Red Meat or Chicken? Why It's Wise to Stay Away from Both

This is a very timely piece. Along with the recent, belated but very welcome recognition of the environmental problems associated with eating meat has come a kind of moderated backlash (more of a backwash, perhaps) that says, OK eating meat isn't great but you can still have your cake and eat it. People are remarkably attached to continuing to eat the food they like to eat. I know, I'm one of them and so are most environmentalists. The consequence is that this "chicken is OK" message has geen gratefully received - but exactly as Ms Freston points out, it makes no sense. The logical consequence of facing envioronmental catastrophe is you do whatever you can to avert it. Giving up all meat is more effective than giving up some meat and as it's utterly possible, that is what people who are serious about the issue should do. The uncomfortable truth is that most environmentalists don't want to drive SUVs so giving them up isn't much of a sacrifice. Many do want to eat meat and they don't want to stop. Well, the planet can't afford to indulge our preferences. This isn't about wearing a hair shirt and living in a cave, it's about a moderate, effective action that makes minimal impact on your life and a significant impact on the world around you. Take it from all of us vegetarians - it really isn't hard to do. So, ask yourself - what's really stopping you?

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...though no doubt the comments will be hijacked by all the usual suspects: "if we all went vegetarian cattle would become extinct" or "we evolved to eat meat" or "vegetarians are anaemic" and the rest of the lies.

Just give it time, they'll be here.

Look, if you're a rabid meat eater, do us and yourself a favour: go away and get a job in an animal rendering plant.

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I'll eat whatever the fuck I want ! Eating meat never killed people and up until the 20th century, healthy meat was out there until those agri-business motherfuckers butted in and started bulldozing the local farms and fudging the rules on processing and delivering. Man, I wanted to be a fucking liberal but it seems that I'm supposed to give up my guns and stop hunting and yet it's ok for agri-business to give us shit quality "meat" ?!?!? I guess being a libertarian wasn't so bad after all !

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Not to mention the bad breath and the bowel cancer. :(

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I get my bison burger from a free range bison meat company. No cows locked in pens all day.

I get my eggs and chicken from organic farms that supplement chickens with Omega 3.


The problem isn't meat eating, it is environmental protection. Our country doesn't really regulate animal waste and how it is thrown out.

Why not solve that problem?

I see far more "go vegetarianism" articles on Alternet than "get tough on animal pollution" articles.

Could that be because Alternet is Pro-Vegetarianism and would rather push its readers to stop eating meat rather than push its readers to demand government regulate animal waste from large farms?

This author must know that no push for vegetarianism would ever be entirely successful (more than likely it will be a failure). Why not push for better pollution controls instead, the animal waste problem will always be with us until we regulate it, regardless of how many people are convinced to go vegetarian.

Yes I like to eat meat.

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Yes vegetarianism is good, I will vouch for that - I enjoy mostly veg, fruits(dried too) cereals,fish and some shellfish. I have always liked chicken and some pork but very much less red meats. I understand the values of the better diet and not because of environmental goals. Im 60, sporty & healthy with minimal pharma intake.

But the issue here is the pollution and contamination from mass animal husbandry that causes ongoing ecological reproduction deficiencies and this is truly where Alternet and readers should direct their attention.

We all learn later after realizing the truths that are out there - and greed is part of our culture at all levels of society.

Now if you havent read the item on disappearing bees, go there now - it too speaks volumes.

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I think that it would be a good idea for people that eat meat to raise their own at some point in their lives. It really gives you an idea of what you are doing.. I have raised pigs and chickens for slaughter and I understand exactly what it is that goes in to high quality porcine and poultry products. Agribusiness raises animals in a very unsustainable manner, so the most important thing to do here is to buy from your local farmer or find a source of naturally raised meat. I say that if one wants to be a vegetarian that is fine...what makes these arguments so unhealthy is the finger pointing and blaming on both sides.. what does it really solve anyways? People are going to eat what they are going to eat..and the more finger pointing and blaming that is done is going to not further the cause weather it is meat eaters saying eat meat blah blah blah or vegetarians saying the same thing only about the vegetarian lifestyle...So if you eat meat.. learn about the whole process of raising meat sustainably, and if you prefer to not eat meat, educating people about their options without name calling can actually further your points.

