Animals

You did a great job on this piece.  When people say I am 'extreme' --- I say 'if you want to see something extreme, visit a factory farm' then come back and tell me what you think.

"It is about nonviolence. It is about compassion. It is about not harming and not causing suffering and not killing when we don't have to."

Additionally, it's about ending of human domination over non-human animals.  It's about ending the USE of non-humans by humans.

-Scott

I'm a graduate student currently doing research on the vegan movement.  My department has a heavy environmental emphasis.  Obviously, the AR movement pops up quite a bit in the research.  From what I've seen, the AR movement has not been seen as extreme or radical, but rather, certain aspects have been seen as such (PETA, ALF).  The AR movement is generally considered a "new" movement--really finding its feet around the 1980s.  It's also seen as an offshoot of the environmental movement.  All in all, academia generally recognizes the AR movement as a legitimate movement.  I think the "radical" and "extremist" labels generally come from those with little to no education on social movements who generally feel personally insulted or judged because they are afraid to stand in line with veganism, despite knowing it is the morally correct decision. 

Thank you, Stephanie, for taking the time to articulate what so many of use know to be true.  Although I have been vegan for a bit more than seven years and involved in animal issues even longer, I recently realized my veganism is more than a 'lifestyle' choice; it is my nature.

Thanks for the great work, Stephanie!  Having been in the movement now for 42 years, all I can say is what my hometown Bruce Springsteen sings "no retreat baby no surrender."  Sometimes I play this in my car and scream it out the window especially when passing slaughterhouses I have filmed inside of.

Bravo too for quoting my great friend of many years, Karen Davis of United Poultry Concerns.  I hope everyone will visit her website.

Very well said.

Wow, Stephanie, this was beautiful.  I fall into that trap too often as well...and you know, that's when I find myself feeling angry also.  I hadn't put it concretely into words like this, but I knew, from personal observation of how others reacted to me, that what I had to say was best received when I wasn't coming from a defensive position.

That goes for more than animal rights, now that I think of it, but I'm definitely going to have this in mind from now on.

Thanks so much for posting this.  Very valuable.

Well done Stephanie. This subject is something that I've been debating with people for some time now. My mom once said, "I think what you're doing is nice but you're too extreme." How can caring too much about what happens to other living, breathing, sentient individuals - especially when they're being abused or exploited - be considered extreme?

If anything, the things we do to animals - torturing them in labs, killing them for recreational entertainment and stealing them from their families and homes in the wild so we can look at them behind bars (not to mention eating them for fun) is appalling. You'd think a species that understands the concepts of suffering, and emotional and psychological distress would know better. 

Corey, the "extreme" label often comes from the changing of our diet - from a meat-based one to one that excludes so much (in the public's uneducated eyes, anyway). Giving up chicken wings, ice cream or cheese is so strange to some people, they view it as extreme. Try ordering a pizza without cheese and see what kind of looks you get. Or explain to someone why you don't eat honey and you'll see what I mean.

I WILL NEVER UNDERSTAND HOW ANYONE COULD EVER BE SO CRUL, INHUMANE AND HEARTLESS AS TO CAUSE PAIN TO ANOTHER LIVING, BREATHING AND FEELING CREATURE OF GOD!!!

"Credentials": Veg since 1972; vegan since 1984.

Don't know if I would call AR mainstream, but it is not "NOT CONSERVATIVE."  AR movement does not ask for govt. handouts, nor should it.  It hurts the AR movement, I feel, that it is generally associated with "liberal" agendas, when, in fact, it is (to my mind) more conservative than liberal.  America is a center-right country.  Michael Savage speaks out on cruelty quite a bit.  Rush Limbaugh recently did a Humane Society TV spot, I hear.  Liberal radio host Ed Schultz, on the other hand, is a damned hunter, and is no better than the despicable Ted Nugent.

Hey, Jake, very interesting reply.  Had no idea about Ed Schultz and someone just told me Paul Begala also is a hunter.  IF Rush Limbaugh really did an HSUS commercial, well, I'll be speechless.  I stopped following Savage years ago.  As someone who has stated recently that I can no longer be a person who works across the aisles, cannot stand to hear from another Republican, or from "independent Lieberman"  I am unthrilled with the Dems and Obama right now on AR and human rights issues.  And, I have to remember that once I sat in on a hearing held by the most conservative former PA Rep, Rick Santorum, who wanted us to testify about puppy mills so he could sponsor bills to help with that atrocity.  I guess I am disliking labels right now like liberal and conservative--maybe since none describe me.  But I do know of the Bush agenda which set us waaaaaay back and is carried out by Obama's Salazar, and I do know that I would love to pay for Sarah Palin to move permanently to her Russian backyard.  Peace.

In my experience, many of the people I come across that say they are for "animal rights" are actually for "animal welfare". It seems most people in the general population don't know that "animal welfare" and "animal rights" are different.

I am no vegan; but at the same time I cannot in good conscience eat meat from a factory farm.  All creatures deserve the best life we can give them until their end.  I have started to raise my own meat, ie turkeys, pigs, chickens and cows.  My animals will have pasture, be fed good non medicated feed, and treated humanly, and given as so far as possible a good death.  Pigs are so smart and so gentle they amaze me, to confine these intelligent and loving creatures reeks of barabism, to deny them the oppurtunity to explore, and socialize is torture.  Of course no animal should be inhumanly treated for our profit, and if humanity is judged by the way we treat animals than we are sadlly wanting.

My views, are very mixed, I'm an omnivore like a majority of the human species in human history. And, I will never be a vegan or vegetarian.

I believe the 'system' that currently processes animals for food is sloppy, dirty, and on the verge of introducing illnesses on a pandemic scale. When a Species of animal, is domesticated since the Neolithic, evolution has set it and no longer made them a 'feral' animal although they can still do quite a bit of harm.

PeTA and the ALF, in many if not all ways is nuts. The later 'liberates' animals from labs as well as farms (any farm in general). Many animals have no knowledge that they are being 'tortured', they are happy getting feed every day. Some on the literal extreme end think that humans are not a superior species (the details I won't get into because they will be heavily debated to no end).

These people hurt any kind of social community, it is predictable and expected, Al Queda is actually a perfect example of an extreme side of a masive social community (Islam). That believe in radical ideals that the community as a whole do not support.

It is a common and almost natural thing. (If that can sound Ironic)

I, again, strongly think that the companies can take a step back and say "Hey, this isn't clean, this is a danger to the people this might be going to.". At least I can hope.

With those that denounce hunting, there are methods to be a good and honourable hunter. Using a Compound Bow instead of a Rifle (or using a Long Bow than a Rifle or Compound Bow), using natural camouflage over synthetic patterns, and being a true sportsman rather than hunting and unappreciatively killing the animal for sport or killing the animal just to kill it. You gain a considerable respect for the animal's cunning and intelligence.

Will anything be done? Hard to tell. But, I would at least fight for severe reform of the system to clean up their act.

Enough of my rant. Shot my stuff outta the air, I don't care.

I became vegetarian for what I thought were ethical reasons in 1990, but as I delved deeper into yoga, Buddhism & ahimsa, it was easy to align my actions with my beliefs and finally become vegan in 2007.  What's so extreme about "saying" I'm kind & compassionate and then "acting" kind & compassionate?  Boggles the mind.  Crazy consistent behavior.

It's truly a journey, and I don't allow other people to choose my path for me (and caving to criticism is a way of giving that power to those people).

Thanks Stephanie!  Great piece.

Whenever someone says that veganism is extreme or that the philosophy of animal rights is extreme, I hear them telling me that they are ignorant. They are ignorant of animal suffering, they are ignorant of easy vegan choices, they are ignorant of mainstream vegans, they are ignorant of animal rights ethics, they are ignorant of the growing trend towards animal rights, they are ignorant of their own empathy and capacity to care...

So, my response is not "veganism isn't extreme."
My response is: education.

Stephanie-

I love this post! I read it just when I needed some encouragement:) I work in a car dealership with a bunch of meat head car salesmen. Last night I had a bit of an altercation with one of them. He asked me what I was making for dinner so I told him meatless BLT's. He laughed and said "You don't eat meat? That's so cute." and laughed some more. I was really mad and really offended but all I said back was "There is nothing cute or funny about it! You're rude!" haha the worse responsee ever!!! But after that he walked away and I thought of so many different better things that I could have responded with! I was so mad at myself for not explaining!! Instead I made myself seem like an angry and bitter animal rights activists with no knowledge to back up my purpose;( In the future I will stand my ground and explain for the animals!:) Thanks

I like to say that eating meat is extremely conservative. Meat-eaters so insist on more of the same.

Outstanding (again) Stephanie - this is a huge problem I've encountered for over 20 years.  My commentary on just this subject is why is it, that messengers of peace, are attacked, vilified and accused of being dangerous?   I have personally encountered this with so-called "friends" who over dinner, have raised their voices, become aggressive, and verbally attacked me for my vegan lifestyle.  Similarly, I live in a small northern New Hampshire community which boasts a wonderful solo AR activist who submits articles to our local small newspaper. All her articles are gentle, educational, non-threatening and encouraging. She has received death threats.  Doesn't this speak volumes about the human animal?  Yes Dorothy, the human animal must go the way of the dinosaur if the rest of the planet is to survive.  Now where did I place that extinction button?

Stephanie, I strongly object to your idea that veganism/animal rights is a mainstream idea, not an extremist one. For the whole history of the human race we have been omnivores, and even the rare, semi-vegetarian societies were caused by environmental circumstances that made meat hard to get. And those societies were not vegan, but vegetarian, and gladly ate meat on the rare occasions it was available. The truth is, a true vegan diet cannot sustain human life without supplements that are only obtainable from animal sources. You are, of course, welcome to believe whatever you like and malnourish yourself into an early death if you wish, but when you start advocating laws to force your veganism on the rest of us, that is unacceptable and unAmerican.

Great article, Stephanie.

Recently I saw a great peace on youtube where Dr. Steve Best analyzes the core differences between Animal Rights and other "radical" philosophies, fascinating hearing:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOetUYEFoxc

So well said.  THANK YOU!

So well said.  THANK YOU!

Nuttier than a fruitcake!

Well done Stephanie. This is a really great post. Thanks for speaking out.

This is an excellent article! So well said. Thank you Stephanie.

We need to fight for our legitimacy within this movement and outside of it.

Thank you for your continued work on behalf of the other group of true innocents in this world -- our animals.  As with every child, born and unborn, we have a God-given responsibility to care for every single one of them and let them live out their lives just as we expect to.

Great Post, except for one thing. Animal rights is NOT mainstream; but it SHOULD be mainstream for anyone who holds to a moral world-view.

Great article Stephanie! I don't think my first comment made it! Animal Rights IS mainstream for many of us but unfortunetly many people still see us as radical and sometimes even as terrorists for wanting to help animals.

Bravo again!

Hi Stephanie....

Fab post... i realized i do the same in certain situations, start my conversations with " i know it seems crazy.. mad ...etc"

Not no more... thank you... thank you very much

You star

kids are always horrified when they see the 'animal processing industry', slaughterhouses etc (where 'happy', free-range animals also generally go) - anyways, if it's natural (re ongoing refs to omnivore history) then why are they horrified? they ain't in trauma when we pull an apple off a tree (i know i've taught 1000s of children from all different kinds of cultural backgrounds and 'morality belief systems') - further, if a kid isn't repulsed by animal killing etc, they're marked as 'ones to watch' re violence - i'm yet to hear a sound argument that can persuade me humans killing animals is natural rather than habitual.

ps - how come 'natural omnivores' with their 'balanced' diets get sickness' that vegans don't and spend at least 5 times more time in hospital?

Stephanie, thanks for writing this. I agree with the sentiment of the article (we're really not crazy!), but not necessarily with how you're saying it.

I would define mainstream as reflecting the views of most people. As I commented above in reply to another comment, I feel that animal rights is not suported by most people, even though they may support being nice to animals (at least before killing them).

It seems to me that the animal rights movement takes the same principles as animal welfare, but applies them more consistenly and with a more critical eye to society and human behavior (I would call it constructive criticism).

In this respect, I liked this post--it's calling attention to marginalization, and supports a more positive outlook we activists can have regarding what we're doing. And it's definitely a good thing not to continually hedge ourselves out of the mainstream and allow ourselves to be marginalized as if we're not bringing a valid viewpoint to the table (pun not intended).

But compared to what is "normal" and "mainstream", we aren't quite it--however much a double-standard may be applied to us to judge and marginalize us, and ultimately avoid the issues we raise.

Not being mainstream isn't all a bad thing, and shouldn't be confused with the way we're considered very fringe by the mainstream--we're gaining momentum. The link to Steve Best probably gets at this (haven't seen it yet), but I would say we're extreme in the same way many other positions that are now mainstream once were (for example, the idea of abolishing slavery, representative gov't, and other classically 'liberal' ideas).

Certainly we are not out of our minds, and our stance is a logical, compassionate one. (Or malnourished--and I have a comment to add later regarding nutrition and veganism vs omnivory.)

I look forward to checking out more of your  posts.

A vegetarian since 1982, I attended my first anti-vivisection protest in the spring of 1985, as anti-apartheid demonstrations rocked the UC San Diego campus. I first got interested in promoting vegetarianism in mainstream society after reading John Robbins' Diet for a New America (1987).  Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, it makes veganism seem as reasonable and mainstream as recycling. 

