Animal Writings

This slideshow recaps the HSUS's 2005 activities, including disaster rescue, pro-animal legislation, and efforts to abolish the slaughter of baby seals.

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Meat Market Book Tour -- Part 1

Meat Market Book Tour -- Part 2

Meat Market Book Tour -- Part 3

Meat Market Book Tour -- Part 4

Meat Market Book Tour -- Part 5

Meat Market Book Tour -- Part 6

Meat Market Book Tour -- Part 7

Meat Market Book Tour -- Part 8

Meat Market Book Tour -- Part 9

Meat Market Book Tour -- Part 10

Meat Market Book Tour -- Part 11

Meat Market Book Tour -- Part 12

Meat Market Book Tour -- Part 13

Meat Market Book Tour -- Part 14

Meat Market Book Tour -- Part 15: Who Wants to Be a Millionnaire?

Meat Market Book Tour -- Part 16

Meat Market Book Tour -- Part 17

As an alternative, you can start at Part 1, and read all the blog posts sequentially until Part 17. Each of the inter-book tour posts is related to the Meat Market post that precedes it. The only exceptions are small clusters of posts around the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays. The non-book tour posts have a few Erik Markus cameos scattered throughout.

In Meat Market, Erik Markus lays out those strategies, and points the way to a future in which animals are finally released from the wicked and barbaric chokehold of animal agriculture. Meat Market acts locally and thinks globally, but in time, not in space. It has immediately useful information and advice, and long-term vision.

Meat Market lays out the tragic nature of our most prominent form of institutionalized animal cruelty — the ruthless treatment of farm animals, especially in factory farms — and then, with care and deliberation, provides a way out. One of the premises of the book's strategies to free animals from cruel bondage is that animal agriculture is so pervasive, if we dismantle it, many of the other exploitative uses of animals will fall by the wayside as well. Not only will the economics of animal-derived products change once the primary industry creating those products fades away, but I believe as people decrease the role of meat and dairy in their lives, they will be less prone to defend it. Meat and dairy will seem increasingly unnecessary, and it will become easier to see the wrongness of harming animals to taste their flesh. The dismantling of animal agriculture will generate momentum that could transform the nation, and bring long-overdue peace and justice to an untold number of magnificent creatures — including members of our own species.

Drawing on his extensive research and personal experiences, Eric Markus has poured his heart into Meat Market. He wants animal advocates to be as effective as possible, to serve the broader goal of ending preventable, human-caused animal suffering. I cannot imagine being an animal advocate — or, for that matter, an informed consumer — without a copy of this book. It has been my pleasure and privilege to present this "virtual book tour" of Meat Market.

You can buy Meat Market here.

The next post will be an index to all the Meat Market virtual book tour entries.

When you first decide to go vegetarian, and then vegan, in terms of food you're thinking: "What do I have to give up?" Then you start putting things back in your diet, and discovering all sorts of new foods and exciting combinations of ingredients, and eventually you have more variety in your diet than when you ate meat. Also more nutrition. And far less animal suffering and environmental destruction is necessary to produce your food.

There are several different, non-mutually exclusive options for vegan food.

• Go with dishes you already eat that happen to be vegan, like spaghetti marinara, lentils and rice, bean burritos, even peanut butter and jelly.


• Visit restaurants that are likely to have a lot of vegan dishes. Try falafels at a Mideast restaurant, lentil and potato dishes at Indian restaurants, and tomato-based dishes at Italian restaurants. Most metropolitan areas and many college towns have at least one restaurant that serves decent vegan main courses. If you live in a big city, you owe it to yourself to try a top-rated vegan restaurant. You'll be amazed.


• Buy frozen vegan meals to pop in the microwave. Amy's and Ethnic Gourmet make complete meals. Boca, MorningStar Farms, Health is Wealth, and Trader Joe's make vegan versions of chicken and burgers. This is a partial list, of course.


