“When I wrote Diet for a New America in 1987, the per capita consumption of beef in the United States was about 84 pounds per person per year,” said John Robbins, speaking to me recently by phone from his home in Santa Cruz, Calif. “And in the next six years it dropped to 68 pounds. It was a drop of about 20 percent.”

John Robbins, who has helped to change the way hundreds of thousands of Americans eat, will speak in Flagstaff Nov. 17 as part of the Staying Healthy Expo 2000. Diet for a New America exposed the toll that “factory farming” methods of meat production take on the environment, as well as the animal suffering it creates. In addition, the book exposed the links between a diet high in meat and dairy products and various diseases, including heart disease, cancer, and osteoporosis. The book was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize and served as the basis for a PBS documentary. The book also sparked the formation of EarthSave International, an organization dedicated to promoting “food choices that are healthy for people and for the planet.” To date the book has sold close to a million copies.

Robbins is also the author of the 1996 book, Reclaiming our Health, which exposed the shortcomings of conventional medicine in America and discussed the merits of various alternative treatment options.

In addition to being a diligent researcher with a gift for making complex information understandable to the average reader, Robbins is also an eloquent public speaker who is in high demand. He has spoken at the United Nations where he received a standing ovation. A few months ago, he spoke to a crowd of 10,000 at the Worldfest gathering in Van Nuys, Calif.  About six years ago, he spoke at Northern Arizona University, drawing a crowd of about 700.

As a young man, John Robbins appeared likely to inherit the reins of the Baskin-Robbins ice cream empire. But John Robbins turned his back on the family business to “pursue the deeper American Dream … the dream of a society at peace with its conscience because it respects and lives in harmony with all life forms.” 

Today Robbins is finishing a new book entitled The Food Revolution, due out in September, 2001. The book reaffirms the benefits of a vegetarian type diet, with new statistics and new evidence.

“It is updating all the information,” said Robbins of his new book. “But it’s more than that. It’s dealing with a lot of issues that didn’t even exist 13 years ago, like genetic engineering, like E. coli (0157:h7) bacteria, like Listeria, like Mad-Cow disease.”

The book will also look at the risks of high-protein, high fat diets like those recently made popular by authors Barry Sears and Robert Atkins.

The Food Revolution will look closely at the increasing use of genetically modified foods, a development that is a grave concern for Robbins.

“We’re getting evidence all the time that genetic foods are dangerous,” said Robbins. “People aren’t falling down dead. … We live in a culture where sometimes it has to be that obvious before people make the connection. But my own perspective is that even if 99.99 percent of the time, genetically engineered food turns out to be benign – and I don’t think that there’s any chance that it would be that high – but even if it were, the .01 percent that wasn’t could do so much damage that it’s insane to take a risk there.”

Concerns over genetic engineering go hand in hand with Robbins’ advocacy of organic foods. Even soy beans, long a staple of many vegetarians and increasingly common in the American diet, have hidden dangers. Robbins notes that half of the U.S. soybean crop is genetically engineered and genetically altered soybeans such as Monsanto’s Round-up Ready beans, are often mixed with unaltered beans.

“So unless you buy organic soy products, you have no assurance whatsoever that you are not exposing yourself to the unknown effects of genetically engineered plants,” said Robbins.

Though in his writings Robbins has focused on what people are eating, he is also concerned about where food comes from. The idea of creating a sustainable bioregional food system is a concept that resonates with Robbins.

“It’s very important because (growing food locally is) the antithesis of globalization where (you) ship things everywhere,” said Robbins. “When you ship foods across distances, you’re first of all using a lot of energy to do that. … Burning energy has environmental impacts and health impacts as well as costs. …”

Robbins and his wife Deo have a large garden at their home, which also boasts the largest solar-electric facility of any residence in northern California.

“What we don’t grow ourselves we try to buy locally from neighboring farms,” said Robbins. “(Americans) sometimes take pride that we can have tomatoes 12 months of the year or strawberries 12 months of the year or watermelons in January in New York or something but these things are not natural. And when we get back in touch with our bioregion, with our local climate and the rhythm of nature, we feel more connected to the environment and we’re better able to understand it and better able to protect it.”

At 53, Robbins can take pride in the significant changes he has helped to bring about in the way many Americans eat. But the big picture is still troubling: Factory farming is still prevalent, and animals are still suffering through miserably short assembly-line lives. Meanwhile, millions of people have yet to make the connection between what they eat and how it impacts not only their health, but the rest of the world. How many people know, for instance, that it takes 2,500 gallons of water to produce a pound of beef?

Though Robbins believes environmental and health problems are still getting worse, he also believes these disturbing trends may be slowing.

“Things aren’t falling apart as fast,” said Robbins. “And if we can slow it down, that’s the first step to stopping it.”

“What gives me hope is people. What gives me hope is people who can change – who can see and who can bring their lives into accord with what they understand – in a sense, walk their talk.

And I’m seeing more and more people willing to do that – sometimes just because they’re fed up, and angry, and desperate, pissed off.  Whatever it takes, they get there. We’re moving out of collusion and into compassion. We’re starting to re-own our power to act responsibly on behalf of the future, on behalf of ourselves and realize it’s the same thing.”

For more information about EarthSave International, go to www.earthsave.org or call (800) 362-3648.