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  • RACHEL O'MARA: Thanks everyone for joining today.

  • Thanks for coming during lunch in San Francisco, and welcome

  • to Authors at Google.

  • My name is Rachel O'Mara, and I'm really excited today to

  • host our author, John Robbins.

  • So John Robbins is the author of nine best-sellers that have

  • collectively sold more than 3 million copies, and been

  • translated into 26 languages.

  • His books include "The Food Revolution," "The Classic Diet

  • for a New America," and most recently, "No Happy Cows,

  • Dispatches from the Front Lines of the Food Revolution."

  • Currently, he is also one of the most bloggers on the

  • "Huffington Post."

  • As an advocate for a compassionate and healthy way

  • of life, John is the recipient of the Rachel Carson Award,

  • the Albert Schweitzer Humanitarian Award, the Peace

  • Abbey Courage of Conscious Award, Green America's

  • Lifetime Achievement Award, and many other accolades.

  • Well done, John.

  • That's great.

  • The only son of the founder of the Baskin Robbins ice cream

  • empire, John 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 the lives in

  • harmony with all life forms.

  • John is the founder and board chair emeritus of EarthSave

  • International, and has served on the boards of many

  • nonprofit organizations.

  • His work has been the subject of feature articles in the

  • "San Francisco Chronicle," the "LA Times," "Chicago Life,"

  • the "Washington Post," "The New York Times," the

  • "Philadelphia Inquirer," "Time," "US News and World

  • Report," "Newsweek," and many of the nation's other major

  • newspapers and magazines.

  • His life and work have also been featured in an

  • award-winning hour-long PBS special titled "Diet for a New

  • America," and that's the book we'll be talking about today.

  • John lives with his wife of 45 years, Deo, and their son,

  • Ocean, and his wife, Michelle, and their grandsons River and

  • Bodhi, outside Santa Cruz, California.

  • Their home is powered entirely by solar electricity.

  • John also has a website,

  • www.johnrobbins.info, for more details.

  • So please welcome with me John Robbins.

  • [APPLAUSE]

  • Thank you for being here.

  • Thank you.

  • As was mentioned in your-- thank you for the

  • introduction.

  • I was born into an ice cream company family, Baskin Robbins

  • 31 Flavors.

  • My father and uncle founded the company, owned the

  • company, ran the company.

  • I'm an only son.

  • I have sisters, but no brothers.

  • And my father groomed me to succeed him.

  • That was his plan for my life, that I would one day run

  • Baskin Robbins, which was becoming and became during my

  • childhood the world's largest ice cream company.

  • It's a billion dollar company.

  • And it was assumed that's what I would do.

  • And I loved it.

  • I grew up eating more ice cream--

  • I don't eat ice cream anymore.

  • And when people find that out, they sometimes look at me as

  • if they're feeling sorry for me, I think.

  • And I say, please don't, please.

  • Really, I ate enough ice cream in my

  • childhood for 20 lifetimes.

  • We had an ice cream cone-shaped swimming pool in

  • our backyard.

  • We had freezers with all of the month's 31 flavors, plus

  • experimental flavors, plus--

  • it was every kid's dream, in a way, in a way, in that there

  • was unlimited ice cream.

  • I did eat ice cream for breakfast.

  • It's true.

  • It was really gross, actually.

  • There's a shadow side to all that.

  • Ice cream is really not a health food.

  • It's not kale.

  • And you can put some fruit in some of the

  • sherbets, and so forth.

  • It's still basically very high in sugar, and most of the

  • flavors are very high in fat, and the fat is highly

  • saturated fat.

  • It's not healthy.

  • And so people who eat a lot of it have health problems.

  • My uncle, Burt Baskin, my dad's partner and

  • brother-in-law, died of a heart attack at the age of 54.

  • He was a very big man.

  • He ate a lot of ice cream.

  • And when he died, I asked my father, do you think there

  • could be any connection between my uncle's fatal heart

  • attack and the amount of ice cream he would eat?

  • And my father looked at me and very piercingly

  • said no, no, no.

  • His ticker just got tired and stopped working.

  • And the expression on his face and the tone of voice said

  • something else.

  • It said, don't you ever ask that question again.

  • Do you understand what I'm saying?

  • John Bradshaw, the psychologist used to talk

  • about there being "no talk" rules in families, taboo

  • subjects that you just don't talk about in a given family,

  • elephants in the living room that take up a lot of space,

  • but no one mentions it.

  • Because there's some kind of family dynamic at play in

  • which there's not an ability to talk about that topic.

  • In my family, one of the big elephants in the living room

  • was that there could be a connection between ice cream

  • and heart disease, or ice cream and health, or even food

  • and health, that there might be a connection there.

  • Because if you start down that slippery slope--

  • food and health--

  • you pretty soon get to ice cream and heart disease.

  • And my father did not want to even consider the possibility

  • that there might be a link.

  • And I couldn't understand why he would not want to.

  • By that time, by the time of my uncle's death, which was in

  • 1968, my father had manufactured and sold more ice

  • cream than any human being that had ever

  • lived on planet Earth.

  • He didn't want to think the family product was hurting

  • anybody, much less than it could have contributed to his

  • partner, his brother-in-law, my uncle's death.

  • But I felt I should.

  • I felt I needed to consider, might there be that link?

  • And the more I looked into it, the more I felt there was.

  • And not just between ice cream and heart disease, but ice

  • cream and diabetes.

