True Green is Kosher

The movement and mindset of going green has spread to more and more consumers throughout the world, and many people have realized the effects of their buying and consuming habits. However, the facts show that people are still missing something. When someone says, "Go Green," most people think about reducing waste, recycling, and renewable energy, but there is another very important aspect of this movement that isn't a clear priority. When I say going green, I am not only referring to how we deal with waste, but also schools of thought concerning how one thinks about food. Let us look at us Americans. It is still apparent that not even the most conscientious have caught on to the root idea of going green especially when it comes to buying and eating food. An excerpt of a report published by the USDA in August of 2008 states:

While shopper surveys and sales figures imply a national interest in improving diet, aggregate health statistics do not reflect these concerns. As of 2003-04, 66 percent of American adults were overweight and over one-third were also obese. Between 1976 and 2000, the number of individuals classified as obese more than doubled (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 2003).1 During the same time span, there was a parallel rise in the incidence of diseases highly correlated with poor nutrition and overconsumption: cancer, strokes, heart disease, and diabetes (Surgeon General, 2001). In 2000, obesity accounted for an estimated $117 billion a year in direct and indirect economic costs; diabetes is estimated to account for another $132 billion (CDC, 2005).
These conflicting trends highlight a disturbing inconsistency. While Americans demonstrate a concern about eating well and using diet to manage their health, they are getting heavier and increasing their risk of suffering from diet-related illnesses.

Americans attitude towards food for the most part is nonchalant, (most of us don't even really taste our food we just scarf it down like a bunch of animals.) Even the most earth friendly or health conscious of us have a difficult time refraining from that Big Mac or Little Caesar's pizza every once in a while. It is especially difficult for families with children to change eating habits. America's food industry targets our children and our need for fast and convenient. Does that justify our lack of resolve or discipline? It shouldn't but wait...let's go a little deeper.

83% OF AMERICANS IDENTIFY THEMSELVES AS CHRISTIANS

Another seemingly contradictory attitude that we Americans have is, that considering the fact that most Americans claim to be Christians, a moral category, you would think that we would know something about what G-d teaches us about food. A poll taken by ABC news in July stated:

Eighty-three percent of Americans identify themselves as Christians. Most of the rest, 13 percent, have no religion. That leaves just 4 percent as adherents of all non-Christian religions combined - Jews, Muslims, Buddhists...

Every Christian knows that the Bible is G-d's divine and infallible word, and every Bible comes with what the Jewish people call the Torah. The five books of Moses (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy) known in Christendom as the Pentateuch, or the Old Testament. It is within the pages of these five books where the Lord gave all of mankind instruction concerning diet, sanitation, and the proper way to kill an animal for consumption known in the Hebrew tongue as Kosher. The problem is that all Christians are taught that Torah doesn't not apply to Christianity. They are taught that it's for the Jews. I know this because that's what I was taught, and I was a minister in the Christian world.

DIETARY FACTORS ACCOUNT FOR AT LEAST 30% OF CANCERS IN WESTERN COUNTRIES

I would say that most Americans have a Bible in the house somewhere, or maybe its in the shed. Instead of looking to the Creator for our health problems, we would rather spend millions of hard earned money a year on doctors visits, medication, Health Insurance, books about our health, magazines, and what have you. Instead of opening up the scriptures. Most people have heard the saying, "you are what you eat," and still most people believe that saying, but when it comes to the Word of G-d, "Oh that's not for us today," or "That's only for the Jews," or we take the scripture out of context so we can justify our disobedience.

With obesity in America still on the rise and increased health issues such as diabetes, acid reflux, a high risk of heart attacks, and especially cancer this nation's health is deteriorating from the inside out. A report published by THE CANCER PROJECT states:

The World Health Organization has determined that dietary factors account for at least 30 percent of all cancers in Western countries and up to 20 percent in developing countries.

Why? Why is it so hard to resolve in ourselves the discipline to hear and to do? I understand that a big part of the problem is the societal system we live in. Instead of family farms where our own food is our own food, the more convenient process of grocery stores separate us from the reality of how we get our food, handing it to us already killed, cleaned, chopped and packaged.

IN CONCLUSION

My goal here is only to help us all see that it was first G-d's idea to "Go Green." Not only do we see this in nature, and not only are the laws of nature and life proven with science to be consistent, but G-d gave his intellectual creation (man) Kosher laws. By his own understanding of his own creation he gives us principles having to do with what we put into our bodies. Remember you are what you eat.