There is a natural resistance to change, in part due to our sense that things will remain as they have been in the past. This tends to make us complacent.

And, even if we commit to change, there is the sobering reality that when we make changes, we never know how things are going to turn out. So, there is an inclination to continue in the old dispensations.

However, the world is changing, and not in a good way. The planet is warming and becoming more polluted, as is or food supply. Cancer (some forms), obesity, heart disease, and high blood pressure are on the rise. The plethora of material goods available, even to many poor people, can’t be satisfying us, because few people seem to be thriving.

The task before us then appears overwhelming: change our lifestyle: the way foods we eat, the way we transport ourselves and improve our emotional well-being.

However, in this regard, Lake County would be an excellent place to construct a new paradigm.

For example, we could produce organically grown food and sell it to Safeway and Bruno’s Shop Smart and avoid the 1,500-mile trip that our food (if produce, usually insipid), on average, has to take to get to the supermarket.

We could form an organization to facilitate such an effort. This has been done, in a way, by the Cubans after the Russians left them without gas and spare parts for tractors. They planted a lot of gardens and they did it intelligently with the help of ag specialists.

While the rest of the world, especially China, is utilizing bicycles, Lake County remains relatively bicycle unfriendly. There is a lot that could be done in this regard.

I suggest that while these things should be pursued, we should begin with a small but revolutionary step: Eliminate milk from the school menu.

Before you, tune me out as a crank, I want you to read “Anti Cancer, A New Way of Life” by David Servan-Schreiber, MD, PHD, already translated into 35 languages (there are numerous other books and videos on this topic).

Besides the trace elements of pesticides and growth hormones, and the fact that milk contains saturated fats, milk has another, significant problem: The ratio of omega 3 (the good guys) to omega 6 fatty acids (the bad guys) contained in milk, has gone in the wrong direction. This is due to the fact that most cows are not grass fed, but, for economic reasons, are fed grains and other things like corn (this is true for meat from cows as well as milk).  There is much evidence that this ratio, increasingly favoring omega 6, leads to dire health consequences.

So, I suggest that we start with this simple step: Remove milk from schools and replace it with (hopefully organic) soy or rice milk.

Consciousness is beginning to change. For example, I have been staying at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore with my son as he does rehab after surgery. Much of the food here is medically contra-indicated.

I emailed one of the administrators, asking, respectfully, why they are feeding people the same food that put them in here in the first place.

To my surprise, not only was I not dismissed as a nut, but the administrator actually agreed with me, and sent the head of the kitchen to speak with me, and we made some changes on the menu. This was very encouraging. The health and well-being of our children is at stake.

Nelson Strasser lives in Lakeport, Calif.