Environmentalism?

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Many natural-diet promoters are motivated by various causes or ideologies, such as environmentalism, global-warmism, animal rights, etc.  I am not motivated by anything other than health, truth, and practicality.  I am not an ideologue or purist.  Therefore...

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Environmentalism:  I am against pollution, but for practicality.  You can’t simultaneously have purity in both.  You have to have a realistic compromise.

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Global-warmism:  Carbon dioxide is irrelevant to global temperature or climate.  It’s just too infinitesimally scarce to make any measurable difference.  Global temperature fluctuations, to the extent they exist, are due to other factors, most of them natural.  Animal agriculture produces methane, which is more consequential than carbon dioxide, but not as significant an issue as the alarmists claim.  Ask any believer in global-warmism, from laymen to experts, to quantify how much of each greenhouse gas directly causes how much temperature change, and they can’t tell you, because (1) there is no science on that; (2) they don’t care about science anyway; and (3) it never occurred to them to ask this most relevant question.

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Animal rights:  Animals do not have rights, but people have responsibilities to not be cruel to animals.  Eating animals is not inherently cruel; such a belief is childish nonsense.  The issue is simply whether animals are treated humanely, regardless of whether raised for food or just in general.  It is definitely true that much of industrial animal agriculture is calloused to being humane, or is outright inhumane.  That’s wrong, and also ultimately has a negative impact on the quality of the animal food products.  I don’t advocate for a plant-focused diet because of animal welfare concerns, but just for the health concerns, but that does not mean I ignore the reality of the existence of animal cruelty, which is wrong, and should change for its own sake, regardless of the question of animal products as food.  Again, my standard is practicality, not ideology.

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Purism:  I am not a purist.  I am careful not to adopt arbitrary, rigid standards.  For example, while avoiding “processed” foods is a good rule of thumb, I treat it as such, with exceptions, not as an absolute rule.  For example, the vegetable juice I consume large quantities of daily is “processed,” by the juicing itself.  Bread is a processed food because the grain is ground into flour.  Supplements are processed products because they are isolated or concentrated from some original source.  So I make intelligent distinctions in the standard of avoiding processed products.  As another example, I personally consume near zero animal products because I am curing my cancer, and therefore need a radical approach.  But in the abstract, animal products could be incorporated into a healthy diet, as long as it’s a very small proportion of the overall diet, and the products are natural, free of all the harmful things that result from the typical modern paradigm.  

Also, my understanding and practices change and evolve over time as I learn and experience more, so I am careful to adapt to a better understanding rather then remain trapped in an idea or pattern; when I discover I was wrong or there’s a better alternative, I change my mind and my practices.

 

The fixations described above are typical of what ideologues are pursuing.  Ideology is fundamentally a substitute to fill the gap of spiritual discontentment.  In other words, if you don’t have a genuine, functional relationship with God, you will find or create some idol to substitute for that.  And ideologies are tempting substitutes because they provide superficial, easy virtue, not requiring any humility or responsibility for personal immorality.  In other words, it’s easy to wishfully believe you’re a “good” person for advocating for saving the planet, saving the animals, being a hero for some weak victim group (real or imagined), etc.  But when you have a relationship with God, and your sins are forgiven, and you are unconditionally accepted by God and assured of eternal salvation as a free gift, you are freed from having to earn phony virtue, free to be OBJECTIVE about the real world, free from rigid ideology, free to be PRACTICAL.