  • My father developed diabetes--

  • serious diabetes--

  • later on.

  • Everybody in the family had these various issues, problems

  • with weight, everywhere.

  • And want to make it clear, it's not just Baskin Robbins

  • as a company.

  • It's ice cream.

  • You know Ben and Jerry's.

  • Ben Cohen--

  • marvelous man, peace activist, very engaged person--

  • big guy, ate a lot of ice cream, co-owned Ben and

  • Jerry's, co-founded it, had a quintuple

  • bypass in his late 40s.

  • These kinds of things tend to happen when you eat

  • a lot of ice cream.

  • And if you're in the ice cream business--

  • if you're running Baskin Robbins in particular, that's

  • what I would know about--

  • you want people to buy as much as possible.

  • That's the business model.

  • That's how it works.

  • So you want them to consume as much ice cream as possible.

  • And the reality is, when people eat it in excess, they

  • get these health problems.

  • So I was faced with an existential quandary--

  • on the one hand, a lot of financial security; on the

  • other hand, my integrity.

  • And I made a choice for integrity.

  • And I told my dad that under the circumstances, I was not

  • going to follow in his footsteps.

  • I was not going to work any longer in the company.

  • And what I specifically said to him was this.

  • I said, dad, we live in a different time now than when

  • you grew up.

  • We live under a nuclear shadow where at any moment the

  • unspeakable could happen.

  • We live in a time when the environment is deteriorating

  • rapidly under the impact of human activities.

  • We live in a time when the gap between the haves and the have

  • nots is increasing.

  • And that does not, to my eyes, create social stability or

  • security for anybody, even the wealthy and privileged.

  • It's undermining the social fabric.

  • We live in a time when 60,000 people on earth, many of them

  • children, die of hunger, die of starvation every day, while

  • elsewhere there's abundant resources going to waste.

  • And then I said to him, dad, do you understand that for me,

  • feeling these issues and concerns as intensely as I do,

  • inventing a 32nd flavor would just not be an adequate

  • response for my life.

  • And he understood to the extent that he could.

  • But I needed to be true to myself, and so I made a choice

  • for integrity and I walked away.

  • And I also walked away from the money.

  • To be in alignment with my integrity and my choices, I

  • needed to have no access to it.

  • And I told him that I didn't want a trust fund.

  • I didn't want to depend in any way, not one dollar, on his

  • fortune, his achievements.

  • And with Deo, my wife--

  • we've been together 46 years now-- we moved away, and lived

  • very simply, back to the land, built a log cabin,

  • grow our own food.

  • 95% of what we ate for 10 years we grew.

  • And it was a real pendulum swing.

  • In the family I'd grown up in, I jokingly would say, perhaps

  • flippantly would say that roughing it meant that room

  • service was late.

  • Now we were really roughing it, because we were living

  • very simply on land and trying to grow our food and dependent

  • on what we could grow.

  • Eventually I wrote "Diet for a New America," and it became a

  • best-seller.

  • It sold over a million copies, and became something of a

  • phenomenon.

  • I received 60,000 letters--

  • these are actual letters.

  • This is before email--

  • from people who read the book and wanted to

  • communicate with me.

  • And almost all of them said, this touched me deeply.

  • How can I get involved?

  • What can I do?

  • And I want to give you a little bit of what I was--

  • tell you a little bit about what the book says, that so

  • many people felt that they wanted to respond to that way.

  • We just recently came out with a 25th anniversary edition of

  • "Diet for a New America," and that's what we have here

  • today, with a new--

  • not a preface, but a new epilogue by me, a lengthy

  • epilogue describing what's happened in the interim years.

  • And I will talk a little bit about that too.

  • Basically, something has happened in modern meat

  • production, and dairy production, and egg

  • production, and animal factory industries that most people

  • don't know about, and the industries do not want people

  • to know about.

  • In fact, this year, they are initiating in many state

  • legislatures what are called ag gag bills.

  • This is legislation that makes it a felony to videotape or

  • photograph what takes place in slaughterhouses or feed lots

  • or factory forms.

  • Because there's been a series of exposes where people went

  • undercover working for Humane Society United States, or

  • Mercy for Animals, or Compassion Over Killing, or

  • some other animal protection group--

  • have gone undercover as workers in these places with

  • hidden cameras, and gotten footage of what takes place.

  • And it comes out, and people who see it are abhorred.

  • They just find it deplorable--

  • the cruelty, the lack of sanitation.

  • Sometimes there's fines, sometimes

  • there's jail sentences.

  • People get upset.

  • There was a recent one in a California feedlot where one

  • of the largest suppliers of beef for the school lunch

  • programs, and they were breaking all of the rules.

  • We don't have very many rules, but they were breaking all of

  • them that we have.

  • And so the industry doesn't want this kind of footage of

  • getting out.

  • They don't want you to know what's happening.

  • They don't want you to know--

  • this is a war against awareness, basically.

  • So the ag gag bills make it illegal to do that.

  • And they've passed in four or five states.

  • They've been initiated in another 12 or 14.

  • There's a real effort.

  • All of these are the bills are almost identical.

  • They were written by ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange

  • Council, which is a corporate front group.

  • And they're basically trying to lock the veil down so

  • people can't know.

  • Well, I'm trying to lift the veil.

  • And I have been for 25 years, wanting to lift the veil so

  • people can see.

  • I think you have a right to know how your food is

  • produced, where it comes from.

