Eco-Eating
Eating as if the
Earth Matters
( it
does! )
advertisement
Choosing a vegetarian
lifestyle is one of the best things you can do for your body. One of the few
nutritional deficiencies vegetarians do occasionally deal with is iron deficiency.
Because plant-based iron isn’t always as easily absorbed by the body, iron
supplements can be a great, natural, and completely vegetarian way to get your
recommended iron.
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 Ľ
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. Evidence demonstrates that
livestock raised for meat is responsible for 51% — a majority! — of greenhouse gases that lead to global
warming, according to “Livestock
and Global Warming” (pdf), (World Watch,
Nov/Dec 2009).
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. You can easily reduce your
carbon hoofprint.
Power production, passenger and other vehicles,
international shipping, militarism (the U.S. military, for example, is the
world’s biggest consumer of oil and the world’s largest polluter), and other
major users of fossil fuels are also among the biggest contributors to global
warming. Deforestation is a major
contributor. Smoking is
also a factor and is intimately related to deforestation. Global warming is already having grave effects on our planet and we need to take action as soon as possible. No
violence, no war, no warming—we need to increase the peace!
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
2006 UN FAO report concluded 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”. That was an underestimate: the livestock industry is the leading
cause of anthropogenic global warming
and accounts for a majority (51%) of greenhouse gases.
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!”
“The single [biggest] action
that a person can take to reduce carbon emissions is vegetarianism.”
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: 
Water is an absolutely essential resource. 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
A
typical meat-based diet wastes a tremendous amount of
water per person every day,
hastening “peak water”, while vegetarian and vegan diets use 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. It takes about 100 times the amount of water to produce beef
as it does to produce wheat.
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. Each cow produces about 150 pounds (68 kg.) of manure
every day. 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, sexual harassment, and other
serious workplace violations.
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, simply to serve someone else’s selfish 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, walnuts, 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 is associated with and 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,
living 6 – 10 years longer, according to the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. “In
Further, since over 70% (nearly ľ) 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,
“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 FDA Center for Food Safety and Applied
Nutrition. “Allergies, like obesity, are
essentially an epidemic of modernity”, according to Judith Newman in National Geographic (May 2006). “As
countries become more industrialized, the percentage of population afflicted tends
to grow higher.” Some people have suggested a “hygiene hypothesis”. While
synthetics and chemicals, genetic engineering, urban landscaping and pollen,
and diminished breast feeding of babies may be factors leading to allergies, diet is also
a factor. Perhaps less serious than an allergy, many people experience “food
intolerance”, or “food sensitivities”, e.g.,
discomfort from milk due to lactose intolerance, stomach upset, dizziness, ear
infections, skins problems, redness, etc.
“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. [About 90% of
genetically-engineered products are made by Monsanto and about half are grown
in the U.S.] “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,
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.
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.
2.
Some animals kill others for food, therefore it’s natural.
3.
It’s my tradition, therefore I feel comfortable with it.
4.
I don’t feel well when I don’t eat meat, therefore I need
to eat meat to be healthy and happy.
5.
I can’t get enough protein without meat, therefore I need
to eat meat.
6.
The food pyramid includes meat, therefore it’s a good
thing to eat.
7.
I like the taste of meat, therefore I keep eating it.
8.
Animals are lower than humans on the food chain, therefore
animals are natural food for humans.
9.
We’re stronger than animals, therefore we should use them
for our benefit.
10. We have dominion
over animals, therefore they are here for human pleasure.
11. Modern humans
evolved to eat meat, therefore we should continue to do so.
12. It’s always been
this way, therefore it will always be this way.
13. If I don’t eat
meat, someone else will, therefore I might as well.
15. If we didn’t eat
animals, or if we let them, animals would eat us, so we should eat them first.
16. Hitler was a vegetarian, so vegetarians have no moral
standing.
18. Animals
don’t feel pain or suffer, therefore it doesn’t matter if they’re raised for
food.
19. Agriculture also
kills living beings, so it doesn’t matter what you eat or do.
20. I don’t want to
eat “rabbit food”, I want to eat a lot of different things.
21. I just like to
eat meat, therefore I don’t care about the consequences.
22. People will
always eat meat. It will never change, so why bother?
There are no rational reasons to eat meat, yet there
are many rational reasons not to.
Return
to the Table of Contents
(10)
Eat out at vegetarian restaurants;
and
“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.”
“By making a simple change
in the way you eat, you are taking part in a world changing campaign
where what's good for you
is also good for the planet"
“Give
vegetarianism a try… and you’ll get a spring in your step,
a glow in your
cheeks, and a lighter, brighter you.”
