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The Vegan Revolution: Why and How We Are Heading Towards a New Phase in History
Azioni libro
Inizia a leggere- Editore:
- Vitamina Vegana
- Pubblicato:
- Jun 16, 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781507197547
- Formato:
- Libro
Descrizione
Do you want to get a deeper insight into what veganism is really about? Do you care about animals, human health or the planet? Is the future of humanity important for you?
Let's find out why veganism is the most significant phenomenon of our time and how it is changing the world.
In this fascinating and surprising book, you’ll learn:
• The whole spectrum of reasons and benefits why more and more people are becoming interested in veganism
• Scientific information about health, psychology, sociology, economics, biology and ecology
• Why veganism is more than just a diet and also more than just a philosophy
• Why it’s changing our perception of public health, animal rights and ecology
• How veganism is spreading and getting closer to the tipping point
• A vision of the vegan future awaiting us
“Nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come.” (Victor Hugo)
“This book was born to provide words, arguments and facts that support the inner conviction that millions of vegans all over the world share: This is the way forward, and there’s no turning back.” (Joseph de la Paz)
READERS FEEDBACK (Spanish Edition):
***** Amazing: A book that will change the lives of many.
***** An unmissable book, the best one I’ve read in a long time. Anyone who wants to understand veganism and why it’s the future of humanity will find the answers they’re looking for.
***** I recommend it to everyone: It’s not just a book for vegans who are already convinced, but for non-vegans, so that they open their eyes and realise the state of the world we’re living in is in, and that we have the solution in our hands. They can’t say we didn’t warn them.
***** Revolutionary: An unmissable book for anyone who cares about animals, as well as their fellow humans and the environment, as we’re all connected.
***** Fantastic: Crammed full of values and concepts. Essential reading for reaffirming the most important decision we can make at this time of our lives. An extremely readable and rewarding book.
After the work of Peter Singer, Will Tuttle, Melanie Joy and Nick Cooney, comes this fantastic explanation of what veganism could come to mean for humanity. Discover the connection between the liberation of animals, the liberation of humans and the liberation of the planet. Discover why and how we are heading towards a new phase in history.
Informazioni sul libro
The Vegan Revolution: Why and How We Are Heading Towards a New Phase in History
Descrizione
Do you want to get a deeper insight into what veganism is really about? Do you care about animals, human health or the planet? Is the future of humanity important for you?
Let's find out why veganism is the most significant phenomenon of our time and how it is changing the world.
In this fascinating and surprising book, you’ll learn:
• The whole spectrum of reasons and benefits why more and more people are becoming interested in veganism
• Scientific information about health, psychology, sociology, economics, biology and ecology
• Why veganism is more than just a diet and also more than just a philosophy
• Why it’s changing our perception of public health, animal rights and ecology
• How veganism is spreading and getting closer to the tipping point
• A vision of the vegan future awaiting us
“Nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come.” (Victor Hugo)
“This book was born to provide words, arguments and facts that support the inner conviction that millions of vegans all over the world share: This is the way forward, and there’s no turning back.” (Joseph de la Paz)
READERS FEEDBACK (Spanish Edition):
***** Amazing: A book that will change the lives of many.
***** An unmissable book, the best one I’ve read in a long time. Anyone who wants to understand veganism and why it’s the future of humanity will find the answers they’re looking for.
***** I recommend it to everyone: It’s not just a book for vegans who are already convinced, but for non-vegans, so that they open their eyes and realise the state of the world we’re living in is in, and that we have the solution in our hands. They can’t say we didn’t warn them.
***** Revolutionary: An unmissable book for anyone who cares about animals, as well as their fellow humans and the environment, as we’re all connected.
***** Fantastic: Crammed full of values and concepts. Essential reading for reaffirming the most important decision we can make at this time of our lives. An extremely readable and rewarding book.
After the work of Peter Singer, Will Tuttle, Melanie Joy and Nick Cooney, comes this fantastic explanation of what veganism could come to mean for humanity. Discover the connection between the liberation of animals, the liberation of humans and the liberation of the planet. Discover why and how we are heading towards a new phase in history.
- Editore:
- Vitamina Vegana
- Pubblicato:
- Jun 16, 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781507197547
- Formato:
- Libro
Informazioni sull'autore
Correlati a The Vegan Revolution
Anteprima del libro
The Vegan Revolution - Joseph de la Paz
action.
Prologue
By the time you finish reading this page, 300,000 animals will have died at the hands of humans. If you pay close attention to the world around you, you’ll see that, for the majority of its inhabitants, we’ve turned it into an inescapable hell. Why?
