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Red meat

Beef, pork and chicken industries are destroying the planet, warns the U.K. government

Saturday, May 01, 2004
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
Editor of NaturalNews.com (See all articles...)
Tags: red meat, beef industry, environmental protection


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Risk of mad cow disease, obesity and heart disease isn't the only reason to eat less meat: the planet simply cannot sustain a population that increasingly feeds on animal protein, says the U.K. government's Sustainable Development Commission. The problem? Animals consume vast supplies of land, crops, water and other resources in order to produce a much smaller quantity of animal protein for human consumption. The fast-growing population of animals for use in the human food supply is being described as, "...one of the biggest environmental crises we're now facing."

Is it for real? Here's the scoop: you can produce approximately ten times as much usable protein on a plot of land by raising crops like soybeans rather than cattle. And that's just for starters: superfoods like spirulina can produce even more protein per acre (if sufficient water supplies are available, that is). Supergrains like quinoa offer outstanding yields and provide a complete, high-quality protein at a fraction of the cost of producing beef, pork or chicken. So, if you just look at the usage of land, it's easy to see that you can feed ten times as many people on these high-protein crops compared with meat.

Then, there's the environmental impact of raising so many animals for food in the first place. Thousands of acres of rainforest continue to be cleared in South America in order to convert jungle to grazing land for cattle. That alone is alarming, and yet that's only the beginning. Cows, chickens and pigs produce waste on a massive scale, and that waste is often drained directly into rivers or -- this is true -- fed back to other animals. For example, the FDA stands firmly behind the practice of feeding chicken litter to cows. In the Southern state of the U.S., this practice is commonplace. Yes, you heard it right: cows' are fed chicken droppings. And the FDA completely supports the practice for one simple reason: there's no other way to get rid of all that chicken shit! Then, there's the use of water. Animals drink enormous quantities of water while they grow. As water becomes increasingly scarce in decades to come, this will become an issue of great contention.

So, it seems that from an environmental point of view, responsible citizens should greatly curb their consumption of animal protein. The same holds true from a nutritional point of view as well: animal sources of food have no fiber, no phytochemicals, are high in saturated fat, are seriously deficient in many vitamins, and are calorie dense. Low-carb dieters take note: there are other ways to get your protein than eating a cow every month. Quinoa, spirulina, whey protein and soy are all excellent alternatives to eating animals.

Finally, there's the ethics of eating meat. One of the reasons I don't eat red meat in particular is because red meat comes from intelligent mammals: cows and pigs. These beings have social structures, they communicate with each other, and they most definitely feel pain. To raise an intelligent animal for no purpose other than to slaughter it and sell its flesh is, in my opinion, evil. The further you go down the scale of intelligence, the less evil this becomes. Killing a chicken and eating it is not so evil, since chickens don't have the intelligence of cows and pigs. Consuming bacteria (in yogurt, for example) is not at all evil, since bacteria are not capable of feeling pain, it seems. But pigs? Pigs are as intelligent as dogs. Would you slaughter your pet dog and eat it? If not, then why would you support the slaughter of animals with similar intelligence? And remember: every time you buy bacon or sausage, you are indirectly slaughtering another pig, another intelligent being. It isn't just the slaughter, either: it's the conditions in which these animals are raised. Conditions are atrocious and inhumane. Animals suffer greatly, and death is their only escape from commercial meat ranches where nothing -- especially not ethics -- stands in the way of profits.

What do you think? Do you believe mammals have souls? Do you think cows and pigs are capable of feeling and understanding pain? Does your pet dog understand pain? Can the planet sustain a population that consumes large quantities of animal protein? How could societies shift to plant sources of protein? Give it some thought.


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About the author:Mike Adams (aka the "Health Ranger") is a best selling author (#1 best selling science book on Amazon.com) and a globally recognized scientific researcher in clean foods. He serves as the founding editor of NaturalNews.com and the lab science director of an internationally accredited (ISO 17025) analytical laboratory known as CWC Labs. There, he was awarded a Certificate of Excellence for achieving extremely high accuracy in the analysis of toxic elements in unknown water samples using ICP-MS instrumentation. Adams is also highly proficient in running liquid chromatography, ion chromatography and mass spectrometry time-of-flight analytical instrumentation.

Adams is a person of color whose ancestors include Africans and Native American Indians. He's also of Native American heritage, which he credits as inspiring his "Health Ranger" passion for protecting life and nature against the destruction caused by chemicals, heavy metals and other forms of pollution.

Adams is the founder and publisher of the open source science journal Natural Science Journal, the author of numerous peer-reviewed science papers published by the journal, and the author of the world's first book that published ICP-MS heavy metals analysis results for foods, dietary supplements, pet food, spices and fast food. The book is entitled Food Forensics and is published by BenBella Books.

In his laboratory research, Adams has made numerous food safety breakthroughs such as revealing rice protein products imported from Asia to be contaminated with toxic heavy metals like lead, cadmium and tungsten. Adams was the first food science researcher to document high levels of tungsten in superfoods. He also discovered over 11 ppm lead in imported mangosteen powder, and led an industry-wide voluntary agreement to limit heavy metals in rice protein products.

In addition to his lab work, Adams is also the (non-paid) executive director of the non-profit Consumer Wellness Center (CWC), an organization that redirects 100% of its donations receipts to grant programs that teach children and women how to grow their own food or vastly improve their nutrition. Through the non-profit CWC, Adams also launched Nutrition Rescue, a program that donates essential vitamins to people in need. Click here to see some of the CWC success stories.

With a background in science and software technology, Adams is the original founder of the email newsletter technology company known as Arial Software. Using his technical experience combined with his love for natural health, Adams developed and deployed the content management system currently driving NaturalNews.com. He also engineered the high-level statistical algorithms that power SCIENCE.naturalnews.com, a massive research resource featuring over 10 million scientific studies.

Adams is well known for his incredibly popular consumer activism video blowing the lid on fake blueberries used throughout the food supply. He has also exposed "strange fibers" found in Chicken McNuggets, fake academic credentials of so-called health "gurus," dangerous "detox" products imported as battery acid and sold for oral consumption, fake acai berry scams, the California raw milk raids, the vaccine research fraud revealed by industry whistleblowers and many other topics.

Adams has also helped defend the rights of home gardeners and protect the medical freedom rights of parents. Adams is widely recognized to have made a remarkable global impact on issues like GMOs, vaccines, nutrition therapies, human consciousness.

In addition to his activism, Adams is an accomplished musician who has released over a dozen popular songs covering a variety of activism topics.

Click here to read a more detailed bio on Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, at HealthRanger.com.

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