• Whole Foods, Trader Joe's, the corner health food store, and, increasingly, all the mainstream grocery store chains offer vegan ready-made meals and side dishes in the deli. This is an easy way to try breaded tofu cutlets, Indian meat-free samosas, Thai noodle salad with peanut sauce, and other vegan dishes before making them yourself.


• Use meat substitutes. This market is huge. You can add veggie ground beef to tacos, sloppy joes, spaghetti sauce, and chili. You can buy veggie deli meats for sandwiches. Veggie sausages and bacon have been popular for years. Garden Burger Riblets taste like spare ribs but don't require subjecting pigs to the horror of factory farms and slaughterhouses. LightLife's Smart BBQ is a great-tasting pork barbecue replacement.
  
• Get acquainted with the "big three" soy protein sources: tofu, tempeh, and seitan. Tofu absorbs flavors like little kids absorb knowledge. Usually the trick—for me anyway—is the marinade or the sauce. Tofu is a base that wants to be acted on. I can't just throw some naked tofu into a stir-fry at the last minute. But if I soak it in a Korean or Szechuan marinade first — now we're talking. For general-purpose use, I usually buy extra-firm tofu, because it handles better. Seitan and tempeh work basically the same way. They have a heartier, meatier flavor. You used to only be able to buy these products at health food stores. Tofu is everywhere nowadays and there's a passing chance you'll find all three products at your regular supermarket. You can also buy these products pre-marinated, which is a great time-saver if you're in a hurry. Add some noodles, vegetables, and a little more sauce — presto. Healthy, quick, and cruelty-free.


• Silken tofu is like a miracle worker. You can create vegan delicacies like chocolate cream pie and pumpkin cheesecake using silken tofu that will knock the socks off omnivores. I am not kidding. I recommend starting with some tried-and true recipes, from cookbooks, the Net, or vegan friends. That's just a general recommendation. If you're the creative or adventurous or "do it yourself" type, or have an innate sense of how ingredients ought to blend together — go for it!


• Use dairy substitutes. Veggie cheese varies in quality but is improving. Veggie cream cheese has arrived, in the form of Tofutti Better Than Cream Cheese. It tastes just like cream cheese. Soy ice cream has improved dramatically in the last couple of years (see below), and maybe in two more years will actually be preferred by non-vegans over some major brands of ice cream. Soymilk is improving likewise. I have to give a lot of credit to Silk for advancing the state of the art, and market penetration, of soymilk. (Try their Soy Nog—it's great; brandy optional).
  
  I have a new favorite flavor of soy ice cream. The other night I bought Double Rainbow Vanilla and Mango at Trader Joe's. The blend of vanilla "ice cream" and mango sorbet sounded refreshing, not too heavy. I brought it home and put it in the freezer. After dinner, I took it out and put a few scoops in a bowl. I took my first bite. "Oh-oh," I thought, "I bought real ice cream by mistake." At Trader Joe's the dairy and non-dairy ice cream are right next to each other, even intermingled sometimes. I opened the freezer and took out the carton. Nope, it was soy. That's how close the flavors have become.
  
  
  Moms: If you're the one selecting or preparing meals for your family, remember that dairy cows have their newborn calves taken from them when the calves are only two days old. The calves are deprived of their mothers' milk—humans take it all. The male calves, barely able to walk, are sold at auctions and confined to the 20-week hard labor of the veal pen before being slaughtered. So, please, give these other mothers and their children a break; try cruelty-free dairy substitutes.


• Instead of butter, try Earth Balance. Instead of mayo, use Veganaise. You won't know the difference. You'll also have less chance of salmonella outbreaks at picnics, since it has no eggs. (For information on battery-caged hens, visit this page and scroll down to "Egg-Laying Hens," or just click on this picture to get an idea of the suffering they endure.)


