Nightmares for a Week

Ten reasons to go vegan:

veganism-ftw:

• 1) Animal products are unnecessary.
• 2) What you eat is a learned habit.
• 3) Much healthier to avoid meat and dairy products.
• 4) Much more environmentally friendly to eat a vegan diet.
• 5) Feed more people on a plant diet than animal based one.
• 6) Using animals is incredibly cruel. Why force any pain?
• 7) Religion/ spiritual reasons “Thou shalt not kill.”
• 8) Saves money….
• 9) Reduces National debt.
• 10) Vegan food tastes great!

Via VeganWolf

(Source: we-are-all-earthlings)

nefffy:

Ignore the anti-soya scaremongers

Soya is the great divider; you’re either for it, or against it. Is this humble pulse really such a demon bean, or is the anti-soya brigade using scare stories and pseudo science to further their own agenda? If you look carefully, most anti-soya stories can be traced back to one single group in the US called the Weston A Price Foundation (WAPF).

WAPF claims to be dedicated to promoting good nutrition by restoring nutrient-dense animal products to the diet – particularly unpasteurised “raw” whole milk. It claims that saturated animal fat is essential for good health and that animal fat intake and high cholesterol levels have no link with heart disease or cancer. They say that vegetarians have lower life expectancy than meat-eaters, and that historically humans have always eaten large amounts of animal fat. All this, of course, contradicts all the leading health advisory bodies in the world, including the World Health Organisation, American Dietetic Association and the British Medical Association.

This US-based fringe organisation is bent on citing scientifically flawed studies to promote their own agenda and has influenced a vast number of consumers, duping them into thinking of soya as some sort of dietary pariah.

 The soya story dates back to New Zealand in the early 1990s, when a successful lawyer, Richard James, a millionaire on a mission, approached toxicologist Mike Fitzpatrick and asked him to investigate what was killing his expensive parrots (very Monty Python, I know). Anyway, Fitzpatrick agreed it was soya and has since campaigned vigorously against it as a food for humans –nonsense, since people have been eating soya for 3,000 years.

I have been interviewed for Radio New Zealand with Mike Fitzpatrick who campaigns against soya there. He was so aggressive they couldn’t broadcast the interview. Fitzpatrick is a supporter of WAPF (actually an honorary board member).

Another of the organisation’s supporters is a man called Dr Stephen Byrnes, who published an article in the Ecologist magazine claiming that vegetarianism is unhealthy and is destroying the environment. He boasted of his high animal fat diet and robust health – and, unfortunately, died of a stroke at 42. There were more than 40 scientific inaccuracies in the said article, including the direct misquoting of scientific studies. Incidentally, the editor of the Ecologist, Zac Goldsmith, is also an honorary board member of the WAPF.

Another of the organisation’s supporters, Kaayla Daniel PhD, sits on the board of directors and has written an entire book attacking soya (The Whole Soy Story). Curiously, this group appears to spend more time attacking soya than promoting the foods they say we should be eating (unpasteurised “raw” milk, cream, cheese, eggs, liver, etc).

One of the concerns raised about soya is that the phytoestrogens (plant hormones) found in soya foods may disrupt sexual development and affect fertility. If there was any evidence for this in humans at all, the UK government would have banned soya infant formula or at least issued health warnings.

Even after commissioning a 440-page investigation into the safety of soya – they have not issued such warnings because there was no evidence for any harmful effect. The 2003 Department of Health’s committee on toxicity report acknowledged that there was no evidence that people who regularly eat high quantities of soya, such as the Chinese and Japanese, have altered sexual development or impaired fertility. It should be remembered that China is the world’s most populous nation, with over 1.3 billion citizens, and who have been consuming soya for over 3,000 years.

In reality, there is no scientific evidence that the consumption of soya is harmful to humans. The majority of what the WAPF says is anecdotal, untrue or based on scientifically flawed animal experiments. First, phytoestrogens behave differently in different species, so animal studies are not applicable to humans. Second, the intestines act as a barrier to phytoestrogens, so artificially boosting levels in animals by injection has no relevance. Finally, many of these experiments have exposed animals to phytoestrogens at levels many, many times higher than those absorbed by people eating soya.

