101 Reasons Why I’m a VegetarianBy Pamela Rice • EIGHTH EDITION • 2009Full-length book version (Lantern Books) available: www.vivavegie.org/101

Index and Table of Contents at www.vivavegie.org/itoc • Photographs by Santos Lopez, top, and Claudia Rose Emmerson, bottom. Insets by Gina Green.

Veggie Pride Parade, NYC, 2008

Veggie Pride Parade, NYC, 2009

©20

09by

Pam

ela

Rice

101 REASONS WHY I’M A VEGETARIAN

1Nearly all of the approximately 10billion animals slaughtered for food

in the U.S. every year are the end resultof a behemothic, swift-moving, assem-bly-line system, incorporating danger-ous, unprecedented, and unsustainablemethods of production. Cheap meatcould never exist if the meat industrywere required by law to give the animalshumane living conditions, includingspacious quarters, clean surroundings,fresh air, sunlight, and opportunitiesfor social interaction, nor if it were sim-ply illegal to drug the animals whowould otherwise die from the condi-tions in which they live. Time andagain the industry balks at even low-cost measures designed to improvethe animals’ plight. And now, priceshave been driven to unnaturally lowlevels for the final end products,making these cruel, unsustainablefoods staples of the American diet.

2America’s farmed animals pro-duce 1.3 billion tons of waste per

year, or 5 tons for every U.S. citizen.(Just one cow produces 100 poundsin a day.) And the pollutionstrength of it all can reach levels160 times greater than that of rawmunicipal sewage. This vast accumula-tion is not neatly contained; manureis the most common pollutant todayin America’s waters. Land sprayedwith pig excrement is particularlytoxic, since pigs contract and transmitmany human diseases—namely,meningitis, salmonella, chlamydia, gi-ardia, cryptosporidiosis, worms, andinfluenza. Manure is laden with phos-phorous, nitrates, and heavy metalsand emits ammonia, methane, hydro-gen sulfide, carbon monoxide, andcyanide. Manure has always been seenas fertilizer. But in today’s quantities, itis a menacing under-regulated indus-trial pollutant.

3When people follow a diet rich inanimal fat and protein and get little

exercise, cancer risk is increased. Beefconsumption raises the level of toxicsubstances called N-nitroso com-pounds, which are formed in the largeintestines. The substances are believedto adhere to DNA, making mutations

more likely. Dietary fiber could be help-ful in repairing the damage. But, re-member, only plant foods contain fiber.

4 The U.N. Food and Agriculture Or-ganization estimates that 70 per-

cent of the world’s commercial fishstocks are fully exploited, overfished,or collapsed. To supply surging worlddemand, fishers use rapacious tech-niques, such as sonar, driftnets, long-lines, dredgers, and leviathan fish-packing vessels. In the case of longlin-ing, 4.5 million hooks are launcheddaily. Now, 90 percent of the covetedtop predator fish are gone. Conse-quently, fishers have moved down thefood web to species once considered

“trash.” These species, of course, arethe food source of the fish that wereinitially overfished. Amazingly, a thirdof the world’s harvested fish go to feedlivestock or farmed fish. The ocean’sinterconnected ecosystem simply can-not keep pace. In 2006, a report pub-lished in the journal Science estimatedthat by 2048 all wild commercial fishstocks would be wiped out.

5The Humane Slaughter Act requiresthat mammals be rendered insensi-

ble to pain before being slaughtered. AWashington Post series some years ago,however, exposed a packing industryhard pressed to follow this law. Ani-mals were found regularly butcheredalive on speeded-up conveyor lines. A$5 million appropriation was conse-quently enacted to hire more humaneinspectors for kill floors across the na-tion, but the funds ended up being di-verted to food-safety inspectors already

employed. In the end, the Humane lawdoes not even apply to 99 percent ofanimals slaughtered, because poultrybirds and fish are not covered by it.

6A meat diet dramatically raises yourrisk for heart attack, but in recent

years you’re less likely to die from it.Technology will probably save yourlife, leaving you to live with the con-sequences. In the case of congestiveheart failure—an increasingly com-mon outcome—your heart, now dam-aged, is unable to adequately circulateblood to the rest of your body, result-ing in fluid build-up and organ dam-age. In the U.S., nearly 5 million peo-ple live with heart failure, and about

550,000 new cases are diagnosedevery year. The disease is the lead-ing cause of hospitalization amongthe elderly, and hospital bills attrib-uted to it total $29 billion annually.

7 Pigs are naturally anything butdirty and brutish and, if given

half a chance, display high intelli-gence. Ask Professor Stanley Curtisof Pennsylvania State University. Hetaught several pigs to understandcomplex relationships between ob-jects and actions in order to play

video games. Curtis, along with hiscolleagues, found these creatures to befocused, creative, and innovative—equal in intelligence to chimpanzees.Other researchers have found chickensto be good at solving problems, cowsto respond to music, and fish to be asindividualistic as dogs.

8 Approximately 800 million peopletoday live with chronic hunger,

and 16,000 children die from hunger-related causes every day. Yet the worldcycles nearly 43 percent of all thegrain that is harvested through ani-mals to produce meat. No matter thespecies, feed-to-flesh ratios are ineffi-cient—7, 3.5, 2, and 3 pounds to 1 forbeef, pork, chicken, and farmed fish,respectively. Biofuel production with-in one recent year gobbled up 110 mil-lion additional tons of grain, raisingfood prices and putting pressure onthe world’s fragile food security. Com-pare this to the 840 million tonswithin the same year that was

Extinct Is Forever: Commercial fish stocks gone, 2048

Picturesque, perhaps, but collective damage is immense.GETTY IMAGES

SPECIAL THANKS TO ALAN RICE,BERNIE G., AND LISA LINDBLOM

101 REASONS WHY I’M A VEGETARIAN

snatched from the mouths of the poorto feed livestock. Those who care aboutworld hunger need to eat less meat.

9A 2005 report by Environmental De-fense estimated that 70 percent of

the antibiotics used in the U.S. go tochickens, hogs, and beef cattle, “...notto treat disease, but rather to promotegrowth and to compensate forcrowded, stressful, and often unhy-gienic conditions on industrial-scalefarms.” Also, according to the report,antibiotics deemed important to hu-man medicine “comprise nearly half ofthe overall quantity of antibiotics usedas feed additives,” a particularlytroubling fact in light of growingworldwide antibiotic resistance.

10Every year, Americans suf-fer from approximately 76

million illnesses, 325,000 hospi-talizations, and 5,000 deaths be-cause of something they ate.That something was probably ofanimal origin. The main culpritsare E. coli, salmonella, listeria,and campylobacter. The annualcost to the U.S. for the top fivefood borne pathogens, all origi-nating in animal-derived foodproduction, is $6.9 billion.

11Bypass surgery requires thatyour rib cage be opened, your

heart stopped, and your body hookedup to an external pumping machineso a vein from some other part of yourbody can be removed and grafted as areplacement blood vessel to yourheart. Memory, language ability, andspatial orientation remain impaired inup to half of bypass patients sixmonths afterward. Side effects forsome people never go away. Gloomand depression affect up to 75 percentof patients. Many will require a secondbypass operation. A vegan diet andregular exercise, along with spiritualand social fulfillment have proven toreverse heart disease—the biggestkiller in Western countries.

12Supplying the corn and soybeansthat feed the livestock that bring

the daily meat to America’s dinnerplates has meant that large concentra-tions of pesticides, fertilizers, and farm

chemicals are seeping into ouraquifers. Some towns in the Midwesthave consequently come to rely ontheir neighbors for fresher, though ex-pensive, supplies of water. But a recentboom in cattle and pig operations haspoisoned these stores as well, prompt-ing plans for government-subsidizedpipelines to link towns with majorrivers. With the demand for meat con-tinuing unabated, such plans of actionbecome strangely logical.

13Eating a plant-based diet guardsagainst disease—first, in an ac-

tive way with complex carbohydrates,

phytochemicals, antioxidants, vita-mins, minerals, and fiber. Then by de-fault—the more plant foods you eat,the less room you have for animalfoods that clog arteries with choles-terol, strain kidneys with excess pro-tein, and burden the heart with satu-rated fat. Clinical studies have shownthat high-fiber, meat-free diets reversediabetic symptoms and reduce choles-terol levels by about as much as theuse of cholesterol-lowering drugs.

14Livestock production is responsi-ble for 18 percent of greenhouse

gas emissions measured in CO2 equiva-lent, a share 38 percent higher than thatemitted by all the world’s vehicles, com-bined. Domesticated animals world-wide are the source of 37 percent of allhuman-induced methane, with most ofthat coming from the intestinal fermen-tation of ruminants. They are also thesource of 65 percent of human-induced

nitrous oxide, the great majority frommanure. Methane and nitrous oxide areexceedingly more potent greenhousegases than carbon dioxide. Livestock arealso behind almost two-thirds of all hu-man-induced ammonia emissions,which contribute significantly to acidi-fication of ecosystems.

15Governments try to regulate fish-ing gear, catch size, species

caught, and fishing season, but usuallywithout success. Perhaps the greatestsingle threat to global fish stocks is il-legal, unreported, or unregulated (IUU)fishing, which, it is estimated,

amounts to about a quarter ofthe world’s catch. In some loca-tions, IUU fishing has been doc-umented to amount to fourtimes the legal catch. Efforts tocombat piracy are fraught withobstacles, not the least beingfeverish world demand for fish.For the pirates, the return on in-vestment is well worth the min-imal risks, as they side-step fish-ing conventions, skirt surveil-lance, off-load fish to otherboats that “launder” the catch,and dock at complicit ports.

16Egg-laying hens in the U.S.are crammed into battery

cages, each with 4 to 8 other birds,stacked in rows by the tens of thou-sands. Manure and rotting carcassfumes billow up from below. Beetlesform a layer over the waste. Somebirds get loose and drown in the pit.Others get tangled in the wire and dieof dehydration, then decompose, cov-ered in bugs, while cage mates have noescape. Intense stress causes birds toattack one another. After 17 months ofconfinement, necks are covered withblisters, wings are bare, combs bloody,and feet torn. By now, the birds areconsidered an expense and will be dis-posed of expediently—read: cruelly.

17Early in 2007, Consumer Reportstested 525 supermarket chickens

from all across the U.S. and foundonly 17 percent free of both salmo-nella and campylobacter. Premiumbrands labeled “organic” or “raisedfree of antibiotics” actually harbored

Global Warming Cause: Livestock: 18%, vehicles: 13%

Everything about caged life for a battery hen spells unmitigatedcruelty. There’s no way out for these and hundreds of millions ofhens like them as every urge is thwarted and every instinct over-ridden. This image was taken as part of an activist investigation.