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You proclaim your 'Friendship' to the Earth and nature- yet fail to comprehend or acknowledge man's innate biology as an omnivore.Eyes position,Canines (predator),digestive system without a cecum (no microbials to adequately digest- utilize- cellulose)
the Animal Activitist should be fighting to bringing down Big Agri Business, and returning Food production to Real Farmers.
Big Agri business is an assault not only on our environment through mass concentrations of Livestock, but also fails to provide cost effective methods and food safety. since the Hostile take over of the '80's we have expereinced far more large spread and dangerous outbreaks of food borne ilnesses. Not only Related to their mass production, but also their wide spread distribution (meat & Veggies). they have also become basic monopolies in their particular product-Limiting access to the market place by smaller producers.
Further Big Agri business not only neglects and abuses the animals, but also the people. They often hire people who have little or no animal husbandry skills or education- because they can pay them low wages and skirt OSHA regs (since they are working in the Shadows anyway). Addtionally they may be provided housing- but in substandard buildings.Why be concerned about building codes when those living in side are in hiding? As Americans we should also be fighting for those who've graduated from our numerous great Ag Schools to have jobs available when they graduate- Better for them and the Animals. Granted we need some straight labor, but we must not allow a Shadow slave labor market to exist. It's not only bad for those Workers, but for ours- Corps use them not only as cheap labor but as scapegoats and economic threats to our workers (Work for cheap in unsafe conditions or they'll get a Mexican to do that job).anyone who works in the US should be granted "inalienable Rights".
Smaller Farmers not only keep herd sizes within manageable limits (thus reducing the impact on the environemnt) they are responsible for these animals from inception through slaughter. People do not committ their lives to animal farming for the money- but for the love of it- It's fucking HARD work.And as business people they know their care & management will pay off with a better quality product, thus more shares of the consumer market.( as long as it is a truely Free market).
As for your concerns about my Health. You may keep my heart ticking- but you can't guarantee I will be physically or mentally able to care for myself when I am old. Frankly I'm Banking on 'The Big One'. Not only for my own sense of dignity, but to spare the younger generation from paying for me while I linger in a nursing home.My 'gift' to the younger generations is to Die in a timely manner. Because no matter what we do- we all die. It would be disasterous for our descendants and our planet if we did not.
As for the Animals- We must address unfettered Breeding, both campanion & Livestock.Demand Vet evals & Licensing of Breeders and their breeding stock- to assure sound practices and the appropriate phyiscal attributes of the animal. ending lucrativeness of Puppy mills,and the enormous amount of expired meat products disgarded from store shelves.Just like reducing Abortions- start with ending unwanted pregnacies.And levy harsher punsihment for neglect & abuse.And Frankly I'd rather slaughter an animal quickly and feed a village, then watch them be starved to death, which is happening now to many horses because of the economy.
so just like the Conversion to Christianity will not guarantee to end the Worlds Woes (or even Salvation)- neither will going Vegan.

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And articles like this one will not deter me!

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Pound for pound, beef production generates greenhouse gases that contribute more than 13 times as much to global warming as do the gases emitted from producing chicken.

How is that anything "...Like Choosing Between an SUV and a Hummer"?

While I don't disagree with the intent of the article, it's a poor comparison, and poor (lack of) science.

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You are doing a huge amount of good by helping to expose these realities that the mainstream media very rarely dares to expose as they fear the loss of their meat/dairy advertising dollars.

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Discussions of factory farming of beef, poultry and pork rightfully focus on the pollution they create in the ground, water and atmosphere, but I wish environmentalists would pay more attention to the fact that all these industries create jobs that are inhumane.

It's no accident that most factory farm employees are migrants or immigrants, because they work under unsafe and unsanitary work environments we should eliminate. Are we so determined to eat cheap protein that we will tolerate hideous working conditions for people who lack the resources to resist?

That alone spoils my appetite.

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But Hamburgers and Steaks are SO delicious! Cant give them up!

