Hunting is a cool sport and I love it out here in WY. Anyone who says I need to be a fucking vegetarian needs to be brought in for target practice. LOL !

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This issue, like many others discussed here on Alternet, is one that, despite being surrounded by facts and scientific studies and all sorts of data, is, nevertheless, almost solely fueled by passion.

Some will learn, others will refuse to do so. Many who follow down that path will eventually realize that they have been drinking the Kool-aid and they will turn back to their old ways.

It would be nice if people would simply understand the consequences of their choices... but people DO need to make their own choices.

I'm staying out of this, after this. I have more pressing things to do, like finding a job. My dietary choices will become irrelevant when I run out of money.

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I'm very impressed that Alternet has recognized the importance of this issue and has published so many articles on it of late. Around 95% of people in the developed world eat meat every day and its effect on the world we live in is enormous and overwhelmingly negative. Yet it is purely a choice, a matter of taste if you like. None of us need to eat it and so the message needs repeating and repeating: we need to think about why we eat what we do and stop resting on the assumption that because it's normal behaviour, it is somehow justified.

I share Freston's view that Meat-Free Mondays are a good start but I have greater concern than she does that some will see it as an end. Of course all the harm that arises from meat - to animals, our health and the environment - will be reduced by cutting meat consumption in a systematic way but stopping at a seventh of what you can do may seem too great a temptation for many. It is certainly the case that many people will treat MFM as an introduction to vegetarianism. But many others will see it as a moderate step that demonstrates their awareness and willingness to take action and therefore allows them to carry on the same six days a week. People, by and large, tend to believe that moderation and incremental steps are by definition sensible. Giving up meat one day a week feels like a progressive but not excessively radical step. And it is but given the harm done by animal consumption, simply making progress is not enough. The only rational and ethical response to the needless slaughter of billions of sentient beings, their suffering opn factory farms and the criminal waste of resources devoted to rearing them, the only truly ethical solution, is a complete change of diet.

That change does not have to be immediate, of course. It took me months to become vegetarian and years to become vegan and it is better that people move slowly and stick with it than take a plunge and give it up too soon. Many people find vegetarianism easy but some don't, at least not at first. It is a challenge to change a behaviour that you perform every day and even though it often seems a small change form the perspective of an established vegetarian, it doens't alwayds feel that way at the time. So, yes, please go meat-free on Mondays for all the good reasons Freston mentions (and see her other articles for plenty more) but recognise it as the start of a journey, not the end of one.

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I read an article somewhere about this some time in the last few months, presumably when the idea was first floated. I remember thinking, "Yeah, that'll work."

Here it is some months later and here's AlterNet trying to push the lunacy off on us.

There is a case to be made in the animal cruelty aspect of our dietary habits. This proposition amounts to a light boycott of the meat-packing industries, and what's so remarkable about that is that it's quite a capitalist thing to endorse, given the political dispositions of the editorial staff (and majority of readership/commentators) here at AlterNet.

Leaving that aside - OK, inhumane animal slaughter is the bogeyman AlterNet wants us to vanquish this week - and, as stated, the workers in many of the animal factory-farms do tend to use some pretty inhumane practices, from the moment of an animals birth right on through the time of its grisly death.

But when are we going to see an AlterNet article about religious animal slaughter? Animal slaughter done in traditional Kosher ways and in adherence to Muslim law is equally as grisly, perhaps even more so.

Granted, the scale of the abuse is a fraction of what occurs in the factory-farms, but why tread lightly? If the topic here is animal rights and the target of action is animal slaughter practices, why draw a line? Why is one kind of animal abuse OK while another is not? Why is one kind tolerable and one isn't? Is it because we're to be "tolerant" of other peoples religions?

Why do some archaic, obsolete religions get a free pass to ritualistic animal abuse, and I'm supposed to eat bean curd and tree bark for dinner on Mondays?

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The frugivores (gorillas, chimpanzees and other primates) have intestinal tracts twelve times the length of the body, clawless hands and alkaline urine and saliva. Their diet is mostly vegetarian, occasionally supplemented with carrion, insects, etc.

Flesh-eating animals lap water with their tongue, whereas vegetarian animals imbibe liquids by a suction process. Humans are classified as primates and are thus frugivores possessing a set of completely herbivorous teeth. Proponents of the theory that humans should be classified as omnivores note that human beings do, in fact, possess a modified form of canine teeth. However, these so-called "canine teeth" are much more prominent in animals that traditionally never eat flesh, such as apes, camels, and the male musk deer.

It must also be noted that the shape, length and hardness of these so-called "canine teeth" can hardly be compared to those of true carnivorous animals. A principle factor in determining the hardness of teeth is the phosphate of magnesia content. Human teeth usually contain 1.5 percent phosphate of magnesia, whereas the teeth of carnivores are composed of nearly 5 percent phosphate of magnesia. It is for this reason they are able to break through the bones of their prey, and reach the nutritious marrow.

Zoologist Desmond Morris makes a case for vegetarianism in his 1967 book, The Naked Ape: "It could be argued that, since our primate ancestors had to make do without a major meat component in their diets we should be able to do the same. We were driven to become flesh eaters only by environmental circumstances, and now that we have the environment under control, with elaborately cultivated crops at our disposal, we might be expected to return to our ancient feeding patterns."

In The Human Story, edited by Marie-Louise Makris (1985), we read: "...recent studies of their teeth reveal that the Australopithecines did not eat meat as a regular part of their diet, and were mainly peaceful vegetarians, rather like chimps or gorillas. The popular image of the murderous ape is now as extinct as the Australopithecines themselves."

Dr. Gordon Latto notes that carnivorous and omnivorous animals can only move their jaws up and down, and that omnivores "have a blunt tooth, a sharp tooth, a blunt tooth, a sharp tooth--showing that they were destined to deal both with flesh foods from the animal kingdom and foods from the vegetable kingdom...

"Carnivorous mammals and omnivorous mammals cannot perspire except at the extremity of the limbs and the tip of the nose; man perspires all over the body. Finally, our instincts; the carnivorous mammal (which first of all has claws and canine teeth) is capable of tearing flesh asunder, whereas man only partakes of flesh foods after they have been camouflaged by cooking and by condiments.

"Man instinctively is not carnivorous," explains Dr. Latto. "...he takes the flesh food after somebody else has killed it, and after it has been cooked and camouflaged with certain condiments. Whereas to pick an apple off a tree or eat some grain or a carrot is a natural thing to do; people enjoy doing it; they don't feel disturbed by it. But to see these animals being slaughtered does affect people; it offends them. Even the toughest of people are affected by the sights in the slaughterhouse.

"I remember taking some medical students into a slaughterhouse. They were about as hardened people as you could meet. After seeing the animals slaughtered that day in the slaughterhouse, not one of them could eat the meat that evening."

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Author R.H. Weldon writes in No Animal Food:

"The gorge of a cat, for instance, will rise at the smell of a mouse or a piece of raw flesh, but not at the aroma of fruit. If a man can take delight in pouncing upon a bird, tear its still living body apart with his teeth, sucking the warm blood, one might infer that Nature had provided him with a carnivorous instinct, but the very thought of doing such a thing makes him shudder. On the other hand, a bunch of luscious grapes makes his mouth water, and even in the absence of hunger, he will eat fruit to gratify taste."

