The animals raised for food are treated poorly and are not healthy
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Extremely crowded conditions, poor ventilation, and filth in factory farms cause such rampant disease in pigs that 70 percent of them have pneumonia by the time they’re sent to the slaughterhouse. In order to keep pigs alive in conditions that would otherwise kill them and to promote unnaturally fast growth, the industry keeps pigs on a steady diet of the antibiotics that we depend on to treat human illnesses. This overuse of antibiotics has led to the development of “superbacteria,” or antibiotic-resistant bacterial strains. The ham, bacon, and sausage that you’re eating may make the drugs that your doctor prescribes the next time you get sick completely ineffective
Piglets' tails are cut off and their teeth are pulled out without the use of painkillers.
Eating beef products, which are loaded with artery-clogging cholesterol and saturated fat, is a good way to increase both your waistline and your chances of developing impotence and diseases such as heart disease, diabetes, arthritis, osteoporosis, Alzheimer’s disease, and asthma. Research has shown that vegetarians are 50 percent less likely to develop heart disease than are meat-eaters, and they have 40 percent of the cancer rate of meat-eaters. Plus, meat-eaters are nine times more likely to be obese than vegans are. Every time you eat animal-derived products, you’re also ingesting bacteria, antibiotics, dioxins, hormones, and a host of other substances, some toxic, that can accumulate in your body and remain there for years
To make cows grow at an unnaturally fast rate, the cattle industry implants them with pellets full of hormones. While low levels of naturally occurring hormones are found in various foods, many scientists are concerned that the artificial hormones injected into cows cause health problems in people who eat them. The Los Angeles Times reports that confidential industry reports have found extremely high levels of estradiol, “a potent cancer-causing and gene-damaging estrogen,” in meat products from cows treated with the hormone. According to the Times, “[T]he amount of estradiol in two hamburgers eaten in one day by an 8-year-old boy could increase his total hormone levels by as much as 10%
Calves raised for veal are kept in stalls so small that they can’t even turn around.
Mad cow disease is already in the United States, and the U.S. government is not following World Health Organization recommendations for ensuring that it doesn’t spread. While Japan and all Europe countries have banned the feeding of animal protein to farmed animals, the practice continues across the board in the U.S. meat industry, which is just begging for a “mad chicken,” a “mad pig,” or some other variant of the disease in the U.S. meat supply. Because it takes years for the disease to show up in humans, there’s no way of knowing how many Americans have already been infected. Amazingly, the U.S. government still refuses to take the problem seriously. In 2005, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) tested less than 1 percent of U.S. cows for the disease. Unbelievably, even though the third case of mad cow disease in the United States was found in 2006, the USDA announced that it is scaling back this testing.
A USDA study found that more than 99 percent of broiler chicken carcasses sold in stores had detectable levels of E. coli, indicating fecal contamination. In other words, if you’re eating chicken flesh, you’re almost certainly eating poop. Consumer Reports states there are “1.1 million or more Americans sickened each year by undercooked, tainted chicken.” Chicken flesh is also loaded with dangerous levels of arsenic, which can cause cancer, dementia, neurological problems, and other ailments in humans. Men’s Health magazine recently ranked supermarket chicken number one in their list of the “10 Dirtiest Foods” because of the high rate of bacterial contamination
Chickens are given no food or water for the entire trip to the slaughterhouse—a journey that is often hundreds of miles long. The birds are trucked through all weather conditions, whether it is the blistering heat or the freezing cold. Many birds die during the journey.
Mmmm, want a plate full of poison? Fish have extremely high levels of chemicals such as arsenic, mercury, PCBs, DDT, dioxins, and lead in their flesh and fat. You may even get industrial-strength fire retardant with that catch of the day. The chemical residue found in salmon flesh can be as much as 9 million times that of the water in which they live.
Feeling forgetful? There could be something fishy going on. Scientists have proved that people who eat only two servings of fish a month have difficulty recalling information that they learned just 30 minutes earlier. The culprit is high levels of mercury, lead, and PCBs in their blood. PCBs, synthetic chemicals polluting water and concentrated in fish flesh, act like hormones, wreaking havoc on the nervous system and contributing to a variety of illnesses beyond forgetfulness and vertigo, including cancer, infertility, and other sexual problems.
Would you like tartar sauce with those cancer-causing toxins? If you're feeling green around the gills, salmon could be making you seriously ill. The Environmental Working Group estimates that 800,000 people in the U.S. face an excess lifetime cancer risk from eating farmed salmon. Plus, salmon flesh contains high amounts of artery-clogging cholesterol and fat.
These farmed fish will spend their entire lives crammed together, constantly bumping against each other and the sides of their grossly overcrowded cage.
Experts are warning that a virulent new strain of bird flu could spread to human beings and kill millions of Americans. The Bush administration is trying to deal with the problem, but experts warn that current factory-farm conditions, in which turkeys are drugged up and bred to grow so quickly they can barely walk, are a prescription for disease outbreaks. Eating a turkey carcass contaminated with bird flu could kill you, and currently available drugs might not work. Cooking should kill the virus, but it could be left behind on cutting boards and utensils and spread through something else you're eating
Ducks on many foie gras farms are confined to cages so small that they can’t even move.