RT
Online Privacy when it Counts

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No reason to be religious or faddish about food. When steak is on clearance I grill it it, when chicken is cheap I broil it, when eggplant is fresh my wife and I collaborate on a mean baked eggplant parmesan. Fish, beans, veges and fruit round out the rest, with--in general--some denser grains or the occasional indulgent frozen bruschetta on the side(sp?). A sip of whisky after dinner or some smooth red wine with, and maybe a dollop of frozen yogurt for dessert...

The curious question is why so many fanatics want insert themselves into the average person's dinner. These vocal bobbleheads' opinions and their insistence on devout lifestyles smacks of their right-side analogues' concern over what folks are doing in their bedrooms.

To all those washed in the blood, I'll make you a deal: you mind your plate; I'll mind mine.

P.S. If cows weren't meant to be eaten, at the very least in moderation, they wouldn't be made out of juicy, delicious, digestible steak. They'd be made out of nosey bobbleheads that produce methane from their north ends while north-facing.

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Sure, Native Americans ate lots of meat -- 100 years ago, when the world population was under 2 billion and the Native American population was only a small percentage of that! We now have upwards of 6.5 billion people crowding this planet, and large numbers of us consume factory farmed meat transported over long distances to market. Apart from taking a stand against personal procreation, switching to a vegetarian diet is the single most important act you can perform on behalf of the environment. To my way of thinking, you can't call yourself an environmentalist in any real sense if you continue to chow down the occasional hamburger or chicken nugget. Going vegetarian is far simpler and more significant environmentally than taking the bus to work -- and it's better for your health, too!

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Meatless diets are ideal for many reasons. Freston is right, environmental factors is one major issue. To me, the most important issue is that industrial farming practices are ghastly for the animals we eat. I wouldn't want my dog's throat slit so I don't want to have a pig or cow go through that just so that I can a burger or bacon.

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A U.N. study supports this and if anyone cares to visit a Purdue plant or even drive by one, you can smell the ammonia and pollution in the air.

There are many different reasons to go vegetarian and even if you can support the cruelty to animals at least think about extending the beauty of this planet on to future generations.

Thanks Kathy for this great article!

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seem to suffer from massive Homer Simpson syndrome, for this situation with meat and chicken is a DUH moment: change the industrial processing and the hated pollution goes away. But NO-oooo, veggies want you to stop eating meat as if the meat is the problem (even while saying it's the processing). Duh! Is anybody home?
Further...when there's a famine, veggies will find it difficult if not impossible to live whereas meat eaters will continue on because they have an alternative means of nutrition.
If we include hot houses in this, then we can say that it is solely because of technology that people are able to be all season veggies--but even hot houses can suffer from too much heat or too much cold or not enough water (especially if they live in CA where Arnie's cutting water to the farmers because there's a water shortage).
And...whatcha gonna do wid all dem animules dat's gonna be runnin' roun?

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In A Vegetarian Sourcebook (1983), author Keith Akers observes:

"Much has been made over the virtues of chicken and fish in comparison to red meats such as beef and pork. It has been said that eating chicken and fish will aid in the prevention of heart disease, because these meats are relatively lower in fat and contain more unsaturated than saturated fat, thus helping to lower cholesterol levels. Unfortunately, these claims are not supported by the evidence. Studies in which human volunteers switched from diets including beef and eggs, to one including fish and chicken showed that serum cholesterol levels were not appreciably lowered by switching to chicken and fish.

"And an examination of the nutritional data suggests an explanation: while it is true that chicken and fish contain less fat than beef, it is also true that chicken and fish contain about twice as much cholesterol per calorie as does beef. Indeed, some seafoods (such as crab, shrimp, and lobster) are exceptionally high in cholesterol content.

"All of these diverse theories have roughly the same dietary implications. Meat is high in cholesterol, saturated fat, and total fat. Plant foods, by contrast, are usually low in saturated fat and total fat, and contain zero cholesterol. Vegetarians have lower levels of serum cholesterol than do meat-eaters, with total vegetarians (vegans) having the lowest levels of all."

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Pitting industrial meat against vegetarianism is a false dichotomy, and really neglects some of the most important ethical, technological, and environmental issues surrounding agriculture and our food system.

Farming does not always mean agribusiness, and more and more farmers are coming around to see the perils these profit-driven, petroleum-laden methods. If you look hard enough around your area, regardless of your dietary choices, you should be able to find a farmer to provide you with clean, healthy dairy, vegetables, and/or meat. My opinion is that a vegetarian diet from the grocery store is still massively industrial and a pot/kettle situation when they start pointing fingers at meat-eaters.

