Healthier Body, Healthier Society

Bill Brown ... Xiamen University
Note: I was asked to give a talk in a Xiamen church "English Corner" about why I am against smoking, and why I'm vegetarian--so this is what I've prepared. I don't "preach" vegetarianism, but since they asked, here's my answer. If you're a die-hard carnivore who views vegetarians as New Age lotus-worshippers (I'm not one), you may not find today's noodles to your taste, but right or wrong, it's my take--for today at least! Hopefully each day I learn a little more. Bill

Deng Xiaoping said "Some will get rich first," which makes sense. He also said, "Poverty is not Socialism," meaning that there is not much point to Socialism if everyone is equally poor. But ironically, today it is the world's most capitalist couple, Bill and Melinda Gates, that is attempting the very Socialist goal of ending poverty and world hunger. Some say the Gates have a good chance of succeeding because they are as careful at giving away money as they are at earning it. They give only where their "investment" earns a compound return in saving the lives of those who are usually ignored and neglected. For example, they won't fund art foundations, or give to heart disease research (which rich nations and rich people are motivated to fund), but over recent years they've immunized over 200 million children against Hepatitis B and yellow fever.

We "Ordinary Rich"'s Role I admire the Gates' goals, but their foundation is the catalyst, not the cure. World hunger and poverty cannot be vanquished from the top down, even with the most massive infusions of strategic investments. The end of poverty will also require changed attitudes and actions on the part of us "ordinary rich" further down the rung.

I say "ordinary rich" because we are, relatively speaking, wealthier than any other generation in history, in spite of current economic woes. We have food, clothing and housing, and live in a country that has peace and stability--which is rare in today's increasingly chaotic world. And it will be the daily decisions of "ordinary rich" people like us that will determine whether we can ever end poverty and hunger.

Of course, some blame the poor for being lazy, and others quote Christ's words, "The poor you have always" (Mark 14:7) as an excuse to do nothing. But Jesus was not condoning poverty, only admitting its existence. As in the rest of the Bible, a consistent theme of Jesus' message was that God seeks not religion and piety but practical love--to "love God, and our neighbor as ourself." Jesus repeatedly emphasized both helping the poor and wisely stewarding our wealth--and as the Gates' example shows, these two must go hand in hand. We can neither ignore the poor, nor can we just blindly throw money at them.

So how can you and I, the "ordinary rich," help end poverty? Our family tried to make some difference by moving to a developing country, China, in 1988--but you don't have to make such a drastic decision to make a difference. There are many practical ways that, each day of our lives, we can help the poor and ourselves at the same time. Below are a few that are important to me.

I. Stop smoking. In the 1700s, China's Emperor fought the use of tobacco as vigorously, and futilely, as he fought opium a century later. Morse wrote that the "American narcotic" tobacco came into China through Amoy in 1620, and that opium then came through it, and tobacco was as hard to stop as opium because, like all such drugs, it was so profitable once smokers were addicted to it. An American tobacco salesman in Xiamen in the 1920s complained that he had to force cigarettes on Chinese, and even teach the "ungrateful" peasants how to smoke. Today, China has more smokers than America has people, and China promotes this new opium as is its biggest source of revenue, ignoring the cost in health and lives lost to tobacco-related illness and death.

When I was in high school I was publicity chairman for the Florida Mid-State Lung Association, and I campaigned against smoking because I knew its effects first hand. My father smoked for over 50 years, from age 8. He finally quit in his 50s, but still died from painful lung cancer. Today, deadly tobacco is still sold legally in America and China because these drug-dealers' immense profits enable them to keep law-makers on their side.

As smoking in Western countries declines, tobacco companies are literally forcing tobacco on developing countries, which will consume 71% of the world's tobacco by 2010. One in 8 trees is used for tobacco production--700 million annually. Tobacco accounts for 40% of deforestation in some countries such as South Korea and Uruguay. In Malawi, only 3% of farmers grow tobacco but almost 80% of felled trees are used to cure tobacco. A decade ago, the Yale University School of Medicine showed that if tobacco farmers grew food instead, they could feed up to 2/3 of the world's undernourished people.

Why should you line the pockets of the tobacco industry and contribute towards hunger? If you smoke, do yourself and your loved ones a favor and stop. It will save your health, your money, and your conscience.

II. Go Veggie. I am not religiously vegetarian, but by and large I avoid meat because veggie cuisine can be healthier, cheaper, tastier, and easier on the land.

1. Veggie is Healthier. My mother-in-law's doctor was shocked when her cholesterol dropped from 250 to 180 in just a few months. While meds had not helped her, following our lead and going vegetarian did.

