I’m proud to inform you that Ultimate Spaceship is beginning to have new contributors.  Like I have said before, this site is not just a platform for me to vent my thoughts on the spiritual awakening of humanity, but a place for intellient rational thought to have a forum that their thoughts and reason an be published to effect the world as well.

The whole point of this site was to open the door to your minds, and show the possibilities of living a clear, sustainable and peaceful life with planet, our neighbors, and our fellow earthlings.  If you have thoughts, or writing you want published, email me at:  s3@theultimatespaceship.com and I will discuss the potential of adding you as a contributor.

So now, I introduce you to the thoughts of s5…

You don’t care that animals die for your food… but here are some other reasons you should quit eating meat

I am a vegetarian.  I haven’t yet made the transition to veganism (although I probably should), but I can’t quite give up cheese and eggs.  I know that someday, probably soon, I will be a vegan, too.

And, as cruel as this may make me sound, it isn’t all about the treatment of the animals.  I am an evolutionist, and I do believe that we were a gathering/hunting society.  Therefore, I do not feel that animals shouldn’t die for the survival of another, just as I would never begrudge a lion for killing a gazelle. But, don’t get me wrong… it is about how we, Americans, treat the animals.  It is also about my bigger reason to not eat meat: because we don’t have meat available to us.  You may think I am crazy by saying that, and all indicators would point in agreement.  But, I have done a lot of research on the matter, and that is my conclusion.

Due to the current practices of raising livestock, the end product is not what we evolved to eat.  It is making the livestock sick. It is making us sick. It is killing the planet.

It is making the livestock sick:

There are 306 million people in the United States and only 7.3 million of those are vegetarian/vegan.  That means there are just under 300 million people eating meat, on average, 2-3 times a day.  In order to feed all those people, we have to raise all those animals.

Animals slaughtered in 2008:
Chickens: 9 Billion
Cows: 34 Million
Pigs: 116 Million
Turkeys: 271 Million
Sheep/Lambs: 2.5 million
Ducks: 24 Million

Can you imagine what it would take to raise and slaughter 9 BILLION CHICKEN!!?!?!

I can tell you what it takes: Confined Animal Feeding Operations (CAFO’s).  Here is the definition… author’s discretion to highlight some things… and, this is taken from the Environmental Protection Agency website:

Confined Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) are agricultural operations where animals are kept and raised in confined situations. CAFOs congregate animals, feed, manure and urine, dead animals, and production operations on a small land area. Feed is brought to the animals rather than the animals grazing or otherwise seeking feed in pastures, fields, or on rangeland.

OK.  So, that burger you ate last night was raised on a small land area, amongst its manure and urine, as well as, maybe, some dead animals… and THAT is okay by our government.

Now, look at your computer screen.  (I am hoping it is an average 13” monitor.  If not, could you please imagine a 13” cube please. Thank you.)  Now, imagine a chicken.  A full sized adult chicken.  Now, imagine 10 chickens sitting on your computer screen. Hard to do, right?  Like, seriously, are you wondering what that would be like?  But that is the condition the grilled chicken in your grilled chicken salad from CPK, that you ate for lunch three days ago, was raised in.

But this is thing that you really need to know about these conditions. (And, yes, I know this is not a fun topic.  As a responsible American, human, and if you believe in this, spiritual soul, you need to know what you are putting in your body.)  Animals hate living like this.  Who wouldn’t? Imagine what happened to you when you were living with housemates in college, or if you had a lot of siblings, or even your parents were a little too smothering; you felt confined, you hated things, you got mean and grumpy.  If you have a kid, look to your pre-teen son or daughter.  You get it. The same thing happens to animals.  They get nervous, they get aggravated and they start to act out.

Unfortunately, they act out by biting and gnawing.  However, that damages the other animals, and that impacts the bottom line dollar amount.  As a result, in the case of the chickens and turkeys, their beaks get clipped off so they can’t peck and pull.  And, in the case of the pigs, their tails get cut off, because the other pigs like to gnaw at them.  To be fair, and in the essence of full honesty, cows are very docile and don’t get aggressive.

Next, they need to grow the animals quickly.  Again, if you had to raise 9 BILLION CHICKENS, you want them to grow fast and get on with their life… uh, death?  So, all of the livestock are given foods and hormones they are not used to, nor evolved to eat.  For example, cows evolved to eat grass.  They are ruminants.  They have four stomachs specifically designed to breakdown what we cannot… the cellulose material in grass.  But, we don’t feel them grass.  We feed them grain, corn mainly.  This is mainly done to get the animals bulked up and out the door in less time.

