By Roar Bjonnes

FromIndia to Alaska, McDonald's is selling double cheeseburgers by the
billions. Now there's mounting evidence that these whoppers are doing more
than smearing grease on kids' pants and clogging arteries. For many years,
experts have warned us about health hazards caused by saturated fat from
milk and meat. In fact, saturated fat has become the quiet killer of a
culture addicted to life in the fast-food lane. But that's not all.
According to many researchers, our meat craze also contributes to the energy
crisis, water shortages, topsoil depletion, world hunger, animal suffering
and global deforestation.

The ethical argument

When kids begin to eat less meat parents sincerely believe they would suffer
from protein deficiency. But awareness reveals that one should be more
concerned about the protein wasted by cycling grain through livestock.
Anyway it is fairly easy to become a non-carnivore after a terrifying walk
through a slaughterhouse. That excursion can be a good lesson and education
in agronomy. It is shocking to witness the paranoid herd of bulls and cows,
hear the bovine wails, and see the innocent animals enter the bloody
killing-floors. This experience convinces one that to consume meat is to be
part of an industry of animal exploitation, unnecessary suffering and
premature death. As Leo Tolstoy said, "While we ourselves are the living
graves of murdered animals, how can we expect any ideal conditions on the
earth?"  Tolstoy was, of course, an active vegetarian.

Just consider these facts:
- In the USA, nine million living creatures are killed for meat each day.
Now add on to that statistics from a whole lot of other beef and meat
producing countries.  What do you get?
- Veal is usually so tender because calves are not allowed to take a single
step. The veal's whitish-pink colour comes from calves force-fed an
anaemia-producing diet.
- The wingspan of an average leghorn chicken is 26 inches, but the average
space these chickens are given in egg factories is only six inches.
- In a typical factory farm in an industrial country such as the USA, three
700-plus pound pigs are confined to a space the size of a twin bed.
- Over half the antibiotics produced in the USA are not used as medicines
for people, but as feed additives to cure stressed and infected animals.

Yes, please give some thought to these sobering facts. Seductive ads from
the meat and dairy industry will definitely not remind us, and neither will
the ground beef in a McDonald hamburger or the mute, featherless chicken in
the supermarket freezer.

John Robbins is no stranger to the business of factory-farming and
cholesterol. He was heir to one of the largest ice cream franchises in the
USA - the Baskin-Robbins company. But he declined to be part of the business
as it was in discord with his lifestyle. Robbins, a vegan (a no animal
by-product diet), instead moved to a forest cabin with his wife.  There he
embarked upon a life of voluntary simplicity, contemplation and research.
After three years, he published his findings in the Pulitzer Prize-nominated
book Diet For A New America (Stillpoint, 1988). It became an instant
best-seller, and was hailed as the world's most comprehensive indictment
against the meat industry.

Animal suffering was also the inspiration behind Robbins' ground-breaking
research on factory farming. "I felt an urge to respond to it," he says, "to
unearth some of the causes, to expose some of the hidden ways in which we're
damaging our selves and the whole web of life." On his visits to these farms
Robbins saw animals kept indoors under conditions that violate their
instincts and frustrate the urges. Pigs were stacked in cages three high;
the excrement of the ones above drops continuously on the ones below. He saw
animals chained so tight at the neck that they could not lay down. "I've
seen dairy cows treated with such contempt for their natures that they
become so neurotic they have to be given tranquillisers to keep them from
going berserk."

Throughout history there were many people who became vegetarians for ethical
reasons, people like Gandhi, Tolstoy, George Bernard Shaw, Leonardo Da Vinci
and Einstein. They felt it was unnecessary to eat animal flesh when other
food sources were available. This sentiment also motivated Andrew Nicholson
to become a vegetarian. Nicholson is a medical doctor and Director of
Preventive Medicine at Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine in
Washington DC. He lectures on vegetarianism and preventive medicine to
physicians and nurses, hospital patients and the general public. "It is not
only unethical to kill animals," says Nicholson , "it also does not make any
sense nutritionally." As a daily practitioner of meditation and yoga,
Nicholson feels it is important that his source of food is as "sentient"
(conducive to consciousness) as possible. It effects both our mind and body,
he claims. The importance of purity and vitality of food was also
appreciated by Pythagoras. Two thousand five hundred years ago, he said,
"Only living, fresh foods can enable man to apprehend the truth."

