John Robbins (1) (1947–2025)

I rarely put FIVE stars on a book. This one is brave, brilliant, and will change the nastier parts of our world immediately. I dare anyone to read, for but one example, the chapter on "the most unjustly maligned of all Animals", without feeling that life change-up.

The author, John Robbins, presents the facts about our diet and the relationship between what we are "consuming" and the rising incidence of cancer, diabetes, and heart attacks.

The author simply takes us on a fact-found tour of show more our food. The book does not sermonize or condemn the modern concentrated business combines that have destroyed our hopes for robust health and humane lives. However, he empowers a new life of sanity and care.

We all share the author's values -- "Eating should be a pleasure". [xv] Stop eating food that has been injected by the worst drug-pushers, is manufactured by torture, kills even the soil of our planet, and poisons all who eat it.

The billion-dollar lobbyists who represent the trillion-dollar Food Industry, and who continue to corrupt those who we elect to protect our welfare, are frauds.

* The author is the "Robbins" of Baskin-Robbins and speaks as an insider from personal experience as well as access to the original research and science. He is now a vegetarian and a lover of Nature. show less

The Food Revolution: How Your Diet Can Help Save Your Life and Our World by John Robbins

While it was not the only influence, it is accurate to say that I became a vegan over two decades ago after reading John Robbins’ Diet for a New America in 1988. I have pointed to him and the book ever since as shining examples of organic, whole foods with the absence of animal or dairy products.

As most everybody knows, Mr. Robbins was the heir of the Baskin-Robins chain, set up for life at the top, show more where he was to become one of the richest and most powerful men in the world. The only problem was that Mr. Robbins looked into how the dairy and meat products in modern times are produced. He started researching studies, comparing scientific reality with the marketing malarkey of the meat and dairy industry. He next walked away from the family business, became a vegan, stepped down from taking over before the financial empire before the day even arrived.

There are not many people in this or any lifetime who give up fortune to pursue a life of enlightenment instead. In Diet for a New America, Mr. Robbins did not draw attention to what he gave up or the hardships that he and his wife encountered as a result. He merely pointed out how cruel and inhumane modern farming and livestock is, pointed out the fabrications of the meat and dairy industry, advocating a plant-based diet as an alternative. It was powerful, factual and moving. In response to Diet for a New America, thousands of us in the United States and around the world became vegans, many of us remaining so the decades since.

Mr. Robbins released Diet for a New America in 1987. He has continued to research, write and provide a voice for reason and humanity in our eating habits.

In The Food Revolution: How Your Diet Can Save Your life and Our World, Mr. Robbins continues to make a strong and convincing argument for a plant-based diet. He points out the mistruths and outright lies of the meat and dairy industry. He offers study after study demonstrating that modern factory farming is polluting the water and the air, and is the leading cause of methane.

He argues, again convincingly, that the best and quickest way to combat Climatic Change would be for everybody to become a vegan. He points out the harm done humans and the eco system as a result of animals kept in inhumane & disease inviting factory environments, fed a diet not fit for an animal and given mega antibiotics to keep them alive for the final slaughter. He points out the filthy conditions of the slaughter houses and the various foodborne deceases that invade our food system on a daily basis, some taking up to seven weeks after eaten for sever health issues to become noticeable, making it virtually impossible to track the source.

Mr. Robbins makes point after point about what is wrong with factory farming, using the medical profession and scientists to make his case, leaning on study after study that proves his various hypothesizes concerning the cruelty of livestock, the health hazards it produces, the inevitable health risks to eating the unhealthy meat and dairy, including obesity, diabetes, hypertension and a host of heart related diseases, including cardiac arrest and death.

The book offers strong evidence that the meat, dairy, white flour, corn syrup and processed sugar habits of modern humans is the root of many of the worst modern health problems.
Mr. Robbins also takes on the modern farming practices of vegetables, especially pointing out the dangers of genetically modified organisms (GMOs).

Who should read this book? Every human being in the world who can read, and anybody who cannot read should have somebody read it to them who can read.

If you want to eat healthier, understand the dangers of our food system and do something about Climatic Change, read this book. It should be on the immediate reading list of anybody who has not already read it.