Half the water consumed in the U.S. goes to irrigate land growing feed and fodder for livestock.  Huge amounts of water wash away their excrement.  U.S. livestock produce 20 times as much excrement as does the entire human population; creating sewage which is 10 to several hundred times more concentrated than raw domestic sewage.  Animal wastes cause 10 times more water pollution than does the U.S. human population; the meat industry causes three times as much harmful organic water pollution than the rest of the nation's industries combined.  Meat producers, the number one industrial polluters in our nation, contribute to half the water pollution in the United States. 
 
Joanna Macy, author of Despair and Personal Power in the Nuclear Age, depicts the advantages of America moving towards a vegan diet in her foreword to Diet for a New America: 
 
"The effects on our physical health are immediate.  The incidence of cancer and heart attack, the nation's biggest killers, drops precipitously.  So do many other diseases now demonstrably and causally linked to consumption of animal proteins and fats, such as osteoporosis... 
 
"The social, ecological, and economic consequences, as we Americans turn away from animal food products, are equally remarkable.  We find that the grain we previously fed to fatten livestock can now feed five times the U.S. population; so we have become able to alleviate malnutrition and hunger on a worldwide scale... 
 
"The great forests of the world, that we had been decimating for grazing purposes, begin to grow again.  Oxygen-producing trees are no longer sacrificed for cholesterol-producing steaks. 
 
"The water crisis eases.  As we stop raising and grinding up cattle for hamburgers, we discover that ranching and farm factories had been the major drain on our water resources.  The amount now available for irrigation and hydroelectric power doubles.  Meanwhile, the change in diet frees over 90% of the fossil fuel previously used to produce food.  With this liberation of water energy and fossil fuel energy, our reliance on oil imports declines, as does the rationale for building nuclear power plants..." 
 
Joanna Macy admits, "This scenario is wildly, absurdly utopian.  It is also clearly the way we are meant to live, built to live."  What could possibly make it a reality?  "It is this very book!"  

Roberta Kalechofsky of Jews for Animal Rights similarly says:

"Merely by ceasing to eat meat
 Merely by practicing restraint
 We have the power to end a painful industry

"We do not have to bear arms to end this evil
 We do not have to contribute money
 We do not have to sit in jail or go to
 meetings or demonstrations or
 engage in acts of civil disobedience

"Most often, the act of repairing the world,
 of healing mortal wounds,
 is left to heroes and tzaddikim (holy people)
 Saints and people of unusual discipline

"But here is an action every mortal can
 perform--surely it is not too difficult!"

When I first read Diet for a New America, I felt it could have the same kind of impact on mainstream American society that Frances Moore Lappe's Diet for a Small Planet had in the '70s. 
 
In writing his expose on the meat industry, John Robbins has been compared to Rachel Carson, Ralph Nader and other whistleblowers.  In Diet for a New America, he demonstrates how all the various causes that concern the left: healthcare, a sustainable energy policy, hunger, malnutrition, etc. are all taken care of in one fell swoop by a vegan diet.  I had the opportunity to meet John Robbins, in September 1988.  It was one of the most inspirational moments of my life!
 
He was heir to the Baskin-Robbins fortune.  He renounced it at a young age.  He traveled to India, opened a yoga ashram in Canada, etc.  He spoke of Gandhi and nonviolence.  His son Ocean Robbins founded Youth for Environmental Sanity (YES!) and is also dedicated to promoting veganism.  I asked John if he would try and get the American Left to support animal rights.  He told me that he had sent a copy of his book to Mother Jones, a left-liberal periodical published in San Francisco. 
 
Many on the Left are beginning to take a stand in favor of animal rights.  Joanna Macy spoke at the San Francisco Green Festival, in November 2005.  In his 1990 updated and revised edition of Animal Liberation, Australian philosopher Peter Singer writes that many of the political parties leaning towards the "Green" end of the political spectrum in Europe were beginning to oppose animal experimentation. 
 
John Robbins spoke before the United Nations in 1994, where he received a standing ovation.

No No No Adof Hitler was NOT a vegetarian.  This comment is commonly used by individuals for reasons known only to themselves.  Hitler instituted the classic factory farming and slaughterhouse industry used today by this nation and others.  He refined what the Spanish "created" hundreds of years ago.  Hitler was never a vegetarian and was in fact filmed on many occasions consuming meat products at banquets etc. 

In a 1996 article, "Nazis and Animals: Debunking the Myths," Roberta Kalechofsky of Jews for Animal Rights states that Hitler "had a special fondness for sausages and caviar, and sometimes ham," as well as "liver dumplings." Kalechofsky states further that the Nazis experimented on animals as well as humans in the concentration camps:

"The evidence of Nazi experiments on animals is overwhelming. In The Dark Face of Science, author John Vyvyan summed it up correctly: ‘The experiments made on prisoners were many and diverse, but they had one thing in common: all were in continuation of, or complementary to, experiments on animals. In every instance, this antecedent scientific literature is mentioned in the evidence, and at Buchenwald and Auschwitz concentration camps, human and animal experiments were carried out simultaneously as parts of a single programme.’"

Hitler’s so-called "vegetarianism" did not prevent Isaac Bashevis Singer from comparing humanity’s mass killing of 50 billion animals every year to the Nazi Holocaust. In 1987 he wrote, "This is my protest against the conduct of the world. To be a vegetarian is to disagree—to disagree with the course of things today. Nuclear power, starvation, cruelty—we must make a statement against these things. Vegetarianism is my statement. And I think it’s a strong one."

Isaac Bashevis Singer has also expressed the view that unnecessary violence against animals by human beings will only lead to further violence in human society:

"I personally believe that as long as human beings will go on shedding the blood of animals, there will never be any peace. There is only one little step from killing animals to creating gas chambers a’ la Hitler and concentration camps a’ la Stalin—all such deeds are done in the name of ‘social justice.’ There will be no justice as long as man will stand with a knife or with a gun and destroy those who are weaker than he is."

Although it is an agnostic moral philosophy (i.e., no recognition of a personal God) a few centuries older than Christianity, Buddhism teaches a consistent ethic of reverence for all life. No wars have ever been waged in the name of Buddhism. The act of abortion is also explicitly condemned in the Buddhist canonical scriptures. Sir Edwin Arnold’s poetic biography on Siddhartha Gautama, The Light of Asia, caused quite a controversy in Victorian England: centuries before Jesus, an earlier teacher lived “the Christ life.”
The ethical teachings of the Buddha are quite similar to those found in the Gospel of Jesus: One must never be proud nor harbor anger against anyone. He who humbles himself shall be exalted, while the one who exalts himself shall be degraded. Harsh language must never be used against anyone.
Avoid lust, anger and greed. One should not scrutinize the mote in a neighbor’s eye without first noticing the beam in one’s own. One must “turn the other cheek” if attacked or abused. One’s own possessions must be shared with the less fortunate. If a man obtained the whole world and its riches, he still would not be satisfied, nor would this save him.
In 261 B.C., the Indian emperor Ashoka witnessed firsthand the innumerable casualties he caused during one of his many military campaigns. His heart was filled with grief. He converted to Buddhism. 19th century scholar and writer H.G. Wells considered Ashoka’s conversion to Buddhism one of the most significant events in world history.
Ashoka, formerly a bloody and ruthless emperor, became a remarkably kind and gentle leader. Ashoka established some of the first animal rights laws. He stopped the royal hunt, stopped the sacrifice of animals in his capital city, stopped the killing of animals for food in the royal kitchens, and gave up the eating of meat. Ashoka made it illegal to kill many species of animals, such as parrots, ducks, geese, bats, turtles, squirrels, monkeys and rhinos. He forbade the killing of pregnant animals, or animals that were nursing their young. He declared certain days to be “non-killing days,” on which fish could not be caught, nor any other animals killed. He established wells and watering holes, places of rest and hospitals for humans and animals alike.
Ashoka educated his people to have compassion for animals, and to refrain from killing or harming them. He sent missionaries to all the neighboring kingdoms to teach mercy, compassion and nonviolence. Through Ashoka’s patronage, Buddhism was spread all over the Indian subcontinent. Buddhism would eventually reach the rest of Asia; today there are an estimated 300 to 600 million Buddhists worldwide.
The first precept of Buddhism is: “Do not kill, but rather preserve and cherish all life.” There is an ancient poem, reputed to be the only text ever written by the Buddha himself, which states:
“Let creatures all, all things that live, all beings of whatever kind, see nothing that will bode them ill. May naught of evil come to them.”
The Buddhist emperor Ashoka (268-223 BC) declared in one of his famous Pillar Edicts: “I have enforced the law against killing certain animals..The greatest progress of Righteousness among men comes from the exhortation in favor of non-injury to life and abstention from killing living beings.”
The Dalai Lama has said, “I do not see any reason why animals should be slaughtered to serve as human diet when there are so many substitutes. After all, man can live without meat.”
Mahayana Buddhism supports the vegetarian way of life. According to the Mahaparinirvana Sutra: “The eating of meat extinguishes the seed of great compassion.”
The Lankavatara Sutra says:
“For the sake of love of purity, the bodhisattva should refrain from eating flesh, which is born from semen, blood, etc. For fear of causing terror to living beings let the bodhisattva, who is disciplining himself to attain compassion, refrain from eating flesh…It is not true that meat is proper food and permissible when the animal was not killed by himself, when he did not order others to kill it, when it was not specifically meant for him…Again, there may be some people in the future who…being under the influence of the taste for meat will string together in various ways many sophisticated arguments to defend meat-eating…But…meat-eating in any form, in any manner, and in any place is unconditionally and once and for all prohibited…Meat-eating I have not permitted to anyone, I do not permit, I will not permit…”
The Surangama Sutra says:
“The reason for practicing dhyana and seeking to attain samadhi is to escape from the suffering of life. But in seeking to escape from suffering ourselves, why should we inflict it upon others? Unless you can control your minds that even the thought of brutal unkindness and killing is abhorrent, you will never be able to escape from the bondage of the world’s life…After my parinirvana in the final kalpa different kinds of ghosts will be encountered everywhere deceiving people and teaching them that they can eat meat and still attain enlightenment…How can a bhikshu, who hopes to become a deliverer of others, himself be living on the flesh of other sentient beings?”
Contemporary Hindu spiritual masters have taught us that if one wishes to eat cow’s flesh (or the flesh of any other animal for that matter), one should wait until the animal dies of natural causes, rather than take the life of a fellow creature. This indicates that we are vegetarian first and foremost out of nonviolence toward and compassion for animals, rather than because we follow “dietary laws.”
Avoidance of onions and garlic is not limited to Hindus in India; there is a tradition of avoiding these foods in China, antedating the arrival of Buddhism. ‘Enjoy’ Vegetarian Restaurant in San Francisco, CA is run by Chinese Buddhists, and they do not serve onions or garlic in any of their preparations. However, they do serve mushrooms!
In Theravada Buddhist countries (Burma, Ceylon, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, Tibet, Malaya), although the monks are forbidden to kill animals, they beg for food and are expected to eat whatever is offered them. Contrasting the Mahayana Buddhist countries (e.g., China) with the Theravada, in A Vegetarian Sourcebook, author Keith Akers writes:
“In the Mahayana countries, the custom regarding monks is completely different, reflecting a different attitude towards meat consumption. The Mahayana Buddhist monks do not beg for food at all; they prepare their own food, which is either bought, grown, or collected as rent. The Mahayana monks in China were strictly vegetarian in ancient times and remain so today.
“Dietary abstinence from meat was an ancient Chinese tradition that antedated the arrival of Buddhism. In China, all animal foods, onions, and alcohol were either forbidden or customarily avoided. Animal products were avoided in dress as they were in diet. There was a prohibition on the use of silk or leather (not observed in Theravada countries).
“Not only are the Mahayana Buddhist monks vegetarian, but so are many Buddhist lay people in China. Lay people usually receive a lay ordination, in which they must take from one to five vows. Almost everyone takes the first vow, which is not to take the life of any sentient creature.”
Misturu Kakimoto of the Japanese Vegetarian Society writes: “A survey that I conducted of 80 Westerners, including Americans, Englishmen and Canadians, revealed that approximately half of them believed that vegetarianism originated in India. Some respondents assumed that vegetarianism had its origin in China or Japan. It seems to me that the reason Westerners associate vegetarianism with China or Japan is Buddhism. It is no wonder, and in fact we could say that Japan used to be a country where vegetarianism prevailed.”
Gishi-wajin-denn, a history book on Japan written in China around the third century BC, says, “Thre are no cattle, no horses, no tigers, no leopards, no goats and no magpies in that land. The climate is mild and people over there eat fresh vegetables both in summer and in winter.” It also says that “people catch fish and shellfish in the water.” Apparently, the Japanese ate fresh vegetables as well as rice and other cereals as staple foods. They also took some fish and shellfish, but hardly any meat.
Shinto, the prevailing religion at the time, is essentially pantheistic, based upon the worship of the forces of nature. According to writer Steven Rosen, in the early days of Shinto, no animal food was offered in sacrifice because of the injunction against shedding blood in the sacred area of the shrine.
Several hundred years later, Buddhism came to Japan and the prohibition of hunting and fishing permeated the Japanese people. In 7th century Japan, the Empress Jito encouraged “hojo,” or the releasing of captive animals, and established wildlife preserves, where animals could not be hunted.
There are many similarities between the Hindu literature and the Buddhist religions of the Far East. For example, the word Cha’an of the Cha’an school of Chinese Buddhism is Chinese for the Sanskrit word “dhyana”, which means meditation, as does the word “Zen” in Japanese. In 676 AD, then Japanese emperor Tenmu proclaimed an ordinance prohibiting the eating of fish and shellfish as well as animal flesh and fowl. Subsequently, in the year 737 of the Nara period, the emperor Seimu approved the eating of fish and shellfish.
During the twelve hundred years from the Nara period to the Meiji restoration in the second half of the 19th century, Japanese people enjoyed vegetarian style meals. They usually ate rice as staple food and beans and vegetables. It was only on special occasions or celebrations that fish was served. Under these circumstances the Japanese people developed a vegetarian cuisine, Shojin Ryori (ryori means cooking or cuisine), which was native to Japan.
The word “shojin” is a Japanese translation of “vyria” in Sanskrit, meaning “to have the goodness and keep away evils.” Buddhist priests of the Tendai-shu and Shingon-shu sects, whose founders studied in China in the ninth century before they founded their respective sects, have handed down vegetarian cooking practices from Chinese temples strictly in accordance with the teachings of the Buddha.
In the 13th century, Dogen, the founder of the Soto sect of Zen, formally established Shojin Ryori or Japanese vegetarian cuisine. Dogen studied and learned the Zen teachings abroad in China, during the Sung Dynasty. He fixed rules aiming to establish the pure vegetarian life as a means of training the mind.
One of the other influences Zen exerted on the Japanese people manifested itself in Sado, the Japanese tea ceremony. It is believed that Esai, founder of the Rinazi-shu sect, introduced tea to Japan and it is the custom for Zen followers to drink tea. The customs preserved in the teaching of Zen lead to a systematic rule called Sado…a Cha-shitsu or tea ceremony room is so constructed as to resemble the Shojin, where the chief priest is at a Buddhist temple.
Food served at a tea ceremony is called Kaiseki in Japanese, which literally means a stone in the breast. Monks practicing asceticism used to press heated stones to their bosom to suppress hunger. Then the word Kaiseki itself came to mean a light meal served at Shojin, and Kaiseki meals had great influence on the Japanese.
The “Temple of the Butchered Cow” can be found in Shimoda, Japan. It was erected shortly after Japan opened its doors to the West in the 1850s. It was erected in honor of the first cow slaughtered in Japan, marking the first violation of the Buddhist tenet against the eating of meat.
An example of a Buddhist vegetarian in the modern age: Kenji Miyazawa, a Japanese writer and poet of the early 20th century, who wrote a novel entitled Vegetarian-Taisai, in which he depicted a fictitious vegetarian congress…His works played an important role in the advocacy of modern vegetarianism. Today, no animal flesh is ever eaten in a Zen Buddhist monastery, and such Buddhist denominations as the Cao Dai sect (which originated in South Vietnam), now boasts some two million followers, all of whom are vegetarian.
The Buddhist teachings are not the only source contributing to the growth of vegetarianism in Japan. in the late 19th century, Dr. Gensai Ishizuka published an academic book in which he advocated vegetarian cooking with an emphasis on brown rice and vegetables. His method is called Seisyoku (Macrobiotics) and is based upon ancient Chinese philosophy such as the principles of Yin and Yang and Taoism. Now some people support his method of preventative medicine. Japanese macrobiotics suggest taking brown rice as half of the whole intake, with vegetables, beans, seaweeds, and a small amount of fish.
In his 1923 book, The Natural Diet of Man, Dr. John Harvey Kellogg writes: “According to Mori, the Japanese peasant of the interior is almost an exclusive vegetarian. He eats fish once or twice a month and meat once or twice a year.” Dr. Kellogg writes that in 1899, the Emperor of Japan appointed a commission to determine whether it was necessary to add meat to the nation’s diet to improve the people’s strength and stature. The commission concluded that as far as meat was concerned, “the Japanese had always managed to do without it, and that their powers of endurance and their athletic prowess exceeded that of any of the Caucasian races. Japan’s diet stands on a foundation of rice.”
According to Dr. Kellogg: “the rice diet of the Japanese is supplemented by the free use of peanuts, soy beans and greens, which… constitute a wholly sufficient bill of fare. Throughout the Island Empire, rice is largely used, together with buckwheat, barley, wheat and millet. Turnips and radishes, yams and sweet potatoes are frequently used, also cucumbers, pumpkins and squashes. The soy bean is held in high esteem and used largely in the form of miso, a puree prepared from the bean and fermented; also tofu, a sort of cheese; and cho-yu, which is prepared by mixing the pulverized beans with wheat flour, salt, and water and fermenting from one and a half to five years.
“The Chinese peasant lives on essentially the same diet, as do also the Siamese, the Koreans, and most other Oriental peoples. Three-fourths of the world’s population eats so little meat that it cannot be regarded as anything more than an incidental factor in their bill of fare. The countless millions of China,” writes Dr. Kellogg, “are for the most part flesh-abstainers. In fact at least two-thirds of the inhabitants of the world make so little use of flesh that it can hardly be considered an essential part of their dietary…”
Misturu Kakimoto concludes: “Japanese people started eating meat some 150 years ago and now suffer the crippling diseases caused by the excess intake of fat in flesh and the possible hazards from the use of agricultural chemicals and additives. This is persuading them to seek natural and safe food and to adopt once again the traditional Japanese cuisine.”

