OMNI
VEGETARIAN ACTION NEWSLETTER #15, JANUARY 14, 2015.
Compiled by Dick Bennett for a Culture of Peace,
Justice, and Ecology.
(#4
Feb. 12, 2014; #5 March 12, 2014; #6 April 9, 2014; #7 May 14, 2014; #8, June
11, 2014; #9 July 9, 2014; #10, August 11, 2014; #11 September 10, 2014; #12
October 8, 2014; #13, November 12, 2014; #14, December 10, 2014; #15, January
14, 2015.).
As
of Oct 24, 2014, OMNI had published 1455 newsletters on peace, justice, and
ecology, with 150,363 page views. Thanks
to Marc Quigley.
What’s at stake: “A
new mythos, affirming cooperation, freedom, peace, life, and unity, is
struggling to be born to replace the old mythos based on competition,
separateness, war, exclusion, and the idea that might makes right. Food is a critical key to this birth, because
our food habits condition our mentality profoundly. . . .” Will Tuttle, The World Peace Diet, p. xiv
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See:
Animal Cruelty, Animal Friendship, Animal Rights, Critical Thinking,
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Gandhi, Global Warming/Causes, Health, St. Francis, Torture, Vegetarianism,
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October
World Vegetarian MONTH. Oct. 16, UN World Food DAY.
Contents Nos. 4-14 at
end
Contents Vegetarian
Action #15
Nutrition, Health
Dr.
Mercola, Harmful Industrial Meat Production
Animal Protection and
Rights
Dr.
Steve Best
Climate Change
Cowspiracy Video
Dr.
Best, Meat and Rain Forests
Nutrition, Health
Facts About the Meat
Industry
NUTRITION, HEALTH
Shocking Facts About
the Meat Industry
DR. MERCOLA 0SC ON DECEMBER 21,
2014 http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2014/11/25/shocking-facts-meat-industry.aspx
There
are many reasons to switch to grass-fed beef.1 For
example, I've discussed the nutritional
differences between organic pastured beef and that from animals
raised in confined animal
feeding operations (CAFOs) on
many occasions.
Here,
I will focus more on the current farming model, which is what makes CAFO beef
such an inferior product in the first place, and the regulatory restrictions
that sometimes make grass-fed meats hard to come by in the US.
Our
food system is in dire need of change in order to protect human health, but
it's a system that is difficult to change. It's not impossible, but it will
require more people to change their shopping habits in order to drive up
demand, and hence the industry's resolve to address the shortcomings.
Multi-Faceted Problems
Stemming from Industrial Farming Practices
Industrial-scale
farming has wide-ranging problems. Typically, the focus is on deteriorating
food quality and safety. Certainly, the factory farm model directly contributes
to Americans' increasing reliance on processed junk
foods; the very same foods that are making us obese and riddled with
chronic disease.
Emerging
diseases in livestock, wildlife, and humans are also traceable to industrial
farming practices. This includes antibiotic-resistant diseases, mad cow disease
in cows, and chronic wasting disease (CWD) in deer and elk.
Infectious
proteins causing mad cow and CWD have also been implicated in Alzheimer's
disease in humans—the only differentiating factor being the time it takes for
symptoms and death to occur.
According
to one estimate, up to 13 percent of all Alzheimer's victims may actually
have mad
cow infection, acquired from eating contaminated CAFO meat.
The
USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) also attribute nearly 133,000
illnesses each year to contaminated chicken parts. The agency has set a goal to
reduce illness by 34 percent.
As
for salmonellosis cases, the USDA estimates contaminated chicken and turkey
cause about 200,000 illnesses a year. FSIS' goal is to reduce that number by at
least 25 percent by 2020. Factory farmed chicken is by far the greatest culprit
when it comes to food poisoning.
Beef
is also frequently tainted, and a USDA rule requiring labeling of mechanically
tenderized beef has been under consideration for six years already, for the
fact that the procedure compresses pathogens from the surface down into the
meat, where it can more easily thrive and survive cooking. Mechanically
tenderized beef has been blamed for at least five E.Coli outbreaks between 2003
and 2009.
