*EDIT* NO LONGER VEGAN
Meat
Why do we eat meat?
Most primates have always been innately herbivorous, but during our nomadic era, some of us humans learned to hunt animals when food was scarce, this was only thanks to our ability to digest their flesh, because before humans introduced fatty nuts into their diets, they would have experienced significantly greater illness if they were to consume animal flesh. Eating many nuts gave us the opportunity to survive tough times by hunting (and blessing!) nutrient-dense animals. However, humans are not biologically fit to be omnivores, and we see this at every level of our anatomy and physiology.
Firstly, hydrochloric acid in our stomach helps to digest proteins, but in a true omnivore like a bear or a racoon, HCl concentration is significantly higher than in humans. An omnivore’s jaw is also equipped to rip and tear flesh, a behavior no human could ever do with such an inoffensive set of ‘canines’. Our bodies are highly adaptive and eat on occasion, but we were never biologically fit to consume animal protein every week, let alone every day. Food was grown organically in LIVING soil, thriving in beneficial bacteria.Enculturation over generations has led to today’s modern diet to include an excessive amount of meat. To make this diet possible we have adapted industrial scale animal agriculture practices which are poisoning our food, air, water, and most importantly our health.
What is meat?
Red meat classifies as any mammal’s meat (beef, veal, pork, lamb, goat, mutton). White meat is poultry (chicken, turkey). Processed meats have been chemically treated, cured, smoked, or salted to enhance and preserve them. (hot dogs, ham, bacon, sausage, deli meat).
What does meat eat?
Almost all livestock is raised on a diet of corn and soybeans. Government subsidies reduce the price of these crops by about 10%, making them the most affordable to livestock farmers. As a result 47% of soy and 60% of corn grown in the US is consumed by livestock. Around 90% of these crops are genetically modified to be resistant to toxic pesticides, herbicides, insecticides, and fungicides, these are all chemicals that have been proven to cause neurological damage, endocrine suppression, cancer and various diseases). Additionally, these chemicals kill organisms that help assimilate essential minerals and nutrients from the soil into crops such as beneficial bacteria and fungi. As a result, the sprayed crops are then severely lacking in nutrients and unable to properly nourish livestock. A toxic diet causes these animals to develop an acidic internal environment, and while living in high-stress, low-sanitation external environments, they are severely prone to inflammation as well as infections like E.Coli. To minimize this, factory farms subject these animals to extraneous amounts of antibiotics and other prescription-grade drugs.(80% of all antibiotics made in the US are fed to farmed animals). All these toxins, harmful hormones (natural and synthetic), and a host of other carcinogens that are found in meat ultimately end up in the body.
We were never fit to eat meat, and the world is not fit to support our modern habits. Just because the effects of animal agriculture don’t yet personally affect you, doesn’t mean you are not entitled to the problem. Eating meat is portrayed as a personal choice but the animals who endure a lifetime of suffering, the low income communities poisoned by agricultural runoff, the starving children that could be saved from the millions of tons of food we produce, and the earth’s fresh water, air, and soil absolutely do not have a choice. In the end the only choice you have is to be ignorant.
Why not eat meat?
The World Health Organization’s cancer agency, IARC, has classified processed meat as a carcinogen and red meat as a probable carcinogen, after the revision of more than 800 different studies from ten countries. This puts products like bacon strips and hot dogs in the same category as cigarettes and asbestos.
There is a plethora carcinogenic substances in processed meats, nitrosamines are carcinogenic compounds which also increase insulin resistance. A 7 year study conducted at the University of Hawaii found that people with the highest processed meat consumption increased their risk for pancreatic cancer by 67%.
Another dangerous additive found primarily in in bacon, hot dogs, sausages, and also in various other meats is monosodium glutamate (MSG), which targets glutamate receptors in the heart and all over the body causing cardiac arrhythmia, obesity, and various neurodegenerative diseases (Parkinson’s, Huntington’s, Alzheimer’s).
The circumstances don’t get better with red meat, poultry, fish, and shellfish either. All animal products contain heme iron, its a highly bioavailable form of this essential mineral but for this very purpose its also very damaging. Unlike the iron produced by plants, heme iron is a strong pro-oxidant, catalyzing the production of free radicals (highly reactive atoms) which are cytotoxic (cell-killing).
