Various Facts about Vegan Issues

Good morning! Before deciding what breakfast will consist of, you will want to consider the origin of your options. If you are thinking eggs or any product involving eggs, here is what such a decision looks like: there are more than 280 million chickens inside what are called 'battery cages.' The cages, which are comprised of four chickens, measure 1' x 1' 6'' to allow for the USDA regulations of four inches of feeding space. With such a restriction to space, the chickens can not turn nor stretch their wings; furthermore, being as these cages are made of wire and tilted (so that the eggs roll out onto a conveyor belt) the chickens' feet are covered with blisters and sores. Living in a cage with a tilt yields deformities in the chickens' legs to such an extent that if they were to be put on solid, level ground they would not even be able to stand properly. Because of the anxiety and frustration of a near-constant struggle for space, these chickens must be debeaked. Yet even with these precausions, bloody and defeathered chickens are commonplace.

After a year of laying eggs, these up to 15 year-lived creatures are gassed, ground up to be fed back to the chickens or put on the market as food (if they can even survive the first year). The healthy survivors are starved for as long as 15 days to shorten the time between laying cycles; nearly a third of these chickens will die of starvation or stress. If they can survive this shock to their body, they will attempt another year in a battery cage.

Knowledge is empowering. Action is power. Know the consequences of your actions. Much love friends- please share.

Sources:
Gale Eitsnitz Slaughterhouse
www.farmsanctuary.org

Did you know that in 1998 (when this book, "Mad Cowboy," was written) that 75% of all cattle are fed a nutritous blend that consists of rendered animal parts. What is in this "rendering" that I speak of-? "…ground-up dead horses, dogs, cats [the six or seven million dogs and cats that are killed in animal shelters every year], pigs, chickens and turkeys…, as well as blood and fecal material of their own species and that of chickens…The use of animal excrement in feed is common as well, as livestock operators have found it to be an efficient way of disposing of a portion of the 1.6 million tons of livestock wastes generated annually by their industry." Add roadkill to that list too. Furthermore, "there is simply no such thing in American as an animal too ravaged by disease, too cancerous, or too putrid to be welcomed by the all-embracing arms of the renderer." It, afterall, is a $2.4 billion a year industry.

Sources:
Howard Lyman The Mad Cowboy

• About 70% of rainforest destruction is for cattle pastures
• We are losing 2.4 acres of rainforest per second
• An area the size of Maine is cleared from the Amazon annually
• Two human-created phenomena can be seen from space: The Great Wall of China and the fires in the Brazilian rainforest. Ranchers say that forest fires are the quickest way to clear land. There have been up to 7000 fires spotted in one day in the Amazonian rainforest.
• Rainforest soil is fragile and lacks nutrients and thus is depleted in a few short years of growing grass for grazing. "Humanity is rich in folly, but it's hard to think of a folly more mind- bogglingly stupendous than that of transforming infinitely rich, diverse, dense jungle into desert in a few years' time for the sake of a few more hamburgers."
• Approximately 55 sq. ft. of rainforest is cut down for every one burger exported from Brazil.
• At the current rate of deforestation, there Brazilian rain forest will be no more in 50 years.
• A mere 3- 4% of Brazilian beef comes from once- rainforest area.
• In the last century, 2 million acres (half) of Mexico's largest rainforest has been destroyed
• In opposition to sustainable farming methods which can employ up to 100 people per sq. mile, rain forest cattle ranches need only to employ one person per. 12 sq. miles thus proliferating impoverishment.
• 90% of Central American beef is exported to North America
• More than 1/3 of the Earth's land surface has suffered, to varying degrees, at the hands of livestock grazing

Sources:
Howard Lyman The Mad Cowboy

But why would they care if people see what is going on in slaughterhouses? Oh yeah, so that instances like the following can happen without being caught on tape: (qtd. in "Slaughterhouse" by Gale Eisnitz)-

"An animal that was shackled on the line past the first hock cutter was bellowing…The chain was stopped while this animal was re-stunned. This animal, because it was not stunned properly o…r stuck [cut to be bled out] properly so that it bled enough to lose consciousness, experienced the following: (1) electric shocks from the stimulator; (2) its hide being cut open first from the belly to the rectum, then from the cuts to clear the hock of hide for cutting; (3) both forelegs being cut off with cutters; (4) its hock being cut off an then the end of its tail being cut off with cutters; (5) the rest of its hide being removed from its right hind leg by air knives…I have timed the path this animal had traveled from stun chute to being rendered insensible at about 9.5 minutes."

