Food Choices Page #10

fruits and vegetables,

they estimated that it

would, that the extra

pesticide burden from

all those extra fruits

and vegetables would cause 10

extra cancer deaths.

So in all it would only

prevent 19, 990 cancer deaths.

But that's what we're

looking at a year,

this tremendous benefit.

Then a tiny bump in risk.

So, okay, great, choose

organic whenever you can,

why accept any risk,

why not get all benefit?

Sure, but we should never

let concern about pesticides

in any way dissuade us

from stuffing our face

with as many healthy fruits

and vegetables as possible.

- If you're eating meat,

and you're eating commercial

meat, and you're worried

about switching to plant-based

diet, and worried about the

pesticides in the produce,

you're being ridiculous,

because you're getting

a fraction of the pesticides

by eating the vegetable,

that you can mostly wash it off.

Remember, you can

wash, you can soak your

vegetables and use a

wash to get pesticide

residue off.

You cannot wash the pesticide

off of the hamburger

meat you're about to prepare.

- I encourage people

just to go ahead and buy

whatever produce

they can afford,

whatever produce

looks the freshest

that week in the grocery store,

and whatever's on sale,

so that's where they're

going to save money,

is not worrying about,

"i have to buy

organic bell peppers,

"and they cost me

four dollars each."

That's not a

sustainable lifestyle.

- Besides

the health aspect related

to our food choices, I also

realized during the production

of this film, that there

was another very important

factor, that is

often overlooked,

ignored, or misunderstood.

The connection

between food choices,

and the environment.

I was really shocked after

reading the united nations

report on global warming.

After all, it is hard

to grasp the idea

that the burger, or

steak on our plates

might be contributing

to things such as

global warming, water scarcity,

species extinction,

the destruction of

the Amazon forest,

the depletion of our oceans,

and even world hunger.

I had a hard time

understanding it at first,

but once I began

digging a little deeper,

the connection became clear.

- Now, it's seven

billion people,

what we eat, determines

how the whole planet

is used, and what's

happening now

is that, as we run out of land,

to grow these

animals and the food

for the animals, we

burn down rain forests,

to aquire more land.

And the number one

cause of all of that

is our food choices.

- It's expected to have a

40% shortage in fresh water

supplies by the year 2030.

We have again, irreversible

loss of biodiversity,

ecosystems, and extinction

of species faster than

we've ever seen before, for

the past 65 million years.

We have a world hunger

issue with a little less

that a billion people on

earth suffering from hunger,

with about 350 children

dying from hunger each hour.

- You might

be asking yourself,

how is all that possible?

And I had the same questions,

because in fact,

many of these issues

are not only related

to our food choices.

Many are very complex problems,

with several social,

political, economic,

and cultural variables.

But here are some

intriguing facts.

70% of our arable land

is used to grow crops

for animals and not humans.

It takes on average

2400 gallons of water

and 12 pounds of grain to

make one pound of beef.

Five million acres of

rainforest are destroyed

every year, so companies

can graze animals

and grow food for these animals.

The excrements of 80

billion land animals

killed every year for

food are not treated.

And go back into

our water basins,

and our oceans, creating

a lot of pollution.

And these are just

a few examples.

So when you consider

these facts,

it all begins to

fall into place.

- We need to focus

more, and understand

more what the footprint

is, the complete

life cycle analysis, ecological

environmental depleting

footprint is of that

item is versus just how

close it is to you.

Or whether it's

even organic or not.

It's much less of a

footprint to eat something

that was grown 1500 miles away,

if it was plant-based,

than it is to eat

a food item that

was slaughtered,

that was an animal product,

by your next door neighbor.

And our largest footprint is,

you know, across all sectors,

our food choice

specifically as it relates

to eating animals.

- No matter

how green, or eco-friendly

we try to be, the truth

is that by nature,

we are a very

destructive species.

Almost everything

we do has a negative

impact on the environment.

So many people often try to

minimize their footprint,

by doing things like

switching to more effective

light bulbs, taking

short showers,

bicycling to work,

using solar energy,

or even buying an electric car.

And those are all great things.

But the question is,

are these actions

in fact the easiest

and most effective when

it comes to helping

protect our planet

and its' resources?

- You look at the

four major problems.

We've got overpopulation,

and we're adding about

a million people every

four days, net.

Then you get to the way we live,

and the way we consume stuff,

all that stuff is coming

from finite resources

which we are steadily depleting.

So those first two factors

the overpopulation,

and the way we live, are

driving the third one,

which is our dependence

on fossil fuels.

Look at the numbers.

Since 1950, the

line for consumption

of fossil fuels have

gone steadily up,

every year, and there's

no end in sight.

The fourth big driver,

of all of these

environmental issues,

particularly global warming,

is the way we eat,

is our consumption

of the meat, dairy,

eggs and fish,

and that keeps going up.

It requires, per calorie,

over 10 times as much

land, 10 times as much water,

and 10 times as much energy.

And it ranges.

But the average is

well over 10 times,

and that's a big number.

Now the good news

is, we can change

what we eat, any

individual over night.

People say, "wow, what

would happen if everybody

"changed at once?"

Well, that's not

going to happen.

The bad news is, those

first three items,

overpopulation,

over consumption,

and dependence on fossil

fuels, each one of those would

take decades, if not

centuries to fix.

- With more

and more people embracing

the idea of reducing their

intake of animal products,

or adopting some kind

of a plant-based diet,

it seems that things are

moving in the right direction.

But are they, really?

- You know, I hear people

saying, "things are

"are getting better.

"You know, we see

people putting solar

"panels up, and more

people are eating

"plant-based, and

there's vegan restaurants

"going in down the street,

things are getting better."

Well, not really.

And not even close.

For every individual,

that's moving in the direction

of a plant-based diet,

there's a hundred people moving

in the other direction.

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