Many oppose vegetarianism, of course. Meat eaters and meat producers claim we need meat for energy, protein and general health, but this is not true, as proven by the dozens of vegetarian medal-winning Olympic athletes. Carl Lewis, who won ten Olympic medals, including nine golds, said, "most athletes have the worst diet in the world and compete in spite of it."

2. Veggie is Cheaper. Even the most expensive fruits, vegetables, and vegetable proteins are cheaper than meat, so vegetarians can afford to enjoy exotic produce that are unaffordable if you spent half your budget on meat.

3. Veggie is Tastier. Granted, meat can be tasty (if you're used to it), but it sits heavy on the stomach, and emits toxins in the intestines over the several days that it takes to rot and make its inglorious exit. Finely prepared vegetables and veggie-protein dishes, however, are not only tasty and please the sensitized palate but leave one feeling better after the meal than before it. And for those who still enjoy the taste or texture of meat, there are many kinds of tasty, high-protein veggie-meats and cheeses, all made from soybeans, which are easier on the land than grazing cattle.

4. Easier on the land. I was amused by an advertisement urging people to help donate money to send cattle to the poor so they could live a "quality" life. The advertisement was, not surprisingly, funded by Texas ranchers, who claimed beef would end hunder. In reality, fast food chains pushing beef are partly behind the world's increased meat consumption and the destruction of millions of square miles of farming land and rain forests. In just one summer (May to August 2005), Brazil alone lost over 132,000 km2 of forest--the size of Greece!

Almost 1 billion tons yearly of grain is used to produce beef protein, which requires 40 times more fossil fuel than soy protein to produce. It takes over ten times as much land to feed a meat eater as a vegetarian.

Reduce Waste. A third way we "ordinary rich" can help fight poverty is to reduce waste. Of course, this is not popular today when our nations think the approach to so-called economic prosperity is to spend more, not less, to waste more, not less. But our waste of resources and destruction of environment in our blind drive for "growth" is short-sighted and, in the end, terminal. I don't have any better answers than anyone else, but the Bible says to use common sense, to steward well what we have, and to avoid waste so we have more to share with others.

In closing, we may not have billions to throw at poverty like Bill and Melinda Gates, but if we "ordinary rich" change our attitudes and our actions, we too can help alleviate injustice and poverty. True, it may be that the poor will still be "with us always"--but at least we will be part of the solution and not part of the problem. And, happily, the Bible says that when we give to the poor, we give to God. It also says that we cannot outgive God, and that if we give to him, he will give to us richly.

"Give, and it shall be given unto you." Luke 6:38

Suggested reading: "Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger: Moving from Affluence to Generosity," by Ronald Sider, Thomas Nelson, 2006. This excellent book shows that both Conservatives and Liberals see only part of the picture, and gives practical suggestions on how we can help alleviate the plight of the poor-such as the 34,000 children who die daily of starvation and preventable diseases. Sider makes the interesting point that in our theology we are orthodox but by our actions we are heretics! Detractors argue that Sider is liberal or, worse, Socialist, but his book is much more complex than that. He supports Capitalism--but a capitalism with a conscience. I don't think you can objectively and prayerfully read his book without making a committment being part of change.

Notes about ancient Chinese prohibitions against tobacco: "Opium smoking came in through tobacco smoking....Through the Philippines the American narcotic, tobacco, was introduced at Amoy, and thence to Formosa...the year 1620 is given as the date of the introduction, about the time of the "Counterblaste to Tobacco" of King James the Sixth of Scotland and First of England. The Chinese Emperors were animated by the same feelings as King James, and the last of the Ming Emperors (1628-1644) prohibited tobacco smoking in his dominions. The first of the Manchu Emperors [wrote in 1641]: "To smoke tobacco is a fault...As to the prohibition of tobacco smoking, it became impossible to maintain it because you princes and others smoked privately, though not publicly." Morse, Trade and Administration in China, London, 1919, p. 335

Excerpts from "Gates of Heaven", Michael Specter, Vogue, March 2009.

"but the philanthropy’s true power lies in its willingness to apply the merciless principles of the business world to charity. If they can’t see how a project can eventually help solve one of the world’s most pressing problems, they won’t pay for it. “At the end of the day, Bill and Melinda care more about results than about feeling warm or fuzzy,” says Anthony S. Fauci, M.D., the director of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases. “They are perfectly willing to gamble on a project, even if it ultimately fails. But they are not willing to give up on something they care deeply about.”

"There won’t be any Gates Foundation grants for National Public Radio or the Metropolitan Opera. (For that matter, the foundation does not fund research into heart disease, diabetes, or many types of cancer, either, despite the fact that those diseases kill millions of people in the developing world. They also happen to kill millions of people in the developed world, and that means governments and pharmaceutical companies have all the incentive they need to address them.) Instead, Bill and Melinda Gates focus on problems that nobody else seems to care about."
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