Eco-Eating
Eating
as if the
Earth Matters
( it
does! )
Eating meat threatens animal welfare,
personal health,
societal safety, food security,
biodiversity, and environmental sustainability.
The best way for us to personally
protect our world and our health
is to Go Vegetarian... that’s Eco-Eating!
“The most political act we
do on a daily basis is to eat.”
Jules Pretty
“The human appetite for animal flesh
is a driving force behind virtually every major
category of environmental damage
now threatening the human future—
deforestation, erosion, fresh water scarcity, air and water
pollution, climate change, biodiversity loss,
social injustice, the destabilization of communities,
and the spread of disease.”
Editors, World
Watch, July/August
2004
The decision to eat
vegetarian is one of the most vital
ways
we
can help save our health and our environment everyday...
Get
off your good
intentions
and
put your beliefs
into action!
Consider the facts:
7. Factory Farming & Slaughterhouses
26. Violence, Compassion, & Ethics
27. Animals, Intelligence, Emotions, & Rights
28. Vegetarians, Vegans, Flexitarians, & Others
29. Arguments Against Vegetarianism?
• 1. Rainforests:
Eating meat contributes to the destruction of rainforests, often called the “lungs of our planet”
for the way they absorb carbon dioxide and emit oxygen. What we breathe out
(carbon dioxide), trees breathe in; what trees breathe out (oxygen), we breathe
in. We breathe each other into life and we are actively destroying that life
support. Rainforests are the major source of oxygen for the planet; their
survival and our survival are closely linked. Rainforests also provide food and
medicine.
Rainforests are home to about 90% of all plant and animal
species on the planet. The Amazon Rainforest alone holds about 20% of the
world’s fresh water and emits about 20% of the world’s oxygen, possessing
beauty and sequestering carbon. Every year, gigantic amounts of rain forest, including 5000-11000 square miles
[13000-28500 sq. km.] in the Amazon Rainforest, are lost and more than 1,000 plant and animal species that live there become extinct. About 2/3
[60-70%] of that land is currently used for grazing about 165 million
cattle. 1/5 [20%] of the
Amazon Rainforest has already been cleared. An estimated 80% of annual world deforestation is related to animal
agriculture. While some Amazon rainforest in Brazil is also being cut down
for soy fields, much of this (genetically modified) soy is being fed to animals
being raised for meat – an even more inefficient and wasteful use of essential
and irreplaceable rainforest. The meat production-and-consumption cycle is
essentially transforming the world’s precious and mega-biodiverse tropical
rainforests into carbon dioxide and cholesterol, thereby increasing disasters
on both the personal and planetary levels.
Some extremely deadly viral diseases—including Ebola,
Marburg
Hemorrhagic Fever, and AIDS—have
been called the “revenge of the rainforest”, as they have erupted and spread
via the building of roads into forests, paving the way for deforestation and
the hunt for bushmeat, especially
primates, but other amazing animals as well, increasingly threatening many of
these animals with extinction. In stark contrast, about ¼ of medicines,
including those for leukemia, are derived from the rainforests, yet only about
1% of rainforest plant species have been tested for medicinal purposes. We are
uprooting our potential miracle cures through the hamburgerization of our
precious forests.
Further, underwater “forests” of coral reefs and mangroves
are being decimated by “rape-and-run” shrimp farming (exploiting and polluting
coastal communities for 2 to 5 years before abandoning them), commercial fishing, industrial shipping, and other
meat and fish-related mega-activities.
Each vegetarian and vegan
saves more than an acre (0.4 hectares) of trees every year as
well as protecting valuable ecosystems,
saving vanishing species, and
maintaining precious biodiversity.
Your dietary choices make a substantial difference!
“In
mostly for cattle pasture to feed the
export market—often
for
“In a nutshell, cattle
ranchers are making mincemeat out of Brazil’s Amazon rainforests.”
Center
for International Forestry Research
“Raising cattle for beef not only
damages the rainforests in Central and South America,
it also impacts the environment closer
to home.”
Return to the Table of Contents
• 2. Global Warming:
Global
warming is a mega-disaster. We are overheating our
planet to alarming levels with potentially
catastrophic consequences. Eating meat increases global warming, one of the most
dangerous
threats to our planet, at least according to reports by and for Greenpeace, Oxfam, the Union
of Concerned Scientists, the Pentagon, the World Bank, the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change, the World Meteorological Organization, the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment, and a
vast number of other scientists, political economic analysts, and
environmentalists – and there are no
scientific or environmental organizations or any peer-reviewed scientific or environmental articles that dispute
global warming and that humans are causing and contributing to it.
The Pentagon report,
for example, states that climate change in the form of global warming “should
be elevated beyond a scientific debate to a US national security concern”,
higher even than terrorism, warning of riots and declaring that “future wars
will be fought over the issue of survival rather than religion, ideology, or
national honor”. The
Further, the world has seen a melting of the polar ice
caps, glaciers, and permafrost with potentially disastrous consequences for
people, animals, cities, islands, and other coastal communities, as well as
arctic areas, which will likely lead to rising
seas, suffering, death, extinction, and the forced migration of people and
animals. These extreme weather events and other eco-spasms have become more
frequent and are projected to multiply with dire consequences for the world.
Cow
farms produce millions of tons of carbon
dioxide and methane per year, the
two major greenhouse gases which
together account for over 90% of US greenhouse emissions, significantly
contributing to global
scorching (what is euphemistically called global
warming). Methane is less abundant that carbon dioxide, and degrades much
quicker, but is 23 times more potent. Nitrous oxide, another greenhouse gas
that accounts for about 6% of global warming, is about 300 times more potent
that carbon dioxide. Nitrous oxide is emitted from manure and fertilizer. The
effects of the livestock industry on our “warming
globe” are strong, undeniable, and disastrous, and yet the place where
we can have a major and relatively quick impact and do so on the individual
level.
Power production, passenger and other vehicles,
international shipping, militarism (the
Meat eaters
are contributing to global warming, which is “Another Inconvenient Truth”.
It’s Another Inconvenient Truth
that switching to a vegan diet can reduce
greenhouse gas emissions even more than switching to a hybrid car.
Scientific studies (including a major one by the United
Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (UN FAO)) are piling up
showing that what one drives, while quite important, is less significant than
what one eats. The UN FAO report concludes that the meat industry accounts for
nearly one-fifth (18%) of global warming
and is “one of the…most significant contributors to the most serious environmental
problems, at every scale from local to global”. Let’s fight global warming with
our forks, knives, spoons, and chopsticks! Meat
—> heat.
We
need to eat lower on the food chain, which many people are doing, because it
will safeguard our personal health as well as help protect life on Earth.
Vegetarianism is a “global
cooling cuisine” and is the ultimate “low carb(on) diet”. Vegetarians help
keep the planet cool in more
ways than one! Be cool.
“There is a strong link between human diet and methane emissions from
livestock.”
United Nations
Environment Programme, Unit on Climate Change
“Belching, flatulent livestock emit 16% of the world’s annual production of
methane, a powerful greenhouse gas.”
“The animals we eat emit 21% of all the carbon dioxide that can
be attributed to human activity.”
“The single action that a person can take, an
individual can take, to reduce carbon emissions is vegetarianism…
There are many things that people can do to reduce
their carbon emissions, but changing your light bulb and many of the things are
much less effective than changing your
diet,
because if you eat further down on the food chain
rather than animals, which have produced many greenhouse gases, and used much
energy in the process of growing that meat,
you can actually make a bigger contribution in that
way than just about anything. So, that, in terms of individual action, is
perhaps the best thing you can do.”
Dr.
James Hansen, NASA Climatologist
“The entire
meat cycle is very, very intensive, in terms of carbon dioxide emissions.
I would say go
veg, be green and save our planet!”
Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, Chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC),
2007 Nobel Peace Prize winner with Al Gore
Return to the Table of Contents
• 3. Fossil Fuels:
Eating meat increases our dependence on non-renewable, heavily-polluting fossil
fuels, including oil. With the
onset of “peak oil”,
this is an increasingly important issue. Producing a single pound (0.45 kg) of beef requires
burning up to 40 times more fossil
fuels than to produce one pound (0.45 kg) of soybeans.
For example, it requires approximately 78 calories of non-renewable fossil fuel for
each calorie of protein obtained from factory-farmed beef, but only 2 calories
of fossil fuel to produce a calorie of protein from soybeans. Oil is an extremely dirty and
environmentally-destructive endeavor at every stage, from drilling to
shipping to refining to consuming; likewise with coal. Of all the raw materials
and fossil fuels used in the U.S., more than 1/3 goes toward raising animals
for food.
Vegetarianism is important because it helps reduce our
dependence on oil and gas, and therefore also our dependence on oily
authoritarian governments and imperial wars, while keeping our environment
cleaner and greener.
“Making a hamburger in the global
economy consumes a huge amount of fossil fuels.”
“The Humble Hamburger”, World Watch, July/August 2004
Return to the Table of Contents
• 4. Land:
Eating meat takes land away from more productive
purposes. Almost 1/2 of
Further, the leading cause of species threat and
extinction in the
Vegetarians tread lightly, requiring only 1/6 acre (0.067
hectares) of land to feed themselves each year; omnivores, 3 1/4 acres (1.315
hectares). More than 3/4 of
Vegetarianism and veganism show greater respect for
our land by protecting and preserving its richness.
“We could support more people on Earth
for a given area of land farmed if we ate lower on the food chain.”
Patricia Muir, Ph.D.,
“The United States is losing approximately 4 million
acres (1.6 million hectares) of cropland each year due to soil erosion.
It is estimated that 85% of this topsoil
loss is directly related to raising livestock.”
Vegetarian
Times Complete
Cookbook
“Arable
farming either continues to feed the world’s animals
or it continues to feed
the world’s people. It cannot do both.”
Return to the Table of Contents
• 5. Water:
Eating meat wastes huge amounts of water, increasingly
referred to as “blue gold”. In an effort to conserve increasingly scarce yet
completely necessary water, you
can install a water saver on your kitchen faucet, saving up to 6,000 gallons
(23,000 liters) of water per year. Your savings will be lost, however, if you
consume just one pound (0.45 kg) of California beef (which requires
about 5,000 gallons (19,000 l)—and as much as 12,000 gallons (45,000 l)—of
water per pound to produce). A typical meat-based diet wastes a tremendous amount of water per person every day, hastening “peak water”,
while a vegetarian diet uses only a moderate amount. The amount of water used
to produce the meat from a single cow is enough to float a large ship. More
than half of the water consumed in the U.S. irrigates land to grow feed
for livestock. The Ogallala
Aquifer, beneath the Great Plains of the U.S. and one of the world’s
largest stores of fresh groundwater, took millions of years to create and is
being depleted (and polluted) in decades due to the livestock industry and the
crops needed to feed it.
The
Eco-Eaters help protect and conserve this most
precious resource.
“More than 4,000 gallons (15,000 liters)
of water are needed
to produce a single day’s worth of food
for the typical meat eater.
In comparison, an ovo-lacto vegetarian
requires only 1,200 gallons (4,500 l) of water,
and a vegan needs a mere 300 gallons (1,135
l).”
Vegetarian
Times Complete
Cookbook
“There is no other single action that is as effective
at saving water as eating a plant-based diet.”
John Robbins, The Food
Revolution
Return to the Table of Contents
• 6. Waste:
Eating meat is extremely wasteful, generating
dangerous by-products. Every second, about 125 tons (127,000 kg)
of waste are excreted by animals confined in the U.S. meat-industrial
complex, creating “mountains
of manure” and “open lagoons
of liquefied manure”, toxic gases such as hydrogen sulfide
and ammonia,
and other forms of hazardous waste. Livestock account for 2/3 of ammonia release
in the U.S., contributing to acid rain and other eco-disasters. “In a single year in [the U.S.]”, says Michael Greger, M.D.,
“our industrialized animal agriculture’s intensive confinement system produces
more than a billion tons of manure - as heavy as 10,000 Nimitz-class aircraft
carriers”.
The production of meat is very wasteful and disgusting. We’re fouling our own
nest. Vegetarians and vegans create less waste because the less meat you eat,
the less mess you make.
“Giant livestock farms, which can house
hundreds of thousands of pigs, chickens, or cows, produce vast amounts of
waste.
