The Environment

Your Health

The Animals

Used with permission from Dan Piraro at Bizarro

Sales of plant based alternatives to meat or dairy are booming. (Check out our page with Citations for Consumer Demand). In fact, vegetarians now make up a small minority of people purchasing these products.

When you can eat plant-based alternatives that offer the same experience as the usual meat or dairy counterparts, with the taste you crave...it's an easy and attractive option. The less animal products in your diet, the greater the benefits to your health, the environment and the animals. If you plan to continue eating meat or dairy, try to limit those purchases to certified organic brands from small, local family farms.

The Environment

Some useful links for more information:

• The Sierra Club issued a report in August 2002 called "The RapSheet on Animal Factories". The subheading reads, "Environmental violations by the meat industry add up to a rap sheet longer than War and Peace."
• The WorldWatch Institute has a feature,"Like it or not, meat-eating is becoming a problem for everyone on the planet," by the Editors of WorldWatch Magazine, July/August 2004.
• Read "The Food Revolution" by John Robbins. (The facts cited below are taken directly from this book and include the page number.)

RAINFOREST DESTRUCTION Tropical rainforests contain 80 per cent of the world's species of land vegetation and account for much of the global oxygen supply. In one square mile of Amazon rainforest, there are more species of birds than exist in all of North America. Two thirds of Central America's rainforests have been cleared primarily to raise cattle whose stringy, cheap meat is exported to profit the u.s. food industry. When it enters the United States, the beef is not labeled with its country of origin, so there is no way to trace it to its sources. (pg. 256-257) WATER POLLUTION Gallons of oil spilled by the Exxon-Valdez: 12 million Gallons of putrefying hog urine and feces spilled into the New River in North Carolina on June 21, 1995, when a "lagoon" holding 8 acres of hog excrement burst: 25 million (pg. 242) Amount of waste produced by the 1,600 dairies in California's Central Valley: more than the entire human population of Texas. Total number of water quality inspectors in California's entire Central Valley: 4 "Dairies are the single largest source of water pollution...Our volunteers frequently encounter massive discharges of dairy waste that literally cauterize waterways and kill fish...We're in the process of losing one of the most marvelous and diverse aquatic ecosystems in the world." -Deltakeeper, an environmental group that monitors California's waterways (pg. 246-247) AIR POLLUTION "Livestock account for 15-20% of (overall) global methane emmissions." "American feed (for livestock) takes so much energy to grow that it might as well be a petroleum byproduct." World Watch Institute (pg. 267) WATER CONSUMPTION Since beef requires the burning of 54 fossil fuel calories for the production of a calorie of protein, and soybeans require only two, people deriving their protein from soybeans are, in effect, consuming only 4 percent as much energy- and producing only 4 percent as much carbon dioxide- as people deriving their protein from beef. (pg. 266)

 

Your Health

Some useful links for more information

• The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM)
• American Dietetic Association
• Dr. McDougall's Health & Medical Center

Did you know that cholesterol is only found in animal derived foods? If you have high cholesterol, your intake of animal derived foods is a key component. The high amount of saturated fat from animal derived foods can create serious health problems including obesity, heart disease and diabetes. Obesity is an epidemic in the U.S. and a precursor to heart disease and diabetes. Heart disease is the #1 killer in this country and diabetes is being diagnosed in more children and a higher percentage of the overall population every year. The dairy industry has convinced consumers through their extensie years of marketing that milk is good for the bones. Did you know that the sugar in lactose has actually been found to leach calcium from your bones? This is one reason why they fortify it with Vitamin D. The human body is only physically equipped to digest lactose during the first few years of life, when we are meant to be breast-feeding, after which the lactase digestion enzyme disappears. This is why we have an overpopulation of adults who are considered "lactose-intolerant." In fact, everyone is lactose intolerant by varying degrees. We simply are not physically intended to be ingesting it. (Read PCRM's report on this issue.) To illustrate the contrast in health benefits between animal derived products and their plant-based alternatives, check out almost any alternative brand's web site (check out our Affiliates, for example) and it will likely offer a nutritional comparison chart between its products and the usual animal-derived counterparts. You'll notice that they are equally high (or higher) in protein; lower in fat and calories; and contain ZERO cholesterol. For media articles and information regarding the rise in childhood obesity and the benefits of a vegetarian diet, see our page on Healthy School Lunches.

The Animals

Some useful links for more information:

• The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS)
• The Farm Sanctuary
• Meet Your Meat

Demand for meat and dairy in the United States has caused the once pastural experience of farming to go almost entirely industrial. Today, most of the meat and dairy products you buy in the U.S. come from "factory farms." Factory farmed animals are considered commodities. The law does not regard them as sentient beings and thus allows for terrible mistreatments to occur. Downed animals, those too injured to stand or walk, are often unattended until they are dragged (alive) by tractors and added to the food chain. Inside factory farms, animals are crammed into tiny metal cages and often don't even have enough space to turn around. They never see the light of day. All types of factory farmed animals, from cows to pigs to turkeys and chickens are often treated with serious doses of antibiotics to prevent their conditions from creating the diseases that would naturally occur there. They are also fed growth hormones in order to fatten them up to unnaturally large sizes. Many turkeys cannot walk without breaking their legs under all the unnatural weight. Chicken and turkey beaks are trimmed without anaesthetic so that their natural instincts to peck when crammed so tightly together does not cause harm to the other birds. When egg laying hens are not producing the quantity of eggs desired, they are "force molted": a common practice of depriving these beings from any food, water, or sunlight for many days. All while in those metal cages without any room to move. This causes their bodies to go into a panic mode which causes the aforementioned "forced molting" and thus initiates a new egg laying cycle. Many hens die during this process. Unwanted chicks are sometimes discarded alive, in bins or through shredders. As for dairy cows, they are impregnated repeatedly, their calves taken away shortly after birth so that machines can continually pump milk from their bodies. They often develop serious infections from this process. Their male offspring is too small to be sold as beef, so they are often crated to be sold as veal. May people are unaware that veal lis a byproduct of the dairy industry. This is just an overview of some of the suffering that factory farmed animals experience.

 

For more information, please check out the links above.