Do you sometimes wonder where it’s all going to end? We are living through some very interesting times indeed. Depending on how you look at it there has never been a more exciting time to be alive. Sure humanity has lived through troubled times before. Civilisations have come and gone. But we’ve never been in a situation like this before where the entirety of human civilisation is at stake.

“We need clean air, we need clean water, we need clean soil and this should be primary imperative of our species. 

We are on a very dangerous course destroying somehow what is the basis of our life as biological creatures” (Stanislav Groff, author of ‘The Holotropic Paradigm Shift’)

Much like when we’re experiencing negative emotions like depression and anxiety, it’s actually our mind telling us that we need to take action. The worst thing we can do is remain passive. The same is true for our situation as a species. Yes, it all might be harrowing to contemplate. We’ve all seen plenty of graphic images on the news about the latest climate induces weather catastrophe. It can seem tempting to borough our heads in the proverbial sand and carry on as if everything is normal.

These words aren’t written do offer up more doom and gloom scenarios. Mainstream media rarely focuses on the positive because tragedy get more eyeballs and is therefore more profitable. But if we dig around a bit on the good ol’ internet, we find that in the world of food there are so many great initiatives happening all over the world instigated by individuals and organisation, who refuse to accept the status quo. Organisations and individuals who are working their tits off to to change the existing paradigm. From small quirky ideas like the carbon capture stove developed by Carbon Farm to major undertakings like Menus for Change.

There’s a lot happening and it’s time for us to get involved! Our individual choices matter.

Most of humanity still lives with a passive consumer mindset which has rendered us all but passive. Most companies still uphold the value that their most important goal is to maximise profit for shareholders in the short-term – regardless of the cost to people and the planet. Big agro still maintains that the only way to provide enough food for humanity is by using methods that kill life in the soil resulting in food that is devoid resulting in food that devoid of nutrition.

Paradigms change when a critical mass of people adopt a new way of looking at the world. Paradigm shifts can take many generations, and are typically fought tooth and claw by the incumbent views. Just think about Galileo Galilei, when he discovered the moons of Jupiter and was able to deduce that it was in fact the earth which revolved around the sun, not the other way around. The Inquisition had him denounce his findings because it threatened the church’s position and its power. It would take another 150 years before Galilei was vindicated and the new heliocentric view was the prevailing paradigm.

Thankfully, in this, the information age, paradigm shifts can happen a lot faster because information can literally be shared at the speed of light. The question is, can we make the all important paradigm shift happen fast enough to save human civilisation. In order to do so we need everyone to take action in whatever form we can. It has to start from the ground up, because we can’t rely on politicians to do the job for us. The regulatory environment will only follow suit once there are votes in doing the right thing.

For instance, the UK government has just announced that it will not make meat reduction a policy despite the fact that overconsumption of meat is one the key reasons why diets now are the direct cause of one in five deaths globally with the UK ranking as number 23 on the same list where the US is number 75. Why? Well because they are in cahoots with the big corporations who use their lobbying power to continue making billions in profit by keeping the system as it is.

Don’t hesitate. Take action in whatever form you can!

• Eat less but better quality animal ingredients (if you don’t feel like going full on vegan.. and we know that most people don’t)

• Cook more of your own meals with pulses, whole grains, seasonal fruit and veg, and seeds and nuts as the foundation

• Support a charity or organisation that resonates with you