Meet Your Meat: Under the Clear Wrap

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My friend Tiffany Hervey wrote this incredible article and gave me permission to use it.

The day begins beneath the sacred cliffs of Kaʻaʻawa Valley and Hakipuʻu Valley. The ridges look like earth raining down on Kualoa, a 4,000-acre working cattle ranch. Owner John Morgan, descendant of Dr. Gerrit Judd who bought the first 622 acres of the ranch from King Kamehameha III in 1850, oversees about 1,250 acres of cattle raised here for grass-fed beef.

After a grass-fed beef burger for lunch, it’s back on the highway toward Haleiwa. Across the street from Chun’s Reef is Tin Roof Ranch. Hundreds of chickens roam freely here, listening to classical music on NPR. Owners Luann and Gary Casey provide the community with free-range chicken. The day ends with free cooking lessons from chef “Mama T” at Down To Earth, Hawaii’s only all-vegetarian health food store chain.

The goal of this journey: To meet Hawaii’s local meat producers and decipher once and for all if meat is necessary for a healthy diet. This is not a polarized issue. Many of us simply want to eat meat in a more conscientious way, or perhaps just eat less meat. Certainly all of us would rather eat meat from a local, sustainable source. But we are disconnected from where our food comes from. It’s time to reconnect.

CONVENTIONAL MEAT
Let us fast-forward through the obligatory visions of conventionally produced and processed meat: Hormones and steroids used to grow animals bigger, faster; Antibiotics in feed and injected in animals to control disease caused by overcrowded, feces-filled lots and cages; Feed containing hazardous additions like dead animal parts, manure and GMO corn; Industrialized processing, which means that the ground beef of today contains meat from thousands of different cattle, increasing the odds of and spread of pathogens; and the label “natural” qualifying all fresh meat, regardless of farm practices, according to USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) guidelines.

In 1970, the top five meat packers controlled only 25 percent of the market. Today, the top four control 85 percent of the market. There were thousands of slaughterhouses in the U.S. in the 70s.

Today there are only 13, according to the documentary, FOOD INC. The centralized purchasing decisions of the large restaurant chains (McDonald’s is the largest purchaser of ground beef in the U.S.) have given a handful of corporations an unprecedented degree of power over the nation’s food supply. Eric Schlosser’s book Fast Food Nation reveals how independent farmers and cattle ranchers essentially became hired hands for the agribusiness giants, fundamentally changing how cattle are raised, slaughtered, and processed into ground beef.

Schlosser uncovers that these changes have made meatpacking—once a highly skilled, highly paid occupation— now the most dangerous job in the U.S., and usually performed by immigrants whose injuries often go unrecorded and uncompensated.

In a sentence: Even if you don’t eat fast food, but you eat meat from the grocery store, you are eating meat produced by a system lacking integrity and accountability.

A review of the current and active recalls posted on the USDA’s FSIS website shows that more than 60 million pounds of beef, pork, chicken, and turkey products were recalled in 2011 for contamination with Listeria, E. Coli, and salmonella. After an establishment completes a recall, it’s removed from the current recalls listing and archived. Archived cases from 2012 so far show 1,670,099 pounds of meat recovered. One of the most recent reports from late October listed Honolulu’s Higa Meat & Pork Market, which had to recall approximately 4,100 pounds of ground beef products that had been distributed to restaurants on Oahu due to possible E. coli O157:H7 contamination.

While it’s permissible by USDA guidelines to use hormones and steroids to promote growth in cattle, 80 percent of antibiotics used in the U.S. are reportedly used in livestock, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council. The group recently brought suit against the FDA, alleging that livestock producers have used popular antibiotics penicillin and tetracycline in feed for more than 30 years for purposes other than treatment of illnesses. The indiscriminate use of antibiotics in animal feed can lead to growth and spread of drug-resistant bacteria that are harmful and even deadly to humans.