Human civilisation, despite all its great leaps forward, is based on the daily, relentless exploitation of weaker beings.Humanity has spent centuries at war with animals, with the majority of us sitting passively by. Our policy is superiority, aggressiveness, and domination. Animals should either be domesticated or extinguished, devoured, or imprisoned.
The agricultural revolution was consolidated roughly 10,000 years ago. Now’s the time to leave it behind. It’s not just an urgent need, given the state of the world, but rather the culmination of all previous advances and revolutions, from the wheel and the printing press to mass communication and the internet. They all culminate, logically and inevitably, at this moment. We’re on the cusp of the next stage in humankind’s evolution.
––––––––
"You can smell it, hear it, feel it.
Far off, a dust cloud rises.
It’s a procession, coming closer, little by little,
Directly towards us.
It’s a new era on the verge of beginning.
The vegan revolution is coming..."
This book isn’t a historical discussion, nor is it about the nature of veganism. It isn't a list of the reasons to go vegan, nor of the atrocities that are committed in the world on a daily basis. And, of course, it’s not an effort to convince anyone who hasn’t already taken a step in the right direction.
Do you think that animals are conscious beings that deserve to be treated with respect? Are you interested in veganism?? Do you feel that there’s much more to the abstinence from the consumption of animal products? Are you concerned about the future of humanity?
If so, then stick with me.
I’ll take you on a journey through the seven main reasons why the vegan revolution is necessary, from the most selfish to the most altruistic. A journey through the physical, mental, social, material, and spiritual benefits of veganism that we can all enjoy.
I propose that we reset our understanding of what it means to be vegan and peel back the many layers hidden beneath the opposition to the consumption of animal products.
I propose that we take a look at the things going on around us with these new eyes. Let’s take a look at how veganism is now making progress on various fronts, just as other ideas once did. Ideas that are now accepted without question.
The vegan revolution isn’t only necessary, it’s inevitable. The whole of human history has been leading up to this moment. We’re looking to the future with hope, determined to succeed.
A vegan world will be a better world, and it’s in our hands.
Let’s get started.
PART ONE:
A NECESSARY
REVOLUTION
For Our Bodies
Men dig their graves with their own teeth, and die more by those instruments than by all the weapons of their enemies.
Pythagoras
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Eat your meatballs, son, if you don’t, you won’t grow up to big and strong...
Millions of mothers and fathers the world over
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Whether it’s the immune system, various enzymatic systems, the absorption of carcinogens by cells, or hormonal activities, animal protein only causes havoc.
T. Colin Campbell, Ph.D. (China Study)
The Animal Protein Scam
We’ve been educated to believe that we need to eat lots of protein, both to grow and to keep our bodies fit and healthy. We’ve also been taught that protein, ‘good’ protein, comes mainly from the animal kingdom, in the form of meat, fish, eggs, milk, and derivatives.
It turns out we were wrong.
Firstly, we need much less protein than we think we do, and less than we take in. The best proof? Breast milk. Logically, we grow the most when we’re babies, which means that that’s the period of our lives when we need the most protein. However, if we analyse the percentage of protein in breast milk, we find that it only contains between 0.9% and 1.2% protein, depending on how it’s calculated.
In comparison, cows’ milk contains four times more protein. Rabbits’ milk has ten times more. It’s no wonder. As humans, we have different characteristics to other animals. In fact, every animal species has its quirks. In our case, the priority is brain development and slow physical growth, to allow more time for social learning and to form an attachment to our relatives.
Some figures show that breast milk has 5-7% protein. The discrepancy is because in this case the calculation is done as a percentage of total calories[i]. That means that a baby of up to six months receives approximately 6% of its calories in the form of protein. Then, nature changes the composition of breast milk, and this percentage drops steadily.
If we decide to use this method of calculation, for whatever reason, we should compare breast milk with other foods. In raw broccoli, for example, 33% of calories are in the form of protein. In toasted pistachios, it’s 15%.
The conclusion is a simple one. At the stage of life when human beings grow the most, the percentage of protein that we need is far lower than what people currently consume. Expressed in a different way, we could say the following: it’s impossible to suffer from a protein deficiency if it’s not accompanied or caused by a simple lack of calories. In other words, if someone isn’t going hungry, they’ll probably be getting plenty of protein. The exception would be if someone decided to eat nothing but sugar or chocolate biscuits. In any case, someone who only ate bread or potatoes, for example, would suffer from scurvy (lack of vitamin C), but not from a protein deficiency.
