Going
through the reader feedback on
some of my recent articles, I
noticed
the frequently stated notion that
eating meat was an essential step
in
human evolution. While this notion
may comfort the meat industry,
it’s
simply not true,
scientifically.
Dr. T. Colin Campbell, professor emeritus at
Cornell University and author
of The China Study (please
check out the link), explains that
in fact, we only recently
(historically speaking) began eating
meat, and that the inclusion of
meat in our diet came well after we
became who we are today. He
explains that more
convenient to herd
animals. This is not
nearly as long as
the time [that]
fashioned our
basic biochemical
functionality (at
least tens of
millions of years)
and which
functionality
depends on the
nutrient composition
of
plant-based
foods.”
That jibes with what
Physicians Committee for Responsible
Medicine President Dr. Neal Barnard says
like other great
apes, which is to say a
largely plant-based diet, drawing on
foods we can pick with our
hands.Research suggests that
meat-eating probably began by
scavenging --
eating the leftovers that carnivores
had left behind. However, our
bodies have never adapted to it. To
this day, meat-eaters have a higher
incidence of heart disease, cancer,
diabetes, and other problems.”
There is no more
authoritative source on
anthropological issues than
paleontologist Dr. Richard
“the birth of
agriculture only started about
10,000 years
ago at a time when it became
considerably in his book, The
Power of Your Plate, in which he
explains that “early
humans had diets very much
those large
canines” (although we have teeth
that are called
“canines,” they bear little
resemblance to the canines of
carnivores).
In
fact, our hands are perfect for
grabbing and picking fruits and
vegetables. Similarly, like the
intestines of other herbivores, ours
are very long (carnivores have short
intestines so they can quickly get
rid of all that rotting flesh they
eat). We don’t have sharp
claws to
seize and hold down prey.
Leakey,
who explains what anyone who has
taken an introductory physiology
course might have discerned
intuitively -- that humans are
herbivores.
Leakey notes that “you can’t tear
flesh by hand, you can’t tear hide
by hand ... We wouldn’t have been
able to deal with food source that
required
And most of us
(hopefully) lack the instinct
that would drive us to chase and
then kill animals and devour their
raw carcasses. Dr. Milton Mills
builds on these points and offers
dozens
more in his essay:
The
point is this: Thousands of years
ago when we were hunter-gatherers,
we
may have needed a bit of meat in our diets in
times of scarcity, but we
don’t need it now. Says
Dr. William C. Roberts,
editor of the American Journal
of Cardiology, “Although we think we
are, and we act as if we are, 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, who are natural
herbivores.”
Sure,
most of us are “behavioral
omnivores” -- that is, we eat meat,
so that
defines us as omnivorous.
But our evolution and
physiology are
herbivorous, and ample science
proves that when we choose to eat
meat,
that causes problems, from decreased
energy and a need for more sleep
up to increased risk for obesity, diabetes,
heart disease, and cancer.
Old
habits die hard, and it’s convenient
for people who like to eat meat to
think that there is evidence to
support their belief that eating meat
is “natural” or the cause of our
evolution. For many years, I too,
clung to the idea that meat and dairy
were good for me; I realize now
that I was probably comforted to have
justification for my continued
attachment to the traditions I grew up
with.
But
in fact top nutritional and
anthropological scientists from the
most
reputable institutions imaginable say
categorically that humans are
natural herbivores, and that we will
be healthier today if we stick
with our herbivorous roots. It may be
inconvenient, but it alas, it is
the truth.
There Was No
Slaughterhouse in the Garden of
Eden.
Meat contains no essential nutrients that
cannot be obtained in higher quality
directly from plant sources.
The
main reason for becoming vegetarian is
self preservation. The consumption of
animal products causes the pH of the
body to become acidic, leading to
cellular degeneration and the onslaught
of disease. This has been confirmed in
hundreds of scientific studies. An
acidic pH in the body is the primary
precurser to all disease. When you
choose a vegetarian lifestyle, you not
only help yourself, but you help the
planet as well.
"As
we sow, so shall we reap." "Thou shalt
not kill." " For every action there is a
reaction." "Do unto others as you would
have them do unto you." "Whatever we do
to the creatures of the earth, we do to
ourselves." In many ways and in many
cultures, the same message has been
delivered. We must gently live with
others if we want gentle reactions.
Inflicting pain and death brings the
reaction of premature pain and death.
Witness our healthcare system.
No
Human is a Carnivore
If you've ever watched a carnivore eat,
you know instantly that humans are not
carnivores. Carnivores stalk their prey.
They attack, usually biting through the
neck and ripping the throat to shreds.