In fact, in the U.S., these ‘factory
farms’ generate more than 130 times the amount of waste that people do…
[and have] polluted more than 27,000
miles (44,000 km) of rivers and contaminated groundwater in dozens of states.”
Natural
Resources Defense Council
“[Factory farms] produce large amounts of waste in
small areas.
For example, a single dairy cow produces approximately
120 pounds (54.4 kg) of wet manure per day.
The waste produced per day by one dairy cow is equal
to that of 20-40 people.”
Environmental Protection
Agency
“At U.S. feedlots and factory farms, more than a trillion
pounds of manure are deposited every year.
On that scale and at such concentrations, a perfectly
natural substance can become a toxic one.”
Eric Schlosser, author
of Fast Food
Nation
Return to the Table of Contents
• 7. Factory Farming & Slaughterhouses:
Factory farming,
or concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs), is the industrialization and
mass production of raising animals for food. By treating animals as raw material,
as commodified “things”, as objects
merely for the sake of profit, without regard to the rights or welfare of
the animals, workers, consumers, communities, or the environment, cruelty is inherent, disease is widespread,
resources are depleted and wasted, workers are demoralized and injured,
neighbors are sickened, and various
aspects of the environment are seriously degraded. This industry is also
notorious for racism, sexism, and sexual harassment.
Not only are slaughterhouses killing billions of non-human
animals, but a slaughterhouse is one of the most dangerous places for human
workers too, with very high rates of
occupational injuries and deaths; indeed, the highest of all factory jobs in
the US, with about three times the rate of injuries in other occupations.
Only 4 giant monopolistic corporations control about 80%
of the beef market, slaughtering 35 million cows and bulls in the
Dairy cows
are forced to calve every year, being artificially inseminated and
re-inseminated, putting enormous stress on the cows. Babies are immediately
separated from their mothers: female calves are channeled into the dairy
industry to replace their mothers; male calves are pushed into the meat
industry, mostly for beef, though about a million male calves are quickly turned
into veal. Dairy cows are fed
unnaturally rich diets, are pumped with antibiotics (in some cases, everyday) and hormones (e.g., BGH), and are treated
to other cruelties to further increase milk production to about a 1000%
of what they would normally produce. About half the dairy cows in the US suffer
from mastitis and many more from other illnesses and diseases. Instead of
living to about 25 years, dairy cows are worn out after about 3 or 4 years, at
which point they’re moved from milk production to meat production. The NOTmilk page has a wealth of information
regarding the various problems with milk.
“And with the cows—at least in these numbers—come a laundry-list of potential
environmental hazards and nuisances”, according to John Gibler in terrain. “Nitrates and
salts leach from cow manure to degrade the land and contaminate the
groundwater.”
“Cows
belch smog-forming [and greenhouse] gases during the rumination process and
toxic ammonia rises into the air from manure lagoons. Millions of pounds
(kilograms) of manure also attract flies and mosquitoes, escalating the danger
of West Nile virus [and other communicable diseases]. And, to state the
obvious, thousands of cows producing millions of pounds (kilograms) of poop tend
to smell really bad.” If there were no cow industry, there would be no E. coli
outbreaks; if there were no cow industry, there would be much less global
warming.
Approximately 100 million pigs—crowded, crated,
mutilated—are raised for slaughter in the
About 10 billion chickens, in addition to
turkeys, ducks, geese, and other birds, are hatched in the
Turkeys are genetically manipulated to grow oversized
breasts, as well as to develop white meat, making them unable to stand, walk,
or mate properly, if at all. About 99% of the approximately 300 million turkeys
raised for Thanksgiving
and other meals in the
To mass produce veal in the
Factory-farmed
animals are unwilling captives, who have no choice, no defense, and no
alternative options against their cruel and unusual punishment for which they
committed no crime.
Ultimately, though, it’s not factory farming that’s the
problem; the problem is “animal farming”.
While organic and free-range meat and eggs, for
example, might be better in some ways, and might not in other ways,
it is certainly not better in the
most important ways. Free range is
uncertified and voluntary, meaning in practice that many animals are deemed
free range if they theoretically only have access to some outside area, even if
it is impracticle, unnatural, and unused. When free range is practiced in
actuality, it might be better for the animal while it is living, but it might
be worse for the environment as free ranging necessitates a lot more land, and already so much land
is dedicated to the meat industry. Further, even “organically” and
“compassionately” raised animals are brutally and unnecessarily killed while
they are young merely to serve someone else’s appetite. Animal advocates, such
as Lee Hall, the legal director of Friends
of Animals, call for “animal rights, untamed”.
If factory farms are the meat-production assembly lines,
slaughterhouses are the animal dis-assembly lines. Ignorance is not bliss, but sometimes the truth hurts. Vegetarians and vegans oppose cruelty with every meal and keep things
more natural, more fair, and more sustainable.
“While
inefficiently producing unhealthy food, contributing to heart disease and
cancer,
factory
farms leave a wake of toxic waste, disease, declining aquifers, global warming,
obesity for the affluent and malnutrition for the excluded.”
Christopher Cook, Diet for a Dead Planet
“Animal
factories are one more sign of the extent to which our technological capacities
have advanced faster than our ethics.”
Peter Singer, author
of Animal Liberation and The
Way We Eat
“Agribusiness
factory farms subvert democracy and are some of the nation’s worst polluters…
they also
treat animals with unspeakable cruelty.”
Robert F.
Kennedy, Jr.
Return to the Table of Contents
• 8. Fish & Other Sea Animals:
“Seafood is simply a socially acceptable form of bush
meat”, according to Paul Watson, a founder of Greenpeace and the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society. “We
condemn Africans for hunting monkeys and mammalian and bird species from the
jungle, yet the developed world thinks nothing of hauling in magnificent wild
creatures like swordfish, tuna, halibut, shark and salmon for our meals. The
fact is that the global slaughter of marine wildlife is simply the largest
massacre of wildlife on the planet.”
Commercial fishing is causing the collapse of the world’s fisheries, having likely passed “peak fish”,
destroying marine ecosystems, heavily polluting our oceans, and, along with
climate change, contributing to “dead zones”. In
effect, we are clear cutting our underwater rainforests, including the coral reefs and mangroves
that support a rich array of biodiversity, as well as providing coastal
protection, leading to the endangerment and extinction of many species
employing “the factory trawler’s wet version of a scorched-earth policy”
(Curtis White). To catch wild fish, entire schools of fish are netted
along with turtles, dolphins,
whales,
sharks,
seals, birds, and others as
“by-catch”, or “collateral damage”, leaving a destructive and deadly wake. In
fact, over 1/5 (about 22%) of fish caught by
Aquaculture, or the factory farming of fish, is also massively
eco-destructive, often leading to over-fishing of wild fish for feed,
de-oxygenation of the water, disease amongst fish and other marine animals, and
the (over)use of antibiotics, hormones, chemicals, and genetically-engineered
additives.
Further, underwater “forests” of coral reefs and mangroves
are being decimated by “rape-and-run” shrimp farming (exploiting and polluting
coastal communities for 2 to 5 years before abandoning them), commercial
overfishing and trawling, inefficient industrial shipping, and other
fish-related mega-activities with no regard for the natural world, whether
underwater or above.
Fish
often contain mercury,
arsenic,
lead, cadmium as well
as toxic POPs, including PCBs,
DDT, and dioxin,
which can’t be removed from the fish
and which bio-accumulate
in consumers. “A major health hazard from eating fish flesh comes from humans causing
polluted aquatic environments. Fish are repositories for the industrial and
municipal wastes and the agricultural chemicals flushed into the world’s
waters”, says Richard Schwartz, Ph.D. “Mercury, especially high in tuna and swordfish, can cause brain damage,
especially in growing children. PCBs, dioxin, and pesticides (such as DDT) have
been linked to cancers, nervous system disorders, fetal damage, and many other
health problems. Removing fish from your meals eliminates half of all mercury exposure
and reduces one’s intake of other toxins.” According to Dr. Steve Patch,
co-director of the Environmental Quality Institute, University of North
Carolina-Asheville, “We saw a direct relationship between people’s mercury
levels and the amount of… fish people consumed”. Dioxin is one of the world’s
most toxic chemicals and the EPA reports that about 95% of dioxin in humans
comes from ingesting meat, dairy, and fish.
While fish often are said to contain high levels of
protein and healthy fats and fatty acids (especially for the fish), this may
not be the case and, in any event, there are easy alternatives for these
nutrients, including olives, flax, and hemp seeds. Additionally, fish, as with
other animals, contain saturated fat and cholesterol, which are unhealthy.
Further, fish do not contain any fiber, vitamins, anti-oxidants, or
phytonutrients, all of which are exclusive to plant foods. A scientific
review of studies about fish has shown that it is not necessarily a healthy
food for humans. William Harris, M.D.
determined that fish have seven times the protein that humans should intake and
that fish protein contains high amounts of the amino acids methionine and
cystine, which lead to calcium depletion and can cause osteoporosis.
It is understandable why some people go into denial, but
it should be clear that fish—as with
all other animals—feel pain,
a phenomenon in animals needed for survival and success. Being caught on a hook
is “like dentistry without novocaine, drilling into exposed nerves”
(Dr. Tom Hopkins). Being pulled out
of the water is like a person being held under
water.
Vegetarians and
vegans protect fish, other marine animals, coral reefs, and the incredible
oceans they live in.
“The fishing industry is following directly in the
footsteps of the livestock industries,
feeding primarily the rich at the expense of the planet, the animals, and the poor.”
John Robbins, The Food Revolution
“Now that the shallow fisheries are in serious
decline, trawl nets fitted with wheels and rollers are dragging across the
bottom of the deep oceans,
removing everything of any size.”
Rachel’s
Environment and Health Weekly
“Commercial fishing, aquaculture, and angling are
environmentally catastrophic….
If you eat fish, you are supporting an
industry that plunders our oceans
with no regard for the horrible pain and suffering that fish and other marine
animals endure
or for the diverse ocean ecosystem that is imperative
to the survival of all underwater life.”
Return to the Table of Contents
• 9. Health & Disease:
Eating meat is dangerous for human health, our inner environments or
“invironment”. Eating meat may lead to heart
disease and heart attacks (the #1
cause of death in the U.S.), cancer (e.g.,
colorectal, breast, prostate, lung, skin, stomach, and pancreas) (the #2 cause of death), stroke (the #3 cause of death), pulmonary
diseases (the #4 cause of death),
diabetes
(type 2) (the #6 cause of death), Alzheimer’s (the #8 cause of death), certain kidney
diseases (the #10 cause of death), high blood pressure
(hypertension) (the #13 cause of death), obesity,
asthma,
osteoporosis,
atherosclerosis,
aneurysms, rheumatoid
arthritis, endometriosis,
impotence, gallstones,
gout, certain mental
illnesses, Alzheimer’s, and other very serious ailments. About 2/3 of
diseases in the U.S. are diet-related—according to the U.S. Surgeon General—and
vegetarians are much less afflicted. Vegetarian nutrition
has proven to be safe and even superior, not deficient, compared to
animal-based diets.
On
average, vegetarians, and vegans even
more so, live healthier and longer lives compared to those who eat meat.
“In
Further, since over 70% (nearly ¾) of all antibiotics
in the U.S. are given to livestock (plus immense amounts of chemicals,
steroids, hormones, and
other drugs),
resistant bacteria are increasing at an alarming rate, creating untreatable superbugs, like
And don’t forget mad cow disease (also
know as bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE, and in its human form as
variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, or vCJD), bird flu / avian
influenza (H5N1), SARS,
chronic
wasting disease, foot and mouth,
E. coli 0157:H7,
salmonella, campylobacter,
listeria, staphylococcus, clostridium, and other causes of food
poisoning.
Chickens
are fed arsenic and fish
often contain mercury or other heavy metals or toxic chemicals, making these
especially dangerous to consume with grave long-term effects. Dead pigs, horses,
and poultry are often “rendered” for cattle and poultry feed, along with
sawdust and old newspaper, in addition to grains, recalling the meatpacking
abuses in Upton Sinclair’s
The Jungle. Additionally,
more and more meat is being treated with poisonous carbon monoxide
(CO), in an effort to keep old meat that isn’t fresh looking red instead of
turning brown, thereby masking possible spoilage. The meat industry’s response
is that this poisonous gas is “safe” in small amounts and that “everyone knows
not to eat stinky meat”.