  • I think actually any animal would want to know.

  • This is a basic biological thing.

  • Before you eat something, you'd want

  • to know, is it safe?

  • Is it what it says it is?

  • What's the back story here?

  • How did it arrive here?

  • Is it healthy for me?

  • What's going to happen to me if I eat it?

  • We have a food industry that does things to food.

  • The problem isn't the food.

  • I'm not trying to make you afraid of food.

  • I don't want you to be afraid of food.

  • I want you to love food.

  • But you can't love what they've done to the food.

  • Because if they genetically engineer it, and much of our

  • food is today, if it's grown with poisons that residues are

  • in the food, these things harm us.

  • And they harm the biosphere upon which we depend, and on

  • which our economy depends, on which our

  • whole future depends.

  • So when we expose when I expose, when others like me

  • expose what's being done in the media industry, in the

  • dairy industry, in the egg industry in particular, I do

  • so because I want people to have freedom of choice, not

  • because I'm trying to tell you what to eat.

  • And this is a critical distinction.

  • I myself, I eat a very plant-strong diet.

  • I'm virtually vegan.

  • But I'm not asking that you be.

  • I'm asking that you be authentic to who you are, to

  • what your values are, to what is in your heart, to what

  • helps you live the highest and best life possible for you.

  • And that's your decision and your determination.

  • But you can't make those choices honestly and

  • authentically if you don't have accurate information.

  • And the industry won't give it to you.

  • In fact, the industry is working very hard to prevent

  • you from having it.

  • I'm working very hard to allow you to have it, so I'm

  • at odds with them.

  • They don't like me very much.

  • And that's OK.

  • What I want you to know is that modern meat production

  • has become--

  • it treats the animals very, very differently than the

  • images most people have of farms--

  • Lassie and Timmy running around on a farm.

  • They will use photographs of beautiful--

  • I'll give you an example.

  • The California Milk Producers Association has an ad campaign

  • called "Happy Cows." It's a national campaign.

  • They've spent hundreds of millions on it.

  • And the tagline is "Great cheese comes from happy cows.

  • Happy cows come from California." And they're

  • selling California cheese nationally.

  • We try to compete with Wisconsin to become the

  • largest dairy state.

  • So the photographs show cows grazing on beautiful green

  • grass, pastures.

  • Those photographs were taken in Auckland, New Zealand,

  • because the California dairy industry is centered in the

  • Central Valley, particularly the San Joachin Valley.

  • And it's a desert there.

  • It's dry.

  • There's no grass.

  • These are feedlot dairies.

  • There's 20,000, 15,000 cows in a penned area.

  • It's nothing like the images shown in the ads.

  • In fact, I have sued-- along with PETA, sued the California

  • Milk Producers Association over this ad campaign, because

  • I think it's false advertising.

  • And I think there's a point here.

  • If you--

  • we know that people will pay extra for organic food.

  • There's a subsection of the marketplace--

  • I happen to be part of it-- that values organic food.

  • And we'll pay a little bit extra for that value.

  • If someone were to sell as organic, label as organic food

  • that was not, that was grown with poisons, that would be

  • false advertising.

  • That would actually be a criminal act against the

  • people, cheating the people who value this.

  • And I'm willing to pay extra for it.

  • We don't allow that.

  • We have organic certification, which is third party, and it's

  • objective, and it's verifiable.

  • But when it comes to claims about humane treatment of

  • animals, "happy cows come from California," they say.

  • That's a claim.

  • It's not true, but we don't have any way of asserting any

  • kind of verification on that.

  • So they can get away with it.

  • And then the people like me, maybe like some of you, who

  • care about how animals are treated--

  • and we're going to be eating their flesh or their milk.

  • It's going to be consumed by us--

  • and want those animals to have a decent life, to be treated

  • with some degree of basic respect for their needs, are

  • being exploited.

  • Because we'll pay-- we see an ad like that.

  • Oh, happy cows come from California.

  • That touches us.

  • That speaks to our heart.

  • So we'll go out of our way to get the cheese that actually

  • comes from a feedlot, but we don't know that, because

  • they're lying.

  • This is one example.

  • The examples are numerous, way, way numerous.

  • And what's happened is we have put modern livestock in

  • confinement under conditions that frustrate their natures,

  • that violate their natures to such an extent, you do not

  • have to be a vegetarian or an animal rights activist or even

  • a particularly empathic human being-- if you see it, how

  • severe it's become--

  • to find it abominable, appalling.

  • If you have any feeling whatsoever for animals--

  • and most of us do.

  • Most of us, actually--

  • most Americans, actually, love animals, to some degree.

  • Now, I'm not saying you love them more than people, but you

  • love them for who they are.

  • And as a country, we treat our dogs and our cats pretty well

  • as a rule-- not always, but as a rule.

  • Many of us to consider them part of our families.

  • We pay their vet bills.

  • We buy their food.

  • We have them sleep on our beds with us.

  • We give them names.

  • They're part of our families.

  • We feel enriched by those relationships as human beings.

  • We love them.

  • They love us, very often quite beautifully, back.

  • But sadly, we also have a very schizoid relationship to

  • animals, in that in this country, if it's an animal

  • that we call a companion animal, we treat it very well.

  • But if we call the animal dinner, if we find its flesh

  • tasty, we put it in a different category.

  • Now, there are laws in every one of the 50 states about

  • cruelty to animals, restricting certain

  • things you can't do.

