An older man, with whom I competed for farm inventions awards, gave me some excellent advice. He said “always start at the status quo”.
When it comes to what we consume, starting at the status quo is a great place to begin.
The present status quo is that our food consumption is well reflected in the supermarket aisles. A reasonable amount of vegetables, followed by large shelves of meat, fish, milk and milk products, along with rows and rows of manufactured food, packages, frozen and canned.
The present status quo is that we take pills; pills for high blood pressure, pills to lower our cholesterol, pills to make our blood thin, pills for hay fever, pills to contain our fertility, pills to get an erection, pills to keep us calm, pills for our arthritis, pills for almost everything.
The present status quo is for us to live a sedentary life, with little to worry about in regard to where our next meal will come from, how we are going to survive the next winter, or even how the universe works.
All these status quos are not ours of right, nor have they been around for very long; so what a good place to move away from.
Our ancestors ate seeds, leaves, fruit, a few bugs and very occasionally a piece of meat. They lived healthy and fulfilled lives, evidenced by our very presence here today – successful breeding is the realm of the healthy. They had no idea of what a pill was, let alone saw a use for one. They did worry about sources of food, availability of warmth and shelter and of course many died early from accidents, child birth, inadequate hygiene and starvation.
We are privileged, for anyone reading this, starvation is not an option, hygiene is a given, child birth is better managed and accidents are better treated. But due to unscrupulous marketing and obfuscation of science our present society is dying in unprecedented numbers from diet induced chronic diseases, in ignorance of the danger we are in both for our own health and the health of the world. We ignore the fact that if everyone in the world ate meat and milk, at New Zealand's consumption levels, nine out of every ten of us would have to be disposed of.
Moving from the status quo means returning to a plant based diet, substantially reducing our environmental impact, reducing our medical costs and increasing our active life expectancy.
When it comes to what we consume, starting at the status quo is a great place to begin.
The present status quo is that our food consumption is well reflected in the supermarket aisles. A reasonable amount of vegetables, followed by large shelves of meat, fish, milk and milk products, along with rows and rows of manufactured food, packages, frozen and canned.
The present status quo is that we take pills; pills for high blood pressure, pills to lower our cholesterol, pills to make our blood thin, pills for hay fever, pills to contain our fertility, pills to get an erection, pills to keep us calm, pills for our arthritis, pills for almost everything.
The present status quo is for us to live a sedentary life, with little to worry about in regard to where our next meal will come from, how we are going to survive the next winter, or even how the universe works.
All these status quos are not ours of right, nor have they been around for very long; so what a good place to move away from.
Our ancestors ate seeds, leaves, fruit, a few bugs and very occasionally a piece of meat. They lived healthy and fulfilled lives, evidenced by our very presence here today – successful breeding is the realm of the healthy. They had no idea of what a pill was, let alone saw a use for one. They did worry about sources of food, availability of warmth and shelter and of course many died early from accidents, child birth, inadequate hygiene and starvation.
We are privileged, for anyone reading this, starvation is not an option, hygiene is a given, child birth is better managed and accidents are better treated. But due to unscrupulous marketing and obfuscation of science our present society is dying in unprecedented numbers from diet induced chronic diseases, in ignorance of the danger we are in both for our own health and the health of the world. We ignore the fact that if everyone in the world ate meat and milk, at New Zealand's consumption levels, nine out of every ten of us would have to be disposed of.
Moving from the status quo means returning to a plant based diet, substantially reducing our environmental impact, reducing our medical costs and increasing our active life expectancy.
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