The vast majority of U.S. beef cattle eat grain or other high-calorie feed for several months at a feedlot before being processed.  Eating such concentrated feed fattens the animals quickly and produces fat-marbled meat that is favored for its flavor and tenderness. (Univ. of Calif, Agriculture and Natural Resources)

The visible downside to this is that the cow is sick.  It walks around all day with an upset stomach, because it cannot digest the grain properly.

Beef Nutrition

The weight gain is not a sign of health, it is a sign of disease.  Kind of like when humans eat mass amounts of McDonalds… we get fat (disease).  The hidden aspects of eating the grain are two fold.  First off, grass fed, free range cattle are full of Omega 3 and Omega 6 fatty acids.  You normally hear this as Fish Oil, because fish seem to be the only animals with it nowadays.  But, cattle should have it, too.  The lack of the good fat has been replaced, internally, with bad fat; the same fat that many people with cholestoral or coronary disease have to stay away from.  You know the marbling that we are supposed to look for to determine the quality of beef?  Well, marbled meat is actually a sign of sickness. And here is a fun fact.  The meat industry lobbyists actually got the USDA to change its grading policy to include marbling in the high grades, despite the fact that they all new it was a result of the cattle eating what it was not designed to.  Again, the government knowing allows you to eat diseased meat, raised in its own poop, next to its dying sister.

Where am I going with this? Whether due to confined condition, the butchery of animals to meet a dollar goal, or the improper nutrition, the animals are prone to disease.  If you lived standing in your own poop, next to your dead brother… oh, you get it. The animals are given antibiotics.  Kind of an ongoing aperitif, if you will.  They are constantly being fed a cocktail of antibiotics to keep them well and hormones to make them bigger.

As we all have read when it comes to ourselves, the bacterium and viri that we are exposed to are getting more and more drug resistant.  The same thing is happening to our livestock.  With each treatment using a stronger medication, another generation of stronger bugs is created.  Which is why it is so unnerving that just this year, the approval of a very powerful antibiotic, cephalosporin, was granted for use in livestock (HERE).  And, is more than likely why we are seeing things, like this most recent “pandemic” of swine flu (HERE).

The scientific truth is that with greater medications comes greater disease.  We are proving this with our livestock.

Now, onto us: we are getting sick.  If it is because we are eating this meat, then it is indicated by our increasing waist size and our failing hearts.  If it is because of uber-viri and bacterium, then it is indicated by outbreaks like made cow disease and swine flu.

The bottom line is that no one is doing this to us.  We are doing it to ourselves.  We feel the need to grow bigger livestock and faster rates so we can make sure we have meat and potatoes on the table.  We the consumer are to blame because we didn’t stop the livestock industry from doing this.  This was the shiny new SUV in the driveway dressed in sheep’s clothing.  We have been in awe that we can get meat cheaper than we can get vegetables, so we bought it, ate it and now are suffering the consequences.

And believe me, we will suffer more.  You may think our waist lines and flu symptoms are the only things growing, but you would be wrong.  The raising of livestock is one of the worst things we are doing to our environment.  In fact, if everyone went vegetarian for just ONE DAY:

the U.S. would save:

* 100 billion gallons of water, enough to supply all the homes in New England for almost 4 months;
* 1.5 billion pounds of crops otherwise fed to livestock, enough to feed the state of New Mexico for more than a year;
* 70 million gallons of gas — enough to fuel all the cars of Canada and Mexico combined with plenty to spare;
* 3 million acres of land, an area more than twice the size of Delaware;
* 33 tons of antibiotics.

the U.S. would prevent:

* Greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to 1.2 million tons of CO2, as much as produced by all of France;
* 3 million tons of soil erosion and $70 million in resulting economic damages;
* 4.5 million tons of animal excrement;
Almost 7 tons of ammonia emissions, a major air pollutant.

Our desire for meat is killing the planet.  I once read, maybe here on Ultimate Spaceship, about the irony of the person driving a Prius, prideful in the fact that they are helping the environment, as they pull up to a drive thru window at Carl’s Jr.  Their absence of meat consumption does more for the planet than driving that car.

I understand that there are those of you out there that are not affected by the humanity plea of vegans and vegetarians.  I understand that it is a choice, like any other choice.  I know that it is a decision that each and everyone of us must come to on our own.  It is a personal decision as much as religion, your support of a particular political party or how to raise your child.

I hope I have shed some light into why the poor treatment of the animals does directly affect you, if you make the choice to eat meat.  And, I hope I have also clarified that your choice of eating meat is impacting my life; your choice has a greater chance of killing the planet, than any other thing I might do in return.  For that, you need to be sure you are making a choice you can fully support and defend.  Because, given what I know and just shared with you… I just don’t think that’s possible.

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