As far back as 1961, the Journal of the American Medical Association reported that: "A vegetarian diet can prevent 97% of our coronary occlusions." More recently, William S. Collens and Gerald B. Dobkens concluded: "Examination of the dental structure of modern man reveals that he possesses all the features of a strictly herbivorous animal. While designed to subsist on vegetarian foods, he has perverted his dietary habits to accept food of the carnivore. It is postulated that man cannot handle carnivorous foods like the carnivore. Herein may lie the basis for the high incidence of arteriosclerotic disease."

Keith Akers in A Vegetarian Sourcebook (1983), responds to the argument that killing animals for food is natural:

"This is quite an admirable argument. It explains practically everything; why we do not eat each other, except under conditions of unusual stress; why we may kill certain other animals (they are, in the order of nature, food for us); even why we should be kind to pets and try to help miscellaneous wildlife (they are not naturally our food). There are some problems with the idea that an order of nature determines which species are food for us, but an examination of human history indicates the broad outlines of just such an order, though inhibitions against eating certain species may vary from culture to culture.

"The main problem with this argument is that it does not justify the practice of meat-eating or animal husbandry as we know it today; it justifies hunting. The distinction between hunting and animal husbandry probably seems rather fine to the man in the street, or even to your typical rule-utilitarian moral philosopher. The distinction, however, is obvious to an ecologist. If one defends killing on the grounds that it occurs in nature, then one is defending the practice as it occurs in nature.

"When one species of animal preys on another in nature, it only preys on a very small proportion of the total species population. Obviously, the predator species relies on its prey for its continued survival. Therefore, to wipe the prey species out through overhunting would be fatal. In practice, members of such predator species rely on such strategies as territoriality to restrict overhunting and to insure the continued existence of its food supply.

"Moreover, only the weakest members of the prey species are the predator's victims: the feeble, the sick, the lame, or the young accidentally separated from the fold. The life of the typical zebra is usually placid, even in lion country; this kind of violence is the exception in nature, not the rule.

"As it exists in the wild, hunting is the preying upon isolated members of an animal herd. Animal husbandry is the nearly complete annihilation of an animal herd. In nature, this kind of slaughter does not exist. The philosopher is free to argue that there is no moral difference between hunting and slaughter, but he cannot invoke nature as a defense of this idea.

"Why are hunters, not butchers, most frequently taken to task by the larger community for their killing of animals?...If any form of meat-eating is justified, it would be meat from a hunted animal."

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In his 1975 book, Animal Liberation, Australian philosopher Peter Singer writes:

"Killing an animal is in itself a troubling act. It has been said that if we had to kill our own meat we would all be vegetarians. There may be exceptions to that general rule, but it is true that most people prefer not to inquire into the killing of the animals they eat.

"Very few people ever visit a slaughterhouse; and films of slaughterhouse operations are rarely shown on television...Yet those who, by their purchases, require animals to be killed have no right to be shielded from this or any other aspect of the production of the meat they buy.

"If it is distasteful for humans to think about, what can it be like for the animals to experience it?"

Peter Singer concludes in Animal Liberation that "by ceasing to rear and kill animals for food, we can make extra food available for humans that, properly distributed, it would eliminate starvation and malnutrition from this planet. Animal Liberation is Human Liberation, too."

Dr. Milton Mills' "The Comparative Anatomy of Eating,"

www.vegsource.com/veg_faq/comparative.htm

and the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine,

www.pcrm.org ,

argue persuasively that the optimal diet for humanity is a vegan diet. However, even if humans really are omnivores and not frugivores, the diet of natural omnivores is mostly (80 percent) plant food.

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The vast majority of people in the world couldn't afford meat EVERY day, even if they wanted that or thought it was desirable.

Come on, I go "meatless" at least one day a week without even much trying (although I take notice), and sometimes two or three, although I'm unlikely ever to become a full-time vegetarian as Kathy Freston's articles up to now have urged us relentlessly.

But now, even when she's obviously making an effort to (finally!) be practical, she seems awfully obtuse.

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For millions of years humans have eaten meat. Man was a hunter gatherer since becoming human. And over the last several hundred thousand years, meat has been the major source of nutrients for mankind. Some hunter gatherers, like in areas closer to the arctic, ate meat and fish almost exclusively. More toward the tropics they ate more vegetable matter, but still meat was central.

And here is the rub: no high blood pressure, no heart disease, less cancer and other problems, no diabetes.

The problem isn't meat. The problem is modern food. And the problem is grains. We just have not been eating grains long enough to be able to process them. Even in the earliest grain producing cultures, there is a marked decrease in height and increase in bone diseases. We simply have not been eating grains long enough to evolve what we need to to stay healthy on them. And the same can be said for beans.

So it is ridiculous to blame our health woes on meat.
But the meat we eat IS terrible. We eat grazing animals that have been fed grains and antibiotics and other chemicals, when what they are supposed to eat is grass. We eat chickens that are far too fat and raised in the most unhealthy manner. And we combine all of this with industrialized grain based foods. A horrible mess for our bodies to sort out biochemically.

These articles that tell us untruths really bug me. If you are going to present us with facts, give us all of the facts, not just those that you pick and choose.
The reality is that mankind has always eaten meat, and he ate a lot of it, and the diseases you associate with meat just were not present in man before agriculture and grain and bean eating.

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these days, it's plain rice and beans at least one day a week for more and more families... it costs too much to serve other foods...

looking at $$ btw... realize that the produce dept at the local grocery store will cost as much as a piece of some meat for many families... start off with a head of romaine lettuce (folic acid plus other nutriments) is around 1.69 per pound... no, not everyone can get to a farmer's market where said head of lettuce is about the same price and the growers are making a lot less profit then the chains...

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Excellent point [that most of the world cannot afford to eat meat every day in the first place]....although I suppose some purists would (convolutedly) argue that meat-abstinence only counts as real virtue if one does it voluntarily and on principle rather than out of financial necessity when one wants and could really use its nutritive protein, etc.

Those who have much means make an easy crusade for themselves of reducing consumption, while others have enough of a bother consuming enough (and having the means) to simply live in relatively uncontaminated health. And, this being the Internet and a progressive forum thereon, there's no segregation of income, nationality or personal background so that one can be certain of one's social assumptions being accepted without question by others of similar assumptions.

I suppose it'd be less offensive if Preston were actually preaching her mission to people who do overconsume and are completely oblivious to environmental and ethical issues -- i.e., that "average American" whose ignorance and gluttony is a statistical behemoth. This choir is too mixed (esp. of income/economic security) and too already-aware for her exhortations to be a force for mindfulness -- or good, given the ire that's been sparked and constantly relit here by her repeated and tedious harpings on the same (non-animal-derived) string.

I think she needs to try a new venue in order to be effective, 'cause we're tired of going at this topic over and over and over again, and it's made for much more polarization than moderation or rapprochement. Calling for moderation now (though with the same missionary agenda visibly under the table) is not going to automatically make her a saint to the principled omnivores on this forum, and those who are diehard in condemning meat see her condoning any moderation as an ideological backslide. And then there are the hunters, for whom both gun and venison steak will have to be pried from their cold dead hands...in short, she can't please everyone even more.

If she really wants to make a difference, she should take her message to rural county fairs, or to inner-city churches, or to suburban megamalls, or to fast-food corporate headquarters. Which would involve a lot more personal commitment than just bangin' out an article every couple of weeks to be posted in assumed-to-be-sympathetic places.

