The World Peace Diet: Eating For Spiritual Health And Social Harmony

Profiting from Destruction / 189
reserves are being rapidly depleted. 19 Four gallons of petroleum are
extracted for every gallon that is discovered, and advances in geochemistry
and seismic technology have made it clear that undiscovered
petroleum reserves are small and rapidly disappearing. 20 We continue
to escalate consumption and to ignore the severe consequences
because we have so much practice three times daily in ignoring consequences.
Petroleum expert C. J. Campbell has said, “The warning signals
have been flying for a long time. They have been plain to see. But
the world turned a blind eye, and failed to read the message. Our lack
of preparedness is itself amazing, given the importance of oil to our
lives.” 21 It’s less amazing when we realize that our ability to block
feedback is an integral aspect of the mentality of domination and disconnectedness
that eating animal foods requires. We are unfortunately
only too willing to cooperate with the military-industrial-meat complex
by unconsciously suppressing any healthy feedback that might
threaten our eating habits.
The collision of soaring demand for fossil fuels with their permanently
diminishing availability will cause unremitting upward price pressure
as demands continue to expand and conflicts over limited oil escalate.
With the coming unavoidable decline in fossil fuel availability, the days
of cheap animal foods are numbered. We may begin to recognize that
eating animal foods is an unacceptable waste of our limited petroleum
supplies. Already people are getting outraged about the petroleum wasted
by large SUVs that are inefficient compared to economy cars by a factor
of perhaps three to one. Will we get similarly outraged at people eating
beef, chicken, fish, eggs, and dairy products, which are inefficient
compared to plant foods by factors that far exceed those of the biggest
SUVs—factors of 10, 15, and 25 to one? It’s easier to see the gallons of
fossil fuel poured directly into our cars than it is to see the gallons of fossil
fuel poured into our cheese, eggs, fish sticks, hot dogs, and steaks.
The Toxins in Animal Agriculture
The vast, monocropped fields devoted to feeding the animals we eat
cover millions of acres of land and are heavily doused with toxic pesticides
and fertilizers. Two of these crops, corn and soybeans, are now