Most importantly read what is in red.
by Richard H. Pitcairn
“A reduction in meat consumption is the most potent single act you can take to halt the destruction of our environment and preserve out precious natural resources,” contends Robbins. And he makes the following points.
* If Americans were to adopt a meatless diet and stop exporting livestock feed, we could return 204,000,000 acres to forests-almost an acre for every American who would become vegetarian.
* Over two-thirds of the topsoil in the United States has been lost, with 85 percent of this loss associated with livestock production.
* It takes 78 calories of fossil fuel to produce 1 calorie of protein from beef. Only 2 calories will produce the same amount of protein from soybeans.
* The 5,215 gallons of water California uses to produce only one edible pound of beef would grow 209 edible pounds of wheat or 10 pounds of eggs or provide 300 five-minute showers.
It’s clear that we can’t continue with this pattern of inefficient consumption. For the sake of future generations, it would be wise for us to begin to rely more on plant sources for out daily food.
Even as we waste resources needed for the future, we contribute to the present world hunger problem. Some 20 million people a year die from malnutrition. Yet 15 vegetarians can be fed on the amount of land needed to feed 1 person eating a meat-centered diet. If Americans would reduce their intake of mean by only 10 percent, 100,000,000 people could be adequately nourished using the same land, water and energy no longer devoted to livestock feed. That’s five times the number of people who now die of malnutrition.
Finally, let’s consider the impact of meat production on the animals involved. When all we see is a neatly wrapped package in the supermarket and maybe a few cows out in the countryside, we may imagine that the meat came from animals who spent long, peaceful lives lazily scratching for bugs in a barnyard or grazing in sunny pastures. At the end of their idyll, we imagine, they are slaughtered quickly and humanely. Unfortunately, the reality is usually quite different.
I used to work with livestock and was often appalled at the crowded, stress ful and uncomfortable conditions under which most chickens, pigs and cows actually live and die. Farming has become big business, and most animals are treated more like profit-making units than creatures capable of feeling pain and distress. To minimize costs and maximize profits, most of them are packed into crowded quarters like items in a production line, deprived of normal environments and relationships. They may never even see the daylight or stand on the ground
by Richard H. Pitcairn
“A reduction in meat consumption is the most potent single act you can take to halt the destruction of our environment and preserve out precious natural resources,” contends Robbins. And he makes the following points.
* If Americans were to adopt a meatless diet and stop exporting livestock feed, we could return 204,000,000 acres to forests-almost an acre for every American who would become vegetarian.
* Over two-thirds of the topsoil in the United States has been lost, with 85 percent of this loss associated with livestock production.
* It takes 78 calories of fossil fuel to produce 1 calorie of protein from beef. Only 2 calories will produce the same amount of protein from soybeans.
* The 5,215 gallons of water California uses to produce only one edible pound of beef would grow 209 edible pounds of wheat or 10 pounds of eggs or provide 300 five-minute showers.
It’s clear that we can’t continue with this pattern of inefficient consumption. For the sake of future generations, it would be wise for us to begin to rely more on plant sources for out daily food.
Even as we waste resources needed for the future, we contribute to the present world hunger problem. Some 20 million people a year die from malnutrition. Yet 15 vegetarians can be fed on the amount of land needed to feed 1 person eating a meat-centered diet. If Americans would reduce their intake of mean by only 10 percent, 100,000,000 people could be adequately nourished using the same land, water and energy no longer devoted to livestock feed. That’s five times the number of people who now die of malnutrition.
Finally, let’s consider the impact of meat production on the animals involved. When all we see is a neatly wrapped package in the supermarket and maybe a few cows out in the countryside, we may imagine that the meat came from animals who spent long, peaceful lives lazily scratching for bugs in a barnyard or grazing in sunny pastures. At the end of their idyll, we imagine, they are slaughtered quickly and humanely. Unfortunately, the reality is usually quite different.
I used to work with livestock and was often appalled at the crowded, stress ful and uncomfortable conditions under which most chickens, pigs and cows actually live and die. Farming has become big business, and most animals are treated more like profit-making units than creatures capable of feeling pain and distress. To minimize costs and maximize profits, most of them are packed into crowded quarters like items in a production line, deprived of normal environments and relationships. They may never even see the daylight or stand on the ground
The Egg Industry
The egg industry tells us that chickens are insignificant and not worthy of concern. They are, however, living, feeling animals. And they have physical and behavioral needs.
In the crowded “battery cages” of today’s egg factories, the hen’s most basic instincts are cruelly violated. Contrary to the barnyard roaming “happy hen” image promoted in egg advertisements, the life of a factory farmed hen is one of intense suffereing. She is confined her entire life in a tiny cage with four, five, or more other hens. There’s barely room to stand, let alone walk or stretch her wings. Normal behaviors such as nest building, dust bathing, perching, scratching the ground, and walking are all impossible.
