Transforming Food Systems Quotes

Your body is a Temple. You are what you eat. Do not eat processed food, junk foods, filth, or disease carrying food, animals, or rodents. Some people say of these foods, 'well, it tastes good'. Most of the foods today that statically cause sickness, cancer, and disease ALL TATSE GOOD; it's well seasoned and prepared poison. THIS IS WHY SO MANY PEOPLE ARE SICK; mentally, emotionally, physically, and spiritually; because of being hooked to the 'taste' of poison, instead of being hooked on the truth and to real foods that heal and provide you with good health and wellness. Respect and honor your Temple- and it will honor you.

...To allow the market mechanism to be sole director of the fate of human beings and their natural environment, indeed, even of the amount and use of purchasing power, would result in the demolition of society. For the alleged commodity, "labor power" cannot be shoved about, used indiscriminately, or even left unused, without affecting the human individual who happens to be the bearer of this peculiar commodity. In disposing of a man's labor power the system would, incidentally, dispose of the physical, psychological, and moral entity of "man" attached to the tag. Robbed of the protective covering of cultural institutions, human beings would perish from the the effects of social exposure; they would die as the victims of acute social dislocation through vice, perversion, crime, and starvation. Nature would be reduced to its elements, neighborhoods and landscapes defiled, rovers polluted, military safety jeopardized, the power to produce food and raw materials destroyed...

From a historical point of view, restricting the availability of addictive substances must be seen as a peculiarly perverse example of Calvinist dominator thought - a system in which the sinner is to be punished in this world by being transformed into an exploitable, of his cash, by the criminal/governmental combine that provides the addicitve substances. The image is more horrifying than that of the serpent that devours itself - it is once again the Dionysian image of the mother who devours her children, the image of a house divided against itself.

Regenerative agriculture therefore implies more than just sustaining something but rather an active rebuilding or regeneration of existing systems towards full health. It also implies an open-ended process of ongoing improvement and positive transformation. This can encompass the rebuilding or regeneration of soil itself, and of biodiversity more widely; the reduction of toxins and pollutants; the recharging of aquifers; the production of healthier food, clean water and air; the replacement of external inputs; and the enhancement of social capital and ecological knowledge.

Bone broth is considered a powerful detoxification agent since it helps the digestive system expel waste and promotes the liver’s ability to remove toxins, helps maintain tissue integrity and improves the body’s use of antioxidants.

I say only this!” Arkady said, staring at her bug-eyed. “We have come to Mars for good. We are going to make not only our homes and our food, but also our water and the very air we breathe—all on a planet that has none of these things. We can do this because we have technology to manipulate matter right down to the molecular level. This is an extraordinary ability, think of it! And yet some of us here can accept transforming the entire physical reality of this planet, without doing a single thing to change our selves, or the way we live. To be twenty-first-century scientists on Mars, in fact, but at the same time living within nineteenth-century social systems, based on seventeenth-century ideologies. It’s absurd, it’s crazy, it’s—it’s—” he seized his head in his hands, tugged at his hair, roared “It’s unscientific! And so I say that among all the many things we transform on Mars, ourselves and our social reality should be among them. We must terraform not only Mars, but ourselves.

I came to realize that this was about more than not offering up what some of his opponents craved—the picture of the angry black man, or the lectures on race that fuel a sense of grievance among white voters. Obama also didn’t want to offer up gauzy words to make well-meaning white people feel better. The fact that he was a black president wasn’t going to bring life back to an unarmed black kid who was shot, or alter structural inequities in housing, education, and incarceration in our states and cities. It wasn’t going to change the investment of powerful interests in a system that sought to deny voting rights, or to cast people on food stamps working minimum wage jobs as “takers,” incapable of making it on their own. The “last person who ever thought that Barack Obama’s election was going to bring racial reconciliation and some “end of race” in America was Barack Obama. That was a white person’s concept imposed upon his campaign. I know because I was once one of them, taking delight in writing words about American progress, concluding in the applause line “And that is why I can stand before you as president of the United States.” But he couldn’t offer up absolution for America’s racial sins, or transform American society in four or eight years.

Bobby wrote, “the Big Tech, Big Data, Big Pharma, Big Carbon and Chemical-Industrial Food plutocrats and their allies in the Military Industrial Complex and Intelligence Apparatus now control our government. These plutocrats have twisted the language of democracy, equity and free markets to transform our exemplary democracy into a corrupt system of corporate crony capitalism. The tragic outcome for America has been a cushy socialism for the rich and a savage and bloody free market for the poor. America has devolved into a corporate kleptocracy addicted to a war economy abroad and a security and surveillance state at home. The upper echelons of the Democratic Party are now pro-censorship, pro-war neocons who wear woke bobbleheads to disguise and soften their belligerent totalitarian agendas for our country and the world.