  • But in every one of the 50 states, the legislation that

  • exists exempts animals destined for human

  • consumption.

  • So, animals destined for human consumption have no

  • protections under the law.

  • And this is how the industry wants it.

  • And so their standard operating procedures, the way

  • they treat the literally billions of animals in modern

  • meat production that are involved, if you did it to a

  • dog or cat, if you treated a dog or cat that way, you would

  • be subject to felony prosecution.

  • And I am not talking about the fact that

  • the animal is killed.

  • I'm not talking about that.

  • I'm talking about the lives that the animals lead in

  • factory farms.

  • It's severe.

  • It's really extreme.

  • I'm going to give just one example so you know what I'm

  • talking about.

  • And that's what happens to the baby calves, the male calves,

  • born to dairy cows.

  • If you think about it, they have to keep dairy cows

  • pregnant all the time, because they need them lactating to

  • get the milk.

  • Otherwise their udders would dry up.

  • So they're re-impregnated every year.

  • And then half the calves that are born are female.

  • Half are male, roughly.

  • And the females are shunted off to become four-legged milk

  • pumps like their mothers.

  • But what happens to the males?

  • Can't get milk from a male.

  • Infant calves, newborn calves, are taken from their mothers

  • at birth, and they're put in veal barns where they're

  • chained at the neck.

  • And they have the space in each stall so small, they

  • can't take a single step in any direction.

  • And they they're chained there for four months.

  • They can't take a single step in any direction, and they

  • can't lay down in their normal sleeping position because the

  • chain is so short.

  • So to sleep, they have to kind of hunch.

  • They're kept in the dark for the most part, often for four

  • months in the dark.

  • Most of them go blind.

  • They are fed a diet that is deliberately and

  • systematically devoid of iron, so they become increasingly

  • anemic, eventually pathologically anemic.

  • Now, why would they want them blind and anemic?

  • Well, if the animal's anemic, its flesh--

  • which, at birth, is kind of a grayish color--

  • doesn't become pinkish or reddish.

  • That's the iron that would do that.

  • And we've been taught--

  • that the culture at large has been taught that white meats

  • are healthier.

  • So they call it milk fed veal.

  • Now, it's not the mother's milk.

  • It's actually government surplus skim milk powder.

  • That's part of what they're fed.

  • It keeps them--

  • and there's no iron in milk at all, nor in anything

  • else they give them.

  • They don't use nails.

  • They use plastic nails in the stall so the animals can't

  • lick and get any iron from the nails.

  • The whole thing is designed to make them anemic so that the

  • flesh will be this white color.

  • Now, they chain them at the neck so tightly because they

  • don't want them to move.

  • The reason they don't want them to move is because if the

  • animal moves, it will develop some muscle tone, so

  • musculature.

  • And they want the muscle tissue to be

  • as flaky and tender--

  • ie., as undeveloped as a muscle as possible.

  • They call this tender veal.

  • So this high-end product that's made into veal

  • cacciatore and these dishes that you'll find in fancy

  • restaurants, particularly Italian restaurants, is

  • actually the flash of a tortured baby animal, a

  • newborn animal that is kept under conditions that I think

  • violate just about anybody's sensitivities.

  • I really want to emphasize, again, this isn't an issue, I

  • don't think, for animal rights activists and vegetarians.

  • In fact, the vegetarians are the people

  • what don't eat this.

  • If I were eating meat, I'd really be alarmed about this.

  • I don't want to eat the products of torture.

  • And I actually believe, to tell you the truth, that there

  • is some correlation.

  • I can't prove this.

  • I don't know how to document this.

  • But I do feel intuitively there's some correlation

  • between when animals are treated with this degree of

  • cruelty, their lives are this much misery and fear, what

  • happens to the people's emotional states who eat this,

  • day in, day out?

  • What happens to us as human beings if the meat we're

  • eating, the dairy products we're eating, are coming from

  • conditions, animals kept in these kinds of conditions?

  • That kind of question I think needs to be raised.

  • I think it's an authentic question.

  • I don't know how to answer it totally.

  • But I think it's a question we need, as a

  • society, to look at.

  • If your prayer is at some level, let there be peace on

  • Earth and let it begin with me-- you

  • know that old prayer--

  • if you hearken to that, if that speaks to you, does it

  • make sense, does it help the manifestation, the

  • actualization of that impulse to be eating food that comes

  • from conditions like that?

  • I don't think so.

  • I really don't.

  • And if you see how severe it is.

  • And what I've described as the conditions in veal calf

  • raising is equivalent--

  • the details are a little different-- but the degree of

  • control and the degree of restriction of movement and

  • the degree of giving them feedstuffs that are unnatural

  • to their physiology, that's rampant.

  • That's across the board, in feedlot beef, in dairy cows,

  • in chicken--

  • in hens producing our eggs, in turkeys, in hog production.

  • The industry has become all about the dollar, all about

  • the dollar.

  • Not about the dollar and other things, like the health of

  • people eating the product.

  • It's only the dollar.

  • So the health of the people eating the product is not part

  • of the equation.

  • It's not part of the thinking, nor is the well-being of the

  • animals involved.

  • These people don't wake up in the middle of the night

  • thinking, how do I be cruel to animals?

  • How I produce a product that's as unhealthy as possible?

  • They don't do that.

  • They do wake up in the middle of the night asking

  • themselves, how do I cut costs?

