Consuming foods high on the food chain, specifically animal products, is wasteful. The same acre of land produces 17 times more calories growing potatoes compared to beef.

Farming animal-based foods is fossil fuel intensive. Growing, manufacturing, and transporting plant-based foods produces relatively more and better-quality food for less energy, producing fewer molecules of planet-warming CO2. Cattle and sheep cause additional damage by producing a far more powerful GHG, methane, by intestinal rumination.

Animal-farming results in clearcutting of forests. Plants produce life saving oxygen and remove toxic CO2. “Carbon sinks,” especially the rain forests worldwide, are being lost at an alarming rate in order to make pastureland.

These vicious cycles seem unstoppable, and would be, except we have yet to play the “diet card.” The McDougalls’ approach to Diet-Therapy for Planet Earth helps fulfill this role.

Much of what you need to know about the effects of the voracious human appetite for animal-foods on our Planet are provided in three provocative documentaries.