Why Westerners are so obsessed with "saving" Africa, and why this obsession so often goes awry? Western countries should understand that Africa’s development chances and social possibilities remain heavily hindered due to its overall mediocre governance. Africa rising is still possible -- but first Africans need to understand that the power lies not just with the government, but the people. I do believe, that young Africans have the will to "CHANGE" Africa. They must engage their government in a positive manner on issues that matters -- I also realize that too many of the continent’s people are subject to the kinds of governments that favor ruling elites rather than ordinary villagers and townspeople. These kind of behavior trickles down growth. In Zimbabwe Robert Mugabe is the problem. In South Africa the Apartheid did some damage. The country still wrestles with significant racial issues that sometimes leads to the murder of its citizens. In Ethiopia, Somalia and Kenya the world’s worst food crisis is being felt. In Libya the West sends a mixed messages that make the future for Libyans uncertain. In Nigeria oil is the biggest curse. In Liberia corruption had make it very hard for the country to even develop. Westerners should understand that their funding cannot fix the problems in Africa. African problems can be fixed by Africans. Charity gives but does not really transform. Transformation should come from the root, "African leadership." We have a PHD, Bachelors and even Master degree holders but still can't transform knowledge. Knowledge in any society should be the power of transformation. Africa does not need a savior and western funds, what Africa needs is a drive towards ownership of one's destiny. By creating a positive structural system that works for the majority. There should be needs in dealing with corruption, leadership and accountability.

...politicians more and more became sensitive to the idea that high-level corporate prosecutions can result in serious vote-losing public relations consequences, if they’re bungled in spectacular enough fashion. Thus as the years passed, politicians more and more often appointed people who were essentially other politicians to jobs traditionally occupied by hard-core career-prosecutor types. The transformation would be similar to the one that had gone on in the media in the 1990s and 2000s, when the press went from being the home of middle-class ascetic cranks who hated everyone and dressed like overcaffeinated Jesuits (always with food stains on their ties) to being a destination profession for young Ivy Leaguers who saw a journalism career as a gateway to high society. The same process was now about to transform the federal law enforcement system, thanks in large part to new president Obama, who ushered in a herd of Ivy Leaguers and high-powered corporate defense lawyers to be his top crime-fighting officials.

Ironically, in spite of all the care and attention my grandparents devoted to their land, all the food they grew each year ultimately became anonymous, and it ended up eaten by complete strangers. Young calves were sent to feed lots in the Midwest to be fattened on grain. Apples, their skins never perfect enough to be sold as fresh fruit, were transformed into juice, or sauce, or apple pies. The corn, like most grain raised in America, was destined for animal feed. It was, perhaps, fed to the very calves that they had sold, now 1000 miles away. Once the food left the farm, the entire system was turned on its head. The freshness they had worked so hard to attain, picking the fruit at the peak of harvest was replaced with shelf life… their harvest was trucked all across America. It was processed, boxed, frozen, and then shipped again. Their food was trucked down the interstate in 18 wheelers, and hauled away by trains while they slept. Their apples might end up in the filling of a donut in Chicago, or their beef in a taco in Alabama. They had no way of ever really knowing.

There is no guarantee that a socialized economy will always succeed. The state-owned economies of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union suffered ultimately fatal distortions in their development because of the backlog of poverty and want in the societies they inherited; years of capitalist encirclement, embargo, invasion, devastating wars, and costly arms buildup; poor incentive systems, and a lack of administrative initiative and technological innovation; and a repressive political rule that allowed little critical feedback while fostering stagnation and elitism. Despite all that, the former communist states did transform impoverished countries into relatively advanced societies. Whatever their mistakes and political crimes, they achieved—in countries that were never as rich as ours—what U.S. free-market capitalism cannot and has no intention of accomplishing: adequate food, housing, and clothing for all; economic security in old age; free medical care; free education at all levels; and a guaranteed income. Today by overwhelming majorities, people in Russia and other parts of Eastern Europe say that life was better under communism than under the present freemarket system.

The quest for an ever-whiter shade of bread, which goes all the way back to the Greeks and Romans, is a parable about the folly of human ingenuity -- about how our species can sometimes be too smart for its own good. After figuring out an ingenious system for transforming an all but nutritionally worthless grass into a wholesome food, humanity pushed on intrepidly until it had figured out a way to make that food all but nutritionally worthless yet gain! Here in miniature, I realized, is the whole checkered history of "food processing." Our species' discovery and development of cooking (in the broadest sense of the word) gave us a handful of ingenious technologies for rendering plants and animals more nutritious and unlocking calories unavailable to other creatures. But there eventually came a moment when, propelled by the logic of human desire and technological progress, we began to overprocess certain foods in such a way as to actually render them detrimental to our health and well-being. What had been a highly adaptive set of techniques that contributed substantially to our success as a species turned into a maladaptive one -- contributing to disease and general ill health and now actually threatening to shorten human lives.

