In Relation to World Vegetarian Week: Top Ten Reasons To Go Vegetarian

A great article that really quickly sums up the benefits of vegetarianism.

I like this quote from Sir Paul McCartney found in the article: "If anyone wants to save the planet, all they have to do is just stop eating meat. That's the single most important thing you could do. It's staggering when you think about it. Vegetarianism takes care of so many things in one shot: ecology, famine, cruelty."

Article:

Top Ten Reasons To Go Vegetarian

http://www.alternet.org/environment/85828/?page=entire

By Bruce Friedrich, AlterNet. Posted May 19, 2008.

It's World Vegetarian Week and here's a few reasons to kick the meat habit.

Gone are the days when vegetarians were served up a plate of iceberg lettuce and a dull-as-dishwater baked potato. With the growing variety of vegetarian faux-meats like bacon and sausages and an ever-expanding variety of vegetarian cookbooks and restaurants, vegetarianism has taken the world by storm.

With World Vegetarian Week here, without further ado, are the Top 10 reasons to give vegetarian eating a try, starting now!

1. Helping Animals Also Helps the Global Poor While there is ample and justified moral indignation about the diversion of 100 million tons of grain for biofuels, more than seven times as much (760 million tons) is fed to farmed animals so that people can eat meat. Is the diversion of crops to our cars a moral issue? Yes, but it's about one-eighth the issue that meat-eating is. Care about global poverty? Try vegetarianism.

2. Eating Meat Supports Cruelty to Animals The green pastures and idyllic barnyard scenes of years past are now distant memories. On today's factory farms, animals are crammed by the thousands into filthy windowless sheds, wire cages, gestation crates, and other confinement systems. These animals will never raise families, root in the soil, build nests, or do anything else that is natural and important to them. They won't even get to feel the warmth of the sun on their backs or breathe fresh air until the day they are loaded onto trucks bound for slaughter.

3. Eating Meat Is Bad for the Environment A recent United Nations report entitled Livestock's Long Shadow concludes that eating meat is "one of the ... most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global." In just one example, eating meat causes almost 40 percent more greenhouse-gas emissions than all the cars, trucks, and planes in the world combined. The report concludes that the meat industry "should be a major policy focus when dealing with problems of land degradation, climate change and air pollution, water shortage and water pollution, and loss of biodiversity."

4. Avoid Bird Flu

The World Health Organization says that if the avian flu virus mutates, it could be caught simply by eating undercooked chicken flesh or eggs, eating food prepared on the same cutting board as infected meat or eggs, or even touching eggshells contaminated with the disease. Other problems with factory farming -- from foot-and-mouth to SARS -- can be avoided with a general shift to a vegetarian diet.

5. If You Wouldn't Eat a Dog, You Shouldn't Eat a Chicken Several recent studies have shown that chickens are bright animals who are able to solve complex problems, demonstrate self-control, and worry about the future. Chickens are smarter than cats and dogs and even do some things that have not yet been seen in mammals other than primates. Dr. Chris Evans, who studies animal behavior and communication at Macquarie University in Australia, says, "As a trick at conferences, I sometimes list these attributes, without mentioning chickens and people think I'm talking about monkeys."

6. Heart Disease: Our Number One Killer Healthy vegetarian diets support a lifetime of good health and provide protection against numerous diseases, including the United States' three biggest killers: heart disease, cancer, and strokes. Drs. Dean Ornish and Caldwell Esselstyn -- two doctors with 100 percent success in preventing and reversing heart disease -- have used a vegan diet to accomplish it, as chronicled most recently in Dr. Esselstyn's Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease, which documents his 100 percent success rate for unclogging people's arteries and reversing heart disease.

7. Cancer: Our Number Two Killer Dr. T. Colin Campbell is one of the world's foremost epidemiological scientists and the director of what The New York Times called "the most comprehensive large study ever undertaken of the relationship between diet and the risk of developing disease." Dr. Campbell's best-selling book, The China Study, is a must-read for anyone who is concerned about cancer. To summarize it, Dr. Campbell states, "No chemical carcinogen is nearly so important in causing human cancer as animal protein."

8. Fitting Into That Itty-Bitty Bikini Vegetarianism is also the ultimate weight-loss diet, since vegetarians are one-third as likely to be obese as meat-eaters are, and vegans are about one-tenth as likely to be obese. Of course, there are overweight vegans, just as there are skinny meat-eaters. But on average, vegans are 10 to 20 percent lighter than meat-eaters. A vegetarian diet is the only diet that has passed peer review and taken weight off and kept it off.

