our choices—what we buy—will make a difference—not only for our own health and our own peace of mind, but also for the future of the planet. Fortunately more and more people are beginning to realize this. Every time an individual makes such a change in his or her lifestyle the number of people eating ethically and healthily increases—by one.

This philosophy—that every individual matters and every individual makes a difference every day—is at the heart of the Jane Goodall Institute's Roots & Shoots global program for youth. The name is symbolic: Roots make a firm foundation and Shoots seem tiny but to reach the sun they can break through a brick wall. Imagine the brick wall as all the problems we humans have inflicted on the planet. The message is one of hope: Thousands of young people— and there are some 7,500 groups established in more than ninety countries—are breaking through all manner of brick walls to make the world a better place.

In several African countries there are Roots & Shoots groups maintaining tree nurseries and distributing seedlings to schools that are otherwise surrounded by compacted, sunbaked earth. As the trees grow, cared for by the students, grasses can survive in the shade below them. And, encouraged by the greening of the schoolyards, Roots & Shoots groups are growing fruit trees and vegetables to improve their diet. Refugee groups are also growing vegetables, and some keep chickens for their eggs.

There are so many projects and many of them concern food and farming. Students are composting, making organic vegetable plots. Two groups (one in the U.K. and one in Belgium) rescued hens from battery farms, and studied how they grew back their feathers and adjusted to freedom. They are campaigning (always without violence) against the use of synthetic chemicals in food; the feeding of hormones and antibiotics, as prophylaxis, to livestock; the use of pesticides, herbicides, and chemical fertilizers on farmland; the use of nonbiodegradable containers in school lunch boxes. They are writing letters to legislators, raising money for all manner of causes. And they are influencingtheir parents.

Roots & Shoots groups are thus joined with all of us who are trying to change the world. In fact, many predict that in the years to come, activists will have a greater impact through consumer choices and the culture of economics than through legislative lobbying or lawsuits.

EATING TO VOTE

Remember, every food purchase is a vote. We might be tempted, as individuals, to think that our small actions don't really matter, that one meal can't make a difference. But each meal, each bite of food, has a rich history as to how and where it grew or was raised, how it was harvested. Our purchases, our votes, will determine the way ahead. And thousands upon thousands of votes are needed in favor of the kind of farming practices that will restore health to our

planet.

Our world can no longer afford the heedless consumption of the Western world that is now spreading its greedy tentacles around the globe. The price, most of which must be paid by our children, is too great. Only by acting together, by refusing to buy food that has been secretly laced with poisons and pain, can we make a stand against the corporate power that is circling our planet. So let us join hands. Let us speak out for the voiceless and the poor. Let us assert our right, as citizens of free democracies, to take back into our hands the production of our food. Let us, together, sow seeds for a better harvest—a harvest for hope.