We have been thinking and doing a post jobs-system economy in Detroit for more than two decades. In fall 2011, several hundred people from Detroit and around the nation came together to share the lessons we have derived from our struggles to distinguish “work” from “jobs.” I noted that people moved from the farm to the city to take “jobs.” They went from making clothes and growing food to buying clothes and buying food. Humans changed from producers to consumers, and their models and ideals of work became factory oriented. Olga Bonfiglio, a professor at Kalamazoo College, wrote a thoughtful response to my presentation and the many others comprising our Reimagining Work conference. “Basically, work is about one’s calling in life and contributions to the community while jobs are more about the specific tasks people perform for an organization,” she remarked. “ ‘Jobs’ have a dehumanizing effect as people fill interchangeable slots in a big machine. In today’s global economy workers can be easily replaced with those willing to work for lower wages. So, transformation to any new system of ‘work’ must begin with one’s own personal discernment about identity and purpose in this life.” We know we have not been alone in Detroit. All over the planet more and more people are thinking beyond making a living to making a life—a life that respects Earth and one another. Just as we need to reinvent democracy, now is the time for us to reimagine work and reimagine life. The new paradigm we must establish is about creating systems that bring out the best in each of us, instead of trying to harness the greed and selfishness of which we are capable. It is about a new balance of individual, family, community, work, and play that makes us better humans.

Most obviously, they agreed, an autocatalytic set was a web of transformations among molecules in precisely the same way that an economy is a web of transformations among goods and services. In a very real sense, in fact, an autocatalytic set was an economy-a submicroscopic economy that extracted raw materials (the primordial "food" molecules) and converted them into useful products (more molecules in the set). Moreover an autocatalytic set can bootstrap its own evolution in precisely the same way that an economy can, by growing more and more complex over time. This was a point that fascinated Kauffman. If innovations result from new combinations of old technologies, then the number of possible innovations would go up very rapidly as more and more technologies became available. In fact, he argued, once you get beyond a certain threshold of complexity you can expect a kind of phase transition analogous to the ones he had found in his autocatalytic sets. Below that level of complexity you would find countries dependent upon just a few major industries, and their economies would tend to be fragile and stagnant. In that case, it wouldn't matter how much investment got poured into the country. "If all you do is produce bananas, nothing will happen except that you produce more bananas." But if a country ever managed to diversify and increase its complexity above the critical point, then you would expect it to undergo an explosive increase in growth and innovation-what some economists have called an "economic takeoff." The existence of that phase transition would also help explain why trade is so important to prosperity, Kauffman told Arthur. Suppose you have two different countries, each one of which is subcritical by itself. Their economies are going nowhere. But now suppose they start trading, so that their economies become interlinked into one large economy with a higher complexity. "I expect that trade between such systems will allow the joint system to become supercritical and explode outward." Finally, an autocatalytic set can undergo exactly the same kinds of evolutionary booms and crashes that an economy does. Injecting one new kind of molecule into the soup could often transform the set utterly, in much the same way that the economy transformed when the horse was replaced by the automobile. This was part of autocatalysis that really captivated Arthur. It had the same qualities that had so fascinated him when he first read about molecular biology: upheaval and change and enormous consequences flowing from trivial-seeming events-and yet with deep law hidden beneath.

As Dr. Fauci’s policies took hold globally, 300 million humans fell into dire poverty, food insecurity, and starvation. “Globally, the impact of lockdowns on health programs, food production, and supply chains plunged millions of people into severe hunger and malnutrition,” said Alex Gutentag in Tablet Magazine.27 According to the Associated Press (AP), during 2020, 10,000 children died each month due to virus-linked hunger from global lockdowns. In addition, 500,000 children per month experienced wasting and stunting from malnutrition—up 6.7 million from last year’s total of 47 million—which can “permanently damage children physically and mentally, transforming individual tragedies into a generational catastrophe.”28 In 2020, disruptions to health and nutrition services killed 228,000 children in South Asia.29 Deferred medical treatments for cancers, kidney failure, and diabetes killed hundreds of thousands of people and created epidemics of cardiovascular disease and undiagnosed cancer. Unemployment shock is expected to cause 890,000 additional deaths over the next 15 years.30,31 The lockdown disintegrated vital food chains, dramatically increased rates of child abuse, suicide, addiction, alcoholism, obesity, mental illness, as well as debilitating developmental delays, isolation, depression, and severe educational deficits in young children. One-third of teens and young adults reported worsening mental health during the pandemic. According to an Ohio State University study,32 suicide rates among children rose 50 percent.33 An August 11, 2021 study by Brown University found that infants born during the quarantine were short, on average, 22 IQ points as measured by Baylor scale tests.34 Some 93,000 Americans died of overdoses in 2020—a 30 percent rise over 2019.35 “Overdoses from synthetic opioids increased by 38.4 percent,36 and 11 percent of US adults considered suicide in June 2020.37 Three million children disappeared from public school systems, and ERs saw a 31 percent increase in adolescent mental health visits,”38,39 according to Gutentag. Record numbers of young children failed to reach crucial developmental milestones.40,41 Millions of hospital and nursing home patients died alone without comfort or a final goodbye from their families. Dr. Fauci admitted that he never assessed the costs of desolation, poverty, unhealthy isolation, and depression fostered by his countermeasures. “I don’t give advice about economic things,”42 Dr. Fauci explained. “I don’t give advice about anything other than public health,” he continued, even though he was so clearly among those responsible for the economic and social costs.