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The meat, dairy products, fish, and eggs on supermarket shelves today are loaded with bacteria, antibiotics, dioxins, hormones, and a host of other toxins that can cause serious health problems in humans. Every time you eat animal products, you are ingesting known carcinogens, bacteria, and other contaminants that can accumulate in your body and remain there for years.
Eating animal products contaminated with bacteria can cause food poisoning, which can result in symptoms ranging from stomach cramps and diarrhea to organ failure and death. Every year in the U.S., there are 75 million cases of food poisoning, and 5,000 of these cases are fatal.1 The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) reports that 70 percent of food poisoning is caused by contaminated animal flesh.2
The antibiotics that we depend on to treat these illnesses are being used to promote rapid growth in animals and to prevent them from dying from the diseases that are rampant on factory farms. The effect of consuming low levels of antibiotics during a lifetime is unknown but could be serious. One of the antibiotics that we do know about contains significant amounts of the most carcinogenic form of arsenic, and USDA researchers have found that “[e]ating 2 ounces of chicken per day—the equivalent of a third to a half of a boneless breast—exposes a consumer to 3 to 5 micrograms of inorganic arsenic, the element’s most toxic form.”3 Daily exposure to low doses of arsenic can cause cancer, dementia, neurological problems, and other ailments in humans.4,5
More immediately, this abuse of pharmaceuticals has spurred the evolution of new strains of antibiotic-resistant super-bacteria. Studies have found that most of the meat on grocery store shelves today is contaminated with these bacteria, which cannot be killed with conventional antibiotics. For example, scientists at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health recently reported that 96 percent of Tyson chicken flesh in one sample was contaminated with dangerous antibiotic-resistant campylobacter bacteria.6 If you eat meat tainted with these super-germs and fall ill, many antibiotics that doctors rely on to treat sickness will be useless.
Antibiotics aren’t the only chemicals used to promote growth in farmed animals—the cattle industry also doses cows with hormones to make them grow larger and produce more milk than they would naturally. The use of hormones to promote growth in animals used for food has been banned for many years in Europe, and scientists have clearly shown that the hormones used in cows can cause disrupted development and cancer in humans.7 Despite these findings, farmers in America continue to dose cows with powerful hormones that can make humans sick.
If the bacteria, hormones, and arsenic don’t take their toll in the short term, the build-up of dioxins from animal products could cause serious health problems in the long run. Dioxins are chemicals that are released into the environment when substances are burned, and they accumulate in the flesh and milk of animals. These chemicals are present in our environment in small doses, but according to leading scientists and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), nearly 95 percent of our dioxin exposure comes in the concentrated form of red meat, fish, and dairy products, because when we eat animal products, the dioxin that animals have built up in their bodies is absorbed into our own.
A powerful hormone-disrupting chemical, dioxin binds to a cell and modifies its functioning, causing a wide range of effects, including cancer, depressed immune response, nervous system disorders, miscarriages, and birth deformities.8,9 Researchers at the EPA have found that people who consume even small amounts of dioxin from meat and dairy products have an extra one in 100 risk of suffering from cancer—solely as a result of their dioxin consumption and on top of all other risks.10
Animal flesh, eggs, and milk are also often laced with other toxins that have been shown to harm human health, including pesticides, mercury, and PCBs. The late renowned pediatrician Dr. Benjamin Spock, who was a vocal advocate of vegan diets for adults and children, explained, “Another good reason for getting your nutrition from plant sources is that animals tend to concentrate pesticides and other chemicals in their meat and milk. … Plant foods have much less contamination …”11
Read more about how the contaminants in meat, cow’s milk, and eggs can harm human health.
--------------------------------------------------------Reuters, “CSPI: Seafood, Eggs, Biggest Causes of Food Poisoning in U.S.,” CNN.com, 7 Aug. 2000.
2 Amy Ellis Nutt, “In the Soil, Water, Food, Air,” The [Newark] Star-Ledger 8 Dec. 2003.
3 Dennis O’Brien, “Arsenic Used in Chicken Feed May Pose Threat,” The Baltimore Sun 4 May 2004.
4 O’Brien.
5 Frances M. Dyro, “Arsenic,” eMedicine, 23 May 2002.
6 Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, “Drug-Resistant Bacteria on Poultry Products Differ by Brand,” Johns Hopkins Public Health News Center 16 Mar. 2005.
7 European Union, “Hormones in Meat,” Europa 2005.
8 John Robbins, M.D., The Food Revolution (Boston: Conari Press, 2001) 42.
9 Illinois Department of Public Health, “Fact Sheet: Dioxin,” 2004.
10 Eric Pianin, “Dioxin Report by EPA on Hold,” The Washington Post 12 Apr. 2001: A01.
11 Benjamin Spock, M.D., Dr. Spock’s Baby and Child Care, 7th ed. (New York: Pocket Books, 1998) 113-4.
12 Illinois Department of Public Health.
For more information, or to get your free vegetarian starter kit, visit: www.PETA.org and www.GoVeg.com
Information,Photos, and Captions pulled from GoVeg.com and Peta.org
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