© WWW.WEGMANSCRUELTY.COM

more salmonella than conventionalones. Most of the bacteria were resistantto at least one type of antibiotic—andsome samples showed resistance tomultiple strains.

18Two major studies have emergedin recent years that show the ve-

gan lifestyle to be conducive to lowerbody weight. A Swedish study of 55,000women and a British study of 65,000men and women both found vegans tohave lower BMIs (body mass index)and to suffer less often from obesity.Vegan food tends often to be lowerin calories by volume. And sinceplant-based fare is likely tocontain dietary fiber, it sa-tiates quicker.

19Half of every butch-ered cow and a third

of every butchered pig be-comes either byproductmaterial or waste. And “mortali-ties” are integral to every feedlotand stockyard. What’s an industryto do with all this death and gore?Call the renderer straightaway! Recy-cling, they call it. Lips are exportedto Mexico for taco filling; horns aremade into gelatin; other parts are fash-ioned into drugs, aphrodisiacs, and in-dustrial ingredients. Much is dried to atacky brown powder to be mixed intochicken and pig feed. The rest isminced, pulverized, and boiled downfor cosmetics and household products.Essentially, assume slaughterhousebyproduct is all around you.

20Of all the animals in America whosuffer cruelty, 95 percent of them

are farmed animals. Designated as eco-nomic units, they have convenientlybeen stripped of nearly all protectionsagainst abuse. At the federal level, theAnimal Welfare Act simply does not ap-ply to farmed animals. At the state level,where laws might pick up the slack,anti-cruelty statutes are either not en-forced or have, in recent decades, beenre-written to exclude farmed animals.Re-wording has been key. If a farmingpractice is established as “accepted,”“common,” “customary,” or “nor-mal”—no matter how inhumane—anti-cruelty protections are overridden.

21In the mid-1970s, chicken proces-sors argued that in order to keep up

with skyrocketing demand they shouldbe allowed to merely rinse off fecal mat-ter from bird carcasses rather than cutaway affected parts. The governmentgave in to the processors’ request, andthe rule stands to this day. A number ofstudies have since proved that rinsingcarcasses, even up to 40 times, is ineffec-tive at dislodging the filth. It’s some-thing to know since the violent motionof defeathering machinery not onlyworks to squirt feces out from the car-

casses, it can push filth deep intothe crevices of the birds’ skin.

22Several of the world’smightiest rivers no

longer reach the sea, andaquifer levels around theworld are dropping bydozens, and even hundreds,

of feet. Largely responsible is thefivefold increase in worldwide (wa-ter-guzzling) meat production that’s

taken place over the last half-cen-tury. Producing a pound of animal

protein requires about 100 timesthe water needed to produce a

pound of vegetable protein. It takesabout 1,300 gallons of water to producea single hamburger. Seventy percent ofthe fresh water that is taken from theworld’s rivers, lakes, and undergroundwells goes to agriculture, and 43 per-cent of the world’s grain goes to feedanimals for meat.

23Feedlot meat is a product of theoil age. When cheap oil is gone,

cheap meat “will be history.” A poundof beef takes three-quarters of a gallonof oil to produce, according to NationalGeographic. A 1,250-pound steer essen-tially embodies 283 gallons of oil.Thirty-five calories of fossil fuel areneeded to produce a single calorie ofbeef protein. By comparison, only 2calories of fossil fuel are required to pro-duce 1 calorie of tofu.

24Today’s confined cattle live intheir own excrement, which is the

carrier of the deadly E. coli strainO157:H7. Caked-on manure will mi-grate to edible portions during de-hid-ing, thanks to line speeds of 390 ani-

Christian VegetarianAssociation

P.O. Box 201791, Cleveland, OH 44120www.Christianveg.com

Brighter GreenAN ACTION TANK

www.brightergreen.org

“Whenever people say ‘We mustn’t besentimental,’ you can take it theyare about to do something cruel.

And if they add, ‘We must be realistic,’they mean they are going to makemoney out of it.”—Brigid Brophy

LISA LINDBLOM, sponsor

ORGANIC VEGAN CUISINE

Candle 79154 East 79th St., NYC

212-537-7179

Candle Cafe1307 Third Ave., NYC

212-472-0970

Animal Rights ConferenceEvery Summer

www.ARConference.ORGwww.FARMUSA.org

Janet BloorCostume designer of

Penelo Pea Pod

American Vegan SocietyCompassionate living • Since 1960856-694-2887 • www.americanvegan.org

Sponsors

101 REASONS WHY I’M A VEGETARIAN

Cheap Oil=Cheap Meat: Green Revolution, really brown

101 REASONS WHY I’M A VEGETARIAN

mals per hour and laborers who arenot always properly skilled. Groundbeef today contains the flesh of hun-dreds or even thousands of animals.The grinding process brings surfacepathogens to patty interiors that may,down the line, not be cooked ade-quately. A university study found thatO157:H7 may even be harbored in theinterior of a solid piece of meat.

25Wild salmon stocks in 20 Norwe-gian rivers have in recent years

been wiped out by a parasite that firsttook hold in local aquaculture feed-lots. Scottish river managers warned in2007 that one careless angler spread-ing the parasite could decimate Scot-land’s wild salmon stocks as well.Pharmaceuticals and pesticides aretypically added to all aquaculture pensto forestall disease and infection,sometimes doing neither, and conse-quently causing environmental havoc.

26Birds are cheap and cages are ex-pensive, so battery hens live out

their dreary days in space just aboutthe size of their own bodies. No hengets to run, build a nest, enjoy acleansing dust bath, protect a chick,forage in the sun, perch, fly, or evenlift a wing. Instead, this creature willcrouch and suffer and fend off thefeather pulling of cage mates. Andevery egg that is laid will roll awaydown the slope of a wire floor, whichwill also cripple her legs and feet.

27The senseless waste of theworld’s growing meat-centered

diet is illustrated by a hypotheticalstatement put forth by the PopulationReference Bureau: “If everyoneadopted a vegetarian diet and no foodwere wasted, current [food] produc-tion would theoretically feed 10 bil-lion people [47.5 percent more peoplethan alive today], more than the pro-jected population for the year 2050.”

28It’s official. Dateline: June 11,2009. Swine flu is a pandemic—

the first in 41 years. Such damage! Yetscant mainstream news regarding thecause of this global outbreak. Theblogs, though, are revealing that thefirst cases of this strain (H1N1) oc-curred in a region of Mexico heavily

dominated with factory-farming oper-ations half owned by Smithfield, thelargest pork producer in the world.Whether or not this region can be pin-pointed does not take away from thefact that all influenza in humans is theresult of the ongoing domestication ofanimals for meat consumption, andinfluenza’s many strains kill about500,000 people worldwide each year.

29Every spring, neighbors ofchicken feedlots in North Car-

olina desperately complain about thestench. It is then that ammonia-ladenfumes from adjacent manure lagoonsbegin to permeate everything porousthat they own: clothes,rugs, drapes, and hair—haunting them for weeks.But unlike the state’s infa-mous pork industry of 10million hogs, poultrygrowing is virtually ex-empt from environmen-tal regulation. For NorthCarolina’s 165 milliontightly confined birds,there are no rules, becausetheir waste is consideredless noxious. But over ayear’s time, the droppingsand mortalities accumu-late in pits below to about a foot deepand, to some, smell even worse thanlagoons of pig excrement. Nearbywells become tainted from runoff, butit’s nearly impossible to trace this kindof pollution back to the polluter.

30A male calf born to a dairy cow—what’s a farmer to do with this

by-product of the milk industry? If heis not kept for breeding stock or im-mediately slaughtered or factory-pro-duced for meat, the calf will be raisedfor fancy veal. To this end, he will belocked up in a stall (see image above,human outreach activist inside) andchained by his neck to prevent himfrom turning around for 16 weeks un-til slaughter. He’ll be fed a special dietwithout iron or roughage. He’ll be in-jected with antibiotics and hormonesto keep him alive and to make himgrow. And he’ll be kept in darkness ex-cept for feeding time. The result: a

nearly full-grown animal with flesh astender and white as a newborn’s.

31The so-called “Green Revolu-tion”—a shorthand description

for the era in recent decades of amaz-ing, super-efficient grain production,which facilitated a rapid explosion inhuman population—has clearly stalledout. Per capita worldwide cereal avail-ability has been declining since 1984,and the “promise” of biotech is farfrom certain or free of risk. Today, 70percent of grain in the U.S. and 43 per-cent of grain worldwide lavishly go tofeed livestock. And just as the worldclamors for more grain to feed to ani-

mals—so people can eatthem—per-capita worldcropland declined by 20percent in the 1990salone. The WHO says800 million people inthe world live withchronic hunger. Moremeat production is defi-nitely not the answer.

32A USDA inspector,part of an ABC

Primetime investiga-tion, clandestinelyfilmed a plant that pro-cesses a million pounds

of chicken for schools each year. Theinvestigator found carcasses ladenwith yellow sores and fecal matter andmachines caked with harmfulresidues. The plant had repeatedlyfailed salmonella tests. Some of thecheapest, most unsanitary meat tendsto be sold to schools.

33Numerous Web sites instruct inthe craft of artificial insemina-

tion of pigs, turkeys, and cows. Inother words, bestiality is integral to to-day’s farming operations. Sample ex-cerpts follow: “As he sniffs around, puton disposable gloves. If he hasmounted the stool, he will beginthrusting movements. With a glovedhand, rub his sheath. Now reach forthe cup. The penis will erect and startto enter your clenched hand. Continueto hold the penis until the boar with-draws. The end of ejaculation is deter-mined by a bouncing of the penis.”

Bestiality: Integral to turkey, pig, and dairy operations

Photographs, this spread, by Pamela Rice

With the sow, “a stockperson mustmimic some of the stimulation nor-mally provided by a boar, that is, backpressure and flank and udder rubbing.When the lips of the vulva are gentlyparted, insert the catheter.”

34 The late parent advisor Dr. Ben-jamin Spock maintained that

cows’ milk “causes internal blood loss,allergies, and indigestion and con-tributes to some cases of childhood dia-betes.” In the last edition of his famousbaby book he recommended, essen-tially, that children adhere to a vegandiet after the age of two. But he did notrecommend dairy milk for babies ei-ther. According to renowned nutritionresearcher T. Colin Campbell, “Cows’-milk protein may be the single mostsignificant chemical carcinogen towhich humans are exposed.”

35University research has deter-mined that the feeding of approx-

imately 10 million tons of poultry litterto U.S. cattle and other livestock everyyear is safe. But the mere presence ofwasted feed in the mix, which other-wise includes excreta, carcass parts,bedding, and feathers, could includethe stray remains of cattle. This wouldseem to violate the 1997 USDA rulethat no cow is to eat the flesh of an-other cow, instituted to thwart thespread of mad cow disease. Also, poul-try litter needs to be properly com-posted to neutralize microbial toxins—in practice not always accomplished.Furthermore, livestock so fed need suf-ficient time to flush out veterinarymedications that might have taintedthe litter. Finally, feeding poultry litterto livestock provides one more vectorfor the spread of bird flu.