• At the store, there are probably a hundred items that have always been there that are vegan, that you've passed up. We tend to get in ruts with our meals. Six main things with variations. There is a world of food at your fingertips. Try eggplant, kale, mustard greens, endive, baby bok choy, spaghetti squash, kiwi fruit, mango, and papaya from the produce department. If you go to an ethnic grocery store, you'll find a whole huge variety of new fruits and vegetables, like Chinese parsley, water spinach, and winter melon. This is nature's bounty! Also pick up some prepared appetizers like hummus, babaganoush, kimchee, and seaweed salad. The things you can do with these foods are endless.
  
  
  Sauce

  
  There are so many canned or bottled sauces available at most supermarkets, from the mundane (such as basic tomato or barbecue sauce) to the exotic (such as Thai sesame lime marinade or chocolate chili salsa).
  
  You can marinate and cook (bake or fry) your protein in sauce, and/or pour sauce over your carbohydrate source and veggies (including salad). Many sauces can be made even more delicious with the addition of nuts, seeds, and/or oils—especially flaxseed oil, which works best in cold sauces or dressings with an already strong flavor.
  
  With the variety of sauces available and the number of combinations of foods, one can easily try innumerable new "recipes" without ever cracking a cookbook!
  
  

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  From The Convenient Vegetarian by Virginia Messina, R.D. & Kate Schumann; adapted for Vegan Outreach


• Visit VegWeb.com. They have thousands of indexed veg recipes; each of them are rated.


• Use Google. For search terms, start with "recipe" and "vegan." Then add some ingredients that you feel like eating or want to get rid of in the refrigerator. You can also add qualifiers like "Asian," "quick," or "high protein." This is actually a great way learn vegan cooking. Sometimes you get some surprising yet tasty search results back.


• There are a ton of excellent vegan cookbooks. There is even a diversity of specialized vegan cookbooks (desserts, southern, gourmet, etc.). Check out this page for a comprehensive, categorized list.
  
  I made this vegan sloppy joe recipe from Vegan Vittles a few days ago. I made extra and fed it to omnivorous friends. They scarfed it down. One asked for the recipe. Veganism isn't about deprivation. It's about discovery.
  
  
  Messy Mikes
  
  1 Tablespoon olive oil
  1 medium onion, diced
  1 8-ounce package tempeh, crushed
  2 Tablespoons soy sauce
  1/2 cup ketchup
  1 teaspoon prepared yellow mustard
  1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
  1 teaspoon sweetener of your choice [I used maple syrup].
  
  1. Place the oil in a 2-quart saucepan, and heat it over medium-high. When the oil is hot, ad the onion, tempeh, and soy sauce, and sautÉ them until the onion is tender and lightly browned, about 10 minutes.
  
  2. Add the remaining ingredients except the buns, and mix well. Reduce the heat to medium, and simmer the mixture, uncovered, for 10 minutes, stirring often. Divide the hot mixture equally among the buns, and serve at once.
  
  Yield: 4 servings

I've barely scratched the surface. I am always finding out new ingredients, new ready-made dishes, and new cooking techniques. The variety of things you can do with vegan food is practically infinite, and the options are expanding constantly.

Click here to view the entire "Works of the Creator" series.

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In preparation for this post, I read (and heard) many stories that wove together animal and Christmas themes. Some were miraculous accounts of rescues, or glorious, unfolding sagas of relationships between people and companion animals. For some reason, this simple tale told by a hunter is the one that touched my heart and gave me hope. It is very short. The author comes to realize that when he shot animals, he killed beauty. Not only beauty in an artistic sense, but the beauty of friendship — of joyous, sustaining, nurturing friendship. Perhaps the power of friendship, of simpatico between two beings, more than anything else, is a reflection of God's love.

I also want to note that this man's transformation came not from witnessing the glory of a mighty elk, or the blinding speed of a falcon, but from the humble possum, from "the least of these."