Persuasive evidence has emerged pinpointing bacteria from poultry are the cause of a growing number of women, and some men, who have become infected with antibiotic-resistant versions of E. coli, the intestinal bacterium that causes urinary tract infections (UTIs). More precisely, the E. coli is coming from poultry raised with the routine use of antibiotics, which is most of the 8.6 billion chickens raised for meat in the U.S. each year, according to published research by Dr. Amee Manges, an associate professor of epidemiology at McGill University in Montreal who has been studying resistant UTIs for a decade.

Excessive consumption combined with an industrialized food system has made meat eating problematic. Americans eat more meat than any other population in the world. Not only is the American hamburger—cornerstone of the Western Diet—arguably the cheapest convenience food around, ground beef is the most popular beef item for consumers preparing meals at home. In the beginning of the 20th century, Americans ate 120 pounds of meat annually. By 2007, that figure was no less than 222 pounds. As fast food consumption has risen since the 1960s, so have the rates of cancer, heart disease and diabetes—of which causal links to animal-based foods are abound. As awareness spreads, carnivores look to safer sources for their meat.

WHAT, YOU LIKE BEEF?
Proponents of grass-fed beef contend that it’s healthy and lean, with half the total fat of grain-fed beef and up to six times more omega-3 fatty acid and substantially more Vitamin E, beta-carotene, and vitamin C. Grass-fed is billed as a more sustainable agricultural practice since cattle ranchers use the naturally occurring grass in the ground for feed and pasture rather than depending on fossil fuels for feed and transportation. There are seven federally inspected cattle slaughter facilities statewide so transport to the mainland for processing is not necessary.

High grain and oil prices make it costly for Hawaii ranchers to feed cattle grain or send cattle to the mainland for finishing (grown big enough for slaughter). Our climate and isolation basically demand that cattle here be grass-fed. Concurrently, local restaurants and grocery stores are seeing more demand for high quality meat that’s considered leaner, healthier, and local.
Labeling is tricky however; as “USDA Grass-fed” is based on a definition that is not verified by any third party and simply means the animals did not eat grain.

The American Grassfed Association (AGA) definition “AGA Grassfed” includes the prohibition of antibiotics and hormones during the animal’s lifetime and is verified by a third party. Federal law does not yet back the AGA label.

Whole Foods Market carries both “grain finished” and “100% grass-fed beef.” Some grass-fed beef producers will send their cattle to be finished on grain. In order to merit the 100% grass-fed label, all ranches that supply Whole Foods Market with grass-fed beef must sign an affidavit to substantiate their claim, which includes commitments to an exclusively grass diet throughout their lifespan and continuous access to pasture, states Claire Sullivan, Whole Foods Hawaii Coordinator, Purchasing & Public Affairs.

“We have a partnership with Maui Cattle Company and this past fiscal year, 39 percent of the
beef that we sold at the three Hawaii stores was local Maui beef, which demonstrates both how excellent this beef is and how committed our customers are to purchasing local grass-fed beef,” Sullivan says.

Six independent family-owned ranches spanning over 60,000 acres of prime grazing land on the Valley Isle founded Maui Cattle Company (MCC) in 2002. The ranchers seek a sustainable ranching industry by keeping livestock grass-fed and free of growth stimulants or antibiotics. The local food movement has fueled increased demand for MCC grass-fed beef.

“During this surge in demand in a market that now utilized all of the cattle grazed on our operations, drought conditions that started back in 2009 persist and continue to intensify,” says MCC President Alex Franco. These conditions forced cattle held for the MCC market to be shipped to the mainland and have reduced product availability to their customers by 60 percent.

“Normally once you’re not able to supply a growing market you will lose that market,” Franco says. “We are hopeful that our customers who truly support the local food movement and its importance to Hawaii will continue to work with local agriculture as we face such challenges.” Franco, also the president of the Hawaii Cattleman’s Association, points out that there are generational grass-fed beef operations on each island that supply their immediate communities.

While there are several cattle ranches on Hawaii Island, Parker Ranch, located in Waimea, is one of the oldest and largest cattle ranches in the U.S. In 2011, Parker Ranch sold 1,279,976 pounds of grass-fed cattle to local beef processors, which was then processed into mostly hamburger. “Parker Ranch is strongly committed to the transition of the Hawaii cattle industry from a cow calf export industry to a sustainable industry with increased local beef production and less dependency on transportation to the mainland,” says Parker Ranch Livestock Operations Manager Keoki Wood.

