To some, the idea of switching to a completely meatless diet flies in the face of contemporary knowledge. It is an idea that evokes nothing less than fear in the minds of Americans as they struggle against decades of lies and propaganda promoted by the meat industries in this country. False concepts have been heavily promoted through years of carefully constructed marketing and advertising that receives millions upon millions of dollars from the meat industries. In Oklahoma alone, the cattle industry is spending 2 million dollars this year to promote their product, a product that is over produced by the state's nearly 56,000 beef producers. It's actually the law that every cattle producer pay 1 dollar for every head of cattle to an organization strictly set up to promote beef, the Cattleman's Beef Board or the CBB. For every 1,000,000 head of cattle there is elected one board member and the CBB is up to 106 members now. Do a simple multiplication problem and that makes roughly 100,000,000 head of cattle being sold to slaughter every year, generating 100 million dollars a year for the promotion of beef alone.
The fact is, human beings don't need meat to survive. The raising of beef alone is an incredibly inefficient process. It has been said that the grain it takes to feed one cow could feed ten people. The environmental impact of meat production is devastating the American landscape. In North Carolina, the sewage waste generated from hog farming is four times the amount of the state's 6 million residents, which no regulations attached to its disposal.
Another problem attached to being a meat consumer is that it supports the inhumane and uncouth practices of raising thousands of animals within tightly confined areas. These animals are forced to wallow in their own feces, creating a very unclean environment in which viruses and bacteria thrive in. In order to counteract these unsanitary conditions, farmers are forced to rely heavily on antibiotics, which accounts for a majority of our nations antibiotic supplies. These viruses and bacteria mutate and become resistant to the antibiotics used on them and become harder and harder to get rid of. Not only that, but once these viruses and bacteria jump species to infect humans, our population can no longer rely on the antibiotics at our disposal.
If you in an arid region such as the southwest like I do, you will know that the issue of water conservation is a huge problem. Natural Aquifers are drying up and many wells that have held true for decades are beginning to dry up. It takes an incredible amount of water to sustain the meat industry. It has been said that for every pound of beef a person eats it takes approximately 2000 gallons of water to produce it. When looking at tens of millions of cattle being slaughtered each year that adds up to hundreds of millions of gallons of water.
Alright, so let's suppose you know where your meat is coming from and its being produced in small quantities on farms that take good care of their animals, who are not polluting the land and pumping their animals full of antibiotics and hormones. There is still the issue of very high levels of cholesterol that you're going to be clogging your veins with. Even if you only eat white meat, the only difference is something like 3 grams less out of a whopping 75 grams when looking at the difference between a portion of beef and chicken.
Finally, it has been proven time and again that plant based diets are the way to go. Plant based diets have been known to actually reverse the disabling diseases of diabetes, heart disease, lupus, and a host of other illnesses. Plant based diets are a much more natural way to live and the need to return this healthier diet will become more and more evident as we sift through the lies and experience healthy living on our own terms, free of special interest propaganda and living healthy lives once again.