Staying Healthy in the Fast Lane

staying healthy in the fast lane

First, would it be possible to make some universal diet changes
that will quickly and dramatically improve the overall health and
environment of people all over the world? The answer to this ques-
tion is a resounding yes! An unrefined, high micronutrient-dense
plant-based diet would do this.
Second, can the world’s resources and environment support
close to 7 billion-plus people eating animal foods as we currently
do in the West or developed countries, or as current hunter-gath-
erer populations consuming a Paleolithic-like diet? The answer is
a resounding no it can’t!
Even if health-minded meat eaters tried to eat free-ranged,
antibiotic-free, and hormone-free animal foods (or hunted game),
how are they going to do this for 7 billion people without destroy-
ing more precious forests or land for grazing? Where is all this
open space? I frequently ask this question to my health-conscious
meat-eating friends. As I previously mentioned, I have never re-
ceived an answer of how. These concerns also apply to the dwin-
dling fish stocks in the oceans and the farming of fish as a solu-
tion. If we don’t learn how to intelligently and healthfully become
predominantly whole food, unprocessed plant eaters, what is and
will continue is factory farming of animals at an accelerated pace,
with all its negatives, to feed the voracious appetite of the world’s
rapidly industrializing populations.
This very point about the unsustainability of animal foods con-
sumption for the ever-growing world population was expressed
by Dr. Loren Cordain, the author of the Paleo Diet (2002) and pro-
ponent that the Paleolithic diet is the optimal human diet. At a re-
cent medical conference I attended (ACAM, Fall 2010), during a
question and answer period Dr. Cordain was asked about the need
to feed wild game or free-ranged-fed animals to school children.
Dr. Cordain responded by saying that it was a shame that the opti-
mal diet humans evolved with (Paleolithic diet) was unsustainable
because of the ever increasing human population. He also reiter-
ated this fact in a recent interview I did with him. These were quite
interesting comments with which I concur wholeheartedly.^13
Third, even if we could somehow sustain a healthy level of
animal food consumption on a global level, would that be bet-