Very well expressed Stefanie. It is how I feel and I will save this to show others, when I feel it might help sway them towards the ethical views towards animals that we share

I support animal rights and don't believe for a moment that doing that AND eating certain meats (cows, chickens and pigs) suddenly make you anti-Animal as some would believe. If you want to be a vegan, more power to you. Attacking people's choice of what they eat is just as stupid as people saying you have to believe in the same exact things they do.

Russell Weston Jr., tortured and killed 12 cats: burned and cut off their tails, paws, ears; poured toxic chemicals in their eyes to blind them; forced them to ingest poison, hung them from trees (the noose loose enough to create a slow and painful death.)  Later killed 2 officers at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC.

Jeffery Dahmer staked cats to trees and decapitated dogs.  Later he dissected boys, and kept their body parts in the refrigerator.  Murdered 17 men.

Kip Kinkle shot 25 classmates and killed several in Springfield, Oregon.  He killed his father and mother.  Said he blew up a cow once. Set a live cat on fire and dragged the innocent creature through the main street of town.  Classmates rated him as "Most Likely to Start WWIII."

As a boy, Albert De Salvo, the "Boston Strangler," placed a dog and cat in a crate with a partition between them. After starving the animals for days, he removed the partition to watch them kill each other. He raped and killed 13 women by strangulation.  He often posed bodies in a shocking manner after their murders.

Richard Allen Davis set numerous cats on fire.  He killed all of Polly Klaas'
animals before abducting and murdering Polly Klaas, aged 12, from her bedroom.

11-year-old Andrew Golden and 13-year-old Mitchell Johnson tortured and killed dogs.  On March 24, 1998, in Jonesboro, Arkansas, Golden and Johnson shot and killed 4 students and 1 teacher during a fire drill at their school.

After 16-year-old Luke Woodham mortally stabbed his mother, killed 2 classmates and shot 7 others, he confessed to bludgeoning his dog Sparkle with baseball bats and pouring liquid fuel down her throat and to set fire to her neck.  "I made my first kill today," he wrote in his court-subpoenaed journal.  "It was a loved one...I'll never forget the howl she made.  It sounded almost human."  In June 1998, Woodham was found guilty of 3 murders and 7 counts of aggravated assault.  He was sentenced to 3 life sentences and an additional 20 years for each assault.

Theodore Robert Bundy, executed in 1989 for at least 50 murders, was forced to witness a grandfather who tortured animals.  Bundy later heaped graves with animal bones.

At 4-years-old, Michael Cartier dislocated the legs of rabbits and hurled a
kitten through a closed window.  He later shot Kristin Lardner 3 times in the head, before shooting himself.

Henry Lee Lucas killed numerous animals and had sex with their corpses.  He killed his mother, common law wife, and an unknown number of people.

Edward Kemperer cut up 2 cats.  He later killed his grandparents, mother and 7 other women.

Richard Speck threw a bird into a ventilator fan.  Killed 8 women.
Randy Roth taped a cat to a car's engine and used an industrial sander on a frog.  Killed 2 of his wives and attempted to kill a third.

David Richard Davis shot and killed 2 healthy ponies, threw a wine bottle at a pair of kittens and hunted with illegal methods.  Murdered his wife, Shannon Mohr Davis, for insurance money.

Peter Kurten, the Dusseldorf Monster, tortured dogs, and practiced bestiality while killing animals.  Murdered or attempted to murder over 50 men, women and children.

Richard Trenton Chase, "The Vampire Killer of Sacramento," bit the heads off birds, drained animals for their blood, killed animals for their organs, and later killed 6 people in random attacks.  One police officer present at the scene of the first murder, confessed to having nightmares about the crime for months afterwards.

"The Kobe Killer," an as yet unnamed 15-year-old boy in Japan, beheaded a cat and strangled several pigeons.  Decapitated 11-year-old Jun Hase, and battered to death a 10-year-old girl with a hammer, and assaulted 3 other children in separate attacks.

Richard William Leonard's grandmother forced him to kill and mutilate cats and kittens when he was a child.  He later killed Stephen Dempsey with a bow and arrow.  He also killed Ezzedine Bahmad by slashing his throat.

Tom Dillion murdered people's pets.  He shot and killed Jamie Paxton, aged 21; Claude Hawkins, aged 49; Donald Welling, aged 35; Kevin Loring, aged 30; and Gary Bradely, aged 44.

At 9-years-old, Eric Smith strangled a neighbor's cat.  At 13, he bludgeoned 4-year-old Derrick Robie to death.  Smith lured the little boy into the woods, choked him, sodomized him with a stick, then beat him to death with a rock.

David Berkowitz, "Son of Sam," poisoned his mother's parakeet out of jealousy.  He later shot 13 young men and women.  6 people died and at least 2 suffered permanent disabilities.

Arthur Shawcross repeatedly threw a kitten into a lake until the kitten drowned from exhaustion.  Killed a young girl.  After serving 15-1/2 years in prison, he killed 11 more women.

Michael Perry decapitated a neighbor's dog.  Later killed his parents, infant nephew and 2 neighbors.

Jason Massey's killing resume began with cats and dogs; at 20 he decapitated and disemboweled a 13-year-old girl and fatally shot a 14-year old boy.   He claims to have killed 37 cats, 29 dogs and 6 cows.

Patrick Sherrill stole neighborhood pets, tethered them with baling wire and encouraged his dog to mutilate them.  He killed 14 co-workers and himself in 1986.

Keith Hunter Jesperson, "Happy Face Killer," bashed gopher heads and beat, strangled and shot stray cats and dogs.  He is known to have strangled 8 women.  He said: "You're actually squeezing the life out of these animals...Choking a human being or a cat--it's the same feeling...I'm the very end result of what happens when somebody kills an animal at an early age."

Carroll Edward Cole, executed in 1985 for an alleged 35 murders and reputed to be one of the most prolific serial killers in U.S. history, confessed that his first act of violence was to strangle a puppy under the porch of his house.

Robert Alton Harris murdered two 16-year-old boys, doused a neighbor with lighter fluid and tossed matches at him. His initial run-in with police was for killing neighborhood cats.

Rachel Carson wrote: "Until we have the courage to recognize cruelty for what it is whether its victim is human or animal we cannot expect things to be much better in this world. We cannot have peace among men whose hearts delight in killing any living creature. By every act that glorifies or even tolerates such moronic delight in killing we set back the progress of humanity."

In a 1990 letter to Eric Mills of Action For Animals, vegetarian labor leader Cesar Chavez similarly observed: "Kindness and compassion towards all living things is a mark of a civilized society. Conversely, cruelty, whether it is directed against human beings or against animals, is not the exclusive province of any one culture or community of people. Racism, economic deprival, dog fighting and cockfighting, bullfighting and rodeos are cut from the same fabric: violence. Only when we have become nonviolent towards all life will we have learned to live well ourselves."

This writing belongs in a book. Stephanie, you are the new philosopher for the animal rights movement. I must say I feel exactly the same way as you. I remember asking a friend in college - who I met doing peace activism together - why he was not vegetarian and he replied, "I do enough for humans," as if achieving nonviolence against other humans would be enough. Violence is violence; it comes from the same hateful energy inside of us, and it's up to us to recognize it and stop it whenever possible.

"When we turn to the protection of animals, we sometimes hear it said that we ought to protect men first and animals afterwards...By condoning cruelty to animals, we perpetuate the very spirit which condones cruelty to men."

---Henry Salt

The fate of the animals and the fate of man are interconnected.  (Ecclesiastes 3:19)  A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami said in 1974:

"We simply request, 'Don't kill. Don't maintain slaughterhouses.'  That is very sinful.  It brings a very awkward karmic reaction upon society.  Stop these slaughterhouses.  We don't say, 'Stop eating meat.'  You can eat meat, but don't take it from the slaughterhouse, by killing.  Simply wait (until the animal dies of natural causes) and you'll get the carcasses.

"You are killing innocent cows and other animals--nature will take revenge.  Just wait.  As soon as the time is right, nature will gather all these rascals and slaughter them.  Finished.  They'll fight among themselves--Protestants and Catholics, Russia and America, this one and that one.  It is going on.  Why?  This is nature's law.  Tit for tat.  'You have killed. Now you kill yourselves.'

"They are sending animals to the slaughterhouse, and now they'll create their own slaughterhouse.  You see?  Just take Belfast.  The Roman Catholics are killing the Protestants, and the Protestants are killing the Catholics.  This is nature's law.  It is not necessary that you be sent to the ordinary slaughterhouse.  You'll make a slaughterhouse at home.  You'll kill your own child--abortion.  This is nature's law.