After killing, they rip open the belly
with their sharp teeth and devour the
entrails. They lap up the blood.
Finally, they chew the bones, crushing
them in their powerful jaws. No human
could eat like a carnivore eats, except
perhaps, the totally insane. We are not
carnivores.
The
only way humans can eat animals is to
disguise what they are really doing...
get someone else to kill the animal,
then drain and dispose of its blood,
slice the muscles into pieces that are
unrecognizable, grind the internal
organs to make "sausages", cook it,
smother it with sauces and seasonings...
all in an effort to keep from
experiencing the reality of what a
carnivore does and is. We are not
carnivores.
If
you have ever had a pet, you know that
animals have feelings, that they are
intuitive, sensitive creatures. The
production of animals for the
consumption of their muscle and organ
tissues is less than human. If we are
going to create a Heaven on Earth, these
atrocities must end. Interspersed
throughout the text below are positive
options and useful statistics.
Some statistics
Over
7 billion farm animals die
or are slaughtered in the U.S. every
year for the production of flesh, mostly
in highly mechanized factory-like
systems using unprecedented, largely
unregulated methods of brutality,
danger, and cruelty.
Over a billion cattle populate the
earth, with a combined weight greater
than the entire human population. They
are sustained unnaturally in these
numbers to satisfy demand for their
flesh. They are a primary cause for the
destruction of the environment. Beef
cattle return only 1 pound of meat for
every 16 pounds of grain and soybeans
they are fed, causing huge
inefficiencies in food utilization,
while millions of people go hungry.
Animal-based diets are high in saturated
fat, excessive protein and cholesterol,
leading to heart disease and stroke,
nearly 50% of all deaths in the U.S.
It takes about 2,500 gallons of water to
produce a single pound of meat.
According to Newsweek, "The water that
goes into a 1,000 pound steer could
float a destroyer." In contrast, it
takes only 25 gallons of water to
produce a pound of wheat.
The world's cattle alone (not including
other livestock) consume food enough for
8.7 billion people. Over a hundred
million of tons of grain go to animals
while only 5 million tons of grain could
adequately feed the 15 million children
throughout the world who starve to death
every year. By feeding grain to
livestock, we lose 90% of the protein,
96% of the calories, 99% of its
carbohydrates, and 100% of the fiber.
A meat-eating American needs 3-1/4 acres
of cultivated farm land; vegetarians
only require 1/6 acre.
There are virtually no laws against
cruelty to animals raised for food in
the U.S.
Meat contains no essential nutrients
that cannot be obtained in higher
quality directly from plant sources.
Grotesque
methods of reproduction are employed on
animal farms. One method of animal
procreation employs so called
"teaserbulls" (cattle) or "sidewinders"
(boars) to identify females in heat.
Their penises are surgically re-routed
to come out of the sides of their bodies
so that they cannot reproduce directly.
These mutilated, frustrated studs exist
only to identify fertile females. The
cows or sows are artificially
inseminated.
Meat would cost over $35/lb. if the
water used by the meat industry were not
subsidized by the U.S. government.
Livestock production accounts for twice
the pollution of industrial sources in
the U.S.
Dr. T.
Colin Campbell, a key researcher
involved with The China Study, says "In
the next 10 to 15 years, one of the
things you're bound to hear is that
animal protein ... is one of the most
toxic nutrients of all that can be
considered." Risk for disease increases
dramatically when even a little animal
protein is added to the diet.
The planet's entire
petroleum reserves would be exhausted in
a just over a decade if the whole world
adopted the technology used in the U.S.
to produce the standard American
meat-centered diet.
Trees are being cut
at an alarming rate to clear land for
meat production. If tomorrow people in
the U.S. switched to vegetarian, 200
million acres could be returned to
forest.
"Redskins" are
chickens on the conveyer belt to death
which missed not both the brine-filled
electrified stunning trough but also the
knife that was to cut their throats and
bleed their bodies. Their deaths
occurred in the scald tank where
feathers are loosened before plucking.
Piles of them are thrown aside every
day.
Chicken feed is
routinely laced with hormones and
antibiotics to allow agribusiness the
efficiency of massive flocks under
intensive confinement. Only with massive
drugs, a practice begun in the fifties,
can such cruel and brutal conditions be
maintained. These hormones and
antibiotics make their way into those
who eat their flesh causing hormonal
imbalances and antibiotic resistance.
Meat-centered diets
are linked to many kinds of cancer, such
as cancer of the colon, breast, cervix,
uterus, ovary, prostate, and lung.