“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.
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 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-
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
“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…
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
“Eat lower on the food chain.”
50 Simple
Things You Can Do to Save the Earth
“Modify your diet to include less meat.”
Al Gore, An
Inconvenient Truth, p. 317
“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
“Most of mankind for most of human history has lived
on vegetarian or near vegetarian diets.”
American Dietetic Association
“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
“Anyone
who cares about global warming can start making a difference at every meal,
simply by leaving meat off their plates.
Going
vegetarian is by far the best thing a person can do today to stop rising sea
levels, spreading disease, and extreme weather that threaten tomorrow.”
Noam
Mohr, “A New Global Warming Strategy”
“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
“The beef industry has contributed to more American deaths than all the wars of this century,
all the natural disasters, and all automobile accidents combined.”
Dr. Neal Barnard, Executive Director, Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM)
“Vegetarians have the best diet. They have the lowest rate of coronary disease of any group in the country. They have a fraction of our heart attack rate and they have only 40 percent of our cancer rate.”
William Castelli, MD, Director, Framingham Heart Study
“Human beings are not natural carnivores. When we kill animals to eat them, they end up killing us because their flesh, which contains cholesterol and saturated fat, was never intended for human beings...”
Dr. William Roberts, editor-in-chief, American Journal of Cardiology
“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 “The single most important measure that can be taken in the world to reduce greenhouse gas emissionsis to stop eating beef.”Jairam Ramesh, India’s Environment Minister
“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 process of gradual blocking of the coronary arteries begins not in adulthood but in childhood... and the main cause of this arteriosclerosis is the steadily increasing amount of fat in the American diet, particularly saturated animal fats such as those found in meat, chicken, milk and cheeses.”
Dr. Benjamin Spock, author, child expert
“I don’t understand why asking people to eat a well-balanced vegetarian diet is considered drastic, while it is medically conservative to cut people open and put them on powerful cholesterol-lowering drugs for the rest of their lives.”
Dr. Dean Ornish, Reversing Heart Disease
“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”
“The burning of gasoline and the
raising of cattle are two of the most planet-scorching actions that we
take.”
“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
“Are You Taking Global Warming Personally?”
Asian Animal
Protection Network
Associazione Vegetariana Italiana
Buddhist Vegetarianism (Wikipedia)
Caldwell
B. Esselstyn, Jr., M.D.
Carnism Awareness & Action Network
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
“Controlling Cholesterol & Beating Heart Disease”
Cow ‘emissions’ more damaging to planet than CO2 from Cars
“Cut Global Warming by Becoming Vegetarian”
Dansk Vegetarforening (DVF) - Danish
Vegetarian Society (Vanlřse)
Dean Ornish, M.D.’s
Lifestyle Program
Devour the Earth (also in Deutsch, Français, Italiano, Espańol, Czech, Croatian, & Hungarian)
dh love life (Daryl Hannah’s v-blog)
Diet, Energy, and Global
Warming
Diet for a New America (book & video)
Digging Through the Dirt - blog
Disease Proof (Dr. Joel Fuhrman)
Down On the Factory Farm (Woodstock FAS)
E
Magazine: The Case Against Meat
Earthlings (95-min film) (Spanish / Espańol)
EarthSave
Report: A New Global Warming Strategy
Eating Less Meat And Junk Food Could Cut Fossil Energy
Fuel Use Almost In Half
Eco-Eating:
Eating as if the Earth Matters (this
page!)
EcoMermaid:
Where Saving the Planet is Fun!