Wood recalls that in the 70s the Hawaii cattle industry fed and processed all the cattle that were produced in the state and met about 30 percent of the total demand. “Today we probably produce less than five percent,” he says. That means Hawaii likely imports 95 percent of its beef currently. Specific numbers are not available because the local Agricultural Statistics Service does not collect or track imports and exports. “The Commerce Department collects export and import data from other countries, but not to and from the mainland where considerable beef does move,” says Mark Hudson, Hawaii Field Office Director for USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service.

“We do not have a demand problem,” Wood continues. “Our goal is to find ways to finish cattle here locally.” In order to expand local beef production, Wood says ranchers need to have access to high quality lands, affordable irrigation so that the cattle can have a high level of nutrition, and more capacity and efficient beef processing with competitive prices paid to produce market ready animals. Parker Ranch is also currently exploring production methods using fertilizer and irrigation in order to achieve this.

On Oahu, Kualoa Ranch started selling their own grass-fed beef hamburgers for lunch in their restaurant about four years ago. Folks have been able to order and pick up grass-fed ground beef at the ranch for the last two years. Owner John Morgan reports that drought conditions have not impacted their location. “Our cattle are in good shape,” Morgan says. “We hope to develop fertilized, irrigated pasture to be able to increase and stabilize our production. We are actively expanding our diversified agriculture activities and hope to have a culinary, Farm-to-Table experience to offer in 2014.”

CULTURED CHICKENS
While beef has always been “America’s No. 1 selling protein,” chicken (or “broilers” as termed in the meat industry) has become the leaner, cheaper protein of choice. There are currently no commercial broiler operations in Hawaii, in large part because there are no longer any slaughter or processing facilities that handle poultry.

Tin Roof Ranch owners Gary and Luann now sell free-range, organic chickens from their ranch to their customer base from Haleiwa Farmers Market where they sell cage-free, organic eggs. “We accidentally bought 300 chickens once and it all took off from there,” Gary laughs. While purchasing chicken manure for their land’s soil that they had been nursing back to health, Gary and Luann ended up taking 300 chickens home from the farmer who was closing up shop. Since neither had a background in farming (Gary was a carpenter and Luann was a nurse) they googled how to grow and process chickens and purchased their own equipment.

“We just went to the University of Google and taught ourselves. We did everything a thousand times until we had it down,” Gary recalls. He built hen houses from old hotel closet doors. The chickens roam as they please and enjoy a steady stream of NPR playing daily. “I think music makes them calm,” Luann jokes. “They are cultured chickens.”
With hundreds of chickens of nine different varieties, half of the ranch’s winged inhabitants lay eggs and the other half are for meat. Gary and Luann can process 25-30 broilers a week when taking email orders, which sell out every time. Shipping in organic feed for the chickens is costly. Next to affordable land and a poultry processing facility, locally produced organic feed is a missing link that keeps Gary and Luann dependent on mainland imports. “It is cheaper to ship a processed chicken that is two or three pounds than the 50 pounds of feed that it takes to grow the chicken,” Luann explains. “So needless to say there is not much profit, especially for anyone that wants to grow organic and pasture raised animals.” This in turn keeps Hawaii dependent on eating imported chicken.

“We are willing to spend $100 on shoes but expect cheap food,” Luann says. “Our food should be expensive if a lot of work goes into producing it.” Luann believes that the more people ask questions and become aware of where their food comes from, they will support local food growers. “Demand will grow and people like us can keep doing this,” she says.

THE CARNIVORE’S DILEMMA
Shopping for local meats or driving to the nearest rancher’s land to pick up a chicken is easier said than done. Many of us shop for what is closest to us and most affordable. Enter: Costco. Where does that Kirkland Signature ground beef with the USDA organic label come from?