36Beef cattle are best suited to moistclimates, such as those in Europe

where their ancestors evolved. Butranchers in America’s West continue thedestructive tradition of grazing their an-imals on the nation’s most arid land.Grazing destroys ecologically regenera-tive riparian zones. According to a 2006U.N. report, “the livestock sector maywell be the leading player in the reduc-tion of biodiversity…as well as one ofthe leading drivers of land degradation,

pollution, climate change, overfishing,sedimentation of coastal areas, and fa-cilitation of invasions by alien species.”

37Adopting a high-protein fad dietmay help you lose weight in the

short run, but so might chemotherapy,food poisoning, or serious illness. Ifhealth is what you desire, you’re even-tually going to have to learn how to eat.Resoundingly, the American Heart As-sociation and other major health orga-nizations warn people against theAtkins and other low-carb diets, be-cause they can cause fatigue or dizzi-ness and strain the kidneys. Often un-beknownst to the dieter, these mealplans induce dehydration. Also, uppingfat and lowering carbohydrate intakehas been found to impair brain func-tion over time.

38Genetics through single-trait se-lection has become as important a

component of today’s intensive farm-ing as drugs and confinement hard-ware. The animals themselves, rightdown to their DNA, must stand up tothe rigors of the industrial process, bothin life and in carcass form. They mustproduce at breakneck speeds and do soon as little feed as possible. And ulti-mately, the particular output eachfarmed animal unwillingly suppliesmust please our final end user, the con-sumer, in texture, taste, uniformity,convenience, and price. Mutant genesthat would never survive in the wild arecultivated to monstrous ends.

39Officially, Wildlife Services, a pro-gram of the USDA, prevents

“damage to agriculture.” Never mindthat agriculture is hugely damaging towildlife. This multi-million-dollar perkfor cattle ranchers exists primarily toeradicate predators and to cull speciesthought to spread disease. Non-targetwildlife is often caught in the cross-hairs. Wildlife Services agents shoot,poison, gas, electrocute, and lethallytrap millions of mammals and birds onpublic land where only 3.8 percent ofthe nation’s beef is even derived. Themethods are cruel and excessive andeven ineffective. The program has deci-mated populations of grizzly bears,mountain lions, moose, elk, buffaloes,

“Those who still eat flesh when they coulddo otherwise have no claim to be

serious moralists.”—Stephen R. L. Clark

LISA LINDBLOM, sponsor

cowch.comL I F E - S I Z E C O W P I L L O W S

Emanuel Goldmanthe Vegetarian Cinephile

and Naomi Weinshenker

The root word of Humane is Human.Please be a Humane Human.

Craig & Cherie ClineSalem, Oregon

A compassionate worldbegins with you. Visit

FarmSanctuaryto see how you can help.

FarmSanctuary.orgRESCUE • EDUCATION • ADVOCACY

Leigh & HelayneGaither

With 101 to choose from,what’s your reason?—LAURA DAUPHINE

Duane Cornellaazuritepress.com

FranchiaTea House and Restaurant

12 Park Avenue, NYC • 212-213-1001

“The greatness of a nation and its moralprogress can be judged by the way its

animals are treated”—Mahatma Gandhi

Sponsors

101 REASONS WHY I’M A VEGETARIAN

Cutting Carbs? Risk dehydration, loss of brain function

101 REASONS WHY I’M A VEGETARIAN

and coyotes. An intriguing globalstudy in 2005 actually found thatpredators inflict negligible damage toranching operations.

40Many Americans are not gettingenough magnesium. Deficiencies

can cause irritability, seizures, delirium,depression, abnormal heart rhythms,spasms of the coronary arteries, ane-mia, blood clots, abnormal blood pres-sure, and even death. Where is this nu-trient found? Whole grains, fruits,dark-green leafy vegetables, nuts, and,best of all, raw cacao.

41Results from two majorstudies involving tens

of thousands of subjects—one in the UK (University ofLeads, 2007), the other in theU.S. (Nurses’ Health Study,2006)—suggest that themore red meat a woman eatsthe more she is at risk forbreast cancer, regardless ofher age. Suspected culpritsinclude saturated fat, growthhormones fed to cattle, hemeiron (only in red meat), andheterocyclic amines (carcino-gens produced during thecooking process).

42 When faced with aflock of spent hens, an

egg producer may choose to induceproduction again by way of a forcedmolt—accomplished with starvationand water deprivation for periods ofup to two weeks. No U.S. law preventsthis heinous practice. Some major U.S.producers have phased it out but thenneed to bring twice the number ofhens into production for the samenumber of eggs.

43Fish make vibratory sounds withvarious “calls” that researchers

have identified as communicatingalarm and aggravation. They possessfully formed nervous systems as wellas complex social behaviors. They arealso capable of learning complicatedtasks. A 2009 Purdue University studyfound that fish not only feel pain—afinding that corroborates a number ofother studies—but react to pain inmuch the same way as humans.

44 In America today, only four com-panies slaughter 59 percent of all

the hogs, only four companies slaugh-ter over 83 percent of all the cattle,and only two companies slaughternearly 47 percent of all the chickens.At the farm level, the trend over recentdecades has been for many fewer oper-ations to produce many more animals.In 1967, for example, there were overa million hog farms. By 1998, thenumber had fallen to 114,000. Thistrend has funneled many of America’s

farmers into contract, or franchise-like, arrangements that take choicesabout herd densities, feed, and veteri-nary care away from them. Thechanges have ushered in a pollutedlandscape, a host of new pathogens,and a hell on Earth for the animals.

45The 18th century philosopher Je-remy Bentham challenged the

world about animals with his famousquandary: “The question is not, Canthey reason? nor, Can they talk? but,Can they suffer?” Curiously, science isevery day discovering that in fact ani-mals do all three: reason, communi-cate, and suffer. The differences be-tween animals and humans are beingblurred with every revelation. Man’sclosest relatives share over 98 percentof our DNA, and all animals, includingman, are related by a common ances-tor. Today’s question must now be—

can we humans use our known capac-ity for logic, communication, and em-pathy to take animals off our plates?

46Arsenic has been a common ad-ditive in factory chicken feed for

nearly 50 years. It is used to kill para-sites, reduce stress, and promotegrowth in the birds. The practice haslong been deemed safe. Recently, how-ever, scientists have found that thesubstance turns carcinogenic ratherquickly after application. Arsenic-im-bued manure becomes toxic to the en-

vironment when spread asfertilizer. The risk for thosewho ingest the meat oftreated birds is, in fact, worsethan once thought, particu-larly since exposure to ar-senic is cumulative and peo-ple are eating three times theamount of chicken they oncedid in the 1960s.

47 If you like the idea ofbeing welcome at the

places where your food isproduced, don’t count onpoultry growers allowingyou, the consumer, access totheir massive sheds of mono-cultured birds any time soon.Without natural immunitiesthat could otherwise be ac-

quired by outdoor life, today’s flocksneed to be protected from the slightestinfection. When operators are lax inapplying rigorous measures of “biose-curity,” a case of the sniffles in onebird can potentially escalate to a massoutbreak, forcing a giant cull involv-ing millions of birds.

48Smithfield Foods, the largestpork producer in the world,

slaughtered 27 million pigs in 2005.Pound for pound this number repre-sents, in equivalent human weight,the combined population of the 32largest U.S. cities, yet only 26 percentof all the pigs that are slaughtered inthe country as a whole. North Car-olina’s pigs alone emit the waste-equivalent of 40 million people, andessentially none of it is treated.

49A study of 49 island countriesfound 55 percent of their coral

No Debate Now: Animals reason, communicate, suffer

Everyone loves Penelo Pea Pod. Even these West Point cadets get takenin by “her” charms. Here at the Union Square kiosk in New York City,each of the guys took a copy of this pamphlet. Hey, it’s all we ask!Thanks, Geoff Watland, for donning the costume this time.

PHOTO BY PAMELA RICE

reefs overfished. To sustainably harvestthe million metric tons of fish taken an-nually from the islands, 30,000 squaremiles more reef—or the equivalent ofnearly four Great Barrier Reefs—wouldbe needed. Demand for reef fish islargely coming from Hong Kong traders,who are now supplying a burgeoningmarket in Mainland China. Reef fishtake 5 to 10 years to reach breeding ageand so are particularly vulnerable. Fish-ers capture the fish live using cyanide,destroying coral in the process; threequarters of the fish die even before get-ting to their market destinations.

50According to one study, when dia-betics eat copious amounts of di-

etary fiber they are able to control theirblood-sugar levels significantly. Suchfiber, which is only found in plants,also helps people lose weight because ofits ability to satiate. According to a Eu-ropean study of 400,000 people, a high-fiber diet can slash the risk for deadlycancers by up to 40 percent.

51About a decade ago, the U.S. gov-ernment began formulating up-

dated rules for manure management onthe nation’s confined animal feeding op-erations. The rules, which now regulateonly 40 percent of the nation’s largestfeedlots, have not only been ridiculouslyoverdue in their implementation buthave amounted to nothing more thanpermits to pollute as usual. And the vastmajority of the nation’s mostly moder-ate-sized livestock operations are simplyurged to follow recommended guide-lines voluntarily. In 2004, the EPAgranted a sweetheart deal to 130 compa-nies representing thousands of mega-feedlots when it allowed them amnestyfrom the Clean Air Act in exchange forscientific monitoring. In 2009, theObama administration declared that theso-called cow tax, which would regulatemethane, was off the table.

52Animal agriculture routinely muti-lates farmed animals for its own

convenience and often simply out of tra-dition. Debeaking, branding, castration,ear notching, wing and comb removal,dehorning, teeth clipping, and tail andtoe docking are ever-present tasks on to-day’s farm and ranch. Laborers, not vet-

erinarians, perform the surgeries, em-ploying restraint, not anesthesia.

53Male chicks are a bothersome ex-pense to the egg producer. Sexers

must be hired to pick them out for di-version to expedient deaths. No law pro-tects the baby birds as they are dumpedin trash bins to die by crushing, suffoca-tion, starvation, and exposure.

54Fish and shellfish farming, oraquaculture, is no less disruptive

to the environment than taking fishfrom the wild. Shoreline pens replacemangroves, the habitats where wild fishwould otherwise regenerate. Somefarmed species will not breed in captiv-ity, so fish farmers must steal juveniles,who never get a chance to reproduce,from the wild. There are numerouscases where farmed fish have escapedinto the wild, corrupting the geneticpurity of native species and spreadingdisease. Large-scale biomass fishing forfishmeal threatens vast ecosystems.Feed-to-flesh ratios soar in some farmedspecies to 25 to 1. Nitrogenous wastepoisons the seabed floor below cagesthat hold fish in unnatural densities.

