The Food Revolution: How your diet can help save your life and our world by
John Robbins and Dean Ornish, Conari Press, $17.95, ISBN 1573247022
JOHN ROBBINS, an heir to the Baskin-Robbins ice-cream fortune, turned his
back on the frozen milk-fat industry. In 1987 he wrote Diet for a New America,
an influential book that took the meat and dairy industries to task and promoted
vegetarianism as an ethical, healthful and environmental practice.
Now he鈥檚 back, beating the same drum in The Food Revolution. You won鈥檛 read
much here that you haven鈥檛 already heard. Robbins argues that the modern meat
and dairy industries are bad for animals, bad for people鈥檚 health and bad for
the planet.
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He makes his case by outlining the often appalling conditions under which
animals are raised and processed. Then he reviews the ill effects of too much
animal fat in the diet. After a discussion on the environmental damage done when
people raise meat instead of grain and vegetables, Robbins declares war on the
meat and dairy public relations campaigns that seek to downplay these
concerns.
But the book鈥檚 tone is pious, its anecdotes lack punch and the name-dropping
of vegetarian movie stars is annoying. In spite of this, the sheer good sense
behind Robbins鈥檚 arguments for a plant-based diet will have even confirmed meat
eaters considering cutting back on animal flesh. And put that tub of ice cream
away, right now.