U.S. livestock
produces 20 times the
excrement of the human population.Their
waste no longer serves to fertilize
pastures a little at a time, since they
spend much or all of their lives in
factory sheds or feedlots. Wastes are
often simply flushed away dangerously
raising ammonia and nitrate levels in
our drinking water. Going vegetarian
helps to clean up our nation's water
more than any other single action.
The human digestive
system is not designed for meat. A
natural carnivore's bowel is relatively
short (2-3 times the length of its
torso) and smooth inside, a human's
bowel is 12 times the length of the
torso and deeply twisted and puckered.
The carnivore has much stronger
digestive acids. In the long convoluted
human digestive tract, meat putrifies
and becomes toxic to the body.
John Robbins,
author of Diet for a
New America, says that
a dairy cow living in today's modern
milk factory "is bred, fed, medicated,
inseminated and manipulated to a single
purpose -- maximum milk production at
minimum cost. She lives with an
unnaturally swelled up and sensitive
udder, is kept inside a stall her entire
life, is milked up to 3 times a day, and
is kept pregnant nearly all of the time
with her young taken from her almost
immediately after birth. "Contented" is
the characteristic most often attributed
to the cow. However, cows in factories
are fed tranquilizers to calm their
frazzled nerves."
On a calorie basis,
spinach has 14 times the iron of sirloin
steak. Animal products are deficient in
vitamin C which is needed for iron
absorption.
Male cattle in the
beef industry are castrated to make them
more docile and to promotes a fattier
(more profitable) animal. Anesthetics
are seldom used.
The typical egg
factory may hold 80,000 hens per
warehouse with 4 or 5 layer hens
squeezed into a 12" x 18" cage. Poultry
producers de-beak their chicks with
hot-knife machines to prevent the crazed
birds from killing each other in
response to their intense confinement.
The National Cancer
Research Institute found that women who
eat meat daily are almost 4 times more
likely to get breast cancer than those
who eat little or no meat
At the expense of
their own hungry populations, exporters
in poor countries produce luxury foods
such as meat to sell to rich countries.
Meat is much more profitable than
subsistence crops of rice, beans and
vegetables.
Cattle are
responsible for 12% of the methane
emissions. Methane contributes to global
warming by trapping 25 times more solar
heat than carbon dioxide.
Pigs in today's
factory farms are often stacked two and
three decks high in space just big
enough to fit in. They stand on metal or
concrete slats which painfully cripple
the legs of half of them before
slaughter. Their entire lives are lived
this way. Pigs have a similarly high
intelligence and sensitivity as the
family pet dog.
Mother's milk from
a nursing woman who eats a diet rich in
animal sources is so toxic that if it
were to be sold across state lines, it
would be subject to confiscation and
destruction by the FDA.
Two hundred years
ago, American topsoil averaged 21
inches. Today, it's only about 6 inches.
Each year an area the size of
Connecticut is lost to topsoil erosion.
Livestock production is responsible for
about 85% of this erosion.
Fish concentrate
toxic chemicals. Consumer
Reports (Feb.,
'92) notes that the incidence of
unacceptable levels of PCB's and mercury
were found in certain species of fish.
Ingesting PCB's is considered a primary
cause for the sperm count in American
men to be 70% of what it was 30 years
ago. Half the world's fish catch is fed
to cattle, which concentrates the
poisons.
Drugged animals in
factory sheds are supposed to have their
drugs stopped at a certain time before
slaughter. Withdrawal schedules are
often lax. Troughs of old, drug-laden
feed are not removed when withdrawal
should begin. Since animals are often
fed animal waste and flesh, drug and
pesticide residues accumulate.
The common cold, as
well as allergies to dust, cats and
pollen, are likely to go away when milk
is removed from the diet. No other
mammal in nature drinks milk after
weaning, or drinks the milk of other
species. Cows will not even drink cows
milk after weaning.
USDA meat
inspection today is virtually
non-existent with sometimes as few as 3
out of 1,000 carcasses checked. Federal
inspectors are not allowed to stop the
assembly line if a problem is sighted,
they may only complain. Many cancerous
carcasses pass inspection.
Cattle grazing
destroyed most of the lush ecosystems in
North America. Grazing is the primary
cause for the loss or endangerment of
plant species in the U.S.
The American
Journal of Clinical Nutrition and the
Food and Nutrition Board recommend
eating only 2.5% to 6% of one's calories
as protein to satisfy requirements. It's
nearly impossible to get below 9% with a
vegetarian diet. Typical Americans eat
28% of their calories as animal protein
and an additional 12% as non-animal
protein. High protein intake is the
primary cause of osteoporosis.
