Meat, the dangerou food.

  'The Food Revolution' by John Robbind. Conari Press 2001. 448 pp. Reviwed by Dave Jaffe.


    If you want to feel really depressed, check out the state of the environment. Global warming, vanishing species, collapsing icebergs and toxic poisons popping up everywhere, can turn anybody into a complete pessimist.
     Can the average person do anything to slow down this crisis? John Robbins, a well-known American author believes we can. His advice is very simple: Just stop eating meat, chicken, sheese and butter,  and stop drinking milk. Oh yes. And stop eating eggs to.
     "It's actually quite amazing," writes Robbins in 'The Food Revolution', "how often it is products of animal origin that cause food-borne illness."
       But animal foood in other words meat, can cause many other illnesses. Cancer, heart attacks, and strokes happen to you sooner rather than later, if you eat meat, gobble down cheese or slather butter or creams onto your bread.
      Meat products, says Robbins, cause global warming, soil erosion and famine."It is nearly impossible to overestimate the impact of cattle grazing in the westerbn United States," Robbins points out. And while cattle gobble up massive amounts of land, huge loads of soybeans and grain are also fed to cattle. That food could feed the world.
     Raising meat also sucks up oceans of water, causing water shortages. Meanwhile cattle, chicken and pigs are crammed into sheds where they are tortued before being killed.
      Robbins is a true rebel. His father Irv Robbins was one of the two founders of Baskin-Robbins, the giant ice cream firm. The co-founder Burt Baskin, Robbins's uncle died of a heart attack in his early fifties, from eating massive amounts of ice cream.
     Robbins's dad finally listened to his son John and changed his eating habits. "I walked away from an opportunity to live a life of wealth," writes Robbins, "to live a different kind of life." I'm glad he did for 'The Food Revolution' came out of his journey away from the big business world. Stop eating meat, says Robbins, and you will save yourself and the earth.