Economic Vegetarianism (Wikipedia)
Engineers
and Scientists for Animal Rights
Environmental Benefits of a Plant-Based Diet and
Lifestyle
Environmental Benefits of Vegetarianism (Wikipedia)
Environmental Vegetarianism (Wikipedia)
Esperanto & Vegetarianism (Tutmonda Esperantista Vegetarana Asocio)
Ethics of Vegetarianism (Wikipedia)
European Vegetarian
and Animal News Agency (EVANA)
European
Vegetarian Union (EVU) (in various languages)
Farm Animal
Reform Movement (FARM)
Farm Sanctuary 30-second videos
Feminist-Vegetarian
Connection
Fight Global Warming by Going Vegetarian
Five Food Choices for a Healthy Planet
“Food for a Change” by Steve Karian on ZNet
Food for
Life Global (Hare Krishna food relief)
Food Studies Institute (Dr. Antonia Demas)
Friends of Animals - Vegetarianism
Program
“From Cradle to Grave” by Colleen Patrick Goudreau on CommonDreams
Fruit Tree Planting
Foundation
Gay and
Lesbian Vegetarians – Northern California
Gay/Straight
Animal Rights Alliance
“Global Benefits of Eating Less Meat” (pdf)
Gratitude
Gourmet (Fun Vegetarian Lifestyle)
Green Earth
Travel – Vegetarian Travel Specialist
Guide to Vegetarian Eating (Humane Society of the US)
H2O
Podcast – Vegan-Vegetarian Solutions for a Sustainable Environment
Happy Cow Vegetarian Restaurant Listings
Health,
Environmental, and Animal Benefits of Eating More Plant Foods and Less Animal
Foods
HIPPO (Help International Plant Protein Organization) – Food with a Purpose
Hong Kong
Vegan Society (Chinese
/ 中文, Japanese
/ 日本語, English, French
/ FranHais)
“How Green Is Your Diet?” (Common Ground)
How to Successfully Become a Vegetarian (free e-book by Rudy Hadisentosa)
Human Food and Animal Feed (from Worldwatch Institute Paper 103)
Humane Education & Vegetarianism
Humane Society of the United States
In a
Vegetarian Kitchen (Nava Atlas)
Institute
for Nutrition Education and Research (Michael
Klaper, M.D.)
Institute for
Plant Based Nutrition
International Fund for Animal Welfare
International
Institute for Humane Education
International
Society for Animal Rights
International
Vegetarian Club of Beijing (Chinese / 中文 & English)
International
Vegetarian Union (IVU) (Chinese / 中文)
International
Vegetarian Union (IVU) (English)
International
Vegetarian Union (IVU) (French / FranHais)
International
Vegetarian Union (IVU) (German /
Deutsch)
International
Vegetarian Union (IVU) (Hebrew / ;*9"3)
International
Vegetarian Union (IVU) (Japanese / 日本語)
International
Vegetarian Union (IVU) (Russian)
International
Vegetarian Union (IVU) (Spanish / EspaZol)
International
Vegetarian Union (IVU) (Thai)
Japan Vegetarian
Society (Japanese / English)
Japanese
Society for Vegetarian Research
Judaism &
Vegetarianism – Jewish Vegetarians of
North America (JVNA)
Keluarga
Vegetarian Maitreya Indonesia
Kid Bean
(vegan baby and other products)
Killer Cow Emissions (LA Times Editorial)
Lettuce
Ladies (and Broccoli Boys)
Liberation for Our
Brother & Sister Animals (LOBSA)
“Livestock and Climate Change”, World Watch, Nov/Dec 2009 (pdf)
Livestock is
Responsible for 51% of Greenhouse Gas Emissions (Chinese / 中文, Espańol, Portuguěs)
Livestock’s Role in Climate Change and Air Pollution (ch. 3)
Logical
Environmental Reasoning for a Vegetarian Lifestyle
LOVE – Living
Opposed to Violence and Exploitation
Maharishi University
of Management
Making a
Difference for Animals (MADFA)
“Making Your School Cafeteria Vegetarian-Friendly”
Massachusetts Animal Rights Coalition
Mayo Clinic: Vegetarian Diet: A Starter’s Guide to a Plant-Based Diet
McDougall
Wellness Center (John McDougall, M.D.)
Melanie Joy,
Ph.D., Ed.M. (author, activist,
professor, coach)
Meat Eating and Global Warming (excellent
collection of articles)
“Meat
is a Global Warming Issue” by Dan Brook on AlterNet
“Meat Is Murder on the Environment”
“Meat-Eaters Aiding Global Warming?”
Meat’s
Not Green (info, video, app, custom
labels)
Meet Your Meat – Mechanized
Madness
Metamorphosis –
Poems to Inspire Transformation
New York
Times - Vegetarian Articles
New Zealand
Vegetarian Society
North
American Vegetarian Society
Nutrition Information on Vegetarianism
People for the
Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA)
Physicians Committee
for Responsible Medicine (PCRM)
“Plants
for Supper? 10 Reasons to Eat More Like a Vegetarian” (CSPI)
Please Don’t
Eat the Animals (Jennifer Horsman &
Jaime Flowers)
Pleasurable Kingdom (book by Jonathan Balcombe, Ph.D.)