Another dangerous molecule found in most mammals is Neu5Gc. It’s interestingly not present in Humans, and because its similar to Neu5Ac (a sialic acid essential to our brain function), Neu5Gc quickly incorporates itself within our tissues and our immune system recognizes it as a threat, repeatedly attacking it. Its effects have been empirically linked to cancer, cardiovascular disease, inflammatory disease, and neurotoxicity.
If the carcinogens present in meat weren’t harmful enough, the process of cooking it increases its destructive potential. When meat from chickens, cows, or pigs is cooked, especially at high temperatures, heterocyclic amines and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons are produced, which are proven to cause gastrointestinal cancer.
86 million americans are pre-diabetic and most aren’t even aware of the culprit.
Contrary to popular belief, carbohydrates have actually been shown to be inversely related to diabetes, while just one serving of meat a day, equivalent to a deck of cards, increases the risk of type II diabetes by 19%, while processed meat, a daily serving half that size, say two strips of bacon or one hot dog, increases the risk for diabetes by 51%.
Here is some data depicting the stress raising animals for food is having on our plane(t)
– Producing one hamburger equates showering for two months
– 91% of deforestation in the Amazon rainforest is a result of animal agriculture.
– for every pound of fish caught, five pounds is discarded
– Livestock covers 45% of earths total land
- Omnivores need 18x as much land as vegans do.
- Meat and Dairy use 1/3 of earth’s fresh water
- Plant based diets have half the carbon footprint of meat diets.
- 56% of all water in the US is used to grow food for cattle.
Fish, as an animal of whom we consume the meat of… also deserve some attention:
Radioactive Isotopes in Pacific waters.
Iodine-131
Cesium-134
Cesium-137
Strontium-90
Plutonium-239
arsenic
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Salmon:
1900 mg omega 6
99% is farmed
dyed pink
high in PCB’s
45 ppb Mercury
11.41g fat
2.6g saturated fat
50mg sodium
Stressed, diseased, cramped
pollution dispurses from open water farms
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Tuna
340 ppb mercury
High in Lead, Cadmium, and arsenic
extremely high in industrial pollutants
most catch is unrecorded & unsustainable
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Mackerel:
440ppb Mercury
50 mg Sodium
5.4 g fat (1.6g Sat.)
elevated histamine (pro-inflammatory)
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Eel:
43 mg Sodium
9.9 g Fat (2g sat)
186 ppb mercury
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Catfish
high in PCB’s
144 ppb Mercury
2.4g fat .6 sat
37 mg sodium
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Fish have widely been regarded as a health food, but empirical research shows that not only fish, but all seafood is not fit for consumption. All fish we eat have either been caught in the wild or farm raised, and both conditions are equally as harmful to their health, our health, and the environment. Whether living freely in the ocean, or captive in open-ocean farms, fish are like sponges for heavy metals, PCB’s, dioxins, chlorine containing pesticides, radioactive isotopes, and micro-plastics littering our seas.
People assume fatty fish are healthy because of their DHA, an omega 3 fatty acid essential to brain function and cardiovascular health. However, because of their fat content, these same fish are also highly contaminated with environmental toxins that are detrimental to cognition, motor function, attention, and behavior, all of which outweigh any cognitive benefits from DHA. In terms of heart health, hybrid farm fish like Tilapia have more omega 6’s than omega 3’s, and since most diets are already deficient in the latter, the excess omega 6 becomes pro-inflammatory, giving rise to conditions like heart disease, arthritis, and Alzheimer’s. As for diabetes, your risk is increased by 35% for one serving of fish every day.
Prefer wild caught fish? All species of Tuna, Mackarel, Marlin, Grouper and Halibut are exceedingly high in mercury, a heavy metal known to impair all neurological processes. Particularly Salmon, but all popular fish are brimming with PCB’s and dioxins, persistent industrial byproducts that pollute the world’s air and water. Much in the same way heavy metals are bioaccumulated in larger fish, these toxins increase in concentration as they travel up trophic levels. Salmon have less mercury than tuna, but unlike tuna 99% of salmon are farmed. Whether offshore or indoors, fish farms cram hundreds of fish in small tanks under a nutritionally poor diet, rendering them prone to disease and infections. This diet often consists of livestock feces and byproducts like feathers, necks, and intestines.