The hen is pressed against the side of the wire cage. Her feathers fall out. Her skin becomes raw, often bloody. Her feet are injured by the sloping wire floor. Propped up beside her is another hen, one which could no longer reach the food when her feet became entangled in the wire. So she slowely starved to death.
In-depth investigations of the egg industry by the Humane Farming Association have revealed:
-The advertsiging phrase “No Hormones” is used deceptively by the industry to lead consumers to believe eggs are raised naturally. The industry fails to warn of the enourmous amounts of antibiotics, pesticides, and other chemicals used.
-Up to five hens are croweded for life in a cage with the floor space barely more than the size of a newspaper folded in half.
-Barely able to move, the hens incessantly strike out in frusteraation- pecking at the only thing available: each other.
-To reduce cannibalism, chicks are “debeaked”. Debeaking is a painful procedure whereby the chick’s sensitive upper beak is sliced off with a hot blade. Many die from shock during the process.
-Male chicks are of no value to the egg industry. They are thrown into plastic garbage bags to suffocate slowly under the weight of chicks dumped on top.
-When egg production declines, the hens are starved and denied water for several days. This “forced molting” shocks the hens into losting their feathers and starting a new laying cycle. Many die during this torturous process.
-Veterinary car is non-existant. Indivitual hens are considered cheap and expendable. Critically ill birds are simply thrown onto “dead piles”.
-More chickesn are slaughtered in the U.S. than all other food animals combined; yet’ chickens are exluded from the Humane Slaughter Act, the federal law requiring that animals be rendered insensitive to pain prior to being killed.
-Spent laying hens are not stunned before slaughter because it is thought that electrical stunning would damage the carcass due to the birds’ easily fracutred bones. Lack of exercise, calcium depletion from heavy egg production, and starvattion during forced moling cause the bones of laying hens to be very fragile and break easily at the slaughterhouse.
-Insecticides are not only sprayed around the hens’ cages, but can be actually mixed in the feed given to the hends. “Feed through” insecticides, many of which are illegal, make the excrement that piles up in and around the cages toxic to flies and other insects. As debate rages as t owhat consitutes and “acceptable” level of toxins in eggss- hens, human beings, and the environment continue to be poisoned.
The egg industry tells us that chickens are insignificant and not worthy of concern. They are, however, living, feeling animals. And they have physical and behavioral needs.
In the crowded “battery cages” of today’s egg factories, the hen’s most basic instincts are cruelly violated. Contrary to the barnyard roaming “happy hen” image promoted in egg advertisements, the life of a factory farmed hen is one of intense suffereing. She is confined her entire life in a tiny cage with four, five, or more other hens. There’s barely room to stand, let alone walk or stretch her wings. Normal behaviors such as nest building, dust bathing, perching, scratching the ground, and walking are all impossible.
The hen is pressed against the side of the wire cage. Her feathers fall out. Her skin becomes raw, often bloody. Her feet are injured by the sloping wire floor. Propped up beside her is another hen, one which could no longer reach the food when her feet became entangled in the wire. So she slowely starved to death.
In-depth investigations of the egg industry by the Humane Farming Association have revealed:
-The advertsiging phrase “No Hormones” is used deceptively by the industry to lead consumers to believe eggs are raised naturally. The industry fails to warn of the enourmous amounts of antibiotics, pesticides, and other chemicals used.
-Up to five hens are croweded for life in a cage with the floor space barely more than the size of a newspaper folded in half.
-Barely able to move, the hens incessantly strike out in frusteraation- pecking at the only thing available: each other.
-To reduce cannibalism, chicks are “debeaked”. Debeaking is a painful procedure whereby the chick’s sensitive upper beak is sliced off with a hot blade. Many die from shock during the process.
-Male chicks are of no value to the egg industry. They are thrown into plastic garbage bags to suffocate slowly under the weight of chicks dumped on top.
-When egg production declines, the hens are starved and denied water for several days. This “forced molting” shocks the hens into losting their feathers and starting a new laying cycle. Many die during this torturous process.
-Veterinary car is non-existant. Indivitual hens are considered cheap and expendable. Critically ill birds are simply thrown onto “dead piles”.
-More chickesn are slaughtered in the U.S. than all other food animals combined; yet’ chickens are exluded from the Humane Slaughter Act, the federal law requiring that animals be rendered insensitive to pain prior to being killed.
-Spent laying hens are not stunned before slaughter because it is thought that electrical stunning would damage the carcass due to the birds’ easily fracutred bones. Lack of exercise, calcium depletion from heavy egg production, and starvattion during forced moling cause the bones of laying hens to be very fragile and break easily at the slaughterhouse.
-Insecticides are not only sprayed around the hens’ cages, but can be actually mixed in the feed given to the hends. “Feed through” insecticides, many of which are illegal, make the excrement that piles up in and around the cages toxic to flies and other insects. As debate rages as t owhat consitutes and “acceptable” level of toxins in eggss- hens, human beings, and the environment continue to be poisoned.