The Food Revolution: How Your Diet Can Save Your Life and Our World (Plant Based Diet, Food Politics) - Tapa blanda

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John Robbins is the bestselling author of Voices of the Food Revolution, No Happy Cows, Diet for a New America, and many other landmark works. He is the founder of EarthSave International and the co-founder and co-host of the 500,000+ member Food Revolution Network. Robbins' work has been the subject of cover stories and feature articles in The San Francisco Chronicle, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and many of the nation's other major newspapers and magazines. His life and work have also been featured in an hour-long PBS special titled “Diet For A New America.” The only son of the founder of the Baskin-Robbins ice cream empire, Robbins was groomed to follow in his father's footsteps, but chose to walk away from Baskin-Robbins and the immense wealth it represented to "...pursue the deeper American Dream...the dream of a society at peace with its conscience because it respects and lives in harmony with all life forms. A dream of a society that is truly healthy, practicing a wise and compassionate stewardship of a balanced ecosystem.” He lives with his family in California's Santa Cruz Mountains.

Dean Ornish, MD, is the founder and president of the non-profit Preventive Medicine Research Institute and Clinical Professor of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, and Clinical Professor of Medicine at the University of California, San Diego. Dr. Ornish was recognized as "one of the 125 most extraordinary University of Texas alumni in the past 125 years;" by TIME magazine as a "TIME 100 Innovator;" by LIFE magazine as "one of the fifty most influential members of his generation;" by People magazine as "one of the most interesting people of the year;" and by Forbes magazine as "one of the world's seven most powerful teachers."

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You Never Know What to Expect

Life certainly can take us in amazing directions. A few years after receiving the notice relating the dairy board's interest in me, another thing happened that showed me you never know what to expect. I was giving a talk in Los Angeles. By this time I had had nothing whatever to do with Baskin-Robbins for more than twenty-five years, and, with my father long since retired, I no longer knew a single person who was involved with the company.

It was a fair-sized crowd, so it was not nearly possible for me to be aware of each person, but there was a couple in the back who for some reason drew my attention. She seemed all ears to what I had to say, while he, presumably her husband, seemed guarded at first, with his legs and arms crossed in front of him, although as time went along he seemed to relax and from his body language I began to gather that he was enjoying my presentation.

At one point, someone asked why I had left Baskin-Robbins and the opportunity to live the life of the rich and famous, and I had said simply, “If I hadn't left, I'd probably look in the mirror today and see someone who was fat, rich, and unhappy.” It was a flippant remark, I suppose, but I then launched into a discussion of how we each must be true to our integrity and follow the call of our souls, or else, whatever else we might have, we still may end up bereft.

Anyhow, at the end of my talk, people came up to me to ask me to sign their copies of my book, and sure enough the couple in the back were among them. In fact, the man made a beeline straight for me, and, I had the distinct impression even before he spoke that he was a formidable fellow. His voice firm and strong, standing first in line, he announced to me, “You said that if you were today the president of Baskin-Robbins, you'd be fat, rich, and unhappy. Well, I want you to know that I am the president of Baskin-Robbins, and I'm not fat, I'm not rich, and I'm not unhappy.”

I almost fainted, but somehow managed to hang on, and soon enough was conversing with Glenn and Amy Bacheller: he indeed the president of the company, and she his wife, a nutritionist; both of them, it turns out, vegetarians and major fans of Diet for a New America. Amy told me that she was a vegan, while Glenn still ate ice cream, though not at home, and only for professional reasons. She said that she could tell whenever he ate it at the office, because that night he would snore. He nodded, attesting to all she said, and added that he agreed with everything I had said in my lecture.

As it happened, Glenn and Amy became two of our closest friends. Amy served as a director of EarthSave for a number of years, and they both provided substantial guidance and support to the organization. Shortly after our meeting, Glenn left Baskin-Robbins and stopped eating dairy products entirely, later becoming the president of Jamba Juice, a rapidly growing company that sells made-to-order fruit smoothies. He felt great about the move for, while the people at Baskin-Robbins were often wonderful, he had grown tired of working for a company that produced a product that was in conflict with his own values.

And wouldn't you know it, things do change in unexpected ways, because not only did Glenn leave Baskin-Robbins and become one of my closest friends, but my dear father—not one, mind you to be swayed by the latest fad—my father, who prided himself on being a staunch conservative and set as solidly as concrete in his ways, ended up also giving up eating sugar entirely, and becoming, as he put it, “not a card-carrying vegetarian,” but closer than I would have ever imagined.

It just shows, you never quite know what will happen. Both Glenn and my father experienced major health improvements, and Glenn, for one, attributes his health improvements to completely eliminating dairy products from his diet, which puts him in the same category as the thousands of people who've written me reporting dramatic health benefits after giving up dairy. Truly, there are a lot of people nowadays who are realizing that dairy products are not what they've been hyped up to be.