Sir Albert Howard is the grandfather of organic farming and throughout his works, he stressed the importance of animals on a healthy farm. Healthy soil is part of a cycle, and animal manure is a vital part of that cycle. Healthy soil leads to healthy plants leads to healthy animals leads to healthy soil, and so on. It is a cycle that nature has perfected, and we break it at great cost to our well-being.

To discuss these issues without mentioning that there are small, local, family farms that are breaking away from the agribusiness mold, and in the process providing healthier food, healthier local economies, and a healthier environment is irresponsible. CSA's, dairy shares, farmer's markets don't have to be a novelty. Vote with your dollars and your fork to make factory meat and vegetable farms go away before they use up all of our soil and water.

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Never has meat been produced in better quality conditions
Meat has never been more affordable.
Animals have never been healthier.
American food production is the best in the world.
That's it.

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i've often thought about going vegetarian both for my own health and for the Earth. with Earth Day approaching in less than a week it seems like a good time to try it out.

Anyone know of any good cookbooks or recipe sites?

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Why do I even bother to read comments to any kind of article that would dare to suggest people stop eating meat?

Seriously, folks - from someone who knows what the score is all I hear when you rattle off your predictable excuses to continued meat consumption is "I can't POSSIBLY stop torturing animals, destroying the environment and stealing food from hungry, starving children because meat tastes so good and I'm too selfish to care about anything else!"

I don't understand the bloodlust - go vegan.

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It's totally true that factory farming is destroying the environment, and people don't want to accept it because they don't think there are options other than the bucket of grease they pick up for Saturday dinner.

Now, more than ever, it's incredibly easy to be vegetarian, and people respect your decision to save the world, animals, and yourself. Everyone should check out www.goveg.com for a ton of info on cutting meat out of your diet.

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You do not need to consume meat to live and there are proteins such as beans that don't harm the environment, animals, or your wallet.

Bravo for the article and for shedding some light on this topic!

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I lost 20 pounds, and it was almost painless, when I went vegetarian. If people need any reason to help the planet, help the animals, and help themselves, this may be it.

I feel great and am at my high school weight for the first time in 25 years. If I can go veg in my 40's, anyone can.

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Organic fed, pastured, yummm....

The starvation is due to livestock arguement doesn't hold water. People starve because they are poor and they are poor because of global economic policies.

Fix poverty and you'll fix hunger.

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Major health food stores are popping up all over the place, and even traditional grocery stores carry a wide variety of vegetarian options, even in small towns (I currently live in a small town).

Why not give vegetarian food a try, even if it's only a few days a week? It's better for the environment, and you can open yourself up to so many new flavors and tastes, especially if you don't always focus on faux meats.

Not that there's anything wrong with faux meats, but there are just too many options out there to eat them too often.

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The problem with Kathy Freston’s argument is that it ignores human health and makes no distinction between meat as Mother nature made it and meat as man manufactures it.

Conventional manufacturing of animal food is akin to allopathic medicine with its high costs and emphasis on disease management. In both cases, we scrapped the holistic, natural approach in favor of mass production and profits.

Consider, for example, a traditional mixed farm combining a variety of crops, pasture land and orchards. Here, manure is not a pollutant or a waste product; it is a valuable resource contributing to soil fertility. Instead of taking grain away from people, pastured animals eat grass and generate food calories from land unsuited to tillage. When animals are used to do work - pulling plows, eating bugs and turning compost - they reduce fossil fuel consumption and use of pesticides. Animals living outdoors do not require a huge input of water for sanitation.

But the biggest reason to get back to natural farming is our health. When we change the diet of animals, we change the nature of the food we subsequently eat. Cattle, like all other ruminants, developed eating green leafy plants, mostly grass. They ate virtually no grain, corn, or soy as is common in modern feedlots. White saturated fat develops when cattle are fed grain – saturated fat is a man-made creation.

Grain also causes a dramatic reduction of omega-3 fatty acids in the American diet. Foods high in omega-6 fatty acids or arachidonic acid, like farm-raised salmon or commercially raised beef, irritate the lining of blood vessels. This triggers an inflammation response and the body sends white blood cells and other immune fighters to the scene.