  • And it just so happens that the things they end up doing

  • that cut costs almost invariably end up being harder

  • and harder on the animals, and producing food that is less

  • and less healthy for us to eat.

  • So I think we need to be aware of this, in order to protect

  • ourselves, in order to reclaim our food system, from

  • Monsanto, from McDonald's, from industrial agriculture,

  • from the agrochemical orientation,

  • from the GMO mentality.

  • You see it in factory farms, this a degree of chasing the

  • dollar at all costs.

  • Nothing else matters.

  • The well-being of the environment doesn't matter.

  • If you pollute--

  • you find a way to externalize the cost.

  • Someone else picks up the tab, eventually the taxpayer,

  • eventually the larger earth community does, and then you

  • just move on.

  • And that's how it's done, and we're all paying a really

  • terrible price for it.

  • Right now, as a country, we have the highest rate of

  • obesity that any country has ever had in the

  • history of the planet.

  • We have the highest rate of childhood diabetes of any

  • country that has ever existed in the history of the earth.

  • We spend more money on what we call health care than any

  • other country.

  • In fact, we spend more money on what we call health care

  • then the next 10 countries combined.

  • And we are the only industrialized country that

  • doesn't provide basic health care to all of our citizens.

  • We don't really have a health care industry.

  • We have a disease management industry.

  • The money is not in helping people to keep their blood

  • pressure level, which is pretty simple to do with a

  • healthy diet, actually.

  • But the money is in the pills, and so we let people eat food

  • that raises their blood pressure.

  • We actually encourage that.

  • We subsidize those foods.

  • Make them cheaper.

  • People buy them.

  • Their blood pressure goes up, then the drugs companies

  • profit from the sale-- this is a disease-based economy.

  • We spend $300 billion a year in this country annually every

  • year on drugs, pharmaceutical drugs.

  • That is half of the amount that's spent

  • in the entire world.

  • We're 4% of the world's population.

  • We buy 50% of the drugs, and 70% of the antidepressants,

  • which, you can decide what that means.

  • Why do we have a Food and Drug Administration?

  • Did you ever think about that?

  • Did you think food isn't important enough to have its

  • own agency?

  • Our food?

  • It's because if you eat the food, you're

  • going to need the drugs.

  • This is the system we've created.

  • And under these circumstances, it's a revolutionary act, I

  • think, to be aware, and to take action, to swim upstream,

  • against the current of society which will wash you down to

  • the fast food joint, the Burger King and McDonald's.

  • And that's your choice.

  • That's your freedom.

  • That's consumer freedom.

  • I don't think so.

  • I don't think freedom is, which of the 31

  • flavors do I want?

  • Believe me, I grew up with that stuff.

  • I think the freedom that we want is to live-- how do we

  • choose and have available choices that we can live

  • healthy lives and create healthy communities, have

  • healthy families, look forward to a healthy future on a

  • healthy planet?

  • I mean, I think that seems like a radical thought.

  • That seems like pie in the sky, almost idealistic

  • thinking, under the conditions of today.

  • That's why I call it revolutionary.

  • It does go against the grain of our "ain't it awful"

  • society, and our victim thinking.

  • But we can take these actions.

  • I just finished, a couple days ago, a food revolution summit,

  • which I co-ran with my son Ocean.

  • And we had 73,000 participants for the week, for eight days.

  • There are a lot of people waking up, a lot of people

  • wanting to be part of this food revolution, wanting to

  • make their lives a statement of compassion and how they eat

  • and their health, so that what you're eating is actually

  • contributing to your well-being, and actually

  • contributing to the kind of life and experience in your

  • body that you want to have, the vibrancy, the vitality,

  • the beauty, the mental clarity, the emotional

  • serenity, and the spiritual alignment that makes life

  • fulfilling and wonderful.

  • So that's the basics of--

  • [INAUDIBLE] there's lots I could say.

  • But why don't we open to some questions or comments.

  • What's being invoked in you hearing me?

  • Do you have any thoughts?

  • Do you want to share a question?

  • AUDIENCE: And I think the open question, at least in the

  • omnivore's dilemma, as far as I know, is whether sustainable

  • farming is scalable.

  • We know that Big Food is mistreating animals and

  • polluting the environment in order to

  • maximize their profit.

  • But at the same time, they do produce a lot of food.

  • And so has anyone figured out whether the sustainable

  • farming methods can feed our entire country?

  • JOHN ROBBINS: Yes.

  • Well, the reason that Big Food is profitable and does produce

  • extravagant amounts of food-like substances is that

  • they are subsidized heavily.

  • For example, feedlots and factories farms don't pay

  • their own pollution costs.

  • The government's picked that up.

  • If they had to pay for the pollution they caused, that

  • would raise the prices of their foods considerably.

  • People would be less inclined to buy them.

  • Another example is the feed that they're--

  • it's basically corn and soy--

  • that they feed to the hogs and the cattle and the chicken and

  • the dairy cows comes from industrial plantations, huge

  • monocultures, most of them GMO, saturated with

  • herbicides, just saturated with them.

  • And that's subsidized.

  • So the cost to the industry of those feedstuffs is almost

  • nothing, almost nothing.

  • We pay for it as taxpayers, be you vegetarian or a meat

  • eater, you're paying for that through your taxes.

  • And also to the pollution that we live with, the decrease in

  • soil fertility, the loss of water resources, the drying up

  • of the wells throughout the Midwest.

