Recently, one of the tabloid television news programs
focused on "mad cow disease" and how it effects people. The prevailing
viewpoint was that this is a problem in Europe and not in America. There
certainly was reason for Americans to be aware but not concerned. This is
an excerpt from the book Mad Cowboy -- Plain Truth From A Cattlerancher
Who Won't Eat Meat, by HOWARD LYMAN with Glen Merzer! For more information
on this book and how to purchase it you can use the following link!
Howard Lyman: Mad Cowboy
http://www.madcowboy.com/
I am a fourth-generation dairy farmer and cattle rancher.
I grew up on a dairy farm in Montana, and I ran a feedlot operation there
for 20 years. I know firsthand how cattle are raised and how meat is
produced in this country. Today I am president of the International
Vegetarian Union.
Sure, I used to enjoy my steaks as much as the next guy.
But if you knew what I know about what goes into them and what they can do
to you, you'd probably be a vegetarian like me. And believe it or not, as
a pure vegetarian now who consumes no animal products at all, I can tell
you that these days I enjoy eating more than ever.
If you're a meat-eater in America, you have a right to
know that you have something in common with most of the cows you've eaten.
They've eaten meat, too.
When a cow is slaughtered, about half of it by weight is
not eaten by humans: the intestines and their contents, the head, hooves,
and horns, as well as bones and blood. These are dumped into giant
grinders at rendering plants, as are the entire bodies of cows and other
farm animals known to be diseased. Rendering is a $2.4 billion-a-year
industry, processing forty-billion pounds of dead animals a year. There is
simply no such thing in America as an animal too ravaged by disease, too
cancerous, or too putrid to be welcomed by the embracing arms of the
renderer.
Another staple of the renderer's diet, in addition to farm
animals, is euthanized pets -- the six or seven million dogs and cats that
are killed in animal shelters every year. The city of Los Angeles alone,
for example, sends some two hundred tons of euthanized cats and dogs to a
rendering plant every month. Added to the blend are the euthanized catch
of animal control agencies, and roadkill. (Roadkill is not collected
daily, and in the summer, the better roadkill collection crews can
generally smell it before they can see it.)
When the gruesome mix is ground and steam-cooked, the
lighter, fatty material floating to the top gets refined for use in such
products as cosmetics, lubricants, soaps, candles, and waxes. The heavier
protein material is dried and pulverized into a brown powder -- about a
quarter of which consists of fecal material. The powder is used as an
additive to almost ALL pet food as well as to livestock feed. Farmers call
it "protein concentrates." In 1995, five million tons of processed
slaughterhouse leftovers were sold for animal feed in the United States. I
used to feed tons of the stuff to my own livestock. It never concerned me
that I was feeding cattle to cattle. In August 1997, in response to
growing concern about the spread of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (or
Mad Cow disease), the FDA issued a new regulation that bans the feeding of
ruminant protein (protein from cud-chewing animals) to ruminants;
therefore, to the extent that the regulation is actually enforced, cattle
are no longer quite the cannibals that we had made them into. They are no
longer eating solid parts of other cattle, or sheep, or goats. They still
munch, however, on ground-up dead horses, dogs, cats, pigs, chickens, and
turkeys, as well as blood and fecal matter of their own species and that
of chickens. About 75 percent of the ninety-million beef cattle in America
are routinely given feed that has been "enriched" with rendered animal
parts. The use of animal excrement in feed is common as well, as livestock
operators have found it to be an efficient way of disposing of a portion
of the 1.6 million tons of livestock wastes generated annually by their
industry.
In Arkansas, for example, the average farm feeds over
fifty tons of chicken litter to cattle every year. One Arkansas cattle
farmer was quoted in U.S. News & World Report as having recently purchased
745 tons of litter collected from the floors of local chicken-raising
operations. After mixing it with small amounts of soybean bran, he then
feeds it to his eight hundred head of cattle, making them, in his words,
"FAT AS BUTTERBALLS." He explained, "If I didn't have chicken litter, I'd
have to sell half my herd. Other feeds are too expensive." If you are a
meat-eater, understand that this is the food of your food.
We don't know all there is to know about the extent to
which the consumption of diseased or unhealthy animals causes diseases in
humans, but we do know that some diseases -- rabies, for example -- are
transmitted from the host animal to humans. We know that the common food
poisonings brought on by such organisms as the prevalent E. Coli bacteria,
which results from fecal contamination of food, causes the death of nine
thousand Americans a year and that about 80 percent of food poisonings
come from tainted meat. And now we can also be virtually certain, from the
tragedy that has already afflicted Britain, that Mad Cow disease can "jump
species" and give rise to a new variant of the always fatal, brain-wasting
Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in humans.
For all too many humans, the first decision they
consciously make about their health is the stark one between by-pass
surgery and angioplasty, or between chemotherapy and radiation. In
reality, however, we knowingly make choices every day that can either lead
us toward these grim options, or else toward happier ones. We do so, of
course, every time we decide what fuel to put in our bodies.
To make our choices informed ones, we have to start with the facts.
Go on to Recognize Me
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