About 98% of all
milk in the U.S. is produced with
factory methods. Today's factory cow is
fed dangerous levels of hormones to
produce two to three times more milk
than normal. After about four years,
when the hormones no longer work, the
spent cow becomes hamburger. Slaughter
ends the agony of mostly solitary,
intense confinement, in which our friend
has never seen a blade of grass. A cow
naturally lives 20 years.
Cattle grazing is
subsidized on public lands in the U.S.
The market rate is about $6.40 to $9.50
per month per cow, many government
permit holders pay less than $2.
According to U.S. Congressman Dick Armey
of Texas, our nation's "farm cartel"
government policy is simply "Welfare to
the rich."
Factory-farmed
animals have as much as 30 TIMES more
saturated fat than yesterday's
free-range, pasture-raised animals.
Nearly half then
fish tested by Consumers Union were
found to be contaminated by bacteria
from human or animal feces. The
suspected cause is poor sanitation
practices.
In the barnyard of
the past, a sow gave birth to 6 piglets
a year. Today's factory farms are
working towards 45! Frankenstein methods
include hormone injection for greater
fertility, artificial insemination,
"embryo transfers" where embryos are
surgically removed, and implanted into
other sows -- all in the name of greater
meat production at reduced cost. Similar
methods are employed in the beef
industry.
Cow's milk is meant
for calves, not humans. An infant's
natural protein needs are actually quite
low. Human milk contains only 5% of its
calories as protein which enables an
infant to double in size in 180 days. In
contrast, cow's milk is 15% protein by
calorie. Newborn calves double in size
in only 47 days.
At most stockyards
so called "downers" may lie suffering
for days until they are dragged by chain
to their slaughter. The tragedy is that
an animal can legally be kept in agony,
sick or with broken bones simply because
alive it will fetch a higher price for a
rancher.
More antibiotics
are used in animal production than for
humans. Animal drug sales are in the
billions.
Meat industry
apologists claim that livestock do not
compete for edible food with humans
because they live on forage humans
cannot eat. In truth, 70% of all the
grain produced in the U.S. is fed to
livestock.
Today's animals are
packed indoors and kept alive with drugs
and vitamin injections. The battle
against infection and death in the
factory farm shed is a constant concern.
Misting animals with insecticides has
become routine. In the chicken
factories, birds are fed chemicals to
control flies which are so potent, they
stay active even in their droppings,
still able to kill larvae.
The great Ogallala
Aquifer, which supplies the nation's
bread basket with water, is being pumped
dry, mostly for growing grain to feed
livestock. It spans over 8 midwestern
states with an area three times the size
of New York State. This natural
reservoir from the last Ice Age may be
gone in 30 years.
Meat contains about
14 times more pesticides than plant
foods; dairy products more than 5-1/2
times.
There are 20 - 30 thousand animal
drugs currently in use. Roughly 90% have
NOT been approved by the FDA.
The Physicians
Committee for Responsible Medicine, a
group of 3,000 physicians, introduced
the New Four Food Groups: fruit,
vegetables, whole grains, and legumes.
Meat, poultry, fish, nuts, seeds, and
oils are termed "optional" foods, not
considered necessary for health.
All natural
instincts are restricted in today's pig
factories. Driven insane, bored, and
frustrated, these naturally intelligent,
playful creatures are driven to gnawing
and biting on other pig tails and hind
ends. A mauled pig may die from an
attack and then be eaten by his
attackers. Mauled pigs cannot be sold, a
definite problem to the producer. In
answer? Pigtails are amputated and
animals are kept in total darkness
except for feeding.
The Bureau of Labor
lists poultry processing as one of the
most hazardous occupations. Workers
often contract diseases from sick
animals. The meat packing industry
suffers injuries10 times the national
average, primarily nerve and tendon
damage from repetative motion (up to
8,000 times an hour).
Egg factories all
over the country weed out male chicks
and dispose of them en masse in plastic
bags and barrels where they are crushed
and suffocated. A half a million chicks
a day are disposed of. They may also be
ground up WHILE STILL ALIVE for use as
animal feed.
Animals at the top
of the food chain absorb many of the
toxic chemicals in their diet.
Pesticides, insecticides,
petrochemicals, hormone injections,
antibiotics as well as toxic wastes such
as PCB's and mercury in our oceans.
Today, more than ever, it is wise to eat
low on the food chain. Plant foods are
the safest.
A diet vegetarian
diet helps prevent diabetes, often
relieves the symptoms, and can even
eliminate the need insulin treatments.
Detection of
salmonella is not required by the USDA.
Not a single plant in the country
inspects for it. CBS's "60 Minutes"
found half of the chickens they randomly
purchased to be contaminated.