  • We're paying for it in so many ways.

  • But those costs are externalized.

  • We don't subsidize organic agriculture.

  • We subsidize agrochemical-based

  • agriculture.

  • So that tilts the playing field and makes

  • organics very expensive.

  • Have you ever wondered why when you go to Whole Foods or

  • anywhere, the organic food costs more?

  • I mean, some people want it more, will pay that premium

  • and can, but why does it cost more?

  • Because of the subsidies.

  • In the Farm Bill, it's all there.

  • I think--

  • and more than think I'm working for this--

  • that we should not just tilt the playing field so it's

  • level, although that would be an improvement.

  • I want to tilt it in the other direction so that organic--

  • I want to put a tax on pesticides, for example, and

  • then use the income from that to lower the price to the

  • consumer of organic food.

  • It's a revenue-neutral solution.

  • It's fairly simple.

  • And what happens, is then, that conventionally-grown

  • food, as we call it, food grown with agrochemicals

  • becomes more expensive.

  • Same thing, I would tax factory farm meat production

  • and use the revenue to decrease the cost of humanely

  • raised, again, turning the turning thing topsy-turvy from

  • where it is now.

  • The incentives are perverse the way they are.

  • Could we produce enough meat that way, as much as we

  • produce now?

  • No.

  • We eat way too much.

  • We have heart disease.

  • It's still the leading killer in the country.

  • And people who eat far less meat, we know--

  • all the data show.

  • There's a mountain of studies that shows this-- have far

  • less heart disease.

  • They have far less colon cancer.

  • And it's a healthier diet to get away from that.

  • So we don't need nearly as much.

  • Now, McDonald's, though, wants to sell all-- see, they've got

  • a tremendous marketing plan.

  • I have to tell you, Ray Kroc was the founder, owner for

  • many years, CEO for many years, of McDonald's.

  • Ray Kroc, before he started McDonald's,

  • worked for my father.

  • And my father invented franchising.

  • Baskin and Robbins was the first franchised food place.

  • And Ray Kroc was in charge of the franchising department.

  • And he said to my dad, I want to go and try this with

  • burgers, and that became McDonald's.

  • I've actually never even at McDonald's, because

  • I don't want to.

  • I may be the only one in the country that hasn't.

  • When I see those signs, you know, that brag about how many

  • billions have been sold, I always think of how many

  • thousands of square miles of rainforest have been

  • destroyed, how many heart attacks have happened, how

  • many animals have been tortured.

  • I think of the families who, like my uncle when he died at

  • the age of 54, his family, what happened,

  • the loss, the pain.

  • I think of the families where that's happening.

  • So I'm not, oh wow, another billion sold.

  • I'm like, how do we get them out of business?

  • I would like to see plant-strong diets become the

  • norm, people eating lots of fresh fruits and vegetables.

  • How about we put into a tax on junk food and then use that

  • income to lower the price of fresh

  • vegetables and fresh fruits?

  • So people now who are very price-sensitive, the cheapest

  • calories are always junk, always junk, high fructose

  • corn syrup, isolated soy ingredients, highly processed

  • foods, McDonald's.

  • You get a lot of calories per your dollar, but you do not

  • get a lot of nutrition.

  • That is why we have poor people, financially stressed

  • people, who are obese and malnourished.

  • It's a terrible predicament, and it's what we've created

  • with our food system.

  • And there are ways we can change the food system, and

  • then we could feed everybody with good food, not at the

  • level of meat consumption that we've grown accustomed to,

  • that we identify with affluence.

  • We've come to think of meet as the reward of affluence, and

  • eating things like legumes, lentils, and split peas, and

  • garbanzo beans as peasant food.

  • We have a class stratification there.

  • And when you think that way, then you feel bad about

  • yourself if you're just eating peasant food.

  • And you're eating baked potatoes, and you're eating

  • cabbage, and you're eating carrots, and you're eating

  • lentils, and you're eating split pea soup.

  • And you feel like you're at the bottom of the rung,

  • whereas veal parmesan is like the high thing.

  • But that's going to kill you.

  • It's killing-- it's a terrible thing to the veal calf.

  • We've got to find our roots back in the earth and not be

  • ashamed of it, that we're creatures--

  • human comes from the same root as the root humus,

  • or earth, or soil.

  • And we can find our roots, and then we can feed ourselves a

  • plant-strong diet, a healthy one, with less resources, less

  • land than it is now going to produce a meat-based diet.

  • Yes?

  • AUDIENCE: What actually is going on in terms of the data?

  • Because if you look around, I feel like I see a lot of

  • people giving up meat.

  • You see juice bars popping up.

  • You see a lot more healthy food.

  • I read an article about hummus taking off.

  • But then you go to the Ferry Building and there's a store

  • called Salty, Tasty Pig Parts.

  • And there's all these cool restaurants popping up that

  • are all about the most obscure kind of meat you can eat.

  • So, you know the data.

  • What really is growing?

  • What's happening?

  • JOHN ROBBINS: Both.

  • The light is getting brighter, and the

  • shadows are getting darker.

  • We're living in an interesting time of crisis, in many ways,

  • in which both sides--

  • we're seeing some signs of real progress, more awareness,

  • people take steps to live healthier lives.

  • We're going to have a GMO labeling bill nationally

  • within the next two years.

  • We may have Washington state.

  • Vermont may pass one this year.