Corn fed, commercial beef also has lower levels of conjugated linoleic acid (CLA). In stores, CLA supplements are sold for weight loss. The meat of grass fed cattle contains CLA; the meat of grain-fed cattle does not. Hello obesity epidemic.

Most, if not all, vegans have impaired B12 metabolism and every study of vegan groups has demonstrated low vitamin B12 concentrations in the majority of individuals. The only reliable and absorbable sources of vitamin B12 are animal products, especially organ meats and eggs.

Although vitamin D can be created by our bodies by the action of sunlight on our skin, it is very difficult to obtain an optimal amount of vitamin D by a brief foray into the sun. Good sources of D include cod liver oil, lard from pigs that were exposed to sunlight, shrimp, wild salmon, sardines, butter, full-fat dairy products, and eggs from properly fed chickens. Rickets and/or low vitamin D levels has been well-documented in many vegetarians and vegans.

True vitamin A, or retinol and its associated esters, is only found in animal fats and organs like liver. Butter and full-fat dairy foods, especially from pastured cows, are good vitamin A sources.

Claims that meat eating leads to heart disease, cancer, osteoporosis, etc., are hard to reconcile with historical and anthropological facts. Reference Dr. Weston Price who traveled the world in the late 1930s studying the diets of native populations. Dr. George Mann's independent studies of the Maasai done many years after Dr. Price, confirmed that the Maasai, despite being almost exclusive meat eaters, had little to no incidence of heart disease, or other chronic ailments. A survey of cookbooks published in America in the last century shows that people of earlier times ate plenty of animal foods and saturated fats. For example, in the Baptist Ladies Cook Book (Monmouth, Illinois, 1895), virtually every recipe calls for butter, cream or lard. Other factors besides animal foods are at work in causing today’s diseases.

And on it goes. The problem is not about eating meat, it is about our radical departure from all things natural.

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How do you fix this? By creating more food. How much corn and/or grains go into feeding cattle or pigs so that you can have 1 lb of meat? 16 lbs. You do the math, or I'll do it for you: 16 times more food per lb, say a cow weighs 500 lbs.
That's 8000 lbs of grain/veggies food vs 500 lbs meat.

It's like a biblical miracle! And that's how you stop hunger.

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Often, people are reluctant to give up chicken and other meats simply because they like the way animal flesh tastes. This "defense" really doesn't hold water when animals are suffering, health care cost are rising, and the environment is in the toilet, but aside from that, there are plenty of tasty vegetarian chicken products. Gardenburger, Morningstar, Boca, Yves, and other popular companies make delicious vegetarian alternatives. They taste like chicken, honest.

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Personal health has never ever ever ever ever ever ever been about what you eat. It's about how much you eat and what exercising you do. Americans are unhealthy these days not because they eat red meat, but because they overeat redmeat. We eat too much in this country. Have you ever really looked at how much freaking food you get when you go out to eat? We feed ourselves too much. I eat McDonalds all the time, but I recently lost 30 pounds and feel great now. And I did it while continuing to eat McDonalds. I just ate less and started running. I still eat fried chicken. I still run. I feel great. Duh.

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People ate meat long before factory farming came into play. The key to keeping the factory farming practices ongoing is oil. Even a lot of vegetarian food products depend heavily on factory farming.

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B12 comes from microorganisms in the dirt. Animal protein is not the direct source. We would be getting this nutrient naturally if we still ate vegetables straight from the ground as it were. But they are so sterile when they reach the shelves now, there is no chance of that. The only reason we can obtain it from meat is that the animals consume food from the ground via grazing and whatnot. That is, if they aren't factory farmed and fed other, ground-up, animals...

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It doesn't matter in the long run whether or not we all eat meat or don't, the human population is unchecked and overburdening the planet.

We're running out of potable water, in many places we already have, so that limits all types of agriculture.

The grain that is fed to animals in industrial factory farming is not suitable for human consumption.

This is an argument of apples and oranges on the edge of an eroding cliff during a tsunami.

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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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...for our kissin' cousins.

