Food: the ultimate moral choice.

Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought;
And enterprises of great pith and moment,
With this regard, their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.
--Hamlet
Two years ago, Ruth and I decided to change our diet after awakening to the dangers associated with almost all Western-style diets. Cancer, heart attack, stroke, autoimmune disorders, global warming, pollution of our environment and water supply, obesity, antibiotic resistance.

The list goes on and on and in the end it all comes down to three basic factors: breakfast, lunch and dinner. We are literally poisoning ourselves and our planet with our food choices. Don’t believe me? I invite you to read on.

The science is clear. Food is the most powerful environmental factor in the vast majority of diseases. The laws of cause and effect tell us that most diseases are preventable and even reversible. As is the suffering they provoke for our planet and its inhabitants.


Despite all this, each day we choose a path that leads to disease, climate destruction, health care crisis, poverty and famine in the third world. We elect eloquent politicians who speak of change but we choose to ignore the real power each of us exercises each day with our wallets. Do we want change? It sure doesn’t look like it.

Not yet at least. We’re quite happy with our green energy compromises, our troop surges and our well-lit supermarkets with their promise of endless prosperity and material goods. I wouldn’t be so sure. Not with the specter of bankrupt health care, unemployment at 10% and the dollar sinking like a stone.

Or did you really think the American dream would last forever. The good news is that change is possible. You don’t have to worry about carbon taxes, nuclear-armed Pakistan or when the Fed will finally get around to raising interest rates.

If you don’t like the way things are you can change them. You don’t have to wait for you president, preacher or parents to tell you how. It’s pretty simple. Go to refrigerator right now and open it up. Take out everything that you didn’t personally grow or buy from a farmer in your community. Now take out everything whose origins or manner of production are unknown to you. Odds are that’s most of what was in your fridge.

Now give or throw all of that food away and replace it with things that come from your community or personal garden. Repeat with your cupboards, pantry, freezer, and second fridge until you’ve reestablished a link with where your food comes from, how it was grown and transported, and how the grower was compensated.

I’m not asking you to be a saint but I am asking you to return a notion of moral duty to your food choices. For the Jewish it’s called kosher, Muslims call it halal. Christians alike fast and avoid meat on holy days. This is change my friends and you don’t have to wait four years for it to come again.

If you want to put people back to work, always buy locally from organic farms, which require lots of manpower in the place of pesticides and chemicals. If you don’t want to buy all your food this way, start with 20%. Then work your way up. Can you buy a third or half of your food this way?

Each dollar spent is a vote for change and sanity in these insane times. Talk to your friends, support food co-ops and insist your politicians begin to discuss and support local, organic agriculture for a change.


If you don’t want to give up your daily cup of coffee, you can at least insist it be fair trade and organic. The same applies to all our food choices. The more we inform ourselves nutritionally and politically the more we will see that we don’t have to give away our power nor accept the mediocrity that has come to characterize American life.

And most importantly, if you want to choose a healthier lifestyle for yourself and the planet then stop eating animal products. This type of change won’t appeal to your ego nor will it win you the support of many of your friends and family at first. But it will bring about a radical change for both your health and that of the planet. What it lacks in sex appeal it makes up for in vitality. This, my friends, is the American way.