More and more scientists and doctors are acknowledging that the results of animal experiments should not form the basis of a public health policy.Dr Kenneth Setchell, professor of paediatrics at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, states that mice, rats and monkeys all metabolise soya isoflavones differently from humans and that the only appropriate model for examining human reproductive development is the human infant. About 25% of infants in the US are fed soya formula. Many of them are now well into their late 30s and early 40s. The absence of any reported ill-effects would suggest there are none, either biological or clinical.

In fact, soya beans contain a wide range of valuable nutrients and are an excellent source of protein. Evidence shows that soya protein lowers cholesterol and protects against cardiovascular disease. Soya foods protect against diabetes, menopausal hot flushes and certain cancers. There is good evidence that eating soya foods in adolescence and as an adult lowers the risk of breast cancer. Recent evidence showed that this protective effect of soya also applies to women who have been diagnosed with breast cancer. Soya foods may also help boost bone health and cognitive ability in some people. The number of peer-reviewed scientific studies reporting the beneficial health effects of soya continues to grow.

As a last resort, the soya detractors have attempted to condemn soya by citing the environmental impact soya farming is having on the Amazonian rain forest. They are quite right to be concerned, but people eating soya is not the problem; 80% of the world’s soya production is fed to livestock so that people can eat meat and dairy foods.

Both the rain forests and our health would benefit tremendously if more people switched from animal-based foods to a more plant-based diet, including soya.

The next time you hear some daft story about soya wreaking havoc on human health or the environment, ask where the evidence is.

The Hunger Argument

Number of people worldwide who will die of starvation this year: 60 million
Number of people who could be adequately fed with the grain saved if Americans reduced their intake of meat by 10%: 60 million
Human beings in America: 243 million
Number of people who could be fed with grain and soybeans now eaten by U.S. livestock: 1.3 billion
Percentage of corn grown in the U.S. eaten by people: 20
Percentage of corn grown in the U.S. eaten by livestock: 80
Percentage of protein wasted by cycling grain through livestock: 90
How frequently a child starves to death: every 2 seconds
Pounds of potatoes that can be grown on an acre: 20,000
Pounds of beef produced on an acre: 165
Percentage of U.S. farmland devoted to beef production: 56
Pounds of grain and soybeans needed to produce a pound of feedlot beef: 16

The Environmental Argument

Cause of global warming: greenhouse effect
Primary cause of greenhouse effect: carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels
Fossil fuels needed to produce a meat-centered diet vs. a meat-free diet: 50 times more
Percentage of U.S. topsoil lost to date: 75
Percentage of U.S. topsoil loss directly related to livestock raising: 85
Number of acres of U.S. forest cleared for cropland to produce meat-centered diet: 260 mllion
Amount of meat U.S. imports annually from Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras
and Panama: 200,000,000 pounds
Average per capita meat consumption in Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras
and Panama: less than eaten by average U.S. house cat
Area of tropical rainforest consumed in every quarter-pound hamburger: 55 sq. ft
Current rate of species extinction due to destruction of tropical rainforests for meat grazing and other uses: 1000 per year

The Cancer Argument

Increased risk of breast cancer for women who eat meat four times a week vs. less than once a week: 4 times
For women who eat eggs daily vs. less than once a week: 3 times
For women who eat butter and cheese 3 or more times a week vs. less than once: 3 times
Increased risk of fatal ovarian cancer for women who eat eggs 3 or more times a week vs. less than once a week: 3 times
Increased risk of fatal prostate cancer for men who consume meat, cheese, eggs and milk daily vs. sparingly or not at all: 3.6 times

The Natural Resources Argument

User of more than half of all water used for all purposes in the U.S.: livestock production
Amount of water used in production of the average cow: sufficient to float a destroyer
Gallons to produce a pound of wheat: 25
Gallons to produce a pound of meat: 2,500
Cost of common hamburger if water used by meat industry was not subsidized by the U.S. taxpayer: $35 a pound
Current cost of a pound of protein from beefsteak, if water was no longer subsidized: $89.
Years the world’s known oil reserves would last if every human ate a meat-centered diet: 13
Years they would last if human beings no longer ate meat: 260
Barrels of oil imported into U.S. daily: 6.8 million
Percentage of fossil fuel energy returned as food energy by the most efficient factory farming of meat: 34.5 percent.
Percentage returned from least efficient plant food: 328 percent
Perccentage of raw materials consumed by U.S. to produce present meat-centered diet: 33