9. Global Peace

Leo Tolstoy claimed that "vegetarianism is the taproot of humanitarianism." His point? For people who wish to sow the seeds of peace, we should be eating as peaceful a diet as possible. Eating meat supports killing animals, for no reason other than humans' acquired taste for animals' flesh. Great humanitarians from Leo Tolstoy and Mahatma Gandhi to Thich Nhat Hanh have argued that a vegetarian diet is the only diet for people who want to make the world a kinder place.

10. The Joy of Veggies

As the growing range of vegetarian cookbooks and restaurants shows, vegetarian foods rock. People report that when they adopt a vegetarian diet, their range of foods explodes from a center-of-the-plate meat item to a range of grains, legumes, fruits, and vegetables that they didn't even know existed.

Sir Paul McCartney sums it all up, "If anyone wants to save the planet, all they have to do is just stop eating meat. That's the single most important thing you could do. It's staggering when you think about it. Vegetarianism takes care of so many things in one shot: ecology, famine, cruelty."

So are you ready to give it a try?

Meat Alternatives for Thanksgiving See Some Growth: Tofurky Sales Increase

Some good news, but mostly low numbers. According to the article below, "...less than 1 percent of households will be putting a meat alternative on their table this Thanksgiving."

Article:

Vegetarians, Meat-Eaters Dig In To Send Sales of Tofurky Soaring

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/16/AR2007111601993.html

By Ylan Q. Mui

Washington Post Staff Writer

Saturday, November 17, 2007; D01

Seth Tibbott was just an ordinary hippie living in a treehouse when inspiration struck.
The year was 1986, and Tibbott had hoped for six years that his small business selling vegetarian meat alternatives in rural Washington state would catch on. Success proved elusive -- the treehouse was the only place he could afford to live -- until he developed a soy-based version of the traditional Thanksgiving turkey. He called it Tofurky.

"It's a name that resonates with consumers," said Tibbott, who grew up in Chevy Chase. "We're fine with the fact they think it's funny or they get a smile out of it. You remember jokes."
Tofurky hit store shelves in 1995, and the meatless dish has become a cultural phenomenon, even showing up on the TV shows " Jeopardy" and "The O.C." Tibbott's company, Turtle Island Foods of Hood, Ore. , has annual revenue of $11 million. Tofurky sales have grown 37 percent this year from 2006. He expects to sell 270,000 Tofurkys by the end of the holiday season, which translates to 438,000 pounds of tofu, wheat protein, canola oil and spices.
The concept was born of Tibbott's vegetarian frustrations. After attending Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School, he left for college in Ohio in 1969 and returned home having sworn off meat. Thanksgiving was particularly tough, he said, recalling a nasty bout with a stuffed pumpkin and a rock-hard gluten roast.

"We were looking for something for an answer and we figured there's probably other people out there," he said.

A 2006 poll conducted by Harris Interactive for the nonprofit Vegetarian Resource Group found that about 2 percent of adults are vegetarian, meaning they do not eat meat, poultry or seafood. The total was up from about 1 percent from a similar study the group conducted in 1994. The percentage of adults who do not eat poultry in particular grew to 6 percent from 3 percent.
The market, meanwhile, has been helped by omnivores who seek alternatives to meat for health reasons. They helped turn vegetarian foods into a $1.2 billion industry last year, up 44 percent from 2001, the consumer research firm Mintel said. The report found that 23 percent of non-vegetarians eat meat alternatives, though consumers still say the products cannot match the real thing.

John Cunningham, consumer research manager at the Vegetarian Resource Group, which has received donations from Tibbott's company, acknowledged that Tofurky does not taste like turkey. That doesn't mean it doesn't taste good, with a firm texture and a salty, savory flavor. It just tastes different.

"It can take the place of a big piece of meat," he said. "People are feeling a little bit neglected because all they get to eat are side dishes" during the holidays.

Tibbott started Turtle Island Foods in 1980 with $2,500 in savings and later with investments of $5,000 from his mother and $17,000 from his older brother, Bob, who lives in Chevy Chase . Originally, Tibbott peddled a product called tempeh, which is made from fermented soybeans. He started making 100 pounds of tempeh after hours in the cafe of a cooperative in Oregon, then delivering it to clients in Portland overnight.

