In 2015 Dr. Michael Greger published his eye-opening book or frustrated by the short shrift given to nutrition during his med school training, he began a lifelong quest to seek out scientific research that was not sponsored by special-interest groups such as the meat, poultry or dairy industries, and to aggregate that research to propose healthier diets for us all. The preface to the book qualifies the provocative title by acknowledging that yes, we are all going to die, but we can take steps to avoid dying from heart disease, lung disease, diabetes and various cancers. Those steps? Switching to a plant-based diet.
Dr. Greger’s website, nutritionfacts.org, now employs a dozen workers to maintain this burgeoning resource on illnesses and solutions grounded in plant-based diets. The site is not the latest dieting fad but rather a compendium of research summaries and videos that support better health through diet. Coincidentally, a plant-based diet works against some of the factors that compromise our recovery if infected with COVID-19: obesity, heart disease, high blood pressure and cancer.
The benefits of a plant-based diet heighten the tragic irony of a president who deems meat-packing an “essential industry” and forces its workers back into environments that are certain to lead to infection from COVID-19, which in turn will spread the virus to their families and communities, which in turn places first-line responders and healthcare workers at greater risk - while increasing financial burdens on hospitals, fire departments, EMS, allied organizations, and state and local governments.
When Sussex County Councilman Sam Wilson stated that testing workers in poultry processing plants is a “dumb idea” because it might force plants to close, he echoed the president’s reasoning - placing short-term economic recovery over people’s lives. Such reasoning is not only callous and inhumane but also small- minded and nearsighted. Yes, the economy might bump back up a bit (while risking a second slump graver than the current one), but at best it will be a return to the status quo industrial meat consumption that guarantees a sicker America than would plant-based diets.
The industrial meat food supply chain is breaking, and my heart genuinely goes out to farmers in this industry who depend on that chain for their livelihoods. But my heart also goes out to the thousands of farmers in recent decades who have lost their farms or taken their lives when their small-potatoes sustainable farms were rendered obsolete by higher-yield/higher-volume, pesticide-heavy, soil-depleting competitors. We need profound change that honors smaller-scale farmers while reorienting farming production. We need to seize the moment to replace the broken industrial meat supply chain with a plant-based chain that is less deadly, less concentrated and more dispersed, with less processing and greater nutrition.
Jim Henry
Lewes
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