The Cholesterol Argument

Number of U.S. Medical Schools: 125
Number requiring a course in nutrition: 30
Nutrition training received by average U.S. physician during four years in medical school: 2.5 hours
Most common cause of death in the U.S.: heart attack
How frequently a heart attack kills in the U.S.: every 45 seconds
Average U.S. man’s risk of death from heart attack: 50 percent
Risk for average U.S. man who avoids the meat centered diet: 15 percent
Risk for average U.S. man who consumes no meat, dairy products or eggs at all: 4 percent
Amount you reduce risk of heart attack if you reduce consumption of meat, dairy products and eggs by 10 percent: 9 percent
Amount you reduce risk if you reduce consumption by 50 percent: 45 percent
Amount you reduce risk if you eliminate these foodstuffs from your diet entirely: 90 percent
Meat, dairy and egg industries claim you should not be concerned about your blood cholesterol if it is: “normal”
Your risk of dying of a disease caused by clogged arteries if your blood cholesterol is “normal”: over 50 percent

The Antibiotic Argument

Percentage of U.S. antibiotics fed to livestock: 55
Percentage of staphylococci infections resistant to penicillin in 1960: 13
Percentage resistant in 1988: 91
Response of European Economic Community to routine feeding of antibiotics to livestock: ban
Response of U.S. meat and pharmaceutical industries to routine feeding of antibiotics to livestock: full and complete support

The Pesticide Argument

Percentage of pesticide residues in the U.S. diet supplied by grains: 1
Percentage of pesticide residues in the U.S. diet supplied by fruits: 4
Percentage of pesticide residues in the U.S. diet supplied by vegetables: 6
Percentage of pesticide residues in the U.S. diet supplied by dairy products: 23
Percentage of pesticide residues in the U.S. diet supplied by meat: 55
Pesticide contamination of breast milk from meat eating mothers vs. non-meat eating: 35 times higher
What USDA tells us: meat is inspected
Percentage of slaughtered animals inspected for residues of toxic chemicals including dioxin and DDT: less than 0.00004

The Ethical Argument

Number of animals killed for meat per hour in the U.S.: 500,000
Occupation with highest turnover rate in U.S.: slaughterhouse worker
Occupation with the highest rate of on-the-job injury in U.S.: slaughterhouse worker
Cost to render animal unconscious with “captive bolt pistol” before slaughter: 1 cent
Reason given by meat industry for not using “captive bolt pistol”: too expensive

(Source)

Anonymous asked: what is your best justification for why EVERYONE IN THE WORLD SHOULD BE VEGAN? I am a happy, meat-eating person. Try and persuade me without the pretentious elitist response of your typical xvxer (“you don’t deserve to know why you should be vegan. go die”).

asleeplessmindxvx:

1. World Hunger: A 10 percent reduction in our meat consumption could feed every man, woman, and child on earth. It takes up to 16 pounds of grain to produce 1 pound of meat. 

2. The Water Crisis: A pound of beef requires over 5000 gallons of water to produce, compared to the 26 gallons of water required to produce a pound of tomatoes. 

3. Deforestation: More than 60% of old growth forests have been cleared worldwide to produce beef for North America alone. 

4. Climate Change:  Producing one calorie from animal protein requires 11 times more fossil fuels, and emits 11 times more carbon dioxide as does producing one calorie from plant protein. Animal agriculture is the single largest source of methane (20 times more efficient at trapping heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide) emissions in the United States. Worldwide, the meat, egg, and dairy industries are responsible for 65% of nitrous oxide emissions, which is about 300 times more damaging than carbon dioxide. Still don’t care? Think lower gas prices. 

5. Shit: Lots of it. Roughly 89,000 pounds of excrement is produced by animals raised for food every second… in the United States alone. The runoff from factory farms pollutes our waterways more than all other industrial sources combined

(taken from brittydrake)

also, since it’s winter break soon take time out of your day to watch Earthlings

(Source: obscenegestur, via radicalvegans)