Comfortably Unaware (8 page)

Pollution from animal factories is destroying our oceans as well. Streams and rivers carry vast amounts of excrement and chemical waste from livestock farms, which finds its way to the ocean. Deposits of animal feces, fertilizers, and toxic waste cause death of plants and sea life, as it causes massive algae populations that leave inadequate oxygen for other forms of life. One of the world's largest “dead zones” can be found in the Gulf of Mexico off the U.S. coast. This is an area about half the size of the state of Maryland, in which nearly all the sea animals and plants have died. A 2006 report by Princeton University concluded that a shift away from meat production would dramatically reduce the amount of nitrogen carried into the Gulf, to levels that would render this dead zone “non-existent.”
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The UN now reports there are 150 dead zones in the world's oceans, caused by an excess of nitrogen from farm fertilizers and sewage. Another example is the serious loss of marine life and ecosystems in the South China Sea due to nitrogen and phosphorus runoff, where it is now known that livestock are the primary inland source of contamination.
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Knowing that many fishing areas are becoming devoid of fish, the development of fish farms has exploded in the past few years. Because stocks of most of the top ten fish species are depleted and overexploited, businesses and governments have turned to other ways to produce fish. Aquaculture, the growing of fish in a farmed area, increased by more than three million tons from 2006 to 2007 and is expected to grow faster than all other animal food sectors.
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This growth in aquaculture is driving an increase in global fishing, due to the need for fishmeal and fish oil,
which is used in fish farms. It is a bizarre, ecologically unhealthy circle, where the demand to eat fish has taxed the oceans so there has been a proliferation of controlled fish-farm production, which places further stress on the oceans because of the need for fish-meal and oil in the production process.

These fish farms now greatly contribute to water pollution on two levels. The first is by further concentrating toxin levels and creating a higher potential for our exposure to them. When fishmeal and fish oil are used in aquaculture, the process concentrates carcinogens such as dioxins. This occurs because various contaminants and chemicals are found in many types of fish, which are then passed on, in more condensed forms, as they work up the food chain. Farmed salmon, for instance, consistently have much higher levels of dioxin than their wild counterparts. This is because they are fed a constant diet of fishmeal, which now has concentrated amounts of the many pollutants to which all the fish comprising the meal were exposed during their lifetime. Farm-raised salmon and other fish now dominate certain markets, such as on the West Coast of the United States.
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The second level of pollution for which fish farms are responsible is the massive amount of waste they produce, which further depletes our oceans. Farmers confine thousands of fish into tiny enclosures in the ocean, with enormous amounts of feces and other waste being created and deposited into our waterways. Farms typically grow up to 90,000 fish in a pen that is 100 feet by 100 feet. In one area with adjoining pens, as many as one million fish can be grown at one time.
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Organic and chemical wastes from these farms occur from all of the following sources:

•  Fish feces and bodily waste products

•  Fish mortalities that sink to the seabed

•  Fish blood from farms that kill and bleed fish on site prior to sale

•  Uneaten food

•  Eight types of antibiotics

•  Feed additives and coloring agents to make their white flesh appear pink

•  Zinc and copper

•  Paints and disinfectants

All of these produce increased nitrogen levels and toxins that cover seafloors beneath these farms, creating large dead zones.
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One study in 2001 revealed that the farmed salmon just in British Columbia for one year produced as much nitrogen as the untreated annual sewage from 682,000 people.
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A professor of fisheries at the University of British Columbia has noted: “They [fish farms] are like floating pig farms.”
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Antibiotic use is common, as well as pesticides and copper sulfate, an algaecide. This is because diseases and parasites run rampant in the cramped, overcrowded fish-farm conditions. Swarms of sea lice actually end up being inadvertently incubated on the captive farmed fish and then attach themselves on wild salmon and other fish as they swim past the farms in the ocean.

