Listen to the show here, as well as on Google Play and Apple Podcasts!
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
To start the show, we discuss how both beef and leather production (and consumption) are destroying the Amazon rain forest, and therefore the Planet.
Glen Merzer, author of “Own Your Health” and “Food is Climate”
Glen Merzer, author, and health and environmental advocate
Our feature interview is with long-time vegan and animal advocate Glen Merzer. Glen is a playwright, screenwriter, and author. He began his career as a stand-up comic in San Francisco before devoting himself to playwriting. He also wrote for network television for many years before stumbling onto a career writing books that advocate the plant-exclusive diet.
Glen has co-authored many books on the topic of health, and including “Mad Cowboy” and “No More Bull!” with the Mad Cowboy himself, Howard Lyman. One of his latest books, “Own Your Health: How to Live Long & Avoid Chronic Illness” is the third book of a trilogy on nutrition and health co-authored with the very knowledgeable and entertaining Chef AJ.
In “Own Your Health”, Glen Merzer narrates his own journey to health, and tells the stories of how his parents saved each other’s lives and how his wife Joanna overcame lupus. He explains why the science of nutrition is more settled than you think, suggests the best way to deal with doctors, and takes on some of the leading historic opponents of the plant-based diet. Glen blows apart the silly and misguided attacks on “carbs,” and shares an action plan to reverse the epidemics of obesity, diabetes, and heart disease while obliterating demand for the kind of food-raising that risks future pandemics. Chef AJ’s recipes conclude the book with delicious, simple, and practical ways you can satiate your palate and take your health into your own hands.
Glen’s most recent book is called “Food Is Climate: A Response to Al Gore, Bill Gates, Paul Hawken, and the Conventional Narrative on Climate Change“.
As Food Revolution Network President and vegan activist pioneer John Robbins says:
“Climate change is real, it’s here now, it’s getting worse very fast, and the consequences if we don’t fully address it are certain to be utterly catastrophic. People like Al Gore, Bill Gates, and Paul Hawken see how terribly dangerous our situation is, but their proposals fall seriously short of what’s needed if we are to have a viable future. And that’s what makes this stunning and highly readable book by Glen Merzer so incredibly important. There are in fact steps we could take that would defeat climate change and save our world, and Glen makes it clear exactly what they are. This book is an extraordinary antidote to the hopelessness that many of us feel. But more importantly, it may very well present us with the heretofore missing key to solving what is probably the greatest problem ever to confront humanity.”
In this interview, we delve into the two related topics of his latest books to learn about the impacts of what we eat on our personal health and the environment. Long gone are the days where one can claim to be a “meat-eating environmentalist” (this statement has always been a fallacy), and Glen tells us why.