It’s no secret that reducing how much meat you eat can have a positive impact on your health. Heart disease, stroke, diabetes and cancer risk can all be greatly reduced with simple switches in diet. Now this message has made it to the silver screen with Forks Over Knives, a new film explaining the connection between what we eat and our overall health.
The film takes us through the careers of acclaimed researchers Dr. Colin Campbell and Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn. Dr. Campbell is best known for his groundbreaking book The China Study, which identified no less than 94,000 correlations between rates of meat and dairy consumption in rural China and community risk for heart disease, diabetes and various forms of cancer. Similarly, Dr. Esselstyn oversaw a long-term clinical study on diet and heart disease and found that eating plant-based foods not only stopped, but in some cases reversed the condition.
Movie goers will not only see a clear case for the benefits of eating less meat, they’ll get a head start with the help of Meatless Monday! Campaign brochures are available at screenings nationwide so viewers can take the lessons of the film home and share what they’ve learned with friends and family.
For more on Forks Over Knives, including screening locations, please visit their website.
I already think Ellen is pretty freakin’ awesome and now she has gone vegan. I haven’t made the full switch yet. My main downfall is cheese, I loves me the cheese. But I’ve cut back a ton. I’m on my way though. Alright, I digress. Ellen, yes Ellen. Check out her site Going Vegan With Ellen for all kinds of resources. If you are new, head to the Getting Started section and baby step your way in. A lot of people think, “what will I eat?” Good thing there is a Recipe section too.
I think learning about where our food comes from is important. The phrase, “I don’t wanna know” is overused. If you don’t wanna know then you know it’s because it’s something negative that may change how you feel about what you eat. I know because I did the same thing. I bought Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer and knew that book would change me. So it sat unread in my pile for 4 months. Then one day I felt ready to read it and it changed me like I knew it would. I miss meat and sometimes I still crave it, but I don’t know how to eat it in good conscious any longer. The only way for things to change is for us to participate instead of being passive.
I think bike sharing is a great idea. I saw it all over Europe. You can rent a bike and pedal away. Then when you are done you just drop it at the nearest bike station. Many U.S. cities are launching bike sharing programs. I’m not sure LA will be seeing bike sharing coming any time soon. This city isn’t the best for accommodating bikers. Maybe if it started within neighborhoods instead of city wide it wouldn’t sound like a horrible idea for LA.
Does your city have a biking sharing program? Do you think your city should have one? Share your thoughts!
I signed up for my local CSA (community supported agriculture) and received my box of veggies and fruit today. I love getting fresh organic food delivered to my door. I have a lot of greens to eat this week. The box came with spinach, kale, green leaf lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, corn, jalapenos, long beans, strawberries and nectarines. I made a delicious hearty salad already. Kale, cucumbers, tomatoes, avocado and garbanzo beans. I tend to go raw, but I know many people aren’t fans. Check out the Meatless Monday site for lots of tasty recipes. You can find your local CSA by visiting the Local Harvest website and entering your zipcode. I give it a green thumbs up!
Bare with me, I need to vent on this subject. This Cargill ground turkey recall is a big deal. It’s a catalyst in getting people talking about our factory farm food system, unfortunately it takes people dying and getting sick and recalling 36 million pounds of ground turkey. This morning on NPR there was a report on the specific strain of salmonella in this case. Salmonella Heidelberg is the strain and it is resistant to three kinds of antibiotics, amoxicillin, ampicillin and chloramphenicol. Don’t worry, those are just the top three antibiotics a doctor would use that they are resistant to. WTF? Why does no one see a problem with this?? Giving low doses of these antibiotics to animals so they will grow faster is exactly what makes an antibiotic resistant bacteria strand. It’s not enough to kill the bacteria so it becomes resistant to it. Good plan guys, real good plan. Now some factory farms are using this as a reason to say this is why they need to give animals regular doses of antibiotics. Really, that seems like the answer? Pump ‘em with more drugs and then feed them to people. Animals are already pumped with 4 times the amount of humans. And most of the time the reason all our factory farm animals are sick is because of the living and caring conditions forced upon them. Let’s eat something that has stood in a foot of it’s own poop it’s entire life, been injected with hormones and antibiotics so it will grow faster and forced to eat a diet it was not intended for. Come on people, open your eyes!
Please know this is not a rant for vegetarianism, it’s a rant for getting educated about our food system and taking a stand to help stop this madness! Thanks for reading.
