Why do I decide to be vegeritian?

Question

That is the best choice?

Answer 1

because it makes you live longer

Answer 2

You love animals, meat has lots of saturated fats, etc.

Answer 3

from the beginning of time, man has been eating meat.

meat is good.

Answer 4

watch video at www.goveg.com

Answer 5

Propped up with the aid of official government policy, farming in the US has been allowed, over the last generation, to grow into a grim corporate monstrosity, the scale of which is hard to comprehend, or even to be believed. Virtually all of the over 7 billion animals slaughtered for food in the US every year are today the product of a highly mechanized factory-like system, incorporating dangerous, unprecedented, and unsustainable methods of efficiency.

An animal-based diet is invariably high in cholesterol, animal protein (see #13), and saturated fat, which combine to raise the level of cholesterol in the blood--the warning signal for heart disease and stroke. Due mainly to the meat-centered diet of most Americans, these two diseases account for nearly 50% of all deaths in the US.

It takes an average of 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 one pound of wheat.

Feeding the average meat-eating American requires 3-1/4 acres of land per year. Feeding a person who eats no food derived from animals requires only 1/6 acre per year. Recent marginal growth in animal protein consumption in increasingly affluent developing countries has led to huge increases in the need for feed grains. In 1995, quite suddenly, China went from being an exporter to an importer of grain. World shortages are predicted as both populations and meat consumption rise together--an unsustainable combination. Early in 1996, the world was down to a 48-day supply of grain. According to Lester Brown of the Worldwatch Institute, the world "may have crossed a threshold where even the best efforts of governments to build stocks may not be enough."

Chicken feed is routinely laced with antibiotics, sulfa drugs and other chemical substances. Only by maintaining the birds on drugs, a practice which began about mid-century, is agribusiness allowed the luxury and efficiency of massive flocks and intensive confinement. Today's medicated feed also pumps out market weight birds in half the time from two-thirds the feed of 50 years ago

Meat-centered diets are linked to many types of cancer, most notably cancer of the colon, breast, cervix, uterus, ovary, prostate, and lung

According to the Family Food Protection Act of 1995 (S.515), Section 2: "meat and meat food products, and poultry and poultry products, contaminated with pathogenic bacteria are a leading cause of foodborne illness." The bill also states that foodborne illnesses take approximately 9,000 lives, and cause between 6.5 and 80 million illnesses, each year. According to USDA Secretary Dan Glickman, 500 deaths a year are attributable to E.coli contamination in beef.

By concealing a hidden camera on his body, an employee of a Rapid City, SD slaughterhouse was able to obtain a videotape for CBS-TV's 48 Hours. The tape showed how a plant with over 300 employees that processes an average of 50 cows per hour with only 4 USDA inspectors "keeps the line moving." It showed workers taking dangerous shortcuts in cleaning up fluid that had broken out of an abscess from a piece of chuck beef, a severe violation of USDA rules that would require an extended clean-up procedure. Comments from a seasoned USDA veterinarian: "I can say from my experience of nine years and in talking to other food inspectors around the country, this probably goes on on a daily basis."

The National Cancer Research Institute found that women who eat meat on a daily basis are almost 4 times more likely to get breast cancer than those women who eat little or no meat.

It is not unusual in today's factory henhouse for 4 or 5 hens to be squeezed into a 12" x 18" cage. It is standard for poultry producers to de-beak chicks with hot-knife machines--not a painless procedure. De-beaking is industry's solution to birds, driven to crazed pecking, inflicting harm upon the fellow "product."

Meat contains no essential nutrients that cannot be obtained directly from plant sources. By cycling grain through livestock, we lose 90% of the protein, 96% of the calories, all of its carbohydrates, and all of its nutritional fiber

Two hundred years ago, American cropland had topsoil that averaged 21 inches in depth. Today, only about 6 inches remain. Every year in the US an area the size of Connecticut is lost to topsoil erosion--85% of this erosion is associated with livestock production.

