The Habit Of Eating Meat May Be Hurting Us (And Our World)
THE HABIT OF EATING MEAT MAY BE HURTING US (AND OUR WORLD) (ISSUE 120)
By Diane Gold
The habit of eating meat is passed down from one generation to another, in most societies. Throughout the years, a symbol of abundance has become the finest steak dinner, so much so that, at one point, the overproduction of uric acid crystals between the joints known as gout, got the nickname “disease of the rich” because wealth often meant increased intake of animal proteins.
What is now becoming common knowledge, or is such to the Millenial generation and after, is that hunger and thirst could be contained if we increased our plant-based nutrition consumption; we could reduce many chronic diseases if we reduced or removed meat from our diet; our water footprint to farm livestock for food is sending the world economies on a downward spiral of water emergencies; especially in the latest generation, people are questioning whether it is ethical to eat meat (which could includes but is not limited to beef, pork, lamb, chicken, fish, bees).
This article looks at this global habit in relation to agribusiness, the pharmaceutical industry and education.
HUNGER
What would happen if the money spent on livestock feed were spent on growing extra food for people who needed food?
According to PETA:
1) Using an acre of land to raise cattle for slaughter produces 20 pounds of meat. This same acre could produce 365 pounds of soybeans, 17 times more food.
2) The resource to produce 1 pound of meat would produce 13 pounds of grain. That would feed an entire community, rather than 1 family.
3) This year, 7100 children will die from a hunger-related disease per day. That’s 2.6 million for the year. We can help hunger by replacing our meat habit with some form of plant-based nutrition.
HEALTH
1) ANTIBIOTICS
The use of antibiotics in livestock production has created highly resistant strains of bacteria (super bugs) which pass by touch to workers, from water supply contaminated by infected animal feces and from uncooked infected meat.
Because of the power of the food and pharmaceutical industries, the Food And Drug Administration (FDA), unlike the European Union, has never banned antibiotic use in animal production. It did, however, implement a regulation that asked the farm industry voluntarily to phase out the use of certain antibiotics.
For those not calculating, if antibiotics are used in animal feed, the drug companies get paid for their drugs and farmers get to fatten up their livestock more quickly from the antibiotics so they reduce feeding expense. This translates to a less healthy environment, chemically altered food and reduced health.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
It is important to note that most super bugs that affect humans are obtained from overuse of antibiotics in humans.
2) PLANT-BASED NUTRITION
There is much evidence that plant-based eating reduces obesity, diabetes, heart disease, cholesterol. Therefore, what about replacing the meat habit with plant-based foods for health and environment?
Check out more interesting facts here: http://warriorsofweight.com/6-great-reasons-for-plant-based-nutrition.
WATER FOOTPRINT
The statistics around the amount of water used to produce food are so unreliable since circumstances are always changing and it is a very tricky subject. It is true that the amount of water used for vegetables and livestock vary from one measure to another.
To produce 1 head of broccoli, 5.4 gallons of water are needed.
To produce 1 tomato, 3 gallons are needed.
According to the journal, Ecosystems, a study by M. Mekonnen and A. Hoekstra from U of Twente, Netherlands, beef uses 4 million gallons of water per ton. That means just under 40,000 gallons for a pound of meat. To break it down further, the study looked at the amount of “blue” water used. For veggies, 5.6 gallons of blue water is used to produce a pound. 20 gallons is used to produce a pound of fruit. And about 72 gallons are used to produce a pound of beef. These figures vary greatly, depending on the further breakdown within the category.
According to Ask.com, the Department of Animal and Range Sciences at the South Dakota University measured that 1 cow may yield 84 pounds of steak quality meat, which means, more or less, 225 6 oz. meals or 336 4 oz. meals. The same amount of water produces 23,000,000 heads of broccoli.
And 70% of the water used in livestock industry is to grow animal feed; in California, this means alfalfa for cows. The sad thing is that, even though California is experiencing a water shortage, farmers are exporting alfalfa hay to Asia. (Show me the money!)
According to the Food And Agriculture Organization Of The United Nations, 70% of land that has been deforested in Latin America, which means, in part, the Amazon, is used for livestock grazing. The expense of the food for livestock is what makes the least sustainable sense.
THE ETHICS OF EATING MEAT
I have had lively debate with a local doctor. He talks about how plants have feelings, or certainly, that they react to stimuli; and I talk about how I believe plants yield to us but should be thanked for their sacrifice. Certainly, we both agree that hurting animals is wrong.
In my opinion, if vegan food is available to me; it is my duty to eat it. Were I in a North country with limited vegetation, would I eat fish or four-legged animals? I would, because it’s my duty to self-sustain; I would give thanks for the animal’s life I used for mine, the way I do with the plants I eat.
A fascinating fact is that Inuits in Greenland have low heart disease. They eat primarily proteins and fats from salmon, whale and seal with no sugars and no carbs. This statistic may come from their Omega-3 to Omega-6 ratio, which is balanced at 1:1, unlike in the West where we are Omega-6 (inflammatory) rich.