Sources:
This was taken from an internal memo written by a USDA veterinarian. Gotta keep that line moving to keep up with the demand for meat.
Iowa becomes first state where it’s a crime to lie to get on farm to record animal abuse

Many people consider chicken as a health food: you know, 'gotta get your lean protein.' Considering that slaughterhouses are killing more birds in one day (25-30 million) then they did in an entire year during the 1930's, everyone has been dupped. Here are two links comparing 100g of skinless, roasted (I gave the poultry industry the benefit of the doubt) chicken and 100g of red meat hamburger.

http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/poultry-products/694/2
http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/beef-products/6196/2

'Lean' protein is nothing more than a gimmic.

It doesn't stop at the macronutrients, not by a long shot. Aside from getting fed their own fecies and rendered animal, chickens now grow over twice as fast thanks to genetics and growth stimulants (3lbs bird in six weeks compared to four months). So fast in fact that these animals can not handle the weight of their own internal organs and are rendered breathless after a few steps. So fast that large slaughterhouses must despose of an average of 500 lbs worth of dead chickens due to what is called "flip over" disease- the chickens die from a heart attack as early as one month old. Chickens life expectancy is around 10 years.

Beside the numerous amount of documentation on cockroach, fly and maggot infestation found in these plants, contamination is also a problem in the poultry industry. According to a USDA micobiologist, there are as many as 50 different opportunities for cross-contamination to occur. The largest offending point of cross-contamination is the chilling pool. Dubbed as 'fecal soup,' this large vat is where the recently "cleaned" birds are left to soak in a pool of chilled water that is brimming with all sorts of excrements. An interesting side note is that these corpses absorb an average of 8% of their weight of this filth. Thats right, poultry eaters around America spend more than $1 billion dollars on this bacteria soup that is sold as poultry weight every year.

What about inspection? The larger slaughterhouses can see as many as 500,000 corpses leave every day. Each inspector has roughly two seconds to inspect each body for over 12 different diseases as well as other abnormalities (by the way, as a result of popular demand in the poultry industry, feces, sores, scabs lesions and broken bones are considered "trimmable conditions" and are no longer condemnable). Federal regulations allow for the sampling of 10 corpses out of ever 15,000. That is less than .1%.

So what sort of contamination are we talking about? For starters, a reporter who interviewed 84 USDA inspectors wrote that "millions of chickens leaking yellow pus, stained by green feces, contaminated by harmful bacteria, or marred by lung and heart infections, cancerous tumors, or skin conditions are shipped for sale to consumers." As for bacteria, an Agricultural Department study showed that over 99% of broiler chickens have tracable amounts of E. Coli bacteria, 30% of chicken consumed is infested with salmonella and 70-90% are contaminated with a pathogen called campylobacter. Look it up, campylobacter is no joke. Contaminated chicken kills as little as 1,000 and sickens as many as an estimated 80 million Americans each year.

This does not include the horrific living conditions, killing practices and environmental damage that is a result of eating chicken.

Sources:
"Food Inc."
Gale Eitsnitz Slaughterhouse Howard F. Lyman Mad Cowboy

Persistent Organic Pollutants: (POPs) materials that do not break down; bioaccumalate in organisms; used in pesticides, solvents, pharmaceuticals; linked to following health effects: endocrine, immune and reproduction disruptors, neurobehavior disorders, cancer and diabetes (insulin resistance).

90% of total intake of POPs come from the consumption of animal-based foods.

Dioxin, a notable POP used in herbicides and paper bleaching is said to be responsible for 12% of all cancers in industrial societies.

95% of Dioxin intake comes from animal-based foods.

