Consuming a natural, raw food diet might now mean more than just promoting your health by filling your body with the essential, nutritious plants of the earth. In fact, according to new - and existing - research, eating a natural diet of plants, raw and whole foods could potentially help the environment too.
Cutting meat to help the environment
Research from Oxford University has found that eliminating meat and consuming a plant-based diet could have a tremendous impact on the environment. The leading educational institute found that a global adoption of a vegan, or plant-based diet, could save over 8 million lives within the next 35 years by reducing waste and its harmful effects on the environment, reported the Oxford Martin School News.
A 2015 study conducted by Oxford Martin School researchers, published in the Proceedings of National Academy Sciences, found that if all major regions and cultures around the world adopted a plant-based diet, costs put into helping the environment could be cut by trillions. Spending on health care could also be reduced. Perhaps most notably, millions of lives could be saved. The study reported that the annual number deaths could be greatly lowered if everyone were to reduce the intake of red meat, sugar and total calories while at the same time increasing the amount of fruits and vegetables consumed.
"What we eat greatly influences our personal health and the global environment," said study leader Dr. Marco Springmann of the Oxford Martin Programme on the Future of Food. "Imbalanced diets, such as diets low in fruits and vegetables, and high in red and processed meat, are responsible for the greatest health burden globally and in most regions."
Animal-based diets are not just unhealthy, they are also extremely wasteful and inefficient. God created our earth to be bountiful and plentiful with natural foods to fuel and nourish our bodies. In the beginning there was no need for the consumption of living things or the want for processed foods - everything the body needed was right at man's fingertips. Today, as the culture of fast and processed foods only continues to grow, the bodies that God created in His image and likeness, as well as the earth, are proceeding to deteriorate.
Saving water
Did you know that in the state of California it requires 2,464 gallons of water to produce one pound of beef? That is the equivalent of 180 seven-minute showers, according to the Vegetarian Times. If it takes nearly 2,500 gallons of water to make just six hamburgers, there is no question that a strictly plant-based diet would help to save water. The source also noted that in 2000, 40 percent of the country's water supply was used to irrigate feed crops for livestock, according to data from the United States Geological Survey. Comparatively, it takes just 25 gallons of water to produce one pound of wheat. Imagine if every American stopped eating meat: We could save nearly half of our water supply.
The reported percentage of water used during that same time period for showering, toilets, watering the lawn and brushing teeth was trivial in comparison. While being cognizant of water usage by avoiding letting the faucet run, turning off the sink while brushing your teeth and the like, opting to remove meat from your diet and consuming only plant-based foods would have an even greater and more significant impact on water usage.
A two-fold benefit of the raw diet
Not only is consuming a raw diet filled with living foods exceptional for maintaining, promoting and protecting health, but it can also follow God's wish that we care for and protect the earth that He so created. It is the most balanced diet for taking care of the resources that we have been provided. As it says in Genesis 2:15 - "The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it."
By following His word and eating only the foods of the earth, we are living the path to God as best as possible. As Rev. George Malkmus wrote in "God's Original Diet," the original garden diet is in line with His original intent to provide us with a pure and simple diet that when coupled with an active lifestyle, can keep us free from sickness and stress. Currently, the majority of Americans are riddled with one disease or another, ulcers, allergies, obesity and diabetes, just to name a few. They are simultaneously searching for the answer to their medical and health problems.
To find a fix is really quite simple: Turn toward God's Original Diet and follow the biblical plant-based Hallelujah Diet.