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Hey Kathy,

Wht not produce a story about Dole, Monsanto, and the GMO.

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Catholics used to have meatless Fridays (abstinence); there are still many meatless recipes in use in traditional catholic countries. Googling receta and de vigilia will find plenty of them in Spanish.

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It is amazing how all this meat is killing us, when our life spans continue to increase, and every third world country craves meat protein as their standards of living increase. Some articles have stated that population control is what is really needed to save the planet. Shouldn't you be encouraging more meat eating? At least with the pseudo-science you espouse from all these groups that have alternative agendas, that would speed up the reduction in human population you desire. Let's have a More Meat Monday!!!!!

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The only times I don't eat meat, I still eat dairy (Cheese on Italian food). I enjoy meat as much as brown people enjoy overpopulating the world. I don’t think either of us will give it up any time soon.

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Poor Stella and Mary.......no Mama's milk as babes?......or is breast milk considered vegetarian?

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I've been doing them for a while now and after last Monday's baked eggplant parmesan (which is so hearty picky eaters won't even realize is meatless) was inspired to go meatless the next day.. and the next day.. and the day after that.. and now I've eaten only veggies and seafood for the last week and I feel fantastic. My husband said I look like I lost ten pounds!

http://themeatrix.com/

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Do it on Friday.

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Another in a long series of articles pushed by vegetarians, who provide misleading information as facts at best or just outright lie about the fact that humans have evolved as omnivores. She conveniently makes no distinction between industrial agriculture, corn, soy, GMO crops (which is in 90% of processed food) and does not address local organic sustainable farming methods like those of Joel Salatin. I urge you to see the movie Food, Inc and you will certainly see how distorted and biased the authors view is of food.

It is now well known that the obesity issues is tied directly to processed foods, foods with sugar, HFCS, white flower, and fast food. As the movie points out 1 in 3 people born after the year 2000 will develop early onset diabetes, and it 1 in 2 in minority communities. Why is that the case? Well the movie clearly establishes the link between this type of diet and diseases. It is NOT the meat in the diet, but rather all the processed food that produces diabetes, heart disease, cancer and other long term debilitating diseases.

Also, the author does not mention the Corporate Agribusiness GMO crops or the fact that 90% of the soybeans produced in the US are Roundup, which means they resist the toxic chemicals so more Roundup can be sprayed on them. Not only that but Soy is actually toxic to humans, unless it is consumes in a fermented form, like Natto.

One of the points in the movie is that 60 years ago we spent 15% of our income on food and 5% on health care. Now we spend 5% of our income on food, and 18% on health care. Can you see the correlation?

As for the real facts surrounding our health, the only source of Vitamin B12 that human body can utilize comes from red meat. Vitamin B12 is important in triggering many hormones which directly impact many processes in the body. Furthermore, the human body needs certain types of fats, and saturated fats that come mostly from meat (you can also get them from Coconut Oil) are the best, since there ate fat soluble vitamins, minerals that the body cannot process without the right kind of fat.

The vegetable oil (with the exception of a few like Olive Oil) are mostly rancid fats, with Hydrogenated vegetable oils and Transfats being the worst for human consumption. And what do you find in all the processed foods, these later rancid oils because they have a long shelf life. The reason that these products have a long shelf life is that even mold will not grow on them. What does that tell you of their true nutritional value if mold and bacteria ignore them.

Finally, I grew up in rural America where it was common to butcher chickens on the farm. I also grew up hunting and fishing, where the rule was you shot or you caught it, you clean it. I personally think a real part of the problem is that people are removed from the source of their food. Therefore, I did not find the butchering of Joel Salatin's chickens disgusting, but rather a return to the way farming should be done. If you look at the overall participation of Joel Salatin and Polyface farm I get a much different picture, one in which he is a true American hero, taking on big Agribusiness and building a community through sustainable farming methods.

So contrary to the vegetarian and vegan propaganda, humans do need to eat meat and fish for proper nutrition and optimal health. While we make take supplements, we all know that getting the protein, fat, vitamins, minerals and fiber from whole foods is the best source.

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As Food, Inc suggests you can do your part, by shopping at Farmer's Markets, buying organic, but more importantly buying local. If you have never shopped at a Farmer's Market you will be surprised that you actually spend time talking with the farmers about their production methods, their beliefs in providing wholesome health food, and you will find a sense of community that Corporate Agribusiness does not, since that food is proceeds thousands of miles away.

What you can do now!

Plant a victory Garden.

Buy local and organic in that order.

Eat pastured meat, poultry and eggs.

If possible only consume raw milk dairy products.

See Food, Inc. and tell your friends.

Finally, I would provide the following for references for further information:

Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats, by Sally Fallon

And for more information on the toxic Soy see:

www.mercola.com

Just type in "Why is soy toxic to humans" in the search window and check out the articles.

Peace

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A vegetarian since 1982, I attended my first anti-vivisection protest in the spring of 1985, as anti-apartheid demonstrations rocked the UC San Diego campus. I first got interested in promoting vegetarianism in mainstream society after reading John Robbins' Diet for a New America (1987). Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, it makes veganism seem as reasonable and mainstream as recycling.

Half the water consumed in the U.S. goes to irrigate land growing feed and fodder for livestock. Huge amounts of water wash away their excrement. U.S. livestock produce 20 times as much excrement as does the entire human population; creating sewage which is 10 to several hundred times more concentrated than raw domestic sewage. Animal wastes cause 10 times more water pollution than does the U.S. human population; the meat industry causes three times as much harmful organic water pollution than the rest of the nation's industries combined. Meat producers, the number one industrial polluters in our nation, contribute to half the water pollution in the United States.

Joanna Macy, author of Despair and Personal Power in the Nuclear Age, depicts the advantages of America moving towards a vegan diet in her foreword to Diet for a New America:

"The effects on our physical health are immediate. The incidence of cancer and heart attack, the nation's biggest killers, drops precipitously. So do many other diseases now demonstrably and causally linked to consumption of animal proteins and fats, such as osteoporosis...

"The social, ecological, and economic consequences, as we Americans turn away from animal food products, are equally remarkable. We find that the grain we previously fed to fatten livestock can now feed five times the U.S. population; so we have become able to alleviate malnutrition and hunger on a worldwide scale...

"The great forests of the world, that we had been decimating for grazing purposes, begin to grow again. Oxygen-producing trees are no longer sacrificed for cholesterol-producing steaks.

"The water crisis eases. As we stop raising and grinding up cattle for hamburgers, we discover that ranching and farm factories had been the major drain on our water resources. The amount now available for irrigation and hydroelectric power doubles. Meanwhile, the change in diet frees over 90% of the fossil fuel previously used to produce food. With this liberation of water energy and fossil fuel energy, our reliance on oil imports declines, as does the rationale for building nuclear power plants..."

Joanna Macy admits, "This scenario is wildly, absurdly utopian. It is also clearly the way we are meant to live, built to live." What could possibly make it a reality? "It is this very book!"

Roberta Kalechofsky of Jews for Animal Rights similarly says:

"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

"Most often, the act of repairing the world,
of healing mortal wounds,
is left to heroes and tzaddikim (holy people)
Saints and people of unusual discipline

"But here is an action every mortal can
perform--surely it is not too difficult!"

When I first read Diet for a New America, I felt it could have the same kind of impact on mainstream American society that Frances Moore Lappe's Diet for a Small Planet had in the '70s.

