Meat eaten in 2008, most ever eaten on this planet: Maneka Gandhi

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Meat eaten in 2008, most ever eaten on this planet

By: Maneka Gandhi

 

Article published on 6/2/2009 12:23:24 AM IST

 

Every year the vegetarian movement claims to be growing and when I

read the figures of people who have stopped eating meat I feel that my

life had had some meaning. But the latest figure that the meat eaten

in 2008 was the most ever eaten on this planet, has made me feel so

useless that I feel like stopping my column. The statistics say that

it is not a larger number of people eating meat, it is people eating

more meat that has created this figure. This, inspite of medical and

government warnings about meat causing animal related disease,

illness, cancers and global warming. Are we the stupidest species on

earth?

It is not just the eating of meat that makes me despondent, it is the

increase in the number of uses we find for slaughtered animals.

In 2003 a company called Ebonex Corp asked the Food and Drug

Administration to allow the use of pulverised cow bones to be made

into a black pigment that could be used in cosmetics. In June 2007 the

FDA gave permission to use bone black.

It is now used in eye shadow, eyeliner, mascara and face powder. It is

known as D & C Black No 3 or Ivory Black and has a matte finish. Bone

black is put upon the market under all sorts of names, such as ivory

black, ebur ustum, Frankfort black, neutral black, etc

The pigment is made from cattle bones that are heated to 700°C and

then pulverised, rinsed and dried.

The FDA noted that the pigment may contain low levels of potentially

carcinogenic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH).

Cattle that are fed meat develop a disease called Mad Cow (bovine

spongiform encephalopathy) and people who eat this meat or absorb it

run the risk of a brain meltdown that is irreversible. The FDA, while

giving in to this multinational’s demands recognized that safety

concerns may arise surrounding bovine spongiform encephalopathy. Their

lame response was to order that the cattle bones used to create the

pigment should be checked to see that they did not carry “a high risk

of transmitting the agent. “ – something which is impossible to do

unless every “fresh” bone has a tag on it identifying the killed cow

and giving its medical background.

It has also been allowed for wood stains, colored plastics artist

colors, paper products, paints and lacquers, leathers and vinyls.

Bone char is burnt cow bones. This is now being used by some bottled

water companies. Bottled water is in any case a scam with so many

health and environmental implications that I will devote another

article to it but suffice to say that many companies do not used fresh

spring water but ordinary tap water which is then filtered and

bottled. In England, one of the popular brands is Scottish water. Now

it has been discovered that that they are using bone char filters.

Even worse, the charred bones come from India where cow slaughter is

illegal. The rationale is that the cows killed illegally in India are

older than the two year olds killed in England, so their bones are

denser. On 1998 it was found that cow bone char was being used by

municipal authorities in Northern England to filter municipal water.

The authorities called it “activated carbon” so that it escaped public

attention. The hue and cry that ensued supposedly stopped the practice

but now I learn that it is commonly done by many municipalities in the

west. I am going to hunt for the Indian exporting companies so that I

can take the matter up and I know it still masquerades as “activated

carbon” or “abaiser”.

In fact, according to a major information site on bone char, most bone

char used for water and sugar refining comes from the bones of cattle

from Afghanistan, Argentina, India and Pakistan. The sun-bleached

bones are bought by Scottish, Brazilian, and Egyptian marketers. Sugar

refining? Did you not know that the sugar industry uses huge amounts

of bone char? The cow bones are heated to high temperatures (in the

range of 400 to 500 C) in an oxygen-depleted atmosphere till they

become grey brown ash.

It is used in the sugar refining industry for decolorizing and

whitening sugar made from sugarcane- a process invented in 1812. Sugar

made from sugar beet is not. Another use for bone char has been

recommended in 2008 by “scientists” of the references and further

reading may be available for this article. To view references and

further reading you must purchase this article.

Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Science,

Bangalore (An institute which has been repeatedly caught for its

mistreatment of monkeys as test animals.). They recommend the use of

bone char in concrete instead of river sand.

In this time of global warming, the survival of our species depends on

phasing out the forcible growth of meat animals. The more useless uses

we find for dead animals, the more animals will be forcibly grown and

killed. Is this too difficult for the consumer to understand?

 

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