The
major pandemics of the last 100 years—notably the global flu outbreaks of
1918-19, 1957, and 1968, each of which killed millions of people, as well as
other non-flu diseases—have had their origins in the raising of animals for the
meat industry. The very real fear of a bird flu
(especially H5N1)
global pandemic may be a form of blowback, boomerang effect, or karma, as this
very deadly disease is rooted in the livestock (especially poultry, but also
pig) industry. The disease affects all sorts of birds,
especially chickens,
ducks, geese, and turkeys, as well as various wild migratory birds, but also
other animals, including pigs, tigers and humans. In each of the three 20th
century pandemics, a bird flu
virus swapped genes with a human flu virus, likely doing so in a pig, creating
a strain that humans had never encountered, therefore spreading much more
easily and with much less resistance. “If there were no poultry industry”,
concludes Neal D. Barnard, M.D., “there would be no epidemics of bird flu”. And
if there were no cow industry, there would be no E. coli outbreaks. The CDC reports that in the
Other very deadly viral diseases—including Ebola,
Marburg, and AIDS—have
been called the “revenge of the rainforest”, as they have erupted and spread
via the building of roads into forests, paving the way for deforestation and
the hunt for bushmeat.
Many reputable and mainstream health organizations—including the American Cancer Society,
American
Dietetic Association, American
Heart Association, American
Institute for Cancer Research, Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention, Heart and Stroke
Foundation of Canada, National Heart Foundations (of various countries), Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, Prevention,
Union of Concerned Scientists, U.S. Food and Drug Administration, World Health Organization, United
Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, and many others—all agree that a
diet centered around fresh fruits, vegetables, and whole grains can
significantly reduce the incidence of the leading causes of disease and death.
Likewise, many reputable and mainstream environmental organizations—Greenpeace,
National Resources Defense Council, Rainforest Action Network, World Watch, and
various others—all agree that a plant-based diet can significantly reduce
various major forms of environmental destruction. There are, of course, also many health and environmental
organizations outside the mainstream
that also support these positions. Note that health professionals and health
organizations never advise eating more meat, rather they suggest eating less or
none at all. Meat
makes us sick.
In a study of communities, called “blue zones”, with a large
number of centenarians (including Loma Linda, California; Sardinia, Italy;
Okinawa, Japan; Nicoya Peninsula, Costa Rica; and Hunza Valley, Pakistan), a
major commonality is plant-based eating habits (with little and often no meat).
(Other commonalities that correlate with longevity include drinking lots of
fluids, keeping physically and
mentally active, and maintaining close social relationships.)
Michael Greger, M.D., Director of Public Health and
Animal Agriculture for the Humane Society of the
United States, states that “Billions of farm
animals are overcrowded in stressful, unsanitary sheds, pens, cages and stalls;
no wonder we are increasingly plagued with infectious food-borne diseases. Animal factories are a public health
threat.”
The American
Dietetic Association (ADA), the largest association of nutrition professions
in the world, states that “well planned vegan and other types of vegetarian
meals are appropriate for all stages of the life cycle, including pregnancy,
lactation, infancy, childhood, and adolescence. Vegetarian diets offer a number of nutritional benefits, including
lower levels of saturated fat, cholesterol, and animal protein as well as
higher levels of carbohydrates, fiber,magnesium, potassium, folate, and
antioxidants such as vitamins C and E and phytochemicals. Vegetarians have been
reported to have lower body mass indices than nonvegetarians, as well as lower
rates of death from ischemic heart disease; vegetarians also show lower blood
cholesterol levels; lower blood pressure; and lower rates of hypertension, type
2 diabetes, and prostate and colon cancer.”
Additionally, “It is the position of the American
Dietetic Association and Dietitians of Canada that appropriately planned
vegetarian diets are healthful, nutritionally adequate and provide health
benefits in the prevention and treatment of certain diseases.” Dr. Benjamin Spock, in the final edition of his
best-selling Baby and Child Care, writes
that “Children who grow up getting their nutrition from plant foods rather than
meats have a tremendous health advantage. They are less likely to develop
weight problems, diabetes, high blood pressure, and some forms of cancer.”
Vegetarianism is a
form of preventive medicine and care, substantially reducing the incidence
of acute and intensive care, medical errors (which kill 100,000 U.S. hospital
patients per year, according to a study), excessive medical and social costs,
and other problems associated with the medical delivery system and how it
treats health and disease. Vegetarianism is not only better for your personal
health, but it is also better for public health, animal health, worker health,
and environmental health. What’s best for your health is best for the world and
what’s best for the world is best for your health.
The meat industry is unhealthy and unsafe. In
general, vegetarians live longer and healthier lives. Further,
vegetarianism is the “more intelligent”
choice. Many people who stop eating meat also report feeling physically,
emotionally, and spiritually better.
“People who ate the most
animal-based foods got the most chronic disease…
People who ate the most
plant-based foods were the healthiest and tended to avoid chronic disease.
These results could not be
ignored.”
Dr. T. Colin Campbell, The China Study
“Nearly
1.4 million Americans are disabled, then killed prematurely each year by heart
disease, stroke, cancer, diabetes
and
other chronic diseases that have been linked conclusively with consumption of
animal products.”
U.S. National Center for Health Statistics
“Not only is mortality from
coronary heart disease lower in vegetarians than in nonvegetarians, but
vegetarian diets have also been successful in arresting coronary heart disease.
Scientific data
suggest positive relationships between a vegetarian diet and reduced risk
for…obesity, coronary artery disease, hypertension, diabetes mellitus, and some
types of cancer.”
“Since I’ve stopped eating animal products, my energy
level has increased, my cholesterol level has decreased,
and, most important, I have not had a breast cancer
relapse in the 12 years since my mastectomy!
I’m also proud to say that my food choices do not
cause animal suffering or widespread environmental degradation.”
Elaine Slone, National
Geographic, March 2006
“All new infectious diseases of human beings to emerge in
the past 20 years have had an animal source.”
Lancet,
“Anyone who brings raw ground beef into
his or her kitchen today must regard it as a potential biohazard,
one that may carry an extremely
dangerous microbe, infectious at an extremely low dose.”
Eric Schlosser, Fast Food Nation
“The cost of a 99-cent hamburger doesn’t include the
dialysis you may need years later.”
Eric Schlosser, “Cheap
Food Nation”, author of Fast Food Nation
“Research has shown that the three leading causes of
death in the United States—heart disease, cancer and stroke—are related to
diet.
Current recommendations are to reduce
the consumption of animal protein and saturated fat (which is abundant in meat)
and cholesterol (found only in meat and other animal products).
A plant-based or
vegetarian diet is one good way to reduce the risk of disease and promote
health.
A well-balanced vegetarian diet tends to
be low in fat, especially saturated fat, and cholesterol.
It is also rich in health-protecting
nutrients, antioxidants and fiber.”
Jamie Adams, “Meatless
Diet”
Nutrition Care Division, Tripler
Return to the Table of Contents
• 10. Economics & Externalities:
Our economic
system doesn’t value animals or the environment—unless
they’re consumed and money is exchanged. Wild animals living their lives in
freedom, the majesty of a forest, a fresh breeze, and the sparkle of a clean
river all have no economic value. If a mother breast feeds a baby, there is no
money exchanged, yet if she buys less healthy infant formula, it contributes to
economic growth; if one opens a window to cool down on a hot day, it has no
consequence to our capitalist economy,
yet using an air conditioner increases the gross
domestic product [GDP]; if people grow their own food, no economic activity
is registered, though factory farms contribute to economic growth and raise the
GDP.
The former activities are more sensible, more fulfilling, and more healthy; the
latter are less healthy, more costly, more alienating, more wasteful, and
damage the environment. Even creating and disposing of toxic waste increases
the GDP. Further, meat-based illnesses cost the U.S. tens of billions of
dollars in additional health care costs, and even more in lost
productivity and the depletion of the Earth’s natural capital.
Unfortunately, total (public) government subsidies to the
(private) livestock industry were nearly $1 billion
in 2002, according to the Environmental Working
Group. Indirectly, much more is given. Imagine if this money were instead
invested in organic agriculture, nutritional education, and renewable fuels.
Eating meat is highly inefficient.
The price of meat would multiply if the ecological costs—including
the use of non-renewable fossil fuels; emission of greenhouse gases and the
increase of global warming; depletion of ancient groundwater and aquifers, rich topsoil, and
the protective ozone layer; agro-chemical pollution of land and water; acid
rain; deforestation; desertification; and species extinction—were included in
the price tag. The price of meat would
increase even further if we factored in health care costs, lost productivity,
and corporate welfare, not
to mention the suffering and death of thousands of workers
and billions of animals. Meat is deceit.
Using the present standard measures for economic or
social health, as David Korten,
author of When Corporations Rule the
World, says, “makes no more sense than taking the rapid expansion of
one’s personal girth as an indicator of improved personal health. Applying such
a standard to society’s economic priorities has led to a gross distortion of
economic priorities and resource allocation that is helping to lead the world
toward social and economic collapse.” Further, according to Eric Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation, “Both the meatpacking
industry and the fast food industry [both of which are highly “centralized”,
where “the top four meatpacking companies…control nearly 85%” of the beef
market] have been major financial supporters of the Republican Party’s right
wing”.
The meat industry
is exceptionally costly, wasteful,
inefficient, unfair, destructive, and regressive, while vegetarianism is
environmentally and economically sustainable and socially progressive. The
world—and all its inhabitants—can’t
afford meat and the bloated livestock industry.
“[Feeding grain to animals and then
eating them is] highly inefficient, and an absurd use of resources.”
Vaclav
Smil, Ph.D.,
“It’s not efficient to feed grains to animals
and then to consume the livestock products.”
“The planet simply cannot sustain a
population that increasingly feeds on animal protein.”
U.K.
Sustainable Development Commission
“Beef has become a symbol of the extravagant,
resource-consuming American who is destroying the global environment
to live a life of luxury, while most of the rest of
the world suffer…
strictly on a scientific basis, there can be no
dispute that [grains] are used with more efficiency, and can provide for more
people,
when they are eaten directly by people rather than
being fed to swine or poultry to be converted to pork, chicken meat, or eggs
for human consumption.”
Prof. Peter R. Cheeke
“Despite a fondness for free-market rhetoric, the
country’s large food companies—ConAgra, Archer Daniels Midland, McDonald’s,
Kraft—have benefited enormously from the absence of real competition. They
receive, directly and indirectly, huge subsidies from the federal government.
About half of the annual income earned by U.S. corn farmers now comes from
government crop-support programs. Cheap corn is turned into cheap fats, oils,
sweeteners, and animal feed. Nearly three-quarters of the corn grown in the
United States is fed to livestock, providing taxpayer support for inexpensive
hamburgers and chicken nuggets.”
Eric Schlosser, “Cheap
Food Nation”, author of Fast Food Nation
Return to the Table of Contents
• 11. Hunger:
Article 25 of the
United Nations Universal Declaration of
Human Rights includes food as a human right. While millions of people
annually die from over-consumption,
particularly consumption of fat and cholesterol, millions of excluded people annually die
from under-consumption, from
starvation and hunger-related diseases. Although the world produces more than
enough food to feed all its people, the inequality
of wealth and power, along with the inefficiency of land use and food
distribution, creates conditions that lead to scarcity, chronic hunger,
malnutrition, starvation, environmental degradation, and ethnic violence.
World hunger
is neither necessary, nor automatic, nor inevitable. Vegetarianism and veganism
create conditions that are more fair and just, more efficient and sustainable, thereby
potentially allowing more people to be fed, rather than using land, grain,
water, labor, energy, and other resources to produce food to be fed to animals
that are later killed and fed to those people who can afford it. In the words
of Chrissie Hynde, “Global hunger could be directly attributed to meat-eating.”
In addition to being better for personal and public
health as well as for the environment, vegetarianism
is better for food security and the alleviation of world hunger. Food
security, in turn, may help prevent the all-too-common instances of violence,
war, and genocide.