John Robbins spoke before the United Nations in 1994, where he received a standing ovation.

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Hahaha, in our house, we are truly fortunate it we can have meat even once a week! Try making $ 265.00 worth of food stamps last a month here in California!

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From

"The Comparative Anatomy of Eating", by Milton R. Mills, MD

Which category are humans most suited for?

*Facial Muscles*
CARNIVORE: Reduced to allow wide mouth gape
OMNIVORE: Reduced
HERBIVORE: Well-developed
HUMAN: Well-developed

*Jaw Type*
CARNIVORE: Angle not expanded
HERBIVORE: Expanded angle
OMNIVORE: Angle not expanded
HUMAN: Expanded angle

*Jaw Joint Location*
CARNIVORE: On same plane as molar teeth
HERBIVORE: Above the plane of the molars
OMNIVORE: On same plane as molar teeth
HUMAN: Above the plane of the molars

*Jaw Motion*
CARNIVORE: Shearing; minimal side-to-side motion
HERBIVORE: No shear; good side-to-side, front-to-back
OMNIVORE: Shearing; minimal side-to-side
HUMAN: No shear; good side-to-side, front-to-back

*Major Jaw Muscles*
CARNIVORE: Temporalis
HERBIVORE: Masseter and pterygoids
OMNIVORE: Temporalis
HUMAN: Masseter and pterygoids

*Mouth Opening vs. Head Size*
CARNIVORE: Large
HERBIVORE: Small
OMNIVORE: Large
HUMAN: Small

*Teeth: Incisors*
CARNIVORE: Short and pointed
HERBIVORE: Broad, flattened and spade shaped
OMNIVORE: Short and pointed
HUMAN: Broad, flattened and spade shaped

*Teeth: Canines*
CARNIVORE: Long, sharp and curved
HERBIVORE: Dull and short or long (for defense), or none
OMNIVORE: Long, sharp and curved
HUMAN: Short and blunted

*Teeth: Molars*
CARNIVORE: Sharp, jagged and blade shaped
HERBIVORE: Flattened with cusps vs complex surface
OMNIVORE: Sharp blades and/or flattened
HUMAN: Flattened with nodular cusps

*Chewing*
CARNIVORE: None; swallows food whole
HERBIVORE: Extensive chewing necessary
OMNIVORE: Swallows food whole and/or simple crushing
HUMAN: Extensive chewing necessary

*Saliva*
CARNIVORE: No digestive enzymes
HERBIVORE: Carbohydrate digesting enzymes
OMNIVORE: No digestive enzymes
HUMAN: Carbohydrate digesting enzymes

*Stomach Type*
CARNIVORE: Simple
HERBIVORE: Simple or multiple chambers
OMNIVORE: Simple
HUMAN: Simple

*Stomach Acidity*
CARNIVORE: Less than or equal to pH 1 with food in stomach
HERBIVORE: pH 4 to 5 with food in stomach
OMNIVORE: Less than or equal to pH 1 with food in stomach
HUMAN: pH 4 to 5 with food in stomach

*Stomach Capacity*
CARNIVORE: 60% to 70% of total volume of digestive tract
HERBIVORE: Less than 30% of total volume of digestive tract
OMNIVORE: 60% to 70% of total volume of digestive tract
HUMAN: 21% to 27% of total volume of digestive tract

*Length of Small Intestine*
CARNIVORE: 3 to 6 times body length
HERBIVORE: 10 to more than 12 times body length
OMNIVORE: 4 to 6 times body length
HUMAN: 10 to 11 times body length

*Colon*
CARNIVORE: Simple, short and smooth
HERBIVORE: Long, complex; may be sacculated
OMNIVORE: Simple, short and smooth
HUMAN: Long, sacculated

*Liver*
CARNIVORE: Can detoxify vitamin A
HERBIVORE: Cannot detoxify vitamin A
OMNIVORE: Can detoxify vitamin A
HUMAN: Cannot detoxify vitamin A

*Kidney*
CARNIVORE: Extremely concentrated urine
HERBIVORE: Moderately concentrated urine
OMNIVORE: Extremely concentrated urine
HUMAN: Moderately concentrated urine

*Nails*
CARNIVORE: Sharp claws
HERBIVORE: Flattened nails or blunt hooves
OMNIVORE: Sharp claws
HUMAN: Flattened nails

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Including religious articles that leave out nutritional information. Today, I will not remove myself from the circle of life, and I'll get my B12 and iron, as needed. I doubt that a carnivore will attack, in this big city, but in the unlikely event that I myself turn into food today (we are all food, too), that'll be part of the circle of life still. And I'll know that I killed the strawberries I had for breakfast, and the sunflower seeds, the wheat, the peanuts in my granola, and that although many would like to think that those living things donated themselves happily to my digestive system, that this is a fallacy created to justify actions, not based in fact (plants have been studied and show reactions to threats). I'll know that I'd never live this far north as a vegetarian without modern technology and food transport and storage. I'll know that this is a complex subject, and that simplistic answers never address complexities. And that humans attempting to remove themselves from nature always screw things up worse. And that people who need to change others almost always have personal agendas aside from that stated. Lastly, that there are many of us influencing the raising of food animals by our buying habits, but there is no number of people reading this article and influenced to give up meat on Mondays who will shut down a CAFO. And that writing a letter every Monday, or picketing every Monday, or talking to a different supermarket manager every Monday, would do more good than giving up meat one day a week.

Vegetarian polemics sound like abstinence-only education. In fact, they always sound like any conservativism: If the rest of you will only change, we'll all be fine, but only then, and there's nothing I can do in the meantime except try to get you numbskulls to see reason!

Plant iron remains largely undigested, or possibly completely undigested, and it is dangerous to be low on iron during pregnancy. 50% of pregnant woman in the US are low. And low iron in pregnancy can lead to premature birth and low birthweight, two dire situations. 20% of women in general are low in iron. 3% of men. I'm still waiting for the sermon that mentions the differences between men, women, and pregnant women. And in this litigious society, I am thinking that there are lawsuits in the future. I cannot imagine any situation more heartbreaking than knowing, as a pregnant woman, that you took on good faith advice you assumed to be backed up in fact, and that it did not help, but harmed. Same with B12 and breastfeeding. If you're low (no plants contain B12) your body will hoard it and keep it from your baby. And the results are dire and irreversible. That information was found on Harvard's public health website. It's just hard to believe that there is so much put out about the benefits of a certain diet, and it's so much harder to find warnings of the consequences.

Worried about the planet? It's also hard to believe that there's any American who actually has changed every facet of their life that could be changed. If we'd each (maybe in honor of MJ I'll mention the man in the mirror) absolutely revert to acting with the planet in mind, each of us, without focus on instead changing others, we'd end up okay. To the degree we attempt to change others, we keep the problem escalating. however, this seems to be a page from the conservative playbook that is most gratifying: if everyone else changes, I can stay the way I like.

So how about No-Blame Mondays? On Mondays, we each choose yet another facet of convenience and pleasure that we've stuck with and change THAT, and we forget about what everyone else is doing wrong until we've fixed every single one of them, without exception, without rationalization.

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. . . that I hear so much from people asserting their "rights" but so little about the coincident "responsiblilities"?

You have the right to eat whatever you want. But, please, don't ask me to be responsible for subsizing your health care. You have a right to eat Chestnut/Kobayashi hotdog quantities every single day.

