Diet For a New America- Your Health, Your Planet [VHS]

Fantastic resource!
I have been 95% vegan now for two years and finally got around to reading this classic expose of American factory farming, food industry propaganda and brainwashing, and environmental destruction, plus so much more. Written in 1987 by the heir to the Baskin-Robbins empire, Robbins' book was highly influential and shocking at the time. These days, with Fast Food Nation, Michael Pollan's proselytizing on organic produce, and, really, the Internet's vast stores of information on feedlots and food politics, none of the information here is that shocking or new. Still, it's incredible to read and to understand WHY brainwashed ideas like the Protein Myth and the Calcium Myth exist ~ how they were created (by the food industries themselves) and perpetuated (advertising dollars!). On the plus side, the availability of organic food and the rise of viral (no pun intended) information about the environmental destruction caused by factory farming HAS created a small shift over the last 22 years. On the downside, unfortunately, NOT that much has ultimately changed. I don't condone preaching veganism because that's not an effective way to get the point across, but this book is a great resource for vegans (or wannabes) who would really like to know what they're talking about and choose to lead or inspire by example.

Diet for a New America
This is a very good book. I got a lot of information from it. It provides the evidences why and how we should have such a new diet in order to stay healthy.

Twenty years and counting...
I read this book 20 years ago when I was about to turn 30. A vegetarian friend turned me on to the book. I instantly gave up meat and have not looked back. I'll be 50 in a few weeks and everyone tells me there's no way I look that old and I sure don't feel that old. I give all the credit to my diet. This book makes the decision to give up meat a slam-dunk, no-brainer.

Not as great as I expected.
I know I should love this book, or at least consider it life-changing, but I just could not muscle my way through it. The typos and poor grammar had me questioning everything (if you can't bother to proof-read, did you bother to fact check?). And the individual anecdotes, cute though they were about dogs tracking hundreds of miles to find their owners and hens who surrogate parented ducks did not have the intended effect of making me see animals as more like "us." In fact, the whole idea of condemning anthropomorphism in one paragraph then making us feel like animals are just furry humans made me throw my hands up. I am a vegan, and I condemn poor treatment of animals and the focus on meat in the American diet. But this book didn't make me feel more strongly about my beliefs -- in fact, I found myself at times sympathizing with the "murderers and oppressors," just because the whole thing was so over the top. I feel bad about the rating I'm giving this book. But I feel worse about the time I wasted reading it.

new thoughts on helping ourselves and our environment
This book shook the foundation of what I thought was true about the food I ingested. It reveals the sad way animals are treated and how the animal tissue many eat is not really healthy. Many people don't want to know what is contained within this book, and I applaud John for having the courage to write it. The flip-side of the material in the book is about how we can help our environment by being aware of what is occurring at an ever increasing pace, to supply the world, mostly America, with beef, chicken, etc. We are what we think as well as what we eat, so choose wisely.