If health isn’t your incentive, imagine the hundreds of coral reefs that are destroyed near offshore farms due to acidification from fecal and chemical runoff. Secondly, when looking for rare fish, illegal (majority) fisheries deploy massive nets that bring in millions of tons of bycatch, more than 40% of the world’s catch, which consists of DEAD whales, dolphins, sharks, sea turtles and other marine organisms. Our oceans and all its inhabitants are essential to our survival on earth, and our planet is a delicate organism that needs all parts sustained in order to sustain all its parts. Eat. Vegan. Fish. Fillets.
Dairy
Any mammal’s milk is specifically designed to nourish their offspring until they reach maturity, after this point the mother ceases milk production. A calf that is of mature size no longer needs the extreme bulk of hormones, saturated fats, proteins, growth factors, and sodium in their diet. This is the same case for humans, once we are old enough we stop drinking milk from our mothers, who happen to share our genetic information and immune response. When we are adults, we find the thought of drinking our mother’s milk disgusting, but if its gross drinking milk from your own species, let alone your own blood relative, why would drinking the baby growth formula of another species be considered good for you. Why is drinking cow’s milk any less outrageous than a dog’s, a cat’s, an elephant’s, even a chimpanzee’s, when chimps share 99% of our DNA.
Our government is a complex business enterprise, it has several industries that operate under its jurisdiction while lobbying for their products to reach the public’s mind. The dairy industry is no exception. Dairy has been in the national dietary guidelines for years, it is said to be a good source of calcium and protein, even with the release of empirical research disproving this myth. It has been consistently proven and repeated in respected scientific studies that countries with the highest dairy consumption also have the lowest bone density and highest rates of osteoporosis.
If you are an empath, you would care to know that to generate milk at the pace of modern society, dairy cows are subject to a living hell. They have a lifespan of around four miserable years, thats five times less than if they were to live in the wild for 20 years. During these four years, they are dehorned with no anesthesia either through a hot iron (which loses heat between dehorning cows, making each successive dehorning more painful), metal clamps and hot wires. In order for continuous milk production, dairy cows are also subject to constant artificial insemination, a process beginning with the masturbation of bulls by inserting electrodes in their anus and collecting their sperm, which is then inserted into the cow through a long metal rod. Essentially raping them. They are given large amounts of antibiotics to support gestation and often still get diseases. Udder infections are common, such as mastitis, which causes pus and blood cells to inevitably end up in the milk. In fact, the FDA allows 750,000 pus cells in a pint of milk, an equivalent to nearly 200 pus cells per cup! After giving birth, their calves are directly taken from them, and if male will be sold to the veal industry, while females are given the same fate as their mothers.
fun fact: 1000 gallons of water are needed to produce one gallon of milk.
Eggs
The USDA has deemed it illegal to label eggs as “healthy”, “healthful”, or even “nutritious”. Yet the egg industry A hen’s menstrual discharge, calling it what it is, contains excessive amounts of fat and cholesterol. Saturated fats and LDL (bad) cholesterol, are amongst the leading catalysts for obesity, diabetes, and degenerative diseases. Heart disease is America’s biggest killer, attributed to 1 in every four deaths nationwide, and alongside dairy, eggs are the perfect concoction for heart disease, with nearly 27 grams of fat (9 of which is saturated) and 1085mg of cholesterol. This combination of different fatty acids and free cholesterol increases the concentration of LDL (bad) cholesterol in the blood. Empirical studies from 1930 to 2017 show eating just one egg a day causes a 19% increase in cardiovascular disease, and a 68% increased risk of diabetes. The issue is that after the onset of diabetes, egg consumers face an 85% increased risk of developing heart disease. This is alarming as nearly 1 in 4 teenagers in the united states is diabetic or pre-diabetic, and most aren’t even aware of their susceptibility to cardiovascular disease. As if heart disease wasn’t enough for people who assume eggs will improve their fitness.. Males who consume just one egg every three days face a 70% increased risk of lethal prostate cancer. All the information up to this point refers to “free range” “organic” eggs, but in juxtaposition the conditions don’t change; the vast majority of eggs we consume are laid by hens in putrid, tortured, and diseased conditions, in which they require large amounts of antibiotics and poisonous pesticide-ridden feed. Even in the best conditions, eggs will do more harm than good to a person’s health. We don’t develop diseases plainly from genealogical factors, it is through diet that we increase the chances of these predispositions to become active. It’s not GENETICS, it’s what we EAT.
THE VITAL TRUTH 