As the largest seller of organic beef in the country, it’s difficult to procure all the beef needed for the Kirkland Signature ground beef exclusively from U.S. suppliers. Additional organic beef is procured from Canada and Australia, according to Costco assistant general merchandising manager Bob Huskey. The Australian cattle raised for the program are 100 percent grass-fed. Half of the U.S. and Canadian animals are grass-fed and the other half are finished on organic grains such as barley, flax, wheat and corn.

The organic label that Costco uses means the meat producers must comply with the USDA’s National Organic Program (NOP) guidelines: Cattle must be born and raised in certified-organic pastures that have had no chemical fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides for at least three years prior to organic certification; Organic livestock must consume 100% organic diet consisting of grasses that are also grown in precise accordance with organic farming guidelines; The cattle can never be administered antibiotics or growth hormones; and records from farm to point of sale must be kept for complete animal traceability.

Affordability and traceability are just part of the carnivore’s dilemma however. Healthcare professionals warn that we eat too much meat—often unhealthy meats at unhealthy quantities. “Meat is consumed in excess in Hawaii,” asserts Dr. Rachel Novotny, Professor of Human Nutrition at the University of Hawaii-Manoa. “Canned meats are highly consumed in Hawaii. They tend to be high fat meats with substantial added salt. Obesity, diabetes, heart disease and some cancers are likely associated with excessive meat consumption.”

According to Dr. William Harris, author of The Scientific Basis for Vegetarianism, excess protein, especially from animal products, puts stress on the kidneys, increases urinary calcium loss and its replacement by bone calcium. That in turn leads to osteoporosis. Acid reflux, obesity, plaque build-up in the arteries, high serum cholesterol, high blood pressure, arthritis, and increased risk of colon cancer for men and breast cancer for women are also linked to animal food consumption. As an emergency room physician for 35 years at Kaiser Hospital in Honolulu, Harris says almost all his patients were meat-eaters.

“I saw first-hand how meat devastates human health,” he recalls. “Meat is highly contaminated with pesticides, hormones, environmental toxins, and too much protein and cholesterol for our systems to process.” Humans and animals are plant predators, Harris contends. “We live on plants. Without plants there would be no animals,” he says. “The fact that some animals eat other animals is simply an adaptive strategy, not a biochemical necessity.”

MEAT ETHICS
Despite all he witnessed medically, Dr. Harris’ reason for becoming a vegetarian was initially an ethical one. “I think it’s wrong to kill animals,” he explains. “While I feel bad about the animals, I feel even worse about how eating animals has an effect on humans. It makes it impossible for us to develop a coherent ethical structure for our society to live in if we think it’s okay to kill and eat another animal—then we have no problem killing each other.”

Animal rights, environmental ethics, and religion are some of the top anti-meat arguments. Ethical vegetarians like Dr. Harris often believe that killing an animal, like killing a human, can only be justified in extreme circumstances. USDA definitions and guidelines for meat reveal that some of the wording leaves loopholes for animals to be confined in feedlots or other hazardous enclosures. Indeed factory farming and mass production that has replaced specialized, smaller operations—due to high demand for cheap meat—has changed the way animals are treated.
After energy production, livestock is the second highest contributor of atmosphere altering gases.

According to the United Nations, 18 percent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions come from production, processing and transportation of beef and dairy products. The gas cows pass (methane) is 23 times more harmful to the than carbon dioxide. A serving of poultry costs about 90 gallons of water to produce, according to National Geographic’s Freshwater Initiative, which aims to reduce water footprints of individuals, farms, communities, and corporations by 25 percent by 2025. In juxtaposition, the Freshwater Initiative declares that a vegan who doesn’t eat meat or dairy indirectly consumes nearly 600 gallons of water per day less than a person who eats the average American diet.

CANINES, INTESTINES & ESKIMOS
Humans were never designed to eat meat regularly, claims Hawaii Health Talk Radio moderator Hesh Goldstein. “The human intestine is long and coiled, much like that of plant-eating apes, cows, and horses,” he explains. “This configuration makes digestion slow, allowing breakdown and absorption of nutrients from plant foods. The intestine of a carnivore, like a cat, is short, straight, and tubular. This allows rapid digestion of flesh and excretion of the remnants quickly before they putrefy and rot.”

