Why Vegan

Becoming vegan was something I did out of my love for animals, and my continual drive to protect them…in turn, not supporting the exploitation of them. Since becoming vegan, I have noticed a major change for the better in the way my body feels.  I have more energy, I’more clear minded, I get sick less and it is easier to lose weight.  The more I read about being vegan, the more I learn that it truly is the healthier, greener,  and overall smarter choice…not just the more humane choice. I really like the website www.veganunderground.com and found the info on there really informative, if anyone ever tries to dispute your reasons for being vegan…be armed with the facts!

Think about everything you know about food  

..think about what you ate for breakfast…

…dairy?

• milk is the most common food allergy
• all dairy contains: pesticides, drugs, antibiotics, synthetic hormones including recombinant bovine growth hormone (rGBH)
• according to PETA, an ordinary glass of milk contains between one and seven drops of pus. This isn’t just disgusting—it can also be dangerous. Pus can contain paratuberculosis bacteria, which are believed to cause Crohn’s disease in human beings.
• 80 different antibiotics are legally allowed in U.S. cow’s milk
• dairy products are deficient in fibre, niacin, vitamin C and iron
• cow’s milk is high in saturated fats, but low in the essential fatty acid linoleic acid
• 1 cup of milk contains: 35mg of cholesterol, 149 calories, 8g of fat, 5g of saturated fat
• milk is very low in iron. To get the U.S. Recommended Dietary Allowance of 11 milligrams of iron, an infant would have to drink more than 22 quarts of milk each day.  Milk also causes blood loss from the intestinal tract, depleting the body’s iron
• milk wouldn’t have any vitamin D if it wasn’t fortified with it
• the levels of vitamin D added to milk vary widely, from insignificant to toxic
• studies have shown that there is no protective effect of calcium on bone
• countries with the highest consumption of dairy products: Finland, Sweden, United States, England
• countries with the highest rates of osteoporosis: Finland, Sweden, United States, England
• the calcium intake in rural China is one-half that of people in the U.S.
• the bone fracture rate in rural China is one fifth that of people in the U.S.
• increased calcium intake from dairy products is associated with increased incidence of osteoperosis
• high levels of casein (animal protein) in milk causes calcium to be leeched from bones
• ovarian cancer has been linked to consumption of dairy products
• a womans risk of breast cancer is 3.2 times higher for those who eat butter and cheese 2-4 times a week compared to once a week
• type 1 or childhood-onset diabetes is linked to the consumption of dairy
• dairy products are high in saturated fat, cholesterol and animal proteins which are the chief causes of heart disease and many cancers
• heart disease, cancer, strokes, diabetes, osteoperosis, obesity and other diseases have all been linked to dairy consumption according to Dr. T. Colin Campbell, nutritional researcher at Cornell University and director of the largest epidemiological study in history
• according to Dr. Benjamin Spock, feeding cow’s milk to children can and does cause anemia, allergies and insulin-dependent diabetes
• cow’s milk is designed for calves, not humans.  A baby cow will gain 1000 lbs before it turns 2.  And a human? 
• some bovine growth hormone treated cows have produced more than 30 tons of milk in a year, compared to a normal average production of 2.3 tons of milk in 1940

• the natural life expectancy of a cow is 20 to 25 years
• the life expectancy of a factory dairy cow is 4 years
• 40% of all ground beef in the U.S. is from expired dairy cows
• by drinking cow’s milk you are stealing milk meant for the cow’s calf, which, if it was a male, was taken away from its mother within 24 hours, put in a crate too small for him to stand up or turn around in, denied proper nutrients so that he becomes severely anemic, then sold for slaughter before he’s even 4 months old.
• most veal calves are so weak they can’t even walk to their deaths across the slaughterhouse floor, because they’ve never used their legs.
• female calves are either sentenced to a short life of servitude in the dairy herd, or are slaughtered immediately for the rennet in their stomachs, which is used to make cheese – by consuming dairy products you are supporting the taking of these defenseless lives
• without the dairy industry, there would be no veal industry

…eggs?