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Here's part of an article on grass-fed animals-

"I wouldn't get too carried away and think that as long as it's grass-fed then it's fine and dandy. Grass-fed products are still high in saturated fat (though not as high), still high in cholesterol, and are still devoid of fiber and many other essential nutrients. They take less toll on the environment, but the land on which the animals graze still must often be irrigated, thus using up dwindling water resources, and it may be fertilized with petroleum-based fertilizers.

And there are other environmental costs. Next to carbon dioxide, the most destabilizing gas to the planet's climate is methane. Methane is actually 24 times more potent a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, and its concentration in the atmosphere is rising even faster. The primary reason that concentrations of atmospheric methane are now triple what they were when they began rising a century ago is beef production. Cattle raised on pasture actually produce more methane than feedlot animals, on a per-cow basis.

Plus there is the tremendous toll grazing cattle takes on the land itself. Even with U.S. beef cattle today spending the last half of their lives in feedlots, seventy percent of the land area of the American West is currently used for grazing livestock. More than two-thirds of the entire land area of Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, and Idaho is used for rangeland. Just about the only land that isn't grazed is in places that for one reason or another can't be used by livestock-inaccessible areas, dense forests and brushlands, the driest deserts, sand dunes, extremely rocky areas, cliffs and mountaintops, cities and towns, roads and parking lots, airports, and golf courses. In the American West, virtually every place that can be grazed, is grazed. The results aren't pretty. As one environmental author put it, "Cattle grazing in the West has polluted more water, eroded more topsoil, killed more fish, displaced more wildlife, and destroyed more vegetation than any other land use."

Western rangelands have been devastated under the impact of the current system, in which cattle typically spend only six months or so on the range, and the rest of their lives in feedlots. To bring cows to market weight on rangeland alone would require each animal to spend not six months foraging, but several years, greatly multiplying the damage to western ecosystems.

Conscientious management of rangelands can certainly reduce the damage, but widespread production of grass-fed beef would only multiply this already devastating toll.

While grass-fed beef certainly has advantages over feedlot beef, another answer is to eat less meat. If as a society we did this, then the vast majority of the public lands in the western United States could be put to more valuable - and environmentally sustainable - use. Much of the western United States is sunny and windy, and could be used for large-scale solar energy and wind-power facilities.

And there is one more thing. Grass-fed beef does not just come to you straight from God's Green Earth. It also comes to you via the slaughterhouse.

The lives of grass-fed livestock are more humane and natural than the lives of animals confined in factory farms and feedlots, but their deaths are often just as terrifying and cruel. If they are taken to a conventional slaughterhouse, they are just as likely as a feedlot animal to be skinned while alive and fully conscious, and just as apt to be butchered and have their feet cut off while they are still breathing - distressing realities that tragically occur every hour in meat-packing plants nationwide. Confronting the brutal realities of modern slaughterhouses can be a harsh reminder that those who contemplate only the pastoral image of cattle patiently foraging do not see the whole picture."

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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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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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Raise your own food. I do. But one must make the effort to do so. You DO have a choice.

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I tried a vegetarian diet, but found that I was hungry most of the time. Maybe it just takes time to become accustomed to the new diet, or maybe I just don’t know how to prepare tasty vegetarian meals. I found that the best diet for me is mostly vegetables and fruit with a little bit of chicken or fish.

While there may be no difference between poultry and red meat in terms of their effect on the environment, is it accurate to say that they are equal in terms of effects on health?
This article didn’t provide any compelling evidence that chicken is unhealthy and so I didn’t find it very helpful.

The other thing I find puzzling is how some vegetarians assume that what they eat is “clean and green.” Unless you’re buying pesticide free organic produce, a vegetarian diet may not necessarily be completely healthy or environmentally beneficial either. Rather than focusing so much on what we eat, we should be focused on the relationship that we have to the land, the means of production, and the economics of food distribution. It’s often difficult for people on a budget to get fresh, organic food and many people have to go out of their way and spend extra money to do this. Until this is addressed, its not feasible to expect people to dramatically change the choices they make when it comes to the type of food they consume.

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I'm a former meat- and dairy-eater. I'm also very active. Hands down, fake meat and a veggie diet gives me much more energy, I feel fantastic since going vegan several years ago. And, I'm not supporting the violence and suffering inherent in factory farming.