"Who are these children being killed?  They are these meat-eaters.  They enjoyed themselves when so many animals were killed and now they're being killed by their own mothers.  People do not know how nature is working.  If you kill you must be killed.  If you kill the cow, who is your mother, then in some future lifetime your mother will kill you.  Yes.  The mother becomes the child, and the child becomes the mother.

"We don't want to stop trade, or the production of grains and vegetables and fruit.  But we want to stop these killing houses.  It is very, very sinful.  That is why all over the world they have so many wars.  Every ten or fifteen years there is a big war--a wholesale slaughterhouse for humankind.  But these rascals--they do not see it, that by the law of karma, every action must have its reaction."

Similarly, in his purport to the Srimad Bhagavatam 6.10.9, Bhaktivedanta Swami writes: "One cannot continue killing animals and at the same time be a religious man. That is the greatest hypocrisy. Jesus Christ said, 'Do not kill,' but hypocrites nevertheless maintain thousands of slaughterhouses while posing as Christians. Such hypocrisy is condemned..."

And:

"If one kills many thousands of animals in a professional way so that other people can purchase the meat to eat, one must be ready to be killed in a similar way in his next life and in life after life.  There are many rascals who violate their own religious principles.  According to Judeo-Christian scriptures, it is clearly said, 'Thou shalt not kill.'  Nonetheless, giving all kinds of excuses, even the heads of religions indulge in killing animals while trying to pass as saintly persons.  This mockery and hypocrisy in human society brings about unlimited calamities; therefore occasionally there are great wars.  Masses of such people go out onto battlefields and kill themselves.  Presently, they have discovered the atomic bomb, which is simply waiting to be used for wholesale destruction."

(Chaitanya Charitamrita, Madhya 24.251, purport)

Also:

"To be nonviolent to human beings and to be a killer or enemy of the poor animals is Satan's philosophy.  In this age there is enmity towards poor animals, and therefore the poor creatures are always anxious. The reaction of the poor animals is being forced on human society, and therefore there is always the strain of cold or hot war between men, individually, collectively or nationally."

(Srimad Bhagavatam 1.10.6, purport)

"In human society, if one kills a man he has to be hanged.  That is the law of the state.  Because of ignorance people do not perceive that there is a complete state controlled by the Supreme Lord. Every living creature is the son of the Supreme Lord, and He does not tolerate even an ant's being killed.  One has to pay for it."

Although I agree with many of the arguments and opinions in this thread, I still think that AR members in this blog miss the "big picture" in the defense of veganism.

Veganism goes hand in hand with AR members, but is not the "end-all-be-all" of the AR movement. Yes, it a good choice to abstain from eating animals, and is healthier if you make that choice. My problem is that fighting for veganism and against meat-eaters is not getting to the root of the problem.

Animals still don't have "rights" in a vegan world of consumption, any more than a meat-eaters world. Animals do not have rights in any form of human food consumption, whether it is considered organic or not. It is just a different type or species that is being killed.

Animal Rights (as stated in www.rpaforall.org) "does not refer to (despite often being confused with) living or promoting a vegan lifestyle or consuming a vegan diet".

Although kind and beneficial, as well as being positive action for animals, does not specifically promote animal rights and cannot establish basic constitutional & legal rights.

I agree that eating a vegan diet is a step in the right direction, but it does not do enough to save the animals that are being killed to produce grains, produce and soy. Why don't these animals deserve the same respect as farmed animals? Why don't vegans want to admit this and work on the problem of the wildlife being killed for human consumption of plants, but choose to go after meat-eaters?

You have to "nip" the problem in the bud, and until the people who are involved in the production of food (whether animal or vegetable) are dealt with instead of the consumers, the battle will not be won. You have to look at the big picture. The root of the problem is NOT the consumers as much as the people who produce the food. Promoting fundamental change, striking at the root rather than snipping at the branches of the problems brought on by humans would be more effective.

Yes, consumers can help by not buying meat products, but that does not help to stop the killing of natural wildlife that is not domesticated. The trapping, shooting, and poisoning of wildlife to save the farmers crops is no better than the ranchers who slaughter their animals raised for food. Millions of (large) animals are killed every year to save crops.

I would love to see the energy of the AR members spent fighting the USDA, the BLM, and "Wildlife Services" instead of all of the bickering going on between meat-eaters and vegans.

I have yet to see anyone want to put more energy into fighting for Animal Rights, instead of the same old argument about meat-eaters vs. vegans. How does that help the movement of obtaining better rights for animals?

Popular animal-advocacy methods do not diminish inhumane treatment of animals because they don't promote basic constitutional & legal rights for all sentient beings but mostly fight cruelty or promote better shopping choices.

If all of the cows, chickens, pigs and sheep were given their freedom and people no longer consumed them as part of their diets, the wildlife would maybe then get the attention turned towards them because they would become extinct in order to produce more grains, vegetables, and soy. The fight would then be directed in their behalf. It saddens me that we can't do both and get to the root of the problem. Human consumption and greed are at the root of animals getting any "rights" in the near future.

Wildlife or domestic. Organic or not. Doesn't matter until we have laws established protecting all sentient beings. Animals deserve the basic rights as much as humans do and I would love to see some of this energy put into going after the real problems.

"Wildlife are killed for people animal-based diets and clothing, for their convenience, and for their enjoyment every day." was stated by Stephanie in a previous thread. Take out the words "animal-based" and look at the big picture. Stephanie also stated that it is the "intention" that matters and that killing some of the wildlife accidentally in the fields is not intentional. I hate to say it, but poisoning, trapping and shooting wildlife from planes is not done accidentally. The intention is to protect the business of farmers and ranchers the same. I am not defending meat-eaters or being snide. I just want people to open their eyes and hearts a little wider and see the big picture. It is much greater than vegans vs. meat-eaters. It is a human problem (all types).

Maybe it's just that I live in an area that the cattle are protected just as much as the soy. Wildlife do not have rights anymore than the animals sent to slaughterhouses. At least the calves are protected for 400 days before they are sent off to slaughter. If a wolf kills a calf (or is even "seen" in the area), the entire wolf pack is killed, no questions asked.

The deer, skunks, foxes, birds, ground squirrels, wolves, elk, cats, ravens, badgers, otters, and coyotes don't have the same protection as the farmed animals. They are killed no matter the age or reason. They are not "protected" species.

I do not think that killing of any type is okay. I don't think that people in the AR movement disagree. I just think that too much attention goes to the meat-eaters and farmed animals. I would like to see people get "extreme" about wildlife as well, and not get defensive about the "type" of animal that is killed and the intention. It is all in how you want to see it and defend your position. Working against one another is not getting the problem solved.

Don't get me wrong...I don't eat meat or hunt. I am not defending the practices of killing for food. But, I will not defend vegan practices altogether either until ALL animals have the rights they deserve. Buying soy from a farmer who kills deer, squirrels, and birds isn't helping the problem, yet that is the hard truth.

Food Inc. and Earthlings (the documentaries) intend to make people aware about where their food comes from, but falls short in many ways. Do you know who is being killed to produce your food (animal or vegetable)? Buying local or organic does not necessarily mean cruelty-free. Buying vegetable, produce, grains and soy does not mean you are buying cruelty-free. Wildlife are not yet a concern for "cruelty-free" food processing. Only endangered animals make the news. We have a long way to go....

Loved all of the comments! All sides!

I do think veganism is very important to being in the AR movement, though.  If you don't consume animals, then it makes your position more respectable.

Now, I don't know any vegans who aren't aware of the deaths of wildlife in the production of vegetable/fruit/grain crops due to pesticides, baiting, poisoning, machinery, etc..  That's a cold hard fact of modern farming.  BUT, 2 things here:

1) the numbers of animals killed in plant crop production is much less than that in CAFOs, and

2) we can also choose to remove ourselves from big crop agriculture as well by either growing our own food or being involved in organic co-op farms in our area that we know align with our personal beliefs.

There are always choices, and always differing degrees of limiting the suffering we accept into our lives. 

Personally, for me, not consuming animal products was a giant first step - an outward sign for all to see that my lifestyle is aligned with my belief system - and from there, it's all about degrees and practicality.

I feel, though, that vegans tend to have to spend a lot of time defending their position on non-harming or sidestepping "traps" laid by those trying to point out holes or exceptions to our choices.  Most times, the hostile response of meat-eaters is just to the "idea" of veganism, which makes them confront uncomfortable truths about food choices vs. what they say they believe in.

I can't speak for all vegans (believe it or not, it's not a race or species of people, we're all very different) but for me, it comes down to one simple rule: thou shalt not kill.  No one said "who" or "what" so I just cover all my bases by not killing anything if I have the choice. 

(one example of a "choice" would be not running my car containing my child off the road just to avoid a frog, etc.)

"A diet that can lead to heart attacks, cancer, and numerous other diseases cannot be a natural diet," writes Keith Akers in A Vegetarian Sourcebook.  "A diet that pillages our resources of land, water, forests, and energy cannot be a natural diet.  A diet that causes the unnecessary suffering and death of billions of animals each year cannot be a natural diet."

I understand there are conservative Christians who fear vegetarianism...which is kind of like being afraid of nonsmoking, nondrinking, or recycling.  Ronald J. Sider of Evangelicals for Social Action, in his 1977 book, Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger, pointed out that 220 million Americans were eating enough food (largely because of the high consumption of grain fed to livestock) to feed over one billion people in the poorer countries.

A pamphlet put out by Compassion Over Killing says raising animals for food is one of the leading causes of both pollution and resource depletion today.  According to a recent United Nations report, "Livestock's Long Shadow," raising chickens, turkeys, pigs, and other animals for food causes more greenhouse gas emissions than all the cars, trucks and other forms of transportation combined.  Researchers from the University of Chicago similarly concluded that a vegetarian diet is the most energy efficient, and the average American does more to reduce global warming emissions by not eating animal products than by switching to a hybrid car.

A 2007 journal published by the American Dietetic Association found "meat protein production required 26 times more water than vegetable protein on rain-fed lands."  The journal further states that dieticians "can encourage eating that is both healthful and conserving of soil, water, and energy by emphasizing plant sources of protein and foods that have been produced with fewer agricultural inputs."

"Livestock are one of the most significant contributors to today's most serious environmental problems.  Urgent action is required to remedy the situation." 

---Union Nations' Food and Agriculture Association

A single dairy cow produces approximately 120 pounds of wet manure per day, which is equivalent to that of 20 to 40 humans.

70% of the grain grown and 50% of the water consumed in the U.S. are used by the meat industry.  (Audubon Society)

On average 990 liters of water are required to produce one liter of milk.  (United Nations)

Over 260 million acres of U.S. forest have been cleared to grow grain for livestock.  (Greenpeace)

It takes nearly one gallon of fossil fuel and 5,200 gallons of water to produce just one pound of conventionally fed beef.  (Mother Jones)

Farmed animals produce an estimated 1.4 billion tons of fecal waste each year in the U.S.  Much of this untreated waste pollutes the land and water.

  The number of animals killed for food in the United States is 70 times larger than the number of animals killed in laboratories, 30 times larger than the number killed by hunters and trappers, and 500 times larger than the number of animals killed in animal pounds.

“If anyone wants to save the planet,” says Paul McCartney in a PETA interview, “all they have to do is stop eating meat. That’s the single most important thing you could do. It’s staggering when you think about it. Vegetarianism takes care of so many things in one shot: ecology, famine, cruelty. Let’s do it! Linda was right.  Going veggie is the single best idea for the new century.”

I agree, Lisa, that it is a fact of modern farming that animals will be killed during the process, although I have never seen any statistics to show that less wildlife is killed than in CAFO's. Wildlife "management" does not keep airtight numbers, and only the larger animals are counted. Millions of wildlife are killed every year, but I don't think that it's okay to discount the numbers just because of size and purpose.

It is a fact of farming that animals will be killed, but the lack of awareness is what bothers me. I personally gave up meat because of my studies of Buddhism as a child. I grew up in Hawaii and most of the population is Asian and studied Buddhism. Unfortunately, the Buddhists that I grew up with ate fish and I did not understand why it was not considered meat to them. I researched further, and upon reading more about His Holiness, 14th Dalai Lama and his take on harming no sentient beings, as well as "kindness" being his religion, I decided for myself to follow his example instead. I had to make the personal choice for myself when I was ready, but the vegans I knew also ate fish and were only concerned for farmed animals and pets. They always seemed to have a justification for the wildlife and how it is not very many that are killed.

Now that I actually live in a wildlife area, I understand more about the reality. It is much worse than I originally thought, and I personally was not aware of what goes into any kind of food process or farming until I lived with the ranchers and farmers all around me.

The numbers are alarming, and although there will always be "collateral damage", if people were more aware that millions of animals are being killed for any food production, maybe the laws will eventually change. Making excuses and justifying that one is better than the other doesn't help in getting the laws passed.

Just because people don't realize that thousands of wild horses are trapped in the USA and slaughtered for food in other countries to save the land for farmers does not make it okay, just because we don't eat them in the USA. Awareness will bring better laws and more rights for animals, not excuses.

I whole-heartily agree with you (as always), but having the knowledge of the real truth about what is really killed for food is the fight that I am working for. The fact that animals still don't have rights seems more important than fighting over meat or no meat in your diet. More wildlife is killed for soy production than  cows and calves for dairy. That is a fact. Giving up dairy for moral reasons as well as health is better than saying that "you buy milk, you kill calves, period." (from an earlier post) It goes both ways. You buy soy or corn, you kill wildlife, period. Unless you grow the food organically in your back yard, then you have no way of knowing what animals had to die for your meal.