55Between 1980 and 2004, meatproduction in the developing

world tripled, amounting to well overhalf of the world’s output. Dense con-centrations of corralled industrial live-stock, which create vast quantities ofmanure, now skirt the edges of majorcities in Asia and Latin America, caus-ing severe environmental damage.

56People who eat a lot of fish are in-creasingly falling victim to the de-

bilitating effects of mercury poisoning.Women, in particular, are putting theirbabies at risk for irreparable brain dam-age when they eat seafood high in mer-cury while pregnant, and even before-hand. According to the EPA, about630,000 newborns in the United Statesevery year—roughly 15 percent of all—may be exposed to dangerous levels ofmercury in the womb.

57Hoof-and-mouth disease is rarelyfatal for livestock, but it remains a

death sentence just the same. When blis-ters form on hooves and lips, andgrowth slows because of fever, econom-ics prescribe execution and incineration.

Micah PublishingThe source for Jewish vegetarian

and animal rights bookswww.micahbooks.com

Lewis Goldstein—Member, exec. committee,NY State Democratic Committee. Proud of animal-rightsresolution passed by State Committee and the Humane

Education Resolution voted on June 1, 2009.

FREE Recipes—VegKit.orgGet your free Veg Starter Kit

& Meatout Mondayscolorful eNewsletter!!

Hangawi“A vegetarian shrine inanother space and time.”

12 East 32nd St., NYC • 212-213-0077

www.harimandir.commurals & fine art

Lantern Bookswww.LanternBooks.com

800-856-8664

The Mary T. and Frank L.Hoffman Family Foundation

www.all-creatures.org

Meat kills. It kills the animals, itkills you, it kills everyone else onthe planet, and it kills the planet.

—Nick Kyriazi

Tom Lyons & Joan Zacharias

“Animals are not edibles.”—Henry Spira

For your health, the planet,and our animal friends.Go Vegan! —Frank Mediate

Sponsors

101 REASONS WHY I’M A VEGETARIAN

Debeaking, Castration, Branding: Cruelty on your plate

101 REASONS WHY I’M A VEGETARIAN

In 2001, Great Britain responded to anoutbreak by destroying nearly 6 millionmostly healthy cattle, sheep, and pigsat a cost of [U.S.]$9 billion—to save itsexport trade. There were actually only2,030 known cases of the disease. Therest were exterminated to providebuffers to contain the outbreak.

58Some years ago a New York Timesstory featured an Ohio school-

teacher who discovered that a“swirling poison” invaded his homefrom a nearby hog farm and “robbedhim of his memory, his balance, andhis ability to work. It left him withmood swings, a stutter, and fistfuls ofpills.” His diagnosis: irreversible braindamage from hydrogen sulfide gas.But the source of the H2S was half amile away. Only after visits to 14 dif-ferent doctors was the cause of hissymptoms determined. Surprisinglylow levels of the gas will eat the brainover time. Neighbors of industrialhog farms will also experience di-arrhea, nosebleeds, earaches, lungburns, chronic sinusitis, asthma,and corroded lungs.

59Genetic manipula-tion has created mon-

sters as well as monstroussuffering for farmed ani-mals. Cloning threatens tojack up the misery yet an-other notch. Its general use is prob-ably a ways off, provided it becomescommercially viable at all. Mean-while, as the scientists tinker, theircloned creations will suffer from pre-mature deaths and deformities, andthe resultant meat and milk are sureto enter the human food supply.

60Before 1981, E. coli O157:H7 poi-soning didn’t exist. Today, the

deadly strain infects 80 percent of cat-tle on America’s feedlots. You canblame a change in feed for this. Tomake the animals grow five times therate they would on hay, feedlot opera-tors foisted a corn-based diet onto thecattle and provided the perfect envi-ronment for O157:H7 to emerge. Nowthis terrible strain is regularly poison-ing our raw vegetables and fruits viacross contamination. (See #70.)

61From the animal-feed breadbas-ket and feedlots of the nation’s

Midwest, massive amounts of fertilizer,pesticides, and manure-runoff traveldown the Mississippi River. This high-nutrient mix causes an eco-chain reac-tion that ends with microscopic organ-isms robbing oxygen from the watersof the Gulf of Mexico. Marine lifemust relocate or suffocate. The phe-nomenon is known as hypoxia. Scien-tists have dubbed affected areas “deadzones.” Each summer the Gulf’s deadzone grows to an area the size of NewJersey. A U.N. report in 2006 showed a34 percent jump in the number ofdead zones over 2 years—now 200worldwide. Today, red tides (harmfulalgae blooms) line some coastlines ofentire nations nearly without break.

62 In what is still the most compre-hensive study of diet and life-

style ever made, The China Studyfound that the consumption of rela-

tively small amounts of animal pro-tein is linked to chronic disease.

The findings from this grandepidemiological study are es-pecially compelling becausethey allowed meaningfulcomparisons between pop-ulations with similar ge-netic backgrounds yet with

nonhomogeneous diets. All to-gether, The China Study providesthe ultimate vegan vindication.

63Fifty-two billion pounds ofinedible byproduct (bones,

fats, unusable hides, and cartilage)from America’s meat and poultryslaughterhouses is each year trans-mogrified by “renderers” into

saleable adhesives, lubricants, chemi-cals, cosmetics, and processed-food in-gredients—a grisly but profitable sidebusiness of the meat trade. Thisamount, however, does not includethe 6 billion pounds of deadstock thataccumulate on U.S. feedlots, whichmust also be dealt with. Unfortu-nately, only half of it is rendered andtherefore processed safely. If buried,deadstock attracts vermin, leaches ni-trogen and methane into the environ-ment, and poisons the groundwater. If

burned—usually the case when mor-talities are catastrophic due to weatherevents or disease outbreaks—pyres willpoison the air with dioxin. If com-posted, the process is often poorlymanaged, failing to adequately pro-mote full decomposition.

64Want the omega-3s in fish butwould rather skip the mercury,

PCBs, and dioxins? Well, push asidethat fish altogether, and rediscoverflax. Two tablespoons of ground flaxdaily give you all of the essential fattyacids you need with several bonuses:Flax seeds contain iron, zinc, andhigh-quality protein, plus almost all ofthe vitamins. They’re loaded with sol-uble fiber and are the best source any-where for phytonutrient lignans. Theyease symptoms of diabetes and evenpromote healthy brain growth inutero and in infancy.

65By some assessments, the H5N1strain of bird flu, which origi-

nated in Asia and is still spreadingaround the world, has the potential todisrupt life on planet Earth secondonly to global nuclear war. Others pre-dict that if the strain mutates, perhapsjust slightly, a bird-flu pandemic couldkill more than 140 million people andput a halt to [U.S.]$4.4 trillion inworld economic activity.

66The meat industry doesn’t treatthe causes of its problems, only

the symptoms. When it imprisonsmassive numbers of animals incramped stress-inducing cages, it pro-vides the perfect breeding ground fordeadly bacteria, which later infect themeat. Technologies to kill meat patho-gens are now very big business. Wehave acidic-solution carcass misting,alkaline-solution sprays, steam/va-cuum technology, high-temperaturecarcass washes, steam pasteurization,and chlorine applications, etc., ad nau-seum. Some bug-fighting methods,such as food irradiation and sprays ofantidotal viruses and probiotic bacte-ria, pose risks in themselves. And inthe end, the meat still isn’t safe.

67Most of America’s cows are not“Happy Cows,” despite what the

California Milk Advisory Board might

Slumgullion Stew: 52 billion lbs. of inedible byproduct

Photograph by Pamela Rice

say in its nationally televised commer-cials. Many cows in the Western statespend their lives negotiating bogs oftheir own feces. Elsewhere, they may betethered at stanchions. All are insemi-nated annually to keep them lactating,and many regularly suffer painful udderinfections. Thanks to calciumdepletion and foot infections,slaughter occurs after onlythree or four lactation peri-ods. The CMAB is a govern-ment agency and so isnot subject to false-ad-vertising laws.

68To choose indus-trial meat is to sup-

port a system that longago put family farmersout of business. Essentially, it isonly the big players—those whobought into factory systems—who are feeding America. Yes, wedo have lower prices at the retaillevel. But ultimately, what is thereal cost of cheap meat? You need tofactor in the $20 billion per year in gov-ernment subsidies to commodity farm-ers, higher medical costs attributable toexcessive diets, antibiotic resistance inemerging bacterial strains, a dead zonein the Gulf of Mexico, the inordinateamount of oil needed for petrochemicalfertilizers, dwindling aquifers, zoonoticdiseases, and the list goes on.

69To bring 10 billion animals eachyear to the dinner tables of today’s

everyday Americans requires a well-oiledmachine of streamlined efficiency. Sen-tient life is conveyed and processed us-ing the batch method—tight confine-ment of the “raw ingredients,” by thetens of thousands and even millions. Butthings can, and do, suddenly go horriblywrong and more often than one wouldimagine—think hurricane, snowstorm,flood, tornado, heatwave, mechanicalbreakdown, electrical failure, disease, orfire. At press time, for example, withina span of five weeks, fires burned todeath 11,000 pigs in Littleton, Illinois,and 180,000 chickens in the Seattlearea. News accounts were typicallyshort and local, concentrating on theeconomic losses to the farmers.

70Researchers in 2008 found thatfresh produce surprisingly causes

over 29 percent of all food borne illness.But before you blame the veggies, it’simportant to know that the contami-nating pathogens are almost invariablythose that hitch a ride on fecal matter.And we know plants don’t defecate. Sowhat’s the story? It all gets down to onesimple fact. Feedlot operators cannot af-ford to properly treat all the waste that

their mammoth-size facilitiesgenerate, so they often divertthe muck to the nearest water-way. Down stream, salad andproduce processors use the wa-ter as a rinse.

71Today’s turkeys are un-able to copulate on their

own, thanks to selectively bred,freakishly huge breasts in the“toms.” The birds must be artifi-

cially inseminated. The job isnearly as dehumanizing for the

workers—who must work rapidly forlong hours and low wages—as it is de-plorable for the tortured breeder birds,who are essentially raped every weekfor 12 to 16 months until they are mostunceremoniously sent to slaughter.

72 In most large commercial chickenslaughter plants the inverted

heads of doomed birds are first plungedinto an electrified brine bath. The cur-rent is set at voltages just high enoughto immobilize the birds and to promotebleedout without hemorrhage. It servesto minimize inconvenient flailing thatwould otherwise interfere with theslaughter process. The birds are notonly sentient during slaughter but mustalso suffer the excruciating shock,sometimes twice.