Two years later, he moved the shoestring operation to an abandoned elementary school in a small logging town in the Cascade Mountains . The building had no heat, but it was near a scenic river and about a mile from Tibbott's treehouse. It was cheaper than renting an apartment, and he could not afford much else. The treehouse was not quite as primitive as it sounds -- there was electricity and phone service. At night, flying squirrels passed by his window.
Tibbott lived there for seven years before marrying and moving in with his wife, Suzanne, who lived in a more traditional apartment. When Tofurky hit, the treehouse days were gone for good.

Tibbott had seen a similar name used informally on other products, but he shortened it to have the same number of letters as a telephone number and had it trademarked. The first version of Tofurky, made from soy milk, was a mammoth affair with eight tempeh drumsticks. Tibbott said he had visions of families giving thanks over a large Tofurky, only to realize that just a few people at any gathering were likely to eat it. The latest version serves three or four people, and the drumsticks were replaced by cranberry apple potato dumplings.
The quirky product slowly gained notice. In 2000, it was mentioned in an episode of the TV show "The "X-Files." A year later, Tofurky was a question on the game show "Jeopardy." (No one got the correct answer.) The comedian Ellen DeGeneres brought up Tofurky on her show in 2003 and drew laughs from the audience.

"People don't believe me," she said. "There is a Tofurky."

Though Tofurky has attracted the most attention, Tibbott's company makes a range of faux meats. In fact, its best-selling products are vegetarian sausage and hickory-smoked deli slices. The Thanksgiving Tofurky roasts rank fifth in popularity and make up about 17 percent of the company's revenue.

Despite the industry's rapid growth, mainstream appeal may be limited. Harry Balzer, vice president at consumer behavior research firm NPD Group, said that less than 1 percent of households will be putting a meat alternative on their table this Thanksgiving. The National Turkey Federation estimates that 88 percent of Americans will eat turkey Thursday, adding up to 46 million gobblers, the most of any holiday.

"Clearly," Balzer said, "it's a strong tradition."

34 Colleges and Universities Nationwide Join College Veg Pledge Day

Excellent to see this kind of support in the colleges and universities. As you’ll read below, the options were much better than in the past.

Article:

Veggie-based promises dominate dining

http://media.www.dailypennsylvanian.com/media/storage/paper882/
news/2007/11/14/News/VeggieBased.Promises.Dominate.Dining-3099937.shtml

Penn joins 34 other schools in night of vegan-only meals at Kings Court Dining Hall

Helen Yoon

Pizza was a little different yesterday at Kings Court/English College House.

On the standard college staple, the cheese, pepperoni and sausage were replaced with non-dairy products like soy cheese, soy meat and layers of vegetables.

That dish was part of the dining hall's bi-annual entirely vegan dinner last night, in celebration of College Veg Pledge Day.

The event was sponsored by the Penn Students for Animal Rights, a coalition of college animal-rights groups. PSAR obtained 89 signatures from students who agreed to abstain from eating meat for a day.

The aim of the day is to raise awareness of vegetarianism and stimulate students to think about it.

"There's a lot [of vegetarian options] out there and they're good," said College senior Heather Gorn, president of PSAR.

"It's not the goal of the pledge to reach x number of vegetarians," Gorn said. Rather, student groups are out to spread the truth about the consequences of eating meat.

And reasons to turn vegetarian involve more than just ethical ones.

Meat consumption is also one of the top three causes of pollution, Gorn said.

For example, the greenhouse gas methane comes from cows and contributes to global warming. And when an unnaturally large number of cows are raised for food, it creates a serious problem.

To commemorate the day, 34 other participating schools hosted similar events.

Princeton University threw a vegan dessert party, serving vegan hot chocolate and catered desserts from Zen Palate, a vegetarian restaurant.

"We want to show that [eating vegetarian] is actually doable," said Princeton junior Jenny Palmer, who is the president of the Princeton Animal Welfare Society.

But because the dining halls serving vegetarian and vegan entrees everyday, vegetarianism is nothing new at Penn.

In fact, Penn is one of the more vegetarian-friendly campuses in the country.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals recently nominated the University for their 2007 ranking of schools with quality vegetarian and vegan food available. Penn earned ninth place on the same list last year.

A lot of the credit for that goes to Penn Dining.

"Penn Dining is fantastic," Gorn said. "They are very willing to accommodate vegetarians and vegans."