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I was just wondering if anyone here has read Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon and if they can in an 'open-minded' fashion - that means not radical vegan and not radical carnivore - rationally explain away the scientific evidence about meat and proteins and the fact that a totally vegan community in southern India has the lowest life expectancy in that country (she actually says lowest in the whole world, but it is unfair to compare low-income/poor off societies with ones who can eat whatever they choose (like most of Canada/USA))... I eat meat and try not to think about it it because I like the taste, I have all of my life but I realize that the treatment of animals today is totally disgusting and unethical and it bothers me. Unfortunately I am a poor student and cannot afford to buy organic or specialty foods in order to get my essential nutrients and vitamins. I admit I am slightly biased in the first place on the grounds that I like meat, however I would love for someone to explain why our body doesn't need the essential nutrients to survive. I try to keep an open mind about everything but this is one subject I have great trouble with. What about the ancients who would honor animals and treat them with respect until the day would come when they are sacrificed for a higher purpose (survival of the community)? Man that sounds barbaric :S but they did honor and respect their animals. Seriously, someone help me out??? -Sincerely, on the fence.

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A really nasty place where the cattle are literally eating their own shit. A few unscrupulous feed lot owners (how could that be?) feed the cattle cement a few days before selling them to the abattoirs. Cement makes cattle thirsty and they tend to drink a lot of water which is retained. Heaver cattle, more profit. You people are eating this and more. Yum.

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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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I have noticed goat meat in a local Arabic market; I tried it in a stew and it was delicious. I think goats are not factory-raised and thus the many evils of factory food production are avoided. The meat is tender and tasty, quite a bit like lamb.

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That not everyone, not even most people are going to go vegetarian or vegan any time in the near future.

I admit that I'm not a vegan. If I weren't very concerned about over fishing and extinction of fish species, I'd probably eat fish once in a while. Over the last ten years a vegetarian diet that includes some animal products such as cheese and yogurt has worked for me. I'm healthy and have lots of energy despite being an older American (60+).

What I would like to see other Americans do is cut their meat consumption in half. If you're concerned about environment, health and animal issues, but can't give up meat entirely; reduce your meat consumption even further and only eat it three times a week.

100 million people cutting out 5 or 6 meat servings a week will do more for the environment than 100 thousand people becoming vegans.

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If you like eating meat and don't want to be convinced
otherwise....

If you truly believe humans are omnivores and can't
be healthy as vegetarians...

If you really wish Alternet didn't post so many pro-
vegetarian articles...

Why would you continue to click on links that are
clearly pro-vegetarian and get all het up because
the article is pro-vegetarian?

Alternet and their advertisers must be over the moon
when they can find a pro-veg article, because the
comments ALWAYS hit multi-hundreds. No matter how
mild the message (cutting down instead of cutting out,
or only attacking factory meat production, or
whatever) any article implying meat eating isn't the
best thing since sliced bread brings out a firestorm
of "don't tell me what to do..."

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The fact is, 80 percent of vegetarians in America are women. Eating meat in general -- and red meat in particular -- is a macho thing for most American men. Giving up red meat (beef and pork) is one thing; it IS bad for your health to eat red meat. The evidence of that is overwhelming.

But to expect the majority of men in our culture to give up eating meat altogether and become vegetarians is unrealistic. Give up chicken and turkey? Forget about it.

I gave up beef 25 years ago for health reasons and restricted my pork intake to ham. I could stop eating pork altogether at the drop of a hat, but I WON'T give up poultry. I tried it, and suffered SEVERE withdrawal symptoms. I also lost 15 pounds that I could not afford to lose, as I've been underweight for my entire 56 years of life.

It should be apparent that there are anatomical differences between men and women that account for the huge gender chasm among vegetarians. The only way you're going to convince the majroity of men to give up beef and pork is to emphasize the health aspects of not eating it. But you'll never convince the majority of men to give up chicken and turkey. It would be easier to quit smoking than to quit eating poultry.