  • There's a lot of different things.

  • Organic food production has increased 26-fold

  • in the last 25 years.

  • Feedlot beef consumption, after "Diet for a New America"

  • was published, went down 25% in the next five years.

  • There's a lot of good signs.

  • But, on the other hand, Monsanto is really trying to

  • control policy, and they're succeeding to quite an extent.

  • On the other hand, there's a lot of dark things happening.

  • That's why it's so important to be alive today, to be

  • present, to be engaged, to be aware.

  • Because each of us makes a difference

  • with the way we live.

  • And sometimes you can say, well, these

  • forces are so great.

  • The numbers that are involved, the dollar

  • figures are so great.

  • These entities, corporations, industries that have so much

  • to gain financially from the way things have been, even

  • though it's destroying the health of our nation and our

  • people, they're not going to accede

  • lightly to their profits.

  • So what can we do?

  • It's very important that we do everything we can.

  • My experience has been that when you do what you can,

  • truly, and stretch yourself in that way, you find yourself

  • capable of doing more.

  • Somehow you become more capable of bearing the

  • responsibility.

  • You meet people, things happen, you become stronger.

  • Kind of a simplistic analogy is to weight training.

  • If you work out with a weight, and you confront a weight

  • that's heavy for you and you do so systematically, you find

  • it becomes lighter for you, and you become capable of

  • lifting more weight.

  • That's how the muscle responds to the stress.

  • That's a simplistic analogy, but when we, as existential

  • beings, as spiritual beings, as people on a journey here

  • together, do everything we can, and stretch, and work on

  • that edge of ourselves, that growing edge of how

  • accountable can we be for our lives?

  • How engaged can we be with others in a respectful way and

  • a passionate way?

  • How connected can be to the earth, so that speak on its

  • behalf, we act on its behalf, we live on its behalf?

  • And how engaged can we be with the whole earth community, so

  • we find ourselves living with some reverence for life, even

  • in a society that is as materialistic as ours?

  • What happens is you become a greater person.

  • You become more human, and more powerful, and more

  • connected to your soul.

  • And that's where your power comes from.

  • And more of us that do this, the more we become a force.

  • That It's certainly going to be heard from.

  • Will we be loud enough?

  • Will we be able to turn the tide in time?

  • We'll find out.

  • But we're going to find out kicking and screaming, and

  • we're going to find out doing everything we can, as opposed

  • to just hiding in the "ain't it awful" attitude, and being

  • passive and resigned and suspicious and cynical.

  • It's very cool.

  • People are like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.

  • That's going to get us nowhere.

  • AUDIENCE: I actually had the pleasure to host Ingrid

  • Newkirk here at Google.

  • So I learned a lot about the dairies, and how, like you

  • just mentioned about the cows, how they're impregnated, and

  • then their calves are taken away.

  • So I contacted Straus to learn.

  • Because I don't need meat, but I do like my milk and cheese,

  • because I wanted to find what is available

  • out there as a consumer.

  • And one thing they shared with me, and I'm glad they actually

  • share this, was the cows, yes, they're in the field.

  • They're fed pure, natural products.

  • But when it comes to the actual slaughtering, not only

  • is their life span extended because they are given good

  • food, which means, like, to three to four years more of

  • horror, of being constantly impregnated, but then what

  • they also shared is that the slaughtering, it's the same

  • process, whether it's organic or non-organic.

  • JOHN ROBBINS: Yeah.

  • It's true.

  • The USDA requires this.

  • By the way, Straus Dairy, if you're going to eat dairy

  • products in the bay area, Straus is one of the best.

  • I don't, personally.

  • I feel healthier without it.

  • I feel the data show most people would be healthier

  • without any dairy products.

  • But if you're going to, and want to get them as humanely

  • as possible, Straus is not a bad choice.

  • But it's a low bar, because the factory dairies are

  • deplorable.

  • And as she was saying, the USDA has requirements about

  • slaughtering of animals destined for hamburger, or any

  • other form of meat consumption.

  • So they have to be slaughtered in USDA-certified

  • slaughterhouses, which are these horror chambers.

  • So someone like Straus or Niman Ranch, there's these

  • niche groups really trying to do something in a more

  • environmentally positive way, a more humane way, and a more

  • healthy way.

  • And oftentimes they do, to some extent.

  • There are improvements there.

  • But then when it comes to slaughter--

  • and every diary cow, by the way, every dairy cow ends up

  • as hamburger.

  • So it's not that there isn't killing involved there.

  • And every one of their male calves ends up as veal.

  • So they're killed at the age of three or four months.

  • So the dairy cows, instead of in the typical factory

  • dairies, they live to four or five, at Straus, they may go

  • to seven, but they end up being slaughtered in a

  • conventional slaughterhouse, trucked there under conditions

  • that are exactly the industry norm.

  • Nicolette Niman, whose husband, Leroy Niman, founded

  • Niman Ranch, the largest humanely raised operation in

  • the country, I've talked to at length about this.

  • She just hates it.

  • She used to go, because she would know the animals.

  • She'd have names for them.

  • And then she would actually go in the truck with, because the

  • poor animals were under such stress.

  • And she saw the misery, and she got out of it because she

  • couldn't bear that part of it.

  • We don't let them do their own slaughtering.

  • We don't let them find a humane way to do it.

  • And I've got to tell you, if I were to describe to you in

  • detail what goes on in factory

  • slaughterhouses, you would cringe.