The ecological argument

American actress Cybill Shepherd used to do beef commercials on TV. But when
she got pregnant, she discovered that the breast milk of meat-eating mothers
has higher pesticide residues than is allowed in cows' milk. In fact, the
pesticide contamination of breast milk is 35 times higher in meat-eating
mothers than in vegetarians. This is a result of the vast amounts of
pesticides used in today's commercial agriculture. These pesticides first
accumulate in grain and grasses, then in cattle, pigs and poultry. Finally,
these toxic substances end up in humans who consume meat.

To satisfy the hunger for meat in the industrialized world, millions of
acres of forest have been cleared to create pastureland for grazing cattle.
Since 1960, more than 25 percent of the forests of Central America have been
clear-cut or burned. By the late 1970s, two-thirds of all agricultural land
in Central America was taken up by cattle and other livestock. By the
mid-1980s, these countries had 80 percent more cattle than twenty years
before. Ironically, most of the meat produced there ends up on the dinner
tables in the industrialized world, particularly the U.S.  In Australia the
cattle industry has create enormous damage to soils.

The creation of this vast cattle kingdom has enriched the lives of a select
few, pauperised much of the rural population, and spawned widespread social
unrest and political upheaval. But the ecological costs are also enormous.

Only 2,000 years ago, the tropical rainforest belt covered five billion
acres (two billion hectares) of the earth and took up 12 percent of the
earth's land surface. In the last two centuries of European colonial
expansion, half the tropical biomass has been destroyed to create pastures.
Most of the forests of Central and Latin America have been destroyed to
support the beef diets of people in Europe, the U.S. and Japan. Mexican
ecologist Gabriel Quadri warns, "We are exporting the future of Mexico for
the benefit of a few powerful cattle farmers."

Deforestation is, according to many ecologists, one of the main ecological
disasters of our time. In India, according to P.R. Sarkar, deforestation has
dried up many rivers. The solution, he says, is that all river systems
should be "covered by dense forests." This would of course be much easier
were we to shift to a vegetarian diet. Such a world-wide dietary shift would
according to Robbins "save enough land to restore the forests and habitats
for wild creatures." We would also have "enough land to save species from
becoming extinct, to absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, to stabilize
the climate, to give us oxygen, to stabilize our hydrological cycles, to
prevent droughts and floods, and to conserve topsoil which is currently
being eroded at an alarming rate."

Desertification is another destructive ecological problem caused by a
meat-cantered diet. According to Jeremy Rifkin, author of Beyond Beef
(Dutton, 1992), there are four main reasons for desertification:
over-grazing of livestock, over-cultivation of land, deforestation and
improper irrigation. However, cattle production is the primary factor in all
four causes. According to United Nations' estimates, 29 percent of the
earth's landmass now suffers "slight, moderate or severe desertification."
And, not surprisingly, the regions most affected by this are all the
cattle-producing areas of the planet: the western half of the United States,
Australia, Central and South America, and sub-Saharan Africa. Rifkin
describes cattle as "hoofed locusts" that eat their way through 900 pounds
of vegetation each month, strip the rangeland of native plants and compact
the soil with the pressure of 24 pounds per square inch. Thus the soil is
less able to hold the water from the spring melting of snow. This results in
erosion and flooding. Seeds are washed away, and during hot summers the
landscape becomes barren and dry.

Most people are aware that global warming may become the world's most
destructive environmental disaster. But the connection between a Big Mac
hamburger and global warming is not so obvious. But here are some disturbing
facts that should turn the most meat-loving environmentalist into a
vegetarian:

Much of the biomass (trees, grassland and agricultural waste) burned in the
world today is in connection with cattle-ranching. The biomass burned in the
Amazon rainforest alone amounts to about nine percent of the total worldwide
contribution to global warming.

Mechanized agriculture uses a sizable amount of fossil fuel. In the U.S., it
takes the equivalent of one gallon (3.8 litres) of gasoline to produce a
pound (.45 kg) of grain-fed beef. A family of four meat-eaters consumes 260
gallons (988 litres) of fossil fuel annually - producing as much carbon
dioxide as the average car emits in six months.

