John Robbins - Diet for a New America: How Your Food Choices Affect Your Health, Happiness and the Future of Life on Earth Second Edition

Diet for a New Americais the most important book of our generation.

Dan Millman, author of Way of the Peaceful Warrior

A most extraordinary [and] compelling book, one bound to shake our innermost core. Diet for a New America is a must for anyone concerned about ecology, health, and life.

The Las Vegas Sun

Diet for a New America is a powerful tool on the journey towards consciousness and compassion. I recommend it without reservation, and hope that many, many people will read it.

Gary Zukav, author of The Seat of the Soul

Diet for a New America will vitalize the awakening of America. This easy-to-read yet mind-boggling book has its place in the kitchen and in the doctors office, in every classroom, from preschool to university. For those involved in ecological and political issues, this book is a must; so it is for all of us who long for a practical economical way to foster a more sane, ethical, and loving world.

Laura Huxley, author of This Timeless Moment

Diet for a New America is a powerful indictment of our dietary practices that should be read by everyone interested in healthy living. It is a well-researched, well-documented, and eye-opening account of the myths and truths about meat, milk, fat, and protein. I will recommend this book to patients, friends, and relatives.

Andrew Weil, MD, author of Spontaneous Healing

From the outset of reading this volume I was enthralled. The book is a pleasure to read, as engrossing as the most exciting novel. Yet this is no novelit deals directly with the most important personal issues and decisions of our lives. When I finished reading Diet for a New America, I knew that in my hands lay one of the most profound studies ever written of how our eating habits affect our lives, and indeed all of life on our planetIf you read only one book this year, let it be this one.

Vegetarian Times

In a tender, not strident, voice, Robbins shows us why a humane society cannot be built upon an inhumane system of food production. Robbins does not play on our guilt, but shows us how our own well-being is linked to the development of radically new sensibilities to nonhuman life. I promise you what you perceive behind the supermarket meat counter will never be the same after reading Diet for a New America.

Frances Moore Lapp, author of Diet for a Small Planet

Diet for a New America is excellent! I cant speak highly enough of it. This book is a breakthrough in the science of health and a joy to read. No one who suffers (or whose loved ones suffer) from the diseases of our time can afford to ignore this potent message. In his captivating style, John Robbins shows us how to create health for ourselves, our children, and the world we live in.

Dr. John McDougall, author of The McDougall Plan

Every so often a book comes along which has the capacity to awaken the conscience of a nation. Silent Spring was one such book. I believe John Robbinss volume is destined to be another. With consummate intelligence, thoroughness, and skill, Robbins takes us on a multifaceted journey which should cause all sensitive people to question their eating habits most searchingly. I couldnt put it down.

Cleveland Amory, president of the Fund for Animals
and author of The Cat Who Came for Christmas

No Happy Cows:
Dispatches from the Frontlines of the Food Revolution

The New Good Life:
Living Better Than Ever in an Age of Less

Healthy at 100:
The Scientifically Proven Secrets
of the Worlds Healthiest and Longest-Lived Peoples

The Food Revolution:
How Your Diet Can Help Save Your Life and Our World

May All Be Fed:
A Diet for a New World
(including recipes by Jia Patton and friends)

Reclaiming Our Health:
Exploding the Medical Myth and Embracing the Sources of True Healing

The Awakened Heart:
Meditations on Finding Harmony in a Changing World

H J Kramer

published in a joint venture with

New World Library

Copyright 1987 by John Robbins
Epilogue copyright 2012 by John Robbins
Publishers preface copyright 2012 by H J Kramer
Originally published in 1987 by Stillpoint Publishing

All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, or otherwithout written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

Graphics by Deo Robbins
Text design by Tona Pearce Myers

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

First printing of 25th anniversary edition, November 2012
ISBN 978-1-932073-54-6
Printed in Canada on 100% postconsumer-waste recycled paper

New World Library is proud to be a Gold Certified Environmentally Responsible Publisher. Publisher certification awarded by Green Press Initiative.
www.greenpressinitiative.org

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M y gratitude and thanks to:

Deo Robbins, who nursed the book and me through thick and thin, her utterly unique wit providing me a continual source of renewal. Her example is a living demonstration that health comes through love.

Don Rosenthal, whose keen eye and high editorial standards helped sharpen the focus of my thoughts.

Ocean Robbins, whose love for all of life is a continuous inspiration to all who know him.

Salima Cobb and Martha Rosenthal, who believed in my ability to write this book, even when my faith flickered.

Kali Rae, for her support in the original inspiration for the book.

All the animals Ive been fortunate enough to know. Simply by being themselves, they have encouraged me to be a voice for the voiceless.

My thanks also to the numerous physicians, nutritionists, environmentalists, researchers, and other concerned people who read and criticized the book as it took shape.

And to all those yet to be inspired by the vision of Diet for a New America.

May All Be Fed,
May All Be Healed,
May All Be Loved.

D iet for a New America was first published in 1987. In the following seven years, beef consumption in the United States decreased by 20 percent, from 75 pounds per person annually in 1987 to 60 pounds per person in 1994. That year, during a National Public Radio debate, a representative of the National Cattlemens Beef Association accused the books author, John Robbins, of being single-handedly responsible for this decline. Of course, many other reasons were responsible as well, but Diet for a New America has played a leading role in changing the way Americans view the food they eat and the industrial food system that produces it.

Since the books publication, Robbins has received over 60,000 letters from people who have read the book or heard him speak, describing how the books message has changed their lives. Most of them reported either giving up meat or significantly reducing how much they consume. The books message has prevented heart attacks and cancer, protected tropical rain forests from destruction, saved species from extinction, and spared millions of animals the cruelty of feedlot and factory farm existences.