One of my favorite old movies is The Day The Earth Stood Still, where an alien man came to warn us of annihilation if we didn’t change our ways. And, of course, we didn’t change our ways, because it was just a movie and there were no alien beings to destroy us.

Now the alien beings have arrived in the form of COVID-19 – because we didn’t listen and we didn’t change our ways.

When I read Silent Spring by Rachel Carson, 58 years ago, I knew she was right that something like COVID-19 would happen if we kept destroying the planet with what agriculture and the food industry are doing. That’s when I threw everything out of my kitchen and started to eat only organic foods, shopping only at the one tiny health food store in Los Angeles at that time.

Now here we are with tons of theories about why this is happening, but to me, it’s really no mystery.

Mother Earth is angry at what we have been doing to her soil, her water, her air, her animals, and her oceans. Do you know that over 50% of climate change is due to Big Agriculture, Big Seed, Big Fertilizer, Big Insecticides, Big Processed Food – twice the effect of the top three oil companies?

Do you know that the reason blacks and Hispanics are the biggest populations that are getting sick and dying is because the processed food companies advertise their crap food directly to the poorer sections of our society, including children, and many of these people don’t even have access to healthy foods? Do you know that our government subsidizes these companies while making it almost impossible for smaller regenerative farmers to make a living?

This breaks my heart. I start to cry just thinking about it. I read an article on the four major reasons blacks and Hispanics are getting hit so hard and food wasn’t even mentioned. It was mentioned that these populations are vulnerable due to heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes and cancer, but they didn’t link it to the JUNK FOOD that is constantly offered to them and that is all they can afford. The reason it’s so cheap is because our taxes subsidize these big corporations – the very ones who are banking trillions on the backs of people who can’t afford healthy food. It should be the opposite – healthy food should be inexpensive and easy to purchase. Junk food should be expensive!

It’s time for us to open our eyes and see what’s really happening on our planet.

It will keep happening if we, each of us, don’t start to exert our influence by not purchasing junk food, and by voting to elect people who care about our planet.

If you really want to understand this pandemic and do something to prevent it from happening again, read Dr. Mark Hyman’s book, Food Fix, and join some of the many organizations he mentions in the book. His research and statistics back up everything I’m saying here.

It is the responsibility of each of us to create a healthy immune system so that when these things happen, even if we do get sick, our body can fight it off. We each have the power to do this, which will not only help each of us individually, but also help our planet collectively. I encourage all of us to avoid purchasing factory farmed foods, GMO foods, foods sprayed with glyphosate and other pesticides, foods with industrial seed oils, and foods with sugar and wheat (all wheat has been genetically modified, which is why it has ‘super gluten’).

We are the ones who can save our planet by learning to take responsibility for our own health and well being. Let’s take steps to do it.