You have a responsibility, however, to acknowledge that what you eat effects your health.

If you want to eat junk, go for it. But be responsible and support a tax on less healthy foods so you subsidize your own choices instead of pickpocketing other folks.

(Not coincidentally, this would leave hunters free to take game which overall is much healthier meat. However, while you have a right to arms, you have a responsibility to pay for any increased burglaries, injuries or deaths.)

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Seems to me that is something Alternet's readers would welcome more then anything.

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Quitting meat just one day a week won't help people become vegetarians. You have to quit -- pardon the phrase -- cold turkey.

I'm a vegetarian, not a vegan, who doesn't crave more protein than what I get normally in my diet. I'm used to not eating meat, so my body doesn't crave it.

It's that way will salt and sugar too. The more you eat, the more you crave it.

For instance, I've been eating lots of fresh broccoli lately. And now I feel like I must eat some every day. I didn't used to like broccoli that much, but now I do.

So, if you are looking to be a vegetarian, but fear that you would crave meat and relapse, don't worry too much. You can get used to not eating meat -- and you can always eat other forms of protein such as soy burgers and cheese.

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I like meat, but I know I eat it too often. Going without it for 24 hours every week is a big adjustment--so why Monday? For me it's just one more reason to dread the day. How about Wennesday? Isn't that spaghetti day (sans meatballs)? Or Friday--I already give up meat for Good Friday so I'd only have 51 other weeks to worry about.

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A new campaign is starting, and will help save the planet. No driving on Mondays. No excuses. No driving today.

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You just fill up a day earlier, and then feel good.

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Soylent Green is on the way.

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....go back to the old tradition of fish on Fridays - or just veggies.

Just a thought.

Tom Degan

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"Global hunger could be directly attributed to meat-eating." ---Chrissie Hynde

Half the world's population does not receive an adequate amount of food to eat. Ten to twenty million die annually of hunger and its effects. The Institute for Food and Development Policy reports that, "Forty thousand children starve to death on this planet every day," or one child every two seconds.

The livestock population of the United States today consumes enough grain and soybeans to feed over five times the entire human population of the country. We feed these animals over 80% of the corn we grow, and over 95% of the oats. Less than half the harvested agricultural acreage in the United States is used to grow food for people. Most of it is used to grow livestock feed.

Ronald J. Sider of Evangelicals for Social Action, in his 1977 book, Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger, pointed out that 220 million Americans were eating enough food (largely because of the high consumption of grain-fed livestock) to feed over one billion people in the poorer countries.

The world's cattle alone, not to mention pigs and chickens, consume a quantity of food equal to the caloric needs of 8.7 billion people. It takes 16 pounds of grain to produce one pound of beef. According to Department of Agriculture statistics, one acre of land can grow 20,000 pounds of potatoes. That same acre of land, if used to grow cattlefeed, can produce less than 165 pounds of beef.

In his book, The Hungry Planet, Georg Bergstrom points out that protein-starved underdeveloped nations export more protein to wealthy nations than they receive. He calls this "the protein swindle." Ninety percent of the world's fish meal catch, for example, is exported to rich countries. One-third of Africa's peanut crop winds up in the stomachs of European livestock. Half the world's cereal crop is fed to livestock and the United States annually imports one million tons of vegetable protein from Third World nations--just to feed its farm animals.

Bergstrom writes: "Sometimes one wonders how many Americans and Western Europeans have grasped the fact that quite a few of their beef steaks, quarts of milk, dozens of eggs, and hundreds of broilers are the result, not of their agriculture, but of the approximately two million metric tons of protein, mostly of high quality, which astute Western businessmen channel away from the needy and hungry."

Jeremy Rifkin, author of a dozen influential books and President of the Foundation on Economic Trends, writes in his 1992 bestseller Beyond Beef:

"Cattle and other livestock are devouring much of the grain produced on the planet. It need be emphasized that this is a new phenomenon, unlike anything ever experienced before.

"Contrary to popular belief, the poor are getting poorer each year...Increased poverty has meant increased malnutrition. On the African continent, nearly one in every four human beings is malnourished. In Latin America, nearly one out of every seven people goes to bed hungry each night. In Asia and the Pacific, 28 percent of the people border on starvation, experiencing the gnawing pain of a perpetual hunger."

"In the Near East, one in ten people is underfed. Chronic hunger now affects upwards of 1.3 billion people, according to the world Health Organization--a statistic all the more striking in a world where one third of all the grain produced is being fed to cattle and other livestock. Never before in human history has such a large percentage of our species--nearly 25 percent--been malnourished.

"The transition of world agriculture from food grain to feed grains represents an...evil whose consequences may be far greater and longer lasting than any past examples of violence inflicted by men against their fellow human beings."

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Kathy Freston's book "Quantum Wellness" is a gem...and apparently very few commentators seem to have read it.
I am all for going meatless at least one day a week and indeed, it does not have to be Mondays, which would make the "blue Monday feeling" worse for carnivores!
Saw the film "Food Inc." on Independence day! How liberating indeed. Exposing the truth on the corruption and deception of these giants of the food industry. But I was also shocked in the film by the so-called "humane killing" of these poor chickens by the happy wise farmer. It's been haunting me ever since when these poor birds are put alive in these metal funnels, pulling their heads out and then bleeding them to death. I agree that it's not worse than factory farming treatments, but it's still horrid...They are totally alive when this is done; don't they feel the fear of being stuck upside down and the pain of the blade cutting their throats? Oh well, plus ca change plus c'est la meme chose. Going meatless one day a week would help our planet, our health and spare some animals.

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Google "Earthlings" and watch one of the most important documentaries every produced. It will open your eyes and change your life!

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"One man's meat is another man/woman/child's hunger." This slogan is part of the "Enough" campaign, with its aim of reducing meat consumption.

The campaign highlights the waste of resources involved in feeding grain to animals. "Every minute 18 children die from starvation, yet 40% of the world's grain is fed to animals for meat." Vegetarianism for a trial period is advocated to "help the hungry, improve the environment" and "stop untold animal suffering." Vegetarianism is also recommended on health grounds. This campaign actually has the support of organized religion.

Ronald J. Sider of Evangelicals for Social Action, in his 1977 book, Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger, pointed out that 220 million Americans were eating enough food (largely because of the high consumption of grain fed to livestock) to feed over one billion people in the poorer countries.

The realization that meat is an unnecessary luxury, resulting in inequities in the world food supply has prompted religious leaders in different Christian denominations to call on their members to abstain from meat on certain days of the week. Paul Moore, Jr., the Episcopal Bishop of the Diocese of New York, made such an appeal in a November, 1974 pastoral letter calling for the observance of “meatless Wednesdays.”

A similar appeal had previously been issued by Cardinal Cooke, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of New York. The Reverend Eugene Carson Blake, former head of the World Council of Churches and founder of Bread for the World, has encouraged everyone in his anti-hunger organization to abstain from eating meat on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.

“Is this not the fast I have chosen? To loosen the chains of wickedness, to undo the bonds of oppression, and to let the oppressed go free? Is it not to share thy bread with the hungry, sheltering the oppressed and the homeless? Clothing the naked when you see them, and not turning your back on your own.”

—Isaiah 58:6-8

“Honourable men may disagree honourably about some details of human treatment of the non-human,” wrote Stephen Clark in his 1977 book, The Moral Status of Animals, “but vegetarianism is now as necessary a pledge of moral devotion as was the refusal of emperor-worship in the early church.”