Public
Lands Without Livestock
Quiz for World Vegetarian Day 2007
Rainbow
Grocery (worker-owned
cooperative vegetarian supermarket)
Responsible
Policies for Animals
Restaurant
Vegetarian Starter Kit
“Rethinking the Meat-Guzzler” (NY Times
article)
San
Francisco Vegetarian Society
Save Animals From
Exploitation (SAFE)
Schweizerische Vereinigung fhr Vegetarismus
Sea Shepherd
Conservation Society
Seventh-Day Adventist
Dietetic Association
SHARK:
Showing Animals Respect & Kindness
“Shattering the Meat Myth: Humans Are Natural
Vegetarians” (Kathy Freston)
Six Arguments For a Greener Diet (book by Michael F. Jacobson, Ph.D. and CSPI)
Sociedade Vegetariana Brasileira
Societatea Vegetarienilor din Rom>nia
Society of
Ethical and Religious Vegetarians (SERV)
Society
for the Advancement of Animal Wellbeing
Soul
Mates Unlimited (specializing in personal
veg matchmaking)
SPEAK: Supporting
& Promoting Ethics for the Animal Kingdom
Straight
Edge / Punk & Vegetarianism (sXe)
Switch Your Lunch, Save the Planet
Taking Stock: Animal Farming and the Environment (World Watch)
“Ten Commandments Regarding Animals”
Ten Reasons to Be a Vegetarian
The Food Revolution (book by John Robbins)
The Future of
Food (feature-length film)
The Meatrix & The Meatrix 2 (short
videos)
The
Scientific Basis of Vegetarianism (William
Harris, M.D.)
The
Theosophical Order of Service
The Vegan Chef
(Beverly Bennett)
The Vegan Monologues by Brian Conroy
(mp3 comedy)
The Veggie
Table – Vegetarian Recipes and Info
Tibetans for a
Vegetarian Society (T4VS)
Tibetan
Volunteers for Animals
Tips for Non-Vegetarian Restaurants
Tofu and Tempeh Recipes (All Recipes)
Toronto Vegetarian
Association
Tree of Life
Rejuvenation Center
Tribe of
Heart: The Witness
& Peaceable Kingdom (films)
UN FAO: Which causes more greenhouse gas emissions, rearing cattle or driving
cars?
USDA Vegetarian Nutrition Resource List
V-dog – complete vegetarian dog food
Vasu Murti, The Politics of Vegetarianism
Veg
Advantage (free service for food-service
professionals)
Vegan (William
Safire’s On Language)
Vegan
Blog: The (Eco) Logical Weblog
Vegan Freaks: tofu-powered blogging
Vegan MD (Michael Greger, M.D.)
Vegan
Outreach (also in Chinese / 中文)
Vegan / Vegetarian / Animal Rights Page
Veganica – Online
Gallery for Veg Artists
Veganism (The Free Dictionary)
Veganz: The Vegan Society of New Zealand
VegBay – an auction
for the green community
VegBlogs – veg*n blog posts from around the web
VegCast – The
Vegetarian Podcast
VegCooking – recipes,
products, restaurants, and much more!
VegDining
– Vegetarian Restaurants Around the World
VegE-News – News &
Views from a Vegetarian Perspective
Vegetarian
and Vegan Guide to the Internet
Vegetarian
and Vegan Nutrition
Vegetarian Baby & Child (online
magazine)
Vegetarian Beans and Legumes Recipes (All Recipes)
Vegetarian Cuisine (Wikipedia)
Vegetarian
Economy & Green Agriculture (VEGA)
Vegetarian Home (search portal)
Vegetarian Nutrition Resource List (USDA)
Vegetarian
Organic Life (blog)
Vegetarian
Phrases in Other Languages (translations)
Vegetarian
Quotations and Poetry
Vegetarian Recipes (All Recipes)
Vegetarian
Recipes from Around the World (in English
& other languages)
Vegetarian Resource
Group (VRG)
Vegetarian
Resource Group Recipes
Vegetarian
Societies & Vegetarian Organizations in North America
Vegetarian
Society (UK) & Vegetarian Society Info Sheets
Vegetarian
Society (Singapore)
Vegetarian Union
of North America
Vegetarian USA – Vegetarian Travel Guide
Vegetarian
Video Lectures (various)
Vegetarianism (The Free Dictionary)
“Vegetarianism
as Feminism” (Naama
Harel)
Vegetarianism by Roger J. Wendell
Vegetarianism and Buddhism by Rev. Heng Sure (mp3 lecture)
Vegfam –
Feeding the Hungry Without Exploiting Animals
VegGuide (veg restaurant listings)
Veggie
Mommy Diary (Chinese /中文 with some English)
Veggie
Pride Manifesto (in French, Spanish, Portuguese, Turkish, German, Polish, Kurdish, & others)
VeggieConnections – veg personals, networking, and
dating
VegGuide – restaurant
and shopping guide