Human teeth evolved for processing starches, fruits, and vegetables, not tearing and chewing flesh, Goldstein asserts. Our oft-cited “canine” teeth are not comparable to the sharp, jagged teeth of true carnivores whose jaws are fixed to open and close for a powerful bite. Human teeth are short, blunted, and flat on top, or slightly rounded at most, he explains. Like other plant-eating animals, our jaw can move forward and backwards, side-to-side, as well as open and closed, for biting off pieces of plant matter, and then grinding them into smaller pieces with our flat molars.
Goldstein contends that during difficult times in human evolution, meat provided more benefits than harms, but in a society where food is plentiful and life is physically easy, meat can become a serious health hazard. “A traditional Arctic Eskimo, living in a subfreezing climate, could expend 6,000 calories a day just to keep warm and hunt for food,” he says. “The high-fat animal food sources like fish, walrus, whale, and seal from their local environment were the most practical means of meeting the demands of those rigorous surroundings. Modern Eskimos, living in heated houses and driving climate-controlled SUVs, still consuming a high-meat diet have become some of the fattest and sickest people on Earth.”

Documentary Forks Over Knives explores how sicknesses like heart disease, obesity, and cancer can be improved if not reversed by implementing a whole foods, plant-based diet. In the film, Dr. John McDougall, who saw patients on the Hamakua Sugar Plantation from 1973 to 1976 found that their health differed dramatically depending on how long they had been in Hawaii. He found that while those who had been raised in Asian countries were always healthy, trim, and never had diet-related disease, the next generations they raised in Hawaii, who ate a diet of more meats than their native veggies and rice, were always sicker and fatter. “It was obvious that the diet was the difference,” he said.

In one of America’s best-selling nutrition books, The China Study, Dr. T. Colin Campbell defines the relationship between the consumption of animal products and a variety of chronic illnesses like cancer, diabetes, and heart disease. The study examined 6,500 people in 65 counties throughout China over the span of 20 years. He found that people who ate the most animal-based foods got the most chronic disease, citing that dietary protein proved to be so powerful that Campbell found he could turn cancer growth on and off by simply changing the level of protein consumed. The study found that proteins that did not promote cancer even at high levels of intake were plant proteins like wheat and soy.

PROTEIN TRUTHS
“People are obsessed about protein when they should be concerned about complex carbohydrates because that’s where energy and good health starts,” Goldstein says. “Instead they center their diets around anything that had a face and refined foods, which have no fiber or nutrients.”
Humans need about ten percent of their daily calories from protein, which on average is about 56 grams a day for males and 45 grams for females, Dr. Harris explains. He says eating animals for protein is really just getting second-hand nutrients, like essential aminos, that we could be getting straight from the source—plants, legumes and grain. “If you eat a whole foods, plant-based diet, you will get enough protein,” Harris says, citing that by measuring calorie for calorie, broccoli actually has more protein than beef.

“Protein from meat isn’t necessary,” says “Mama T,” Down To Earth’s chef and community outreach leader. She heads up a team of women who teach cooking classes for the “Love Life” program at store locations as well as at community events and schools. They create their own simple and delicious recipes, empowering others with vegetarian cooking skills. “As a vegetarian I know that I’m not lacking protein. People are surprised you can get protein from plants. Most beans are full of protein. Leafy greens, legumes, tofu, nuts, seeds, and whole grains are also great sources.” Down to Earth has more than 600 recipes on their website, hosts free cooking classes daily at store locations, and gives 10 percent off transitional veggie meats on Mondays to encourage customers to join a movement called “Meatless Mondays.”

Launched in 2003, the “Meatless Monday” campaign began as a joint effort between the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the Columbia University School of Public Health and has been catching on throughout the nation. Aspen, Colorado became the first true Meatless Monday community when 20 local restaurants, Aspen Valley Hospital, Aspen Elementary School, Pathfinders, The Aspen Club & Spa, the University of Colorado School of Medicine, the Aspen Global Change Institute, Komen Aspen and the Cancer Survivor Center all vowed to go without meat once a week.