73Grass-fed beef is more eco-friendlythan corn-fed, but supplies of it

could never sustainably meet currentconsumer demand. Several guides areavailable to help seafood consumers “eatwith a conscience.” But the species thatare recommended would quickly runout if everyone ate them. Legally, “free-range” and “cage-free” designations aredubious to downright meaningless. Atleast one humane certification programwas officially debunked. “Organic” has

Jean Thalerin honor of Bobby

on his 20th bird day

Mid-HudsonVegetarian Society, Inc.

SOCIAL EVENTS / SOCIAL ACTION

www.mhvs.org • 845.876.2626

I’m 84, going on 100!Thank you, “101 Reasons...”.

—Ted Teisler

Be Veg! Go Green!SAVE THE PLANET

www.SupremeMasterTV.com

Norma Ramos, Esq.Ecofeminist

ROAR! vegan radio and tvListen/watch: www.goroar.org/

Comment: animal.rts@gmail.com

Richard H. SchwartzAuthor of Judaism and

Vegetarianism and Judaism andGlobal Survival

Pres iden t@ JewishVeg.com • jewishveg.com/schwar tz

Peace begins in the kitchen.Go vegetarian!

Joe Passaretti

MillenniumGourmet Vegan Cuisine

580 Geary St., San Francisco415-345-3900 • www.Mil lenniumRestaurant .com

Sponsors

101 REASONS WHY I’M A VEGETARIAN

Feedlot Manure: Now it’s contaminating our veggies!

101 REASONS WHY I’M A VEGETARIAN

gone strangely industrial and is rightlytagged “ethically challenged.” Ulti-mately, to “eat green” and to “be kind,”one needs to go vegan.

74New York State’s Depart-ment of Environmental

Conservation and its Depart-ment of Health have postedan Internet factsheetcalled “Eating SportFish.” The advice speaksfor itself: No one shouldeat more than one mealof fish per week fromany of the state’s fresh waters;chemical contaminants may be aproblem; trim all fat; don’t con-sume cooking liquids. On theother hand, if you still want to en-joy the “fun” of sport fishing butdon’t want to poison yourself,the factsheet recommends catch andrelease. But don’t tear out the hook—cut its leader, goes the “compassionate”advice. Also, avoid playing fish to ex-haustion. Nearly every state in theunion has a mercury-in-rivers advisory.

75Okinawa has the healthiest andlongest-lived people in the world,

boasting the highest percentage ofpeople who live to be a hundred yearsold. The super-seniors who inhabit theisland tend to retain their mental keen-ness, and few need to live in nursinghomes. Not surprisingly, they eat verylittle food of animal origin, accordingto a 25-year study on the island. Oki-nawan genes could take some of thecredit, although today’s old folks areprojected to outlive their children whohave adopted Western eating habits.

76No discernible difference existsbetween Democrats and Republi-

cans when it comes to public policy onissues of animal-based foods—certainlynot in the area of trade. The Obamaand Bush administrations differ onlyon tactics in their mutual dedication toforcing trading partners to open mar-kets to U.S. meat. U.S. trade representa-tive Ron Kirk told the U.S. Meat ExportFederation in mid-2009 that he was us-ing every legal tool at his disposal tokeep pork markets open during theswine flu outbreak and to reverse or

mitigate trade bans because of mad cowdisease and hormones in beef.

77The population explosion shouldnot be thought of exclusively in

terms of people—not when one consid-ers the ecological footprint represented

by the world’s 3.2 billion cattle,sheep, and goats across theglobe. About 20 percent of theworld’s pastures and range-land—and 73 percent ofrangeland in dry areas—have

been degraded to some ex-tent, mostly through over-

grazing, compaction, and erosioncaused by livestock.

78It is estimated that 40 to 50percent of U.S. dairy cows are

infected with mastitis at any onetime. The painful udder infectionis considered a man-made

affliction. Cows get it by im-proper care, poor milking proce-dures, overmilking, and mal-functioning milkingmachines. The ge-netically engineeredgrowth hormoneBovine Somatotropin(bST), which is widelyused by producers toboost milk yields, isplainly linked to mastitis.

79To satisfy people’s raven-ous appetite for frogs’

legs, a billion frogs are takenfrom the wild each year, ac-cording to a study in 2009. Thecollective pillage is helping to makeamphibians as a whole the mostthreatened animal group on Earth.

80 In the early twentieth centuryman learned how to extract ni-

trogen (fertilizer) from the air, cheaplyand in large quantities. This one dis-covery has actually resulted in allow-ing 2 billion more people to inhabitplanet Earth and has given humansthe luxury of feeding crops to live-stock. Yet what gives the world abun-dance has, by way of nutrient runoffand acid rain, poisoned waterwaysfrom the Chinese countryside to theOhio Valley. (Excess nitrogen pro-motes algae growth, robbing the water

of oxygen.) In North America and Eu-rope, lakes and rivers contain 20 timesthe nitrogen they did before the In-dustrial Revolution.

81Worldwide meat consumptionquadrupled over the last half cen-

tury. The average American consumesabout 110 grams of protein per day—about twice what the government rec-ommends. Over two-thirds of thisamount comes from animal-basedsources. Most would be better off con-suming 30 grams of protein per dayand all of it derived from plant sources.

82When meat, fish, or poultry isbarbecued, fat drips over the

open flames and sends up plumes ofcarcinogenic smoke, coating the food.Other unhealthful chemicals are cre-ated just by extended cooking periods.So, chemists advise that grill times bekept short. Separately, even environ-mentalists are saying that restaurant

grilling is an important source of sootand smog. But you still need tocook your meat thoroughly.How else are you going to killall those nasty bacteria?

83Forests cleanse the envi-ronment, regulate climate,

and provide habitat for wildlifeand crop pollinators. Many mod-

ern medicines derive from forests. Ourvery survival on planet Earth dependsupon them. According to a 390-pageU.N. report in 2006, the expansionof livestock production is a key fac-tor in deforestation. Today, nearly all

of it is taking place in the Amazon,thanks to grazing and the productionof feedcrops. Worldwide, livestock pro-duction uses 70 percent of all agricul-tural land and 30 percent of the landsurface of the planet.

84Worldwide, 60 billion animalsare processed for human con-

sumption each year, not counting fish.Most are transported at least once intheir lives. Filthy, crowded, cramped,noisy, and terrifying conditions overextended periods are the norm. Stressand crowding facilitate the transmis-sion of disease. Some animals areforced on numerous trips as owners re-spond to favorable prices. Cull ani-

Dems/GOP: Both rigorously push for meat exports

Photographs, three figures, above, by Pamela Rice

mals, by definition, are spent; theirtransport experiences are particularlycruel. International commerce in liveanimals—with shipping distances oftenover a thousand miles—is routine. Lawsare lax, nonexistent, and otherwiseflouted. In the U.S., truckers must feedand water mammals after 36 hours. Nosuch “protections” apply to poultry.

85Clog up your arteries on a dietloaded with saturated animal fat

and cholesterol year after year and yourisk having a heart attack or stroke. Youcan opt to avert these afflictions withan expensive, though now routine, op-eration known as angioplasty. Per-formed with a balloon-tipped catheter,it works to flatten plaque against arterywalls, thus opening up passageways forblood to flow. A whole-foods vegandiet, along with regular exercise and 2tablespoons of ground flax seed everyday, can have the same effect.

86More than half of the nation’sseafood companies do not follow

federal food-safety guidelines. Govern-ment inspectors visit processors onlyonce per year to oversee essentially vol-untary measures and to view companypaperwork using the honor system.Three-quarters of all fish consumed inthe U.S. is imported, representing 4 bil-lion pounds, but less than two percentof it is government inspected.

87U.N. Environment Programme ex-ecutive director Klaus Toepfer said

in 2003, “The clock is standing at oneminute to midnight for the great apes,animals that share more than 96 per-cent of their DNA with humans. If welose any great ape species we will be de-stroying a bridge to our own origins,and with it part of our own humanity.”Humans stand behind all reasons forthe die-off, including one of the mostimportant: poaching for meat.

88Just as smokestack emissions resultin acid rain, toxic fumes from de-

composing livestock waste in open-airlagoons on factory farms become poiso-nous to fish when returned to water-ways via rainfall. The errant nutrients(ammonia, primarily) also ravage terres-trial ecosystems. Since Earth’s plantspecies evolved to efficiently use scarce

amounts of such nutrients, today’s glutsoften kill them. Fallout can degrade en-vironments as far away as 300 miles.

89Handling livestock these days isrisky business, not the least be-

cause humans are increasingly contract-ing diseases from the animals—swineand bird flu, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease,Nipah virus, and SARS are a few exam-ples. “Exotic” and often endangered an-imal cuisine could provide the catalystfor a global pandemic. In China, wetmarkets display caged and invariablysickly creatures, such as cobras, civetcats, and anteaters, for consumers whowant that “taste of the wild.” In Africa,the bushmeat trade is blamed for thespread of Ebola and AIDS.

90Even if meat eaters are spared thebig killers that their lifestyle is as-

sociated with (heart disease, stroke, dia-betes, and cancer), their diet may still berobbing them of everyday good health.A standard American diet will often leadto nagging conditions and ailments. Awhole-foods, high-fiber vegan diet, fullof grains, fruits, vegetables, andlegumes, is just the ticket to reducearthritis pain, ease irritable-bowel disor-ders, mitigate common back pain, re-lieve cold and allergy symptoms, andlower risk for gallstones, kidney stones,and heartburn. Perhaps best of all, thevegan life is one free of constipation!

91When food-safety inspectors inNew York City make their rounds,

they often come upon merchants sell-ing just about anything: the meat of ar-madillos, iquanas, primates, turtles,frogs, and rats. Some of the meat comesfrom endangered animals. Other cuts, ifnot intrinsically illegal, fail to derivefrom licensed inspected facilities. Thesellers of such contraband (most is im-ported) tend to be ignorant of U.S. laws,sometimes conveniently so. They don’tseem to comprehend the dangers towhich they expose their customers andeven the city as they raise the risk fordisease and bacterial outbreak. Overone recent 21-month period, a singleinspector shuttered 138 city stores.

92 It is estimated that 30 percent ofthe world’s fish catch is non-tar-

get species, or “bycatch.” Fishers—

Whole Earth Bakery130 St. Marks Pl. (8th St.), NYC

www.wholeearthbakery.com

WhiskersAnother heaven and earth

must pass before sucha one can be again.

SnowballYou were such a snowball,but you melted our hearts.

We love you and we miss you.

Vegan Environmental SolutionsPodcast

h2opodcast.com/vsse.html

VeganEssentials.comOver 1500 all-vegan products.

