I live full-time in the world of omnivores, and I've never wanted to leave. But the Standard American Diet (yes, it's SAD) got to me as it gets to almost everyone in this country.

Let me pose you a question. Can farm-raised salmon be organic when its feed has nothing to do with its natural diet, even if the feed itself is supposedly organic, and the fish themselves are packed tightly in pens, swimming in their own filth?

I'm not a vegetarian. Now, don't get me wrong - I like animals. And I don't think it's just fine to industrialize their production and to churn them out like they were wrenches. But there's no way to treat animals well when you're killing 10 billion of them a year. Kindness might just be a bit of a red herring. Let's get the numbers of animals we're killing for eating down, and then we'll worry about being nice to the ones that are left.

This evidence is overwhelming at this point. You eat more plants, you eat less other stuff, you live longer.

Our demand for meat, dairy and refined carbohydrates - the world consumes one billion cans or bottles of Coke a day - our demand for these things, not our need, our want - drives us to consume way more calories than are good for us.

If price spikes don't change eating habits, perhaps the combination of deforestation, pollution, climate change, starvation, heart disease and animal cruelty will gradually encourage the simple daily act of eating more plants and fewer animals.

I live full-time in the world of omnivores, and I've never wanted to leave. But the Standard American Diet (yes, it's SAD) got to me as it gets to almost everyone in this country.