FLEXING
“There are great farmers in this country who are doing really good work, and they need to be supported,” says Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma, In Defense of Food, and Food Rules. “We need to reform the meat system—not eliminate it.” In an animal welfare essay on his website Pollan says that he, as a meat eater, believes if you eat meat, you should know how it’s produced. While he doesn’t think there’s anything fundamentally wrong with eating meat, he urges that we start thinking about the way it’s being made and how it’s affecting the environment, the animals, and the workers in the factories.

He writes:
I have the ultimate respect for vegetarians and vegans. For they have actually done the work of thinking through the consequences of their eating decisions, something most of the rest of us have not done. My own examination of those consequences has led me to the conclusion that eating a small amount of meat from certain kinds of farms is something I can feel good about.
Following a trend towards conscious meat eating and better health, some Americans have chosen a “Flexitarian” route, which significantly cuts meat out of the diet without excluding it altogether. Dawn Jackson Blatner’s book The Flexitarian Diet, defines an inclusive eating plan: adding new foods to those we already eat, gradually guiding us to eat more veggies while still enjoying our favorite meats. According to Blatner, Flexitarians weigh 15 percent less, have a lower rate of heart disease, diabetes and cancer, and live 3.6 years longer than their carnivorous counterparts.

Whether we switch to grass-fed beef or free-range chicken, partake in Meatless Mondays, or join Flexitarianism, we don’t need laws against fast food or slaughterhouses if we reform the system by voting with our dollar. Supporting local food producers who have sustainable practices and produce high quality meat is a start. Knowing where our food comes from empowers us to make healthier choices and strengthens local economy.

About Hesh:

I have been doing a radio show in Honolulu since 1981 called “Health Talk”. To listen to the show please go to www.kwai1080am.com on your computer at 8am Hawaii time. FYI, 8am Hawaii time is 11am on the West coast and 2pm on the East coast. To call in, the number is (808) 524-1080.
Starting August 2nd, American Voice Radio will be picking up my streamed show and playing it all week until the next one takes place. See you on the radio!

In 2007, I was “forced” to get a masters degree in Nutrition to stop all the doctors from calling in asking what my credentials were. Besides that, they never liked it when I asked them what their credentials were that would enable them to treat an illness without drugs or surgery.

If you go to www.healthtalkhawaii.com and click on Podcasts, there are years of shows there as well as hundreds of health related articles.

I am an activist. I am vehemently opposed to GMOs, vaccines, processed foods, MSG, aspartame, fluoridation, and everything else that the “pimps” (big pHarma, Monsanto, and the large food companies), and the “hookers” (the doctors, the government agencies, the Public Health officials, and the mainstream media) thrust upon us, the “tricks”.

At 75, I am in 3 softball leagues, racewalk, do stand-up paddling, hike, swim, do weights and cardio, and teach women’s self-defense classes based upon 20 years of Wing Chun training. I have been a vegetarian since 1975 and a vegan since 1990, have no illnesses and take no meds.

After being vaccinated with the DTP vaccine as a child, I developed asthma, which plagued me until 2008 when I learned about and started taking the organic sulfur crystals. My asthma was reversed in 3 days and has not come back.

So far, 22 cases of autism that we know about have been reversed, as has cancer, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, asthma, osteoarthritis, joint pain, gingivitis, and erectile dysfunction. The sulfur has increased sexual activity, eliminated toxins, heavy metals, radiation, and parasites. It speeds up athletic recovery time, increases blood circulation, reduces inflammation, increases resistance to the “flu”, reduces wrinkles, allergies, PMS, monthly period pain, migraines, nausea, and way more, because the oxygen that the sulfur releases floods and heals the cells in the body.

The sulfur, as proven by the University of Southampton in England, enables the body to produce vitamin B12 and the essential amino acids.
You can find out more about this on my website under Products.