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Pretty simple really.. making money on small scale agriculture is astoundingly challenging...;Be willing to pay the price to small farmers that they charge, start being a small farmer are two ways to make it worthwhile.. Right now, the problem that we face in my area is that there are not nearly enough of us farmers to meet the demand.. we are all pushed to the limits of what we can produce. Its a very unsustainable situation. You can say that agribusiness caused this all you like, but in reality somewhere along the line the CONSUMER made this happen.People stopped eating locally produced foods... People stopped farming.. I would definitely give agribusiness a big role in all this too for sure. But remember who drives the bus here.. YOU the CONSUMER.

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I would like to see organized religion take up the struggle for animal rights. Religion has been wrong before. It has often been said that on issues such as women's rights and human slavery, religion has impeded social and moral progress. It was a Spanish Catholic priest, Bartolome de las Casas, who first proposed enslaving black Africans in place of the Native Americans who were dying off in great numbers.

The church of the past never considered human slavery to be a moral evil. The Protestant churches of Virginia, South Carolina, and other southern states here in the U.S. actually passed resolutions in favor of the human slave traffic.

Human slavery was called "by Divine Appointment," "a Divine institution," "a moral relation," "God's institution," "not immoral," but "founded in right." The slave trade was called "legal," "licit," "in accordance with humane principles" and "the laws of revealed religion."

New Testament verses calling for obedience and subservience on the part of slaves (Titus 2:9-10; Ephesians 6:5-9; Colossians 3:22-25; I Peter 2:18-25) and respect for the master (I Timothy 6:1-2; Ephesians 6:5-9) were often cited in order to justify human slavery. Many of Jesus' parables refer to human slaves. Paul's epistle to Philemon concerns a runaway slave returned to his master.

The Quakers were one of the earliest religious denominations to condemn human slavery. "Paul's outright endorsement of slavery should be an undying embarrassment to Christianity as long as they hold the entire New Testament to be the word of God," says contemporary Quaker physician Dr. Charles P. Vaclavik. "Without a doubt, the American slaveholders quoted Paul again and again to substantiate their right to hold slaves.

"The moralist movement to abolish slavery had to go to non-Biblical sources to demonstrate the immoral nature of slavery. The abolitionists could not turn to Christian sources to condemn slavery, for Christianity had become the bastion of the evil practice through its endorsement by the Apostle Paul. Only the Old Testament gave the abolitionist any Biblical support in his efforts to free the slaves. 'You shall not surrender to his master a slave who has taken refuge with you.' (Deuteronomy 23:15) What a pittance of material opposing slavery from a book supposedly representing the word of God."

In 1852, Josiah Priest wrote Bible Defense of Slavery. Others claimed blacks were subhuman. Buckner H. Payne, calling himself "Ariel," wrote in 1867: "the tempter in the Garden of Eden...was a beast, a talking beast...the negro." Ariel argued that since the negro was not part of Noah's family, he must have been a beast. Eight souls were saved on the ark, therefore, the negro must be a beast, and "consequently, he has no soul to be saved."

The status of animals in contemporary human society is not unlike that of human slaves in centuries past. Quoting Luke 4:18, Colossians 3:11, Galatians 3:28 or any other biblical passages in favor of liberty, equality and an end to human slavery in the 18th or 19th century would have been met with the same kind of response animal rights activists receive today if they quote Bible verses in favor of ethical vegetarianism and compassion towards animals.

Someone once pointed out that while Hitler may have claimed to be a Christian, he imprisoned Christian clergy who opposed the Nazi regime, and even Christian churches were subject to the terror of the Nazis. Thinking along these lines, I realize that while I would like to see organized religion support animal liberation (e.g., as was the case with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the American civil rights movement) rather than simply remain an obstacle to social and moral progress (e.g., 19th century southern churches in the U.S. upheld human slavery on biblical grounds), this support must come freely and voluntarily.

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How 'bout when you raise your own chickens, d.s., or, like some folks I know, go out and shoot a deer or an elk for their red meat? In some places deer are so plentiful, and the large carnivores eradicated, that they will starve if the herds are not culled. My best friend can't keep a garden without fencing it because of the deer. Agreed, industrial agriculture sucks, but the answer is not veganism, which is unhealthy, but a human population that is not so bloated that it cannot live off the land. But humans have long since overshot the permanent carrying capacity of this little space ship, and the coming die-off is going to be horrendous.

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