John Robbins is one of the heroes of today’s world. He will never call himself that, and seems too humble a person to ever view himself in that light, but it truly is people such as him who are making the world better, not the athletes, entertainers and celebrities that are generally viewed as the heroes of our society. He is likely the closest we have in our generation to a Buddha, somebody on the verge of becoming king, to walk away from it, to go into the woods, to think, to think some more, to accept the world around him in the most pure and natural form possible.

This is a great book that every vegan, progressive, environmentalist, humanist, animal rights activist, health advocate, intelligent, decent, informed and positive person can learn something and embrace. Thank you, John Robbins, for helping so many of us to see the light, or to see it better. show less

Here's the short version of my review:
I highly recommend his to everyone. It's not just about eating good food and being fit, but about having loving relationships and contributing to your community and society. Feeling like you are loved and that you matter and have a purpose. Excellent book that also reminds us that we should be ashamed of the way we treat elderly people in this country.

The longer version:
Robbins is a near-vegan, and the societies he chose for this book reflect that. There show more are other long-living groups that do eat a lot of meat products (see [b:The Blue Zones: Lessons for Living Longer From the People Who've Lived the Longest|2213117|The Blue Zones Lessons for Living Longer From the People Who've Lived the Longest|Dan Buettner|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1320442392s/2213117.jpg|2218905] and http://www.aplaceformom.com/blog/2013-03-29-where-people-live-the-longest/). However, this book was written in 2006, and I don't know how long research of the other groups has been going on, so I'll give Robbins the benefit of the doubt.

Regardless of your opinion of a meat-free diet, this book is still loaded with powerful research-backed information. Everyone knows that eating healthy food (even if they can't agree on what that is) and staying active will help you stay healthier longer. But Robbins points out that without love, respect, and true intimate relationships, all the vegetables and running in the world isn't going to do any good.

It's fascinating to read about how much of an impact feeling alone can have on your health, and on the flip side, how "toxic" relationships can literally be toxic to your body.

The societies that live the longest revere children and the elderly. No one is left hungry, even though these groups don't have much in the way of material possessions. They all take care of each other.

As for food, the one thing that Robbins' groups and The Blue Zone groups have in common is that they eat little to no processed food. (At least that used to be the case. Now Western foods are creeping everywhere and people are getting sicker and sicker.) show less

I picked up The New Good Life on a whim. I didn't know who John Robbins was nor did I know his program Diet for a New America. Robbins, an heir to the Baskin-Robbins fortune, has experienced financial highs and lows. In The New Good Life he offers suggestions for how to create a life that brings you psychological security and happiness without all the trappings of our consumer culture. He examines how we've gone from being citizens to consumers and how that change has made us less happy, show more less satisfied and has put us at odds with the environment, when we're not out and out at war with it.Beginning with his own story of creating wealth after having walked away from his family's money and business, and then loss of his life savings through no fault of his own except to have trusted an advisor who unwittingly turned the investments over to Bernie Madoff, Robbins gives a list and character sketch of money archetypes and explains how they relate to money and how they can find a better way to relate to money.Robbins transitions to the practical by outlining how to learn where your money is spent, how much money you actually earn per hour and how you can re-examine and readjust your spending, save money and reduce your impact on the environment.I was especially happy to find recipes for food and for making cleaning supplies. I've worried for a while that we're marinating in petro-chemicals each and every day and have wanted a comprehensive list of safe cleaning supplies and personal care items.I recommend this book for its readability, practical information and for how it approaches the "new normal." As our family has adjusted to having half its income, we've found that some things are easy to do without while others are harder to let go. As we still live and work in a middle class world and have children attending school with peers whose families haven't been so negatively by this economy, we've struggled with meshing reality with old expectations. Do middle schoolers really need a full-color yearbook, for example. And don't get me started on electronics and gadgetry. We've always known that we couldn't keep up with the Joneses, but now that we truly do not have the means to even try, we're learning how to find peace with this knowledge, to not compare ourselves and to understand that the life we have now can be full and satisfying without debt and within our means.What I learned from John Robbins' book will help. show less