I am the fourth generation dairy farmer and farm owner. I grew up on a dairy farm in Montana, where I ran a meat farm for 20 years. I know better than anyone how to raise animals and make meat in this country.
Today, I am the president of the International Vegetarian Alliance!
Of course, I used to like my steak as much as the people next to me. However, if you know as well as I what these steaks are made of and what impact they will have on you, you will probably become a vegetarian like me! Also, believe it or not, as a vegetarian who doesn't touch any animal food at all, I now enjoy eating more than before.
If you are a meat eater in America, I think you have the right to know that you actually have something in common with the cows you eat, and that is-they also eat meat!
When a cow is slaughtered, about half of its weight will not enter the human stomach: including gastrointestinal tract, viscera, head, hoof, horn, bone and blood. These parts that humans don't eat are poured into giant grinders for livestock treatment. In addition, any sick cow or other livestock found on the farm has the same ending, except that the sick animals are thrown together. Livestock disposal is an industry with an annual turnover of $2.4 billion, handling 20 million tons of animal carcasses every year. In the United States, no matter how unrecognizable animal carcasses are by plague, how deformed by cancer, or extremely corrupt and dirty, livestock breeders will welcome them with open arms. Besides farm animals, another major goal of livestock breeders is euthanized pets-6 to 7 million cats and puppies end up in animal shelters every year. Finally, the members of the giant mill should add animals captured and euthanized by animal control agencies, as well as victims killed by dog hunting teams along the street.
1In August, 1997, the epidemic of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (commonly known as mad cow disease) spread gradually. In order to cope with people's growing fear, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a new regulation, which explicitly prohibited feeding ruminants with "ruminant protein" (protein made from ruminants). Therefore, to the extent that this ban is actually implemented, we can no longer turn cattle into. They will no longer eat the carcasses of cattle, sheep or goats, but they will still eat the feed of the carcasses of similar animals, including dead horses, dead dogs, dead cats, dead pigs, dead chickens and dead turkeys, as well as their blood and feces. About 75% of the 90 million beef cattle in the United States are still fed with feed processed from animal carcasses to "strengthen nutrition".
It is very common to mix animal manure into feed, because the animal husbandry has found that this is the most effective way to deal with the 65.438+600 billion tons of animal manure produced by their industry every year-farms in Arkansas feed cattle more than 50 tons of chicken manure every year on average.
The US News and World Report once reported that a rancher in Arkansas recently bought a batch of chicken manure collected by local chicken farmers on the floor of the henhouse, weighing 745 tons! He mixed these chicken droppings with a small amount of soybean shells and fed them to his 800 cows, making them "as fat as butter balls!" " He further explained, "if I don't have these chicken droppings, I have to sell half of my livestock because other feeds are too expensive!" " You got it? If you are a meat eater, this is what you eat!
We don't fully know how serious it is to eat the meat of sick or unhealthy animals, but we know that some diseases (such as rabies) can be transmitted to humans through host animals. In addition, general food poisoning is mostly caused by common microorganisms such as "hemorrhagic Escherichia coli". As long as food is polluted by excrement, it will cause poisoning. An average of 9,000 Americans die every year, and about 80% of food poisoning incidents are caused by carrion. Nowadays, we also know that mad cow disease can not only spread across species, but also produce new mutant bacteria in human body, which leads to Jacob's disease (human mad cow disease), which can damage the brain and cause death.
Interestingly, if you dare to tell the truth in this country, you will be prosecuted! 1April, 996, I was sitting in Oprah. On the video stage of "oprah winfrey Show", I watched the audience in a studio full of shocked expressions, because for the first time in their lives, they heard that we were turning cows into cannibals. "Now," I explained, "we are on the same road as Britain-we have spent ten years discussing mad cow disease as a public-private relationship, rather than actually dealing with it.
Every year, 654.38 million cows in the United States were alive the night before, but were found dead in the cowshed the next morning. Most of these cows are ground into powder and then fed to other cows. As long as one of them is a mad cow disease animal, it may spread to thousands of other cows. Oprah herself was shocked and could only simply say, "Cows are herbivores. They shouldn't eat other cows ... it makes me unable to eat any hamburgers! 」
On the stage that day, sitting next to me was Gary, a representative of the National Beef Producers Organization. Dr. Gary Webb, he is responsible for assuring the audience that our meat is absolutely safe. I feel a little sorry for this guy, because he had little room to display that day. He can't refute my statement that "we have been feeding beef to cattle". He can only point to the panting audience and say that this question is not suitable for scaring people, hoping to downplay this fact. Later, during the commercial time, he told me privately that he agreed with me that we really shouldn't add ground cow carcasses to animal feed.
However, in early June, an animal husbandry group in Texas still submitted a document telling me that Oprah and her production company Harpo Productions were also accused of "slandering food" besides me! It seems that the Texas Animal Husbandry Department and the Texas Department of Agriculture clearly believe that the first amendment to the US Constitution guarantees freedom of speech, which does not include allowing people to speak ill of beef. Due to the obvious drop in the price of cattle futures market, the plaintiff accused me of "spreading slanderous remarks about cattle and beef, causing them to suffer humiliation, embarrassment, loss of self-esteem, mental pain and extreme depression", and according to the "Defamation Food Law" of Texas, the burden of proof for searching for evidence basically belongs to the defendant.
1998 1, a jury was convened in Amarillo, Texas, to decide whether my speech violated "reasonable and reliable scientific research, facts or materials" in many bills-this is the standard for measuring evidence, but there is a very obvious fact that the scientific community itself has many differences and debates on many major issues, and these differences certainly exist in the current mad cow disease incident.
The jury rejected his logic. 1February, 998, after six hours of discussion, the jury decided that we didn't need to be charged with libel and compensation, and the long trial finally came to an end.
As a person accused of being a "food slanderer", I can tell you that there is an ugly fact hidden behind this absurd legal lawsuit. The education of Americans makes them believe that someone will protect their food safety. The terrible fact is that it is the responsibility of the US Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration to ensure the quality of our food. These bureaucratic systems are not only inefficient, but also have always been regarded as employees employed by the meat and dairy industries.
The process that I changed from a livestock breeder to an animal husbandry avenger was a very strange journey, which took me away from the life of the calf and experienced the ups and downs and obstacles in Washington political circles. Let me change from an advocate of high-tech agriculture to a target of criticism by its practitioners.
I won't pretend to know the meaning of every shock in my journey. Sometimes I even feel that I don't know what happened in the first half, but I can say with great certainty that all the road signs on this road are related to my health. Whenever I make a decision that can promote health by intuition, it is like a bright light, guiding me to a road that finally proves to be great.
The biggest purpose of writing this book is to share with you the experience I have learned-the best choice for our personal health and how to finally become the best choice for the earth we live in.
Although too many Americans encounter the first choice about their own health, it is a very strict question-whether to do cardiovascular surgery or vascular dissection; Or choose chemotherapy or radiotherapy, but in fact, we are making many choices consciously or unconsciously every day, and these choices will determine whether we will move towards that painful choice or another happier ending. Of course, every choice we make also determines what kind of nourishment this body will get.
How can we be sure that our choice is correct? Then you have to start by knowing the facts!
Excerpt from The Green Journey of the Red Shepherd