Farm animals in our factory sheds today are supposed to have their drug intakes stopped at proscribed intervals prior to slaughter to avoid residues ending up in the final consumer product. Withdrawal schedules, however, are not always properly followed. With so many different drugs, the regimens can be complex, with written instructions often not very coherent. Due to the mechanized nature of today's conveyer belt feeding systems, troughs of old, drug-laden feed may not get cleaned away when withdrawal should begin. In addition, since farm animals are often fed animal waste as well as animal flesh, drug and pesticide residues continue to be recycled

Nearly half the fish tested in a 6-month investigation by Consumers Union were found to be contaminated by bacteria from human or animal feces, suspected to be the result of poor sanitation practices at one or more points along the fish handling process

Of all the antibiotics administered in the US to people or farm animals, farm animals receive over 95% of them--not so much to treat infection, but to make the animals grow faster on less feed

A US Congressional committee report, published in 1985, charged that there were 20-30 thousand animal drugs in use at the time, and that as many as 90% had not been approved by the FDA.

At least 95% of all toxic chemical residues in the American diet come from meat, fish, dairy products and eggs. This is because such residues are stored in fat. Each step up the food chain serves to amplify the consumption of toxins. Fish, especially, have very long food chains. Avoiding fish to avoid toxic residue may not be a sufficient preventative measure, however, as one third of the world's fish catch is fed to livestock. Due to the excessive use of pesticides, insecticides and petrochemical fertilizers on cropland, the injection of hormones and antibiotics into farm animals, and the abundance of PCBs and mercury in our oceans, there is toxicity in the flesh of all animals people eat. More than ever, it is wise to eat "low on the food chain," with plant food being the lowest and safest.

A male calf born to a cow--what does the farmer do with this useless by-product of the dairy industry? After the calf's birth, if he is not immediately slaughtered, more than likely he'll be taken to a veal factory. There, he will be locked up in a stall and chained by his head to prevent him from turning around for his entire life. He'll be fed a special diet without iron or roughage. He will be injected with antibiotics and hormones to keep him alive and to make him grow. He will be kept in darkness except for feeding time. The result? A nearly full-grown animal with flesh as tender and milky white as a newborn's. The beauty of the system from the standpoint of the veal industry is that meat from today's so called "crate" veal will still fetch the premium price it always did when such flesh came only from a baby calf, just a lot more of it.

Food originating from animal sources, including milk, unlike most foods derived from plants, makes the blood acidic. When this happens, the body withdraws calcium from the bones to make the blood more alkaline. This process balances the pH of the blood, but consequently becomes one of the factors which leads to osteoporosis.

Bacteria in meat and poultry processing is a constant concern, and a very big business. The proliferation of antibacterial rinses (chlorine and saline) and sprays (for cow udders), as well as steam pasteurization (beef), ammonia neutralizers (poultry litter) and contaminant vacuums--just to name a few, all serve to allow the meat and poultry industries the luxury of cheap and filthy operations. A USDA-approved pilot test of a chemical de-hairing process went into effect in early 1996. The procedure--which will give stunned cattle a burning, bacteria-eliminating shave before slaughter--will probably prove effective in the pilot test. In practice, however, the chance for a percentage of still-sentient animals being chemically burned will most certainly exist.

Farming today is fully concentrated in the hands of a few. In the US, eight firms control half (approximately 3.5 billion birds) of the poultry industry, and four meat packers control 90 percent of meat processing. The so-called Freedom to Farm bill, which came into law in early 1996, schedules $36 billion to be given over 7 years, in essence, to the wealthiest of America's agribusinessmen--regardless of prices in the market, nor with requirements to farm anything at all. The law will ultimately act to shake out small and moderate sized farms once and for all.

Our dwindling supply of good water is directly tied to meat consumption. Over half of the total amount of water consumed in the US goes to irrigate land growing feed and fodder for livestock.

