Evidence Shows that Our Meat-Based Diet is Bad for the Environment, Aggravates Global Hunger, Brutalizes Animals and Compromises Our Health
There has never been a better time for environmentalists to become vegetarians. Evidence of the environmental impacts of a meat-based diet is piling up at the same time its health effects are becoming better known. Meanwhile, full-scale industrialized factory farming—which allows diseases to spread quickly as animals are raised in close confinement—has given rise to recent, highly publicized epidemics of meat-borne illnesses. At presstime, the first discovery of mad cow disease in a Tokyo suburb caused beef prices to plummet in Japan and many people to stop eating meat.
All this comes at a time when meat consumption is reaching an all-time high around the world, quadrupling in the last 50 years. There are 20 billion head of livestock taking up space on the Earth, more than triple the number of people. According to the Worldwatch Institute, global livestock population has increased 60 percent since 1961, and the number of fowl being raised for human dinner tables has nearly quadrupled in the same time period, from 4.2 billion to 15.7 billion. U.S. beef and pork consumption has tripled since 1970, during which time it has more than doubled in Asia.
Leading health experts agree that going vegetarian is the single-best thing we can do for ourselves and our families. Healthy vegetarian diets support a lifetime of good health and provide protection against numerous diseases, including our country’s three biggest killers: heart disease, cancer, and strokes.
The American Dietetic Association states that vegetarians have “lower rates of death from ischemic heart disease; … lower blood cholesterol levels, lower blood pressure, and lower rates of hypertension, type 2 diabetes, and prostate and colon cancer” and that vegetarians are less likely than meat-eaters to be obese.1 Well-planned vegetarian diets provide us with all the nutrients that we need, minus all the saturated fat, cholesterol, and contaminants found in animal flesh, eggs, and dairy products.
It has been found that the diet of any animal in its natural state corresponds to its anatomical structure and general body functions. Upon close examination, it is obvious that humans are not naturally suited to a diet which includes flesh. …..
......Since President Eisenhower had his heart attack, the medical world has discovered the relation between diet and diseases of the heart and blood vessels. Now we are told to avoid saturated fatty acids, found largely in animals fats, Recent discoveries brought to light the fact that rimming off the fat of meats will gain little advantage, for even of the lean meats we know 75 percent to be in the saturated-fatty-acid column.
Dr. Newburg of the University of Michigan, who was called to Washington as an expert on nutrition during the last war, told me that he was very critical of the diet of the American soldiers. He said they were being fed too much meat and too many calories. This diet, he said, tended to make them too heavy, and it hardened their arteries. Autopsies performed in Korea showed 75 percent of American soldiers had hardened arteries regardless of their age. Korean soldiers, on a simple diet of vegetables, cereals, and very little meat, showed essentially no hardening of the arteries.
Without meat, how can people get enough protein? W.C. Rose of the University of Illinois, an authority in the field of protein, says that "less than 23 grams a day is all one needs."
If a man were to eat meat, eggs, or milk he would still get on the average 83 grams of protein a day. A woman would get 61 grams a day. This fact was discovered by Dr. Mervyn Hardinge of the College of Medical Evangelists under Dr Fredrick J Stare of Harvard, well known authority on nutrition.
Dr. U.D. Registe, leading biochemist, and Dr Hardinge both active in the field of human nutrition, said to me that fruit alone, if amply supplied in sufficient variety, would provide people with enough protein to meet the actual body demand.
Probably neither scientist would recommend such a drastic program, but it serves to emphasize that the meat interests have oversold Americans on the high protein idea. It is well known that people may go for a number of days without protein, yet suffer no bad results.
Of course, a balanced diet is best, but the evidence goes to show that meat is an unnecessary factor in the eating program, and it may introduce substances tending to increase the chronic diseases, the degenerative diseases, the acute disease, and infections......
The experience of the Institute for Sustainable Development (ISD) and the Bureau of Agriculture and Natural Resources in Tigray (BoANR) shows that there is little need for genetically manipulated seeds to improve the livelihood of poor rural communities. The experience outlined below shows how farmers can control their lives by combining their knowledge and science instead of putting themselves in a cycle of debt and despair by borrowing money to buy chemicals and improved seeds.
The project was started with four villages in Tigray, northern Ethiopia, and grew to 83 villages, involving more than 2,000 households. It has become the programme of the government of the Tigray region, with the potential of spreading to other parts of Ethiopia. The demand for the project is already huge and the ISD is preparing itself to facilitate its introduction to more areas.
Mrs Sue Edwards had visited Hulu Yam a few years back, encouraged Hulu Yam farmers to practice Natural Farming, but until today only 2 farmers of Hulu Yam practicing Natural Farming and support from government agencies is limited.