For unknown ages after the explosive outpouring of matter and energy of the Big Bang, the Cosmos was without form. There were no galaxies, no planets, no life. Deep, impenetrable darkness was everywhere, hydrogen atoms in the void. Here and there, denser accumulations of gas were imperceptibly growing, globes of matter were condensing-hydrogen raindrops more massive than suns. Within these globes of gas was kindled the nuclear fire latent in matter. A first generation of stars was born, flooding the Cosmos with light. There were in those times, not yet any planets to receive the light, no living creatures to admire the radiance of the heavens. Deep in the stellar furnaces, the alchemy of nuclear fusion created heavy elements from the ashes of hydrogen burning, the atomic building blocks of future planets and lifeforms. Massive stars soon exhausted their stores of nuclear fuel. Rocked by colossal explosions, they returned most of their substance back into the thin gas from which they had once condensed. Here in the dark lush clouds between the stars, new raindrops made of many elements were forming, later generation of stars being born. Nearby, smaller raindrops grew, bodies far too little to ignite the nuclear fire, droplets in the interstellar mist on their way to form planets. Among them was a small world of stone and iron, the early Earth. Congealing and warming, the Earth released methane, ammonia, water and hydrogen gases that had been trapped within, forming the primitive atmosphere and the first oceans. Starlight from the Sun bathed and warmed the primeval Earth, drove storms, generated lightning and thunder. Volcanoes overflowed with lava. These processes disrupted molecules of the primitive atmosphere; the fragments fell back together into more and more complex forms, which dissolved into the early oceans. After a while the seas achieved the consistency of a warm, dilute soup. Molecules were organized, and complex chemical reactions driven, on the surface of clay. And one day a molecule arose that quite by accident was able to make crude copies of itself out of the other molecules in the broth. As time passed, more elaborate and more accurate self replicating molecules arose. Those combinations best suited to further replication were favored by the sieve of natural selection. Those that copied better produced more copies. And the primitive oceanic broth gradually grew thin as it was consumed by and transformed into complex condensations of self replicating organic molecules. Gradually, imperceptibly, life had begun. Single-celled plants evolved, and life began generating its own food. Photosynthesis transformed the atmosphere. Sex was invented. Once free living forms bonded together to make a complex cell with specialized functions. Chemical receptors evolved, and the Cosmos could taste and smell. One celled organisms evolved into multicellular colonies, elaborating their various parts into specialized organ systems. Eyes and ears evolved, and now the Cosmos could see and hear. Plants and animals discovered that land could support life. Organisms buzzed, crawled, scuttled, lumbered, glided, flapped, shimmied, climbed and soared. Colossal beasts thundered through steaming jungles. Small creatures emerged, born live instead of in hard-shelled containers, with a fluid like the early ocean coursing through their veins. They survived by swiftness and cunning. And then, only a moment ago, some small arboreal animals scampered down from the trees. They became upright and taught themselves the use of tools, domesticated other animals, plants and fire, and devised language. The ash of stellar alchemy was now emerging into consciousness. At an ever-accelerating pace, it invented writing, cities, art and science, and sent spaceships to the planets and the stars. These are some of the things that hydrogen atoms do, given fifteen billion years of cosmic evolution.

It is the fight for a new economy, a new energy system, a new democracy, a new relationship to the planet and to each other, for land, water, and food sovereignty, for Indigenous rights, for human rights and dignity for all people. When climate justice wins we win the world that we want. We can’t sit this one out, not because we have too much to lose but because we have too much to gain. . . . We are bound together in this battle, not just for a reduction in the parts per million of CO2, but to transform our economies and rebuild a world that we want today.

Eating with awareness is the most important and powerful tool to transform your relationship to food and the body. Once you begin to practice it, it becomes a lifelong habit. There is no goal or ideal to strive for. All there is to do is eat, observe, and accept. No matter what kind of food you eat or nutritional system you follow, eating with awareness is

Another class of fats that warrant concern are polyunsaturated fatty acids, also known as PUFAs. Excessive intake of PUFAs, (found in industrial oils such as canola, corn, safflower, and soybean; margarine and buttery sprays and spreads; and assorted baked, frozen, packaged and processed foods) can also compromise health. These fats also oxidize easily and may contribute to systemic inflammation, as the immune system tries to deal with the oxidation. They may be a major factor in arterial oxidation and inflammation. Your endocrine system is especially sensitive to PUFA consumption, which can lead to symptoms such as a slowed metabolism, low energy levels, and sluggish thyroid function.

The climate justice fight here in the U.S. and around the world is not just a fight against the [biggest] ecological crisis of all time,” Miya Yoshitani, executive director of the Oakland-based Asian Pacific Environmental Network (APEN), explains. “It is the fight for a new economy, a new energy system, a new democracy, a new relationship to the planet and to each other, for land, water, and food sovereignty, for Indigenous rights, for human rights and dignity for all people. When climate justice wins we win the world that we want. We can’t sit this one out, not because we have too much to lose but because we have too much to gain. . . . We are bound together in this battle, not just for a reduction in the parts per million of CO2, but to transform our economies and rebuild a world that we want today.

From the fifteenth century, rural England was undergoing Enclosure, the process by which the community rights of the poor to the land of the rich were transformed into what we understand today by ‘private property’. The rural poor found themselves without access to common land, and had only their labour left to sell. It was an economic revolution, with profound social repercussions. For the landless, options were few.

