Twenty-eight Reasons to

Stop Eating Meat

Livestock Eat Better Than Many of the World's Poor

Livestock eat the grain and soybeans that could feed the hungry. In so doing, they inefficiently convert agricultural products to a very small amount of beef.

1. Number of human beings who could be fed annually by the grain and soybeans eaten by U.S. livestock: 1,300,000,000

2. Number of people who will starve to death this year: 60,000,000

3. Number of people who could be adequately fed by the grain saved if Americans reduced their intake of meat by 10 percent: 60,000,000

4. Pounds of grain and soybeans needed to produce one pound of feedlot beef: 16

5. Number of pure vegetarians who can be fed on the amount of land needed to feed one meat-eating person: 20

6. Percentage of protein wasted by cycling grain through live-stock: 90

7. Percentage of carbohydrate wasted by cycling grain through live-stock: 99

8. Percentage of dietary fiber wasted by cycling grain through live-stock: 100

9. Pounds of potatoes that can be grown on 1 acre of land: 20,000. Pounds of beef that can be produced on 1 acre of land: 165

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10. Reason veal is so tender: Calves are never allowed to take a single step.

11. Reason veal is a whitish pink: Calvers are force-fed an anemia-producing diet

12. The McDonald's clown, Ronald McDonald, tells children: "Hamburgers grow in hamburger patches and love to be eatten." Ronald McDonald doesn't tell children: "Hamburgers are ground-up cows who have had their thoats slit by machetes or their brains bashed in by sledgehammers."

13. Number of animals killed for meat per hour in the United States: 500,000

14. Occupation with highest employee-turnover rate in the United States: slaughterhouse worker

15. Occupation with highest employee rate of injury in the United States: slaughterhouse worker

16. Cost to render an animal unconscious prior to slaughter so that process is done humanely: 1 cent. reason given by meat industry for not utilizing captive bolt pistol: too expensive

Even if we have no qualms about the slaughter of animals for fook, there are serious environmental and other ethical issues involved.

The grazing of cattle, sheep, and goats for meat can have a valid place in an ecologically balanced food economy. For one thing, not all land is fit for the cultivation of food crops such as grains and beans; the soil may be poor and there may be inadequate water.

However, the number of animals raised exlusively on rangelands in America is small. Most spend a good part of their lives in feedlots. These are enclosed areas where thousands of animals are crowded together and fattened with a diet of corn, soybeans, and other potential human foods. These feedlots amount to animal concentration camps. Life in the feedlots is so unhealthy that the animals are constantly dosed with antibiotics, which poses health risks for humans. 17. Percentage of antibiotics produced in this country used in livestock feeds: 55

The animals produce manure - literally mountains of it, which if properly treated might be used as fertilizer or even as a source of methane fual. Unfortunately, it usually is treated as a waste product. It is allowed to wash away into streams, rivers, and lakes, where its high concentrations of nitrates and phosphates upset the natural ecology. The Chesapeake Bay, for example, long a major source of fish and shellfish, has become almost barren due to animal-wast runoff from farms along its source rivers.

18. Production of excrement by total U.S. human population: 12,000 pounds per second. Productions of excrement by U.S. livestock: 250,000 pounds per second

19. Percentage of harmful organic waste-water pollution attribuable to U.S. human population: 10. Percentage of harmful organic waste-water pollution attributable to U.S. livestock: 90

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Wasted Water

20. Enought water goes into the feeding and care of the average cow to: float a destroyer. 21. Water needed to produce a pound of wheat: 25 gallons. Water needed to produce a pound of meat: 2,500 gallons

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Protecting our Forests

22. Number of acres of U.S. forest that have been cleared to create cropland to produce a meat-centered diet: 260,000,000 23. How often an acre of trees disappears in this country: every 5 seconds 24. At the present rate of deforestation, number of years before not a single tree will remain standing in the United States: 50 25. Amount of trees spared per year by each individual who switches to a pure vegetaian diet: 1 acre

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Protecting Our Own Lives

26. Most common cause of death in the Unided States: heart attack. Risk of death from heart attack by average American man: 50 percent. Risk of death from heart attack by average American man consuming a pure vegetarian diet: 4 percent 27. Increased risk of breast cancer for women who eat meat daily compared to women who eat meat less than once a week: four times higher 28. Leading source of pesticide residues in the U.S. diet: meat - 55 percent. Total pesticide residues in U.S. diet supplied by vegetables: 6 percent. Total pesticide residues in U. S. diet supplied by fruits: 4 percent. Total pesticide residues in U.S. diet supplied by grains: 1 percent

Finally, if you'e wondering how to select the lesser evil - beef, pork, turkey, eggs, or chicken :
it takes 16 pounds of grain and soy* fed to get one pound of Meat from Beef.
it takes 6 pounds of grain and soy fed to get one pound of Meat from Pork.
it takes 4 pounds of grain and soy fed to get one pound of Meat from Turkey.
it takes 3 pounds of grain and soy fed to get one pound of eggs..
it takes 3 pounds of grain and soy fed to get one pound of Meat from Poultry.

*Soy consitutes only 12 of Steer food and 20-25%of poultry.

*Facts and statistics taken from Diet for a New America, by John Robbins, Stillpoint, P.O. Box 640, Walpole, NH 03608: (800) 847-4014, $12.95. Text Excerpted from How Our Food Choices Affect the World by Ronald Kotzschand, reprinted with permission from East West: The Journal of Natural Health and LivingAll rights reserved.

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For answers to questions about raising your children as vegetarians, which fast-food restaurants use only vegetable oil, and how best to replace the iron and protein found in meat, consider subscribing to the Vegetarian Journal, monthly, for $18. Write P.O. box 1463, Baltimore, MD 21203

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