Fitness for One and All Home Page

Diet for a New America

By John Robbins

Book Review by Gary F. Zeolla

The book reviewed on this page, Diet for a New America by John Robbins, is available at a reduced price from Books-a-Million

I was rather disappointed when I received this book. I thought that it was an updated edition. But the only new information in this book is a six-page “Afterword,” which was apparently written in the late 1990s (The last date mentioned in it is 1997). The copyright for the rest of the book is 1987. And looking over the footnotes appendix, the bulk of Robbins’ sources are dated from the 1970s through the early 1980s. I am writing this review in 2002, so the information in this book is already 20-30 years old. Given how quickly our knowledge of nutrition and related issues grows and changes, this leaves the statistics and many of Robbins’ claims rather out-dated.

That said, this book is a 400+ page treatise designed to convince everyone to become a vegetarian. And I am sure many have done so as a result of reading this book. The details about the mistreatment of farm animals alone are enough to turn a sensitive person away from eating animals.

And for those concerned about their health, this book details how pesticides concentrate in the meat and fat of animals. And it presents stories of the health problems caused by the hormones given to animals. For instance, Robbins tells the stories of very young girls developing fully formed breasts as a result of eating hormone-containing meat. These facts alone do show that there is serious health risks associated with the eating of today’s meat.

And Robbins cites studies showing the correspondence between meat eating and the development of cancer and heart disease. But this is where the problem with Robbins sources being so dated comes in. When I did the research for my more recent book “Creationist Diet,” I found that the evidence was split as to whether meat eating was associated with an increased risk of cancer or not.

But overall, I would say that Robbins makes a strong case for not eating meat as it is commonly produced today. And in that respect this is a valuable book. There are serious problems associated with the consumption of most of today's meat.

However, in his zeal to promote vegetarianism, he tries to write off the eating of organic meat with one paragraph (on page 343). But his main argument against eating organically raised meat is that such animals would still concentrate toxins from the grains they eat.

Now maybe back in 1987 someone could label meat from animals that had been fed pesticide-laden grains “organic,” but that is no longer the case today. There are now regulations on the use of the term “organic,” and more stringent ones will be coming into effect later this year.

Moreover, by definition, organically raised animals are not given hormones. And pasture-fed animals would not be subjected to the mistreatment of factory farm animals that Robbins describes in his book.

In addition, I am now of the concerted opinion that when studies do show there are health problems associated with the eating of meat, it is not meat per se that is causing the problems but the pesticides, hormones, antibiotics, and steroids in the meat, along with the high amounts of saturated fat in such animals. But such problems would not apply to organic meat or game meat.

So Robbins’ arguments in regards to the mistreatment of animals, contaminates in animals, and the health effects of meat eating would not apply to organically raised, pasture-fed animals. Similarly, his arguments would not apply to the eating of game animals. So if one can find organically raised, pasture fed animals or utilize game meat, then the bulk of the arguments in this book would not apply. The only argument left is Robbins’ contention that farm animals are “intelligent” creatures, and thus it is morally wrong to eat them.

Now the discussion of morals becomes much less concrete. And each person must decide for himself or herself if it is morally wrong to kill and eat animals. But personally, as a Christian, I look to the Bible for guidance on what is morally right or wrong. And the Bible makes it clear that the killing of animals for food is not morally wrong. I address this issue in detail in my book.

Having said all of that, I do believe that a mostly plant-based diet is healthiest. The consumption of healthy plant foods like fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, whole grains, and legumes are definitely associated with decreased risk of heart disease, cancer and stroke. And eating a majority of ones daily food in the form of animal foods would displace these more healthy foods from ones diet.

It also should be said that a vegetarian diet can be healthy. In fact, I have a chapter in my book on “The Benefits of a Vegan Diet.” But I also have a chapter on “The Pros and Cons of Flesh Foods.” And in that chapter I demonstrate that it simply is not a clear-cut case that the eating of meat is bad and the not eating of meat is good as Robbins makes it out to be.

As for myself, I have followed a vegan diet in the past. In fact, I was following such a diet when I wrote my book. But I found that I did not “thrive’ on it. But the re-inclusion of a limited amount of animal foods has benefited me greatly. So my diet is now probably about 80-90% plant foods and remainder from organic animal foods.

I discuss all of the issues I address above in much more detail in my book Creationist Diet: Nutrition and God-given Foods According to the Bible. And it should be noted that my book was published in September of 2000. And the sources I cite are from the 1990s and even some from early 2000. So my book provides much more recent information on all of these issues than Robbins' book does.

Diet for a New America by John Robbins and my book Creationist Diet are available at a reduced prices from Books-A-Million. Further details on my book are found at Creationist Diet: Preview.

The above review was posted on this site April 4, 2002.

Nutrition
Nutrition: Book Reviews

Text Search     Alphabetical List of Pages     Contact Information

Fitness for One and All Home Page

www.FitnessforOneandAll.com/nutrition/hardcopy/diet-america.htm