Petrochemical fertilizers, used to produce cattle-feed, emit nitrous oxide,
another greenhouse gas. Nitrous oxide released from fertilizers accounts for
six percent of the global warming effect.

Cattle emit methane, a potent greenhouse gas. Methane is also emitted from
peat bogs, rice paddies, and landfills. But the increase in the cattle and
termite population and the burning of forests account for most of the recent
increase in methane emissions. Methane emissions cause 18 percent of the
global warming trend.

A meat-cantered diet is also a poor way to utilize our resources. More and
more scientists are therefore recommending a vegetarian diet to help solve
some of the food shortages on the planet. It has been calculated, for
example, that it takes sixteen times more grain to feed a meat-cantered diet
than it does to feed a purely vegetarian diet. If the consumption of beef in
the United States was reduced by 10 percent, the amount of grain saved could
feed 60 million people - more than the entire number that will die of
malnutrition and starvation this year. There are of course also political,
economic, and social reasons why food is not properly produced and
distributed. But as Robbins says, "it definitely won't reach them if we
continue to cycle it through the livestock we eat."

So, come on, give everyone human and other life a fair go.  Spread the
message and convince people to stop eating their friends.

Some information
----------------

Methane (cows) is a far more potent contributor - by a factor of 21 times -
to global warming than carbon dioxide.  
- Excerpt from Environmental Business mag.

International food trade:
*       exacerbates climate change
*       forces down food and animal welfare standards
*       contributes to disasters such as Foot and Mouth and BSE
- Stopping the Great Food Swap - Relocalising Europe's Food Supply
(Background research by the UK food and agriculture group, Sustain, and
Colin Hines author of 'Localisation: A Global Manifesto).

Excerpts from a pocket sized book on vegetarian eating by Rosemary Stanton
(a leading oz nutritionist):
 - Overall, almost one-quarter of the earth is used to support almost 1.3
billion cattle.  They consume more that one-third of the earth's yearly
harvest.
 - The use of water in the USA is such that half of the water consumption is
used to produce grain to feed cattle.

It's not very hard to become a vegetarian these days  And the food is
wonderful, eg tofu, tempeh, nuts, fruits, etc.

Some quotes
===========

Albert Einstein.
*       ' Nothing will benefit human health and increase the chances for
survival of life on Earth as much as the evolution of a vegetarian diet'.
*       'Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from
mediocre minds'.

Mahatma Gandhi
*       'The greatness of nation can be judged by the way its animals are
treated'

If you have a liking
--------------------

Here's a brownie recipe ...

1 cup sugar (raw)
2 tbs carob or cocoa
1 1/2 cu flour
1 teas baking soda
1/3 cup oil
1 teas vanilla (optional)
1 tbs vinegar
1 cup cold water (or soya milk)
1/2 c chopped nuts

Mix dry ingredients in bowl.  Put vinegar, vanilla, oil and water in bowl.
Add wet to dry ingredients.  Mix until blended, don't overbeat.  Add nuts.
Mixture will be thin.  Pour into greased cake tin.   Bake 175 degrees for
30 mins.

Can omit carob, add grated apple, coconut etc.

Can use mixture of flours, wholemeal, bit of rye, etc.

And for sweet bran muffins ...

1 c flour
1 c bran flakes
1 teas. baking soda
1 teas. baking powder
1 cup sugar
sultanas
1 cup milk (soy or water)
2 tbs. golden syrup

Mix dry ingredients.  Heat syrup with milk or water.  Add hot to dry
ingredients.  Mix.

Put in greased muffin tins.  Bake   190  degrees approx. for 15 mins.

Veg links
---------

Vegetarian Network of Victoria
http://www.vnv.org.au/

The Vegan Society (UK)
http://www.vegansociety.com/  

Vegetarian Society (Wellington, NZ)
http://vegsoc.wellington.net.nz/veg_home.htm

Australian Vegetarian Society
http://www.veg-soc.org/  

ACT Vegetarian Society
http://www.vegetariansociety.org.au/

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