  • You just would not want to hear it.

  • Would ruin your lunch.

  • I promise you.

  • I'm not going to do it.

  • I don't want to inflict that.

  • But at the same time, if we eat the products of this

  • system, that's how we really inflict it on the animals,

  • because we're paying them, the producers, to do this.

  • Every time we buy a product, we're basically saying to the

  • seller, do it again.

  • And they will.

  • They'll read your purchase that way.

  • And I don't want to support these people.

  • I don't want to support them with what they're doing.

  • That's another reason why I am abstinent from their products.

  • And also because I feel so much better.

  • I'm 65.

  • I'm a marathon runner.

  • I'm a triathlete.

  • I feel great.

  • My blood pressure is 90 over 60, and that's not with drugs.

  • And I see at my age of 65, I see guys aging very

  • differently, depending on how they've lived and the choices

  • they've made.

  • And there's no guarantee.

  • Some vegans die at 30.

  • There's no guarantees.

  • But there are probabilities that are very strong.

  • And if you want a higher quality of life and a longer

  • health span, eat a plat-strong diet.

  • Don't eat processed foods.

  • Don't eat a lot of sugar.

  • Don't eat a lot of ice cream.

  • I have to say it.

  • It's true.

  • And if you make a choice for your own integrity, you own

  • well-being, instead of the consumer obsessions of our

  • society, you'll be a healthier person and a happier person.

  • You'll have more beauty inside yourself Your

  • life will be richer.

  • Your relationships will flourish more.

  • And you'll be glad that you're alive.

  • And I think that's quite a lot.

  • Thank you.

  • RACHEL O'MARA: Hi.

  • One more question.

  • Don't clap yet.

  • So can you talk a little bit more about the Food

  • Revolution?

  • It sounds really interesting.

  • Is that for folks in the industry, or is it consumers

  • who can go?

  • How would people get involved with that to learn more and

  • really be part of that?

  • JOHN ROBBINS: The best way to do it, there's a fantastic

  • website if you go to foodrevolution.org--

  • food revolution, one word, dot O-R-G, you will find a great

  • amount of resources there.

  • And the Food Revolution Network, of which I'm

  • co-founder, just put on-- and we do this annually, an

  • eight-day summit.

  • And that just ended, but we'll do another one soon.

  • But there are a lot of things happening in the meantime.

  • It's a network to support people at whatever level of

  • political activism they want to be at.

  • Some people, their activism is just to buy more consciously.

  • That's a good step.

  • That's real.

  • That's valid.

  • That matters.

  • Other people start getting involved with writing, or

  • signing petitions, informing other people.

  • There's those opportunities too.

  • We started the Food Revolution Network 14 months ago.

  • We now have 150,000 members.

  • It's growing rapidly.

  • And what we have found is that if something is happening in

  • Washington, and it's right that day, we can send out an

  • email that day, telling people what they need to do and

  • giving them the wherewithal to do it, and we can get 150,000

  • people signing a petition within 24 hours.

  • And we can deliver that to--

  • and we can do it state by state, so if we're trying to

  • influence a particular legislator, or on particular

  • legislation, we can do that.

  • We can tailor it.

  • It matters.

  • So it's a way that you can become

  • involved with these issues.

  • And you might be more concerned about GMOs, or you

  • might be more concerned about pesticides, or you might be

  • more concerned about the treatment of animals in

  • factory farms.

  • Or you might be more concerned about something I hadn't

  • mentioned, but it's very big, is the targeting of kids with

  • junk food ads.

  • The soda pop Industry spends a billion dollars a year on ads

  • that target children with soda pop ads.

  • There is a small effort that the CDC just this month

  • started to do.

  • They have a budget of a million dollars for it--

  • that's not much--

  • to try to encourage kids--

  • high school kids in particular-- to have a

  • soda-free summer.

  • There is a congressman from Illinois.

  • His name is Aaron Schock, young guy.

  • He has just proposed a bill that would make it illegal for

  • the CDC or any other agencies that CDC supports, or the

  • National Institutes of Health, or an organization that they

  • support, to educate or communicate any message that

  • would try to reduce the consumption of any legally

  • marketed food.

  • ie., he's trying to make it illegal for the CDC to spend a

  • million dollars telling kids, soda pop isn't great for your

  • health, whereas Pepsi and Coke spend a billion dollars

  • telling kids to drink the stuff.

  • This is a weird world sometimes.

  • He says that the messages of the CDC are propaganda.

  • The reason that this guy, Aaron Schock is doing this,

  • his district is the home of Hostess company.

  • They went bankrupt a little while ago.

  • They made the Twinkies, and the--

  • you talk about junk food.

  • They're kind of our junk food central.

  • End they're in trouble, and they're

  • going through a buyout.

  • They're going to be back in business soon, and he doesn't

  • want the government to put out messages that would increase

  • the consumption of Twinkies.

  • Well, I ask, why are Twinkies cheaper per

  • calorie than carrots?

  • Because of our subsidies.

  • We've got to take this twisted situation, this perverse

  • situation, and twist it back so that we're in alignment

  • with our the goodness in our hearts and in each other.

  • I think we can do that.

  • And that's why I'm involved in this.

  • And I invite all of you to join me.

  • RACHEL O'MARA: Great.

  • Thanks so much.

  • JOHN ROBBINS: Thank you.

RACHEL O'MARA: Thanks everyone for joining today.

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