• 1 egg contains: 213mg of cholesterol, 75 calories, 5g of fat, 1.6g of saturated fat.
• that’s enough to raise your blood cholesterol level by 10 points.  Get crackin’! 
• according to the Centre for Science in the Public Interest, eggs remain at the top of the list of foods that are causing food-borne outbreaks
• between 1976 and 1986 there was a 600 percent increase in Salmonella poisoning from raw or undercooked eggs
• a womans risk of breast cancer is 2.8 times higher for those who eat eggs daily compared to only once a week
• a womans risk of ovarian cancer is 3 times higher for those who eat eggs 3 or more days a week compared to less than once a week
• it takes 3 pounds of grain and soy to produce 1 pound of eggs
• 8 hens, called “layers” by the industry, are kept in cages the size of file drawers
• dead and decomposing birds are routinely found in cages with live hens
• unable to move in the cramped “battery cages” their feet often grow around the wire mesh

• the birds are also painfully debeaked so they can’t peck each other to death out of extreme stress
• forced to lay unnaturally large eggs through drug manipulation, the hen’s uterus sometimes “prolepses” – the entire uterus is expelled along with the egg
• during forced molting, a practice employed to increase egg production, hens are kept in total darkness, given no food for 10 to 14 days, and no water for 3 days
• 75% of U.S. hens were subjected to forced molting in 2000
• in 1888 a hen laid an average of 100 eggs
• in 1993 a hen laid an average of 254 eggs

…think about what you ate for lunch…  dinner…   late night snack…

beef?  veal? 

• beef products contain high concentrations of fat, cholesterol, herbicide residues and antibiotic traces
• beef contains no fibre whatsoever
• diets high in animal protein are the main factors in causing heart disease, strokes, many cancers including colorectal cancer, kidney disease and osteoperosis
• amount of calcium lost in the urine of a woman after eating a hamburger: 28 milligrams
•  “a report by the United States Department of Agriculture estimates that 89 percent of U.S. beef ground into patties contains traces of the deadly E. coli strain.” (Reuters News Service)

• food most likely to cause cancer from herbicide residue: beef
• amount of nutrient wasted by cycling grain and soy through livestock:  90 percent of protein, 100 percent of fiber, 99 percent of carbohydrate
• it takes 16 pounds of grain and soy to produce 1 pound of beef
• every steak consumed has the same global warming effect as a 25 mile drive in a typical American car
• 81% of the U.S. beef market is controlled by the 4 largest meat packers
• 90,000 cows and calves are slaughtered in the U.S. every 24 hours
• after being dragged, shoved and beaten out of the trucks, cows are hoisted upside down by their hind legs and their throats are slit.  The lucky ones are stunned, but many are fully conscious, kicking and crying out, as they are skinned and cut to pieces

• at some slaughter houses, “dead” animals have broken so many workers’ limbs and teeth, that they have resorted to wearing chest pads and hockey masks
• the average lifespan of a meat cow is less than 1 year

 

..chicken?  turkey?  foie gras? 

• former USDA microbiologist Gerald Kuester says of today’s processed chicken, “(The) final product is no different than if you stuck it in the toilet and ate it.”
• 70% of U.S. broiler chickens are infected with campylobacter
• legally, the term free-range is virtually meaningless.
• consumer Reports found free-range poultry actually more contaminated with salmonella and campylobacter than other poultry
• it takes 3 pounds of grain and soy to produce 1 pound of chicken
• 90% of broiler chickens are so obese by the age of 6 weeks that they can no longer walk
•  “if a 7lb human baby grew at the same rate that today’s turkeys (and broiler chickens) grow, when the baby reached 18 weeks of age it would weigh 1500lbs.”  — bragging by a turkey industry spokesperson

• 14,000 chickens are slaughtered every minute in the U.S.
• 8 billion chickens are killed for food each year in the U.S.
• 2.5 to 3 million chickens die annually during shipment to federally inspected slaughterhouses in Canada
• in most large commercial chicken slaughter plants the inverted heads of doomed birds are first plunged into an electrified brine bath. The electric current is set at a voltage just high enough to immobilize the birds and to promote bleed out without hemorrhage. The birds are not only sentient during slaughter but must also suffer the excruciating shock. The current serves to minimize inconvenient flailing that would interfere with the slaughter process
• the lifespan of a broiler chicken is less than 2 months
• 50% of the U.S. turkey market is controlled by the six largest processors
• to produce foie gras, male ducks are force-fed 6 or 7 pounds of grain three times a day with an air-driven feeder tube. This torturous process goes on for 28 days until the ducks’ livers, from which the pâté is made, bloat to 6 to 12 times their normal size. About 10 percent of the ducks don’t make it to slaughter. They die when their stomachs burst

…pork?

