Comfortably Unaware by Dr. Richard Oppenlander Page B

difficulty I found, then, was how to condense this enormously important subject into a book for the masses that would provide awareness, create intellectual stimulation, and effect positive change. I wrote
Comfortably Unaware
quite carefully, in a way that would present research without seeming too academic, that would relate difficult-to-believe facts without seeming too “in your face,” and at the same time, offering new, challenging perspectives without appearing too theoretical or smug.
    The first two chapters prepare the reader with a definition of
global depletion
as it relates to food, and they provide relevant facts and figures to serve as tools to help with appreciation for the rest of the book.
    Chapters III through VII are devoted to each area of depletion—our air, rainforests, land, water and oceans, and pollution. This separates, in a clear format, each area of our earth that is becoming irreversibly depleted by our food choices.
    Chapters VIII through XI are intellectual in nature but easy to read and compelling. They provide insight on how this crisis happened and how to solve it. These are the chapters that separate
Comfortably Unaware
from all other books, as they provide never-before-seen perspectives about our culture.
    Numerous books have been written about various diets and food as it relates to our health. Many also are now available about global warming and climate change.
Comfortably Unaware
is the first to bring to light the much larger and more insidious issue of global depletion as it relates to food. I have not cut corners or suppressed topics to avoid exposing businesses, institutions, or individuals and I am not concerned whether or not it is a risky business move for me to write this book. I also have not withheld or modified information because it may be difficult for you, the reader, to accept it or because it may be culturally or socially overloading for you.
    So, my agenda is clear: to provide you with complete truth and compel you to understand all the issues of this critical topic. It is my sincere hope that you become more aware of and sensitive to the ubiquitous effect of your food choices and that a positive difference can be made in your life and in the health of our planet and all its inhabitants.

DEFINING GLOBAL DEPLETION AND USE OF THE WORD “SUSTAINABLE”
    Comfortably Unaware
, first and foremost, is a book about sustainability—of our planet, our resources, and ourselves. At the same time, though, it is a book about food choice and responsibility, which are intertwined inextricably with the concept of achieving true sustainability (although “true” or “full” sustainability may be a difficult, if not improbable, state to achieve).
    Global depletion is a term I have used over the years to describe the loss of our primary resources on earth, as well as loss of our own health due to our choice of a certain type of food. Therefore, global depletion essentially is about sustainability, but I feel we need to hear it from a different direction and with a more accurate view, through an unfiltered lens. Most of us have heard about the atrocities of factory farms, the issues with high-fructose corn syrup, and the industrialization or processing of foods with their contribution to obesity—all important topics. But these are simply small fragments of the picture. We need to move beyond that to understand the entire picture by connecting the dots and including our effect on all aspects of global depletion—topics such as loss of biodiversity, world hunger, sustainability of our own health, water scarcity, agricultural land-use inefficiencies and loss of our rainforests, pollution, and the state of our oceans and fish, as well as the effects on climate change. The largest contributing factor to all areas of global depletion is the raising and eating of more than 70 billion animals each year and the extracting of 1–2 trillion fish from