“When those who have the money to enjoy
meat-rich diets cause the market to redirect available supplies of grain away
from the tables of people who cannot pay
in order to feed livestock to provide meat to those who can,
they contribute to the dynamics of
hunger.”
John Cavanagh & Jerry Mander, eds., Alternatives to Economic
Globalization
“Continual growth in meat output is dependent on feeding
grains to animals,
creating competition for grain between affluent meat
eaters and the world’s poor.”
“The fact is that there is enough food in the world
for everyone.
But tragically, much of the world’s food and land
resources are tied up in producing beef and other livestock---for for the
well-off---
while millions of children and adults suffer from
malnutrition and starvation….
The American fast-food diet and the meat-eating habits
of the wealthy around the world support a world food system that diverts food
resources from the hungry.”
Walden Bello,
Ph.D., Focus on the Global South
“Most hunger deaths are
due to chronic malnutrition caused by inequitable distribution and inefficient
use of existing food resources.
At the same time,
wasteful agricultural practices, such as the intensive livestock operations
known as factory farming, are rapidly polluting and depleting
the natural resources upon which all life depends. Trying to produce more food
by these methods would lead only to more water pollution, more soil
degradation, and, ultimately, more hunger....
We can feed the world
while preserving the planet”
“Environmentally sustainable solutions to world hunger
can only emerge as people eat more plant foods and fewer animal products.”
John Robbins, The Food Revolution
Return to the Table of Contents
• 12. Protein:
Protein
is necessary for the body, but many studies convincingly show that it’s easy to get enough. It is
not necessary to combine certain foods to obtain protein, as was once erroneously
thought. The protein myth
is just that: a myth. Average Americans eat at least twice the protein
recommended by the FDA, while
vegetarians typically consume more reasonable and healthy amounts. Some people
erroneously worry about the almost non-existent problem of protein deficiency
in the U.S. Do you know anyone diagnosed
with kwashiorkor (the disease associated with protein deficiency)? Yet
consuming too much protein—excess—is common, dangerous, and is
associated with cancer,
kidney disease, osteoporosis, cardiovascular disease, and infertility.
According to the ADA, “Plant sources of protein alone can provide adequate
amounts of the essential and nonessential amino acids. Conscious combining of
these foods within a given meal…is unnecessary.”
High
protein diets—especially ones derived from animals, even certified organic, certified kosher, halal,
local, or so-called “sustainable”,
“humane”, or “free range”
ones, including the ones pushed by the Atkins
Empire, The Zone, South Beach, Lean Cuisine, Blood Types, and other diet
industries—are excessive, unhealthy, unscientific, and unwise.
“If you wanted to find one diet to ruin your health,
you couldn’t find one worse than Atkins”
James Anderson, M.D., Professor of Medicine and
Clinical Nutrition
“It is very easy for a vegan diet to
meet the recommendations for protein, as long as calorie intake is adequate.
Strict protein combining is not
necessary; it is more important to eat a varied diet throughout the day.”
Reed Mangels, Ph.D., R.D., “Protein in the Vegan Diet”
Return to the Table of Contents
• 13. Calcium:
Calcium
is the most common mineral in the body, found primarily in the bones and teeth.
It’s not important how much calcium
a person ingests, but rather how much a person retains. Animal protein (e.g., meat and dairy) leaches calcium
from the bones (as does excessive salt)—contributing to osteoporosis—
by acidifying the blood and causing the calcium to leach out and neutralize it,
whereas less-concentrated plant-based proteins (e.g., tofu, soymilk, dark green vegetables) do not have this
negative effect. Osteoporosis can be prevented
or reversed. People who eat little or no meat and dairy and instead eat
calcium-packed vegetables, fruits, and grains—as in much of Asia and
Africa—have very low rates of osteoporosis, while populations that consume
large quantities of calcium-rich dairy, as well as meat, have much higher rates
of this bone-weakening disease. Countries where people consume the most dairy
have the highest rates of osteoporosis.
Getting
plenty of exercise, enough vitamins C and D, and avoiding smoke also helps to
maintain strong bones. Additionally,
it should be noted, cows and other vegetarian animals easily get and retain
enough calcium to maintain their strong bones.
“Because of heavy promotion by the
American dairy industry, the public often believes that cow’s milk is the sole
source of calcium.
However, other excellent sources of
calcium exist so that vegans eating varied diets need not be concerned about
getting adequate calcium.”
Reed Mangels,
Ph.D., R.D., “Calcium in the Vegan Diet”
“The more plant foods people eat
(particularly fruits and vegetables), the stronger their bones and the fewer
fractures they experience.
The more animal foods people eat, on the
other hand, the weaker their bones and the more fractures they experience.”
John Robbins, The Food
Revolution
Return to the Table of Contents
• 14. Fat, Cholesterol, & Fiber:
Eating fat—especially
saturated
fat and cholesterol
(found only in animal products)—has been linked to higher rates of heart disease,
cancer, and other grave diseases, possibly including Alzheimer’s. In sharp
contrast, fiber
is an important weapon in the body’s continuous fight to excrete fats and toxins,
and fiber reduces the risk of cancer. Meat—and
all other animal products, including fish—contains absolutely
no fiber; but animal products do contain unhealthy saturated fats and
cholesterol. As Dr. John McDougall states, after reviewing 50 years of
research, “the lower the fat intake, the less the cancer and heart disease”. Cholesterol is found exclusively in animal
products; fiber is found exclusively in plant-based products. The human body
doesn’t need any extra cholesterol because it produces its own. In stark
contrast, fruits, vegetables, grains, beans, nuts, and seeds—a vegetarian
diet—contain healthy and necessary fiber, along with important anti-oxidant
vitamins and minerals, while they have no unhealthy and unnecessary
cholesterol. Further, increased fiber
can help reduce dangerous cholesterol levels, as well as providing other
benefits against heart disease, cancer, obesity, diabetes
(Type 2), constipation,
hemorrhoids,
colitis,
and diverticular
disease.
“Heart healthy diets are low in
saturated fat, low in cholesterol, low to moderate in fat, and high in fiber.
A vegetarian diet can easily meet these
guidelines.”
Vegetarian Resource
Group, “Heart Healthy
Diets: The Vegetarian Way”
Return to the Table of Contents
• 15. Carbohydrates:
Most of our
carbohydrates (sugars, starches, and fiber) come from plant foods and are
converted to fuel for the body. The World
Health Organization recommends that 55%-60% of calories should be derived
from complex carbohydrates (typically from whole grains and some root
vegetables). Consuming complex carbohydrates also ensures the consumption of
fiber as well as important vitamins and minerals. Animal products contain no
fiber and no complex carbohydrates.
In addition to being dangerous for the environment, fad diets like Atkins, which avoid carbohydrates, are
considered dangerous for people’s well-being by health organizations and
responsible doctors and dieticians.
“The main stuff in high-fiber, complex
carbs, which is indigestible by humans, is called cellulose.
High-fiber
(high-cellulose) vegetable foods are the healthiest choices for human nutrition,
and intake of these foods is associated
with lowered incidences of hypertension, cancer, arthritis, diabetes, etc.”
Return to the Table of Contents
• 16. Enzymes:
“Catalysts for chemical reactions in the body, enzymes
are protein-based substances that bind with chemicals in the body, promoting
and speeding the rate of biological reactions”, writes Elisabeth Hsu-LeBlanc.
There are three major categories of digestive enzymes, each of which aid in the
proper digestion of food; enzymes also stimulate the brain, provide energy for
our cells, and repair tissue and organ damage. The three major enzyme
categories are amylases (for carbohydrates), proteases (for proteins), and
lipases (for fats). Eating meat, as well as overcooking and doing certain other
things to foods, can create enzyme
imbalances in the body. Eating more lightly cooked or raw plant-based foods
maximizes enzyme power in your body.
“Processing foods—whether at home or at a plant—can
damage certain beneficial substances in foods.”
Roon Frost, editor of taste for life
Return to the Table of Contents
• 17. Soy:
Soy is a great
substitution for meat and other animal products. Consuming soy—e.g., miso, soy beans (edamame), soy flour, soy “meat substitutes”, soy milk, soy nuts, soy
yogurt, tempeh, tofu, TVP,
etc.—provides all 9 essential amino
acids as well as ample isoflavones,
which have special protective properties against various forms of cancer, high
cholesterol, and heart disease, and can help with kidney and bone health, the
symptoms of menopause, and cognitive ability. Soy is an exceptionally healthy
food.
Soy
also takes a lot less land (6-17
times), water (4.4-26 times), oil and other fossil fuels (6-20 times), biocides
(6 times), and other resources to produce nutritious soy
than it does to produce an equivalent amount of unhealthy and eco-destructive
meat. Unfortunately, much of the soy crop is fed to animals raised for meat. Meat loses to soy in every category.
“Many soy products should be beneficial to
cardiovascular and overall health because of their high content
of polyunsaturated fats, fiber, vitamins, and
minerals—and low content of saturated fat.”
F.M. Sacks et
al., “Soy Protein, Isoflavones, and Cardiovascular Health”, Circulation,
Return to the Table of Contents
• 18. Anti-Oxidants:
Anti-oxidants and
other beneficial nutrients—including
isoflavones, flavonoids, phytonutrients, polyphenols, carotenoids,
anthocyanidins, lycopene, lutein, zeaxanthin, quercetin, resveratrol,
beta-carotene, and vitamins C & E—protect against and may reverse the ill
effects of oxidation and cell deterioration, which may cause age-related
problems and diseases. All of these nutrients are found exclusively in various plant
foods and never in animal products.
For your best health, and to get the most anti-oxidants,
skip the meat and eat the
rainbow of colors found
in fruits and vegetables.
“The most practical step
we can take to defend ourselves
against the ravages of
oxidative stress is to eat
more plants.”
Dr. Andrew Weil, Healthy Aging
“The amount of antioxidants that you maintain in your body is directly
proportional to how long you will live.”
Richard Cutler, MD, National Institutes of Health
Return
to the Table of Contents
• 19. Iron:
According to Vegetarians in Paradise, “The U.S.
Return to the Table of Contents
• 20. Vitamin B12:
“The requirement for
vitamin B12 is very low [the US
Return to the Table of Contents
• 21. Weight & Obesity:
The FDA has
recognized an “epidemic of obesity”,
which has resulted in significant
problems for individual health, economic productivity, societal health care
costs, energy efficiency, and environmental resources.
Studies have shown that, over the long run, the
thinnest people on Earth tend to eat the most complex carbohydrates (whole
grains, fruits, and vegetables), while the people who eat the most animal
protein (and processed food) tend to be the heaviest. Additionally, food
products containing high levels of saturated fat, cholesterol, sugar, salt,
additives, and calories contribute to weight gain and the likelihood of
obesity, major factors related to physical and emotional health.
We don’t need the latest fad diets and yo-yo dieting,
because they are ineffective at best and sometimes dangerous; rather, the
ancient and proven plant-based way of life is always and readily available.
With a vegetarian or vegan diet, you can “eat as much as you
want and still lose weight”. Vegetarianism/veganism
is the most effective diet and lifestyle for both health and weight loss.
“Being overweight or obese raises the risk of breast
cancer in women after menopause, and it increases the risk of colon and rectal
cancers in men and women.
Prostate cancer risk also increases as body weight
increases.”
Dr. Jeremy Appleton, ND, CNS
“Without exception, a
high-complex-carbohydrate, high-vegetable-protein diet is associated with low
body mass.
High-protein diets were associated with
higher body weight.”
Prof. Linda
Van Horn, Ph.D.,
Return to the Table of Contents
• 22. Strength:
Some of the best athletes,
as well as triathletes, including Olympic
Gold Medal winner Carl Lewis, have been vegetarians or vegans. Many other successful athletes are also vegetarian.
Interestingly, all infants start
out with vegetarian meals and thrive.
There are many powerful and amazing animals—of past and present—that eat or
have eaten strictly vegetarian diets, including the antelope, apatosaurus,
bison, buffalo, bull, caribou, camel, cow, deer, donkey, elephant, elk, gazelle,
giraffe, gnu, goat, hippo, horse, kangaroo, koala, kudu, llama, manatee, marine
iguana, moose, okapi, orangutan, ox, panda, reindeer, rhino, sheep,
stegosaurus, swan, tapir, triceratops, warthog, water buffalo, wild boar,
zebra, zebu, and various others. Indeed, long-time vegetarian Milton Mills, M.D. reminds
us that “the biggest, strongest land animals are all vegan”.
