The Cattle Rancher Who Won't Eat Meat

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The Cattle Rancher Who

Won't Eat Meat

By Howard Lyman

www.madcowboy.com

12-20-00

 

 

 

Rendering is a $2.4 billion-a-year industry, processing forty(40) Billion

pounds of dead animals a year in the U.S.

 

In addition to farm animals, is euthanized pets -the six or seven Million

dogs and cats that are killed in animal shelters every year.

 

When the gruesome mix is ground and steam-cooked together, the lighter,

fatty material floating to the top is used for Cosmetics, Lubricants, Soaps,

Candles, and Waxes.

 

The heavier protein material including a quarter of which consists of fecal

material is dried into powder. The powder is used as an additive to almost

ALL Pet food as well as to Livestock feed. Farmers call it "protein

concentrates."

 

If you are a Meat eater, it is the food of your food .

 

 

The Plain Truth From The Cattlerancher Who Won't Eat Meat

 

By Howard Lyman with Glen Merzer

 

I am a fourth-generation dairy farmer and cattle rancher. I grew up on a

dairy farm in Montana, & I ran a feedlot operation there for 20 years. I

know firsthand how cattle are raised and how meat is produced in this

country. Today I am president of the International Vegetarian Union.

 

Sure, I used to enjoy my steaks as much as the next guy. But if you knew

what I know about what goes into them and what they can do to you, you'd

probably be a vegetarian like me. And believe it or not, as a pure

vegetarian now who consumes no animal products at all, I can tell you that

these days I enjoy eating more than ever.

 

If you're a meat-eater in America, you have a right to know that you have

something in common with most of the cows you've eaten. They've eaten meat,

too.

 

When a cow is slaughtered, about half of it by weight is not eaten by

humans: the intestines and their contents, the head, hooves, and horns, as

well as bones and blood. These are dumped into giant grinders at rendering

plants, as are the entire bodies of cows and other farm animals known to be

diseased. Rendering is a $2.4 billion-a-year industry, processing forty

billion pounds of dead animals a year. There is simply no such thing in

America as an animal too ravaged by disease, too cancerous, or too putrid to

be welcomed by the embracing arms of the renderer.

 

Another staple of the renderer's diet, in addition to farm animals, is

euthanized pets-the six or seven million dogs and cats that are killed in

animal shelters every year. The city of Los Angeles alone, for example,

sends some two hundred tons of euthanized cats and dogs to a rendering plant

every month. Added to the blend are the euthanized catch of animal control

agencies, and roadkill. (Roadkill is not collected daily, and in the summer,

the better roadkill collection crews can generally smell it before they can

see it.)

 

When the gruesome mix is ground and steam-cooked, the lighter, fatty

material floating to the top gets refined for use in such products as

cosmetics, lubricants, soaps, candles, and waxes. The heavier protein

material is dried and pulverized into a brown powder-about a quarter of

which consists of fecal material. The powder is used as an additive to

almost ALL pet food as well as to livestock feed. Farmers call it "protein

concentrates." In 1995, five million tons of processed slaughterhouse

leftovers were sold for animal feed in the United States. I used to feed

tons of the stuff to my own livestock. It never concerned me that I was

feeding cattle to cattle.

 

In August 1997, in response to growing concern about the spread of bovine

spongiform encephalopathy (or Mad Cow disease), the FDA issued a new

regulation that bans the feeding of ruminant protein (protein from

cud-chewing animals) to ruminants; therefore, to the extent that the

regulation is actually enforced, cattle are no longer quite the cannibals

that we had made them into. They are no longer eating solid parts of other

cattle, or sheep, or goats.

 

They still munch, however, on ground-up dead horses, dogs, cats, pigs,

chickens, and turkeys, as well as blood and fecal matter of their own

species and that of chickens. About 75 percent of the ninety million beef

cattle in America are routinely given feed that has been "enriched" with

rendered animal parts. The use of animal excrement in feed is common as

well, as livestock operators have found it to be an efficient way of

disposing of a portion of the 1.6 million tons of livestock wastes generated

annually by their industry.

 

In Arkansas, for example, the average farm feeds over fifty tons of chicken

litter to cattle every year. One Arkansas cattle farmer was quoted in U.S.

News & World Report as having recently purchased 745 tons of litter

collected from the floors of local chicken-raising operations. After mixing

it with small amounts of soybean bran, he then feeds it to his eight hundred

head of cattle, making them, in his words, "FAT AS BUTTERBALLS." He

explained, "If I didn't have chicken litter, I'd have to sell half my heard.

Other feeds are too expensive." If you are a meat-eater, understand that

this is the food of your food.

 

We don't know all there is to know about the extent to which the consumption

of diseased or unhealthy animals causes diseases in humans, but we do know

that some diseases-rabies, for example-are transmitted from the host animal

to humans. We know that the common food poisonings brought on by such

organisms as the prevalent E. Coli bacteria, which results from fecal

contamination of food, causes the death of nine thousand Americans a year

and that about 80 percent of food poisonings come from tainted meat. And now

we can also be virtually certain, from the tragedy that has already

afflicted Britain, that Mad Cow disease can "jump species" and give rise to

a new variant of the always fatal, brain-wasting Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease

in humans.

 

For all too many humans, the first decision they consciously make about

their health is the stark one between by-pass surgery and angioplasty, or

between chemotherapy and radiation. In reality, however, we knowingly make

choices every day that can either lead us toward these grim options, or else

toward happier ones. We do so, of course, every time we decide what fuel to

put in our bodies.

 

To make our choices informed ones, we have to start with the facts.

 

 

====================

 

"It would be difficult to conceive of any topic of discussion that could be

of greater concern and interest to all Americans than the safety of the food

that they eat." -- Judge Mary Lou Robinson Texas Beef Group v. Oprah Winfrey

& Howard Lyman (1998)

 

For over 200 hundred years, our country's legal systems have refused to

recognize "product libel." People can maliciously libel a human being and be

required to pay damages; but not inanimate products such as Corvairs, Pinto

fuel tanks, asbestos, the Dalkon Shield, fruits, vegetables and meat

products. Robust debate and criticism have turned surmises and suspicions

and anathemas into discoveries or recognition of facts and truths. One has

only to look back at our history and see how the dissenters of the past

--criticizing tobacco, coal dust, useless over-the-counter drugs and a

variety of health-damaging food additives and pesticides -- have been proven

right again and again.

 

Now, it seems, CORPORATIONS want to do what King George III, foreign

dictators and bad domestic political bosses were unable to do -- shut up the

American people. The realistic objective of the frivolous "veggie-libel"

statutes and lawsuits is not money; it is to send a chilling message to

millions of people that they better keep their opinions to themselves. --

Ralph Nader 4/29/98 =================

 

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