The Crossing, By Alex Schroeder

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"If I ever have the opportunity to talk with the emperor, I'll beg him, for the love of God and me, to enact a special law: no one is to capture or kill our sisters the larks or do them any harm. Furthermore, all mayors and lords of castles and towns are required to scatter wheat and other grain on the roads outside the walls so that our sisters the larks and other birds might have something to eat on so festive a day.

And on Christmas Eve, out of reverence for the Son of God, whom on that night the Virgin Mary placed in a manger between the ox and the ass, anyone having an ox or an ass is to feed it a generous portion of choice fodder. And, on Christmas Day, the rich are to give the poor the finest food in abundance."

"There's a schizoid quality to our relationship with animals, in which sentiment and brutality exist side by side. Half the dogs in America will receive Christmas presents this year, yet few of us pause to consider the miserable life of the pig--an animal easily as intelligent as a dog--that becomes the Christmas ham."

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Related Link:

Compassionate Christmas — a primer on animal cruelty issues, especially as they relate to Christmas activities, and festive vegan holiday recipes (pages 12-15)

How old were the chickens who were killed to make that plate of wings in front of you?

(To see answer, place mouse under this sentence.)
A: seven weeks old

Modern chickens are bred to grow so fast that many have heart attacks before they're even this old.

I tried LightLife's veggie pastrami today. I made a sandwich on some million-grain bread, lathered on some Veganaise and mustard, piled the pastrami high, added some crunchy lettuce and tomato slices. Tasted like the pastrami sandwiches my mom used to make years ago when my dad's friends came over. The only things missing were the cigars and the poker game.

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Related Links:

LightLife Smart Deli® Three Peppercorn Pastrami Style

Pennsylvania Dutch Coleslaw

Piquant Coleslaw

The following is a description by factory farm workers of the standard hog factory practice of "thumping," in which workers pick up pigs by their hind legs, whirl them over their shoulders, and bash them headfirst into the concrete floor.


There is a way to stop this brutality. Don't buy the product. Ask your friends and family to do the same. It's that simple.

Compassion Over Killing investigates a Perdue slaughter plant. They see chickens hung incorrectly and thus forced to experience a series of tortures as they're moved through the slaughter process. They also witness and videotape dying birds "left lying on a conveyer belt and being piled onto each other in a bin while workers take lunch breaks."

A PETA investigator at a Pilgrim's Pride poultry plant catches workers "stomping, kicking and slamming chickens against walls, prompting the company to fire 11 employees, re-educate its work force at all 24 North American plants and add quality assurance monitors." The violent misconduct is caught on videotape.

Veterinarians and police inspected the Wegmans high-production egg facility and found no problems. None at all. Compassionate Consumers, on their initial visit, and armed with camcorders, found hens covered with dripping feces, hens dead and decomposing in their cages, live hens squished up against the dead, hens fallen through the cage floor into a no-man's land of excrement and filth. Lifeless hens, featherless hens, hens with huge untreated blisters. These and other infractions somehow were missed by the previous inspectors, prompting Wegmans to conclude that their operation was top-notch and humane. Reality check, please.


There are lots more incidents like this. Industry response almost always follows the same script:

• Righteous indignation ("How dare you come into our pristine facilities! Bad animal rights group!).


• Claims that the footage came from somewhere else. (Apparently, somewhere there is a huge and easily accessible factory farm and slaughterhouse, always being filmed, where all the bad things happen.)


• Pro-forma PR from a corporate spokesperson about well their operations are run; usually something about high ethical standards is thrown in.

After it becomes obvious that the public isn't buying the excuses, the company issues a brief statement explaining that the problems in the film were "isolated incidents" that have been corrected. Often it is mentioned that new training programs have been put into place. Sometimes a few low-level workers are fired. Never anyone high up.

How is it that the activists always happen to be there, with cameras rolling, when the "isolated incidents" occur? They're good! Also, we have to give credit to the animal protection groups for being the catalyst for these training programs that the companies tout. (Why didn't they already have them? And where's the "thank you" from industry?)

