Consider the Logic Underlying Our Modern Diet
Do you have a pet? Let’s say you do. Let’s say it’s a cat. Now, instead of feeding the cat its natural diet of small animals, insects, a tiny bit of grass, raw vegetation and water (basically what a wild cat would eat in its natural habitat and what the animal has been eating for millions of years), you began to feed it odd, strange foods like beef flavored licorice and Mountain Dew soda pop. So your cat starts to get fat and sick. It becomes lethargic and unhealthy within a few weeks.
Still, because of the flavorings and the fact it is thirsty, it waddles over to the feeding dish and keeps eating the new food. What would you do? Take it to the vet? Feed it more licorice, or perhaps other candy? Maybe pork or chicken flavored candy? Get it on a cat fitness program? I know, maybe feed it a little less beef flavored licorice and Mountain Dew and get it on a cat fitness program? Just accept the fact that it will be sick and fat for the rest of its life? This is going to sound crazy, especially within the context of our modern food system, but here goes anyways; what if you put it back on its original diet? That is what the cat and its entire species have been eating in their natural habitat since cats have existed? What’s true for cats is true for us.
When we put animals in our zoos we replicate their natural environments and diets. Koala bears are given eucalyptus leaves, killer whales are fed wild fish. We would not one day just randomly choose an animal species and suddenly conclude that we have a better idea for what to feed them than what their natural diet dictates. (Except of course for our dogs and cats which are equally as sick as we are with cancers, obesity and other diet related illnesses)
As an example, we would never insist that our zoologists, naturalists, and forest rangers suddenly start making sure that all bobcats in the wild are eating some new and different man-made food concoction called “Bob-Cat Crunch”. We wouldn’t start feeding the remaining wild lions in Africa yogurt and granola instead of the animals they hunt and kill for themselves. So how could we have allowed this very thing to happen to ourselves as a species?
This is just how ludicrous and bizarre our situation has become. We have been marketed, socialized and fooled into eating dangerous and unhealthy food. Cockroaches and field mice are smart enough not to purposely eat themselves into horrible debilitating illnesses and often death. We have unwittingly figured out how to deliberately and at immense cost to ourselves, our environment and fellow animals create and eat food that makes us sick and kills us.
To me, the base-line for a respectful and natural standard of life for any animal on the planet would be to first allow that animal to live in its natural environment. This would include access to its own natural diet and related foods. Yet, for the majority of our human population we don’t allow ourselves this simple right. It is crystal clear that humans do indeed have an original and natural diet (please see previous blog!). It is also just as clear that many serious health problems have arisen as a consequence of diverging from it.
If you put a dollar amount on the true all inclusive costs of eating food from our modern food industry vs. eating real food produced in concert with nature, the cost of the real food would be far less. The irony of this is profound indeed. For instance, the low price of a fast food hamburger does not reflect its real cost – but it should. The profits of the fast food chains have been made possible by the losses imposed on the rest of society.
The annual cost of obesity alone is twice as large as the fast food industry’s total revenues. Not only is the industrial food more expensive but it is hurting and killing us. It’s not like we are getting more for our money. Rather we are paying much more and getting much less along with the added byproducts of damage to the environment and physical damage to ourselves to an increasing but as of yet unknown depth.