Fast shipping, low pricesUnbeatable service!

Isn’t it time to read

The Sexual Politics of Meatby Carol J. Adams?

USA DevanandYoga Center

Queens, New York • 718-426-4643

Wilson Wong

The Vegetarian Resource GroupP.O. Box 1463

Baltimore, MD 21203410-366-8343 • www.vrg.org

Youth BuddhismCommunications

11 E. Broadway, Suite 8B, NYC212-406-5109

Sponsors

101 REASONS WHY I’M A VEGETARIAN

Seafood Oversight: 4 billion lbs., only 2% is inspected

101 REASONS WHY I’M A VEGETARIAN

typically in the cruelest most expedi-ent ways—separate out the discards,only to dump them overboard, deadand mutilated. Bycatch from driftnet-ting is estimated at 85 percent ofcatch. Despite a U.N. moratorium,Italy, France, and Morocco continuethis hugely destructive practice.Shrimp fishing alone is responsible forover 27 percent of the world’s bycatch,despite producing less than 2 percentof global seafood.

93 In nature, pigs avoid filth andwill trek and root over 9 miles

during a 24-hour period. Yet factoryinternment brings a breedingsow cold, strawless floors, nox-ious filth, deafening noise, andimmobilizing space barely largerthan her own body. She will bepinned in place to expose herteats to her piglets. This highlyintelligent creature will be dri-ven insane as she endures re-peated pregnancies via artificialinsemination. When her pro-ductive capacity eventuallywanes, her misery will end witha blade to the throat.

94There are hundreds ofchemicals and veterinary

drugs used on today’s feedlots.These vaccines, parasiticides,hormones, insecticides, feedmedications, and antimicrobialsare making their way into our creeks,rivers, and lakes via the feces andurine excreted by the animals. Thesubstances act as endocrine disruptersin wild species down stream. Onestudy showed female fish acquiringmale traits and male fish acquiring fe-male traits. Other studies have simi-larly found disturbing anomalies.

95Ninety-nine percent of theworld’s water comprises salty seas

or is locked up in glacial icecaps. The 1percent left—no more—is suitable forhuman consumption. Yet the non-re-newable freshwater reserves found inaquifers across the globe are beingmined of trillions of gallons of waterper year to support the worldwide meatculture. One of the greatest aquifersanywhere, the Ogallala, sits beneath

America’s High Plains states and is es-sentially being drained to oblivion inorder to supply an infrastructure offeedlots and industrial slaughterhouses.Scientists say this natural wonder willbe diminished by 80 percent by 2020.

96A 25-percent decline in heart dis-ease in Poland in the early 1990s

coincided with the country’s transfor-mation to a market economy, whichended government subsidies to meat.A switch primarily to vegetable fatsand the increased importation of fruitwere also seen as factors in the decline,according to a report made by a team

of multinational researchers. The au-thors of the report noted that the de-cline was “apparently without prece-dent in peacetime.”

97To produce foie gras, male ducksare force-fed a stomach-gorging

cup of corn pellets three times a daywith a 15-inch feeder tube. This tor-turous process goes on for 28 days un-til the ducks’ livers, from which thepâté is made, miasmatically bloat to10 times normal size. Mortalities arehigh due to disease, intense stress, andburst stomachs. Activist undercovervideo has shown rows and rows ofbirds panting incessantly for air in thedays just leading up to slaughter. Socruel are all these practices that foiegras production is now outlawed in atleast a dozen countries.

98Every year, 24,000 fishers die onthe job, making fishing the most

dangerous occupation in the world,according to the FAO/UN. Meatpack-ing has the highest serious injury rateby far of any occupation. Repetitivestress disorders and knife cuts are ram-pant in meat plants. Poultry process-ing workers earn wages that are belowthe poverty level. Full-time contractpoultry growers clear incomes of onlyabout $21,000 annually.

99Agriculture science tirelesslyworks to eke out every last bit of

commodity wealth from farmed ani-mals via genetic selection. Wildjungle fowl lay 2 dozen eggs peryear; their maligned descen-dants produce an egg nearlyevery day. Wild sows give birthto 5 piglets; factory-borne littersyield 12 young. A century ago asteer took 4 to 5 years to grow tomarket weight; today theprocess takes only 14 months.Just 50 years ago cows gave 645gallons of milk per year; dairiestoday take over three times thisamount from the animals.

100A chorus of researchshows that eating veg-

etables keeps the brain young. A6-year study in 2006 in Chicagotested 2,000 seniors, their men-tal acumen paired off with veg-

etable intake. Subjects who ate morethan two servings of vegetables perday appeared about five years youngerby certain indicators than those whoate few or no vegetables. Green leafies(spinach, kale, and collards) appearedmost beneficial.

101When you fork over that $2.99for that 7.10 ounces of Banquet

Chicken Fingers Meal, it’s really quite abargain, or so you may think. But suchpurchases—collectively trillions ofthem across the globe—are subject to asteep ecological price. Future genera-tions will be the ones remitting its pay-ments with global warming, aquiferdepletion, topsoil erosion, deforesta-tion and lost ecosystem services. Isn’tit time to start eating lower on the foodchain? Get Hip. Go Veg!

For as far as the eye can see: pigs, industrially housed, indoors,in cramped quarters, confined to communal pens. Tidy by na-ture, pigs who are commercially raised are invariably forced tolive in and above their own waste.

Ogallala Aquifer: Natural wonder, 80% gone by 2020

GETTY IMAGES

1. David Wolfson, Beyond theLaw: Agribusiness and theSystemic Abuse of AnimalsRaised for Food or Food Pro-duction, Farm Sanctuary,1999, pp. 12–16.

2. “Animal Waste Pollutionin America: An EmergingNational Problem,” Minor-ity Staff of the U.S. SenateCommission on Agricul-ture, Dec. 1997.

John Lang, “ManureProves to Be MassiveEnvironmental Problem,”Nando Times News,Apr. 24, 1998.

Marla Cone, “Foul State ofAffairs Found in Feedlots,”Los Angeles Times, Nov. 17,2006.

“A New Sort of WindPower,” The Economist,Jan. 24, 2004.

3. “Study Shows Why MeatMay Increase Cancer Risk,”Reuters, Feb. 2, 2006.

“Red Meat Cancer Risk ClueFound,” BBC, Jan. 31, 2006.

4. William J. Broad and An-drew C. Revkin, “Has theSea Given Up Its Bounty?”New York Times, Jul. 29,2003, p. F1.

Cornelia Dean, “ReportWarns ‘Global Collapse’ ofFishing,” New York Times,Nov. 2, 2006.

Kenneth R. Weiss, “SeaTurtle Is Losing the Raceto Poachers, Fishing Indus-try,” Los Angeles Times,May 4, 2003.

5. Gail Eisnitz, Slaughterhouse:The Shocking Story of Greed,Neglect, and InhumaneTreatment Inside the U.S.Meat Industry, PrometheusBooks, 1997, p. 24.

“Report Finds SpottyEnforcement of HumaneSlaughter Law,” AP,Feb. 28, 2004.

6. Heart and Stroke Statistics—2006 Update, AmericanHeart Assoc.

Denise Grady, “As HeartAttacks Wane, Heart Fail-ure Is on the Rise,” NewYork Times, May 4, 1999,pp. F1, F4.

7. “He’s Smarter Than YouThink,” The Electronic Tele-graph, May 31, 1997.

8. Web site: www.bread.org

Lester R. Brown, Outgrowingthe Earth (chap. 3), W.W.Norton & Co., 2005.

George Monbiot, “The Plea-sures of the Flesh,” Mon-biot.com, Apr. 15, 2008.

9. Karen Florini, et al, “Resis-tant Bugs and AntibioticDrugs,” EnvironmentalDefense, 2005.

10. “Economics of Foodborne Disease: Overview,”ERS/USDA, Jul. 22, 2004.

11. Sandeep Jauhar, “Savingthe Heart Can Some-times Mean Losing the

Memory,” New YorkTimes, Sep. 19, 2000.

Rani Hutter Epstein,“Facing Up to DepressionAfter a Bypass,” New YorkTimes, Nov. 27, 2001,p. F8.

12. “The Great Plains: Turn-ing Off the Taps,” TheEconomist, Feb. 11, 2006.

13. “Position of the AmericanDietetic Assoc. and Dieti-tians of Canada: Vegetar-ian Diets,” 2003.

“Vegetarian Diet May CutCholesterol as Well asDrugs,” AP, Jul. 22, 2003.

Maggie Fox, “Vegan DietReverses Diabetes Symp-toms, Study Finds,”Reuters, Jul. 27, 2006.

14. Livestock’s Long Shadow,FAO/UN, 2006.

15. Paul Brown, “U.N. toCrack Down as PirateBoats Threaten to DriveFish to Extinction,” TheGuardian, Aug. 15, 2000.

“IUU Fishing—Back-ground,” ejfoundation.org,viewed Mar. 31, 2007.

Paul Greenberg, “TheCatch,” New York Times,Oct. 23, 2005.

16. “Wegmans Cruelty,”Google video,tinyurl.com/yoe9oc,CompassionateCon-sumers.org, 2004. (Notecomment, Miyun Park.)

17. “Dirty Birds,” ConsumerReports, Jan. 2007.

18. “Vegetarian WomenWeigh Less Than MeatEaters,” Reuters, Jun. 27,2005.

Karen Collins, “Will YouLose Weight as a Vegetar-ian?” MSNBC, Sep. 23,2005.

19. Sandra Blakeslee, “Fear ofDisease Prompts NewLook at Rendering,” NewYork Times, Mar. 11, 1997.

J. Peder Zane, “It Ain’tJust for Meat; It’s forLotion,” New York Times,May 5, 1996, p. 5.

Steve Woodward, “CattleByproducts Are Found inHundreds of Products,”Knight Ridder, Jan. 4,2004.

20. Correspondence, DavidWolfson, author of Be-yond the Law (see #1).

21. Elliot Jaspin and MikeWard, “Chicken OnceTainted by Feces Sal-vaged, Sold,” AustinAmerican-Statesman,Jun. 18, 1998.

Richard Behar andMichael Kramer, “TheEpsy Scandal Is MinorCompared with the Waythe USDA Has Favoredthe Poultry Industry,”TIME, Oct. 17, 1994.

Beatrice Trum Hunter,“Overlooked Threats of

Food borne Illness,”Consumers’ Research,Oct. 1, 1995.

“From Cradle to Gravy,”Consumer Reports,Mar. 1998.

22. Danielle Nierenberg, “Fac-tory Farming in the Devel-oping World,” World-watch, May/Jun. 2003.

“Global Water SupplyCentral Issue at Stock-holm Conference,”Reuters, Aug. 14, 2000.