Since these animal groups seem to consistently find grave problems that the official inspectors miss, I propose that we turn over the inspection job to them. Give them free reign to inspect every nook and cranny of factory farm and slaughterhouse operations and I think within six months we'll have a stack of animal welfare violations taller than the Empire State Building. I have no doubt that they will uncover thousands of isolated incidents. I foresee lots of problem corrections and new training programs. Also, record sales for veggie chicken. Plus we'll save money. I'll bet the activists would do this for free. Although let me propose a merit pay system, where they receive compensation based on how many violations they find.

Finally, how about a "three strikes and you're out" rule? Three major violations and the operation shuts down until the problems are fixed?

[Addendum: Have PETA and other animal rights group inspect animal labs, too. Last year, a PETA undercover investigator at the University of North Carolina (UNC) videotaped a scientist using scissors to cut the heads off baby rats while saying that he knew it was illegal, but he did it because it was easier. In other words, a UNC researcher was openly and unapologetically torturing lab animals. PETA also documented a host of other abuses at UNC, including:

• letting seriously ill animals die without veterinary care or euthanasia


• denying pain medication to suffering animals


• denying food, water, and housing to animals


• forcing animals to live in extremely crowded conditions, leading to their deaths by cannibalism and suffocation

UNC, after the usual "we are great" / "down with the messenger" spin, claimed that the problems were fixed. PETA went to UNC a year later and found the same problems. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has confirmed all of PETA's findings. (Why didn't NIH find them in the first place?)

Two strikes.]

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Related Links:

COK Investigation Exposes Chicken Industry Cruelty
Undercover Footage of Perdue Slaughter Plant Reveals Routine Abuse

Wegmans Cruelty

The animal agriculture industry is trying to turn their factories of concentrated misery and death into fortresses, so that the horrors are impossible to see. The industry is attempting to obscure the reality of animal suffering — pigs going crazy in tiny crates, hens dying in their cages, lame chickens unable to reach water and dying of thirst, fallen cows kicked and dragged toward their slaughter, animals of many types suffocating and freezing to death during transport — with their manufactured images of happy animals grazing in wide-open pristine pastures. But this extremism will sow the seeds of the industry's defeat. As Erik Marcus points out later in the book, such desperate measures will only inspire more creative and determined activism and undercover exposés. The widening contrast between the animal agriculture industry's "don't worry, be happy" promotions and the unspeakable horrors of factory farm operations, combined with the industry's obvious fear of people seeing what they really do, will make a deep impression on the public. Consumer skepticism—if not contempt—will hasten the growth of the meat and dairy substitute market.

It's amazing. In response to mounting concern that animals in factory farms are treated with unjust cruelty (so horrible that most consumers of meat and dairy can't stand to think about it), the animal agriculture industry will expend great efforts to do anything other than correct the problem. Their enormous profits are based on institutionalized cruelty. They care nothing about the welfare of the animals. Just money. In fact, they fight to protect and perpetuate their cruelties. What an insidious evil. My apologies to future generations.

Meanwhile, anywhere that rescued farm animals are treated with kindness and compassion, where they're given long and happy lives, you're welcome to bring your camera and your family. It's a delight to visit with animals who know they have a good home and who are exposed to humans' better natures. For a list of farm animal sanctuaries in your area, please visit this page.

What a wonderful, unselfish ambition. Readers in your teens and twenties — you can do it! Just think if we had a thousand "millionaires" across the country. We would be well on our way to dismantling animal agriculture.

The animal agriculture industry is unnecessary. It perpetuates mainly due to habit, sunk costs, promotion and marketing, resistance to change, and widespread ignorance of the extent of its animal cruelty.

Animal agriculture in the developed world is morally indefensible due to its massive and severe exploitation, and lack of need for its products. In its most dominant form — factory farms — the animals are treated worse than prisoners of war, just to increase corporate profits. In any of its forms, including so-called "humane" and "free-range" farms, it reduces complex sentient creatures to mere resources that are created, slaughtered as soon as possible, and forced to endure pain and suffering so humans can satisfy arbitrary and frivolous desires. Animal agriculture also wreaks havoc on the environment. Let's get rid of it.

