To clarify, 4Leaf eating means deriving over 80% of my daily calories from whole plants. 4Minutes is the time it takes to prepare each of my three daily 4Leaf meals. 4Bucks is the maximum amount that I spend for the ingredients in each of those meals.

The slide below is from my latest Zoom presentation that clearly defines what 4Leaf means. The four levels of 4Leaf are illustrated below -- ranging from 20% of calories derived from whole plants to over 80%.

In addition to these 4Leaf levels of eating, there are two categories below the 1Leaf level. We call those two levels of eating: "Better than Most" and "Unhealthful Diet."

Let's take the "Unhealthful Diet" level first. Sadly, we estimate that 60% of Americans are deriving less than 10% of their calories from whole plants.

The last remaining level is what we call "Better than Most." It's the 30% of the Americans who are deriving between 11% and 20% of their calories from whole plants, which is roughly twice as healthy as the "Unhealthful Diet" that most Americans are eating.

Further, we estimate that in 2023, less than 1% of the people in the USA, and the rest of the developed world, are eating at the 4Leaf level -- with more than 80% of their daily calories being derived from whole, plant-based foods.

Want to take our survey? On this one-page 4Leaf Survey, you can see exactly how many points are associated with your answers to the twelve multiple-choice questions.

Alternatively, by clicking the image below, you can take the survey online in less than two minutes.

Lots of people make resolutions in January. Common resolutions are to lose weight, eat better and to exercise more regularly in the New Year.

A recent study concluded that most resolutions would be abandoned by January 19. That's two days from now.

If your resolution this year was to eat better and lose weight, the contents of this SOS Memo may be helpful.

After taking the survey, click here to check out the one-page report for your estimated 4Leaf level.

What about the cost of healthy eating? Most people think it costs more money and is a lot more work to eat truly health-promoting meals.

On both counts, it does not. It just takes a little planning -- along with some strategic grocery shopping -- and coupled with a regimen that produces 4Leaf meals in 4Minutes.

For the last few years, I have included the above slide in my standard presentations. It helps me explain my 4Leaf way of eating along with this simple recommendation:

The key word is PLAN. In the slide above, most of the images are foods whose calories are 100% whole plants.

The exceptions are the Riced Cauliflower Bowl in the blue package and the Japanese Style Fried Rice in the bottom right corner. I use these two items primarily for adding more flavor and variety to my routine meals that derive over half of their calories from whole grains, potatoes and/or legumes.

As for meal planning, most of the world's humans (including over 90% of the physicians & nutritionists) think we truly need to eat some form of animal protein.

Homo sapiens never did "need" to eat animal protein; we just started eating whatever we could find whenever there were no plants to eat. Then a few hundred thousand years passed...

Now, we think it's what we are supposed to eat. Wrong. Three reasons: Our hands, teeth and intestines.

Nowadays, It's near impossible to find a meal planning photo without foods from the mighty animal agriculture industry -- the leading driver of climate change by a huge margin.

Can you find the meat, dairy, egg and seafood in this photo?

My routine meals at home consist of breakfast, lunch and dinner -- and cost less than 4Bucks each. In spite of the ultra-affordable cost, my three daily meals deliver a healthy bargain in three categories:

As for animal-based foods, there are none in my fridge or in my cupboard. I may inadvertently eat a few bites of those kinds of foods, but I never buy any of them. If guests request them, it provides me with an opportunity to help enlighten them regarding the near magical powers of 4Leaf eating.

Am I a vegan? In a literal sense, I don't consider myself vegan, a term that doesn't necessarily describe a health-promoting diet. After all, you could eat nothing but Diet Coke and potato chips and call yourself vegan and you'd be a dead vegan in one or two months.

Healthy eating is all about what you DO eat, not what you're avoiding. 4Leaf is all about eating mostly whole, plant-based foods: fruits, veggies, legumes, grains, nuts and seeds.

So, if I occasionally eat a dessert with some dairy or egg in it while a guest in someone's home, I am technically not a vegan, and I'm not worried about that.

Now, let's take a closer look at my primary "go-to" meals that comprise over 90% of the meals that I consume in the home.

Growing up on a small farm in Mississippi, my father made sure that we five children began every day with a hearty and "healthy" breakfast -- that was comprised of eggs, bacon, frozen orange juice, a glass of cow's milk and oatmeal, a product of the Quaker Oats Company, where Daddy managed a grain processing facility and was a sales representative for most of his career.

During my early youth, we had lots laying hens, pigs and dairy cows on our property. Dad truly believed that his five kids were eating the best possible diet for humans.

But, just before he died at the age of 91, he confessed that he had been wrong all those years -- and that my newfound choices of plant-based eating was the right way to go.

In true form, he had always prided himself on being flexible when it came to changing his opinions as new, compelling evidence emerged.

My breakfast now. My shift to 100% plant-based eating began in January of 2003, when whole grain oatmeal with lots of raw fruit became my favorite meal of the day -- and the easiest to prepare, with no cooking needed.