The Allied naval blockade during World War I of German-occupied territories in 1917 forced Denmark most dramatically into nationwide vegetarianism. The death rate there from disease during the period dropped by 34%

Chicken feathers, guts, and waste water, which normally need to be discarded during processing, are routinely "recycled" back to the layer and broiler houses as feed. Industry experts believe that along with unclean slaughtering and processing techniques, this forced cannibalism is leading to the rampant salmonella epidemic in poultry plants

Late in 1995, the FDA put into place new rules pertaining to the regulation of fish processing. The rules require the FDA to inspect each of the nation's 6,000 processing plants, at most once per year and as little as once every three years, at which time a few samples may be taken for later evaluation. Individual fish will continue to not be inspected by any US agency. Though every fish processor will be required to keep ongoing records of safety procedures peculiar to its operation, no regulations whatsoever will pertain to the 100,000 fishing vessels that bring seafood to market. The new system is considered an improvement--from the standpoint of the consumer--over the previous one

The positive health benefits a person may think he or she gets from eating fish can better be achieved through a whole foods vegetarian diet. Fish lacks carbohydrates, fiber, and vitamin C. Also, fish is high in animal protein, which is hard on the kidneys and high in fat, which increases the risk of cancer and gall bladder disease.

The USDA does not inspect for trichinosis in pork. It is widely known that pork must be thoroughly cooked before eating. Still, about 4% of Americans have trichinella worms in their muscles which can periodically cause flu-like symptoms and even death

Hens are starved for 30 hours before their slaughter. Any food given during this time would not be converted into flesh.

Trade in animal food puts needless pressure on world governments straining to get along. For instance, the US allows the implantation of hormones into beef cattle. For this reason, since the late 1980s, the European Union has banned all imports of US beef. With the advent of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), the USDA has vowed to step up pressure on the EU to force it to accept US beef. The controversy could possibly even have to be settled by the Geneva-based World Trade Organization's dispute settlement body. A similar scenario between the US and Russia with respect to poultry was being played out at press-time. Intense pressure from the poultry industry was put on the USDA and even Vice President Gore to intervene when all poultry imports were rejected outright by Russia due to safety concerns.

More than a third of the veal calves tested in a 1995 undercover investigation done by the Humane Farming Association came up positive for clenbuterol--an acutely toxic and illegal animal drug. Subsequently it was found that many veal producers in the US had knowingly purchased and used the drug for their herds over a five-year period. This in itself is frightening; but worse is the revelation that the FDA and the USDA worked to protect the veal industry from scandal by maintaining a coverup about the clenbuterol use of which it became aware.

Poultry processors are not required by the USDA to check for salmonella bacteria in poultry. A 1978 USDA rule still in effect accepts a "chill tank" bath for bird carcasses as a sufficient counter-measure. Dunking a chicken carcass through this bath, now known as the "fecal soup," has been likened to a rinse in your toilet. According to the Center for Science in the Public Interest, 25% of all chicken sold in the US carry the salmonella bacteria--a conservative estimate. The USDA says that salmonella poisoning may be responsible for as many as 4 million illnesses and 3 thousand deaths per year.

According to the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, cardiovascular diseases caused 954,000 deaths (42% of all deaths) in 1993. Total direct cost to sufferers added up to $126.4 billion. Seventy-two percent of the deaths were due to atherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries), a disease strongly linked to a meat-based diet
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Why be vegetarian?



Improving Personal Health

It's no secret that compared to average meat-eaters, vegetarians generally live longer, are less likely to be overweight, suffer far fewer incidences of cancer and heart disease, and have more energy. These facts have been consistently borne out by decades of scientific research. The largest epidemiological study ever conducted (the China-Oxford-Cornell study) concluded that those eating the amount of animal foods in a typical American diet have seventeen times the death rate from heart disease, and, for women, five times the rate of breast cancer, than those who get 5% or less of their protein from animal foods. (See the references at the end of this article.)

Meat contains 14 times the amount of pesticides as plant foods, since pesticides get concentrated as they move up through the food chain, and since they're more easily stored in fatty tissues. In 1980, six years after the pesticide dieldrin was banned, the USDA destroyed two million packages of frozen turkey products contaminated with dieldrin. (And such contamination can routinely occur without detection.) In 1974, the FDA found dieldrin in 85% of all dairy products and 99.5% of the American people. The EPA discovered that the breast milk of vegetarian women contained far lower levels of pesticides than that of average Americans. A study reported in the New England Journal of Medicine found that "The highest levels of contamination in the breast milk of the vegetarians was lower than the lowest level of contamination…(in) non-vegetarian women… The mean vegetarian levels were only 1-2% as high as the average levels in the U.S."