My book, “A Sane Diet For An Insane World”, which has been published, can be viewed and purchased at www.asanediet.com. The book clearly explains why what you eat, for the most part, is designed to keep you in a state of declining health.

I have recently discovered an amazing super food – Zeal – that contains 42 amazing probiotics, anti-oxidents and more, all designed to build and strengthen the immune system. For more info about this please email me.

Hesh Goldstein, MSNutri
“Health Talk” Moderator, K-108 Radio
POB 240783, Honolulu, Hi 96824
(808) 258-1177
www.healthtalkhawaii.com
www.asanediet.com
[email protected]

Hesh Goldstein
When I was a kid, if I were told that I'd be writing a book about diet and nutrition when I was older, let alone having been doing a health related radio show for over 36 years, I would've thought that whoever told me that was out of their mind. Living in Newark, New Jersey, my parents and I consumed anything and everything that had a face or a mother except for dead, rotting, pig bodies, although we did eat bacon (as if all the other decomposing flesh bodies were somehow miraculously clean). Going through high school and college it was no different. In fact, my dietary change did not come until I was in my 30's.

Just to put things in perspective, after I graduated from Weequahic High School and before going to Seton Hall University, I had a part-time job working for a butcher. I was the delivery guy and occasionally had to go to the slaughterhouse to pick up products for the store. Needless to say, I had no consciousness nor awareness, as change never came then despite the horrors I witnessed on an almost daily basis.

After graduating with a degree in accounting from Seton Hall, I eventually got married and moved to a town called Livingston. Livingston was basically a yuppie community where everyone was judged by the neighborhood they lived in and their income. To say it was a "plastic" community would be an understatement.

Livingston and the shallowness finally got to me. I told my wife I was fed up and wanted to move. She made it clear she had to be near her friends and New York City. I finally got my act together and split for Colorado.

I was living with a lady in Aspen at the end of 1974, when one day she said, " let's become vegetarians". I have no idea what possessed me to say it, but I said, "okay"! At that point I went to the freezer and took out about $100 worth of frozen, dead body parts and gave them to a welfare mother who lived behind us. Well, everything was great for about a week or so, and then the chick split with another guy.

So here I was, a vegetarian for a couple weeks, not really knowing what to do, how to cook, or basically how to prepare anything. For about a month, I was getting by on carrot sticks, celery sticks, and yogurt. Fortunately, when I went vegan in 1990, it was a simple and natural progression. Anyway, as I walked around Aspen town, I noticed a little vegetarian restaurant called, "The Little Kitchen".

Let me back up just a little bit. It was April of 1975, the snow was melting and the runoff of Ajax Mountain filled the streets full of knee-deep mud. Now, Aspen was great to ski in, but was a bummer to walk in when the snow was melting.

I was ready to call it quits and I needed a warmer place. I'll elaborate on that in a minute.

But right now, back to "The Little Kitchen". Knowing that I was going to leave Aspen and basically a new vegetarian, I needed help. So, I cruised into the restaurant and told them my plight and asked them if they would teach me how to cook. I told them in return I would wash dishes and empty their trash. They then asked me what I did for a living and I told them I was an accountant.

The owner said to me, "Let's make a deal. You do our tax return and we'll feed you as well". So for the next couple of weeks I was doing their tax return, washing their dishes, emptying the trash, and learning as much as I could.

But, like I said, the mud was getting to me. So I picked up a travel book written by a guy named Foder. The name of the book was, "Hawaii". Looking through the book I noticed that in Lahaina, on Maui, there was a little vegetarian restaurant called," Mr. Natural's". I decided right then and there that I would go to Lahaina and work at "Mr. Natural's." To make a long story short, that's exactly what happened.

So, I'm working at "Mr. Natural's" and learning everything I can about my new dietary lifestyle - it was great. Every afternoon we would close for lunch at about 1 PM and go to the Sheraton Hotel in Ka'anapali and play volleyball, while somebody stayed behind to prepare dinner.

Since I was the new guy, and didn't really know how to cook, I never thought that I would be asked to stay behind to cook dinner. Well, one afternoon, that's exactly what happened; it was my turn. That posed a problem for me because I was at the point where I finally knew how to boil water.