“If eating muscle turned into body muscle”, according to John McDougall, M.D., “most men living
in affluent societies would resemble bodybuilders without a noticeable
potbelly—no point in arguing the obvious…. If the truth were known, real men
would switch to real plant foods overnight. During a man’s reproductive years
meat eating decreases ejaculate volume, lowers sperm count, shortens sperm
life, and causes poor sperm motility, genetic damage, and infertility. Meat
eaters are likely to become impotent because of damage caused to the artery
system that supplies the penis with the blood that causes an erection. Erectile
dysfunction is more often seen in men with elevated cholesterol levels and high
levels of
Additionally, many
famous people are or have
been vegetarian/vegan, along with millions of other
people in the
“A lacto-ovo vegetarian diet can provide
all the nutrients required for optimal health…
Many successful endurance athletes are
vegetarians... Strength and power athletes almost invariably include meat in
their diets,
although it is unclear whether the
benefits of meat consumption for strength and power are real or imagined.”
Chris Forbes-Ewan, Defence
Nutrition Research Centre, “Effects of Vegetarian
Diets on Performance in Strength Sports”
“Seeing how much the vegetarian diet has
done for my performance, I feel like I struck gold.”
Lisa Dorfman,
MS, RD, LMHC, author of The
Vegetarian Sports Nutrition Guide
Return to the Table of Contents
• 23. Physiology:
Milton
Mills, M.D. and other doctors, scientists, anthropologists, and historians
have asserted that the original and early diet
of human beings was vegetarian. Examining our teeth and colons,
as well as saliva, jaws,
and intestines, for example, they have discerned that although we are
capable of being omnivorous, we are
built to be herbivores.
“Early humans simply couldn’t eat meat.”
Donna Hart, Ph.D. & Robert Sussman, Ph.D., Man
the Hunted: Primates, Predators, and Human Evolution
“Either nature failed us in the
engineering of our anatomy, or we failed when we selected animals as a food
source.”
Rex Bowlby, Plant Roots:
101 Reasons the Human Diet is Rooted Exclusively in Plants
Return to the Table of Contents
• 24. Allergies:
“The eight major food allergens [dairy, eggs, fish,
crustacean shellfish, tree nuts, peanuts, wheat, and soybeans] account for 90
percent of all documented food allergic reactions”, according to Robert E.
Bracket, Ph.D., Director of the
“Reduced fresh fruit and vegetable intake, more
processed food, fewer antioxidants, and low intake of some minerals—these are
all shown to be a risk.”
Harold Nelson,
M.D., Professor of Medicine (allergy and immunology), National Jewish
Medical and
Return to the Table of Contents
• 25. Organic Agriculture:
Organic farming and agriculture,
and the demand for organic food and other organic products (e.g., cotton), is growing rapidly. Organic products are grown
without the use of synthetic chemicals, fertilizers, pesticides, hormones,
antibiotics, genetic
engineering (GE) or genetically
modified organisms (GMOs), toxic sludge, irradiation, etc. “There’s
increasing evidence that organic foods are beneficial not only for what they don’t have [toxic chemicals], but also
for what they do [higher levels of
healthy anti-oxidants]”, Claudia Hirsch reminds us. Unsurprisingly, the more
organic food you eat, studies show, generally the less chemical pesticides are
in your body.
George Monbiot
reports that organic
agriculture is more productive and can feed the world. Alan Greene, M.D.,
affirms that “Every little move towards organics is worthwhile.” The most
effective ways to become more organic is to (1) “switch out foods you eat most
often”, (2) “replace the worst
offenders”, and (3) “shop locally, eat seasonally”. Also, encourage the
stores, markets, and restaurants you shop at, and the organizations you belong to,
to carry more organic products.
Further,
organic agriculture is not only healthier for the soil generally, but organic
methods also sequester more carbon dioxide in the soil, thereby being another
way to help stem global warming.
Organic
products are healthier for you, for farmers, for farms, for animals, and for
our environment.
“Fruits and vegetables produced organically require
one-third the petroleum expended for conventional produce.
Besides avoiding synthetic pesticides and fertilizers
that use fossil fuels and pollute our environment,
organic farming tends to create less
greenhouse gas than conventional agriculture.
Organic methods also help protect soil,
water, and biodiversity.”
Carol Ferguson, “Make Every Day Earth Day”
“Chemical agriculture pollutes our water, air, and
earth, impairs the web of life in the soil, erodes biodiversity, and requires
high levels of ‘inputs’ such as irrigation, the chemicals themselves, and fuel,
and its products contain toxic residues…. Agricultural chemicals kill—and not only plants and insects and worms and birds
and fungi and the vast universe of soil organisms; they kill people as well.”
Sandor Katz, author of The Revolution Won’t Be Microwaved
“When you buy organic, you help to promote
biodiversity and cut down on the pesticides that pollute our soil, air, and
water.
You also support natural systems that will ensure the
integrity of our farmlands for future generations…
Organically grown foods simply taste better, and they
are often higher in nutrients that their conventionally grown counterparts….
The best advice is to eat a variety of produce, wash
it well, and buy organic whenever
possible.”
Chef Claire
Criscuolo, RN, “Why
I Choose Organic”
“Many pesticides used on conventionally grown fruits
and vegetables are known to cause cancer.
Because these substances are poorly regulated,
persistent, and poisonous, choose
certified organic foods whenever possible.”
Dr. Jeremy Appleton, ND, CNS
Because the toxic effects of pesticides are worrisome,
not well understood, or in some cases completely unstudied,
shoppers would be wise to minimize exposure to pesticides whenever possible.”
Environmental Working Group,
FoodNews
“Bottom line, organic
is better for all people and our planet.”
Anthony Zolezzi, author of Chemical-Free Kids
Return to the Table of Contents
• 26. Violence, Compassion, & Ethics:
Do we know where and how our food is produced? Food is a
matter of social justice. Eating meat contributes
to cruelty, torture, rape, terror, and violence—a violation of our ethics.
Every year, billions of individual animals (millions per day!) are
tortured and killed in a variety of horrible ways. Lambs
are shackled and boxed to keep them “tender”, cows and pigs are crammed for
“efficiency”, chickens are de-beaked
to “protect” them, animals are branded, castrated, beaten, and hung upside-down
by their limbs, entire schools of fish are netted
along with turtles, dolphins,
whales,
sharks,
seals, birds, and others
(killing these creatures mercilessly and indiscriminately), animals are
terrorized and slaughtered with their blood, guts, pus, saliva, sweat, vomit,
tears, hair, mucus, semen, urine, and feces being splattered everywhere,
some left to suffer and die in piles of other dead and dying animals. Animals are
often impregnated by artificial insemination on “rape racks”, repeatedly forced
to endure pain and then pregnancy, with their newborns separated from them
shortly after birth. You are (as green or brown as) what you eat.
The effects on the workers
who torture and kill these innocent animals, as with soldiers and executioners,
cannot be underestimated. Sociologists
have studied the “brutalization
effect”, whereby people increasingly feel free to commit violence when it
seems legitimated. Further, slaughterhouses are also one of the most dangerous
workplaces for humans: according to Eric Schlosser in Fast Food Nation, “at least 1/3 of meat packing workers are injured
every year”. Human Rights Watch calls meatpacking
“the most
dangerous factory job in America”.
“We treat animals how we used to treat human slaves.
What possible justification could there be for that?”, writes Prof. Gary
Francione in “One Right For
All”. Like racism and sexism, we engage in unfair and unjust species-ism
when we treat (and eat) animals as means to our selfish ends, simply
because we have the physical force and power to do so.
If you eat meat, more animals are terrorized, tortured,
and killed to support your habit. Meat begins with violence; meals don’t have
to! What we eat affects our brains, bodies, consciousness, and emotions, as
well as other animals and our Earth. The Standard American Diet
is SAD. Be glad that you can choose vegetarian meals!
If we’re rightly outraged at the abuse of cats and dogs,
we should be likewise outraged at the daily abuse, suffering, and murder of
farm animals for food. Would you eat your pet? If we could feel their pain,
empathize with their suffering, or share their joy, we would lose our
appetites—and perhaps more. Further, it has been shown that people who abuse animals often
don’t end their cruelty there. People who stop eating (and otherwise abusing)
animals release themselves from tremendous psychic, karmic, spiritual, and
physical burdens, while releasing animals from cruel horrors and the Earth from
further ecocide.
Every action we
take is a vote—an economic vote, a social vote, and a moral vote. Every
time meat, poultry, or fish—and any other animal product—is purchased or
consumed, it is a vote for that to continue, a vote for more innocent and
defenseless animals to be commodified and killed, a vote for more trees to be
cut down, a vote for more wilderness to be encroached upon, a vote for the
overuse of chemicals, hormones, antibiotics, and fossil fuels, a vote for the
poisoning of our air, land, and water, a vote for monoculturalism, a vote for
the overconsumption of a few and the exclusion of the many, a vote for force
and violence. We are responsible for the logical consequences of the actions we
take. Any willing participation in the meat production-and-consumption process
also implies responsibility for the consequences of that process.
Meat-eaters, regardless of their beliefs and intentions,
effectively vote for continuing death and environmental destruction; eco-eaters
vote for life, for sustainability, for justice, and for the Earth. Every action
inspires others to act. When we engage in a destructive act, we encourage more
destruction; when we act positively, we encourage and increase positivity in
ourselves and in the world. One inspires another inspires another…
Human beings have for too long acted with arrogance
against other species and, in doing so, have abused our power, acting
recklessly, selfishly, unfairly, and unjustly. The industrial production of
meat is akin to bullying, assault, torture, slavery, and genocide. Which side
are you on?
Meat has been described as a crime on your plate and as a
sin against nature and the future. We know that killing living beings and
destroying our environment is morally
wrong, indeed dead wrong. We need to take
the die out of our diets. Vegetarianism/veganism is an excellent way of
putting ethical, philosophical, ideological, and religious values into daily personal practice. Vegetarians and vegans save lives everyday!
“The average meat eater is responsible
for the deaths of some 2,400 animals during his or her lifetime.
Animals raised for food endure great
suffering in their housing, transport, feeding and slaughter.”
Jim
Motavalli, “So You’re an Environmentalist; Why
Are You Still Eating Meat?”, E Magazine, Jan/Feb 2002
“I became a vegetarian
after realizing that animals feel afraid, cold, hungry and unhappy like we do.
…
I feel very deeply about
vegetarianism and the animal kingdom.
It was my dog Boycott who
led me to question the right of humans to eat other sentient beings.”
Cesar Chavez, founder of the United Farm Workers
“Now I can look at you in peace; I don’t eat you anymore.”
Franz
Kafka, speaking to fish in an aquarium
“[Animals] were not made for humans any
more than black people were made for whites or women for men.”
“Humans -
who enslave, castrate, experiment on, and fillet other animals –
have had an
understandable penchant for pretending animals do not feel pain.
A sharp
distinction between humans and “animals” is essential if we are to bend them to
our will, wear them, eat them
- without
any disquieting tinges of guilt or regret.”
Carl Sagan & Ann Druyan, Shadows
of Forgotten Ancestors
“For as long as men massacre animals, they will kill
each other.”
“The soul is the same in all living creatures,
although the body of each is different.”
Hippocrates, the “Father of Medicine”
“The
time will come when people such as I will look upon the murder of animals
as they now look upon the
murder of people.”
“The love for all living creatures is the most noble
attribute.”
Charles
Darwin, Descent of Man
“A [person] can live and be
healthy without killing animals for food; therefore, if [s/]he eats meat,
[s/]he participates in taking animal
life merely for the sake of his appetite. And to act so is immoral.”
Leo Tolstoy, On
Civil Disobedience
“…he will be regarded as a benefactor of his race who
shall teach man to confine himself to a more innocent and wholesome diet.
Whatever my own practice may be, I have no
doubt it is a part of the destiny of the human race, in its gradual
improvement, to leave off eating animals…”
Henry
David Thoreau, “Higher
Laws”, Walden
“People think of animals as if they were vegetables,
and that is not right.
