Mindfulness sites do not always draw our attention, since we manufacture and sell a ‘down-to-earth’ product, lead batteries. However, The Conversation did catch our eye with a title, ‘Eating as a Political, Social, Spiritual Act: The World Peace Diet’. We found some thoughts about eating mindfully that we decided to share.
Eating Mindfully to Draw Down Greenhouse Gases
We can crack the global warming code simply by reducing the concentration of greenhouse gases. The Conversation mentions there are 25 top-potential actions, of which eight involve the daily food most of us eat, and an unfortunate amount we waste.
Raising animals for human consumption is an inefficient use of nutrients in soil, while the animals also produce emissions of their own.
Also, these are difficult markets for small-scale farmers to enter, because of logistics and health regulations. We could achieve a great deal if we shifted towards a plant-based diet. Eating mindfully could involve consuming just a bit less meat, dairy, and eggs than we do now or having meatless mondays.
The People Living Beneath Livestock’s Long Shadow
The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization believes ‘a massive swing to a vegan diet’ could reduce heating up and polluting Earth’s resources. Moreover, there would also be 7.3 million fewer deaths annually from obesity, hypertension, type 2 diabetes, and cardiovascular mortality’.
Our upbringing still has a strong hold over the food we eat. Our food preferences and systems powerfully influence our daily lives. “Food is a tool to nourish life but also for taking political action,” says The Conversation. “And for averting the dangers of climate change, and preventing unnecessary harm” to ourselves as species.
Food for thought indeed, and with a deliberate pun. “Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food” (Hippocrates, approximately 460 to 370 BC)
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Preview Image: Growing Vegetables in China