Corporation greed and factory farming (animals or veg) are the problem. We need to focus our attention to these issues. We have family farms in Montana. They still kill to produce the food. It is part of the business of farming anything.

Thou shalt not kill is a good start, but it is not enough when someone else is doing the killing for you to eat. Whether it is meat or not, something is losing a life for our meal. We can only do our best, but bringing awareness to the people who are still ignorant about how our food gets to our plates and who or what was killed in the process is the important part.

Please know that I am not arguing about whether or not to be a vegan or not. "Less killing is better than nothing" is the same argument that animal welfare groups use as a defensive explanation, and the reason that animal rights people claim to be different than animal welfare groups.

You can also use the "hostile response of (vegans) is just the "idea" of (meat-eaters) which makes them confront uncomfortable truths about food choices vs. what they say they believe in." Your statement can go both ways, depending on which lifestyle choice you claim. I don't think it is "traps" laid or holes or exceptions to choices, but opening your mind to all sides, with no excuses or explanations. "Less" killing sounds better than just plain killing, but is it really better or does it mean we are not fighting hard enough? It sounds like saying that killing a few homeless people is better than killing lots of people that live in big houses. Why would one be better than the other? To each individual, their life is important. The number killed is not the answer. Knowing that millions of animals are dying for my veg choice bothers me every day. I do the best I can, but in doing so, I have chosen to fight the people in the production and "wildlife services" and politicians that continue to kill on my behalf (for a meal). I would prefer to fight for better laws and no killing at all, than go after the "meat-eaters" that are just making ignorant choices. Nip it where it hurts!

Awareness, education, better laws, animal rights. (Not vegan vs. meat-eaters). Most of the meat-eaters that I know are just ignorant, not killers by choice.

I am on the same side, just more aware of the reality that we are all a part of the killing for food production, myself included, as I do not yet grow all of my own food, and have worked against ranchers as well as farmers in the killing of animals to make a meal for humans. Until ALL animals (not just pets or farm animals) have rights like humans do, we are all part of the process and have to work harder to bring the awareness to the mainstream and stop the killing altogether.

I agree, Lisa. Baby steps. We are all working on doing better, and each individual can only do so much.

I just walked outside to find a new fawn in my yard. Knowing that he/she is safe here, but may walk into the vegetable garden or the neighbor's field next door and get caught in a trap set for small animals makes me stressed and sad. A neighbor up the road shot one in MY yard recently. It was less than a year old and was just crossing into my yard for water, but wildlife are not friends of the people here. It is against the law in this area, but they are considered pests, and the law is on the side of the farmers and ranchers. I took a photo of the man in my yard as he shot the deer and then put it in the back of his truck. (He fed it to his dog that he keeps chained up 24/7) The Sheriff would not do anything about it. He said a deer is a pest. These are killings that are not counted by wildlife control. The farmer grows "local" vegetables, the same kind that they sell at the local farmer's market. Collateral damage.

Baby steps....

Vegans are not misguided. They are great. They are not however the only people on the earth. It almost sounds like the vegans on this post are narrow minded, only accepting their own "facts", :beliefs", "world view" as being true. Surely I am wrong. It takes a lot of intelligence and heart to be a vegan. How coulld they be so unaccepting of others who are just living as the omnivors they were created to be. I must have been reading it wrong. It sounds as if those who consider themselves advanced, hate those who haven't been so blessed to advance. If veganism is so holy,( excuse me I think I am supposed to say morally correct.) maybe a good example of it would be a stronger witness than derision by a bunch of AR elitist.( excuse me I meant mainstreamers.) Maybe it would be mainstream if these blogs were covered with compassionate understanding that not all humans have the same capacity for understanding as you, rather than name calling, demonizing ridiculus arguements between people who are all for the most part "part of the solution", rather than part of the problem. And for the poster above who said that pigs were sweet gentle animals: put your guinee pig in its cage and go out to a non factory farm, step inside the pig pen with a big pink sow or boar annd then come on back and write us a post about the sweet gentleness of pigs.

According to the Bible, God intended the entire human race to follow a vegetarian diet (Genesis 1:29). Paradise is vegetarian. Rashi (Rabbi Solomon von Isaac, 1030-1105), the famous Jewish Bible commentator, taught that "God did not permit Adam and his wife to kill a creature and to eat its flesh. Only every green herb shall they all eat together." Ibn Ezra and other Jewish biblical commentators agree.

According to the Talmud, "Adam and many generations that followed him were strict flesh-abstainers; flesh-foods were rejected as repulsive for human consumption." Although man was made in God's image and given dominion over all creation (Genesis 1:26-28), these verses do not justify humans killing animals and devouring them, because God immediately proclaims He created the plants for human consumption. (Genesis 1:29)

In a letter to Pope John Paul II, challenging him on the issue of animal experimentation, Dr. Michael Fox of the Humane Society argued that the word "dominion" is derived from the original Hebrew word "rahe" which refers to compassionate stewardship, instead of power and control. Parents have dominion over their children; they do not have a license to kill, torment or abuse them. The Talmud (Shabbat 119; Sanhedrin 7) interprets "dominion" to mean animals may be used for labor.

Man was made in God's image (Genesis 1:26) and told to be vegetarian (Genesis 1:29). "And God saw all that He had made and saw that it was very good." (Genesis 1:31) Complete and perfect harmony. Everything in the beginning was the way God wanted it. Vegetarianism was part of God's initial plan for the world.

"It appears that the first intention of the Maker was to have men live on a strictly vegetarian diet," writes Rabbi Simon Glazer, in his 1971 Guide to Judaism. "The very earliest periods of Jewish history are marked with humanitarian conduct towards the lower animal kingdom...It is clearly established that the ancient Hebrews knew, and perhaps were the first among men to know, that animals feel and suffer pain."

After the Flood, God revised His commandment against flesh-eating. Human beings, since eating of the forbidden fruit, seemed incapable of obedience on this issue. One Jewish writer comments, "Only after man had proven unfit for the high moral standard given at the beginning, was meat made a part of the humans' diet."

A Jewish legend says Moses was found to be righteous by God through his shepherding. While Moses was tending his sheep of Jethro in the Midian wilderness, a young kid ran away from the flock. Moses ran after it until he found the kid drinking by a pool of water. Moses approached the kid and said, "I did not know that you ran away because you were thirsty; now, you must be tired." So Moses placed the animal on his shoulders and carried him back to the flock. God said, "Because thou has shown mercy in leading the flock, thou will surely tend My flock, Israel."

In his essay, "The Dietary Prohibitions of the Hebrews," Jean Soler finds in the Bible at lest two times when an attempt was made to try the Israelites out on a vegetarian diet.  During the period of exodus from Egypt, the Hebrews lived entirely on manna.  They had large flocks which they brought with them, but never touched.

The Israelites were told that manna "is the bread which the Lord has given you to eat." (Exodus 16:5)  For forty years in the desert, the Israelites lived on manna (Nehemiah 9:15,21).  The apocryphal Wisdom of Solomon (16:20) calls manna the food of the angels. Manna is described as a vegetable food, like "coriander seed" (Numbers 11:7), tasting like wafers and honey (Exodus 16:31).

On two separate occasions, however, the men rebelled against Moses because they wanted meat.  The meat-hungry Hebrews lamented, "Would that we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the flesh-pots."  God ended this first "experiment in vegetarianism" through the miracle of the quails.

A second "experiment in vegetarianism" is suggested in the Book of Numbers, when the Hebrews lament once again, "O that we had meat to eat."  (Numbers 11:4)  God repeated the miracle of the quails, but this time with a vengeance:  "And while the flesh was between their teeth, before it was even chewed, the wrath of the Lord was kindled against the people, and He struck them down with a great plague." (Numbers 11:33)

The site where the deaths took place was named "The Graves of Lust."  (Numbers 11:34; Deuteronomy 12:20)  The quail meat was called "basar ta'avah," or "meat of lust."  The Talmud (Chulin 84a) comments that:  "The Torah teaches a lesson in moral conduct, that mean shall not eat meat unless he has a special craving for it, and shall eat it only occasionally and sparingly."  Here, according to Soler, as in the story of the Flood, "meat is given a negative connotation.  It is a concession God makes to man's imperfection."

In their book, The Nine Questions People Ask About Judaism, Dennis Prager and Rabbi Telushkin explain:  "Keeping kosher is Judaism's compromise with its ideal vegetarianism.  Ideally, according to Judaism, man would confine his eating to fruits and vegetables and not kill animals for food."

In his book Judaism and Vegetarianism, Dr. Richard H. Schwartz notes that God's blessings to man throughout the Bible are almost entirely vegetarian:  products of the soil, seeds, sun and rain.

There is considerable evidence within the Bible suggesting God's plan is to restore His Kingdom on earth and return mankind to vegetarianism.  Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, the Chief Rabbi of prestate Israel, wrote:  "It is inconceivable that the Creator who had planned a world of harmony and a perfect way for man to live should, many thousands of years later, find that this plan was wrong."

Rabbi Kook believed the concession to eat meat (Genesis 9:3) was never intended to be a permanent condition.  In his essay, "A Vision of Peace and Vegetarianism," he asked:  "...how can it be that such a noble and enlightened moral position (Genesis 1:29) should pass away after it once has been brought into existence?"

Rabbi Kook cited the messianic prophecies (Isaiah 11:6-9), in which the world is again restored to a vegetarian paradise.  The Bible thus begins and ends in a Kingdom where slaughter is unknown, and identifies the one anointed by God to bring about this Kingdom as "Mashiach," or the Messiah.  Humanity's very beginning in Paradise and destiny in the age of the Messiah are vividly depicted as vegetarian.  "In that future state," taught Rabbi Kook, "people's lives will no longer be supported at the expense of the animals."  Isaiah (65:25) repeats his prophecy again.  This is God's plan.

Rabbi Kook taught that because humans had an insatiable desire to kill animals and eat their flesh, they could not yet be returned to a moral standard which calls for vegetarianism.  Kook regarded Deuteronomy 12:15,20 ("Thou mayest slaughter and eat...after all the desire of thy soul,") as poetically misleading.  He translated this Torah verse as:  "because you lust after eating meat...then you may slaughter and eat."

In his excellent A Guide to the Misled, Rabbi Shmuel Golding explains the orthodox Jewish position concerning animal sacrifices:  "When G-d gave our ancestors permission to make sacrifices to Him, it was a concession, just as when He allowed us to have a king (I Samuel 8), but He gave us a whole set of rules and regulations concerning sacrifice that, when followed, would be superior to and distinct from the sacrificial system of the heathens."

Some biblical passages denounce animal sacrifice (Isaiah 1:11,15; Amos 5:21-25).  Other passages state that animal sacrifices, not necessarily incurring God's wrath, are unnecessary (I Kings 15:22; Jeremiah 7:21-22; Hosea 6:6; Hosea 8:13; Micah 6:6-8; Psalm 50:1-14; Psalm 40:6; Proverbs 21:3; Ecclesiastes 5:1).

Sometimes Christians cite Isaiah 1:11, where God says, "I am full of the burnt offerings..."  They say the word "full" implies God accepted the sacrifices.  However, in Isaiah 43:23-24, God says:  "You have not honored Me with your sacrifices...rather you have burdened Me with your sins, you have wearied Me with your iniquities."  This suggests, as Moses Maimonides taught and Rabbi Shmuel Golding confirms above, that "the sacrifices were a concession to barbarism."

Jesus taught his disciples to pray for the coming of God's kingdom (Matthew 6:9-10), the kingdom of peace, in which the entire world is restored to a vegetarian paradise (Genesis 1:29; Isaiah 11:6-9).  Recalling Psalm 37:11, he blessed the meek, saying they would inherit the earth.  (Matthew 5:5)  The kingdom of God belongs to the gentle and kind (Matthew 5:7-9)  Christians are to "Be merciful, just as your Father is also merciful."  (Luke 6:36)  Those who take up the sword must perish by the sword.  (Matthew 26:52) 

Jesus repeatedly spoke of God's tender care for the nonhuman creation (Matthew 6:26-30, 10:29-31; Luke 12:6-7, 24-28).   Jesus taught that God desires "mercy and not sacrifice."  (Matthew 9:10-13, 12:6-7; Mark 2:15-17; Luke 5:29-32)  The epistle to the Hebrews 10:5-10 suggests that Jesus did not come to abolish the Law and the prophets (which Paul, and not Jesus, regarded as "so much garbage"), but only the institution of animal sacrifice, as does Jesus' cleansing the Temple of those who were buying and selling animals for sacrifice and his overturning the tables of the moneychangers in the Temple.  (Matthew 21:12-14; Mark 11:15-17; Luke 19:45-46; John 2:14-17)  

Jesus not only repeatedly upheld Mosaic Law (Matthew 5:17-19; Mark 10:17-22; Luke 16:17), he justified his healing on the Sabbath by referring to commandments calling for the humane treatment of animals.     When teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath, Jesus healed a woman who had been ill for eighteen years.  He justified his healing work on the Sabbath by referring to biblical passages calling for the humane treatment of animals as well as their rest on the Sabbath.  "So ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham...be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath?" Jesus asked.  (Luke 13:10-16)   On another occasion, Jesus again referred to Torah teaching on "tsa'ar ba'alei chayim" or compassion for animals to justify healing on the Sabbath.  "Which of you, having a donkey or an ox that has fallen into a pit, will not immediately pull him out on the Sabbath day?"  (Luke 14:1-5)
Jesus compared saving sinners who had gone astray from God's kingdom to rescuing lost sheep.  He recalled a Jewish legend about Moses' compassion as a shepherd for his flock. 