The Industrial Revolution (from roughly the 1780s to the 1840s)35 had transformed the country.36 Through the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the new working class were battered by the harsh living and working conditions in the new cities.37 It is from this time that the word ‘slum’ derives, a new word to describe a new urban geography.

Cooks find it hard to give up the way that meat and animal fat flavor things so intensely, but it’s so easy! An animal has transformed all the plants he ate into something with lots of complexity, and you need to learn a few tricks to get similar complexity with vegan dishes. But your palate will change, if you will only turn down the volume and listen. Living a plant-based life is like traveling light. Your system adjusts to foods that don’t weigh you down and take forever to digest. You may find that maintaining your weight gets easier, as long as you don’t hit vegan desserts too hard. The vegan mainstream has food manufacturers taking notice: Vegan-friendly packaged foods multiply daily. While that makes it easier to eat vegan, don’t become a junk-food vegan. The upside? Options in dairy-free milks, ice creams, and vegan-friendly sweeteners are growing. The downside? You can construct a vegan diet out of pudding cups, fake bologna, and white bread, but you will not be all that healthy doing it. You still have to seek balance and listen to your body. It will tell you how things are going, if you just pay attention. In the years I have spent cooking for vegans, it seems to me that what they craved most was special food—food for celebrations and shared dinners; food that really tastes great. It’s not that difficult to put together a big salad or sandwich on your own. Restaurants will happily strip down dishes and leave off the cheese. You can eat vegan and survive, but it’s the special foods that you crave. After going to the same sandwich shop a few times and having a sandwich with just veggies and no cheese, vegans want recipes for genuinely interesting food. A virtual world exists on the Internet, where vegans swap sources for marshmallow crème and recipes for mock cheese sauces. This book is my best effort for plant-based diners who want food that rocks. Why Vegan?

Adaptogens: Herbs for Strength, Stamina, and Stress Relief by David Winston and Steven Maimes An in-depth discussion of adaptogens with detailed monographs for many adaptogenic, nervine, and nootropic herbs. Adaptogens in Medical Herbalism: Elite Herbs and Natural Compounds for Mastering Stress, Aging, and Chronic Disease by Donald R. Yance A scientifically based herbal and nutritional program to master stress, improve energy, prevent degenerative disease, and age gracefully. Alchemy of Herbs: Transform Everyday Ingredients into Foods and Remedies That Heal by Rosalee de la Forêt This book offers an introduction to herbal energetics for the beginner, plus a host of delicious and simple recipes for incorporating medicinal plants into meals. Rosalee shares short chapters on a range of herbs, highlighting scientific research on each plant. The Business of Botanicals: Exploring the Healing Promise of Plant Medicines in a Global Industry by Ann Armbrecht Forbes In a world awash with herbal books, this is a much-needed reference, central to the future of plant medicine itself. Ann weaves a complex tapestry through the story threads of the herbal industry: growers, gatherers, importers, herbalists, and change-making business owners and non-profits. As interest in botanical medicine surges and the world’s population grows, medicinal plant sustainability is paramount. A must-read for any herbalist. The Complete Herbal Tutor: The Ideal Companion for Study and Practice by Anne McIntyre Provides extensive herbal profiles and materia medica; offers remedy suggestions by condition and organ system. This is a great reference guide for the beginner to intermediate student. Foundational Herbcraft by jim mcdonald jim mcdonald has a gift for explaining energetics in a down-to-earth and engaging way, and this 200-page PDF is a compilation of his writings on the topic. jim’s categorization of herbal actions into several groups (foundational actions, primary actions, and secondary actions) adds clarity and depth to the discussion. Access the printable PDF and learn more about jim’s work here. The Gift of Healing Herbs: Plant Medicines and Home Remedies for a Vibrantly Healthy Life by Robin Rose Bennett A beautiful tour of some of our most healing herbs, written in lovely prose. Full of anecdotes, recipes, and simple rituals for connecting with plants. Herbal Healing for Women: Simple Home Remedies for All Ages by Rosemary Gladstar Thorough and engaging materia medica. This was the only book Juliet brought with her on a three-month trip to Central America and she never tired of its pages. Information is very accessible with a lot of recipes and formulas. Herbal Recipes for Vibrant Health: 175 Teas, Tonics, Oils, Salves, Tinctures, and Other Natural Remedies for the Entire Family by Rosemary Gladstar Great beginner reference and recipe treasury written by the herbal fairy godmother herself. The Modern Herbal by Maude Grieve This classic text was first published in 1931 and contains medicinal, culinary, cosmetic, and economic properties, plus cultivation and folklore of herbs. Available for free online.