Roger Segelken, “End Irri-gation Subsidies and Re-ward Conservation,Cornell U. Study Advises,”Cornell Chronicle, Jan. 30,1997.

“Shortage of Fresh WaterPredicted,” AP, Aug. 27,1998.

“Michael Specter, “TheLast Drop,” The NewYorker, Oct. 23, 2006.

23. “End of Cheap Oil,”National Geographic,Jun. 2004.

How Green Is YourPlate?” Vegetarian Times,Aug. 1996.

Jim Mason, “How OurFood Choices AffectWildlife,” Animals’ Voice,Vol. 3, No. 3., no date.

24. PBS interviews, RobertTauxe and Eric Schlosser,“Modern Meat,”WGBH/Frontline, 2002.

Robert Bazell, “Steak MayBe Bearer of Bacteria,”NBC News, Jul. 3, 2003.

Michael Pollan, “PowerSteer,” New York Times,Mar. 31, 2002.

25. “Warning Over DeadlyFish Parasite,” BBC News,Feb. 1, 2007.

“Gyrodactylus salaris,”factsheet, River TweedCommission, Scotland,viewed Jan. 2007.

Kenneth R. Weiss, “FishFarms Become Feedlots ofthe Sea,” series, Los Ange-les Times, Dec. 9, 2002.

26. Karen Davis, PrisonedChickens, Book PublishingCo., 1996, pp. 54–55.

27. “Diverse Diets with Meatand Milk Endanger WorldFood Supply,” HearstNews, Mar. 8, 1997.

28. Maria Cheng and FrankJordans, “WHO: SwineFlu Pandemic Has Be-gun,” AP, Jun. 11, 2009.

Dan Mitchell, “Don’tBlame the Pigs,” Slate,May 6, 2009.

29. Kristin Collins, “FowlSmells Ruffling Feathers,”The News & Observer,Apr. 24, 2006.

30. John Robbins, Diet for aNew America, StillpointPublishing, 1987,pp. 112–17.

31. David and Marcia Pi-mentel, “Feeding theWorld’s Population,”American Inst. of Biologi-cal Sciences, May 2000.

32. “What Did Your ChildEat for Lunch?” ABCNews, Nov. 7, 2002.

33. tinyurl.com/3dqo5t,tinyurl.com/2vrhda, andtinyurl.com/3awnww

34. T. Colin Campbell, Ph.D.,“New York Times: RealityCheck Needed,” essay,Oct. 26, 2000.

Joe Crea, “Don’t Have aCow, Man: Making Senseof Warnings about theHazards of Milk,” DailyNews (NY), Oct. 21, 1992.

35. Michael Greger, Bird Flu:A Virus of Our Own Hatch-ing, Lantern Books, 2006,pp. 194–95.

Joseph P. Fontenot, “Uti-lization of Poultry Litteras Feed for Beef Cattle,”FDA Hearing on AnimalFeeding Regulation,Oct. 30, 2001.

John Ford, “Several Upsetwith MoArk’s Plants,”Neosho Daily News (MO),Jan. 13, 2005.

36. Todd Oppenheimer,“The Rancher Subsidy,”The Atlantic Monthly,Jan. 1996.

Livestock’s Long Shadow,FAO/UN, 2006.

37. E. J. Mundell, “High-Pro-tein Diets DehydrateEven the Very Fit,”Reuters, Apr. 22, 2002.

“High-Fat Diets Linked toPoorer Brain Function,”Reuters, Feb. 21, 2001.

38. Temple Grandin, “TheWay I See It: The Dangersof Trait Over-Selection,”Western Horseman, Aug.1998, pp. 120–24.

39. Paul Rogers, “DefendersSay Cattle Jobs Are RuralLifeblood,” San Jose Mer-cury News, Mar. 12, 2002

“Grazing Factsheets,” For-est Guardians, 1996.

“Lethal Predator Control,Courtesy of Wildlife Ser-vices,” HSUS, 2006.

Anna Gosline, “CryingWolf Over PredatorAttacks,” New Scientist,Sep. 4, 2004.

40. Jane E. Brody, “A DietaryMineral You Need (andProbably Didn’t KnowIt),” New York Times,May 18, 2004.

41. “Red Meat ‘Ups BreastCancer Risk’,” BBC,Mar. 4, 2007.

“Red Meat Link toBreast Cancer,” BBC,Nov. 14, 2006.

42. Marc Kaufman, “McDon-ald’s Taking Steps to Im-prove Care of Hens,”Washington Post, Aug. 23,2000.

43. Peter Singer, Animal Liber-ation, 1990, pp. 171–74.

Patrick Bateson, “ThePain League for Animals,”New Scientist, Apr. 25, 1992.

“Study: Fish May FeelPain Much Like Humans,”UPI, Apr. 29, 2009.

44. Tom Philpott, “FromConcentrate,” Grist,Apr. 26, 2007.

Keith Collins, “Statementon Livestock Prices,” beforethe Committee on Agricul-ture, U.S. House of Repre-sentatives, Feb. 10, 1999.

45. “Genetic Tool Kit,”WGBH Educational Foun-dation and Clear Blue SkyProductions, 2001,tinyurl.com/2pyj7m.

46. Don Hopey, “ChickenFeed May Present ArsenicDanger,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Mar. 8, 2007.

Marian Burros, “Chickenwith Arsenic? Is ThatO.K.?” New York Times,Apr. 5, 2006.

47. Kenton Kreager, et al.,“Biosecurity Tips,” Cali-fornia Poultry Letter, U. ofC. at Davis, Jan. 1997.

Peter Jackson, “PoultryEpidemic Threatens In-dustry,” AP, Jun. 23, 1997.

48. “Pork Power,” 60 Minutes,CBS–TV, Dec. 22, 1996.

Jeff Teitz, “Boss Hog,” Rol-ling Stone, Dec. 14, 2006.

Smithfield annual report,2006,tinyurl.com/2xthuu.

“North Carolina Hog In-dustry, Recent History,”Democracy South,tinyurl.com/39dhfb

49. Katie Newton, et al.,“Current and Future Sus-tainability of Island CoralReef Fisheries,” CurrentBiology, Mar. 22, 2007.

Nao Nakanishi, “ChineseHunger for Reef Fish,Emptying Asian Seas,”Reuters, Mar. 27, 2007.

50. “Fiber Helps DiabeticsControl Blood Sugar,Study Says,” Reuters,May 10, 2000.

“High-Fiber Diet Can CutCancer Risk by 40 Per-cent,” Reuters, Jun. 23,2001.

51. Jeff Teitz, “Boss Hog,” Rol-ling Stone, Dec. 14, 2006.

Philip Brasher, “EPA toExempt Farms from Pollu-tion Reporting,” Des MoinesRegister, Mar. 20, 2007.

Marla Cone, “Foul State...”(see #2).

Andrew Martin, “LivestockIndustry Finds Friends inEPA,” Chicago Tribune,May 16, 2004.

“Not High on the HogStench,” AP, Jun. 20, 2005.

“Belching Cows A HotClimate Topic,” AP,Jun. 20, 2009.

REFERENCES

REFERENCES52. Richard A. Battaglia,

Handbook of LivestockManagement Techniques,2nd Ed., Prentice Hall,1998.

53. C. David Coats, Old Mac-Donald’s Factory Farm,Continuum, 1989, p. 84.

54. Kieran Mulvaney, “A Seaof Trouble,” E/The Envi-ronmental Magazine,Jan./Feb. 1998.

Carl Safina, “The World’sImperiled Fish” ScientificAmerican, Nov. 1995,pp. 49–50.

55. Erwin Northoff, “Indus-trial Livestock ProductionNear Cities Often Dam-ages the Environment,”FAO/UN, Feb. 2, 2006.

56. Elizabeth Shogren, “Esti-mate of Fetuses Exposedto High MercuryDoubles,” Los AngelesTimes, Feb. 6, 2004.

57. “World Meat Demand toRise,” Render, Oct. 2002.

58. Jennifer 8. Lee, “Neigh-bors of Vast Hog FarmsSay Foul Air EndangersTheir Health,” New YorkTimes, May 11, 2003.

“Options for ManagingOdor: A Report from theSwine Odor Task Force,”North Carolina State U.,Mar. 1, 1995.

59. Gina Kolata, “In Cloning,Failure Far Exceeds Suc-cess,” New York Times,Dec. 11, 2001.

Sharon Schmickle, “It’sWhat’s for Dinner: Milkand Meat from Clones,”Minneapolis Star Tribune,Dec. 1, 2001.

60. Gina Kolata, “DetectiveWork and Science Reveala New Lethal Bacteria,”New York Times, Jan. 6,1998.

“Power Steer” (see #24).

Marla Cone and Rong-Gong Lin II, “TaintedSpinach Tied to CattleRanch,” Los AngelesTimes, Mar. 24, 2007.

Nina Planck, “LeafyGreen Sewage,” New YorkTimes, Sep. 21, 2006.

61. Tim Beardsley, “Death inthe Deep: ‘Dead Zone’ inthe Gulf of Mexico Chal-lenges Regulators,” Scien-tific American, Nov. 1997.

John Heilprin, “U.N.:Number of Ocean ‘DeadZones’ Rise,” AP, Oct. 19,2006.

62. Jane E. Brody, “HugeStudy of Diet Indicts Fatand Meat,” New YorkTimes, May 8, 1990, p. A1.

63. Don A. Franco, Addressto the California Dept. ofFood and AgricultureSymposium, Apr. 8, 2002.

64. “Family Nutrition: FlaxSeeds and Flax Oil,”

AskDr.Sears.com, viewedApr. 13, 2007.

65. Michael Perry, “Bird FluPandemic Would SparkGlobal Downturn, SaysReport,” Reuters, Feb. 16,2006.

66. All references too numerousto list. Contact the Viva-Vegie Society.

“FDA Says Viruses Safe forTreating Meat,” AP, Aug.18, 2006.

67. “Happy Cows? You De-cide,” unhappycows.com.

Bob Egelko, “Dairy FarmsCan Keep Milking Their‘Happy Cows’ Cam-paign,” San FranciscoChronicle, Jan. 12, 2005.

68. Dan Barber, “AmberFields of the Bland,”New York Times, Jan. 14,2007.

Michael Pollan, The Om-nivore’s Dilemma, PenguinPress, pp. 82–83.

69. Phillip Lucas, “StanwoodFarm Fire Kills about180,000 Chickens,” TheSeattle Times, Jun. 4,2009.

Richard Longoria,“11,000 Pigs Die in Fire,”KIII TV, Apr. 22, 2009.

70. Stan Wellborn and San-dra Hoffmann, “FreshProduce the Most Fre-quent Offender,” Re-sources of the Future,Jun. 16, 2008.

Jeff Teitz, “Boss Hog,” Rol-ling Stone, Dec. 14, 2006.