"For the Son of Man has come to save that which was lost.  What do you think?  Who among you, having a hundred sheep, if he loses one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness, and go after the one which is lost until he finds it?

"And when he has found it," Jesus continued, "he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing.  And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors saying to them, 'Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost!'

"I say to you, likewise there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine just persons who need no repentance...there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents."  (Matthew 18:11-13; Luke 15:3-7,10)

Jesus insisted upon the moral standards given by God in the beginning (Matthew 5:31-32, 19:3-9; Mark 10:2-12; Luke 16:18), and this did not go  unnoticed by early church fathers such as St. Jerome.

From history, too, we learn that the earliest Christians were vegetarians as well as pacifists.  For example, Clemens Prudentius, the first Christian hymn writer, in one of his hymns exhorts his fellow Christians not to pollute their hands and hearts by the slaughter of innocent cows and sheep, and points to the variety of nourishing and pleasant foods obtainable without blood-shedding. 

Some of the most distinguished figures in the history of Christianity have been vegetarian.  A partial list includes:  St. James, St. Matthew, Clemens Prudentius, Origen, Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria, St. Basil, St. Jerome, St. John Chrysostom, St. Benedict, Aegidius, Boniface, St. Richard of Wyche, St. Columba, St. Filipo Neri, John Wray, Thomas Tryon, John Wesley, Joshua Evans, William Metcalfe, General William Booth, Ellen White, Dr. John Harvey Kellogg, and Reverend V.A. Holmes-Gore.

Reverend Marc Wessels of the International Network for Religion and Animals (INRA) writes: 

"The most important teaching which Jesus shared was the need for people to love God with their whole self and to love their neighbor as they loved themselves.  Jesus expanded the concept of neighbor to include those who were normally excluded, and it is therefore not too farfetched for us to consider the animals as our neighbors.

"To think about animals as our brothers and sisters is not a new or radical idea.  By extending the idea of neighbor, the love of neighbor includes love of, compassion for, and advocacy of animals.  There are many historical examples of Christians who thought along those lines, besides the familiar illustration of St. Francis.  An abbreviated listing of some of those individuals worthy of study and emulation includes Saint Blaise, Saint Comgall, Saint Cuthbert, Saint Gerasimus, Saint Giles, and Saint Jerome, to name but a few."

According to contemporary Benedictine monk, Brother David Steindl-Rast:

"...the survival of our planet depends on our sense of belonging---to all other humans, to dolphins caught in dragnets, to pigs and chickens and calves raised in animal concentration camps, to redwoods and rainforests, to kelp beds in our oceans, and to the ozone layer."

In a sermon preached in York Minster, September 28, 1986, John Austin Baker, the Bishop of Salisbury, England, attacked the overcrowded confinement methods of raising and killing animals for food ("factory farming"), choosing as his example, the treatment of chickens:

"Is there any credit balance for the battery hen, denied almost all natural functioning, all normal environment, lapsing steadily into deformity and disease, for the whole of her existence?" he asked.  "It is in the battery shed and the broiler house, not in the wild, that we find the true parallel to Auschwitz.  Auschwitz is a purely human invention."

Rick Dunkerly of Christ Lutheran Church says: 

"The Bible-believing Christian, should, of all people, be on the frontline in the struggle for animal welfare and rights.  We who are Christians should be treating the animal creation now as it will be treated then, at Christ's second coming. It will not now be perfect, but it must be substantial, otherwise we have missed our calling, and we grieve the One we call 'Lord,' who was born in a stable surrounded by animals simply because He chose it that way."

Rose Evans, editor and publisher of Harmony:  Voices for a Just Future, a "consistent-ethic" periodical on the religious Left, says there are more Christian vegetarians than Jewish vegetarians.  Yet some people still react to the idea of Christian vegetarianism as though it were an oxymoron.

"Every year," says Reverend Andrew Linzey, author of Christianity and the Rights of Animals, "I receive hundreds of anguished letters from Christians who are so distressed by the insensitivity to animals shown by mainstream churches that they have left them or are on the verge of doing so...The time is long overdue to take the issue of animal rights to the churches...

"I derive hope from the Gospel preaching that the same God who draws us to such affinity and intimacy with suffering creatures declared that reality on a Cross in Calvary.  Unless all Christian preaching has been utterly mistaken, the God who becomes incarnate and crucified is the one who has taken the side of the oppressed and the suffering of the world--however the churches may actually behave."

"This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness." - Dalai Lama

In essence, all beings are united by the desire to gain happiness and avoid suffering. We are also the same in that it is possible to remove suffering and attain happiness, to which we all have an equal right. Then what is the difference between you and all others? You are a minority of one. It is easy to see that the vast number of sentient beings hoping for happiness and seeking an end to suffering are more important than any one person. It is therefore eminently reasonable for you to commit yourself to the welfare of innumerable others, to use your body, speech, and mind for their good, and to abandon an attitude of just taking care of yourself.

When cultivating compassion, consider the terrible situation that so many are in. Take to heart how countless numbers of defenseless animals are exploited by humans. Turn your attention toward the excessive slaughter of animals. The meat we eat is a body of a sentient being and we do not have a right to it. All sentient beings, including humans want to be rid of pain and suffering and have the right to do so.

-So eloquently put by His Holiness, the 14th Dalai Lama, in his many writings and taken from a conversation about the rights of sentient beings. (Slightly edited to avoid writing a long comment.)

It's so simple. Kindness and compassion. Equal rights for all sentient beings. Doesn't matter the religion, the end result should be the same. You don't have to be part of an organized religion to teach or learn kindness.

"A reduction in beef and other meat consumption is the most potent single act you can take to halt the destruction of our environment and preserve our natural resources.  Our choices do matter:  What's healthiest for each of us personally is also healthiest for the life support system of our precious, but wounded planet."

---John Robbins, author, Diet for a New America, and President, EarthSave Foundation

One study puts animal waste in the United States to between 2.4 trillion to 3.9 trillion pounds per year.  The United states produces 15,000 pounds of manure per person.  This is 130 times the amount of waste produced by the entire human population of the United States. 

A 1,000-cow dairy can produce approximately 120,000 pounds of waste per day.  This is the functional equivalent of the amount of sanitary waste produced by a city of 20,000 people.

A 20,000-chicken factory produces about 2.4 million pounds of manure a year.  Poultry factories are one of the fastest growing industries throughout Asia.

One pig excretes nearly three gallons of waste per day, or 2.5 times the average human's daily total.  One hog farm with 50,000 pigs in France produces more waste than the entire city of Los Angeles, and some pig farms are much larger.

Factory farm pollution is the primary source of damage to coastal waters in North and South America, Europe, and Asia.  Scientists report that over sixty percent of the coastal waters in the United States are moderately to severely degraded from factory farm nutrient pollution.  This pollution creates oxygen-depleted dead zones, which are huge areas of ocean devoid of aquatic life.

Meat production causes deforestation, which then contributes to global warming.  Trees convert carbon dioxide into oxygen, and the destruction of forests around the globe to make room for grazing cattle furthers the greenhouse effect.  The Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations reports that the annual rate of tropical deforestation has increased from 9 million hectares in 1980 to 16.8 million hectares in 1990, and unfortunately, this destruction has accelerated since then.  By 1994, a staggering 200 million hectares of rainforest had been destroyed in South America just for cattle.

"The impact of countless hooves and mouths over the years has done more to alter the type of vegetation and land forms of the West than all the water projects, strip mines, power plants, freeways, and sub-division developments combined."

---Philip Fradkin, in Audubon, National Audubon Society, New York

Agricultural meat production generates air pollution.  As manure decomposes, it releases over 400 volatile organic compounds, many of which are extremely harmful to human health.  Nitrogen, a major by-product of animal wastes, changes to ammonia as it escapes into the air, and this is a major source of acid rain.  Worldwide, livestock produce over 30 million tons of ammonia.  Hydrogen sulfide, another chemical released from animal waste, can cause irreversible neurological damage, even at low levels.

The World Conservation Union lists over 1,000 different fish species that are threatened or endangered. According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimate, over 60 percent of the world's fish species are either fully exploited or depleted.  Commercial fish populations of cod, hake, haddock, and flounder have fallen by as much as 95 percent in the north Atlantic. 

The United States and Europe lose several billion tons of topsoil each year from cropland and grazing land, and 84 percent of this erosion is caused by livestock agriculture.  While this soil is theoretically a renewable resource, we are losing soil at a much faster rate than we are able to replace it.  It takes 100 to 500 years to produce one inch of topsoil, but due to livestock grazing and feeding, farming areas can lose up to six inches of topsoil a year.

Livestock production affects a startling 70 to 85 percent of the land area of the United States, United Kingdom, and the European Union.  That includes the public and private rangeland used for grazing, as well as the land used to produce the crops that feed the animals.  By comparison, urbanization only affects 3 percent of the United States land area, slightly larger for the European Union and the United Kingdom.  Meat production consumes the world's land resources.

Half of all fresh water worldwide is used for thirsty livestock.  Producing eight ounces of beef requires an unimaginable 25,000 liters of water, or the water necessary for one pound of steak equals the water consumption of the average household for a year.

The United States government spends $10 million each year to kill an estimated 100,000 wild animals, including coyotes, foxes, bobcats, badgers, bears, and mountain lions just to placate ranchers who don't want these animals killing their livestock.  The cost far outweighs the damage to livestock that these predators cause.

The Worldwatch Institute estimates one pound of steak from a steer raised in a feedlot costs:  five pounds of grain, a whopping 2,500 gallons of water, the energy equivalent of a gallon of gasoline, and about 34 pounds of topsoil.

33 percent of our nation's raw materials and fossil fuels go into livestock destined for slaughter.  In a vegan economy, only 2 percent of our resources will go to the production of food.

"It seems disingenuous for the intellectual elite of the first world to dwell on the subject of too many babies being born in the second- and third-world nations while virtually ignoring the overpopulation of cattle and the realities of a food chain that robs the poor of sustenance to feed the rich a steady diet of grain-fed meat."

---Jeremy Rifkin, author, Beyond Beef:  The Rise and Fall of the Cattle Culture, and president of the Greenhouse Crisis Foundation

Lester Brown of the Overseas Development Council calculates that if Americans reduced their meat consumption by only 10 percent per year, it would free at least 12 million tons of grain for human consumption--or enough to feed 60 million people.

I agree with your argument - extending rights to animals is the only logical implication of extending rights to fellow humans, including babies, and the mentally feeble, many of whom lack the cognitive capacities of most animals.  I think, though, that your basic premise - that humans value compassion - is what's flawed.  Most humans consider the animal rights movement as extreme because they are, at heart, NOT committed to non-violence and compassion, and killing animals give them the "right" behave in ways that would be illegal if directed to humans.  Most humans suffer from an infantile  narcissism, which is threatened the moment they have to consider the needs of someone else.  That's why they are deeply resistant to contemplating the rights of animals -- it somehow threatens their fragile sense of themselves as god's gift to the world. 

Stephanie is so right.  I tend to agree with Mark Twain who wrote, "I have been studying the traits and dispositions of the 'lower animals' [so-called], and contrasting them with the traits and dispositions of man.  I find the result humiliating to me."  He adds that the Darwin theory of :the Ascent of Man from the Lower Animals" should be changed to a "truer one" -- "the Descent of Man from the Higher Animals."  Other beings don't kill others in the name of principles, religion or nation.  They mostly practice kindness and will even cross species, unlike us, to help another species when that other being is in need. Humans have the terrible capacity to become desensitized to suffeing.  Heavens forbid that they know what suffering went into their dinner!  And of course animal research is another practice the majority of us tend not to want to look at.  As the saying goes "If slaughterhouses had glass walls, everyone would be vegetarian."  That goes too for animal laboratories.  Most everyone, that is.  There will always be intentionally cruel humans of course; and that's another thing we tend to not want to look too deeply into.

"The only thing that we, as humans, cannot process or produce is B12."

Lisa, I actually read somewhere that our bodies do (or did) produce B12 but fluoride (as well as a number of other things) that have been introduced into our lives inhibits or destroys the body's ability to produce B12. 

???

I have a little time here so I'll respond to a few other comments.

Vasu, I love the quotes you've provided. Thank you so much!

And David English wrote:

"I support animal rights and don't believe for a moment that doing that AND eating certain meats (cows, chickens and pigs) suddenly make you anti-Animal as some would believe."

I'm not sure I understand your logic David. How can you be for the rights of certain individuals but also be in favour of eating them, which involves the killing of them and the removal of their rights to live and be free?

Can you be against child molestation or rape while actively participating in child molestation and rape? Please explain. 

"Global hunger could be directly attributed to meat-eating."  ---Chrissie Hynde

Half the world's population does not receive an adequate amount of food to eat.  Ten to twenty million die annually of hunger and its effects.  The Institute for Food and Development Policy reports that, "Forty thousand children starve to death on this planet every day," or one child every two seconds.

The livestock population of the United States today consumes enough grain and soybeans to feed over five times the entire human population of the country.   We feed these animals over 80% of the corn we grow, and over 95% of the oats.   Less than half the harvested agricultural acreage in the United States is used to grow food for people.  Most of it is used to grow livestock feed.

Ronald J. Sider of Evangelicals for Social Action, in his 1977 book, Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger, pointed out that 220 million Americans were eating enough food (largely because of the high consumption of grain-fed livestock) to feed over one billion people in the poorer countries.