Saving the Earth

All food animals consume several times more grain than they produce as meat. So several times as much land is needed to grow grain to feed animals, several times as much energy is used to harvest the grain and transport it, several times as much water is necessary, several times as much pesticides, etc. Worldwide petroleum reserves would be exhausted in 11 years if the rest of the world ate like the U.S. The least energy-efficient plant food is 10 times as efficient as the most efficient meat food. A nationwide switch to a pure vegetarian diet would allow us to cut our oil imports by 60%.

Over half of the water used in the U.S. is used to grow feed for livestock. It takes 100 times as much water to produce meat than to produce wheat. The water required to produce a day's diet for a typical American is 4,000 gallons. (It's 1,200 for vegetarians and 300 for vegans.) Compared to a vegan diet, three days of a typical American diet requires as much water as you use for showering all year (assuming you shower every day).

U.S. Livestock produce 250,000 pounds of waste per second -- 20 times as much as humans. A large feedlot produces as much waste as a large city, but without a sewage system. Animal waste washed into rivers and lakes causes increased nitrates, phosphates, ammonia, and bacteria, and decreases the oxygen content. This kills plant and animal life. The meat industry account for three times as much harmful organic waste as the rest of the industries in the U.S. combined.

It takes ten times as much land to produce food for an average American compared to a pure vegetarian. An acre of land can produce 20,000 pounds of potatoes, but only 165 pounds of beef. In the U.S., 260 million acres of forest have been destroyed for use as agricultural land to support our meat diet (over 1 acre per person). Since 1967, the rate of deforestation has been one acre every five seconds. For every acre cleared for urban development, seven acres are cleared to graze animals or grow feed for them.

Around 85% of topsoil loss is directly associated with raising livestock. We have lost 75% of our topsoil. The USDA says crop productivity is down 70% as a result of topsoil loss. It takes nature 500 years to build an inch of topsoil. Vegan diets make less than 5% of the demands on the soil as meat-based diets.

Caring for Animals

Around eight billion animals are killed for food every year in the U.S. alone -- a number greater than the entire human population of the planet. Each meat-eating American eats the equivalent of about 24 animals per year. What's worse, modern agricultural methods mean that animals are raised in cramped confinement operations instead of the pastures from childhood picture books -- a practice known as factory farming. Chickens are crammed into cages with no free space, and are debeaked to keep them from pecking each other to death. Animals are pumped full of various powerful drugs to kill diseases resulting from filthy living conditions, and to make them grow or produce faster than nature intended. When cows and chickens stop producing as much milk and eggs as the younger animals, they're unceremoniously slaughtered and made into low-grade meat (fast food and pet food). For some, vegetarianism and veganism are ways to refuse to participate in the commodification of animals.
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At Yale, Professor Irving Fisher designed a series of tests to compare the stamina and strength of meat-eaters against that of vegetarians. He selected men from three groups: meat-eating athletes, vegetarian athletes, and vegetarian sedentary subjects. Fisher reported the results of his study in the Yale Medical Journal. His findings do not seem to lend a great deal of credibility to the popular prejudices that hold meat to be a builder of strength.

"Of the three groups compared, the... flesh-eaters showed far less endurance than the abstainers (vegetarians), even when the latter were leading a sedentary life."
Overall, the average score of the vegetarians was over double the average score of the meat-eaters, even though half of the vegetarians were sedentary people, while all of the meat-eaters tested were athletes.

A comparable study was done by Dr. J. Ioteyko of the Academie de Medicine of Paris. Dr. Ioteyko compared the endurance of vegetarians and meat-eaters from all walks of life in a variety of tests. The vegetarians averaged two to three times more stamina than the meat-eaters. Even more remarkably, they took only one-fifth the time to recover from exhaustion compared to their meat-eating rivals.

Wherever and whenever tests of this nature have been done, the results have been similar. Doctors in Belgium systematically compared the number of times vegetarians and meat-eaters could squeeze a grip-meter. The vegetarians won handily with an average of 69, whilst the meat-eaters averaged only 38. As in all other studies which have measured muscle recovery time, here, too the vegetarians bounced back from fatigue far more rapidly than did the meat-eaters

The achievement of vegetarian athletes are particularly noteworthy considering the relatively small percentage of vegetarian entrant. Athletes, after all, are not immune from the cultural conditioning that meat alone gives the required strength and stamina. Yet some have adopted vegetarian diets and the results invite scrutiny.