Food served at the dinner included crispy fried tofu and sauteed vegetables.

Although some students turned away at the prospect of meat-free entrees, most students enjoyed the dinner nonetheless.

"As long as it's good, I don't care," Engineering freshman Eyas Mahmoud said.

The Case Made Once Again for the Positive Environmental Effects of Vegetarianism

It’s been made clear once again: undeniably, vegetarianism is the number one act for attempting to address the environmental problems of today.

Article:

Nuggets and Hummers and fish sticks, oh my!

http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2007/9/17/16200/7809

PETA VP argues vegetarianism is the best way to help the planet
Posted by Grist at 11:35 AM on 18 Sep 2007

This is a guest essay from Bruce Friedrich, vice president for campaigns at People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). It was written in response to Alex Roth's essay "PETA's dogma is all bark and no bite." Friedrich has been an environmental activist for more than 20 years.

In 1987, I read Diet for a Small Planet by Frances Moore Lappé and -- primarily for human rights and environmental reasons -- went vegan. Two decades later, I still believe that -- even leaving aside all the animal welfare issues -- a vegan diet is the only reasonable diet for people in the developed world who care about the environment or global poverty.

Over the past 20 years, the environmental argument against growing crops to be fed to animals -- so that humans can eat the animals -- has grown substantially. Just this past November, the environmental problems associated with eating chickens, pigs, and other animals were the subject of a 408-page United Nations scientific report titled Livestock's Long Shadow.

The U.N. report found that the meat industry contributes to "problems of land degradation, climate change and air pollution, water shortage and water pollution, and loss of biodiversity." The report concludes that the meat industry is "one of the ... most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global."

Eating Meat Is the No. 1 Consumer Cause of Global Warming

Al Gore, Leonardo DiCaprio, and others have brought the possibility of global cataclysm into sharp relief. What they have not been talking about, however, is the fact that all cars, trucks, planes, and other types of transportation combined account for about 13 percent of global warming emissions, whereas raising chickens, pigs, cattle, and other animals contributes to 18 percent, according to U.N. scientists. Yes, eating animal products contributes to global warming 40 percent more than all SUVs, 18-wheelers, jumbo jets, and other types of travel combined.

Al and Leo might not be talking about the connection between meat and global warming, but the Live Earth concert that Al inspired is: The recently published Live Earth Global Warming Survival Handbook recommends, "Don't be a chicken. Stop being a pig. And don't have a cow. Be the first on your block to cut back on meat." The Handbook further explains that "refusing meat" is "the single most effective thing you can do to reduce your carbon footprint" [emphasis in original].

And Environmental Defense, on its website, notes, "If every American skipped one meal of chicken per week and substituted vegetables and grains ... the carbon dioxide savings would be the same as taking more than half a million cars off of U.S. roads." Imagine if we stopped eating animal products altogether.

Eating Meat Wastes Resources

If I lie in bed and never get up, I will burn almost 2,500 calories each day; that is what's required to keep my body alive. The same physiological reality applies to all animals: The vast majority of the calories consumed by a chicken, a pig, a cow, or another animal goes into keeping that animal alive, and once you add to that the calories required to create the parts of the animal that we don't eat (e.g., bones, feathers, and blood), you find that it takes more than 10 times as many calories of feed given to an animal to get one calorie back in the form of edible fat or muscle. In other words, it's exponentially more efficient to eat grains, soy, or oats directly rather than feed them to farmed animals so that humans can eat those animals. It's like tossing more than 10 plates of spaghetti into the trash for every one plate you eat.

And that's just the pure "calories in, calories out" equation. When you factor in everything else, the situation gets much worse. Think about the extra stages of production that are required to get dead chickens, pigs, or other animals from the farm to the table:

1. Grow more than 10 times as much corn, grain, and soy (with all the required tilling, irrigation, crop dusters, and so on), as would be required if we ate the plants directly.
2. Transport -- in gas-guzzling, pollution-spewing 18-wheelers -- all that grain and soy to feed manufacturers.
3. Operate the feed mill (again, using massive amounts of resources).
4. Truck the feed to the factory farms.
5. Operate the factory farms.
6. Truck the animals many miles to slaughterhouses.
7. Operate the slaughterhouses.
8. Truck the meat to processing plants.
9. Operate the meat processing plants.
10. Truck the meat to grocery stores (in refrigerated trucks).
11. Keep the meat in refrigerators or freezers at the stores.

