The problem with Sustainability

There's a great article on Change.org about the Sustainability Movement and the problems that the US faces when dealing with it (article is here.) The line that sums it up the best, at least in my opinion is this:

The problem is that in America, we don’t like to eat healthy.

Yep ... you really cant say it any more clearly than that. As a vegetarian, even in the left leaning progressive city of Austin Texas, I'm still in the minority. Everyone from my co-workers, to my boss, to my friends utter things like "but where do you get your protein?" or "but who doesn't like meat?" ... and I have to tell them that it's just not my "thing." My mother was diagnosed with colo/rectal cancer when I was in my mid-twenties and I found out that one in 3 of my relatives over the last few decades had died of some form of cancer. If you've ever known someone with cancer ... well need I say more. I'm not suggesting that meat eating lead to their cancer, but it's been shown that people who consume beef are more prone to developing colo/rectal cancer than people who have more plant based diets. To a young man, that was all I needed to know. I quit eating beef then and there and a few years later, quit eating everything else that was animal based. In a nation where you read things like this:

"The United States places last among 19 countries when it comes to deaths that could have been prevented by access to timely and effective health care, according to new research."

or

"Overweight–obesity (216,000; 188,000–237,000) and physical inactivity (191,000; 164,000–222,000) were each responsible for nearly 1 in 10 deaths. High dietary salt (102,000; 97,000–107,000), low dietary omega-3 fatty acids (84,000; 72,000–96,000), and high dietary trans fatty acids (82,000; 63,000–97,000) were the dietary risks with the largest mortality effects."

Another quote from the article on Change:

"But the truth is that our current system of industrial agriculture is based almost entirely on giving people what they really want: cheap meat, and lots of it. If we were to produce meat on pastures in family farms, a more resource-intensive method, we couldn’t eat as much of it. And asking Americans to sign on to that — even many of the smart-talking foodies who pay lip service to sustainable eating but continue devouring meat daily — is a tall order."

It seems pretty clear to me. We've been shown the way out of this, but it seems that no one wants to hear the voices.