The Power of Plant-Based Eating | Dr. Joanne Kong | TEDxUniversityOfRichmond

Translated by: Mathilde Kennis Reviewed by: Peter van de Ven Good evening. What if I told you that we can change the world through our food choices? I challenge you for the next 12 minutes to open your minds and hearts to the

power

of

plant

-

based

nutrition and the fact that animal agriculture, the raising of animals for human consumption, has become one of the most harmful industries in our world. planet. My intention is not to judge, but rather to increase your awareness and provide you with important information that you may not have had before. Switching to a greener diet could be one of the most

power

ful and transformative decisions of your life, for three main reasons: It's incredibly good for your health.

It is essential for sustainability. And your compassion will increase. Health. We all know the saying: "You are what you eat." The main cause of death in our country, as you may have guessed, is our diet. Our Standard American Diet - or SAD - (Laughter) ranked our country first in obesity, which increases the risk of serious health problems. An enormous amount of scientific evidence links the consumption of meat and processed meat with numerous diseases. Annual health costs related to meat consumption in our country have risen to $50 billion and the World Health Organization now places red and processed meat at the same risk level as cigarettes and asbestos.

Meat is the new tobacco. This was the latest November issue of Time magazine. In recent years, more and more studies have contributed to the growth of general awareness that we must realize how harmful meat can be to our health. Now you may be wondering: why are

plant

-

based

vegetarian and vegan diets healthier? There are many different reasons: a wide selection of nutrients, beneficial fibers found only in plants, antioxidants and hundreds of thousands of phytochemicals that protect our bodies and maintain health. Vegetarians generally have a longer life expectancy and lower rates of heart disease, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, cancer, obesity, osteoporosis, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, etc.

And I'm not the only one who says that. A vegetarian diet has received support from countless organizations such as the American Cancer Society, the American College of Cardiology, the Mayo Clinic, the Harvard School of Public Health, and the National Institutes of Health, which say: "Vegetarians can give up grilled hamburgers, but we will also highlight the major health problems that affect so many Americans.” Just look at the difference in rates of heart disease, the leading cause of death in the United States, between meat eaters and vegetarians or Vegans. The progression of many diseases can be stopped and even reversed, sometimes after only two or three weeks, by switching to a plant-based diet.

Reduce and stop meat consumption and a green diet, rich in fruits, vegetables, Nuts, seeds and whole grains will lead to a healthier world. It's not just about our health, but also that of our planet. These problems are now reaching critical proportions: climate change and global warming, deforestation, depletion of our resources, soil erosion, extinction, dead zones in the oceans, water and air pollution, and world hunger. We have to do something about it now. We now urgently need to reverse this catastrophic damage. Of course, environmentalists and policymakers would do well to focus on reducing carbon emissions and investing in alternative and renewable energy sources.

But achieving this will take decades, will be enormously expensive (tens of trillions of dollars) and then there is the complexity of the social, economic and political issues that must be resolved on a global scale. Therefore, you should know that there is one thing that is one of the biggest causes of all these global problems, and that is the livestock industry. Here you have some data. The livestock industry is responsible for 51% of all greenhouse gas emissions. It is also the main cause of extinction of animal species due to deforestation to plant crops to feed livestock. In our country it is the main water polluter: it consumes half of our water, 70% of our cereals and 80% of our agricultural lands are used to feed the 10 billion farm animals that are killed every year to feed.

However, you can halve your ecological footprint by

eating

vegetarian. The Stanford Environmental Law Journal argues that our dependence on animal products is the number one cause of everything, the only industry that is destroying our planet. The United Nations Environment Program emphasizes that a substantial reduction in our impact on Earth would only be possible through a global shift in diet away from animal products. While this issue is largely ignored by political leaders and even environmentalists, there is something that can be done today. The most powerful action you can take to save our environment and our resources is to switch to a plant-based diet.

Compassion. I am going to tell you the story of an animal in the livestock industry. Worldwide, 56 billion land animals and 90 billion marine animals are killed every year for food. I'm not going to show you conflicting photos or videos, you can easily find them online. Instead, I ask that you fully empathize with what I am about to say. This is the story of a pig. "All my life I have been trapped in a box, half in the dark, on a cement floor. I can't even turn around. I am restricted and cannot exhibit natural behavior, which causes depression, frustration and neurotic behavior. a Sometimes I scream or bite the bars around me.

My limbs are swollen, I have open wounds and I lie down in my own feces and they forcefully impregnate me and after giving birth they take my children and kill me at the age of three. All the other animals in the livestock industry actually have to be stunned before they kill us. But many of us still live when they hang us upside down, have our throats cut, and are dunked in boiling water to remove our hair. that, like you, I have a sense of identity? I am more intelligent than a dog or a cat, and even than a three-year-old child, I am a very social, intuitive and emotional creature, like you, having memories and recognizing myself in a mirror, like you.

And I love to play, even on a computer, like you. I care for my children as deeply as human mothers do and I even sing to them while I care for them. I am not something. I am someone. I'm not a pig. I'm not bacon. I am a living being with feelings, just like you." Now, how many of you have pets? There must be many. And how many of you consider those pets to be members of the family? I already have them. We all have an innate compassion for I challenge you to truly realize that every animal in the livestock industry, like the pig I just described, is as much an individual, a living being as all our pets can experience pain and everyone can enjoy our. love.

So we can ask ourselves: why love one thing and eat another? Our choices about animals and food are determined by perception, by how we see different animals in different ways, it has several reasons, such as how. habit and culture Initially, most of us didn't make the decision to eat meat, right? We subconsciously continued with that habit and accepted it as normal. I ate meat for half my life and growing up I never thought about it, I didn't. I questioned. It wasn't until I was a young adult that I decided to become a vegetarian. It also has to do with a coping mechanism that psychologists call "psychological numbing," which in this case involves massive loss of life.

Although we know that animals are sacrificed to feed us, we avoid the emotional pain of sympathizing with them as individuals. It's really a kind of denial, where we disconnect from that experience. Here's what one butcher shop worker says: "I don't see these animals as individuals. I couldn't do my job if I had that kind of bond with them." We just don't see the face on our plate. We consider it a "normal" food and are influenced by marketing. Look at these products in the supermarket. What distance is there between these images of happy animals in beautiful environments and animals that suffer?

We also accept

eating

meat because what happens behind the scenes in the meat industry is largely invisible. We find it difficult to find the location and address of factory farms, although does anyone want to try to guess how many there are in our country? There are twenty thousand of them. In our country, 317 animals are killed every second. But for this industry, all that matters is efficiency and profits. Animals are seen as production units. That's why I ask you, when you sit at the table, to dare to see that they have killed an animal to serve as food.

A green diet doesn't mean you have to give things up. It doesn't mean you become someone else. It means embracing something that has always been within you, your intrinsic sense of empathy, kindness and compassion. And you won't be alone: ​​plant-based eating is one of the biggest global trends of 2016. The power of plant-based eating lies in the broad and deep impact it can have on the future of our world. It's up to you: you can make a difference. Thank you. (Applause)