With every stage comes massive amounts of extra energy usage -- and with that comes heavy pollution and massive amounts of greenhouse gases, of course. Obviously, vegan foods require some of these stages, too, but vegan foods cut out the factory farms, the slaughterhouses, and multiple stages of heavily polluting tractor-trailer trucks, as well as all the resources (and pollution) involved in each of those stages. And as was already noted, vegan foods require less than one-tenth as many calories from crops, since they are turned directly into food rather than funneled through animals first.

Eating Meat Wastes and Pollutes Water

All food requires water, but animal foods are exponentially more wasteful of water than vegan foods are. Enormous quantities of water are used to irrigate the corn, soy, and oat fields that are dedicated to feeding farmed animals -- and massive amounts of water are used in factory farms and slaughterhouses. According to the National Audubon Society, raising animals for food requires about as much water as all other water uses combined. Environmental author John Robbins estimates that it takes about 300 gallons of water to feed a vegan for a day, four times as much water to feed an ovo-lacto vegetarian, and about 14 times as much water to feed a meat-eater.

Raising animals for food is also a water-polluting process. According to a report prepared by U.S. Senate researchers, animals raised for food in the U.S. produce 86,000 pounds of excrement per second -- that's 130 times more than the amount of excrement that the entire human population of the U.S. produces! Farmed animals' excrement is more concentrated than human excrement, and is often contaminated with herbicides, pesticides, toxic chemicals, hormones, antibiotics, and other harmful substances. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, the runoff from factory farms pollutes our rivers and lakes more than all other industrial sources combined.

Eating Meat Destroys the Rain Forest

The World Bank recently reported that 90 percent of all Amazon rainforest land cleared since 1970 is used for meat production. It's not just that we're destroying the rainforest to make grazing land for cows -- we're also destroying it to grow feed for them and other animals. Last year, Greenpeace targeted KFC for the destruction of rainforests because the Amazon is being razed to grow feed for chickens that end up in KFC's buckets. Of course, the rainforest is being used to grow feed for other chickens, pigs, and cows, too (i.e., KFC isn't the only culprit).

What About Eating Fish?
Anyone who reads the news knows that commercial fishing fleets are plundering the oceans and destroying sensitive aquatic ecosystems at an incomprehensible rate. One super-trawler is the length of a football field, and can take in 800,000 pounds of fish in a single netting. These trawlers scrape along the ocean floor, clear-cutting coral reefs and everything else in their path. Hydraulic dredges scoop up huge chunks of the ocean floor to sift out scallops, clams, and oysters. Most of what the fishing fleets pull in isn't even eaten by human beings; half is fed to animals raised for food, and about 30 million tons each year are just tossed back into the ocean, dead, with disastrous and irreversible consequences for the natural biological balance.

Then there is aquaculture (fish farming), which is increasing at a rate of more than 10 percent annually. Aquaculture is even worse than commercial fishing because, for starters, it takes about four pounds of wild-caught fish to reap just one pound of farmed fish, which eat fish caught by commercial trawlers. Farmed fish are often raised in the same water that wild fish swim in, but fish farmers dump antibiotics into the water and use genetic breeding to create "Frankenstein fish." The antibiotics contaminate the oceans and seas, and the genetically engineered fish sometimes escape and breed with wild fish, throwing delicate aquatic balances off-kilter. Researchers at the University of Stockholm demonstrated that the horrible environmental impact of fish farms can extend to an area 50,000 times larger than the farm itself.

Eating Meat Supports Cruelty

Caring for the environment means protecting all of our planet's inhabitants, not just the human ones. Chickens, pigs, turkeys, fish, and cows are intelligent, social animals who feel pain, just as humans, dogs, and cats do. Chickens and pigs do better on animal behavior cognition tests than dogs or cats, and are interesting individuals in the same way. Fish form strong social bonds, and some even use tools. Yet these animals suffer extreme pain and deprivation in today's factory farms. Chickens have their sensitive beaks cut off with a hot blade, pigs have their tails chopped off and their teeth removed with pliers, and cattle and pigs are castrated -- all without any pain relief. The animals are crowded together and given steady doses of hormones and antibiotics in order to make them grow so quickly that their hearts and limbs often cannot keep up, causing crippling and heart attacks. At the slaughterhouse, they are hung upside-down and bled to death, often while they are still conscious.

What About Eating Meat That Isn't From Factory-Farmed Animals?

