PRO CONNECT
Jonathan Spitz is an environmental and animal rights activist. In 1990, after reading Diet for a New America by John Robbins, he realized that humans lacked the anatomy or physiology of apex predators and our true role in a sustainable ecosystem is as a plant-eating species. With this new understanding of the human place on the food chain, at the age of thirty-seven he adopted a plant-based vegan diet and began defending the rights of all animals to live free from human exploitation.
Through the 1990s, he served on the Board of Directors of the Willits Environmental Center to thwart the relentless destructive forces of local economic development. In the 2000s and 2010s, he authored an op/ed column, Connecting…the…Dots, that focused on environmental and animal rights issues for his hometown newspaper, The Mendocino County Observer.
For thirty years, Jonathan kept abreast of the most current studies on the complex relationship between the human diet and the Earth’s ecosystems. When he realized there were no books in the ecological canon telling the story of how humans evolved from an obscure herbivorous species to become the world’s most populous carnivorous apex predator species, and how this change in human diet has led to epidemics of chronic degenerative disease, runaway climate change and mass species extinction, he decided to write it himself.
Jonathan has lived in Mendocino County on California’s North Coast since the 1980s.
“A compelling primer on the benefits of an herbivorous diet for health and a stable planetary ecosystem.”
– Kirkus Reviews
Spitz's guide promotes a vegan lifestyle for both personal well-being and environmental sustainability.
The author, a septuagenarian environmental and animal rights activist, channels his passion for good health and a better world into this comprehensive study of the negative impacts of animal-based food sources. Split into seven sections and written from a variety of anthropological perspectives, the book outlines the origins of human consumption patterns and their evolution and adaptation across centuries (a section on the domestication of fruits, nuts, vegetables, and animals is particularly fascinating). Spitz ambitiously bolsters his viewpoint with history-supported hypotheses on how civilizations prospered through the popularity of agriculture, the exchange of fibrous plants and germination efforts across Old and New World cultures, and the ill effects of the human exploitation of animals as an increasingly popular food source, replacing the starchy vegetable diet enjoyed prior to the mid-19th century. His appeal for change stems directly from the numerous ways animal agriculture has become detrimental to both human vitality and the environment; the author points to studies concluding that human nutritional needs can be efficiently met with plant-based vegan nourishment “using a fraction of the land, water and energy resources it takes to provide an animal-based diet.” Spitz’s argument against the “global appetite for meat, dairy and eggs” is compelling as he discusses how livestock processing and production have had devastating environmental impacts on greenhouse gasses and runaway climate change across the globe. A final section details what the author considers “the optimal human diet.” Spitz references a convincing combination of data analysis, expansive anthropological research, and nutritional science studies that might prove too academically dense for lay readers seeking a more simplistic summary. Still, his approach remains applicably inclusive as he places responsibility directly on the reader to initiate dietary modifications. Having reached his 70s, the author is grateful for his thriving lifestyle; noting that the men in his family tend to die young, Spitz attributes his longevity to a healthful vegan mindset.
A compelling primer on the benefits of an herbivorous diet for health and a stable planetary ecosystem.
Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2023
ISBN: 9781662932885
Page count: 510pp
Publisher: 6th Sense Press
Review Posted Online: March 5, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2024
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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