California State University East Bay

The Pioneer

California State University East Bay

The Pioneer

California State University East Bay

The Pioneer

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Thank a Vegetarian, Keep Our Planet Fat-Free

Say hello and goodbye to your wide-eyed hamburger.

As each moment passes and we inexorably march on to the unknown, the voracious American appetite for flesh continues to drive us faster into the abyss as a nation.

That at least seems to be the view People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) takes in regards to the consumption of meat. PETA has a flair for the melodramatic when it comes to defending the world’s fauna but, as far as eating meat is concerned, the animal rights organization pretty much hits the nail on the head.

Eating meat causes a lot of problems.

According to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), last December 2.75 million cows, 72,900 calves, 9.94 million hogs and 180,700 sheep were all led mooing, kicking, squealing, and baaing to slaughter.

Those are the figures for one month. They are down about three percent in billions of pounds from the same time the previous year, which totaled 4.35 billion pounds. That’s a lot of meat.

Visit PETA’s website (peta.org) for the gruesome facts of how this amount is produced on factory farms in the United States. It really is too gross to stomach recounting, but if you like fuzzy little animals then you won’t like the repulsive conditions in which these animals are born, bred, and slaughtered.

Despite the massive amounts of meat produced within the United States, the odd thing is many products hardly resemble meat.

Take for instance the lawsuit filed against Taco Bell that made headlines around this time last year, regarding the actual quantity of meat present in its beef tacos. The company claims its taco recipe is 88 percent beef despite labeling the product as “taco meat filling,” which the USDA only requires to have 40 percent fresh meat.

Even if Taco Bell’s claims are true, about 10 to 12 percent of meat used in similar foods is often “ammoniated beef product,” according to a report by ABC News. This refers to beef remnants that are cleaned using ammonium hydroxide, a liquid form of ammonia, which the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) classifies as “Generally Recognized as Safe.”

According to the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, ammonia is a compound of nitrogen and hydrogen commonly “used to manufacture synthetic fibers, plastics, and explosives.” That’s right, the FDA allows people to eat beef made containing the stuff explosives are manufactured with.

However, this isn’t even the worst part about meat consumption.

According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the livestock sector actually produces more greenhouse gases than the transportation sector while contributing to land and water degradation.

Have you ever driven by a cattle farm? That’s the stench of millions of cows burping, farting, pooping, peeing and dying as their sheer numbers contribute more to greenhouses gas emissions than all of our cars combined.

The FAO also claims the livestock sector uses 30 percent of the world’s entire land surface and in the Amazon about 70 percent of former forests have been converted into pastures for grazing.

Not only does the livestock sector contribute to greenhouse gases but it also provides incentives for people to cut down forests that convert carbon dioxide into oxygen. It’s basically a double whammy against the environment in some cases.

Furthermore, livestock require a massive amount of grain to sustain their existence. The problem is the transference of calories from grains to livestock to humans is inefficient.

According to David Pimentel of Cornell University, “It takes, on average, 28 calories of fossil fuel energy to produce one calorie of meat protein for human consumption, [whereas] it takes only 3.3 calories of fossil fuel energy to produce one calorie of protein from grain for human consumption.”

If we stopped spending so much time feeding cows to feed humans, we could be feeding vastly more people in a world where many suffer from food deprivation.

Many people worry that not eating meat will result in protein deficiency but, according to the American Heart Association, most Americans already consume more protein than necessary. The majority of those proteins come from meats that are high in saturated fats, which in turn causes cholesterol problems.

If you’re wondering at this point what you can eat if meat is starting to sound like a bad idea, the American Diabetes Association maintains that obtaining protein from sources other than meat is not a problem and can be found in beans, lentils, peas, nuts, soy products and meat substitutes.

There really is no excuse.

Stop eating meat excessively at the very least and be glad that as students at CSU East Bay you live in one of the most vegetarian-friendly areas in the entire world.

Next time you see a vegetarian thank them. They are saving the world for you.

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Thank a Vegetarian, Keep Our Planet Fat-Free