Is meat better if it doesn't come from factory-farmed animals? Of course, but its production still wastes resources and pollutes the environment. Shouldn't we environmentalists challenge ourselves to do the best we can, not just to make choices that are a bit less bad?

The U.N. report looks at meat at a global level and indicts the inefficiency and waste that are inherent in meat production. No matter where meat comes from, raising animals for food will require that exponentially more calories be fed to animals than they can produce in their flesh, and it will require all those extra stages of CO2-intensive production as well. Only grass-fed cows eat food from land that could not otherwise be used to grow food for human beings, and even grass-fed cows require much more water and create much more pollution than vegan foods do.

Conclusion

The case against eating animal products is ironclad; it's not a new argument, and it goes way beyond just global warming. Animals will not grow or produce flesh, milk, or eggs without food and water; they won't do it without producing excrement; and the stages of meat, dairy, and egg production will always cause pollution and be resource-intensive.

If the past is any guide, this essay will generate much hand-wringing from my meat-eating environmentalist colleagues and, sadly, some anger. They will prefer half-measures (e.g., meat that is "not as bad" as other meat). They may accuse PETA of being judgmental -- simply for presenting the evidence. They will make various arguments that are beside the point. They will ignore the overwhelming argument against eating animal products and try to find a loophole. Some will just call the argument absurd, presenting no evidence at all.

But as Leonardo DiCaprio has noted, this is the 11th hour for the environment. Where something as basic as eating animals is concerned, the choice could not be any clearer: Every time we sit down to eat, we can choose to eat a product that is, according to U.N. scientists, "one of the ... most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global," or we can choose vegan -- and preferably organic -- foods. It's bad for the environment to eat animals. It's time to stop looking for loopholes.

Considering the proven health benefits of a vegetarian diet -- the American Dietetic Association states that vegetarians have a reduced risk of obesity, heart disease, and various types of cancer --- there's no need or excuse to eat chickens, pigs, eggs, and other animal products. And vegan foods are available everywhere and taste great; as with all foods -- vegan or not -- you just need to find the ones you like.

You can find out more at GoVeg.com and get great-tasting recipes, meal plans, cookbook recommendations, and more at VegCooking.com.

For story: Nuggets and Hummers and fish sticks, oh my!
15 Comments | Post a Comment
Don't Taser Me, Bro'


Eating meat is not the problem.

Eating a lot of putrified animal particle board that parades as meat is the problem.

Hunting a wild boar once every two weeks in Tuscany is living.

Wolfing down Presto! burgers is suicide.

Let's separate the wheat from the chafe -- and please, PETA, don't taser me!

John Bailo
Sutext:
by jabailo at 12:14 PM on 18 Sep 2007

John

What does that have to do with the issue? How much wild boar have you hunted this year?

by Matt G at 12:20 PM on 18 Sep 2007

I wonder what prompted this article?

Read "damage control."

The ad says, "Meat is the #1 Cause of Global Warming," which some fool pointed out is not true ("Uh, he doesn't have any clothes on.."), so here they try to do damage control by rewording it to say "Eating Meat Is the No. 1 Consumer Cause of Global Warming" which unfortunately is even less true. Power generation, industrial processes, and just about every other source of CO2 is paid for by consumers.


The divisive stance they have taken is a dead end strategy. They refuse to simply acknowledge that eating less meat, and less environmentally destructive forms of it is an adequate goal. That is because their real agenda is animal rights. They have jumped on the global warming environment bandwagon to promote their cause. They insist that you become one of them. They have a clearly defined group of people, Vegans and Vegetarians. There does not appear to be any other group allowed. That is why I created the 50-percent Vegan group of which I am a proud member. I also formally challenge Bruce to a carbon footprint pissing contest!

I'll work on a formal rebuttal if I have time. Gawd.


In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

“…[Meat] Generates More Greenhouse Gases than All the Cars, Trucks, And [Planes] In the World Combined,” Group Calls For Tax Breaks for Vegetarians

Citing the Fact That “…Raising Animals for Food Generates More Greenhouse Gases than All the Cars, Trucks, And [Planes] In the World Combined,” Group Calls For Tax Breaks for Vegetarians

It only makes sense. It’s pure logic.

Article:

PETA seeks tax breaks for vegetarians

http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/peta-seeks-tax-
breaks-for-vegetarians-2007-05-31.html

By Ilan Wurman
May 31, 2007
Citing the need to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals is calling on congressional leaders to give vegetarians a tax break.