The male calf born
to a dairy cow is taken immediately
after birth to a veal factory and locked
up, immobile, for his entire life. He is
fed a diet without iron or roughage to
produce tender milky white meat. He is
injected with growth hormones and
antibiotics to keep him alive. He is
kept in darkness except for feeding.
Veal fetches a premium price.
Agricultural
engineers discovered that the energy
costs of producing poultry, pork and
other meats was over10 times that of any
plant food.
Nearly all toxic
chemical residues in the American diet
(95% to 99%) come from animal sources.
To help end the
controversy over whether humans are
carnivores, consider that it is not
common for a person to stalk a wild
animal, catch it by sinking claws into
its body, bite its neck, and feel
comfort in the taste of fresh warm blood
and uncooked flesh.
To crank up pork
production, piglets may be taken away
from their mother soon after birth. They
are then provided with a mechanical
teat, without which they would die from
the emotional loss. The forced weaning
allows the sow to end her lactating
period, so she can become pregnant
again.
The high incidence
of constipation hemorrhoids, hiatal
hernias, diverticulosis, spastic colon
and appendicitis parallels today's
widespread high fat, low fiber,
meat-centered diets.
Our dwindling water
supply is directly tied to meat
consumption. Over half of the water in
the U.S. irrigates land for livestock
feed and fodder.
Considering factory
housing, irrigation, trucking,
refrigeration, and petrochemical
fertilizer, vast amounts of energy,
about a gallon of gasoline, is required
for every pound of grain-fed beef.
The Allied naval
blockade during World War I forced
Denmark dramatically into nationwide
vegetarianism. The death rate from
disease during the period dropped by
34%.
Chicken feathers,
guts, and waste water, which normally
would be discarded, are routinely
"recycled"back to the hen houses as
feed. Industry experts believe this
unclean slaughtering, processing, and
forced cannibalism, leads to the rampant
salmonella epidemics in poultry plants.
Ignoring true causes, the U.S.
government recommends food irradiation
to "sanitize" contaminated birds. Food
irradiation causes potentially
carcinogenic changes to proteins.
Even, though
organic farming and natural insect
controls are proven, agribusiness
continues with pesticides. Pesticides
may take hundreds of years to decompose.
In a March, 1984 Time magazine
reported on cholesterol and heart
disease... "in regions where ... meat is
scarce, cardiovascular disease is
unknown."
An acre cultivated
in spinach yields 26 times more protein
than it does for beef.
Human beings have
no sharp needle-like teeth to puncture
flesh as do carnivores; humans have flat
back teeth to grind (plant) food unlike
carnivores.
The USDA does not
inspect for trichinosis in pork, which
must be thoroughly cooked before eating.
About 4% of Americans have trichinella
worms in their muscles.
Vegetarians live on
average about six years longer and are
healthier than meat eaters.
Desertification,
now affecting 29% of the earth's
landmass, is largely due to the demands
of livestock production around the
world. Meat-eating countries, such as
the U.S., drive continued increases due
to conversion of land which has been
sustainably farmed for centuries being
converted to beef production for export.
European countries
have banned nearly all imports of
American beef because of the routine
feeding of antibiotics to livestock.
Demand for ocean
fish contributes to over 200,000 deaths
of marine mammals and birds caught in
fishing nets every year.
Doctors learn to
treat diseases with drugs and surgery.
Today's physician has virtually no
education on nutrition.
USDA poultry
inspectors are expected to inspect about
90 birds per minute on a fast moving
conveyor. An impossibility. They are
forced to allow unsafe poultry to get
the USDA's stamp of approval.
To produce foie
gras, duck and geese are force-fed huge
quantities of grain three times a day
through a feeder tube. This painful
process lasts 28 days before slaughter,
often causing stomachs sometimes to
burst. Diseased livers, which swell to
several times normal size by this
process, are considered a delicacy which
sells for about $12 an ounce. About
8,000 tons are
produced worldwide each year.
A vegetarian diet
is often a quick cure for ulcerative
colitis.
Each pound of
feedlot beef can be equated with 35
pounds of eroded topsoil, at an
estimated cost of $44 billion a year.
Antibiotics for
medical use are becoming ineffective
because excessive use of antibiotics,
especially in the meat industry, creates
super bugs that are resistant to all
known antibiotics. It is predicted that
we are about to embark upon an era in
which antibiotics are useless.
It's easy to
become a vegetarian.
Simply do
not buy meat or eggs when you go to the
grocer or to a restaurant. If you do not
buy it, you will not consume it. You
will learn how to cook and serve
nutritious and delightful vegetarian
fare. There are many cookbooks available
at your favorite natural food store or
bookstore.