Generations that grow up without animal agriculture won't miss it, and will in all likelihood be disgusted by the idea and horrified by how thoughtlessly previous generations (e.g., ours) mistreated animals.

Here are three (of many) tools to help you become animal savior millionaires:

• Vegan Outreach focuses on one thing above all else — getting information about farm animal cruelty into the hands of the public — and they do it superbly. I recommend having copies of Why Vegan and/or Even If You Like Meat handy at all times. Each is a concise but eye-opening introduction to the horrid conditions of modern animal agriculture. Remember, the average person is blithely unaware of how animal-derived foods — especially eggs and dairy — are produced. Once they find out, things are never quite the same. Common reactions are shock, disbelief, and anger — which often lead to a change in eating habits. Vegan Outreach brochures are cheap, persuasive, and easy to use.


• Compassion Over Killing (COK) has produced some marvelous TV commercials about farm animal suffering that have aired on MTV and reached millions of viewers. Response to the commercials has been tremendous. This is an underused but highly effective way to inform the public about the horrible — but preventable — suffering in modern farms. The close-ups of pigs desperately biting the bars of their cage and chickens hung in slaughterhouse shackles frantically flapping their wings makes their suffering real, not abstract. You can help COK air more of these commercials and convince more people to become vegan by making a donation to them. COK's cost-to-benefit ratio is outstanding. Every penny goes to help the animals.


• I have seen and heard many firsthand accounts of people watching Peaceable Kingdom or The Witness and having a life-altering experience. Some make significant dietary changes — even converting to total vegetarianism — on the spot. Please consider purchasing a copy of each of these documentaries. Lend them to friends and co-workers. Arrange to show them at a church gathering or environmental group meeting. The power conveyed by the video footage is unparalleled.
  
  Peaceable Kingdom is suitable for a wide audience. It is not overly gory. It conveys the plight of farm animals and the glory of rescuing them.
  
  The Witness is hard-hitting. It chronicles one man's transition from apathy about animals to activist. Tough guys who watch it may be moved to tears.
  
  To order the films, or make a contribution to Tribe of Heart, which produced and promotes each film, go here.

As an animal activist, I'm part of an urgent and far-reaching rescue mission:

• To free billions of animals, who are reduced to mere "product," from their unjust incarceration and unjustified suffering. To get animals, miserable and desperate for some semblance of a normal life, out of their stinking, filthy, dark, barren, obscenely tiny cages.


• To rescue humans from a morally paralyzing greed that makes us destroy other creatures and inflict unspeakable horrors on them so we can feed our never-satisfied appetite for guilty pleasures.

Let me start off by featuring excerpts from a news story last summer in the Contra Costa (California) Times:


Anti-animal rights groups, the egg industry, and factory egg farm operators deny that the hens in these facilities are mistreated, and deny specifically that feces fall onto the wings of the hens in the bottom cages. They're wrong and they're lying. Or they're in some sort of deep denial.

Observations of these types of horrid conditions in industrial egg operations have been accumulating for decades.

The article continues:


"They frighten the hens." That's the fake show of alarm expressed by the operators of these darkly depressing death camps when animal rights investigators document them and rescue some of the inmates who are near death.

From everything I can gather, including talking to the deeply dedicated individuals themselves, the rescuers bend over backward to remain calm and to not disturb any of the animals. That's the last thing they want to do.

I've visited the chickens at the animal sanctuary many times. The most panic I've ever witnessed is a hen trotting out of the way of an unruly toddler — of which I presume there are none in the investigative parties.

