An obit to the vegetarian-promoting author of Diet for a New Amer­i­ca. The book came out when I was an very active activist in col­lege. My pri­ma­ry moti­va­tion to become veg­e­tar­i­an was gut lev­el — why kill ani­mals for food when you don’t have to? — but Rob­bin­s’s book gave an intel­lec­tu­al back­bone I found con­vinc­ing and I appre­ci­at­ed learn­ing about the envi­ron­men­tal and health aspects of a veg­e­tar­i­an diet (as I’ve grown old­er, the lat­ter feel even more important).

Great detail at the end:

In the late 1980s, his son said, John Rob­bins rec­on­ciled with his father: Irv Rob­bins, suf­fer­ing from weight issues, heart dis­ease and dia­betes, was giv­en a copy of “Diet for a New Amer­i­ca” by his car­di­ol­o­gist. The doc­tor had no idea that the book had been writ­ten by his patient’s son.

Veg News also has an arti­cle on his life and impact.