GETTING STARTED
WELCOME TO THE GREENPRINT!
You are about to embark on the single greatest action you can take to prevent and reverse disease, a supreme program for rapid, sustainable weight loss and improved health. It will change your life, your body, and the planet, in a revolutionary way. And it all starts with plants.
At its core, the Greenprint is a revolutionary set of laws that have been created using clinical data and years of expertise that will allow you to take control of your health once and for all. As the world becomes more aware of the benefits of plant-based eating than ever before in history,
The Greenprint is more than a book—it is a movement, and you’re about to join.
As an exercise physiologist and the CEO and founder of 22 Days Nutrition, I’ve dedicated my life to helping people live their best lives. This means encouraging people to transition to plant-based eating so they can lose weight, prevent (and in some cases reverse) chronic disease, boost their energy, and transform their health.
Why do I do this? Because I care about you, I care about my children, and I care about their children. I want to see you live your best and healthiest life. You see, in the last hundred years, our diets have radically changed—for the worse. We’ve gone from eating whole foods that nourish and heal the body to eating processed junk that is high in fat, sugar, additives, toxins, and fillers yet lacks vital nutrients. We’ve gone from eating around 100 pounds of meat (which was raised on farms, grass fed, and free from chemicals) each year to, on average, more than 200 pounds, nearly all of it grown on factory farms and pumped full of antibiotics and hormones to satisfy the need for cheap, readily available meat. It’s no wonder that, as a whole, we are the fattest and unhealthiest generation thus far.
And that’s where the Greenprint movement comes in. It offers an extraordinary plan for how to eat to get fit and healthy with foods that are greener for the earth and better for you. What is unique about the Greenprint is that it gives you the essential steps you need to start thriving on plantbased eating and take it as far as you want to go to achieve all your health and weight-loss goals. You will discover the most effective way to transform your body and your life through plant-based eating, one meal at a time. The twenty-two Greenprint laws provide plenty of advice and inspiration, and you can begin to apply them one law at a time.
Along the way, you’ll find a better way of eating and living—and one that significantly contributes to the health and sustainability of the earth. You’ll even be able to see tangible proof that your choices work: I’ll give you a fun and easy tool to calculate your personal impact on the planet. So rest assured, you’re about to go on an amazing journey with me, one that will help you live a longer, better life and make the world more livable for future generations.
Before I elaborate, I bet you’re wondering,
What’s a “greenprint”?A greenprint is a measure of the impact of our food choices on our weight and overall health and on our planet. For example, let’s say you switch to a 100 percent plantbased diet (I hope you do). The impact—
the greenprint—of this change on your health can be measured in years: Studies show that plant-based people, particularly if they don’t smoke and drink only a little, if any, alcohol, live four to seven years longer than people whose diets include animal products. It can also be measured in positive changes in health parameters: lower blood pressure, lower blood lipids, lower blood sugar, and lower weight. With regard to weight, on average, those who consume a plant-based diet are naturally twenty pounds lighter than their meat-eating counterparts.
As for your personal greenprint on the planet, it can be colossal. You can save animals, for example. Those that are raised for human consumption do not have great lives. Even if they are raised organically and free range, they have short lives with not much freedom. If you and your family ditch meat, dairy, and eggs, you can save two hundred animals a year, according to PETA.
From an environmental standpoint, expanding your greenprint through plantbased living saves an amazing amount of energy. We’re all guilty of taking our sources of energy for granted. Just 1 calorie of animal protein requires 8.5 times more energy to raise than 1 calorie of protein from grains—incredible! That’s not even counting how much rain forest is cut down to create grazing land for animals each year.
Here's another way to look at it: The Greenprint is the dietary version of a “carbon footprint”—the impact people and companies have on the environment, in terms of the greenhouse gases they have directly or indirectly caused, measured in units of carbon dioxide. CO2 is a major polluter and dramatically harms our environment by adding to the greenhouse effect and causing global warming. The Greenprint measures how your food choices impact your health as well as clears away your carbon footprint.
By following a plant-based diet, you can reduce your carbon footprint by 1,560 kilograms of carbon dioxide equivalents annually. This is a bigger reduction than if you switched from driving a gas-guzzling SUV to a hybrid-electric Prius.
You can even make a huge impact with the most incremental changes in your diet. Even if you ate one less hamburger a week for one year, this would be the equivalent of driving 320 fewer miles.
So just think of the impact on the environment if everyone in the country cut their meat intake by half and made up the difference with wholesome plant foods, such as whole grains, legumes, vegetables, fruits, nuts, and seeds. That’s why embracing meatless menus can mean a lot to our earth— even if it’s not every meal or every day.
Healthwise, your greenprint has an extraordinary impact on your health. Let me give a rundown of just some of the healthbuilding benefits of plant foods. Research has shown that plant-based eating, and this plan in particular:
• Takes off pounds rapidly and consistently, plus prevents overweight and obesity because plant foods make you feel fuller with fewer calories
• Fights diabetes. One in three Americans now has diabetes or prediabetes, and it’s one of the leading causes of death.
• Keeps your heart healthy by lowering cardiovascular risk factors such as hypertension, clogged arteries, and abnormal clot formation
• Naturally detoxifies your body against cancer-causing agents
• Eases arthritis and joint pain
• Strengthens your immune system so that you rarely become ill
• Boosts your memory and wards off dementia
• Preserves your vision and protects your eyes from cataracts and macular degeneration
• Makes your skin, hair, and nails glow
That’s the power of plants!
Copyright © 2018 by Marco Borges; Introduction by Jay-Z and Beyoncé. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