But
like a multi-headed hydra, the adverse effects of industrial farming sprout in
many other directions as well. For example, large-scale factory farming is also
responsible for:
·
Loss of water quality
through nitrogen and phosphorus contamination in rivers, streams, and ground
water (which contributes to "dramatic shifts in aquatic ecosystems and
hypoxic zones")
·
Agricultural
pesticides also contaminate streams, ground water, and wells, raising safety
concerns to agricultural workers who use them
·
A decline in nutrient
density of 43 garden crops (primarily vegetables), which suggests possible
tradeoffs between yield and nutrient content
·
Large emission of
greenhouse gases including carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide
·
Negative impact on
soil quality through such factors as erosion, compaction, pesticide
application, and excessive fertilization
Industrial Farming Is Destroying Food Quality
"How
do you alert people to the problems of industrial-scale farming?" a recent
article in National Geographic3 asks.
"The issues are urgent, but they are also difficult to
confront: The indifference to animal welfare, the strip-mining of poor
countries' resources to feed the rich, the environmental damage and antibiotic
overuse can be so hard to face that many people just turn away."
Philip
Lymbery, an animal-welfare activist and author of the bookFarmageddon: The
True Cost of Cheap Meat, notes that one of the techniques used to
perpetuate factory farming is secrecy. For example, in Europe, eggs
from caged hens are marked "battery eggs," whereas in the US, those
same eggs are labeled as "farm fresh" or "country fresh."
If
you don't know there's a problem, you won't root for change, and that is
exactly why the food industry is fighting tooth and nail to prevent labeling of
genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in the US, as well as legislation that
would prevent them from fraudulently labeling GMOs as "Natural."
It
is imperative for the food and chemical technology industries that currently
monopolize agriculture to keep you in the dark about how your food is produced.
They've
even lobbied for gag laws that make it a felony to video tape animal cruelty or
other heinous activities occurring on factory farms, lest sympathy start upsetting
the proverbial apple cart... When asked if he's opposed to animal farming for
food altogether, Lymbery replies:4
"This is not, in any way, a call to vegetarianism. This is
a call to put animals back on the farm. Pasture is one of the most ubiquitous
habitats on the planet, covering 25 percent of the ice-free land surface.
This is about using that ubiquitous habitat to produce great
food in a way which is environmentally friendly and kinder to animals, leaving
much-scarcer arable to grow crops directly for people...
Three times a day, through our meal choices, we have an
opportunity to change our lives and thereby help change the world.
It's as simple as buying free-range eggs, pasture-raised beef
and chicken, and looking for milk that has come from cows that have been able
to graze... We'll start to support family farms, will help to support a better
environment, and will help to feed the world in a more humane and efficient
way."
The US Meat Racket
Most
all conventional meat and poultry (beef, pork, chicken, turkey, etc.) is raised
in CAFOs.
It's a corporate-controlled system characterized by large-scale, centralized,
low profit-margin production, processing, and distribution systems.
This
is the cheapest way to raise meat, for the largest profits. But the ultimate
price is high, as there's a complete disregard for human health, the
environment, and ethical treatment of animals and plant workers alike.
A
series of recent articles, listed on NewAmerica.org,5 delve
into the various aspects of the monopoly that is America's meat market. In one,
titled "The Meat Racket," Christopher Leonard reveals how the US meat
industry has been seized by a mere handful of companies, and how this tightly
controlled monopoly drives small livestock farmers out of business.
Other
articles detail the drugs used in CAFO farming, and the risks this drug based
farming poses to human health. One side effect is the creation of antibiotic-resistant
superbugs, which I've addressed on numerous occasions.