The world's cattle alone, not to mention pigs and chickens, consume a quantity of food equal to the caloric needs of 8.7 billion people.  It takes 16 pounds of grain to produce one pound of beef.  According to Department of Agriculture statistics, one acre of land can grow 20,000 pounds of potatoes.  That same acre of land, if used to grow cattlefeed, can produce less than 165 pounds of beef.

In his book, The Hungry Planet, Georg Bergstrom points out that protein-starved underdeveloped nations export more protein to wealthy nations than they receive.  He calls this "the protein swindle."  Ninety percent of the world's fish meal catch, for example, is exported to rich countries.  One-third of Africa's peanut crop winds up in the stomachs of European livestock.  Half the world's cereal crop is fed to livestock and the United States annually imports one million tons of vegetable protein from Third World nations--just to feed its farm animals.

Bergstrom writes: "Sometimes one wonders how many Americans and Western Europeans have grasped the fact that quite a few of their beef steaks, quarts of milk, dozens of eggs, and hundreds of broilers are the result, not of their agriculture, but of the approximately two million metric tons of protein, mostly of high quality, which astute Western businessmen channel away from the needy and hungry."

Jeremy Rifkin, author of a dozen influential books and President of the Foundation on Economic Trends, writes in his 1992 bestseller Beyond Beef:

"Cattle and other livestock are devouring much of the grain produced on the planet.  It need be emphasized that this is a new phenomenon, unlike anything ever experienced before.

"Contrary to popular belief, the poor are getting poorer each year...Increased poverty has meant increased malnutrition.  On the African continent, nearly one in every four human beings is malnourished.  In Latin America, nearly one out of every seven people goes to bed hungry each night.  In Asia and the Pacific, 28 percent of the people border on starvation, experiencing the gnawing pain of a perpetual hunger."

"In the Near East, one in ten people is underfed.  Chronic hunger now affects upwards of 1.3 billion people, according to the world Health Organization--a statistic all the more striking in a world where one third of all the grain produced is being fed to cattle and other livestock.  Never before in human history has such a large percentage of our species--nearly 25 percent--been malnourished.

"The transition of world agriculture from food grain to feed grains represents an...evil whose consequences may be far greater and longer lasting than any past examples of violence inflicted by men against their fellow human beings."

In the 1970s, the United Nations Secretary General said that the food consumption of the rich countries is the key cause of hunger around the world.  The United Nations has recommended that the wealthy nations cut down on their meat consumption. 

The Worldwatch Institute has released a remarkable report entitled Taking Stock: Animal Farming and the Environment, which lists nation after nation where food deprivation has followed the switch from a grain-based diet to a meat-based one.

Most of the nations that now import grain from the United States were once self-sufficient in grain.  The main reason they aren't is the rise in meat production and consumption. 

In Taiwan, for example, per capita consumption of meat and eggs increased 600 percent from 1950 to 1990.  With this change, vastly increased amounts of grain have gone to livestock, raising the annual per capita grain use in the country from 375 pounds to 858 pounds.  In 1950, Taiwan was a grain exporter; in 1990 the nation imported, mostly for feed, 74 percent of the grain it used.

In mainland China, the situation is similar.  Increased meat consumption has meant less grain available to feed people.  Since 1978, meat consumption has more than doubled, to twenty-four kilograms.  The share of Chinese grain fed to livestock rose from 7 percent in 1960 to 20 percent in 1990.

Over half Of Latin America's beef production is exported, and the rest is too expensive for any but the wealthy to purchase.  From 1960 to 1980 beef exports from El Salvador increases over sixfold.  Meanwhile, increasing numbers of small farmers lost their livelihood and were pushed off their land. Today, 72 percent of all Salvadoran infants are underfed.

In Brazil, major portions of the Amazon tropical rain forests have been destroyed so that wealthy multinational corporations can produce beef for the wealthy.   Corporations such as Volkswagen, Nestle, Mitsubishi, Liquigas, King Ranch, and Swift-Eckrich have bulldozed and burned literally hundreds of millions of acres, replacing the world's oldest and richest ecosystems, home to two million or more species of plant and animal life with a single crop--pasture grass for cattle.  And here, the beef produced has not gone to feed hungry Brazilians; it has been primarily exported to Western Europe, the Middle East, and North America.  In 1987, the United States imported three hundred million pounds of meat from countries in Central and South America.

With the help of international lending institutions, Brazil has mounted an enormous effort to increase agricultural production, but this has been primarily meat-oriented production and for export.  In the late '60s, soybeans were almost nonexistent or Brazil.  Today, this crop is the nation's number one export--but almost all of it goes to feed Japanese and European livestock.  Twenty five years ago, one third of the Brazilian population suffered from malnutrition.  Today, the figure has risen to two thirds.

Oxfam, the international charity, reports that in Brazil huge cattle ranches take up some of the most fertile soil in the whole country, yet 60 percent of Brazilians are malnourished.  Oxfam estimates that in Mexico, 80 percent of the children in rural areas are undernourished, yet the livestock are fed more grain than the human population eats!  The livestock are exported of course, to satisfy the developed nations' craving for cheap hamburgers.

In the early '60s, sorghum was almost unknown in Mexico.  But by 1980, it covered literally twice the acreage of wheat.  Sorghum isn't grown for humans.   It is fed to livestock.  In the late '60s, livestock consumed only 6 percent of Mexico's grain.  Today, the figure is over 50 percent.  This is a trend throughout the Third World.  Copying the United States' meat-oriented diet, these poor countries devote increasing percentages of their resources to meat production.

In Guatemala, 75 percent of the children under five years of age are undernourished.  Yet, every year Guatemala exports 40 million pounds of meat to the United States. It borders on the criminal!

In Costa Rica, beef production quadrupled between 1960 and 1980, but almost all this beef is exported to the United States, and what does stay in the country is eaten by a tiny minority.  Though more and more Costa Rican land is being turned over to meat production, the population is not eating more meat for the change.  The average family in Costa Rica eats less meat than the average American housecat. 

Throughout Latin America, land availability is a prominent social issue.   Revolutionaries as well as reform-minded moderates have made land reform a major issue.  Yet in many Latin American countries, forests are being leveled in order to create pastures for cattle grazing land. 

In a region where land availability is a central social issue, existing land is being gobbled up by livestock agriculture.   The resulting social tensions have resulted in civil wars, repression and violence.

Hunger is really a social disease caused by the unjust, inefficient and wasteful control of food.  Our food security is not being threatened by the prolific, hungry masses, but by elites that profit by the concentration and internationalization of control of food resources. 

In country after country the pattern is repeated.  Livestock industries are consuming feed to such an extent that now almost all Third World nations must import grain.  Seventy-five percent of Third World imports of corn, barley, sorghum, and oats are fed to animals, not to people.  In country after country, the demand for meat among the rich is squeezing out staple production for the poor.

The same trend can be found in the Middle East and North Africa--increases in grain-fed livestock require more imported feed.  In the early '70s, Egypt was self-sufficient in grain.  Then, livestock ate only 10 percent of the nation's grain.  Today, livestock consume 36 percent of Egypt's grain.  As a result, Egypt must now import eight million tons of grain every year. 

 In the late '60s , Syria was a barley exporter.  But in the intervening years, livestock has consumed increasing amounts of the country's grain.   Now, despite a phenomenal 1,000 percent increase in the land area devoted to producing barley, Syria must import the cereal.

According to Buckminster Fuller, there are enough resources at present to feed, clothe, house and educate every human being on the planet at American middle class standards.  The Institute for Food and Development Policy has shown that there is no country in the world in which the people cannot feed themselves from their own resources.

Moreover, there is no correlation between land density and hunger.   China has twice as many people per cultivated acre as India, yet less of a hunger problem.  Bangladesh has just one-half the people per cultivated acre that Taiwan has, yet Taiwan has no starvation, while Bangladesh has one of the highest rates in the world.  The most densely populated countries in the world today are not India and Bangladesh, but Holland and Japan.

Many of us believe that hunger exists because there's not enough food to go around.  But as Frances Moore Lappe' and her anti-hunger organization Food First! have shown, the real cause of hunger is a scarcity of justice, not a scarcity of food.

"Although I may disagree with some of its underlying principles," writes pro-life activist Karen Swallow Prior, "there is much for me, an anti-abortion activist, to respect in the animal rights movement.

"Animal rights activists, like me, have risked personal safety and reputation for the sake of other living beings. Animal rights activists, like me, are viewed by many in the mainstream as fanatical wackos, ironically exhorted by irritated passerby to 'Get a Life!'

"Animal rights activists, like me, place a higher value on life than on personal comfort and convenience, and in balancing the sometimes competing interests of rights and responsibilities, choose to err on the side of compassion and nonviolence."

During 1986 - 1988, when I had access to USENET, a nationwide computer network linking corporations, military bases, think tanks, universities, etc., I paid close attention to the abortion debate. The subject of animal rights always came up, albeit indirectly.

The mentality of the pro-choicers was that the fetus wasn't human, but rather some kind of lower life form--and that lower life forms couldn't possibly have rights.

When a pro-lifer discussed the potential humanity of the unborn, a pro-choicer replied, "MY CAT has more potential than that!"

One pro-choicer said sarcastically, "Maybe the kid (the fetus) should be raised as a vegetarian. After all, don't cows have the right to life?"

Another pro-choicer, Oleg Kiselev, upon hearing the pro-life argument that brain waves can be detected in the unborn as early as six weeks, pointed out that animals also have brain waves. He then added, "Excuse me, while I eat my veal stew."

In the spring of 1988, Stephen Carrier, a grad student in Mathematics at UC Berkeley, pointed out that chimpanzees share 99 percent of their DNA with humans, and so, to argue that species membership alone makes life worth protecting "is to fetishize DNA."

A pro-lifer responded: "If it'll please you, I will agree to protect anything that is 99 percent human."

To this, Stephen responded: "Okay. How about 50 percent? That would probably bring quite a few species into the net."

Stephen Carrier admitted, "I don't know what makes it acceptable to kill animals for meat. Some people think it's wrong, and I have no logical answer for them. But it's not murder, and I believe abortions are analogous. Yes, it's killing--but it's not murder."

Stephen admitted his argument was "not a mathematical proof, but there is no mathematical proof that will resolve the abortion debate."

In the fall of 1986, pro-life student John Morrow of Rutgers University compared abortion to slavery: Roe v. Wade denied rights to an entire class of humans merely on account of their age and developmental status, just as the Dred Scott decision of 1857 denied rights to an entire class of humans based on the color of their skin.

Dave Butler of Tektronix in Oregon responded: "Abortion and slavery? Not even close. A fetus isn't human. If you believe it's wrong to eat meat, should your morality be imposed upon everyone else?"

"Not even close" has become a popular slogan with pro-choicers. It even appeared on the headlines of most San Francisco Bay Area newspapers in November 1992, when Bill Clinton was elected.

"Not even close" is not a new slogan. Peter Singer writes in Animal Liberation that when Mary Wollstonecraft, a forerunner of today’s feminists, published A Vindication of the Rights of Women in 1792, "her views were widely regarded as absurd."

Thomas Taylor, a distinguished Cambridge philosopher, tried to refute Mary Wollstonecraft by demonstrating that if women could be given liberation, then animals could be given liberation, too. And since this is "absurd" it must be equally "absurd" to give women liberation. Taylor called his parody, "A Vindication of the Rights of Brutes."

"Not even close" is the "A Vindication of the Rights of Brutes" of the late 20th and early 21st century, because it takes for granted the invincible prejudice that other animals couldn't possibly have rights.  It is this prejudice which we in the animal rights movement are struggling to overcome.

Again, the mentality of the pro-choicers was that the fetus wasn't human, but some kind of lower life form--and that lower life forms couldn't possibly have rights. This led me to conclude that if there's any group out there which ought to be sympathetic to animal rights, it's pro-lifers.

Every animal lover needs to see this movie:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6361872964130308142

From

"The Comparative Anatomy of Eating", by Milton R. Mills, MD

Which category are humans most suited for?