STEP FIVE: DEVISE YOUR MAXIMUM LONGEVITY LIFESTYLE What are three to five things that you want to commit to do? You’re not going to do them all. What are the things that you think could make the biggest difference? 1. Is it eating more live foods? Reducing your sugar? Perhaps going on a 10-day cleanse to break the pattern and reset your system? 2. Would you cut 300 calories from your daily food intake—one bagel a day—and see a significant change? Would you want to implement one of the new FDA tools like Plenity to curb your appetite? Or Wegovy to shut off the hormone that creates hunger? 3. If you have pre-diabetes or diabetes or know someone who does, what do you want to use out of that chapter to make the changes so that you don’t have to live with it anymore? 4. You could even decide to cut back on caffeine and increase your water intake to half your body weight in ounces per day to increase your hydration. Are you going to practice breathing patterns that help you to relax and move your lymph, like the breathing pattern of 1–4–2? 5. Will you change your food environment so you’re not triggered by putting fresh foods near you, as opposed to as many packaged and processed foods? 6. Will you tap into the power of heat and cold to give your body a healthy shock that help protect you from disease and extend your healthspan? This is all about designing your lifestyle in a way that’s most fulfilling for you.

India’s leading human rights activist, Dr. Vandana Shiva, told me. “Gates has single-handedly destroyed all that. He has hijacked the WHO and transformed it into an instrument of personal power that he wields for the cynical purpose of increasing pharmaceutical profits. He has single-handedly destroyed the infrastructure of public health globally. He has privatized our health systems and our food systems to serve his own purposes.

For eons, humans had transformed sunlight into food, through the growing of edible plants and animal feed. In recent decades all that changed. Modern industrial farming relied not on the sun but on fossil fuels, refined into pesticides, fertilizers, hormones, antibiotics, and the oil and gas needed to transport food hundreds of miles to market. Our farming system represented a net loss of energy. Whereas sunshine was infinite, oil would one day run out. In the meantime, the damage of industrial farming to the world’s soil might be irreversible.

The current system for refugees who remain in their region of origin is a disaster. It is premised upon an almost exclusively 'humanitarian' response. A system designed for the emergency phase - to offer an immediate lifeline - ends up enduring year after year, sometimes decade after decade. External provision of food, clothing, and shelter is absolutely essential in the aftermath of having to run for your life. But over time, if it is provided as a substitute for access to jobs, education, and other opportunities, humanitarian aid soon undermines human dignity and autonomy.

Historically, on average international wars have lasted only six months. In contrast, the average civil war has been much longer, with estimates ranging from seven to fifteen years. If a family are going to be refugees for over a decade, their priority is not emergency food and shelter. It is to re-establish the threads of normal famiy life, anchored materially by a capacity of whoever is the breadwinner to earn a living. The camps run by UNHCR met the basic material needs of refugees, but they provided few opportunities to earn a living. Consequently, they left families bereft of autonomy.

The imagined needs of refugees have almost universally been reduced to two basics - food and shelter - and it has become assumed that the most viable way to provide such rights is through camps.

Development' means many things to many people but it can be broadly understood as an approach that attempts to enhance long-term human welfare, whereas 'humanitarianism' is simply about the short-term alleviation of suffering. The humanitarian toolbox offers food, clothing, and shelter; it focuses exclusively on refugees and their vulnerabilities. The development toolbox offers employment, enterprise, education, healthcare, infrastructure, and governance; it focuses on both refugees and host communities, and it builds upon the capacities of both rather than just addressing vulnerabilities.

Consider McCormick Foods, a 126-year-old company that sells herbs, spices, and condiments. By 2010, the company’s traditional growth strategies had run their course. McCormick had already expanded into a full range of food seasonings and established a foothold up and down its supply chain, including operations in farming and food preparation. The company was running out of growth options. CIO Jerry Wolfe heard about Nike’s move into platform-building. Could McCormick do the same? Wolfe reached out to Barry Wacksman, a partner at R/GA, a leading New York design firm that had helped Nike design its platform. Together, they hit on the idea of using recipes and taste profiles to build a food-based platform. Wolfe and Wacksman used McCormick’s taste laboratories to distill three dozen flavor archetypes—such as minty, citrus, floral, garlicky, meaty—that can be used to describe almost any recipe. Based on personal preferences, the system can predict new recipes an individual is likely to savor. Members of the McCormick platform community can modify recipes and upload the new versions, creating ever-expanding flavor options and helping to identify new food trends, generating information that’s useful not only to the platform’s users but also to managers of grocery stores, food manufacturers, and restaurateurs.18

We have come to Mars for good. We are going to make not only our homes and our food, but also our water and the very air we breathe—all on a planet that has none of these things. We can do this because we have technology to manipulate matter right down to the molecular level. This is an extraordinary ability, think of it! And yet some of us here can accept transforming the entire physical reality of this planet, without doing a single thing to change our selves, or the way we live. To be twenty-first-century scientists on Mars, in fact, but at the same time living within nineteenth-century social systems, based on seventeenth-century ideologies.

By industrializing animal production, Tyson’s system rewrote the stubborn biological equations that once constrained the meat industry. Between 1955 and 1982, the amount of time it took to raise a full-grown chicken fell from 73 days to 52 days. And the chickens got bigger during that time, expanding from an average 3.1 pounds to 4 pounds. Perhaps most impressive of all, it took less and less chicken feed each year to accomplish this feat. In 1955 it took about 285 pounds of feed to grow 100 pounds of chicken. By 1982 it took less than 208 pounds. A similar trend held for pigs and, to a lesser degree, cattle during that time. The benefits of this transformation were passed from the farms to the consumers as Tyson aggressively competed to win a bigger share of the U.S. market.

cells have “organs” that are called organelles, like the nucleus, the information center of your cell—a pretty large structure with its own protective border wall that houses your DNA, your genetic code. There are mitochondria, generators that transform food and oxygen into chemical energy that keeps your cells running. There is a specialized transport network, a packaging center, parts for digestion and recycling, construction centers.