While fish-farm pollution has been studied and documented in North America, accurate reports have not been available for other areas of the world, such as China, where the industry has exploded. China produces over 70 percent of the global supply of farmed fish.
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It can be safely assumed that along with that is the production of massive amounts of ocean depletion of
marine life and pollution. Fish farms exist because we have depleted our oceans of numerous species of marine life.

The solution to loss of marine life is to eliminate the demand for fish, not to create new aquaculture industries that create an even greater level of depletion from additional fishing and pollution.

Whether discussing land, water, or the air we breathe, our food choices heavily affect the level of pollution and ecological sustainability. The more you choose to eat animal products, the more you contribute to the worldwide pollution. It really does not matter whether it is in the form of livestock or fish; there still will be an excessive and unnecessary amount of depletion and pollution.

A word about nutrition—do you really care?

“We are not just killing Mother Earth; we are killing ourselves.
Earth will be here long after we are gone.”
—Blackfoot tribesman

CERTAINLY, THERE IS NO MYSTERY
as to whether meat, dairy, and food derived from animal parts is good for your health; it is not. This is not just my opinion. Meat is factually not healthy for you, and there is an exhaustive amount of peer-reviewed literature that supports this. Additionally, numerous health organizations, such as the American Dietetic Association, the American Cancer Society, the American Heart Association, Physicians for Responsible Medicine, and many others, all recognize the health benefits and advantages of a plant-based
diet and have supporting statements to indicate this. Then the question remains, why are the vast majority of people still eating meat? Why do we do it? The answer lies in a complex web of interactions that results in a continued tunneled belief that it is still healthy for you, despite the facts. You may wonder why I've included a chapter on nutrition in this book, which is meant to be about global depletion. The answer is simple: no book on global depletion would be complete without some mention of how the food we choose to eat causes profound depletion of our health.

First on the list is heart disease—the number-one cause of death in the United States—which accounts for more than one million heart attacks and 500,000 deaths every year.
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Many studies have found that lifelong vegans have a nearly 60 percent reduced risk of death from heart disease.
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The American Dietetic Association has declared that a vegetarian diet reduces the risk of many chronic diseases and conditions, not only heart disease but also including cancer, obesity, hypertension, and diabetes.
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They further conclude: “Vegetarian diets offer a number of nutritional benefits, including lower levels of saturated fat, and cholesterol, as well as higher levels of fiber, magnesium, potassium, folic acid, and antioxidants, such as vitamins C and E and phytochemicals. Vegetarians have lower death rates from heart disease, lower blood cholesterol levels, lower blood pressure, and lower rates of hypertension and type 2 diabetes, and lower prostate and colon cancer.” It is now widely known that vegetarian diets can even
reverse
heart damage already present.
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Then, there is cancer. The American Cancer Society (ACS) has as its number-one recommendation, on nutrition for cancer prevention, to eat a diet “with emphasis on plant sources.”
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This is supported by numerous studies that show that individuals who
do not eat animal products have a 50 percent less likelihood of developing many cancers. The ACS and researchers at Yale have found that meat-based diets can cause cancers of the stomach, esophagus, colon, prostate, and lymphoma.
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People who eat hot dogs, sausages, and other cured meats have a 70 percent increase in pancreatic cancer.
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The World Cancer Research Fund goes further and recommends a plant-based diet, listing fruits and vegetables as “convincing/probable risk reducers for cancer of the bladder, breast, cervix, colon, endometrium, esophagus, kidney, larynx, liver, lung, mouth, pharynx, ovary, pancreas, rectum, stomach, and thyroid.”
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Clearly, animal products eaten as food significantly increase one's risk of numerous disease states, such as the three largest causes of death—heart disease, cardiovascular disease, and diabetes—as well as many forms of cancers.
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Eating meat and dairy also increase one's chances of contracting kidney stones and kidney disease, gallstones, and osteoporosis.
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The obvious effect of all of this concurring information is the need for a change in dietary choices.