Martha
Rosenberg also recently highlighted a USDA Inspector General Report,6 which
revealed that beef sold to the public have been found to be contaminated with a
staggering 211 different drug residues, as well as heavy metals.7, 8
Hazardous
growth-promoting drugs like Zilmax and Ractopamine are
also routinely used in American CAFOs, and as much as 20 percent of the drug
administered may remain in the meat you buy. Their use is disturbing when you
consider that side effects in cattle include brain lesions, lameness, heart
failure, and sudden death. Salon Magazine also recently ran an
article9on the subject
of factory farming, penned by Lindsay Abrams, in which she discusses journalist
Ted Genoways' new book,The Chain—an expose of the American pork
industry. She writes in part:
"What journalist Christopher Leonard recently did for Tyson
and the chicken industry, Genoways... does for pork, recounting the history of
Hormel Foods... as it evolved from humble beginnings to an industrial giant
with a nearly myopic focus on expansion and acceleration, regardless of the
costs.
And boy, are there costs... a mysterious neurological disorder
linked to a machine that has workers breathing in a fine mist of pork brains...
abuse suffered by the animals on whom workers' frustrations are instead taken
out; and a decline in food safety that, unbelievably, is set to become the new
industry standard."
Genoways
book reveals how societal issues "fan out in all directions," as he
puts it, from the way our pork is produced. Sure, there are many disturbing
safety issues, but it doesn't end there. According to Genoways, another hidden
issue is that many of the health hazards that affect plant workers affect
already exploited immigrant workers to a disproportionate degree.
MORE
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2014/11/25/shocking-facts-meat-industry.aspx
- See more at: http://bullhorn.nationofchange.org/shocking_facts_about_the_meat_industry#sthash.oB1IXFN3.dpuf
ANIMAL
RIGHTS AND PROTECTION
Steven
Best
The Politics of Total Liberation
Enlarge
browse inside
Hardcover
(204 pages)
$100.00
+ delivery
print
on demand
Libraries
- add to your ebook collection on Palgrave Connect
ISBN 9781137471116
Publication
Date November 2014
Formats Hardcover Ebook (PDF) Ebook (EPUB)
Publisher Palgrave Macmillan
Series Critical Political Theory and Radical
Practice
The Politics of Total Liberation vividly articulates the crises
haunting the social and natural worlds, which are coming apart under the impact
of global capitalism, human overpopulation, species extinction, and runaway
climate change. Steven Best contextualizes the 21st century as the decisive
moment in human history wherein our actions will determine whether the future
will be merely burdensome or catastrophic. Overcoming this crisis demands a new
politics of total liberation that unites the disparate movements for human,
animal, and earth liberation. Avoiding bravado or false optimism, Best
questions humanity's ability to rise to the occasion, and dares to imagine a
"world without us."
Share
this:
About the Author
Table
of Contents
Steven Best is an award-winning writer, noted
international speaker, public intellectual, and seasoned activist with over 30
years in diverse political movements. He is Associate Professor of Humanities
and Philosophy at the University of Texas at El Paso, USA.
DR. STEVE BEST, Google Search, Jan. 12,
2014
https://drstevebest.wordpress.com/
Nov 16, 2014 - Interview with Animal Rights
Zone on Total Liberation ... In this bold and timely book, Steven Best writes
from, and has documented, the ...
www.drstevebest.org/
Home.
www.drstevebest.org/essays.htm
Essays - Vegetarianism, Environmentalism, Animal Rights.
The Iron Cage of Movement Bureaucracy · My Dog or Your Child?
Ethical Dilemmas and the ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Best
Wikipedia
Steven Best (born December
1955) is an American animal rights advocate, author ... Best
is co-founder of the Institute for Critical Animal Studies
(ICAS), formerly .... Jump up ^ "Intellectual Biography Statement Dr. Steven
Best". drstevebest.org.
https://www.facebook.com/bringbackbest
Pages & People who Remain Loyal to Human, Animal &
Earth Liberation January ... As the kind lady says: "Dr Steve Best is
a true inspiration, with words of ...
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Dr-Steven-Best/304183326389834
... about this. Dr. Steven Best (Philosopher,
writer, activist) / Unofficial Page / Greece. ... Interview w Dr Steve
Best World Vegan Radio Animal Rights flv YouTube.
speakingofresearch.com/.../prof-steven-best-gets-a-..