Lack of personal morality plus “politically correct” prohibition against judging others’ behavior and naming immorality sets up a social environment receptive and vulnerable to a tyrannical government. A tyrannical government transforms every aspect of the cultural day-to-day lives of everyone under its control across all areas from the educational and penal systems to fine art and entertainment dictates right on down to housing regulations and food availabilities.

Here is why the wellbeing economy comes at the right time. At the international level there have been some openings, which can be exploited to turn the wellbeing economy into a political roadmap. The first was the ratification of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 2015. The SDGs are a loose list of 17 goals, ranging from good health and personal wellbeing to sustainable cities and communities as well as responsible production and consumption. They are a bit scattered and inconsistent, like most outcomes of international negotiations, but they at least open up space for policy reforms. For the first time in more than a century, the international community has accepted that the simple pursuit of growth presents serious problems. Even when it comes at high speed, its quality is often debatable, producing social inequalities, lack of decent work, environmental destruction, climate change and conflict. Through the SDGs, the UN is calling for a different approach to progress and prosperity. This was made clear in a 2012 speech by Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who explicitly connected the three pillars of sustainable development: ‘Social, economic and environmental wellbeing are indivisible.’82 Unlike in the previous century, we now have a host of instruments and indicators that can help politicians devise different policies and monitor results and impacts throughout society. Even in South Africa, a country still plagued by centuries of oppression, colonialism, extractive economic systems and rampant inequality, the debate is shifting. The country’s new National Development Plan has been widely criticised because of the neoliberal character of the main chapters on economic development. Like the SDGs, it was the outcome of negotiations and bargaining, which resulted in inconsistencies and vagueness. Yet, its opening ‘vision statement’ is inspired by a radical approach to transformation. What should South Africa look like in 2030? The language is uplifting: We feel loved, respected and cared for at home, in community and the public institutions we have created. We feel understood. We feel needed. We feel trustful … We learn together. We talk to each other. We share our work … I have a space that I can call my own. This space I share. This space I cherish with others. I maintain it with others. I am not self-sufficient alone. We are self-sufficient in community … We are studious. We are gardeners. We feel a call to serve. We make things. Out of our homes we create objects of value … We are connected by the sounds we hear, the sights we see, the scents we smell, the objects we touch, the food we eat, the liquids we drink, the thoughts we think, the emotions we feel, the dreams we imagine. We are a web of relationships, fashioned in a web of histories, the stories of our lives inescapably shaped by stories of others … The welfare of each of us is the welfare of all … Our land is our home. We sweep and keep clean our yard. We travel through it. We enjoy its varied climate, landscape, and vegetation … We live and work in it, on it with care, preserving it for future generations. We discover it all the time. As it gives life to us, we honour the life in it.83 I could have not found better words to describe the wellbeing economy: caring, sharing, compassion, love for place, human relationships and a profound appreciation of what nature does for us every day. This statement gives us an idea of sufficiency that is not about individualism, but integration; an approach to prosperity that is founded on collaboration rather than competition. Nowhere does the text mention growth. There’s no reference to scale; no pompous images of imposing infrastructure, bridges, stadiums, skyscrapers and multi-lane highways. We make the things we need. We, as people, become producers of our own destiny. The future is not about wealth accumulation, massive

Studying mice, they discovered a "master clock" in a region of the brain (the dorsomedial nucleus) that can reset the circadian rhythm when faced with a shortage of food. The thinking is that when food is not an issue, lightness and darkness synchronize our sleep cycle. But when food is scarce, another system kicks in to synchronize our sleep cycle with our ability to find food.

