Ethics, Beauty, and Health – Saving the Earth, One Veggie Burger at a Time

Posted by admin in Becoming Vegetarian on Mar 1st, 2010 | 0 comments

By now you’ve learned pretty much everything you need to know about becoming a vegetarian, from ethics to nutrition to meal planning. Just don’t forget one of the biggest reasons that living a vegetarian lifestyle is a wonderful choice: what you eat affects the rest of the world.

Consider the effect of a nonvegetarian society on the planet:

Water and soil damage. Two hundred and sixty million acres of U.S. forests have disappeared, to make room for cropland to farm meat. Producing one pound of beef requires at least 2,500 gallons of water. The manufacture of a single hamburger patty takes enough fossil fuel to drive a small car 25 miles. It takes less water to produce a year’s worth of food for a vegetarian than to produce one month’s food for a nonvegetarian. Factory farms damage the environment in addition to the horrors they commit on the animals that they raise and slaughter. They use large quantities of fossil fuels and fresh water, and pollute the earth in return.

In 2000, the World Commission on Water predicted that the increase in water use in the future due to rising population will “impose intolerable stresses on the environment, leading not only to a loss of biodiversity, but also to a vicious circle in which the stresses on the ecosystem will no longer provide the necessary services for plants and people.” Ideas like that haven’t disappeared nearly a decade later. By 2050, 59 percent of the world population will face some type of water shortage according to a 2009 study by the Stockholm Environment Institute.

Did you know that 85 percent American topsoil—over five billion tons—is lost annually due to the raising of livestock, and twenty-six billion tons of topsoil is lost annually on agricultural land worldwide? In the United States, one-third of the cropland has been permanently destroyed due to excessive soil erosion. By switching to a vegetarian diet, you alone spare an acre of trees every year.

Millions of acres of forests and wetlands have been leveled and drained to create pastures to feed the animals butchered for meat, destroying habitats for wildlife and disrupting the ecological balance. Irrigation of these pastures and croplands uses vast quantities of water, our most precious resource, and the water that runs off these lands takes with it irreplaceable topsoil, turning millions of acres of lush cropland into desert. Along with waste products from factory farming and slaughterhouses, runoff from agribusinesses contributes more pollution than all other human activities combined. The natural waste produced each year by the dairy cows in the 50-square-mile area of California’s Chino Basin, for example, would make a pile with the dimension of a football field. When it rains heavily, dairy manure is washed straight down into the Santa Ana River and into the aquifer that supplies half of Orange County’s drinking water.

A cultural shift toward vegetarianism would mean fewer animals in factory farms and feedlots, far less manure produced, and far cleaner water. It would also mean that our water would be healthier and far less likely to contain dangerous pathogens from animal waste. It would be a major step toward restoring the life-giving waters of our planet. The choices we make directly affect our water supply, both on the earth and in our bodies. Every time you eat plant foods instead of meat, you are helping to reduce water pollution. Each of us is responsible for our own actions.

Depletion of rain forests. Between 1960 and 1985, nearly 40 percent of all Central American rain forests were destroyed to create pasture for beef cattle. That destruction, unfortunately, didn’t end with the passing of the millennium. Experts now suggest the remaining rain forests will be eliminated over the course of the next forty years. As the primary source of oxygen for the entire planet, the survival of the rain forests is inextricably linked with the survival of mankind. The unique flora and fauna found in the rain forests provide ingredients for many medicines used to treat and cure human illnesses, and scientists are continuing to find new medicines as they discover new plants available only in these regions; yet approximately one thousand species go extinct every year due to destruction of tropical rain forests. By destroying the rain forests, we may be destroying the chance to cure AIDS, cancer, or influenza.

Poison in the atmosphere. The burning of fossil fuels creates two-thirds of carbon dioxide emissions worldwide, and two hundred gallons of fossil fuel are burned to produce the beef currently eaten by the average American family of four each year. Burning two hundred gallons of fossil fuel releases two tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere; by switching to a vegetarian diet, you’re cutting back on the amount of pollution in the air. In 2001, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change published a report that global warming was a much more serious issue than they had originally thought, five years previously. Newer reports indicate that the next century is likely to bring about a 2.7 to 11 degree change, causing massive alteration in weather patters and natural global disasters. Studies have shown that the year 2019 (which is right around the corner!) is the last turning point we can make to fight global warming. After that, the trend would be irreversible, which means complete disaster for mankind! The ice that is normally present in places like Greenland could melt completely. If Greenland ice does melt completely, it will increase sea level worldwide by at least seven meters, which would mean disaster to coastal cities like New York and Boston. The need for change in the way we eat and treat our planet has never been more urgent.

