Don’t Read This Article if You Have a Weak Stomach
According to a 2005 U.N. report, farm animals are responsible for almost a fifth of the pollution blamed for global warming. Livestock produced 35 – 40 percent of methane emissions and 65 percent of nitrous oxide which had almost 300 times the global warming potential of CO2, the report said.
Livestock farming is also responsible for water pollution and the reduction of forest to make way for grazing. About 70 percent of Amazonian forest had been turned into grazing land, the study said.
According to the NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Counsel) In May 2000, 1,300 case of gastroenteritis were reported and six people died as the result of E. coil contaminating drinking water in Walkerton, Ontario. Health authorities determined that the most likely source was cattle manure runoff.’ Manure from dairy cows is thought to have contributed to the disastrous Cryptosporidium contamination of Milwaukee’s drinking water in 1933, which killed more the 100 people, made 400,000 sick. In this country, roughly 24 million pounds of antibiotics – about 70 percent of the nation’s antibiotics use in total – are added to animal feed every year to speed livestock growth. This widespread use of antibiotics on animals contributes to the rise of resistant bacteria, making it harder to treat human illnesses.
The large factory farms and unsanitary living conditions of the livestock have led to a rise in food-borne bacteria. Most of the flesh from the 10 billion cows, pigs, ands birds butchered every year in the U.S. is contaminated with dangerous bacteria like E. Coil, campylobacter, listeria, and other bacteria that live in the intestinal tracts and feces of animals. “Documents from whistleblowers I the meat industry note countless case of contaminated meat slipping into the food supply: “[R]ed meat animals and poultry that ere dead on arrival were dead on arrival were hidden from inspectors and hung up to be butchered. …Severed heads from cancer eye cattle were switched to smaller carcasses before inspection so less meat would be condemned. …Up to 25 percent of slaughtered chicken on the inspection line was covered with feces, bile, and ingesta…” GoVeg.com) Not only is the butchered flesh contaminated, but the runoff from the manure pits (sometimes larger then several foot ball fields) contaminates our streams, and vegetable crops.
This is serious! We must do something about this now. If Al Core’s “inconvenient Truth” shocked thousands, why are people so apathetic about the travesty of the animal industry? Even if you feel that you can’t afford a new flex fuel or hybrid vehicle, you can’t afford not to stop eating meat!!
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