Andersen Kip - The Sustainability Secret: Rethinking Our Diet to Transform the World

Praise for the documentary Cowspiracy

Cowspiracy may be the most important film made to inspire saving the planet.

Louie Psihoyos, Oscar-winning director of The Cove

A documentary that will rock and inspire the environmental movement.

Darren Aronofsky, director of Noah and Black Swan

! A fresh take. Few films are brave enough to tackle a topic this controversial.

Examiner.com

[Kip Andersen] pulls no punches and makes no apologies: The future of our planet is being destroyed by this industry. Hard to argue with the data.

The Huffington Post

Producers Kip Andersen and Keegan Kuhn have teamed up to do what Blackfish is currently doing to Sea World.

James McWilliams, journalist and author of The Modern Savage and Just Food

Cowspiracy really makes one connect the dots. Its an undeniable, statistical tour-de-force!

Shaun Monson, director of Earthlings

I hope that every single person on Earth sees this critical documentary.

Julieanna Hever, dietician and author of The Vegiterranean Diet and The Complete Idiots Guide to Plant-Based Nutrition

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Text copyright 2015 Earth Aware Editions

Introduction copyright 2015 Chris Hedges

Illustrations copyright 2015 Earth Aware Editions

Text by Eunice Wong

All rights reserved.

Published by Insight Editions, San Rafael, California, in 2015. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data available.

eISBN: 978-1-60887-821-5

PUBLISHER: Raoul Goff

CO-PUBLISHER: Michael Madden

ACQUISITIONS MANAGER: Robbie Schmidt

ART DIRECTOR: Chrissy Kwasnik

DESIGNER: Jon Glick

EXECUTIVE EDITOR: Vanessa Lopez

PROJECT EDITOR: Courtney Andersson

PRODUCTION EDITOR: Rachel Anderson

PRODUCTION MANAGER: Anna Wan

Every effort has been made to correctly attribute all material reproduced in this book and to ensure the accuracy of the information contained in the text. If any error has been made unwittingly, we will be happy to correct it in future editions.

Insight Editions, in association with Roots of Peace, will plant two trees for each tree used in the manufacturing of this book. Roots of Peace is an internationally renowned humanitarian organization dedicated to eradicating land mines worldwide and converting war-torn lands into productive farms and wildlife habitats. Roots of Peace will plant two million fruit and nut trees in Afghanistan and provide farmers there with the skills and support necessary for sustainable land use.

Printed copies manufactured on FSC certified 10% PCW recycled paper and with plant-based inks in the United States by Insight Editions.

Dedicated to those who speak up for truth and justice for the planet, for the animals, and for all of humanity working together toward a thriving future.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE
A JOURNEY TOWARD TRUTH

CHAPTER TWO
WATER: AN IN FINITE RESOURCE

CHAPTER THREE
HAPPY FARMS: I LOVE ANIMALSTHATS WHY IM IN THE MEAT BUSINESS

CHAPTER FOUR
FACTORY FARMS: STANDARD INDUSTRY PRACTICE

CHAPTER FIVE
OCEANS: THE CIRCULATORY SYSTEM OF OUR PLANET

CHAPTER SIX
RAIN FORESTS AND BIODIVERSITY: SAWING OFF THE BRANCH WE STAND ON

CHAPTER SEVEN
ACTIVISTS, GOVERNMENTS, AND CORPORATIONS: SHUTTING DOWN A MOVEMENT

CHAPTER EIGHT
ETHICS, DAIRY, AND EGGS: CHOOSING LIFE OVER DEATH

CHAPTER NINE
HEALTH: SKIP THE MIDDLE ANIMAL

CHAPTER TEN
VEGANIC (STOCKFREE) AGRICULTURE: FEEDING A GROWING WORLD

CHAPTER ELEVEN
TRANSFORMING THE WORLD, ONE MEAL AT A TIME

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We would like to thank: first and foremost, Eunice Wong, for without her incredible talent, her dedication to truth, and her tireless work for justice on every level, this book would not have been possible; our dear friend Greg Anzalone, for his continued support and for his belief in this project; Courtney Andersson, for her patience and understanding with us through this whole process; and Dr. Richard Oppenlander, for his extensive research and advice on the topic.

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INTRODUCTION

I grew up in Schoharie, a small dairy town in upstate New York. I played in the fields and pastures. I have deep respect for the life of dairy farmers. They usually begin work before dawn and are only finished after dusk. They love their farms. And they were often kind and welcoming to us children.

Not once as I was growing up did anyone around me question the consumption of meat and dairy products. We were told we had to drink milk and eat eggs and meat to be strong and healthy. I believed this universal mantra. This was unusual, as I questioned, even at a young age, nearly everything told to me by figures of authority.

I left the United States in 1983 to cover the wars in El Salvador and Nicaragua for five years. I would spend two decades as a foreign correspondent, most of them for the New York Times, for whom I was the Middle East Bureau Chief and the Balkan Bureau Chief. During those two decades, the faltering democracy of the United States was effectively snuffed out. We underwent what the Canadian philosopher John Ralston Saul calls a coup dtat in slow motion. The liberal institutions that once made incremental and piecemeal reform possible, including the liberal wing of the Democratic Party and the press, surrendered to corporate power and corporate money. We devolved into what the political philosopher Sheldon Wolin calls a system of inverted totalitarianism.

Inverted totalitarianism is different from classical forms of totalitarianism, such as fascism or communism, Wolin writes in Democracy Incorporated: Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism. It does not revolve around a demagogue or charismatic leader. Rather, it finds its expression in the anonymity of the corporate state. The corporate forces behind inverted totalitarianism do not, as classical totalitarian movements do, replace decaying structures with a new, revolutionary structure. They purport to honor electoral politics, the Constitution, the three branches of government, and the iconography and language of American patriotism. But internally they seize the levers of power to render the citizen impotent. Politics is empty theater, a form of legalized bribery. Money has replaced the vote. There is no national institution left in the United States, Wolin points out, that can accurately be described as democratic.