In 2020, our popular mini-series “Putting the Planet on a Pandemic Diet” highlighted the clear connection between our mostly animal-based diets and the raging Pandemic. We featured entrepreneurs, scientists, investors, and activists that promoted delicious, cruelty-free plant, cell, or fermentation-based meat, seafood, dairy, and egg-alternatives. We hoped that these planet and animal-friendly avatars of our favorite foods would allay any objections to adopting a healthier and more sustainable diet. The data suggest that Covid-19 and the Pandemic have been a wake-up call to many, with millions concluding that what we eat can kill us. Lest we forget, this all started because someone in Wuhan, China, ostensibly ate a bat!
There is no question that putting the planet on a pandemic diet will go a very long way in saving us and our beloved planet. However, in 2021 we felt that we needed to expand our brief to cover other aspects of conspicuous consumption if we intend to truly avert converging crises that threaten our survival and that of this planet’s many other inhabitants. We genuinely believe that there are concrete steps we can all take to not only AVERT but REVERSE human-made conditions that are hurtling us towards a possible sixth mass extinction!
In 2021, we want to feature stories that would help us adopt mindful, compassionate, conscious, sustainable, and equitable ways of being. We are concerned that we, as a species, are running out of time. Our impact on the planet, its resources, and its inhabitants have been so severe that if we don’t take immediate and drastic action now, in as little as five years, we will enter a rapid, dramatic, irreversible period of unprecedented decline.
Accordingly, we want to use our platform to advocate and promote Conscious Capitalism, where we are both vigilant and mindful of what we eat and are also more enlightened about the impact of what we wear, use, consume, and discard. Starting this January, we would encourage all of you to try a 100% plant-based diet for a month. Alternatively, or in conjunction with that pledge, we would like you to adopt our Mindful Monday platform at home, school, or work. Inspired in part by movements like Meatless Mondays and Green Monday, we at Pandemic Punditry would like to introduce Mindful Mondays – where for just one day of the week everyone irrespective of their race, ethnicity, religion, national origin, class, and sexual orientation makes conscious and mindful decisions regarding their daily consumption!
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