I encourage the Tibetan people and all people to move
toward a vegetarian diet that doesn’t cause suffering….
We must absolutely promote vegetarianism.”
“There is
simply no spiritual defense in either the Western or Eastern religious
traditions for eating meat.”
Rabbi Marc Gellman,
“The First
Hamburger”
“Historically, man [sic] has expanded the reach of his
ethical calculations, as ignorance and want have receded,
first beyond family and tribe, later beyond religion,
race, and nation.
To bring other species more fully into the range of
these decisions may seem unthinkable to moderate opinion now.
One day… it may seem no more than what ‘civilized’
behavior requires.”
“What Humans Owe to Animals”, The Economist
“The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can
be judged by the way its animals are treated.”
Return to the Table of Contents
• 27. Animals, Intelligence, Emotions, & Rights:
Animals have faces, families, fear, and other feelings,
and are made of flesh and blood. Animals are important entities in their own
right, individual living beings with
moral and legal rights as well as physical and emotional feelings of pain
and pleasure, intelligence and cognition, fear and excitement, stress and joy,
altruism and love, and so on.
Just as with pet cats and dogs, rats and birds, hamsters
and horses, and other companion animals, farm animals such as cows, pigs,
chickens, turkeys, sheep, goats, ducks, geese, rabbits, and others have real
and complex emotional lives—including
feelings of pleasure, love, grief, altruism, and
a range of others. We also know that humans and other animals can develop
strong emotional bonds with them and strong emotions in reaction to them. In
the words of Demara Jeanty, “Animals have feelings too. Animals feel pain just
like people do. Animal suffering is no different than human suffering.” Even
the Animal Industry Foundation admits that “Animal behavior is as varied as
human behavior.”
Scientists, doctors, and psychologists such as Dian
Fossey, Jane Goodall, Jeffrey Masson, Donald Griffin,
Penny Patterson, Irene Pepperberg,
as well as veterinarians, environmentalists, and others, have amply documented
the intelligence and emotions of animals—as could millions of ordinary people with personal experience with animals.
Peter Singer, Steven Wise, Catharine MacKinnon, Lee Hall, John
Webster, and other lawyers, professors, philosophers, clergy, and ethicists
have similarly argued and documented the rights of animals.
According to John J. Pippin, M.D., “92 percent of drugs
that test successfully for animals fail in humans”. Of the remaining 8%,
according to the FDA, over half are later withdrawn or relabeled due to severe
side effects. In a different but related sign of progress, 100 of the 125
accredited U.S. medical schools “rely solely on computer simulations and do not
use any live animals for training”.
Let’s end the oppression, exploitation, and the
suffering. Instead, let’s start living together in peace.
“The reasons for legal
intervention in favor of children
apply not less strongly to
the case of those unfortunate slaves—the
animals.”
John Stuart Mill,
philospoher
“Many times I’ve looked into a pig’s eye and convinced
myself that inside that brain is a sentient being,
who is looking back at me observing him
wondering what he’s thinking about.”
Dick King-Smith,
author
“Intellectually, human beings and animals may be
different, but it’s pretty obvious that animals have a rich emotional life and
that they feel joy and pain.
It’s easy to forget the connection between a hamburger
and the cow it came from.”
Moby, musician
“When animals are no longer colonized and appropriated by
us, we can reach out to our evolutionary cousins.
Perhaps then the ancient hope for a
deeper emotional connection across the species barrier,
for closeness and participation in a
realm of feelings now beyond our imagination, will be realized.”
Jeffrey Masson,
psychologist
Return to the Table of Contents
• 28. Vegetarians, Vegans, Flexitarians, & Others:
Vegetarians can eat fruits, vegetables, grains, beans, nuts, seeds, and
may or may not eat (non-meat) animal products, such as eggs, milk, cheese, butter,
yogurt, and honey; vegetarians do not eat any meat, poultry, fish, or other
animals. (The term vegetarian was coined at the first meeting of the Vegetarian
Society in England in 1847. Contrary to a popular misconception, the word vegetarian was
not chosen because a vegetarian diet includes vegetables as a major component;
the term vegetarian is derived from the Latin word ‘vegetus’, which means
lively or full of life.) This type of
vegetarian is technically a lacto-ovo
vegetarian, implying the inclusion of dairy and eggs.
Vegans—pronounced VEE-gun, with an emphasis on the first
syllable of the long “e”, or ē,
followed by a hard “g”, the word was coined by Donald
Watson in 1944, when he
formed the Vegan Society in
England—go farther by only eating
plant-derived foods, thereby avoiding all
food (and often other products, such as leather, fur, feathers, silk, and even
wool) that are derived from animals. The aim for vegans is to avoid all forms
of exploitation of animals, whether for food or otherwise. (The word vegan was
derived from the word vegetarian by taking the first three letters (veg-) and
the last two letters (-an) to show, as Watson explained, that “veganism starts
with vegetarianism and carries it through to its logical conclusion”.)
Accidental vegetarians or involuntary vegetarians are
those who don’t eat animals because it is too expensive, not available, or for
some other external reason that prevents them from doing so.
A macrobiotic
diet consists mostly of whole grains,
beans, sea and other vegetables, and certain other plant foods in balance; fruitarians (or fructarians) only eat the
fruit of plants; rawists
only eat raw food (or food not heated above 116 F / 46.7 C) and are often, but
not always, vegan (anapsology
takes raw even further); freegans only eat
discarded or found food (freeganism
is a combination of free and veganism); carnivores eat meat; and omnivores eat
everything.
“Flexitarians”
are mostly vegetarian, but occasionally eat animals, especially fish though
also other animals; pescetarians
are otherwise vegetarians who also eat fish. Some flexitarians only avoid
“red” meat (i.e., meat from mammals,
such as beef, pork, lamb, etc.), yet regularly eat poultry and/or fish. Flexitarians and pescatarians
are sometimes referred to as semi-vegetarians. Flexitarians (coined in the
early 1990s) are generally more concerned with their own health than with
animals or the environment.
Perhaps a “flexegan” (or “vegetegan”)
would be one who is vegetarian and mostly vegan, but not exclusively, or one
who is vegetarian and also avoids certain (non-meat) animal products (e.g., milk and eggs), but not others (e.g., cheese).
Vegetarianism has
a long, rich history. It has been consciously
practiced in and around India, based on ahimsa
(non-violence), for at least thousands of years, as well as in and around China
and elsewhere. In Europe, vegetarians were often called Pythagoreans, as
Pythagoras and his followers abstained from eating meat about 2,500 years ago
in ancient Greece.
Return to the Table of Contents
• 29. Arguments Against Vegetarianism? Not really. :
1.
Humans
are more important than animals, therefore human beings should come first.
Tragically,
there’s no shortage to suffering and it doesn’t seem to be running out anytime
soon. Many of those who say we should tend to people before we take care of
animals often use this as an excuse to avoid taking any action in the defense
of life and justice. Additionally, trying to protect the lives of animals
certainly doesn’t preclude us from trying to protect the lives of human beings.
Indeed, vegetarians often do both.
2.
Some
animals kill others for food, therefore it’s natural.
While certain
animals kill for food, others do not. In fact, there are more herbivorous
(plant-eating) animals than there are carnivorous (meat-eating) ones. One of
the important characteristics of humans is our consciousness and ability to
make choices, rather than merely responding to instinct. Making positive,
life-affirming choices is the essence of community and civilization.
3.
It’s
my tradition, therefore I feel comfortable with it.
We have many
traditions, both old and new, as individuals, families, and cultures. While
traditions may be important, it is also important to recognize that some
traditions are destructive and that traditions often change over time. Our
traditions regarding hygiene, work, the role of women, and child rearing, to
name just a few, have changed dramatically over recent generations. Slavery was
a tradition, too.
4.
I
don’t feel well when I don’t eat meat, therefore I need to eat meat to be
healthy and happy.
Some people
claim not to feel well when they don’t eat meat. Sometimes the detoxification
process can be the cause of this, sometimes it could be related to physical
habit, it could be psychological, or it could simply be an excuse. We know that
eating animals is not necessary and, in fact, studies show that vegetarians
tend to be healthier than their meat-eating counterparts. Many vegetarians also
report feeling more energetic, more at peace, and happier overall.
5.
I
can’t get enough protein without meat, therefore I need to eat meat.
Despite the
conventional myths regarding protein, it is easy to get enough protein if you
can get enough calories. Most people who are not desperately poor, and
certainly most people in North America, Europe, East Asia, Australasia, and
elsewhere, get more than enough calories and more than enough protein. In the
U.S., for example, average Americans have about twice the FDA-recommended
protein intake. Many vegetables, grains, beans, nuts, and seeds, for example,
have sufficient protein. For most people, therefore, the problem isn’t too
little protein (very few people have protein deficiency), but too much protein
(very common), which is linked to a variety of health problems.
6.
The
food pyramid includes meat, therefore it’s a good thing to eat.
The government
food pyramid contains meat, but even there it suggests a sparing use. The
government is influenced by our culture and traditions, as we are, but is also
influenced by the powerful meat and dairy industries, which stand to profit by
the continuation of the unhealthy status quo. As alternatives, there are
vegetarian (no meat, poultry, or fish) and vegan (no animal products) food
pyramids that are unbiased and more
accurate for your health.
7.
I
like the taste of meat, therefore I keep eating it.
Simply trying
to satisfy our individual tastes and desires, regardless of the impacts on
others, has seemingly become a modern American (and increasingly global) ideal,
but it is quite selfish. There are many possibilities that are open to us, even
if they are legal, but that doesn’t necessarily make them right. Caring for and
about others, while caring for and about ourselves, can lead to true and
lasting satisfaction.
8.
Animals
are lower than humans on the food chain, therefore animals are natural food for
humans.
Especially
for humans, neither the food chain itself nor the food choices we make are
natural and unchangeable. As potential omnivores who were originally
vegetarians, humans have choices in the foods we eat and there are no natural
foods. Indeed, what we eat is largely determined by our culture and
consciousness.
9.
We’re
stronger than animals, therefore we should use them for our benefit.
While
physical force may prevail, might does not make right. That’s a form of
fascism. Simply having the power to accomplish a task in no way makes the means
or the ends fair, just, or honorable ones.
10. We have dominion over animals, therefore
they are here for human pleasure.
It is not so
much that we have dominion over animals, but that we share the Earth with them
or, perhaps, have stewardship, guardianship, or trusteeship over them, implying
co-habitation and responsibility. Animals are not here for us to abuse or
exploit, but rather to take care of, to commune with, giving each other
companionship and pleasure in mutually satisfying and non-exploitative
relationships.
11. Modern humans evolved to eat meat,
therefore we should continue to do so.
Early humans
were the hunted, not the hunters, eating only plant-based foods. Avoiding
predators, and also not being one, humans further developed their brains as
well as their social and cultural techniques of socialization, cooperation, and
innovation. Whether back then or now, our teeth, saliva, and intestines, for
example, are not designed for meat consumption. Humans are natural herbivores
with the capacity to be omnivores; we are certainly not carnivores. Only after
the discovery of fire was meat eating even possible. While many people and
cultures have incorporated meat into their diets, it is still not part of our
physiology, biology, or genetics to eat to meat.
12. It’s always been this way, therefore it
will always be this way.
Not only
hasn’t it always been this way (quite the contrary), but it is not even
completely this way now. People and cultures are variable and adaptable. While
it is clearly possible for us to eat meat, it is also clearly not necessary.
Additionally, it is unhealthy for people, animals, and the environment.
13. If I don’t eat meat, someone else will,
therefore I might as well.
If you eat
meat, more animals are confined, terrorized, tortured, and killed to support
your habit. It’s as simple as that. Your actions do make a difference.
14. If we don’t eat animals, we’ll be
overrun with them, therefore we need to eat meat to keep their numbers in
check.
This argument
reverses the causal connection. There are a lot of certain animals because they
are raised for meat and people eat them. If there were less demand for meat,
there would be fewer cows, pigs, chickens, goats, and sheep. People don’t
typically eat lions, tigers, rhinos, hippos, zebra, giraffe, elephants,
gorillas, and other large mammals and we are certainly not over run with them;
quite the contrary, many of these animals are severely threatened in the wild.