Speaking of Research
Oct 23, 2012 - Every motherfucker who
hurts animals is gonna feel the fear!” The words come courtesy
of Dr. Steven Best, from the Philosophy Department
at ...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPIznRrKc7Q
Jul 16, 2014 - Uploaded by DoggyTV
Dr. Steven Best is
introduced by Michael Webermann, Executive Director at Farm Animal Rights
Movement ...
CLIMATE CHANGE
This film,
formerly available only by private showing, can now be watched online:
http://www.filmsforaction.org/watch/cowspiracy-the-sustainability-secret-2014/
http://www.filmsforaction.org/watch/cowspiracy-the-sustainability-secret-2014/
MEAT
EATING AND THE ENVIRONMENT, Essays by Steve Best
Rainforest Destruction: What's Meat Got To Do With It?
"I have no doubt that it is
part of the gradual destiny of the human race in its gradual development to
leave off the eating of animals." - Henry David Thoreau
Everyone knows that the rainforests
are disappearing, but few realize how rapidly and how their food choices play a
key role. Since 1945, half of the world's rainforests have been burned,
bulldozed, and mined into oblivion. Each day, 140,000 acres of tropical forest
are demolished, 8 acres every few seconds, and 50 to 150 different species
become extinct. In fifty years, mining, logging, oil, cattle, and banking
interests have destroyed what has taken nature hundreds of millions of years to
create. At the current rate of devastation, the rainforests of the world will
be completely leveled in another fifty years.
A world without rainforests is
unsustainable for complex life forms. The rainforests deliver oxygen to the
air, stabilize climates, and they regulate humidity, wind, and convection
patterns. Although only 7% of the earth's total area, the rainforests provide a
lush habitat for 50% of all animal and plant species, and a home for many
indigenous peoples. They yield a rich bounty of fruit, nuts, spices, gums, and
medicinal compounds; while rainforest plants have already provided cures for
many diseases, only 1% of them have been studied. The rainforests are the
oldest and the most diverse ecosystems on this planet.
Left standing, trees absorb carbon
dioxide and produce oxygen. Burned or chopped down, they release concentrated
amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, undermining the ozone layer.
There is a growing consensus among the world's scientists that we are indeed in
a new epoch of earth history: the Age of Global Warming. The evidence of global
warming is visible everywhere: unprecedented heat waves and drought,
super-ferocious storms, a dramatic rise in skin cancer rates, the breaking up
of the Antarctic Ice Shelf, and increased pests and diseases.
While corporations like Mitsubishi,
Arco, Texaco, and Honshu Paper are the main culprits in deforestation, every
person who consumes meat also plays a role. One of the principle reasons for deforestation is to provide grazing
ground for cattle. In terms of
global warming, this means that enormous amounts of carbon dioxide are released
into the atmosphere. The grazing of cows and other ruminant animals also causes
the emission of two other major ozone destroying gases: nitrous oxide (in
fertilizer) and over a hundred million tons of methane gas a year -- which some
scientists see as becoming the primary global warming gas in the next 50 years.
Americans eat more beef than any
other country in the world, consuming 32% of the total production. Meat-eaters
are not only destroying their own health by consuming these toxic products,
they are contributing to numerous other problems such as world hunger (the land
needed to feed cattle is 20 times the amount needed to feed people), the
expropriation of people from their lands (used to graze cattle), the
destruction of human and animal habitat, and the aggravation of global warming.
Experts estimate that every person who switches to a pure vegetarian (vegan)
diet saves an acre of trees every year.
Before biting into the next
hamburger, one might consider the real cost -- 55 square feet of rainforest, 12
pounds of grain, and 2500 gallons of water. I for one believe that the earth
and its teeming life forms are worth much more than fast food chains and Big
Macs. The best way to care for the environment is to become a vegetarian; to be
consistent in one's beliefs, an environmentalist must also be a vegetarian.
END VEGETARIAN ACTION NEWSLETTER
#15, January 14, 2015
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