According to Clark, eating animal flesh is “gluttony,” and “Those who still eat flesh when they could do otherwise have no claim to be serious moralists.”

“Clark’s conclusion has real force and its power has yet to be sufficiently appreciated by fellow Christians,” says the Reverend Andrew Linzey, author of Christianity and the Rights of Animals. “Far from seeing the possibility of widespread vegetarianism as a threat to Old Testament norms, Christians should rather welcome the fact that the Spirit is enabling us to make decisions so that we may more properly conform to the original Genesis picture of living in peace with creation.”

Father Thomas Berry, a Catholic priest, author, and founder of the Riverdale Center of Religious Research in New York, wrote in 1987 that “Vegetarianism is a way of life that we should all move toward for economic survival, physical well-being, and spiritual integrity.”

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No flying in August. It'll be good for the planet.

Remember, driving is off-limits on Mondays. I must confess that I have nowhere to go today or next Monday, and never fly, so I AM picking things for you to change that I myself don't have to. While I'm at it, here are other things I already do, and think you should as well, so that I'm focused on changing the behaviors of others instead of the rest of what I could change:

Local Beer Weekends. I happen to like local beer and drink it anyway.

No-lawn summers. I no longer have a lawn to mow except a teeny strip that I use my nonmotorized mower for.

Rain barrel July: I have a rain barrel already. So I think that a major thing that needs done to save the planet is you getting one.

Front-loader winter: our front loading washer uses very little water. We already have one. Do YOU?

Bubble-wrap November. Our water heater is covered in bubble wrap. this allows us to keep it lower. Since I do this already, I think the main thing to focus on is all of you who don't.


Here's what I seem to refuse to focus on, even for the planet.

Car free life. Of course I could have one. But I would have to ADJUST, and I'd rather you did.

Solar panels. Could have them. Don't. So I won't mention them anymore. Maybe when we get them, I'll mention them as one of the most important things to do to save the planet.

Beer from the west part of the state. REmember when I said I only drank local beer? Well, I happened to fudge that. I love Bell's Beer, from western Michigan. I could get local beer from many places here. But I LIKE BELL'S.

Just saw an article that sea levels are changing faster than predicted. that the atmosphere can't rise above 350 ppm of carbon or we've crossed a tipping point, but that it's been recently measured at 385. That methane burps not only are happening much faster than expected, but accelerate the atmospheric change in their own way. That the ocean is acidic from absorbing carbon, that this is killing coral reefs, and that when the ocean is saturated, that carbon will stay in the atmosphere, in addition to what's there now.

What I do not see. ANYONE saying no to flying, including all the major environmental organizations. Any less driving. Any mention of the kinds of change that actually take CHANGE. So why not write an article about what YOU need to do, not what WE need to do? And in exchange, right now I am calling the solar panel people. I'll keep you posted on cost, etc.

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In a speech before the World Council of Churches in September 1988, Dr. Tom Regan concluded:

“…the whole fabric of Christian agape is woven from the threads of sacrificial acts. To abstain…from eating animals, therefore, although it is not the end-all, can be the begin-all of our conscientious effort to journey back to (or toward) Eden, can be one way (among others) to re-establish or create that relationship to the earth which, if Genesis 1 is to be trusted, was part of God’s original hopes for and plans in creation.

"It is the integrity of this creation we seek to understand and aspire to honor. In the choice of our food, I believe, we see…a small but not unimportant part of both the challenge and the promise of Christianity and animal rights.”

In biology, Hoyle and Wickramasinghe calculated the probability of proteins forming from the random interaction of amino acids–the building blocks of Life. They found the odds were one out of ten to the 40,000th power. Given these extreme odds, it’s hard to imagine the self-organization of matter without the deliberate intervention of some kind of higher power or intelligence.

All life is thus precious and sacred. Nobel Prize winner, Dr. Francis Crick has admitted, “the origin of life appears at the moment to be almost a miracle.” Organized religion is just beginning to understand that the “sanctity of life” includes other species.

In a 1989 article entitled, “Re-examining the Christian Scriptures,” Rick Dunkerly of Christ Lutheran Church concludes, “…the Bible-believing Christian, should, of all people, be on the frontline in the struggle for animal welfare and rights. We who are Christians should be treating the animal creation now as it will be treated then, at Christ’s second coming. It will not now be perfect, but it must be substantial, otherwise we have missed our calling, and we grieve the One we call ‘Lord’, who was born in a stable surrounded by animals simply because He chose it that way.” Dunkerly teaches Bible studies at his home Church and is actively involved in animal rescue projects.

In 1992, members of Los Angeles’ First Unitarian Church agreed to serve vegetarian meals at the church’s weekly Sunday lunch. Their decision was made as a protest against animal cruelty and the environmental damage caused by the livestock industry.

The Reverend Marc Wessels, Executive Director of the International Network for Religion and Animals (INRA) made this observation on Earth Day 1990:

“It is a fact that no significant social reform has yet taken place in this country without the voice of the religious community being heard. The endeavors of the abolition of slavery; the women’s suffrage movement; the emergence of the pacifist tradition during World War I; the struggles to support civil rights, labor unions, and migrant farm workers; and the anti-nuclear and peace movements have all succeeded in part because of the power and support of organized religion. Such authority and energy is required by individual Christians and the institutional church today if the liberation of animals is to become a reality.”

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How do vegans/vegetarians expect to have a reasonable, rational, honest and logical debate/discussion with omnivores if they do not offer scientific and objective articles?

Freston's articles are not the least bit objective, dispassionate, or scientific.

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The following quotes, facts, figures, and statistics are excerpted from Please Don't Eat the Animals (2007) by Jennifer Horsman and Jaime Flowers:

"Nothing will benefit human health and increase chances for survival of life on earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet."

---Albert Einstein

"Each year, the meat industrial complex abuses and butchers nearly 9 billion cows, pigs, sheep, turkeys, chickens, and other innocent, feeling animals just for the enjoyment of consumers. Each year, nearly 1.5 million of these consumers are crippled and killed prematurely by heart failure, cancer, stroke, and other chronic diseases that have been linked conclusively with the consumption of these animals. Each year, millions of other animals are abused and sacrificed in a vain search for a 'magic pill' that would vanquish these largely self-inflicted diseases."

---Alex Hershaft, PhD, president, Farm Animal Reform Movement

When analyzing 8,300 deaths in the United States, United Kingdom, and Germany among 76,000 men and women in five different, large studies, researchers concluded that vegetarians have a 24 percent reduction in death from heart disease.

Similarly, in the famous Oxford Vegetarian Study, where 6,000 vegetarians were compared with 5,000 meat-eaters over nearly two decades, scientists found that the rate of death from heart disease was 28 percent lower in vegetarians than in meat-eaters.

One study analyzed eighty scientific studies in leading medical journals. The analysis found that vegetarians had lower blood pressure, and were less likely to suffer from stroke, heart attack, and kidney failure.

A large German study of nearly 2,000 vegetarians found that deaths from heart disease were reduced by over one-third, and that heart disease itself was far less than that of the general population.

Another large study examined the coronary artery disease risk of young adults ages 18 to 30 and vegetarians were found to have much higher levels of cardiovascular fitness and a greatly reduced risk of heart disease.

"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. If there was another disease that caused half a million deaths a year, you can be sure that the public would be acutely aware of the danger, and that the cure or prevention would be universally practiced."

