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  the nutrititional advantages of vegetarianism

  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.

  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 wrs 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 CardiologyOn Montana gubernatorial candidate defends his eating habits posted 1 year ago 7 Responses

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  environmental reasons to go veg

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

  "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, hadock, and flounder have fallen by as much as 95 percent in the north Atlantic.  

  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. On Umbra on shifting to vegetarianism posted 1 year, 1 month ago 19 Responses

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  human anatomy shows we're frugivorous

  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."

  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, Wiiliam 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? Hunters usually react to such criticism by replying that if hunting is wrong, then meat-hunting must be wrong as well. The hunter is certainly right on one point--the larger community is hypocritical to object to hunting when it consumes the flesh of domesticated animals. If any form of meat-eating is justified, it would be meat from a hunted animal."

  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, my friend Mareechi Duvvuuri (another Hindu-American!) who once studied sports medicine, pointed out that the diet of natural omnivores is mostly (80 percent) plant food. On Umbra on shifting to vegetarianism posted 1 year, 1 month ago 19 Responses

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  Statement by Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio)

  As a necessary component of the living world, we must extend compassion to one another and to every living thing. Our mission as human beings can truly be to elevate this world from a condition of suffering and cruelty to the planet's creatures, and towards a condition of compassion and inherent respect. Through elevating the cause of every creature, we elevate our own humanity.

  We lift up the cause of humanity by reaching out and connecting with all things living. It is our sense of interconnection with all living things that brings us to respect the rights of animals; to understand that animals are not to be "lower than"; that animals should not have less of a claim to existence, less of a claim to the possibility of survival, less of a claim to dignity.

  Every one of us knows a story of animal cruelty; every one of us knows how in one way or another official policies have sanctioned cruelty to animals. I am working to put compassion into action in our policies with respect to animals in this country and to have America set a higher standard, not only for this country, but for the world; to make sure that all of God's creatures, that all animals are given a chance to have dignity in our society and are given a chance to experience the appreciation they should have as living beings.

  I would include advocacy of animal rights in the Department of Peace, which I have already proposed to Congress. This cabinet-level department would work with, and offer an alternative to, the Defense Department. There have been numerous studies that have suggested a link between animal cruelty and domestic violence. The Department of Peace would not only seek to resolve international conflicts with nonviolent means, but also seek to instill a peaceful paradigm into the hearts of all the people of the world, so that one day war will be an archaic relic of a time that has passed.

  My farm policy favors independent and family-owned farms. I support a national ban on packer ownership of livestock, and numerous new incentives for farmers to convert to sustainable and organic farming and ranching techniques. The vision of the meat that we consume coming from happy and healthy free-range animals can become more of a reality, as opposed to the inhumane conditions that the often mutated chickens and cows and pigs are forced to sustain in our current system.

  As a member of Congress, I have cosponsored every piece of major animal protection legislation. In addition, I hold the distinction of being the only vegan in Congress. I made this lifestyle change many years ago, because I consider all life on our Earth to be sacred. As a vegan, I choose not to eat any animals or animal products. I strive to live my life in accordance with my convictions, and any other choice of diet would defy my ideals and, in my judgment, be hypocritical.

  - Dennis Kucinich 11/16/2006On PETA VP argues vegetarianism is the best way to help the planet posted 2 years, 2 months ago 77 Responses

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  Re: Environmentalist vs. Animal Rights Groups

  josullivan58 argues that the difference between animal rights and environmental groups is that animal rightists are extreme, whereas environmentalists are moderate.

  This is only due to the fact that the environmental movement (which emerged a couple of decades earlier than the animal rights movement) has grown to the point where its ideals have become part of the mainstream...Let's see where animal rights will be in 20 years.  

  As Peter Singer points out in Animal Liberation (1975), the environmental movement has changed the way we look at animals in a way that seemed impossible only a decade ago.

  PETA, the largest animal rights organization (1.6 million strong), is incredibly mainstream.  Reading PETA literature, like their "Animal Times" magazine, is a lot like reading People magazine!  It's filled with photos of vegetarian celebrities, recipes, etc.  

  PETA has gotten flack from feminists for their use of supermodels in campaigns like "We'd Rather Go Naked Than Wear Fur."  But most of what PETA does wouldn't get media attention.  The media thrives on sensationalism, not balanced rational debate.  

  Traditional animal welfare groups like the Humane Society and the ASPCA now promote vegetarianism and an end to animal research and testing.  John Robbins' Diet for a New America makes veganism seem as mainstream as recycling.  Meat and dairy alternatives can now be found in most major supermarkets.  Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) was the first vegan presidential candidate!  

  The animal rights movement is estimated to be 10 million strong; I think the Moral Majority at the peak of its power was only five million strong.  Try and discuss animal rights and vegetarianism apart from religion (since we're not trying to convert them to another religion, we just want them to stop being cruel to animals) with most Christians, and all they can think of is the MOVE!  

  Join PETA.  Join the animal rights movement.  Join history in the making.On PETA VP argues vegetarianism is the best way to help the planet posted 2 years, 2 months ago 77 Responses