While there is much to be said about all nutrition issues as they relate to food choices and risk factors, let's look more closely at the relationship of the consumption of meat and dairy products to osteoporosis, as this represents an area of gross public misinformation and a subsequent state of being unaware. Despite what the dairy industry wants you to believe by its massive multimillion dollar ad campaigns, milk and milk products
do not
“build strong bones,” and they will not prevent osteoporosis. In fact, numerous studies have shown that it is more a problem of limiting calcium loss than it is of increasing calcium intake. Countries that consume the highest amount of dairy products, such as Switzerland and the United States, have some of the highest
incidence of osteoporosis, while other countries, such as in Africa and Asia, where virtually no dairy products are consumed, have the lowest rate of osteoporosis and hip fractures. While genetics and hormonal interaction may have roles, the principal reason for these findings may reside in the simple truth that individuals who consume high amounts of animal protein and dairy products are at a risk of depleting their calcium stores, regardless of how much calcium they consume. Animal protein found in all meat products has sulfur-containing amino acids, such as methionine, and large quantities of phosphorus, both which have been found to impair calcium balance. While you may think eating more protein in the form of meat and dairy is healthy, it actually is not. Your body cannot store any excess protein, and it must be excreted by the kidneys. During the elimination process of this, and in the attempt to balance excessive phosphorus from animal sources, calcium from your body is needed and used; thus, the unlikely loss begins. Beef and chicken, for instance, have phosphorous-to-calcium ratios of 15:1, while most vegetables have ratios averaging near 1:1, allowing for a much healthier calcium balance. Green leafy vegetables, such as kale, have quite a bit of calcium, which is as absorbable as that of meat and dairy products but without the baggage of excessive phosphorus and sulfur-containing amino acids. Eating kale may not provide you with a “milk mustache,” and you may never be aware of its benefits through television or magazine advertisements, but it will create a healthier calcium balance for you and be much better for our planet than eating any meat or dairy product.

If animal products are killing us, why do we still eat them? The answer is quite frustrating and is wrapped in multidimensional levels. First, although there is a massive amount of
supportive information in journals as ample validation, much of this information is passed over or overtly suppressed. Why? Because this information is controversial. In fact, I feel that this information is most controversial and damaging to the powerful industries and corporations that currently have the ability to suppress it—or to make life miserable for anyone who attempts to publicize it. Second, most individuals do not believe (or do not want to believe) that those meatballs that their mother or grandmother used to make were actually unhealthy or that eating them contributes to a number of debilitating diseases. To be honest, those very same meatballs (and similar animal products) consumed over a number of years may well have been one of the largest reasons for Grandma's death.

Milk—as much as you may want to believe otherwise—is not healthy for you either. A vast amount of evidence reveals problems with milk's protein, sugar, fat, contaminants, and lack of nutrients. Milk should no longer be recommended or considered required for growth or health benefits, as many organizations now recognize that it is unhealthy for consumption, due to the many health risks. It has been shown that milk contains numerous allergens, bovine growth hormones, and chemicals (herbicides, pesticides, fungicides, DDT, and others).
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Some studies have documented as many as seventy-three contaminants found in any one milk sample.
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It is also now understood that cow's milk causes asthma, food allergies, and chronic constipation, particularly in children.
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For these reasons, the American Academy of Pediatrics now recommends that no cow's milk be given to infants under one year of age.
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It is interesting to note that the majority of individuals in the world are lactose intolerant, meaning they are unable to digest
milk and other dairy products. In 2000, findings in the
Journal of the American Dietetic Association
revealed that “approximately 75 percent of the world's population has lost the ability to completely digest lactose after infancy.” For these individuals, consumption of any dairy products causes stomach upset, bloating, and distress. In the United States alone, those who are lactose intolerant include 83 percent of African Americans, nearly 90 percent of Asians, 60 percent of Native Americans, and 75 percent of Hispanics.
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For these populations, milk should not be a dietary option, strictly from a physiological standpoint, as they lack the enzyme to digest it.