When I visit sanctuary chickens, some walk over, curious, to investigate me. Some ignore me. That's about it. Some like to be held. They're not frightened. They're beautiful, foraging in the grass, plants, and flowers. Communicating their repertoire of sounds to one another, and — I gather — to me. Just being chickens, which they're remarkably good at. One time I spent close to an hour just lying on the ground to see their world from their height. It makes for an interesting afternoon having chickens walk over your stomach.

Perhaps the battery cage hens in the warehouse are frightened because they're held against their will in unforgivingly stark surroundings. They're in constant stress, captivity, and maybe disbelief. They're exposed, trapped, they have no shelter, nowhere to run. Their natures have been squashed, denied, and perverted. They've never known a speck of human kindness. They have only known humans as captors, as rough and unfriendly handlers.

Animal rescuers stare into the face of cruelty, change their lives to divest themselves of it, educate us on it, put it in front of our faces where we can't miss it, and plead for us to end it.

They do this not for fame or publicity but out of the good of their hearts. Certainly not for money. Rescue and activism is expensive, and I know rescuers who go into hock or eat up retirement savings to help animals in need. These are the true and typical faces of animal rights. They are improving the welfare of helpless hens in extraordinary ways.

If you'd like to help by adopting a hen (or hens), contact one of these organizations:

• Animal Place, Vacaville, 707-449-4814; www.animalplace.org


• Marin Humane Society, Novato, 415-883-4621; www.marinhumanesociety.org


• Sacramento SPCA, Sacramento, 916-383-7387; www.sspca.org

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"Animal Place is committed to promoting compassion for all species and educating the public about the unjustifiable cruelty of factory farming and the far reaching benefits of veganism."

Over half the grain in the U.S. goes to feed livestock, not people. The number of calories consumed by humans when they eat chickens, cows, and pigs is only a fraction of what the animals took in. Enormous amounts of fossil fuel are used to fertilize the crops that are fed to the animals, and to transport the animals to the slaughterhouse. Factory farms, the source of the vast majority of meat and dairy, are a major source of water pollution, which harms plants and animals throughout the ecological chain. Animal agriculture, especially as practiced today, is inefficient and devastating to the environment.

If we were to change to purely pasture-raised, truly free-range animals, the environmental effects would be ameliorated but not eliminated. At our current levels of meat consumption, the entire country would have to be converted to one big animal farm. The ecological impact would still be huge.

Consider what free-ranging cows do to the ecology of the West. Cows are voracious eaters; they consume 800 or more pounds of vegetation per month. Unlike native species such as buffalo, their grazing habits are not sustainable. Cows eat too much too fast to allow productive "climax" communities from taking hold. In its place are unsustainable, less ecologically diverse systems. As a result, hundreds of plant species out West are endangered. Gamma grass, Arizona agave. Tiburon Mariposa lily, golden draba, clay, phacelia, Colorado butterfly plant, Gila groundsel, Knowlton's cactus, Cusic's camas, Bitteroot mil vetch, solano grass, and a list that could go on for pages are just some of the plant species threatened — in some cases, almost wiped out — by overgrazing. Large trees, including oak, sycamore, alder, and mesquite have suffered from cattle ranching, either because livestock eat the saplings or ranchers cut them down to make room for more foraging.

Cattle herds destroy ecosystems in other ways, too. Their excrement, unlike almost all native wildlife, is a thick, gooey mass, not pellets that break down quickly and return nutrients to the soil. Whatever is trapped underneath cow patties is likely to die. The constant trampling of hooves erodes streambeds, which increases sediment and degrades water quality. The negative impact on the water supply is compounded by the fact that heavily grazed environments have fewer well-developed root systems to retain fresh water.

Lynn Jacobs in Waste of The West and Erik Marcus in Vegan: The New Ethics of Eating describe adjacent parcels of land, one grazed by cattle, the other pristine. The differences are striking. The ungrazed side is lush, with a variety of plant species. The air is filled with birds' songs. The grazed side is more like a desert. The sparse foliage is largely made up of exotics or species that are poisonous to cattle. There are no sounds of songbirds.