15. If we didn’t eat animals, or if we let them,
animals would eat us, so we should eat them first.
This
fear-centered misreading of animals and evolution does not comport with history
or science. We’ll never be the next meal of the herbivorous cows and pigs.
16. Hitler was a vegetarian, so vegetarians have no moral
standing.
Hitler was not a vegetarian. Hitler occasionally
refrained from or decreased his consumption of meat when he was ill, but he
normally ate various types of meats. Goebbels spread the lie that Hitler was
vegetarian as Nazi propaganda to make Hitler seem more ascetic and selfless.
Rynn
If we’re
looking for famous
vegetarians, though, we could name Pythagoras, Buddha, Leonardo da Vinci,
Isaac Newton, John Milton, Benjamin Franklin, Johnny Appleseed, St. Francis of
Assisi, Sylvester Graham, Charles Darwin, Voltaire, George Bernard Shaw, Victor
Hugo, Leo Tolstoy, Albert Schweitzer, Clara Barton, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Louisa
May Alcott, Henry David Thoreau, Susan B. Anthony, John Harvey Kellogg, H.G.
Wells, Upton Sinclair, Thomas Edison, Vincent Van Gogh, Mohandas Gandhi, Albert
Einstein, Dizzy Gillespie, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Joan Baez, Jerry Garcia,
Cesar Chavez, Coretta Scott King and Dexter King, Bob Marley and Ziggy Marley,
Paul McCartney and Linda McCartney, John Lennon and Yoko Ono Lennon, George
Harrison, Ringo Starr, the Dalai Lama, Alice Walker, Gloria Steinem, Benjamin
Spock, John Rawls, Carl Sagan, Martina Navratilova, Carl Lewis, Ani DiFranco,
and many others.
17. It’s OK if the meat is kosher, halal, organic, free range,
local, from a small family farm, or certified in some way.
Who is it OK
for? It’s still not OK for personal health, still not OK for the slaughtered
animals, still not OK for the environment. Kosher and halal standards presently
only apply to the killing of the animals, not how those animals are raised and
treated. Organic means no chemical inputs, but there’s no consideration
regarding slaughter. Free range is often a myth, as it might only mean access
to the outdoors; real free range, while giving animals more movement, also
means the need for more land and the opportunity for more environmental
degradation. Local and small farms, which also slaughter animals when they are
young, are in the tiny minority, as 90-95% of meat in the U.S. is produced by
factory farms. In any event, if many more people were to choose local or
small-farm meat, then those small farms would necessarily have to grow or there
would have to be a lot more meat farms. Neither of these possibilities would be
desirable.
18. Animals don’t feel pain or suffer, therefore it doesn’t
matter if they’re raised for food.
Many studies
show that animals do feel and can suffer; many people’s personal experience
with pets, such as cats and dogs, and other animals demonstrates this as well.
Examinations of animal brains, nervous systems, nerve cells, and everyday
behavior all evidence the possibility of pain. Further, it is increasingly
clear that many animals experience various emotions, including emotional pain
such as fear, anxiety, sorrow, grief, anguish, and terror, but also emotional
pleasure.
19. Agriculture also kills living beings, so
it doesn’t matter what you eat or do.
While it’s
true that agriculture and other activities also kill living beings, it should
be obvious that animal agriculture kills even more and does so purposely.
Additionally, animal agriculture heavily relies on plant-based agriculture to
feed the animals raised for meat. Clearly, it’s a matter of intensity, both
qualitative and quantitative, and the goal for vegetarians and vegans should be
to do what’s most healthy and least destructive, causing the least damage to
people, other animals, and the environment.
20. I don’t want to eat “rabbit food”, I
want to eat a lot of different things.
It is true
that vegetarians don’t eat meat, but by not eating meat, they don’t eat a
smaller variety of food. In fact, most vegetarians and vegans eat a wider
variety of foods than most meat-eaters, tending to experiment with and enjoy
all sorts of different fruits, vegetables, grains, and beans, including
heirloom varieties and agricultural products from other countries and cultures.
21. I just like to eat meat, therefore I
don’t care about the consequences.
What can one
say in the face of such crass selfishness? The great philosopher Hillel once
asked: “If I am only for myself, what am I?” Honestly, not much.
22. People will always eat meat. It will
never change, so why bother?
Here is an
analogy by Karl Seff, Ph.D. who asks “Is smoking
like eating meat?”: “There was a time when people who opposed smoking were
viewed as antisocial and unreasonable. Then there was a time when they were
viewed as technically correct but their cause was viewed as hopeless because
nothing would ever change because smokers are addicts, young people fall into
it, and the tobacco industry has the resources to protect itself fully. As of
now lots of things have changed.
There
was once a time when vegetarians were viewed as odd and sickly. It was
something that one would grow out of. Now we are viewed as technically correct,
I find, and that we are respected, but our cause is viewed as having no chance
of prevailing because people will never give up meat.”
John
McDougall, M.D. says that “Making meat eating a social disgrace in this
generation, just as we did with cigarette smoking in the last generation, is a
fundamental change that must take place in order to advance our society to the
next level and ensure our personal survival.”
23. Why shouldn’t
I eat meat?
There are no
rational reasons to eat meat, yet there are many rational reasons not to.
While
there may be various self-serving rationalizations for eating other animals,
there are no biological, genetic, moral, ethical, religious, philosophical,
nutritional, or environmental reasons or benefits for humans to eat meat. Each
and all of the arguments
against vegetarianism are ultimately without merit and fail.
Return to the Table of Contents
• 30. Making
the Switch!:
Going
vegetarian is the best move you can make for your personal
health, your spiritual health, animal health, and our collective environmental
health.
Now’s the time to make the switch! You’ll have
the great satisfaction of better personal health, reducing your climate change
footprint, saving rainforest, protecting animals, and having your diet better
reflect your moral, philosophical, religious, social, political, and
environmental values.
Try eliminating—or
at least sharply reducing—your consumption of meat, poultry, and fish, as well
as dairy and eggs, replacing them with more fresh vegetables, fruit, beans,
lentils, nuts, seeds, and grains (preferably whole grains, such as whole
wheat, brown rice, corn, oats, barley, and the less common amaranth, buckwheat,
bulgur, kamut, millet, quinoa, red rice, rye, sorghum, spelt, sprouts, teff,
triticale, wild rice, and others).
Buying organic
products is also better for your health, your nutrition, the
animals, our environment, and the health and safety of farmers, workers, and others.
Eating locally and seasonally grown food, with lower-energy inputs, tends to be
likewise beneficial (though not always).
If you’d like to incorporate more of these healthy foods
into your meals without biting off more than you can chew, or without going
“cold tofurkey”, try a more gradual approach by following these tactics:
(1) Educate
yourself, your family, and your
friends on the many benefits of vegetarianism/veganism (get everyone involved!);
(2) Think of the vegetarian
meals you already eat and keep rotating those in. Also, think of the meals
you make or eat that could easily be vegetarianized. Keep expanding your
repertoire;
(3) Make an
additional vegetarian or vegan meal
at least once or twice a week. Be creative. You’ll find lots of delicious
recipes in cookbooks and on vegetarian/vegan web sites (see links below). As
you adjust, gradually add more vegetarian and vegan dishes to your meals. If
you’re vegetarian but not yet vegan, shift away from dairy and eggs; if you’re
already vegan, shift more toward organics and locally-grown produce; if you do
any of these, switch to more whole grains and less processed foods;
(4) In place of meat products, try
vegetarian alternatives. For nearly every animal product, there is a
vegetarian version. For some people, finding successful substitutions is the
key. Test out some of the varieties and try different brands to suit your
tastes. Visit your natural foods store and the health sections of your grocery
stores to see what’s available. You’ll find much more than just veggie burgers
and tofu dogs. Soy products, for example, are varied and versatile, including
such products as miso, soybeans, soy flour, soymilk, soy nuts, soy yogurt,
tempeh, tofu, TVP,
vegetable-based cheese, as well as the many
meat substitutes;
(5) If you continue to eat meat or fish, at least be sure it’s certified
organic, local, and also served in much smaller portions.
One adult serving of meat, if served at all, should be no larger than a deck of
cards. De-emphasize the meat you
serve by including it in dishes that also contain vegetables and whole grains.
As time goes by, decrease the amount of meat you include and increase the use
of vegetables, grains, and beans;
(6) Start your own (organic) garden
of fruits, vegetables, and/or herbs. People, including kids, are more likely to
eat fruits and vegetables if they participate in growing them, and people are
more likely to protect land if they have a stake in it;
(7) Shop at natural foods stores
and farmers’ markets and/or sign up to
receive a weekly CSA (Community Supported
Agriculture) share;
(8) Subscribe
to a vegetarian magazine, such as VegNews, Vegetarian Times, or Vegetarian Journal, go to or organize a vegetarian or vegan
meetup or potluck, join a vegetarian
e-mail listserv, and/or join a
vegetarian organization, to keep up and learn more about the many benefits of
vegetarianism, to stay inspired, to
get great recipe ideas, to meet
like-minded and compassionate people, and to feel more connected to a
life-affirming community;
(9) Eat out at vegetarian
restaurants; and
(10) Congratulate yourself for making a healthy, sustainable, compassionate, and
life-affirming choice and enjoy the new foods you eat and the
new person you’re becoming.
There’s no need to feel guilty
about what you eat or don’t eat. Instead, there’s a vital need for more self
and social responsibility, for all of us to move in a positive
direction—for us as well as for the animals and our environment. Remember that
switching to vegetarianism isn’t about sacrificing anything; it’s about joining
with others to make positive choices aimed at improving our personal well-being, saving
the lives of animals, and protecting our environment that we all share and
depend upon.
“Meat-eating is now a
looming problem for humankind.”
Editors, World Watch, July/August 2004
“If anyone wants to save the planet, all they have to do
is just stop eating meat.
That’s the single most important thing you could do.”
Paul McCartney
“Give vegetarianism a try… and you’ll get a spring in your step,
a glow in your cheeks, and a lighter, brighter you.”
Alicia Silverstone
“You must be the change you wish to see in
the world.”
Vegetarians live more sustainably and are
therefore part of the solution, not the problem.
Kicking the meat habit is the most
effective way for us to save the Earth, the animals, and ourselves.
For free information on becoming a vegetarian or
vegan,
go to Physicians
Committee for Responsible Medicine’s Vegetarian Starter Kit
or to Mercy for Animals’
Vegetarian Starter Kit
or to Animal
Protection Institute’s Vegetarian Starter Kit
or to Compassion
Over Killing’s Vegetarian Starter Guide
or to FARM’s Veg Kit (also here)
or to PETA’s Vegetarian Starter Kit
or to the Guide for Veg Living
or to the Vegan
Starter Pack
or to Vegan Outreach’s
Guide to Compassionate Living
or to Animal
Place’s Veggie Starter Kit for Teens
or take the VegPledge
and receive a free booklet
or call
(toll-free) 1-866-MEAT-FREE
or call
(toll-free) 1-800-MEAT-OUT
(Feel free to order a few to compare and share with
others.)
You
can make a
meaningful choice and make
a difference!
You’ll
be doing yourself,
the animals, and
our planet a Big
favor.
Return to the Table of Contents
• 31. Bonus Quotes:
“Vegetarianism is a simple idea — don’t eat animals — with an ancient
pedigree.”
Gregory Dicum, New
York Times,
“The way that we
breed animals for food is a threat to
the planet…
The results are
disastrous.”
David
Brubaker, Ph.D., Center for
a Livable Future, Johns Hopkins School of Public Health
“Nothing will benefit health and
increase the chances for survival
of life on Earth as the evolution to a
vegetarian diet.”
“What’s for
dinner? Few questions are as environmentally fraught.
Bad choices can lead to obesity, diabetes, and heart disease
for us, and pollution, loss of biodiversity, and climate change for our
favorite planet.”
Paul Rauber, Editor, Sierra,
November/December 2006
“If we continue to think of…the whole of the natural
world as existing primarily to fulfill our immediate needs,
we will pay a stupendous price for our ignorance.”
John Robbins, The Food Revolution
“If a [person] aspires toward a righteous life, [their] first act of abstinence is from injury to
animals.”