In a letter sent Wednesday to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), PETA President Ingrid Newkirk stated, “[V]egetarians are responsible for far fewer greenhouse-gas emissions and other kinds of environmental degradation than meat-eaters.”

The letter added that vegetarians should receive a tax break “just as people who purchase a hybrid vehicle enjoy a tax break.”

Asked how the government would certify that taxpayers are vegetarian, PETA spokesman Matt Prescott said, “I imagine that a system could be adopted whereby taxpayers could show receipts for food purchases and/or sign an affidavit attesting … that they are vegetarian. If Congress is seriously interested about rewarding people for reducing their carbon emissions, then it could develop a system to verify that people are vegetarian.”

Congressional leaders, however, have not shown any indication of pursuing such a tax break.

The PETA letter draws on research conducted at the University of Chicago and a U.N. report. According to the letter, anyone switching to a hybrid car will lessen the emissions of carbon dioxide by only one ton per year, while anyone forgoing their love of meat will spare the environment one and a half tons per year.

Citing the U.N. report, Newkirk wrote, “[S]cientists determined that raising animals for food generates more greenhouse gases than all the cars, trucks, and [planes] in the world combined.”

“Although most Americans can’t afford to pay upward of $20,000 for a new hybrid car,” the letter continues, “everyone can go vegetarian.”

Newkirk added, “Anyone who buys a hybrid in order to cut down on their contribution to global warming and uses it to drive to the supermarket to buy chicken, steaks, and milk should face up to the fact that there’s no such thing as a meat-eating environmentalist.”

Group Reminds Al Gore that Switching to Vegetarianism Has Greater Effect on Global Warming than Does Driving a Hybrid Car

Excellent and real points. I’ll let the following quotes speak for themselves. Notice how the facts come from the United Nations and the University of Chicago. So, any chance at branding them biased would be off:

“In its recent report “Livestock’s Long Shadow—Environmental Issues and Options,” the United Nations determined that raising animals for food generates more greenhouse gases than all the cars and trucks in the world combined.

Researchers at the University of Chicago have determined that switching to a vegan diet is more effective in countering global warming than switching from a standard American car to a Toyota Prius.

PETA also reminds Gore that his critics love to question whether he practices what he preaches and suggests that by going vegetarian, he could cut down on his contribution to global warming and silence his critics at the same time.”

Article:

PETA plea to Al Gore

http://people.monstersandcritics.com/news/
article_1274083.php/PETA_plea_to_Al_Gore

Former Vice President Al Gore poses for photos after "An Inconvenient Truth" won the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature (UPI Photo/Phil McCarten)

By Stone Martindale Mar 7, 2007, 16:13 GMT

PETA claims that according to U.N., animals raised as food stock create more greenhouse gas then all the vehicles combined. They have penned a letter to Al Gore asking him to step away from the meat.

PETA issued a public letter to former vice president Al Gore explaining to him that the best way to combat the threat of global warming is to go vegan, and they offered to cook him faux “fried chicken” as an introduction to meat-free meals.

In its letter, PETA points out that Gore’s Oscar winning documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth" that outlines the potentially catastrophic effects of global warming has failed to address the fact that the meat industry is the largest contributor to greenhouse-gas emissions.

In the letter, PETA points out the following:

The effect that our meat addiction is having on the climate is truly staggering. In fact, in its recent report “Livestock’s Long Shadow—Environmental Issues and Options,” the United Nations determined that raising animals for food generates more greenhouse gases than all the cars and trucks in the world combined.

Researchers at the University of Chicago have determined that switching to a vegan diet is more effective in countering global warming than switching from a standard American car to a Toyota Prius.

PETA also reminds Gore that his critics love to question whether he practices what he preaches and suggests that by going vegetarian, he could cut down on his contribution to global warming and silence his critics at the same time.

“The single best thing that any of us can do to for our health, for animals, and for the environment is to go vegetarian,” says PETA President Ingrid E. Newkirk. “The best and easiest way for Mr. Gore to show his critics that he’s truly committed to fighting global warming is to kick his meat habit immediately.”

A Quick and Brief Look at the History of Vegetarianism

This writing really provides a quick and brief look at the history of vegetarianism. Of course much is left out, but for a good overview, it’s worth reading.