Knowing that fasting is good for the body, I eat my "break-fast" at 9 or 10 am. Then, my largest meal of the day is lunch, that I eat around 1 or 2 pm. With my evening meal around 6:30, this routine gives me a good fifteen hours of fasting between my evening meal and breakfast.

This is a photo of a recent breakfast just before I sliced the fruit.

This picture features whole grain oatmeal from Trader Joe's -- along with banana, apple and Pomelo.

Here's my super easy recipe that takes less than 4 minutes to prepare.

One final note about breakfast. I have always thoroughly enjoyed my 100% whole, plant-based breakfasts -- but, after twenty years of eating this way, I find that I am now truly craving these meals more than ever -- as I genuinely savor every bite.

You are probably wondering why I would want to eat the same meal for lunch AND dinner?

For the same reason that I eat the same breakfast every day. I absolutely LOVE my go-to lunch or dinner and find ways to spice up both meals with various restaurant left-overs from time to time and a variety of veggies depending on season.

Here's my super easy recipe that takes less than 4 minutes to prepare. Sometimes, I pre-cut my veggies which enables me to have that meal ready to eat in less than three minutes.

As with my breakfast, I only need one piece of flatware to enjoy this meal. A fork.

Ingredients: 3 or 4 fresh vegetables that I pre-cut into bite-size pieces shortly after bringing them home. Among my favorites are broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, carrots, edamame beans and spinach.

Providing most of the calories is the cooked brown rice that I buy frozen from Trader Joe's. Finally, I enjoy small portions of Riced Cauliflower Bowl and Frozen Japanese Fried Rice for seasoning and variety (also from Trader Joe's)

Finally, I add a little whole wheat bread and hummus on the side of the plate and I am ready to eat. Normally, the whole process takes less than four minutes.

Here's what this great meal looks like on a piece of fine china:

Seasonings. Until I find something better, I will keep using Bragg Liquid Aminos and Nutritional Yeast Seasoning that are pictured above.

Like I said about my go-to breakfast, I never get tired of my routine meals that I usually eat for lunch and/or dinner. I sometimes spice up both of these meals with leftovers from a restaurant or from other meals.

An added feature of the J. Morris Hicks method of meal prep is that clean-up consists of rinsing my dirty plate and fork with hot water and placing them on the drying rack next to the sink.

After you've made a plan; it's time to go shopping for ONLY foods that are in your plan. For me, that means a weekly trip to Trader Joe's (home of the 19-cent banana), the local food co-op or the Big Y. In either store, I know exactly what I plan to buy without looking at a list and am usually in and out of the store in ten minutes.

At 19 cents, one of TJ's bananas provides a key ingredient for two or three of my 4Leaf breakfasts -- adding less than ten cents to the price of each meal.

My rule is that I only buy what is in my meal plan and that plan, which rarely changes, is in my head.

I never buy stuff that I think I might need someday. My shopping/eating regimen means far less trash & spoiled food in a world where hundreds of millions of children are starving. Just found this dismal statistic online:

As I type this sentence right now, it is 9:15 in the morning. After I take my shower in a few minutes, my breakfast will be ready to eat by 9:35.

In closing, although I have been eating 4Leaf for twenty years, I have not always prepared most of my meals at home. Now that going out is just an occasional treat, the vast majority of my calories are derived from my three go-to meals described above.

Here's our gift to help you in your journey: our 2015 book:

The 4Leaf Guide was co-authored by a family physician.

To read it now, click FREE 4Leaf Guide.

For much more information about healthy eating, visit our 4leafprogram.com website by clicking the image below.

I consider myself lucky to have stumbled upon the magic of plant-based eating twenty years ago. It literally changed my life.

My body has rewarded me in many ways since I stopped going out to dinner seven nights a week. Even the best restaurants use too much oil and encourage the consumption of too much liquor, wine, bread and/or desserts, none of which are whole plants.

As for the weight-loss scoreboard, when I switched to 100% plant-based eating in 2003, my body rewarded me quickly by shedding an unneeded twenty pounds -- from 180 to 160 in just a few months. I didn't even know I was overweight.

My weight stayed around 160 for about ten years. Then, in 2013, I stopped going out to dinner every night as I went from once-a-day restaurant meals to once a week.

Getting rid of six restaurant meals a week has rewarded me in three ways:

Don't worry, I'm fully vaxxed now, but I would wager that if everyone in the world had been eating 4Leaf in 2019, the pandemic in 2020-21 would have been a non-event. Dr. T. Colin Campbell of Cornell agrees.

One more thing about 4Leaf. Everything on our website has been offered free to the world public since the beginning. As for revenue-generating entities, such as physicians or businesses, there is a modest annual royalty.

We currently have licensees in the USA, England, Ireland, Australia & New Zealand. History of 4Leaf.

Not only will such a move save millions of lives, it will prevent widespread suffering all over the world. It will also promote a shift away from eating animal-based foods -- a move that will move the needle in the right direction re climate change.