The following are all foods you should feel welcome to eat freely (unless, of course, you know they bother your stomach): Alliums (Onions, Leeks, Garlic, Scallions): This category of foods, in particular, is an excellent source of prebiotics and can be extremely nourishing to our bugs. If you thought certain foods were lacking in flavor, try sautéing what you think of as that “boring” vegetable or tofu with any member of this family and witness the makeover. Good-quality olive oil, sesame oil, or coconut oil can all help with the transformation of taste. *Beans, Legumes, and Pulses: This family of foods is one of the easiest ways to get a high amount of fiber in a small amount of food. You know how beans make some folks a little gassy? That’s a by-product of our bacterial buddies chowing down on that chili you just consumed for dinner. Don’t get stuck in a bean rut. Seek out your bean aisle or peruse the bulk bin at your local grocery store and see if you can try for three different types of beans each week. Great northern, anyone? Brightly Colored Fruits and Vegetables: Not only do these gems provide fiber, but they are also filled with polyphenols that increase diversity in the gut and offer anti-inflammatory compounds that are essential for disease prevention and healing. Please note that white and brown are colors in this category—hello, cauliflower, daikon radish, and mushrooms! Good fungi are particularly anti-inflammatory, rich in beta-glucans, and a good source of the immune-supportive vitamin D. Remember that variety is key here. Just because broccoli gets a special place in the world of superfoods doesn’t mean that you should eat only broccoli. Branch out: How about trying bok choy, napa cabbage, or an orange pepper? Include a spectrum of color on your plate and make sure that some of these vegetables are periodically eaten raw or lightly steamed, which may have greater benefits to your microbiome. Herbs and Spices: Not only incredibly rich in those anti-inflammatory polyphenols, this category of foods also has natural digestive-aid properties that can help improve the digestibility of certain foods like beans. They can also stimulate the production of bile, an essential part of our body’s mode of breaking down fat. Plus, they add pizzazz to any meal. Nuts, Seeds, and Their Respective Butters: This family of foods provides fiber, and it is also a good source of healthy and anti-inflammatory fats that help keep the digestive tract balanced and nourished. It’s time to step out of that almond rut and seek out new nutty experiences. Walnuts have been shown to confer excellent benefits on the microbiome because of their high omega-3 and polyphenol content. And if you haven’t tasted a buttery hemp seed, also rich in omega-3s and fantastic atop oatmeal, here’s your opportunity. Starchy Vegetables: These hearty vegetables are a great source of fiber and beneficial plant chemicals. When slightly cooled, they are also a source of something called resistant starch, which feeds the bacteria and enables them to create those fantabulous short-chain fatty acids. These include foods like potatoes, winter squash, and root vegetables like parsnips, beets, and rutabaga. When was the last time you munched on rutabaga? This might be your chance! Teas: This can be green, white, or black tea, all of which contain healthy anti-inflammatory compounds that are beneficial for our microbes and overall gut health. It can also be herbal tea, which is an easy way to add overall health-supportive nutrients to our diet without a lot of additional burden on our digestive system. Unprocessed Whole Grains: These are wonderful complex carbohydrates (meaning fiber-filled), which both nourish those gut bugs and have numerous vitamins and minerals that support our health. Branch out and try some new ones like millet, buckwheat, and amaranth. FOODS TO EAT IN MODERATION

Why did people make such a fateful miscalculation? For the same reason that people throughout history have miscalculated. People were unable to fathom the full consequences of their decisions. Whenever they decided to do a bit of extra work – say, to hoe the fields instead of scattering seeds on the surface – people thought, ‘Yes, we will have to work harder. But the harvest will be so bountiful! We won’t have to worry any more about lean years. Our children will never go to sleep hungry.’ It made sense. If you worked harder, you would have a better life. That was the plan. The first part of the plan went smoothly. People indeed worked harder. But people did not foresee that the number of children would increase, meaning that the extra wheat would have to be shared between more children. Neither did the early farmers understand that feeding children with more porridge and less breast milk would weaken their immune system, and that permanent settlements would be hotbeds for infectious diseases. They did not foresee that by increasing their dependence on a single source of food, they were actually exposing themselves even more to the depredations of drought. Nor did the farmers foresee that in good years their bulging granaries would tempt thieves and enemies, compelling them to start building walls and doing guard duty. Then why didn’t humans abandon farming when the plan backfired? Partly because it took generations for the small changes to accumulate and transform society and, by then, nobody remembered that they had ever lived differently. And partly because population growth burned humanity’s boats. If the adoption of ploughing increased a village’s population from 100 to 110, which ten people would have volunteered to starve so that the others could go back to the good old times? There was no going back. The trap snapped shut. The pursuit of an easier life resulted in much hardship, and not for the last time. It happens to us today. How many young college graduates have taken demanding jobs in high-powered firms, vowing that they will work hard to earn money that will enable them to retire and pursue their real interests when they are thirty-five? But by the time they reach that age, they have large mortgages, children to school, houses in the suburbs that necessitate at least two cars per family, and a sense that life is not worth living without really good wine and expensive holidays abroad. What are they supposed to do, go back to digging up roots? No, they double their efforts and keep slaving away. One

How can a single fertilized egg cell possibly contain all of the instructions required to construct an entire human, and then be able to carry out these instructions with such perfection? This single fertilized cell is the progenitor of trillions of cells, which differentiate along the way into different types. And each of these uncountable offspring cells need to know what to be, and where to be, to create the incomprehensibly complex universe that is a human being. But there’s more. The system has to get energy and building blocks from the outside. How do we grow from an infant to an adult? We have to convert food into parts of our bodies. Food gives us energy, yes, but it is also our only source of building material. Our bodies must extract the raw materials we need for construction from such sources as ice-cream, meatloaf, and pasta,  and then rearrange these raw materials into muscle cells, heart cells, brain cells, and so on. The idea that a single fertilized cell could successfully transform itself into an adult human, including a brain with many billions of neurons and a consciousness, is utterly ludicrous. Impossible. There is no way this could ever succeed. And yet, all of us are living proof that it does . . .

One way to transform a system is to add new forces that are working toward our goal. Such forces were added when Leo Robinson and the dockworkers sent food and medical supplies to anti-apartheid groups, or when the “Sun City” artists donated their proceeds. Invisible forces can also be against us, though, in which case improvement comes from subtracting them. We can divest from apartheid. We can speak up to dismantle racism.