Poison in the workplace. The air inside factory farms contains a dangerous combination of ammonia, hydrogen sulfide, bacteria, and decomposing fecal matter. A joint study by the University of Iowa and the American Lung Association concluded that 70 percent of the workers in indoor facilities on factory pig farms experience symptoms of respiratory illness. Chronic bronchitis is suffered by over 50 percent of all swine confinement workers, which is three times that of farmers who work in outdoor facilities. The turnover rate of workers in these conditions is understandably very high, and in some cases, the owners of the factory farms have had to sell their businesses because they themselves were unable to work in their own farms.

Consider this the next time you’re complaining about your job: the decomposing waste from pigpens is collected in pits below, causing a build-up of hydrogen sulfide. According to the American Lung Association report, “Animals have died and workers have become seriously ill in confinement buildings. Several workers have died when entering a pit during or soon after the emptying process to repair pumping equipment. Persons attempting to rescue these workers have also died.” The pigs living in these conditions breathe those toxic fumes every minute of their short lives. Animals living in these conditions regularly contract pneumonia and other respiratory illnesses—yet another reason why they’re pumped full of antibiotics.

Economics. Raising animals for food is—to put it bluntly—a stupid way to feed a hungry world. Livestock in the United States consume enough grain and soybeans to feed more than five times the nation’s population. One acre of pasture produces an average of 165 pounds of beef; the same acre could produce twenty thousand pounds of potatoes. If Americans reduced their consumption of meat by just 10 percent, it would save twelve million tons of grain annually. That much grain could feed sixty million people each year.

Eating Ethically

In reading this book, I hope that you’ve garnered some important ideas about why it makes good sense for your health and for the environment to live a vegetarian lifestyle. But there’s another, very important reason: eating meat is, for lack of a better word, immoral.

All animals are living creatures with thoughts and emotions. They feel pain, just like you do. Vegans and vegetarians believe that animals are sensitive beings, not just things to be grown and slaughtered as we see fit. Vegans follow the strictest lifestyle in this regard and, even if you’re not yet ready to take that path, it’s worth considering the choices they make. Vegans don’t eat anything from animal origin, including meat, eggs, dairy products, and honey. They don’t wear leather or wool, and they don’t use products made by companies that experiment on animals. They “walk the talk,” as the saying goes, living by their principles and eschewing all products that involve the death and suffering of animals.

Every year, billions of animals—sensitive, sentient beings that feel intense pain and suffering — are transformed into food products in a world where we can very easily get all the nutrition we need from plant foods. Their misery is completely unnecessary. We do not need to kill animals to live, we kill animals simply because we believe we have the right to do so. Vegans and vegetarians can’t stop these atrocities from happening, but they can refuse to participate in the process.

It’s no coincidence that many of the world’s great religions have espoused vegetarianism as part of the journey to enlightenment. There are stories of great spiritual leaders who had the road in front of them gently swept as they walked so that they wouldn’t accidentally step on an insect on the road. Some spiritually advanced Yogis have evolved their morals to the point where they can’t bear to swat a mosquito. The progress of moral values is a long evolution, begun when a small minority of people adopted values which would eventually be adopted by the rest of society. If you have natural empathy for animals and if you can’t bear to eat their flesh, then live by the courage of your convictions; display your feelings and empathy for animals by refusing to contribute to their suffering.

Beautiful Inside and Outside

Eating a vegetarian diet will help you live longer, as you’re avoiding foods that create free radicals in your system which hasten the aging process. You’ll look younger longer because of this, and your skin and hair will glow with good health. But the biggest beauty benefit is the one that comes from within—the radiance that comes from living an ethical, more spiritual life.

You don’t have to be religious to be spiritual. You don’t even have to believe in any sort of divine power. But take a moment to think about the connection between the great religions and respect for animals.

There’s a reason that so many people who are concerned about man’s warring nature are also vegetarians. When you are conscious that animals have souls—that they’re alive, and conscious, and feel pain—how can you kill them unnecessarily? If you believe that animals think and feel and suffer, then you believe in the soul and, therefore, that all living things are spiritual in essence.

On a more pragmatic note, animals are tortured in terrible ways in slaughterhouses. Pigs scream in fear, often dropping dead due to heart attack because of the terror they experience on the killing floor. The adrenalin produced in these animals’ bodies when they’re under such intense stress permeates every part of them, producing toxins that are passed on into the animal products that nonvegetarians consume. People who eat meat produced under such conditions can’t help but be affected by them—and they, in turn, interact with the people around them while these substances are in their own bodies.