Most people think that it is very expensive to eat a health-promoting, disease-reversing plant-based diet. It is NOT! While writing this SOS Memo, I kept thinking about the billions of people in the world who are suffering from malnutrition and what can be done to help them.

One thing we can do is promote the fact that a very healthy way of eating can cost far less than the ten bucks a day.

Are you among the rare group of humans who are taking the direct connection between food choices, your own health and climate change seriously? If so, I would love to collaborate with you. Contact me and tell me your story: jmorrishicks@me.com.

Here are handy links to my five most-recent SOS Memos (in chronological order) on this same theme. It's always the same theme...as long as our children's futures are in peril.

Also, scroll on down to the Big Picture Documents and Video Section where you will find links to a plethora of references regarding the validity and the urgency of the information contained herein.

Here is the first book we are now offering FREE to the world public: a quick and easy read that I published with Stuart Scott in 2020. Just click below for individual links to every chapter.

To our knowledge, OUTCRY is the only book ever published that features a summary of "outcries" from the natural world, along with consensus conclusions of nine big picture scientists regarding our dilemma — AND an envisioned sustainable civilization of the future, using today’s technology.

We also call this book the "User's Guide for Planet Earth." In mid 2022, we began giving this book away free of charge.

We are giving it away because of this troubling fact that was stated by Jeremy Rifkin early in this recent 15-minute video:

"the most important info in all of humanity

We're talking about the crucial information regarding how we can possibly slow or stop climate change within a few years.

Want to help relieve the desperate situation in which we find ourselves, read OUTCRY as soon as you can and send it to everyone you know. Just click on the book cover above.

Here is the 2nd book that is now free: a quick and easy read that I wrote with Dr. Kerry Graff in 2015.

We want everyone to completely eliminate all animal-based foods from their diet. Yes, that includes cheese, eggs and all forms of seafood. 

It is #193 on this list of all of my SOS Memos.

Don't have time to watch the entire Honolulu video? Click here to view all 60 slides in that talk

jmorrishicks@me.com 

For a concise summary of "big picture" information about our situation, take a look at the landing page of my primary website that I recently updated. Just click hpjmh.com

We're talking about replacing it with an entirely new, ultra-green civilization of the future -- and we do our best to paint a picture of that envisioned way of sustainable living in OUTCRY. For what one Ohio State professor emeritus of history had to say about that book on Amazon, click here.

Also in 2022. A conversation with our creator after a 50,000 year absence.

And Mama ain't happy. A very revealing and entertaining 15-minute video. Watch it and share it with everyone you know.

In 2014, Kip Andersen and Keegan Kuhn produced their first documentary film Cowspiracy. Executive producer is Leonardo DiCaprio, it runs 90 minutes and has been on Netflix since 2015. In 2020, I met Kip and Keegan in Sedona where I was honored to be able to speak at the same conference with them and other great leaders in this movement like Dr. Sailesh Rao and Dr. Michael Greger.

Also on Netflix, Kip and Keegan teamed up again in 2017 to produce What the Health, which is also on Netflix. It runs 92 minutes and may be the best documentary ever that focuses on the health reasons for choosing to eat plant-based. Click here to watch the short trailer. You can also watch the full movie for free on Vimeo.

In 2021, Kip Anderson teamed up with British filmmaker Ali Tabrizi, to produce Seaspiracy, an 89-minute film that vividly and alarmingly reveals what is at stake when it comes to the crucial importance of our oceans to our future as a species. Most people have no idea regarding the environmental horrors of commercial fishing -- a disgusting industry that kills dolphins by the thousands and tosses them back into the ocean. It runs 90 minutes on Netflix. Click here to view the trailer.

As our situation becomes more desperate, the documentary films become more terrifying. As alluded to earlier, we are literally Eating Our Way to Extinction, a process that is vividly covered in this 2021 film (81 minutes). Narrated and produced by Kate Winslet, you can watch this great film on Amazon Prime or on YouTube for $3.99. The great ocean scientist and former head of NOAA, Dr. Sylvia Earle lends powerful credibility to such a crucial topic.

The film uncovers alarming information about the environmental and health impacts of the industry -- leading up to the discovery that we are on the edge of the biggest global disruption of food and agriculture in history. This new film is now available for $2.99 on Vimeo.

This 83-minute documentary is all about the findings that were documented in Dr. Stephen Emmott's 2013 book. TEN BILLION.

Finally, this half-hour video was published in November of 2021. It was produced by Michael Dowd, a non-scientific researcher like me who does a very fine job of explaining the many facets of the obstacles standing between us and our survival as a species.

I am confident that if a few million people carefully read and digested this book that there would be a more robust conversation around the world regarding our grossly unsustainable way of living in the developed world.

To my knowledge, OUTCRY remains the only book ever published that features an envisioned, totally-green, ultra-sustainable, super-desirable, future way of living for humans -- along with ideas for how we might get there as quickly as possible.

You can join my mailing list and/or find all of my previous postings by visiting the SOS Memos page on my website. 

Want to see earlier SOS Memos? Click here

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