*Facial Muscles*
CARNIVORE: Reduced to allow wide mouth gape
OMNIVORE: Reduced
HERBIVORE: Well-developed
HUMAN: Well-developed

*Jaw Type*
CARNIVORE: Angle not expanded
HERBIVORE: Expanded angle
OMNIVORE: Angle not expanded
HUMAN: Expanded angle

*Jaw Joint Location*
CARNIVORE: On same plane as molar teeth
HERBIVORE: Above the plane of the molars
OMNIVORE: On same plane as molar teeth
HUMAN: Above the plane of the molars

*Jaw Motion*
CARNIVORE: Shearing; minimal side-to-side motion
HERBIVORE: No shear; good side-to-side, front-to-back
OMNIVORE: Shearing; minimal side-to-side
HUMAN: No shear; good side-to-side, front-to-back

*Major Jaw Muscles*
CARNIVORE: Temporalis
HERBIVORE: Masseter and pterygoids
OMNIVORE: Temporalis
HUMAN: Masseter and pterygoids

*Mouth Opening vs. Head Size*
CARNIVORE: Large
HERBIVORE: Small
OMNIVORE: Large
HUMAN: Small

*Teeth: Incisors*
CARNIVORE: Short and pointed
HERBIVORE: Broad, flattened and spade shaped
OMNIVORE: Short and pointed
HUMAN: Broad, flattened and spade shaped

*Teeth: Canines*
CARNIVORE: Long, sharp and curved
HERBIVORE: Dull and short or long (for defense), or none
OMNIVORE: Long, sharp and curved
HUMAN: Short and blunted

*Teeth: Molars*
CARNIVORE: Sharp, jagged and blade shaped
HERBIVORE: Flattened with cusps vs complex surface
OMNIVORE: Sharp blades and/or flattened
HUMAN: Flattened with nodular cusps

*Chewing*
CARNIVORE: None; swallows food whole
HERBIVORE: Extensive chewing necessary
OMNIVORE: Swallows food whole and/or simple crushing
HUMAN: Extensive chewing necessary

*Saliva*
CARNIVORE: No digestive enzymes
HERBIVORE: Carbohydrate digesting enzymes
OMNIVORE: No digestive enzymes
HUMAN: Carbohydrate digesting enzymes

*Stomach Type*
CARNIVORE: Simple
HERBIVORE: Simple or multiple chambers
OMNIVORE: Simple
HUMAN: Simple

*Stomach Acidity*
CARNIVORE: Less than or equal to pH 1 with food in stomach
HERBIVORE: pH 4 to 5 with food in stomach
OMNIVORE: Less than or equal to pH 1 with food in stomach
HUMAN: pH 4 to 5 with food in stomach

*Stomach Capacity*
CARNIVORE: 60% to 70% of total volume of digestive tract
HERBIVORE: Less than 30% of total volume of digestive tract
OMNIVORE: 60% to 70% of total volume of digestive tract
HUMAN: 21% to 27% of total volume of digestive tract

*Length of Small Intestine*
CARNIVORE: 3 to 6 times body length
HERBIVORE: 10 to more than 12 times body length
OMNIVORE: 4 to 6 times body length
HUMAN: 10 to 11 times body length

*Colon*
CARNIVORE: Simple, short and smooth
HERBIVORE: Long, complex; may be sacculated
OMNIVORE: Simple, short and smooth
HUMAN: Long, sacculated

*Liver*
CARNIVORE: Can detoxify vitamin A
HERBIVORE: Cannot detoxify vitamin A
OMNIVORE: Can detoxify vitamin A
HUMAN: Cannot detoxify vitamin A

*Kidney*
CARNIVORE: Extremely concentrated urine
HERBIVORE: Moderately concentrated urine
OMNIVORE: Extremely concentrated urine
HUMAN: Moderately concentrated urine

*Nails*
CARNIVORE: Sharp claws
HERBIVORE: Flattened nails or blunt hooves
OMNIVORE: Sharp claws
HUMAN: Flattened nails

The frugivores (gorillas, chimpanzees and other primates) have intestinal tracts twelve times the length of the body, clawless hands and alkaline urine and saliva. Their diet is mostly vegetarian, occasionally supplemented with carrion, insects, etc. 
 
Flesh-eating animals lap water with their tongue, whereas vegetarian animals imbibe liquids by a suction process. Humans are classified as primates and are thus frugivores possessing a set of completely herbivorous teeth. Proponents of the theory that humans should be classified as omnivores note that human beings do, in fact, possess a modified form of canine teeth. However, these so-called "canine teeth" are much more prominent in animals that traditionally never eat flesh, such as apes, camels, and the male musk deer. 
 
It must also be noted that the shape, length and hardness of these so-called "canine teeth" can hardly be compared to those of true carnivorous animals. A principle factor in determining the hardness of teeth is the phosphate of magnesia content. Human teeth usually contain 1.5 percent phosphate of magnesia, whereas the teeth of carnivores are composed of nearly 5 percent phosphate of magnesia. It is for this reason they are able to break through the bones of their prey, and reach the nutritious marrow. 

Zoologist Desmond Morris makes a case for vegetarianism in his 1967 book, The Naked Ape: "It could be argued that, since our primate ancestors had to make do without a major meat component in their diets we should be able to do the same. We were driven to become flesh eaters only by environmental circumstances, and now that we have the environment under control, with elaborately cultivated crops at our disposal, we might be expected to return to our ancient feeding patterns." 
 
In The Human Story, edited by Marie-Louise Makris (1985), we read: "...recent studies of their teeth reveal that the Australopithecines did not eat meat as a regular part of their diet, and were mainly peaceful vegetarians, rather like chimps or gorillas. The popular image of the murderous ape is now as extinct as the Australopithecines themselves." 
 
Dr. Gordon Latto notes that carnivorous and omnivorous animals can only move their jaws up and down, and that omnivores "have a blunt tooth, a sharp tooth, a blunt tooth, a sharp tooth--showing that they were destined to deal both with flesh foods from the animal kingdom and foods from the vegetable kingdom... 
 
"Carnivorous mammals and omnivorous mammals cannot perspire except at the extremity of the limbs and the tip of the nose; man perspires all over the body. Finally, our instincts; the carnivorous mammal (which first of all has claws and canine teeth) is capable of tearing flesh asunder, whereas man only partakes of flesh foods after they have been camouflaged by cooking and by condiments. 
 
"Man instinctively is not carnivorous," explains Dr. Latto. "...he takes the flesh food after somebody else has killed it, and after it has been cooked and camouflaged with certain condiments. Whereas to pick an apple off a tree or eat some grain or a carrot is a natural thing to do; people enjoy doing it; they don't feel disturbed by it. But to see these animals being slaughtered does affect people; it offends them. Even the toughest of people are affected by the sights in the slaughterhouse. 
 
"I remember taking some medical students into a slaughterhouse. They were about as hardened people as you could meet. After seeing the animals slaughtered that day in the slaughterhouse, not one of them could eat the meat that evening." 
 
Author R.H. Weldon writes in No Animal Food: 
 
"The gorge of a cat, for instance, will rise at the smell of a mouse or a piece of raw flesh, but not at the aroma of fruit. If a man can take delight in pouncing upon a bird, tear its still living body apart with his teeth, sucking the warm blood, one might infer that Nature had provided him with a carnivorous instinct, but the very thought of doing such a thing makes him shudder. On the other hand, a bunch of luscious grapes makes his mouth water, and even in the absence of hunger, he will eat fruit to gratify taste." 
 
As far back as 1961, the Journal of the American Medical Association reported that: "A vegetarian diet can prevent 97% of our coronary occlusions." More recently, William S. Collens and Gerald B. Dobkens concluded: "Examination of the dental structure of modern man reveals that he possesses all the features of a strictly herbivorous animal. While designed to subsist on vegetarian foods, he has perverted his dietary habits to accept food of the carnivore. It is postulated that man cannot handle carnivorous foods like the carnivore. Herein may lie the basis for the high incidence of arteriosclerotic disease." 
 
Keith Akers in A Vegetarian Sourcebook (1983), responds to the argument that killing animals for food is natural: 

"This is quite an admirable argument.  It explains practically everything; why we do not eat each other, except under conditions of unusual stress; why we may kill certain other animals (they are, in the order of nature, food for us); even why we should be kind to pets and try to help miscellaneous wildlife (they are not naturally our food).  There are some problems with the idea that an order of nature determines which species are food for us, but an examination of human history indicates the broad outlines of just such an order, though inhibitions against eating certain species may vary from culture to culture.
 
"The main problem with this argument is that it does not justify the practice of meat-eating or animal husbandry as we know it today; it justifies hunting. The distinction between hunting and animal husbandry probably seems rather fine to the man in the street, or even to your typical rule-utilitarian moral philosopher. The distinction, however, is obvious to an ecologist. If one defends killing on the grounds that it occurs in nature, then one is defending the practice as it occurs in nature. 
 
"When one species of animal preys on another in nature, it only preys on a very small proportion of the total species population. Obviously, the predator species relies on its prey for its continued survival. Therefore, to wipe the prey species out through overhunting would be fatal. In practice, members of such predator species rely on such strategies as territoriality to restrict overhunting and to insure the continued existence of its food supply. 
 
"Moreover, only the weakest members of the prey species are the predator's victims: the feeble, the sick, the lame, or the young accidentally separated from the fold. The life of the typical zebra is usually placid, even in lion country; this kind of violence is the exception in nature, not the rule. 
 
"As it exists in the wild, hunting is the preying upon isolated members of an animal herd. Animal husbandry is the nearly complete annihilation of an animal herd. In nature, this kind of slaughter does not exist. The philosopher is free to argue that there is no moral difference between hunting and slaughter, but he cannot invoke nature as a defense of this idea. 
 
"Why are hunters, not butchers, most frequently taken to task by the larger community for their killing of animals? Hunters usually react to such criticism by replying that if hunting is wrong, then meat-hunting must be wrong as well. The hunter is certainly right on one point--the larger community is hypocritical to object to hunting when it consumes the flesh of domesticated animals. If any form of meat-eating is justified, it would be meat from a hunted animal." 

In his 1975 book, Animal Liberation, Australian philosopher Peter Singer writes:

"Killing an animal is in itself a troubling act. It has been said that if we had to kill our own meat we would all be vegetarians. There may be exceptions to that general rule, but it is true that most people prefer not to inquire into the killing of the animals they eat.

"Very few people ever visit a slaughterhouse; and films of slaughterhouse operations are rarely shown on television...Yet those who, by their purchases, require animals to be killed have no right to be shielded from this or any other aspect of the production of the meat they buy.

"If it is distasteful for humans to think about, what can it be like for the animals to experience it?"

Peter Singer concludes in Animal Liberation that "by ceasing to rear and kill animals for food, we can make extra food available for humans that, properly distributed, it would eliminate starvation and malnutrition from this planet. Animal Liberation is Human Liberation, too."
 
Dr. Milton Mills' "The Comparative Anatomy of Eating,"

www.vegsource.com/veg_faq/comparative.htm

and the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine,

www.pcrm.org ,

argue persuasively that the optimal diet for humanity is a vegan diet.  However, even if humans really are omnivores and not frugivores, the diet of natural omnivores is mostly (80 percent) plant food.

Humans are not strictly herbivorous. The human body can't break down cellulose, the principle component of plant foods (though it does serve a purpose as dietary fiber). This is the reason we can't graze or live on grass. Anatomically, we resemble the other primates (frugivores), whose diet is mostly vegetarian. We're meant to live mostly, if not entirely, upon plant foods. Only vitamin B-12 cannot be obtained from plant foods.

Predators are found in nature, but so are cannibalism and rape. Killing other animals for food, in this sense, really is an ethical issue, not a "dietary" issue.

Keith Akers writes in A Vegetarian Sourcebook (1983): "There is no question that lacto-ovo-vegetarians easily obtain enough vitamin B-12; dairy products and eggs are generous suppliers of vitamin B-12. The controversy pertains only to those who live on plant foods and do not eat any animal foods at all--the 'total vegetarians' or 'vegans.'...The evidence shows, however, that there are numerous sources of vitamin B-12 other than animal foods, and that vitamin B-12 is not a particularly difficult vitamin to get. In short, the Great Vitamin B-12 Controversy, like the protein controversy, is largely generated by lack of information concerning already available research data.

"Only incredibly small quantities of vitamin B-12 are thought to be needed in the diet. According to the National Research Council, 3 micrograms daily will meet the body's requirements. but Victor Herbert, a noted authority on the subject, puts the requirement at 0.1 micrograms, making even the National Research Council's microscopic figure 30 times in excess of the actual need."

John Robbins, author of Diet for a New America (1987), says that vitamin B-12 is found naturally around us: on the dirt on a carrot pulled out of the ground, in rainwater, etc., but we live in a sanitized society, removed from nature.

Keith Akers similarly observes:

"Vitamin B-12 has been found in rainwater and in many plant foods. In small quantities, Vitamin B-12 has been found either in or on various foods such as the roots and stems of tomatoes, cabbage, celery, kale, broccoli, leeks, and the leaves of kohlrabi. An ounce of the roots of leeks, beets, and other vegetables will provide 0.1 to 0.3 micrograms of B-12, which is more than a day's requirement.

"There are other plant foods which provide 'massive' quantities of vitamin B-12--'massive,' that is, in relation to human requirements for the vitamin. These include nutritional yeast, tempeh, seaweed, algae, kelp, and fermented soy sauces. The human liver can store vitamin B-12 for years, so once it is ingested from one of these sources, one can go for long periods of time without having to worry about a source of B-12."

In his 1979 book, Vegetarianism: A Way of Life, Dudley Giehl writes that some ancient Egyptian priests were vegetarian to help them with their vows of celibacy and that they avoided eggs and milk, which they called "liquid flesh." Giehl writes that Leonardo da Vinci was a vegan, out of ethical concern for animals.

In his 1923 book, The Natural Diet of Man, Adventist physician Dr. John Harvey Kellogg writes: "The Ladrone Islands were discovered by the Spaniards around 1620. There were no animals on the islands except birds, which the natives did not eat. The natives had never seen fire, and they lived entirely on plant foods--fruits and roots in their natural state. They were found to be vigorous, active, and of good longevity."

The Garden of Eden was vegan, but veganism as an actual historical trend is a fairly recent phenomenon. The Vegan Society was formed in England in 1944.

The ethical, environmental, and nutritional arguments are compelling enough to encourage millions of Americans to reduce, if not eliminate entirely, their consumption of animal products.

I'm going to simply reprint a poem I wrote about this, because I can't think of a better way to say what I'm thinking.

"Extreme" (from ganymeder.com)

Extreme… what does that word mean anyway?
You use the words that others don’t use
Live what you think, and mean what you say
Call things what they are and not hide your views

Dairy and cheese are secretions from cows.
Meat is flesh. Call it by its proper name.
“Beef” once was living, Pork- hogs, piglets, sows.
Nice euphemisms are used to kill blame.

Walk past the mass grave marked “Meat Department”
Put “Go veg” cards on the Live Lobster tank
Feel their cold prison with your fingers bent
doomed to die so butchers go to the bank

In a world where innocents have no voice,
being extreme is the only sane choice.