The Karma Connection

Some Buddhists, who believe in the concept of karma, are not vegetarians. It’s certainly recommended for them to avoid eating meat, but not required. Many Buddhists around the world choose a vegetarian lifestyle, though, because they feel strongly that it connects to the laws of karma.

In a nutshell, karma is the concept that what goes around comes around. If, as individuals, we want to bring peace, harmony, and unity to the world, it simply doesn’t make sense to contribute to the world’s violence by killing animals. Violence breeds violence, whether it’s the killing of animals, muggings in the street, murders, or wars between nations. The Nobel Prize winner Isaac Bashevis Singer once asked, “How can we pray to God for mercy if we ourselves have no mercy? How can we speak of rights and justice if we take an innocent creature and shed its blood? I personally believe that as long as human beings will go on shedding the blood of animals, there will never be any peace.”

Buddhists believe that we affect and are affected by a collective karma. Karma works like a spiritual bank account—if you’ve caused bad karma, you’ll be reborn as a lesser being, like an animal or a demon. If you live a moral life, however, and spread good karma during your time on earth, you’ll be reborn as a human—or even, should you attain enlightenment, a Buddha. The Buddha once said, “… if in the process of repayment, the lives of other beings were taken or their flesh eaten, then it will start a cycle of mutual devouring and slaughtering that will send the debtors and creditors up and down endlessly.”

As one story goes, a disciple of the Buddha asked a man why he kept buying meat from the butcher. The man replied that he bought meat because the butcher kept selling meat. So the disciple then asked the butcher why he sold meat, and the butcher answered that he did so because the man kept buying it. The Buddha said that both men were lacking in compassion and wisdom.

Supply and demand is the foundation of economy. The cycle of meat consumption and animal slaughtering is a complex network of interdependence. By becoming a vegetarian, you’re doing your part to stop the violence.

Making Healthy Food Choices for the Planet

Everything—every animal, plant, and person—is interconnected. What you choose to eat not only affects your body, it affects the planet and every living thing on it as well. We may believe that it is the economy that provides us with food, air, water, and energy. The truth is that it’s the earth that provides us with all of these things. And if we continue to abuse the earth in such a way, those things that we have taken for granted will eventually cease to exist. We will undermine our own survival if we continue to pollute the air and water, destroy natural rain forests, and produce destructive greenhouses gasses. Thankfully, an environmental awareness movement is taking place. People are more aware of how they treat the planet, and this includes what they choose to eat.

Consider this: is a quarter pound of hamburger worth a half ton of Brazil’s rain forest? Or perhaps 67 square feet of rain forest is a little too much to pay for one hamburger. Put in that context, that one hamburger pales in comparison. We need the earth’s forests more than we need a hamburger fix. They are the source of oxygen for every life on the planet. They regulate our climates, prevent floods, and check soil erosion. They recycle and purify our water. They provide wood for paper and buildings and fires. We need our forests to survive. Recycling is only half of the battle. Cutting down meat consumption from cattle farms and the like, is the other half.

If we eat less meat, the majority of land out west in the United States could be used as a sustainable, environmentally friendly resource, rather than for cattle farming. Large solar energy and wind-power facilities could be built instead, generating enormous amounts of energy without the side effect of pollution. Land that isn’t used could serve as a natural wildlife refuge and habitat. Any shift toward a vegetarian lifestyle would have an immense positive impact, not only on the country but also on the world. Life would continue for many species on the cusp of extinction.

The Future for Food, People, and Earth

There is far more at stake here than some people care to realize. Becoming a vegetarian is only a key element to the overall picture. Whether we embrace what is occurring or not, the choices we make (as individuals and as a whole) will have a profound effect on the future of our species and on earth. When you make the choice to respect the food on our planet, you are choosing to help uphold the spirit, natural beauty, and interconnectedness of the earth. You become an integral part in the preservation of all life forms and will help to build a healthier and more sustainable future for generations to come.

Unfortunately, we do not have the luxury of time to turn things around for our planet and our human race. According to many scientific research studies, and a documentary called Home, we have only until 2019 before we pass the point of no return. This means that we have to act now. Every time you choose to eat plant-based foods instead of meat, you are making a conscious choice to help the environment. It is as if you are taking the time to plant trees every day of your life in order to create a greener and a much healthier future for life everywhere. Choosing to eat consciously now will allow the children of the future to learn to live harmoniously with the natural ecosystems of the world. We can save the world, one vegetarian at a time.