Comfortably Unaware by Dr. Richard Oppenlander
Required reading for Main Street Vegan Academy students prior to our arrival in New York City, included a well curated library discussing vegan health and nutrition, understanding how the disconnect formed between what is on our plate and the animals we profess to love, how to compassionately address the questions or accusations vegans are often addressed with, to issues of the environment and how our food choices are the number one impact on climate change and the decimation of earth and many of its species. Comfortably Unaware, by Dr. Richard Oppenlander provides a practical, logical, scientific assessment of the impact of our food choices.
Sounds simplistic to say that you can help enact change simply by consuming different foods. It is simple, which is the great thing. This book will provide you with the foundation for this thinking and why it would be hard to argue against even by the most stalwart paleo foodie in your life.
About Comfortably Unaware
In “Comfortably Unaware”, Dr. Richard Oppenlander tackles the crucial issue of global depletion as it relates to food choice.
Do you know the true cost of the food you eat every day? What resources were used and what was destroyed in order to get that food to your plate? What does the word sustainable really mean when applied to your food choices and how sustainable is that particular food to your own health?
What you choose to eat is killing our planet, says noted lecturer and author Dr. Richard Oppenlander. In “Comfortably Unaware”, he reveals the truth about food choice and its impact on our world. He doesn’t stop at merely identifying the problem. He describes, with clarity, its cultural and political origins and offers a viable solution.
We should all be committed, he tells us, to understanding the reality and consequences of our diet, the footprint it makes on our environment, and seek food products that are in the best interest of all living things. His forthright information and stark mental images are often disturbing, and that’s how it should be. As the guardians of Planet Earth, we need to be shaken out of our complacency, to stop being comfortably unaware, and to understand the measures we must take to ensure the health and well-being of our planet and of ourselves.
Dr. Oppenlander breaks down the information in easy-to-read chapters that touch on issues ranging from the rainforests (depleting the lungs of our planet), to water and oceans, to world hunger, to the air we breathe (yes, food choice affects oxygen and the quality of the air). His fresh insight on this suppressed, and often controversial, topic goes well beyond the now-familiar warnings about global warming and use of fossil fuels. His information is essential reading; he provides entirely new perspectives on our culture and how this global crisis reached such startling proportions, as well as, most important, how to solve the problem.
This book is available online or on audio. It is well worth reading and carrying with you (I always have one or two books with me and this is often one of them).