John Robbins (author)

{{About|the author and diet advocate|other uses|John Robbins (disambiguation)}}

{{Redirect|Earthsave|the political party|Earthsave (political party)}}

{{Infobox person

| name = John Robbins

| image =

| image_size =

| known_for = Diet for a New America, 1987; Robbins at the Miami Book Fair International, 1991

| birth_date = {{birth date and age|1947|10|26}}

| birth_place = United States

| alma_mater = University of California, Berkeley

| employer =

| occupation = Author

| spouse = Deo

| children = {{ubl|Ocean Robbins}}

| parents = {{ubl|Irv Robbins (father)|Irma Gevurtz (mother)}}

| awards =

| website = {{Official URL}}

}}

John Robbins (born October 26, 1947) is an American author, who popularized the links among nutrition, environmentalism, and animal rights.Burros, Marian (December 2, 1992). "[https://www.nytimes.com/1992/12/02/garden/eating-well.html Eating Well [Biography]]", The New York Times, p. C4. Retrieved May 27, 2010. He is the author of the 1987 Diet for a New America, an exposé on connections between diet, physical health, animal cruelty, and environmentalism. Robbins founded the organization EarthSave in 1988 and co-founded the Food Revolution Network with his son, Ocean, in 2011.

Biography

Robbins is the son of Irma Robbins and Irv Robbins, co-founder and co-owner of Baskin-Robbins. He is of Jewish descent.{{cite news |last1=Robbins |first1=John |title=John Robbins |url=https://www.johnrobbins.info/about-ocean/my-learning-journey-by-ocean-robbins/}} John graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1969, and received a master's degree from Antioch College, in 1976. Rather than following the ice-cream parlor legacy of his father, he left the company to seek a simpler life. He and his wife Deo were married on March 10, 1967.{{cite book | last = Robbins | first = John | title = The Food Revolution: How Your Diet Can Help Save Your Life and Our World | publisher = Conari Press | year = 2001 | isbn = 1-57324-702-2 | url-access = registration | url = https://archive.org/details/foodrevolutionho0000robb }} Ocean Robbins, their son, is the founder of Food Revolution Network.{{cite web | url=https://www.oceanrobbins.com/ | title=Ocean Robbins | accessdate=August 3, 2017}}

In 1987 Diet for a New America was published. In the book Robbins links the impacts of factory farming on human health, the environment, and animal welfare, to make a case for a plant-based diet. A year later he founded EarthSave (see below).

In 2001, Robbins updated and reiterated his advocacy of whole foods, plant-based diet for ethical, environmental and health reasons in the book The Food Revolution. The book includes information on organic food, genetically modified food, and factory farming.

He worked with PETA in 2002 to sue the California Milk Advisory Board over its 'happy cows' television advertisement. The Milk Advisory Board won on a technicality.{{Cite web |url=http://marketing-case-studies.blogspot.co.uk/2008/04/happy-cows-campaign.html |title=HAPPY COWS CAMPAIGN|date=April 21, 2008 }}

His 2006 book Healthy at 100, published by Random House, was printed on 100% post-consumer non-chlorine bleached paper, a first for a book from a major U.S. publisher.

Robbins is also on the advisory board of Naked Food Magazine, for which he is also a regular contributor of articles espousing a plant-based diet.

EarthSave

In 1988, Robbins founded EarthSave, an international, non-profit organization. The organization was born to channel the reader response to his Diet for a New America.{{cite web |title=Frequently Asked Questions |url=https://www.earthsave.org/faq1.html |website=EarthSave |access-date=January 14, 2022 |quote=The EarthSave Foundation was founded in 1988 by celebrated author John Robbins. EarthSave was the direct result of the overwhelming reader response to the 1987 publication Diet for a New America.}} EarthSave did outreach to the non-vegetarian public, with information tables and vegetarian social activities such as vegetarian Thanksgiving potlucks, and activism on vegetarian, animal, and food system issues.{{cite news |last1=Boyer |first1=Edward J. |last2=Connell |first2=Rich |title=Southland, and Even 2 Turkeys, Give Thanks Holiday: Annual vegetarian event has live birds as guests. Elsewhere, observances are more conventional. |work=Los Angeles Times |date=25 Nov 1994 |page=1}}

EarthSave sponsored a youth-outreach group, YES (Youth for Environmental Sanity), which toured the country visiting high schools and raising awareness of the EarthSave message.{{cite news |last1=Burros |first1=Marian |title=Eating Well: A vegetarian future? It could come. |url=https://www.proquest.com/docview/108872361/ |access-date=30 January 2022 |work=New York Times |date=8 July 1992 |page=C3}}

EarthSave continues to promote healthy, environmentally sound food choices. As of January 2022, its head office is in Chatsworth, California.{{cite web |title=Contact Us |url=https://www.earthsave.org/contact1.html |website=EarthSave |access-date=January 14, 2022}}

Earthsave Canada was established as a registered non-profit charity in British Columbia in March 1990.

Books

Diet for a New America: How Your Food Choices Affect Your Health, Happiness and the Future of Life on Earth, (1987). {{ISBN|978-0915811816}}
May All Be Fed: Diet For a New World, (1992).
Reclaiming Our Health: Exploding the Medical Myth and Embracing the Source of True Healing, (1996).
The Awakened Heart: Meditations on Finding Harmony in a Changing World, 1997.
The Food Revolution: How Your Diet Can Help Save Your Life and Our World, 2001.
Healthy at 100: The Scientifically Proven Secrets of the World’s Healthiest and Longest-Lived Peoples, 2006.
The New Good Life: Living Better Than Ever in an Age of Less, (2010), Ballantine Books, 304 pages ({{ISBN|978-0345519849}}).
No Happy Cows: Dispatches from the Frontlines of the Food Revolution, 2012.
Voices of the Food Revolution: You Can Heal Your Body and Your World with Food!, (May 6, 2013)

Films

Diet for a New America (1991) featuring Michael Klaper, T. Colin Campbell, and John A. McDougall
Super Size Me (2004) by Morgan Spurlock has a short interview with Robbins.{{Cite web|url=http://www.healthyat100.org/display.asp?catid=2&pageid=26|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20080416101200/http://www.healthyat100.org/display.asp?catid=2&pageid=26|url-status=dead |title=Responses to Healthy at 100 – Healthy at 100 ::: by John Robbins|archivedate=April 16, 2008}}
Love Over Money, a 2023 documentary about Robbins' life story[https://www.imdb.com/title/tt275 Unknown]{{Dead link | date=March 2025 | fix-attempted=yes}}{{cite web | url=https://ir.gaia.com/news-events/press-releases/detail/345/new-documentary-produced-by-joaquin-phoenix-now-available | title=New Documentary Produced by Joaquin Phoenix Now Available Exclusively on Gaia, "Love over Money" | date=June 6, 2024 }}

References

{{Reflist|refs=

{{cite news|last1=Sherman|first1=Mark|title=Activists Decry 'Happy Cows' Ads|url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2002-dec-13-fi-cows13-story.html|newspaper=LA Times|access-date=7 June 2014|date=December 13, 2002}}

{{cite web|title=About|url=http://earthsave.ca/about|publisher=EarthSave CA|accessdate=7 June 2014}}

}}