Dave Scott, of Davis, California is universally recognized as the greatest triathlete in the world. He has won Hawaii's legendary Ironman Triathlon a record four times, including three years in a row, while no one else has ever done it more than once. The event consists, in succession, of a 2.4-mile ocean swim, a 112-mile cycle, and then a 26.2-mile run.

Dave calls the idea that people, and especially athletes, need animal protein a "ridiculous fallacy." There are many people who consider Dave Scott the fittest man who ever lived. Dave Scott is a vegetarian.

I don't know how you might determine the world's fittest man. But if it isn't Dave Scott it might well be Sixto Linares. This remarkable fellow tells of the time:

"when I became a vegetarian in high school, my parents were very very upset that I wouldn't eat meat... After fourteen years, they are finally accepting that it's good for me. They know it's not going to kill me."
During the fourteen years that Sixto's parents begrudgingly came to accept that his diet wasn't killing him, they watched their son set the world's record for the longest single-day triathlon, and display his astounding endurance, speed, and strength in benefits for the American Hearth Association, United Way, the Special Children's Charity, the Leukemia Society of America, and the Muscular Dystrophy Association. So deeply ingrained, however, is the prejudice against vegetarianism that even as their son was showing himself possibly to be the fittest human being alive, his parents only reluctantly came to accept his diet. Sixto says he experimented for awhile with a lacto-ovo vegetarian diet (no meat, but some dairy products and eggs), but now eats no eggs or dairy products and feels better for it.

It doesn't seem to be weakening him too much. In June 1985, at a benefit for the Muscular Dystrophy Association, Sixto broke the world record for the one-day triathlon by swimming 4.8 miles, cycling 185 miles, and then running 52.4 miles.

Then there's Edwin Moses. No man in sports history has ever dominated an event as Edwin Moses has dominated the 400-meter hurdles. The Olympic Gold Medalist went eight years without losing a race, and when Sports Illustrated gave him their 1984 "Sportsman of the Year" award, the magazine said, "No athlete in any sport is so respected by his peers as Moses is in track and field." Edwin Moses is a vegetarian.

Paavo Nurmi, the "Flying Finn," set twenty world records in distance running, and won nine Olympic medals. He was a vegetarian.

Bill Pickering of Great Britain set the world record for swimming the English Channel, but that performance of his pales beside the fact that at the age of 48 he set a new world record for swimming the Bristol Channel. Bill Pickering is a vegetarian.

Murray Rose was only 17 when he won three gold medals in the 1956 Olympic Games in Melbourne, Australia. Four years later, at the 1960 Olympiad, he became the first man in history to retain his 400 meter freestyle title, and he later broke both his 400 meter and 1500 meter freestyle world records. Considered by many to be the greatest swimmer of all time, Rose has been a vegetarian since he was two.

You might not expect to find a vegetarian in world championship body-building competitions. But Andreas Cahling, the Swedish body builder who won the 1980 Mr. International title, is a vegetarian, as has been for over ten years of highest level international competition. One magazine reported that Cahling's "showings at the Mr. Universe competitions, and at the professional body-building world championships, give insiders the feeling he may be the next Arnold Schwarzenegger."

Another fellow who is not exactly a weakling is Stan Price. He holds the world record for the bench press in his weight class. Stan Price is a vegetarian. Roy Hilligan is another gentleman in whose face you probably wouldn't want to kick sand. Among his many titles is the coveted Mr. America crown. Roy Hilligan is a vegetarian.
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MYTH: "Vegetarians get little protein."

FACT: Plant foods offer abundant protein. Vegetables are around 23% protein on average, beans 28%, grains 13%, and even fruit has 5.5%. For comparison, human breast milk is only 5% (designed for the time in our lives when our protein needs are as high as they'll ever be). The US Recommended Daily Allowance is 8%, and the World Health Organization recommends 4.5%.

MYTH: "Beans are a good source of protein."

FACT: There is no such thing as a special "source of protein" because all foods -- even plants -- have plentiful protein. You might as well say "Food is a good source of protein". In any event, beans (28%) don't average much more protein per calorie than common vegetables (23%).