How to Feed the World: One Peaceful World Diet
A Plan for 8 Billion People and Beyond — Part 8
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The first part of this series introduced a quantitative approach to food: how many calories and nutrients we need to eat in order to live a healthy life. Then we went on a long journey looking at all the ways we are doing it wrong; we’ve seen devastations and mishandling of our planet and our health. The last chapter illuminated at least some of the reasons why we do it; food has an emotional impact on our brain, its taste and texture make us hooked on it, and we just can’t let go of it. We use food to medicate our broken emotions, balance all the stress of our lives, or merely chase another dopamine hit.
It is now time to bring this together and find out how to escape this devilish game. Can we feed the world sustainably? The remaining parts of this series will be dedicated to finding out just that.
One Peaceful World
The Inception
A young man observed the devastation of Hiroshima two months after the bomb went off.
“I could make out fields of burned ashes, twisted steel structures, and graves containing untold souls and spirits. The barren landscape was broken occasionally by a burned tree, but there were no houses or buildings standing. There was no sign of life: no people, no animals, no birds singing. Silence prevailed.” (p. 14)
He broke into tears. There and then, he decided that something must be done.
“However difficult the endeavour, whatever the sacrifice it would cost, however long it would take — perhaps tens and hundreds of generations — I resolved to dedicate myself to universal understanding and the creation of One Peaceful World.” (p.15)
That man was Michio Kushi, a student of political science in Japan who soon after emigrated to the United States and became one of the founding fathers of macrobiotics.
After coming to the U.S.A., he worked as a dishwasher and bellboy, which gave him a front-row seat to western society. He realized that…