I was desperate, clueless and basically up the creek without a paddle. Fortunately, there was a friend of mine sitting in the gazebo at the restaurant and I asked him if he knew how to cook. He said the only thing he knew how to cook was enchiladas. He said that his enchiladas were bean-less and dairy-less. I told him that I had no idea what an enchilada was or what he was talking about, but I needed him to show me because it was my turn to do the evening meal.

Well, the guys came back from playing volleyball and I'm asked what was for dinner. I told them enchiladas; the owner wasn't thrilled. I told him that mine were bean-less and dairy-less. When he tried the enchilada he said it was incredible. Being the humble guy that I was, I smiled and said, "You expected anything less"? It apparently was so good that it was the only item on the menu that we served twice a week. In fact, after about a week, we were selling five dozen every night we had them on the menu and people would walk around Lahaina broadcasting, 'enchilada's at "Natural's" tonight'. I never had to cook anything else.

A year later the restaurant closed, and somehow I gravitated to a little health food store in Wailuku. I never told anyone I was an accountant and basically relegated myself to being the truck driver. The guys who were running the health food store had friends in similar businesses and farms on many of the islands. I told them that if they could organize and form one company they could probably lock in the State. That's when they found out I was an accountant and "Down to Earth" was born. "Down to Earth" became the largest natural food store chain in the islands, and I was their Chief Financial Officer and co-manager of their biggest store for 13 years.

In 1981, I started to do a weekly radio show to try and expose people to a vegetarian diet and get them away from killing innocent creatures. I still do that show today. I pay for my own airtime and have no sponsors to not compromise my honesty. One bit of a hassle was the fact that I was forced to get a Masters Degree in Nutrition to shut up all the MD's that would call in asking for my credentials.

My doing this radio show enabled me, through endless research, to see the corruption that existed within the big food industries, the big pharmaceutical companies, the biotech industries and the government agencies. This information, unconscionable as it is, enabled me to realize how broken our health system is. This will be covered more in depth in the Introduction and throughout the book and when you finish the book you will see this clearly and it will hopefully inspire you to make changes.

I left Down to Earth in 1989, got nationally certified as a sports injury massage therapist and started traveling the world with a bunch of guys that were making a martial arts movie. After doing that for about four years I finally made it back to Honolulu and got a job as a massage therapist at the Honolulu Club, one of Hawaii's premier fitness clubs. It was there I met the love of my life who I have been with since 1998. She made me an offer I couldn't refuse. She said," If you want to be with me you've got to stop working on naked women". So, I went back into accounting and was the Chief Financial Officer of a large construction company for many years.

Going back to my Newark days when I was an infant, I had no idea what a "chicken" or "egg" or "fish" or "pig" or "cow" was. My dietary blueprint was thrust upon me by my parents as theirs was thrust upon them by their parents. It was by the grace of God that I was able to put things in their proper perspective and improve my health and elevate my consciousness.

The road that I started walking down in 1975 has finally led me to the point of writing my book, “A Sane Diet For An Insane World”. Hopefully, the information contained herein will be enlightening, motivating, and inspiring to encourage you to make different choices. Doing what we do out of conditioning is not always the best course to follow. I am hoping that by the grace of the many friends and personalities I have encountered along my path, you will have a better perspective of what road is the best road for you to travel on, not only for your health but your consciousness as well.

Last but not least: after being vaccinated as a kid I developed asthma, which plagued me all of my life. In 2007 I got exposed to the organic sulfur crystals, which got rid of my asthma in 3 days and has not come back in over 10 years. That, being the tip of the iceberg, has helped people reverse stage 4 cancers, autism, joint pain, blood pressure problems, migraine headaches, erectile dysfunction, gingivitis, and more. Also, because of the detoxification effects by the release of oxygen that permeates and heals all the cells in the body, it removes parasites, radiation, fluoride, free radicals, and all the other crap that is thrust upon us in the environment by Big Business.

For more, please view www.healthtalkhawaii.com and www.asanediet.com.

Namaste!