When you order a hamburger, consider how much vegetation is destroyed by livestock grazing, and consider how many animals lose their habitat when that occurs. Order the veggie burger instead and save the earth.

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Related Link:

The Case Against Meat — excellent article by emagazine.com on the environmental, health, and animal welfare costs of eating meat and dairy.

Here's a sample from this week's school lunch menu for Falls Church, Virginia. The Falls Church School system is considered one of the best in the country. Monday: Toasted cheese. Tuesday: Cheeseburger. Wednesday: Cheese sticks with marinara. Thursday: Macaroni and cheese. Friday: Cheese pizza. Sure, there are other choices for main course. For example, on Monday you can have a ham and cheese sandwich instead of a cheese sandwich. On Tuesday you can get a plain hamburger if you don't want a cheeseburger. This is the menu for the elementary school, by the way. The menus for the middle school and high school are similar. So are the ones for the underperforming schools across the river in the District of Columbia.

Who's coming up with these menus? Cracker Barrel? Even in my pre-vegetarian days I would never be in favor of feeding kids so much fat, and such a paltry selection of vegetables, unless the goal was to give them a head start in heart disease, diabetes, and obesity. (Fact: 25 percent of children aged 5 to 10 show early warning signs for heart disease. Fact: Cheese is the biggest source of saturated fat in the U.S.) With a diet centered around cheeseburgers and pepperoni pizza, do any of these kids ever have a normal bowel movement?

Maybe if the kids knew a little about dairy was produced, they'd demand that their schools quit serving so much cheese:


Too much for children to know? No way. Did we hide September 11 from them? Do we hide slavery and world wars from them? Tragedy can be discussed in age-appropriate ways. Teachers do it all the time. Simply letting kids know that to produce cheese we have to steal baby calves from their mothers would give them a far different — and far more bitter — perspective on this food. Furthermore, unlike most tragedies that occur in the world, this one can be ended simply by changing our food choices. All of us — including parents, teachers, and schoolkids — have the power to abolish the suffering of farm animals, and we can do it rather quickly if determined. Knowing the problem and realizing that one has the power to solve it can instill a sense of purpose and optimism. There are two reasons why farm animal cruelties, despite their severity and ubiquity, are never mentioned in schools: 1) it would incriminate all the adults who take part in, and who finance the cruelties, 2) it would cut into the profits of all the corporations that make money from the cruelties.

From time to time, those with a strong vested interest in meat and dairy (including groups like the misnamed Center for Consumer Freedom that get paid by the meat and dairy industry to generate consumer fears about animal protectionists), complain about organizations like PETA targeting kids—with their "subversive" message of compassion and humane treatment for animals.

To which I say, get real. Dear Parents: The average six year-old has never seen a PETA poster and probably doesn't even know what the letters stand for. But he or she has been exposed to a torrent of fast food ads, and could probably identify brands when only two years old. Kids are bombarded with pro-meat and dairy messages every day. They're prominent in every medium with which your children interact. They're on prime-time TV every few minutes. They're above the fold on grocery ads in the newspaper. Fast-food restaurants that serve almost no vegetables are on every corner; they run promotions aimed at kids non-stop. TV shows and kids' books about farms—without exception—show conditions that bear no resemblance to the intense confinement, bitter cruelty, and suffering in today's dominant factory farms.

The animal agriculture industry is everywhere your child is, advertising their products. At home, at school, outside the car window, on TV, on the radio, on the Internet, in newspapers and magazines, at concerts and sporting events. They're practically in his colon, for crying out loud.

Basically your tax dollars go to subsidize cruelty, to produce an excess of the products of suffering, so that they can be fed to your kids and increase their risk of heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and cancer. What an ugly scam.

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Related link:

Citizens for Healthy Options in Children's Education (CHOICE)

Vegan Lunchbox I love this blog. Written by a mom. Very upbeat.