Just in case that wasn’t clear enough, we’ve got a challenge for you. We’re asking for help in finding cases of malnutrition and protein deficiencies. We’ll even give 100 euros for every registered case of hospitalisation caused by a protein deficiency that’s not linked to a lack of calories. How many cases of that do you know of?
Despite that, so as not to nit-pick, and in an effort to show that people have no problem getting protein from vegetable sources, let’s take a look at the WHO’s (World Health Organisation) recommendations: 0.8 grams of protein per kilo of body mass. That’s equivalent, according to criteria for good health and physical condition, to 10.9% of total daily calorie intake. That’s far less than the amount that the majority of plant-based foods contain.
Secondly, we’ve got to address the myth of complete protein
. There’s no such thing as good and bad protein. We can find all the protein that our bodies require to work properly in the plant kingdom.
We need to understand what a protein is.
Proteins are molecules made up of amino acids. There are 21 types of amino acid, out of which nine need to be ingested through food. The rest can be recycled by our cells.
It’s always been believed that animal protein is more complete because it contains the nine essential amino acids. However, it’s now known that plants also contain all the essential amino acids. The thing is, one of them is usually only present in very small quantities. That’s why it’s normally recommended that you combine certain foods. Although to begin with this might seem like a fine art, the truth is it’s actually very simple. You only have to combine some kind of pulse (chickpeas, lentils, beans, peas...) with some kind of cereal (wheat, rice, barley, corn, oats...). The world’s most basic dishes give us everything we need: rice and beans, pita bread with hummus or falafel or mujaddara (rice and lentils).
What’s more, in contrast to what was believed in the past, you don’t need to eat these two types of food at the same meal. In fact, it seems you don’t even have to eat them on the same day, as the body knows how to store and use the amino acids necessary to build proteins.
However, even if this seemed too complicated and we made it our mission not to vary our diet in the slightest, ignoring the other nutritional problems that this would cause, we’d still get our recommended allowance of protein. Although the idea doesn’t seem very appealing, just to illustrate and prove this point, you should know that consuming 12.75 cups of corn provides the 63g of ‘complete’ protein recommended for a man weighing 80kg[ii]. If you didn’t like corn, you could eat 15.5 cups of cooked rice, 8 large potatoes, or 2.5 cups of tofu.
These are the most basic but significant scientific facts. However, sometimes it’s more useful and telling to look at cases of vegan athletes and elite sportspeople. In many countries, their numbers are growing.[iii]
Cases in the world of bodybuilding are particularly interesting. For example, Patrick Baboumian, a vegan, is Germany’s Strongest Man, weighing 105kg. Alex Dargatz is another vegan, and he won the bodybuilding world championships in 2005 after 5 years of not eating animal products. Kennet G. Williams and Joel Kirkilis have also won bodybuilding championships as vegans.
In athletics, and more specifically in marathons and ultramarathons, vegan athletes are demolishing all preconceptions. There’s plenty of evidence that a strict vegetarian diet helps to improve the physical abilities of any athlete. The indisputable star of this category is the ultra-marathon athlete Scott Jurek, author of the book ‘Run, Eat, Live’[iv] and winner of numerous competitions and medals the world over. Vegan since 1999, he’s gained hundreds of thousands of followers who he inspires with his healthy lifestyle, ethical attitude, and willpower. On 12th July 2015, he beat the record on the Appalachian Trail, a 35000km hiking trail in the east of the USA, which Scott Jurek completed in 46 days, 8 hours, and 10 minutes.
Even so, perhaps the best example of all is the case of Carl Lewis, one of the best athletes of all time, winner of nine Olympic gold medals. After several years during which he’d let his undeniable dominance of 100-metre races slip, Lewis switched to a vegan diet. One year later, in 1991, at the World Championships in Tokyo, with six of the eight finalists coming in under the ten-second barrier, Carl Lewis won again, even beating the world record. With tears in his eyes, he himself said: It was the best race of my life. The best technique, the fastest. And I did it at 30
[v].
The influence of the vegan diet on his athletic achievements was summed up by Carl Lewis himself: My fastest year in competition was the first year I went vegan
.
Any way you look at it, you can rest easy knowing you don’t have any need to consume protein that comes from animal sources. If we do so, it’s down to taste or ease, not necessity.
Illnesses
It’s not just unnecessary, it’s dangerous. If we, for any reason, decide to put an animal product into our bodies, we’re also consuming a range of harmful substances that do damage to our health.
Animal products tend to have extremely high levels of fat and saturated fat. In fact, animals that are bred for meat are fed and fattened up forcibly and quickly, much more so than would happen naturally. Fat levels, already high, rise even further, and