PSA: The More You Know

Omg, I've got to stop watching environmental and health Netflix Documentaries. They are turning me into a freak; I sound like an alarmist, tree-hugging hippy-freak. Actually, I keep my mouth shut more often then I should; I know people don’t want to hear it; A look comes over their face and message is received loud and clear, “Don’t tell me how bad my bacon or diet soda is, thank you very much!” 

I watched my first food health and environment documentary, “Food Inc.”, in 2008 (pre-Netflixs) with my sister-in-law, Patti. We went to the theater and had moments where we gasped out loud because of the information that was presented about humane and inhumane farming. Patti committed herself to only eating humanely treated animals. Then I watched “An Inconvenient Truth” about the environment. It was an alarm documentary that was disregarded as only a fire drill. 

I’ve since watched these informative documentaries multiple times:

·       Earthlings

·       Cowspiracy

·       What the Health

·       Forks Over Knives

·       Before The Flood 

·       Food Matters

·       Hungry For Change

 ·     The Plastic Ocean

All these documentaries have a few things in common: they bring to light what’s been done in darkness to our oceans, in slaughterhouses, and on Capitol Hill--that involve profits for big corporations in exchange for big donations.

These truth-telling documentaries are about saving our health, our water, our food supply, and our environment that are all in perilous and imminent danger. The planet will survive, some species will survive, but it’s unlikely that humans in the next century will, if we don’t heed the warnings in these documentaries.

I’ve always been curious and intuitively aligned with the right way to eat or live in unity with biology and nature. However, I suck at pulling it off. I was addicted to cheese, like others are addicted to smoking or heroin. I’ve always admired those who are early adopters to recycling or whole food plant-based eating. It took my 10-year old neighbor to guilt me into recycling while in my forties (although, he had no idea he was doing that). It’s interesting how we can go blindly through life and miss daily opportunities to collaborate with our environment and each other on a higher conscious level. Humans are the only species that doesn’t live consistently in harmony with nature.

I’m a work in progress. But I'm teachable. I’m learning slowly how to do better in my own personal eco-world. I need these documentaries to help intellectually undo decades of conditioning and emotional attachments to food. I see the greater good; I suppose we all do. “The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.” I’d like to have meaningful conversations with like-minded people who are also searching for harmony in their body, in their world, and in their life. It’s hard to be challenged to do better: stop using plastic (to save our oceans); stop eating meat (for too many reasons to list); to care about all species and not just ourselves; to be good stewards of the earth. It’s even harder when our own government throws away decades of EPA legislation and reneges on funding (because military money spent on the MOABs are more important).

I watch most of these documentaries with Rich. We have never watched them from start to finish. We pause them a dozen times in shock. Most people don’t know what’s happening (just like us before we watched). I want to shout from the rooftops that we are being ‘duped’ by the people who are meant to protect us--the medical and pharmaceutical associations, and our own government. We are not just being duped; we’re being betrayed! The government has been colluding with dozens and dozens of lobbyist who persuade the lawmakers to look the other way and write loose laws to protect their profits. The American Heart Association, the American Diabetes Association, The American Cancer Society, etc., all are sponsored in the tens of millions of dollars from big corporations (e.g., Big Agra, Big Pharma, the Beef, Poultry and Dairy Associations, etc.) that are killing people. Obviously, this is a conflict of interest.

Watch some of these documentaries and you’ll be profoundly affected. (It may take a while to overcome years of conditioning and emotional attachments to beliefs or food and lifestyle choices, but you’re changed. Forever.) 

The neglect or concern for our planet is somewhat of a reflection of the neglect or concern for our health. When we choose to be apathetic about the treatment of animals, the environment, or our health (in spite of momentary good intentions), things start to degrade and problems will arise. This has played out in my own life. Knowledge is power. I get inspired by informed doctors and scientists, and people who have changed and make changes. The good news is when we start eating healthy, within weeks or months we can get off medications: diabetes, high blood pressure, cholesterol meds. What if we all got inspired to clean up our diets (at our own pace of course), and then commit to cleaning up the planet? I always say that the ‘body wants to heal.’ I believe our planet wants that too. You know who knows this? Children. Nature is always trying to get our attention.

Just like the body, nature will put up with much abuse. But her main desire is to rejuvenate and sustain us. We can’t be naïve to think that we aren’t apart of the equation to restore balance and health to our suffering planet and our bodies. We can reverse heart disease, lower our blood pressure, our insulin levels and the risk of cancer by the choices we make, we can also choose to restore the planet. Both healings begin one person at a time, and one choice at a time…and then somehow finding the resolve to keep making those choices.