Article:

Vegetarianism is not a fad, has meaty history

http://media.www.daily49er.com/media/storage/
paper1042/news/2007/03/01/Opinion/Vegetarianism.
Is.Not.A.Fad.Has.Meaty.History-2749664.shtml

Celine Dilfer

My first encounter with the death of an animal was years ago, but it was so emotional that it still affects me so much that it still influences my diet today. I was on a train that made a stop much earlier than announced. Confused, I looked outside and saw something that still haunts me to this day - the sight of fresh blood splattered throughout a 5-foot radius and an herd of agonized cows severed beneath the train.

Under my tears, I felt an impossible sadness and wished never to see a dying animal again. A vegetarian diet has been my way of life since then - a decision which has invoked all types of remarks. Among the most notable of the remarks is how vegetarianism is just a new fad and I'll grow out of it eventually. I quell my desire to call them out on their uneducated assumption, and opt for a polite nod.

The truth is that vegetarianism has a very long history, and is nothing new. An agreement that the history of vegetarianism even classifies as intellectual history has yet to be accepted, perhaps because it's the same very people that disregard "rights" for animals, that denies any "history" for animals.

However, the vegetarian movement has been tried and tested, with varying degrees of success and owes its rockiness to the fact that there has not been a single compelling argument in favor of vegetarianism that hasn't been countered by one against it, both of equal authority.

Nonetheless, the concept is still strongly embraced by about 4 million people worldwide and dates back to sometime in 500 B.C. According to an article published in the Jan. 22 issue of The New Yorker, scholars believe a group of mystical mathematicians, known for their most notable leader, Pythagoras, was the first group to engage in a philosophical debate about carnivorous behavior.

These mathematicians placed equal value on animal and human life, and they often questioned the proper relationship between a human and animal. They followed a doctrine known as metem-psychosis, which stated that in the afterlife your soul passed from one species to another. Abstaining from eating animals then was the only way to avoid cannibalism. Metempsychosis gained a lot of followers, but remained hidden from the Catholic Church. The Catholics, believing that the afterlife consisted of souls migration between heaven and hell, condemned any other belief, and saw vegetarians as a defiant to God's will.

But even between the devout, discrepancies arose. Some felt that it was not only our right, but also our divine duty to eat animals, whereas others felt that all of Gods' creations should be valued, and neither have dominion over one another.

Not excluding the religious beliefs of others, it is important to notice that Egyptians practiced a vegetarian ideology around 3200 B.C. based upon karmic beliefs. Also, India, the vegetarian capital of the world, centered their religion on ideas of non-violence and respect for all forms of life.

The Greeks and Romans played a significant part in the revival of the movement between the 3rd and 6th centuries. It is interesting to note that Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, some of the greatest philosophers of all time, all advocated a "natural" life, free from animal cruelty.

Many other reasons for going meatless stemmed throughout history until the 1700s, when another prominent group of thinkers emerged who outwardly opposed the treatment of animals.

From The Enlightenment of the 18th century emerged a new thought about humans' place in creation order. From this era rose another reason for a meatless diet, apart from religion - a moral issue. Arguments that animals were in fact intelligent, feeling creatures were voiced and the morality of killing them inhumanly was questioned.

George Cheyenne, a Scottish diet doctor, and other commentators argued that the habit of killing, like that of meat eating itself, hardened the heart and the nerves, both figuratively and literally. Our first step towards peace begins on our plate. Thus, abstinence from flesh eating strongly appealed to those against war and violence.

What makes this movement so fascinating are all the different reasons throughout history that have inspired people to take on a vegetarian diet. Its should be noted that health was at some pinnacle of the reasoning for many years, as a plant based diet was often a remedy to different ailments.

But whatever the reason, whether religious affairs, moral or health, the notion of a vegetarian diet has been embraced by some of history's most significant and influential thinkers, such as Albert Einstein, Leonardo DiVinci, Mahatma Gandhi made a whole religion based on it, Isaac Newton, Plato, Socrates, Voltaire, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Edison, César Chavez and countless other prominent people throughout world history. Embarassingly, so was Adolf Hitler.

People who wanted to contribute abstract thought, and analysis of what consequences human actions have set out with a vision for a better life, improvement of society's status quo.

Vegetarianism is not a new trend, but a continuing struggle for an enhanced moral life. I think it's fair to say then that vegetarians would be good company - people with a desire to question the world and attempt to better it.

Celine Dilfer is a senior communications major.