---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, author, Reversing Heart Disease

Stroke is the third leading cause of death behind heart disease and cancer. Vegetarians have a 20 to 30 percent reduced risk of having a stroke. Stroke, like heart disease, is associated with diets high in saturated fats, and the vegetarian diet is naturally low in these fats.

The Oxford Vegetarian Study found cancer mortality to be 39 percent lower among vegetarians when compared with meat-eaters. The European Prospective Investigation of Cancer found vegetarians suffer 40 percent fewer cancers than the general population.

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The following quotes, facts, figures, and statistics are excerpted from Please Don't Eat the Animals (2007) by Jennifer Horsman and Jaime Flowers:

Studies have shown that decreasing a woman's animal fat intake can reduce the chances that she will die from breast cancer. A large-scale, long-term study in the Netherlands found a powerful connection between the amount of animal fat consumed and the rate of prostate cancer. A review of a dozen studies found dietary fat strongly correlated with prostate cancer.

Ovarian, uterine, and endometrial cancers have all been shown to be strongly correlated to the amount of animal fat in one's diet, and vegetarian women have significantly lower rates of these cancers.

"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

"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, who are natural herbivores."

---Dr. William Roberts, editor-in-chief, American Journal of Cardiology

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I wonder if enough of us pledged to send some cash if they stopped publishing ol' Kath, if they actually would?

I'd toss in an extra fifty if they'd stop Vasu Murti's spamming, too.

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You know after having commented on some comments to this article, and as I reflected on the author's original piece it occurred to me that she is more interested in the animals in the slaughter house than the workers who work there, which is one of the most dangerous jobs in this country. Not to mention the fact that most corporations who run the slaughter houses import labor from other countries illegally (adveritizing $11 or $12/hour to work in the slaughter houses. Why is this issue not raised with people concerned with animal rights. Do beef, hogs, and chickens have more rights that people?

Where was the largest ICE raid in US history? At a slaughter house in Iowa. Does anyone remember that one?

Let's get focused on the right issues.

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Instead of not eating meat one day a week, DON'T BREED. We are running out of all resources, because of overbreeding. It is a choice, not a duty, not mandatory. Maybe we should make breeders become vegans. And let those of us responsible enough not to add to human overpopulation eat what we like.

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The following quotes, facts, figures, and statistics are excerpted from Please Don't Eat the Animals (2007) by Jennifer Horsman and Jaime Flowers:

"A reduction in beef and other meat consumption is the most potent single act you can take to halt the destruction of our environment and preserve our natural resources. Our choices do matter: What's healthiest for each of us personally is also healthiest for the life support system of our precious, but wounded planet."

---John Robbins, author, Diet for a New America, and President, EarthSave Foundation

One study puts animal waste in the United States to between 2.4 trillion to 3.9 trillion pounds per year. The United states produces 15,000 pounds of manure per person. This is 130 times the amount of waste produced by the entire human population of the United States.

A 1,000-cow dairy can produce approximately 120,000 pounds of waste per day. This is the functional equivalent of the amount of sanitary waste produced by a city of 20,000 people.

A 20,000-chicken factory produces about 2.4 million pounds of manure a year. Poultry factories are one of the fastest growing industries throughout Asia.

One pig excretes nearly three gallons of waste per day, or 2.5 times the average human's daily total. One hog farm with 50,000 pigs in France produces more waste than the entire city of Los Angeles, and some pig farms are much larger.

Factory farm pollution is the primary source of damage to coastal waters in North and South America, Europe, and Asia. Scientists report that over sixty percent of the coastal waters in the United States are moderately to severely degraded from factory farm nutrient pollution. This pollution creates oxygen-depleted dead zones, which are huge areas of ocean devoid of aquatic life.

Meat production causes deforestation, which then contributes to global warming. Trees convert carbon dioxide into oxygen, and the destruction of forests around the globe to make room for grazing cattle furthers the greenhouse effect. The Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations reports that the annual rate of tropical deforestation has increased from 9 million hectares in 1980 to 16.8 million hectares in 1990, and unfortunately, this destruction has accelerated since then. By 1994, a staggering 200 million hectares of rainforest had been destroyed in South America just for cattle.

"The impact of countless hooves and mouths over the years has done more to alter the type of vegetation and land forms of the West than all the water projects, strip mines, power plants, freeways, and sub-division developments combined."

---Philip Fradkin, in Audubon, National Audubon Society, New York

Agricultural meat production generates air pollution. As manure decomposes, it releases over 400 volatile organic compounds, many of which are extremely harmful to human health. Nitrogen, a major by-product of animal wastes, changes to ammonia as it escapes into the air, and this is a major source of acid rain. Worldwide, livestock produce over 30 million tons of ammonia. Hydrogen sulfide, another chemical released from animal waste, can cause irreversible neurological damage, even at low levels.

The World Conservation Union lists over 1,000 different fish species that are threatened or endangered. According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimate, over 60 percent of the world's fish species are either fully exploited or depleted. Commercial fish populations of cod, hake, haddock, and flounder have fallen by as much as 95 percent in the north Atlantic.

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The following quotes, facts, figures, and statistics are excerpted from Please Don't Eat the Animals (2007) by Jennifer Horsman and Jaime Flowers:

The United States and Europe lose several billion tons of topsoil each year from cropland and grazing land, and 84 percent of this erosion is caused by livestock agriculture. While this soil is theoretically a renewable resource, we are losing soil at a much faster rate than we are able to replace it. It takes 100 to 500 years to produce one inch of topsoil, but due to livestock grazing and feeding, farming areas can lose up to six inches of topsoil a year.

Livestock production affects a startling 70 to 85 percent of the land area of the United States, United Kingdom, and the European Union. That includes the public and private rangeland used for grazing, as well as the land used to produce the crops that feed the animals. By comparison, urbanization only affects 3 percent of the United States land area, slightly larger for the European Union and the United Kingdom. Meat production consumes the world's land resources.

Half of all fresh water worldwide is used for thirsty livestock. Producing eight ounces of beef requires an unimaginable 25,000 liters of water, or the water necessary for one pound of steak equals the water consumption of the average household for a year.

The United States government spends $10 million each year to kill an estimated 100,000 wild animals, including coyotes, foxes, bobcats, badgers, bears, and mountain lions just to placate ranchers who don't want these animals killing their livestock. The cost far outweighs the damage to livestock that these predators cause.

The Worldwatch Institute estimates one pound of steak from a steer raised in a feedlot costs: five pounds of grain, a whopping 2,500 gallons of water, the energy equivalent of a gallon of gasoline, and about 34 pounds of topsoil.

33 percent of our nation's raw materials and fossil fuels go into livestock destined for slaughter. In a vegan economy, only 2 percent of our resources will go to the production of food.

"It seems disingenuous for the intellectual elite of the first world to dwell on the subject of too many babies being born in the second- and third-world nations while virtually ignoring the overpopulation of cattle and the realities of a food chain that robs the poor of sustenance to feed the rich a steady diet of grain-fed meat."

---Jeremy Rifkin, author, Beyond Beef: The Rise and Fall of the Cattle Culture, and president of the Greenhouse Crisis Foundation

Lester Brown of the Overseas Development Council calculates that if Americans reduced their meat consumption by only 10 percent per year, it would free at least 12 million tons of grain for human consumption--or enough to feed 60 million people.