• it takes 6 pounds of grain and soy to produce a single pound of pork
• 97% of U.S. pigs are raised on factory farms
• baby pigs are castrated, have their tails docked and their teeth cut in halfor yanked out, all without anesthetic, so they won’t damage and thus reduce the value of other pigs when they bite the tails and rumps out of stress from their overcrowded and frightening environment
• factory farm pigs are kept in stalls barely bigger than their bodies, with metal slats for floors
• the cages are usually stacked 3 high, so feces from the top animals falls on the bottom ones
• most factory farm pigs in the U.S. and Canada never see the light of day, and their feet never touch earth, let alone wallow in mud

• 75% of pigs have pneumonia when they reach the slaughterhouse
• the accumulation of filth, feces and urine results in 25% of pigs suffering from agonizing mange
• very often the only water provided to factory farm pigs is their own urine flowing in troughs through their cages
• 1 million pigs die in transport to slaughterhouses each year
• 400,000 pigs per year are crippled when they arrive at the slaughterhouse a process called “thumping” involves picking a pig up by the hind legs and bashing it head first into the concrete floor.  The largest hog producer in the U.S., Smithfield Farms, calls it ‘PACing’ – ‘Pound Against Concrete.’
• many are fully conscious when immersed in boiling water for hair removal
• more than 100 million pigs are killed for food in the U.S. every year
• the lifespan of a pig is less than 6 months

…fish?

• seafood is the number 1 cause of food poisoning in the United States
• omega 3’s in fish oils are highly unstable molecules that tend to decompose and, in the process, unleash dangerous free radicals
• fish flesh is an abundant source of fat, cholesterol, lead, mercury, PCBs and other toxins
• mercury is such a potent neurotoxin that even small doses can cause irreversable brain and heart damage.  Our single biggest source of mercury exposure is fish consumption
• the chemical residue found in salmon flesh can be as much as 9 million times that of the water in which they live.
• “year after year, the federal government has failed to fully disclose the hazards of mercury in fish to the public. In some cases, regulators have ignored the advice of their own scientists who concluded that mercury was far more dangerous than what consumers were being told. In other instances, regulators have made decisions that benefited the fishing industry at the expense of public health.” – Chicago Tribune Report
• “[A] 161-pound woman—the average weight of a U.S. female of childbearing age—would exceed the EPA’s exposure limit just by eating the can of tuna. [Dr. Vas] Aposhian was so upset that the government was not tougher on canned tuna that he quit the FDA advisory panel. ‘Nobody asked what this is doing to children,’ he recalled. ‘Nobody seemed really concerned about what this would do to pregnant women.’”
• children born to mothers who ate a lot of fish were slower to talk, walk and develop fine motor  skills, and had weaker memories and shorter attention spans
• the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that 70 percent of the world’s commercial fish stocks are fully exploited, over fished, or collapsed

• fishers, using rapacious techniques, such as sonar, driftnets, long lines, dredgers, and refrigerated fish-packing factories, are ultimately not only putting themselves out of business but rapidly destroying ocean ecosystems. In the case of long lining, fishers launch 4.5 million hooks every night.
• overall, a quarter of the world’s fish catch comes from nontarget species; a third goes to feed livestock or farmed fish.
• the United Nations reports that because of overfishing, all 17 of the world’s major fishing areas have reached or exceeded the point of exhaustion
• 27 million tons of fish are discarded each year
• early in 1998, a meeting of 1,600 scientists sounded the clarion call that the oceans were in peril. Five years later, the Pew Oceans Commission blamed industrial-scale commercial fishing for depleting the Earth of 90 percent of the ocean’s largest predatory species found only 50 years ago
• commercial fishing has reduced populations of large fish to 10% of what they were in 1950
• farmed fish live in overcrowded, feces-filled, oxygen-depleted, parasite-ridden pens
• researchers analyzed 2 metric tons of farmed salmon from major salmon-farming sites around the world for organochlorine contaminants and found that the levels of these toxic compounds are significantly higher in farmed than wild salmon
• 40% of farmed fish die before slaughter due to horrendous conditions
• to produce 1 pound of flesh, farmed fish are fed 5 pounds of commercially caught wild fish

…think you’re environmentally conscious?

think you conserve water?

• it takes 2,500 galloons of water to produce 1 pound of California beef, according to the Water Education Foundation.
• in California today, you may save more water by not eating a pound of beef than you would by not showering for six entire months
• the amount of water that goes into a 1,000 pound steer would float a (Naval) destroyer. (Newsweek)”
•  “nearly half the water consumed in this country is used for livestock, mostly cattle.” (Audobon)
• beef production uses more water than is consumed in growing the nation’s entire fruit and vegetable crop
• more than 97 percent of the water in the planet’s hydrological cycle is salty.  Saltwater is toxic for terrestrial organisms.
• only about 0.0001 percent of fresh water is readily accessible
• when the U.S. Clean Water Act went into effect in 1972, the government exempted agriculture

want to know more?