Sources:
John Robbins The Food Revolution
Wikipedia: Persistent Organic Pollutants
Google Definition: Dioxin

"If a seven pound 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 1,500 pounds" (qtd. in "The Food Revolution by John Robbins).

No wonder 10-15 year lived birds are dropping dead at one month old because of cardiac/ lung failure. Their internal organs can't support the weight. The most they can walk is 2-4 steps before they become exhausted. Over 8 billion chickens are killed in the US on a yearly basis.

A few more facts about egg laying hens: not only are they debeaked without anesthetics (and that such a process can often lead to the inability to eat) but they also must endure their claws and toes being removed because their feet frequently get tangled in the wiring of the cage.

What happens to the baby male chicks in these egg lots? Nearly 400 million are simply thrown into trash bags and are left to suffocate or be squished to death. Others are thrown into a grinder, alive, to be used as chicken, cow or pig feed.

Sources:
John Robbins The Food Revolution

A quote from a slaughterhouse worker when asked what is done to pigs who are too injured to make the walk to the chute:

"The preferred method of handling a cripple is to beat him to death with a lead pipe…..If you get a hog in a chute that's had the s*** prodded out of him [electrocuted], and has a heart attack or refuses to move, you take a meat hook and hook it into his bunghole….and a lot of times the meat hook rips out of the bunghole. I've seen thighs completely ripped open" (qtd in "The Food Revolution")

By the way, pigs are scared by the smell of blood. This happens a lot more often than just when there is an injured pig. Strategies of prod placement: in the ear, eye, down the throat or up the ass of the pig are all acceptable.

Sources:
John Robbins The Food Revolution
Gale Eitsnitz Slaughterhouse

• 1/3 of children in developing countries are chronically hungry
• 15 million children die every year from starvation
• 1 lb of beef = 16 lbs of grains
• 1 lb of beef = approx. 621 calories
• 16 lbs of corn (cooked!) = approx. 6,241 calories
• 16 lbs of rice (cooked!) = approx. 9,362 calories
• 16 lbs of uncooked wheat germ = approx. 13, 608 calories
• America feeds its livestock over 70% of total grain grown
• 40% of world grain production goes to livestock
• Per-Capita grain production peaked in 1984
• Per-Capita grain production has been falling ever since (soil erosion, aquifers / water supply diminishing)
• 1961 world total meat supply = 71 million tons
• 2007 world total meat supply = 284 million tons
• Per-Capita consumption more than doubled during those years
• In developing countries, it has doubled in the past 20 years
• Expected to double again by 2050
• Grain demand for livestock consumption is rising world-wide which leads to food staples being depleted for the unwealthy (majority)
  • Example: Guatamala
    • land is used for meat production (grazing, crop growth)
    • 75% of children under 5 are undernourished
    • 50% chance of reaching the age of 4 because of starvation
    • Exports 40 million lbs of meat to the United States
    • Remaining meat too expensive for vast majority
    • 3% owns 70% of agricultural land
  • Example: Central America -2/3rds of arable land used for livestock

These are but a few of the numerous upon numerous of examples happening world wide:

• 1.2 billion underfed and malnourished people in the world
• 1.2 billion overfed and malnourished people in the world
• 1/2 of Earth's total land mass is used as pastures for livestock

Sources:
google calculator
www.fatsecrets.com for calories
Rethinking the Meat-Guzzler
The world hunger problem: Facts, figures and statistics
John Robbins The Food Revolution

In 2006, the FAO conducted a study that estimated the greenhouse gas emissions from modern animal farming practices to equate to roughly 18% of all human derived emissions. At this percentage animal farming would beat out all vehicles [cars, planes, trains, boats etc] on the planet. The 2006 study estimated that 7,516 million metric tons per year of CO2 were emitted from this source alone. A new study done by Robert Goodland and Jeff Anhang has yielded a percentage that they claim is conservative. What is the new estimated percentage of greenhouse emissions via animal slavery? 51%. That is a wopping 32,564 million metric tons of CO2 per year.

Livestock and Climate Change (pdf)