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Jeebus frak, the commentary here is nothing short of panicked and shrill. All the author does is suggest a meatless monday and people go ape-shit. Pretty god-damned stoopid 'Merkaaners, IMO.

Fact is, most of us are too po' to afford meat 7/365 so we already doing our fair share eaten a chicken once a month or two. So the planet might be less burdened and the rich boyz might take a hit... boo fuckin' hoo.

Cowboy up, ya' rich meat-hordin' fuckers. Don't be so chicken shit about a monday with no meat. Beans, berries and whatever ya can grow, mebbe some bread now and agin... a little hunger won't kill ya', rich pricks.

Damned, Merkin idiots... too stoopid ta live...

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The Catholics had a "no meat Fridays" policy.

What was wrong with that?

Not that this idea will do anything for anything other than killing a few less animals.

Faddy idea, faddy people, this will be taken up by the hypnotized.

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"A diet that can lead to heart attacks, cancer, and numerous other diseases cannot be a natural diet," writes Keith Akers in A Vegetarian Sourcebook. "A diet that pillages our resources of land, water, forests, and energy cannot be a natural diet. A diet that causes the unnecessary suffering and death of billions of animals each year cannot be a natural diet."

I understand there are conservative Christians who fear vegetarianism...which is kind of like being afraid of nonsmoking, nondrinking, or recycling. Ronald J. Sider of Evangelicals for Social Action, in his 1977 book, Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger, pointed out that 220 million Americans were eating enough food (largely because of the high consumption of grain fed to livestock) to feed over one billion people in the poorer countries.

A pamphlet put out by Compassion Over Killing says raising animals for food is one of the leading causes of both pollution and resource depletion today. According to a recent United Nations report, "Livestock's Long Shadow," raising chickens, turkeys, pigs, and other animals for food causes more greenhouse gas emissions than all the cars, trucks and other forms of transportation combined. Researchers from the University of Chicago similarly concluded that a vegetarian diet is the most energy efficient, and the average American does more to reduce global warming emissions by not eating animal products than by switching to a hybrid car.

A 2007 journal published by the American Dietetic Association found "meat protein production required 26 times more water than vegetable protein on rain-fed lands." The journal further states that dieticians "can encourage eating that is both healthful and conserving of soil, water, and energy by emphasizing plant sources of protein and foods that have been produced with fewer agricultural inputs."

"Livestock are one of the most significant contributors to today's most serious environmental problems. Urgent action is required to remedy the situation."

---Union Nations' Food and Agriculture Association

A single dairy cow produces approximately 120 pounds of wet manure per day, which is equivalent to that of 20 to 40 humans.

70% of the grain grown and 50% of the water consumed in the U.S. are used by the meat industry. (Audubon Society)

On average 990 liters of water are required to produce one liter of milk. (United Nations)

Over 260 million acres of U.S. forest have been cleared to grow grain for livestock. (Greenpeace)

It takes nearly one gallon of fossil fuel and 5,200 gallons of water to produce just one pound of conventionally fed beef. (Mother Jones)

Farmed animals produce an estimated 1.4 billion tons of fecal waste each year in the U.S. Much of this untreated waste pollutes the land and water.

The number of animals killed for food in the United States is 70 times larger than the number of animals killed in laboratories, 30 times larger than the number killed by hunters and trappers, and 500 times larger than the number of animals killed in animal pounds.

“If anyone wants to save the planet,” says Paul McCartney in a PETA interview, “all they have to do is stop eating meat. That’s the single most important thing you could do. It’s staggering when you think about it. Vegetarianism takes care of so many things in one shot: ecology, famine, cruelty. Let’s do it! Linda was right. Going veggie is the single best idea for the new century.”

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During 1986 - 1988, when I had access to USENET, a nationwide computer network linking corporations, military bases, think tanks, universities, etc., I paid close attention to the abortion debate. The subject of animal rights always came up, albeit indirectly.

The mentality of the pro-choicers was that the fetus wasn't human, but rather some kind of lower life form--and that lower life forms couldn't possibly have rights.

When a pro-lifer discussed the potential humanity of the unborn, a pro-choicer replied, "MY CAT has more potential than that!"

One pro-choicer said sarcastically, "Maybe the kid (the fetus) should be raised as a vegetarian. After all, don't cows have the right to life?"

Another pro-choicer, Oleg Kiselev, upon hearing the pro-life argument that brain waves can be detected in the unborn as early as six weeks, pointed out that animals also have brain waves. He then added, "Excuse me, while I eat my veal stew."

In the spring of 1988, Stephen Carrier, a grad student in Mathematics at UC Berkeley, pointed out that chimpanzees share 99 percent of their DNA with humans, and so, to argue that species membership alone makes life worth protecting "is to fetishize DNA."

A pro-lifer responded: "If it'll please you, I will agree to protect anything that is 99 percent human."

To this, Stephen responded: "Okay. How about 50 percent? That would probably bring quite a few species into the net."

Stephen Carrier admitted, "I don't know what makes it acceptable to kill animals for meat. Some people think it's wrong, and I have no logical answer for them. But it's not murder, and I believe abortions are analogous. Yes, it's killing--but it's not murder."

Stephen admitted his argument was "not a mathematical proof, but there is no mathematical proof that will resolve the abortion debate."

In the fall of 1986, pro-life student John Morrow of Rutgers University compared abortion to slavery: Roe v. Wade denied rights to an entire class of humans merely on account of their age and developmental status, just as the Dred Scott decision of 1857 denied rights to an entire class of humans based on the color of their skin.

Dave Butler of Tektronix in Oregon responded: "Abortion and slavery? Not even close. A fetus isn't human. If you believe it's wrong to eat meat, should your morality be imposed upon everyone else?"

"Not even close" has become a popular slogan with pro-choicers. It even appeared on the headlines of most San Francisco Bay Area newspapers in November 1992, when Bill Clinton was elected.

"Not even close" is not a new slogan. Peter Singer writes in Animal Liberation that when Mary Wollstonecraft, a forerunner of today’s feminists, published A Vindication of the Rights of Women in 1792, "her views were widely regarded as absurd."

Thomas Taylor, a distinguished Cambridge philosopher, tried to refute Mary Wollstonecraft by demonstrating that if women could be given liberation, then animals could be given liberation, too. And since this is "absurd" it must be equally "absurd" to give women liberation. Taylor called his parody, "A Vindication of the Rights of Brutes."

"Not even close" is the "A Vindication of the Rights of Brutes" of the late 20th and early 21st century, because it takes for granted the invincible prejudice that other animals couldn't possibly have rights. It is this prejudice which we in the animal rights movement are struggling to overcome.

Again, the mentality of the pro-choicers was that the fetus wasn't human, but some kind of lower life form--and that lower life forms couldn't possibly have rights. This led me to conclude that if there's any group out there which ought to be sympathetic to animal rights, it's pro-lifers.

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It is great to see that the concept of meatless Monday's is increasing in awareness. It would be great to make everyday a meatless one. WWW.CertifiedMeatless.com is a website that is devoted to enable the consumer to find truely meatless foods in the marketplace. CM-LO posts foods and manufacturers who have foods without slaughtered landed meat and their by-products. In fact, Catholic and Orthodox Christians still maintain the 2000 year old practice of meatless Friday as a day of sacrifice and abstinence. The idea of a meatless day is old but always has been invaluable to your health as well as to the environment.

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