Fad diets have been some of the biggest trends of the last decade. According to Jonathan Spitz, author of Man Eating Plants: How a Vegan Diet Can Save the World, despite the hype and endorsements from high-profile celebrities, the vegan diet is the only one that has stood the test of time. In Man Eating Plants, Spitz tries to explain why he feels this way of living is optimal for health, and how it even just might save the world.
According to Spitz, over the past two million years, humans have evolved from an obscure herbivorous species living in the tropical forests of equatorial Africa to become the world’s most populous apex predator. Unfortunately, this fateful change in the human diet to include animal-sourced foods is the leading cause in the 21st century of chronic degenerative disease, runaway climate change, and mass species extinction. Man Eating Plants weaves together published works by the world’s leading scientists and historians to narrate how we arrived at these three interrelated crises and how we can save the world by transitioning back to our natural plant-based diet.
Author Spitz is an environmental and animal rights activist. In 1990, after reading Diet for a New America by John Robbins, Spitz realized that humans lacked the anatomy or physiology of apex predators and our true role in a sustainable ecosystem is as a plant-eating species. With this new understanding of the human place on the food chain, at the age of 37 he adopted a plant-based vegan diet and began defending the rights of all animals to live free from human exploitation.
For 30 years, Jonathan has kept abreast of the most current studies on the complex relationship between the human food niche and the Earth’s ecosystems. When he realized there were no books in the ecological canon telling the story of how humans evolved from an obscure herbivorous species to become the world’s most populous carnivorous apex predator species, and how this change in human diet has led to epidemics of chronic degenerative disease, runaway climate change and mass species extinction, he decided to write it himself. The result, of course, is Man Eating Plants. ◊
You can buy this book here.
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