Michael Pollan, “The Veg-etable-Industrial Com-plex,” New York Times,Oct. 15, 2006.

71. Jim Mason, “Inside aTurkey Breeding Factory:Of Rape and Pillage,”Farm Sanctuary News,Fall 1997.

72. Prisoned Chickens(see #26), pp. 115–16.

Virgil Butler, “Clarifica-tion on Stunner Usage,”The Cyberactivist,May 27, 2004,tinyurl.com/2qh6dc.

73. “Home, Home onthe…Small Patch of Dirt,”Consumer Reports,Mar. 1998, pp. 14–15.

Samantha Storey, “KnowYour Meat,” SeattleWeekly, Jan. 7, 2004.

Diane Brady, “The Or-ganic Myth,” BusinessWeek, Oct. 16, 2006.

74. “Eating Sport Fish,”tinyurl.com/ysjsx8, 1999.

Steve Grant, “AirborneMercury Poisons theWaters,” Hartford Courant,Nov. 9, 2005.

75. Richard Saltus, “Oki-nawans, the World’sLongest-Lived People,Have a Lot to Teach Amer-

icans,” The Boston Globe,May 21, 2001, p. A14.

76. Jerry Hagstrom, “KirkSupports Forcing Coun-tries to Comply withTrade Agreements,” Ag-week, Jun. 1, 2009.

77. “Editorial: Meat and thePlanet,” New York Times,Dec. 27, 2006.

Livestock’s Long Shadow,FAO/UN, 2006.

78. Handbook of LivestockManagement Techniques(see #52), p. 196.

79. “A Billion Frogs onWorld’s Plates,” BBCNews, Jan. 22, 2009.

80. Tom Horton and HeatherDewar, “Seeds of Solution toNitrogen Glut” and “Feed-ing the World, Poisoningthe Planet,” BaltimoreSun, Sep 28 and 24, 2000.

David Tilman, et al.,“Forecasting Agricultur-ally Driven Global Envi-ronmental Change,”Science, April 13, 2001,pp. 281–84.

81. Mark Bittman, “Rethink-ing the Meat-Guzzler,”New York Times, Jan. 27,2008.

82. “Smogburgers Would BeOut Under Air-QualityPlan,” San Jose MercuryNews, Sep. 6, 1994, p. 3B.

“These Few Tips MakeFood Cooked on the GrillHealthier,” The Wall StreetJournal, Jun. 2, 1997,p. B1.

83. Livestock’s Long Shadow,FAO/UN, 2006.

“Cattle Ranching Is En-croaching on Forests inLatin America CausingSevere EnvironmentalDegradation,” FAO/UN,Jun. 8, 2005.

84. M.C. Appleby, ed., et al,Long Distance Transportand Welfare of Farm Ani-mals, CABI, 2008.

85. Michael Klaper, A Diet forAll Reasons (video), Insti-

tute of Nutrition Educa-tion and Research, 1993.

“An Abandoned DrugOffers Hope for HeartPatients, Study Finds,”New York Times, Aug. 7,1997, p. A19.

86. Melinda Fulmer, “Study:System for Seafood SafetyInspections Flawed,” LosAngeles Times, Feb. 14,2001.

J.R. Pegg, “ConsumersWrestle with MixedSeafood Messages,” ENS,Feb. 20, 2003.

87. “Humankind’s ClosestLiving Relatives on theBrink of Extinction,”UNESCO, Rel. #97,Nov. 24, 2003.

88. Robbin Marks,Cesspools of Shame,NRDC, Jul. 2002, p. 18.

Gert-Jan Monteny,“Quantify [sic] AmmoniaEmissions from Buildings,Stores, and Land Applica-tion,” Conference: Live-stock Farming and theEnvironment, Germany,Sep. 28–29, 2000.

89. Kerry Bowman, “PleaseDon’t Eat the Animals,”Globe and Mail (Canada),Jul. 7, 2003.

90. Neal Barnard, Foods ThatFight Pain, Three RiversPress, 1998.

91. “New York Cracks Downon Mystery Meats,” AP,Dec. 2, 2006.

92. “Commercial Fishing,”Modern Marvels, The His-tory Channel, Dec. 2004.

Factsheets, ejfoundation.org, viewed Mar. 31,2007.

93. “Pigs in Hell,” Viva!LIFE,Summer 2001, p. 2.

Matthew Scully, “Don’tTolerate the Cruelty onHog Farms,” St. PetersburgTimes, Sep. 29, 2002.

94. J.J. Miller, “Impact ofFeedlots on Water Qual-ity,” 34th Annual West-ern Canada Trace Organic

Workshop, Calgary, Al-berta, Apr. 28, 1999.

Marla Cone, “Feedlot Ef-fluent Damaging Fish, Re-port Claims,” Los AngelesTimes, Dec. 11, 2003.

Rebecca Renner, “Hor-mones Pose an Environ-mental Risk?” Environ-mental Science & Technol-ogy, May 1, 2002.

Janet Raloff, “Hormones:Here’s the Beef,” ScienceNews, Jan. 5, 2002, p. 10.

95. “Water,” Modern Marvels,The History Channel,2006.

96. “Diet Credited for Fall inPolish Heart Deaths,”Reuters, Apr. 6, 1998.

97. Marshall Sella, “The FoieGras Revolt,” New York,Jun. 27, 2005.

Lawrence Downes, “Faceto Face with the Foie GrasProblem,” New YorkTimes, Jun. 26, 2005.

Factsheet, United PoultryConcerns, Machipongo, VA.

98. “Fishing at Sea ClaimsMore Than 70 Lives aDay, FAO Says,” FAO/UN,Jan. 25, 2001.

Eric Schlosser, “TheChain Never Stops,”Mother Jones,Jul./Aug. 2001.

Jo Campbell, “Justice WillPrevail, Perdue Will Not!”Ecotopics, May 24, 1998.

Kamyar Enshayan, “Wa-terloo’s Model of LocalFood,” Edible Iowa RiverValley,” Fall 2006, p. 13.

99. Factsheet, CIWF.

“Fifty Years of Researchfor the Growing World,”ARS/USDA, Nov. 10,2003.

100. Lindsey Tanner, “Vegeta-bles May Keep BrainsYoung,” AP, Oct. 24,2006.

101. Lester R. Brown, “Timefor Plan B,” New YorkPress, Sep. 10, 2003.

Please buy and distribute this pamphlet.All orders in U.S. dollars. The first copy is $3.

Additional copies: 75¢ each. • 25 copies: $15.50 copies: $20. • 100 copies: $35. • 400 copies: $130.

Delivered postage-paid. • Make checks payable to VivaVegie Society.Name:______________________________Date:______________Address: ______________________________________________City: _____________________________________________________________State: ______ Zip: __________FOREIGN ORDERS: Add 35% to cover s/h; maximum quantity:100 copies.

ENCLOSED FIND (U.S.)$____________ . Herewith, also, is a tax-deductibledonation to support the work of the VivaVegie Society: (U.S.)$____________.

Order online with PayPal: www.vivavegie.org/VivaVegie Society, P.O. Box 1447, New York, NY 10276

VivaVegie Society is a 501(c)3, nonprofit organization.

INC.SOCIETYP.O. Box 1447Cooper StationNew York, NY 10276www.VivaVegie.org

T his document isall about ethicalchoices. Once

you are aware of these“reasons,” your con-science will never beable to ignore them,

even if you never become a vegan.My “101 Reasons Why I’m a Vegetar-

ian” does not spare the reader. And as isoften the case with the truth, whatyou’ll find here is not always pretty. Ifyou just take the time to read this docu-ment, you will forever know that eatingmeat is not without many ugly, thoughoften unseen, consequences.

The marketers behind animal-derived foods are calculated intheir quest to hide the things I re-veal here. It is their mission tokeep you disconnected from therealities behind your food. Theyare particularly intent on havingyou see animals as little morethan abstractions.

If I’ve done my job, how-ever, “101 Reasons...” will re-connect you by making it clearthat in exchange for a mo-ment of perceived pleasure,you not only bring misery to some cor-ner of the world, your survival has noth-ing to do with it. There are, in fact, nonutritional requirements to consumemeat, and, on the contrary, animalfoods are likely to impede good health.If you find yourself “sold” by my“mighty convincer,” I guarantee you

will discover that this way of life is infact a wonderful one that actually opensdoors on foods, rather than shuts them.

—PAMELA RICE

History of theVivaVegie Society

The VivaVegie Society is a non-profit, 501(c)3, organization,dedicated to public education

about vegetarianism. When the groupwas formed in 1991, its objective wasvegetarian street advocacy—reachingout to New York City pedestrians withthe group’s hallmark publication, “101Reasons Why I’m a Vegetarian.” Then,as now, founder Pamela Rice would

wear a signboard—cre-ated by her sister, JuliaFauci—that reads “AskMe Why I’m a Vegetar-

ian.” And people would!

VivaVegie makes ap-pearances at street

events in New York Citywhere it knows it can findgreat numbers of people.Thanks to a gift from cos-tume designer Janet Bloor, the grouphas enjoyed the use of a giant “peapod” suit (see left) to draw interest fromthe crowds. One recent year at theEaster Parade, VivaVegie handed out—to willing, inquisitive recipients—2,000copies of “101 Reasons Why I’m a Vege-tarian” in only three hours.

In 1992, VivaVegie began publishingits own magazine, The VivaVine. And in1999, the group opened a vegetariancenter, which it continues to maintain.VivaVegie regularly enjoys coverage ofits activities—in the past, most notably,

from CNN, AP, The New YorkTimes, WNYC-Radio, The NewYorker, New York magazine, Time-Out, and New York 1.

Author Pamela Rice gives talkson government subsidies to themeat industry, the environmen-tal impact of society’s meat-cen-tered diet, overfishing, and thevegan argument in general. She’sbeen running the Veggie Center

continuously since 1999. But ulti-mately, she was the organizer of theVeggie Pride Parade, NYC (2008 and2009), which has turned out to be anincredible success. The 2008 event, inparticular, gained widespread and ex-tensive mainstream media. Call 212-871-9304 for more information.

Post-parade rally & expo, Veggie Pride Parade, 2009, UnionSquare Park. Photo by Claudia Rose Emmerson

Pamela Rice

Just ask her! Photo taken byGina Green at the Veggie PrideParade, 2008.

Purchase this flyer. Find a useful order form on 2nd page of the references (back of this page).

101 Reasons Why I’m a VegetarianEIGHT EDITIONS • 225,000 COPIES IN CIRCULATION

Veggie Pride Parade • NYC • www.veggieprideparade.org

A book-length version of “101 Reasons...” is also available: www.vivavegie.com/101

Penelo Pea Pod(Jean Thaler)