Staying Healthy in the Fast Lane

the foundation for a staying healthy diet

people in India continue on their “modernization” course, disre-
garding their traditional plant-rich diets, and eat higher quantities
of animal foods (and more added fats, oils, sugars, refined grains,
etc.) as we do in the West.^16 The epidemics of heart disease, obe-
sity, and other chronic diseases are going to continue to explode
in those regions of the world. We, and they, will pay the price in
healthcare costs and environmental destruction.
Also, I believe there is something that negatively affects our
core spirit as humans by senselessly killing billions of animals per
year for food, for really no reason. In the United States, we slaughter
around 9 billion animals per year alone for consumption. A little
bit more than 98 percent of the animals slaughtered are poultry,
more than 95 percent are chicken, and less than 2 percent are red
meats.^17
I believe it is impossible for the world to be truly healthy and
thrive as a human species on the one hand, and on the other pol-
lute our environment and our bodies and senselessly kill billions
of animals for food for no evolutionary or survival reason whatso-
ever. There is no reason in the modern world that we have to eat
animal foods to survive and thrive as a human species—none!

Diet Demystified—
Common Ground of Modern Popular Diets

With so many different diets on the market, it is no wonder that
people are often confused. Yet there are always common points
of connection, like how the popular diets all agree on at least two
things:
First, no refined carbohydrates. Some diets emphasize eating
only whole grains while others might eliminate carbohydrates al-
together, especially from grains. No diet that I have ever heard of
encourages refined, processed carbohydrate consumption. If you
think about it, and if you look at the food patterns over the last
century in the United States, with the increase in refined grain con-
sumption along with added fat and sweet calories, then you can
see where excess carbohydrate consumption has had an adverse