…think you’re conserving energy?

• the energy needed to produce the food that a meat eater would burn in walking a given distance is greater than the energy needed to fuel your car to travel the same distance
• more than a third of all raw materials and fossil fuels consumed in the U.S. are used to raise animals for food the forests?

• more than 70 percent of the grains and cereals we grow is fed to farmed animals
• the number 1 cause of Amazonian deforestation is cattle ranching
• 2/3 of Central American rainforests have been cleared to raise cattle
• 55 sq. feet of rainforest may be destroyed to produce one 1/4lb burger
• according to the Smithsonian Institute, the equivalent of seven football fields of land is bulldozed every minute to create more room for farmed animals

• 26 million tons of topsoil are lost annually on agricultural land worldwide
• it takes between 200 and 1,000 years for nature to form one inch of topsoil
• Canadian woodlands have been decreased by 70% due to animal agriculture
• the number one cause of threatened and extinct species in the U.S. and the rest of the world is livestock grazing

 

…think you care about world hunger?

• 1.2 billion people on Earth are underfed and malnourished
• 1.2 billion people on Earth are overfed and malnourished
• the world’s cattle consume a quantity of food equal to the caloric needs of 8.7 billion people
• 70% of U.S. grains and cereals are fed to livestock
• 1,400,000,000 human beings could be fed by the grain and soybeans eaten by U.S. livestock
• 12 million tons of grain are needed to adequately feed every one of the people on the entire planet who die of hunger and hunger-caused disease annually
• in order for the U.S. to save 12 million tons of grain they would only have to reduce their beef consumption by 10%
• one half of the Earth’s land mass is grazed by livestock
• 40,000 pounds of potatoes can be produced on an acre of prime land
• 250 pounds of beef can be produced on an acre of prime land

…think you don’t create much waste?

• the amount of waste created by 10,000-head feedlot is equal to that from a city of 110,000 people
• 3000 tons of waste are created every week by typical hog factory
• according to People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), livestock raised for food produce 130 times the excrement of the human population, some 87,000 pounds per second. The Union of Concerned Scientists points out that 20 tons of livestock manure is produced annually for every U.S. household. The much-publicized 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska dumped 12 million gallons of oil into Prince William Sound, but the relatively unknown 1995 New River hog waste spill in North Carolina poured 25 million gallons of excrement and urine into the water, killing an estimated 10 to 14 million fish and closing 364,000 acres of coastal shell fishing beds. Hog waste spills have caused the rapid spread of a virulent microbe called Pfiesteria piscicida, which has killed a billion fish in North Carolina alone
• toxic fumes from decomposing livestock waste on factory farms become poisonous to fish when returned to the Earth via rainfall. The errant ammonia also ravages terrestrial ecosystems because certain plant species that thrive on nitrogen are favored over those, such as wild prairie flowers, that don’t. Fallout can degrade environments as far away as 300 miles
• as a result of the introduction of cattle to this hemisphere, major forest fires in the American West occur today at the rate of one every three years, where earlier they may have occurred only once in a century. Historically, ranchers suppressed “cool” grass fires on the bovines’ behalf, allowing tinderboxes of dense foliage to build up below taller trees. Factor in cheat grass, a non-native plant that could not have taken root in this hemisphere without overgrazed lands. This prolific weed provides dry, papery kindling in early summer, perfectly conducive to massive forest fires
• in the Gulf of Mexico there is a 7000 sq. mile dead zone that can no longer support aquatic life.  The cause:  excess nitrogen from animal manure and feed crop fertilizer

…think about those luxurious leather seats in your car…

• toxins emitted by tanneries into the water system include mineral salts, formaldehyde, coal-tar derivatives, oils, dyes, salt, lime sludge, sulphides and acids
• residents of tannery towns have a greater than average chance of developing leukemia, and more than half of all victims of testicular cancer work in tanneries
• it takes more petroleum products to produce leather goods than go into making fleece and vinyl items

…still not convinced?

• the average meat eater is responsible for the deaths of some 2,400 animals during his or her lifetime
• americans consume 1 million animals per hour
• meat and dairy products are responsible for almost all the toxic residues that we consume, including dioxins, pesticides, herbicides, hormones and antibiotics
• 80 to 90% of dietary pesticide exposure comes from eating animal products
• 100% of dietary hormone and dioxin exposure comes from eating animal products
• the factory-farmed chicken, cow or pig of today is among the most medicated creatures on Earth (Newsweek)
• more than 70% of all the antibiotics used in the U.S. are used on livestock
• antibiotics are necessary to keep factory farm animals alive in conditions that would otherwise kill them