Leo Tolstoy
“There’s no question that a vegetarian
diet is much more sustainable for
the land,
is much
more sustainable for many of the people eating that way. …
If you eat, you're connected to this,
and you’ve got to think about it and do
something about it.”
“The worst sin towards our fellow creatures is not to
hate them, but to be indifferent to them.
That’s the essence of inhumanity,”
George Bernard Shaw
“Energy, healthcare, agriculture, climate change,
global outbreaks like swine flu—what do all these topics have in common? Food.
That’s right, none of these issues can really be
tackled without addressing some of the fundamental problems of the food system
and the American diet.”
Amy Goodman, “Michael Pollan: ‘Don’t Buy Any
Food You’ve Ever Seen Advertised’”
“There is still slavery in the world. There is still a
valuing of human beings according to their race or gender or culture or
sexuality.
Part of the reason for this cutting off of empathy is
the anesthetizing of our senses to the
suffering of animals.
Once we grow callous, we cannot feel fully for anyone—not even for
ourselves.”
Gloria Steinem
“When a human being kills an animal for food, he is
neglecting his own hunger for justice.
Man prays for mercy, but is unwilling to extend it to
others.”
“Human beings and the natural world are on a collision
course. Human activities inflict harsh and often irreversible damage on the
environment and on critical resources. If not checked, many of our current
practices put at serious risk the future that we wish for human society and the
plant and animal kingdoms, and may so alter the living world that it will be
unable to sustain life in the manner that we know. Fundamental changes are urgent if we are to avoid the collision our
present course will bring about.”
“World Scientists’
Warning to Humanity” (November
1992),
signed by some 1700 scientists, including the majority
of living Nobel laureates in the sciences
“I grew up in cattle country---that’s why I became a
vegetarian.
Meat stinks. For the animals, the environment, and
your health.”
K.D. Lang
“Recognize meat
for what it really is:
the antibiotic- and pesticide-laden corpse of a
tortured animal.”
Ingrid Newkirk
“The domestication/enslavement of animals was the
model and inspiration for human slavery…
the breeding of domesticated animals led to eugenic
measures as compulsory sterilization, euthanasia killings, and genocide, and…
the industrialized slaughter of cattle, pigs, sheep,
and other animals paved the way, at least indirectly, for the Final Solution.”
Charles
Patterson, Ph.D., author of Eternal
Treblinka: Our Treatment of Animals and the Holocaust
“Vegetarianism is simply letting compassion guide our
choice of food.
May all that have life be released from suffering.”
Buddha
“You have just dined and however scrupulously the slaughterhouse is concealed in the graceful distance of miles, there is complicity.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Can
you imagine ever, even once, taking [many] plates of spaghetti or [many] bowls
of rice
and
tossing them in the trash?
That’s
what eating meat represents—it’s like throwing away [many portions] of food
for
every [portion] you consume.
By
definition, someone who does this is not
an environmentalist.”
Bruce Friedrich, “Vegetarianism: The Only Diet for
Human Rights & the Environment”
“Merely by ceasing to eat meat. Merely by practicing
restraint. We have the power to end
a painful industry.
We do not have to bear arms to end this evil. We do
not have to contribute money. We do not have to sit in jail or go to meetings
or demonstrations or engage in acts of civil disobedience...
here is an action every mortal can perform—surely it
is not too difficult!”
“Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are
still savages.”
Thomas Edison
“I feel better, I have more energy on and off the set,
and I have the satisfaction of knowing that I’m doing something to help stop animal
suffering.”
Maggie Q
“Look into the heart
of your religion’s teachings on compassion, and look into your own heart,
Put aside your old habits and selfish appetites, and be
honest with yourself.
Animals are beings like us, sentient, conscious, and fully
able to experience suffering and joy. They love life and fear death.
And yet every year we murder them by the billions for food
that we do not need to live long, healthy lives.
Can we honestly call this holocaust anything but evil?
There is no way that people of faith can be true to the
deepest values of their religion and still eat animal products.”
Norm
Phelps, founding member of the Society
of Ethical and Religious Vegetarians
“Nothing says more about someone than their diet.
The food we choose and the way we prepare it defines
who we are and how we choose to live on
this planet.”
Tyghe Trimble
“At the individual level, it seems pretty clear
that the No. 1 thing that can be
done is to eat less meat and dairy.”
Roni
Neff,
“I am vegan because I cannot justify
saying I believe in the values of social
justice, human rights and caring for the environment
and continue to participate in something
that is a core representation of exploitation
and pain in the world.”
Boris Dolin, Reconstructionist Rabbinical
Student and Coordinator of ShalomVeg.com
“The ever-increasing cattle population is wreaking havoc on the Earth’s ecosystems,
destroying habitats on six continents.
Cattle-raising is a primary factor in the destruction
of the world’s remaining tropical rain forests. Millions of acres of ancient
forests in Central and South America are being felled and cleared to make room
for pastureland to graze cattle. Cattle herding is responsible for much of the
spreading desertification in the sub-Sahara of Africa and the western range
land of the United States and Australia. The overgrazing of semiarid and arid
lands has left parched and barren deserts on four continents. Organic runoff
from feedlots is now a major source of organic pollution in our nation's ground
water. Cattle are also a major cause of global warming... cattle production and
beef consumption now rank among the gravest threats to the future well being of
the Earth and its human population.”
“To me, animal rights, humanitarian and
environmental issues are all
interconnected.”
Daryl Hannah
“I often pass a farm with cows grazing in the field and I think to myself how terrible it is that human beings grow other animals just to kill them and eat them….I wouldn’t be surprised if we came to a time in 50 or 100 years when civilized people everywhere refused to eat animals.”Andy Rooney
“I can see
entering into a discussion with someone about, say, the environmental damage caused by cows.
Between the
methane they release daily, the erosion they promote just by walking around and
the streams they befoul, they really are a hazard.
What good
have they ever done for us? The United States shouldn’t have cows.”
Jon Carroll
“Animals are
my friends and I don’t eat my
friends.”
George
Bernard Shaw
“This is my protest against
the conduct of the world. To be a vegetarian is to disagree—to disagree with
the course of things today.
Starvation, world hunger, cruelty, waste, wars—we must
make a statement against these things.
Vegetarianism
is my statement and I think it’s a strong
one.”
Isaac Bashevis Singer
“If you
caught your kid raising cats in tiny boxes, forcing them to live in their own
feces without clean air or sunlight,
pulling
their teeth and claws out with pliers to keep them from hurting each other,
then
skinning them alive to make collars to sell to their friends, you’d rush him to
a psychiatrist.
But you
support that very behavior every time you buy meat, eggs, dairy or fur.”
“The love for all living creatures is the
most noble attribute.”
“I am in favor of animal rights as well as human rights.
That is the way of a whole human being.”
President Abraham Lincoln
“The old mantra
‘You are what you eat’ has taken a new turn:
Today we
know that what we eat also shapes our landscape, more so than any other human
activity in history.
A diet of
corn-fed beef is a vote for a world dominated by genetically-engineered grain,
factory feedlots, and toxic, nitrate-laden streams.”
Gary Paul
Nabhan
“I wouldn’t be in the least surprised if [society] moves toward
vegetarianism and protection of animal rights.
In fact, what we’ve seen over the years…
is a widening
of the moral realm, bringing in broader and broader domains of individuals
who are regarded as moral agents.”
“Meat production causes more
environmental harm than other food production.”
Michael
Brower, Ph.D. and Warren Leon, Ph.D.
“Behind
virtually every great environmental complaint there’s milk and meat.”
Lee Hall, J.D.
“There is a direct relationship between eating meat and the
environment.
Quite simply, you can’t be a meat-eating environmentalist. Sorry
folks.”
Andrea
Gordon, “If
You Recycle, Why Are You Eating Meat?”, American Jurist
“You can’t be an environmentalist unless you care about how much meat you eat.”
Mark Bittman, Food Matters “The choice thoughtful people face is not between helping humans or helping other animals. One can do both.People do not need to eat animals in order to help the homeless, for example,any more than they need to use cosmetics that have been tested on animals in order to help children.”Tom Regan “You want to change the world?Get out the pots and pans, sling that canvas bag over your shoulder and head out to the farmers market to get some real grub.”Lynn Peemoeller
“You know, going vegetarian is a very useful, highly
effective environmental step.”
Umbra Fisk, Grist
“One of the quickest ways we can lower our collective
greenhouse gas emissions is to eat less meat.”
Tracy Fernandez Rysavy, “Eat Less Meat, Cool the Planet”
“Refusing meat [is] the single most effective thing
you can do to reduce your carbon footprint.”
Live
Earth Global Warming Survival Handbook
“The fate of animals is of greater importance to me
than the fear of appearing ridiculous;
it is indissolubly connected with the fate of
[humanity].”
Emile Zola
“If you really want to live a happy life, cut the animal products from your diet.”
Russell Simmons, Hip-Hop Pioneer
“Americans would benefit from a change in diet.”
The livestock sector is “one of the two or three most significant
contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from
local to global.”
United Nations Food and
Agriculture Organization (FAO)
“Don’t eat meat, ride a bicycle, and be a frugal
shopper.”
Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, Chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC),
2007 Nobel Peace Prize winner
“Vegetarianism is literally about life and death — for each of us individually and for all of us
together.
Eating animals simultaneously contributes to: their
suffering and death; the ill-health and early death of people;
the unsustainable overuse of oil, water, land,
topsoil, grain, labor, and other vital resources; environmental destruction,
including deforestation, species extinction, mono-cropping,
and global warming; the legitimacy of force and
violence; the mis-allocation of capital, skills, land, and other assets; vast inefficiencies
in the economy; tremendous waste;
massive inequalities in the world; the continuation of
world hunger and mass starvation;
the transmission and spread of dangerous diseases; and
moral failure in so-called civilized societies.
Vegetarianism is an antidote to all of these
unnecessary tragedies.
It’s as simple as this: Delete meat.”
“How we eat determines, to a considerable extent, how
the world is used.”
Wendell Berry, What
Are People For?
“One reason to eat responsibly is to live free.”
Wendell Berry
“Give people a salad, they eat for a meal;
teach people about vegetarianism and they eat for a
healthy lifetime.”
John Robbins & Dan Brook
Eat
smart, eat healthy, eat responsibly, eat environmentally, eat compassionately,
eat joyfully…
because
our lives depend upon it.
That’s Eco-Eating!
Return to the Table of Contents
32. Links, Links, Links!:
Further information can be found on (and off) the web.
Here are some suggested web links. Please feel
free to explore and share!
A Sacred Duty: Applying Jewish Values to Help Heal the World (one-hour film)
American
Dietetic Association on Vegetarian Nutrition
Animal Protection and
Rescue League
Animal
Rights: Abolitionist Approach
Animal Place – Sanctuary and Education Center
Animals Asia
Foundation (English, Chinese / 中文,
German, Italian, French, Spanish)
“Another
Inconvenient Truth: Meat is a Global Warming Issue”, E Magazine
Asian Animal Protection
Network
Associazione
Vegetariana Italiana
Buddhist
Vegetarianism (Wikipedia)
Caldwell B.
Esselstyn, Jr., M.D.
Center for
Informed Food Choices
“Cesar
Chávez and Comprehensive Rights” by Dan Brook on ZNet
Cesar Chavez PSA (30-second video)
The China Study (book by T. Colin Campbell, Ph.D.)
Christian
Vegetarian Association
Christian
Vegetarianism (Wikipedia)
Circle of Life
Foundation (Julia Butterfly Hill)
Compassion Over
Killing – Vegetarian Recipes
Compassion
Over Killing 30-second videos
Cow ‘emissions’ more damaging to planet than
CO2 from Cars
“Cut
Global Warming by Becoming Vegetarian”
Dansk
Vegetarforening (DVF) - Danish Vegetarian Society (Vanløse)
Dean Ornish, M.D.’s
Lifestyle Program
Devour the Earth (also in Deutsch, Français, Italiano, Español, Czech, Croatian, &
Hungarian)
dh love life (Daryl
Hannah’s v-blog)
Diet, Energy,
and Global Warming
Diet for a New
America (book
& video)
Disease Proof (Dr.
Joel Fuhrman)
Down On the Factory Farm (Woodstock FAS)
E
Magazine: The Case Against Meat