CONCLUSION
The habit of eating meat is like any other repetitive pattern we have. When we think about it, we may choose to change it in order to enhance our health, eat in a way that will help stop hunger, be examples of saving water so there will be some left for our grandchildren and modify our ethical actions.
Instead of blindly consuming food, just because it tastes good to us, we might want to consider the consequences of our actions. Not following in the footsteps of the past generations, we might want to evaluate the newest scientific evidence about food and nutrition. We might choose to realize that the dairy and meet industries have vast sums of money to promote the idea of eating meat or consuming dairy. Big media are friends with big dairy, big meat, big poultry and big pharma. These relationships may be cause for us to do our own research on whether the habit of eating meat needs a complete turnaround in 2014.
ACTION STEPS
Here are several action steps that may serve all of us.
1) Check out the amount of Omega-6 and Omega-3 fatty acids you consume on an average day, shooting for 4 (Omega-6) : 1(Omega-3). The National Institute Of Science recommends a ratio of 10:1 in the United States. In my opinion, that’s because they are friends with agribusiness producers who make vegetable oils, sugars and other foods that imbalance the ratio. Other countries typically say 4:1 is OK, new evidence points to 1:1 being ideal.
2) Research a few hunger statistics, and consider replacing 1 meat meal weekly with a plant-based meal. You can go to the PETA website at http://features.peta2.com/making-the-connection/world-hunger.aspx, about half way down to the slider showing the ratio of elimination of eating animals to the amount of hunger that would go away.
3) Be grateful for whatever food you eat. This will bring positive feelings to the world, which may, in turn, create happier circumstances for all animals and plants, including ourselves.
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DIANE GOLD, AUTHOR
Diane Gold, Founder of Warriors of Weight, Turning Habits Into Health, is a mentor in tai chi, kung fu and meditation, a music, fitness and stress expert, dedicated mom, studying plant-based nutrition and habit change.
She is slowly realizing the importance of early education to impact environment when it comes to animal farming and proper nutrition. She says,
“Teachers have the absolute privilege of connecting the dots for young children to understand the world and how it works. What can be taught now to elementary school children is things like producing meat can use 10 times as much blue water as producing vegetables. And reducing meat consumption can reduce hunger.
“These real-life scenarios can help children to understand what most adults don’t due to lack of connecting the dots: that greed or over-consumption can keep the world out of balance and that a little self-control in each of us can heal the world one hungry child at a time. Our thoughtful actions can also create health in ourselves.
“With this knowledge, the youth, who are the change makers of the world, will be able to take meaningful actions based on seeing the full picture. But, will the education system – walking on tiptoes to maintain its funding – allow such teaching; and will the community – walking on tiptoes so that the major corporations lend a hand to sponsor local projects so local politicians look good – allow the open teaching that is needed? It will require patient work on the part of local educators. But, it’s worth it to educate students about the habit of eating meat and what issues surround it.”
Food labels, the next generation in nutritional data, is being proposed by the Food And Drug Administration. The changes to the nutritional label would help consumers identify food facts more easily, get a more realistic and up-to-date version of what a portion of food in the present day represents and know what sugars in a product are added and not part of the inherent make-up of the food.
What we used to eat 20 years ago that was listed by FDA as one serving is being recognized as obsolete and totally inaccurate. Due to our larger servings or mislabeling originally, the portion size on the label is being increased. So, if we ate ice cream before the label changes, 1 serving would be 200 calories, half a cup, with 4 servings in the pint.
The term cup is helpful because it’s something we can measure. The term container keeps is nebulous since containers range in sizes.
Eating an entire bag of chips, on my part, is possible. It’s similar to my addictive ways with any substance. If I indulge in it once, I will want to indulge again the next day and will have to put forth a concerted effort to replace the potato chip buying behavior with another for, at least, a month, until, if I am lucky, the urge will go dormant again. When I do it, I usually buy baked (reducing the fat grams to 24 greasy grams), since fried will make me feel sick and the craving for grease will require more will power to replace.
So, here’s this task we have for ourselves. We have a habit, and we want to replace it.
Consider the glass’ being half empty or half full concept. When the glass is full, we think of richness. The empty term, in Western terms, can speak to barrenness, although, in the Eastern way, emptiness is the way to abundance.
Be careful of the feeling of boredom. It can act as a built-in excuse for doing a certain behavior that is not good for us. We might think that if we had excitement rather than stagnation in our lives, we would not act out the behavior we wanted to change. We might even create the boredom to delude ourselves.
Let’s say we always get the urge to eat dessert. We can change our reaction to this trigger by planning another behavior in its stead, such as going jogging as soon as that urge is felt. This will begin the process of replacement. Repeating this behavior will turn it into a habit. By behaving consistently by jogging and not dessert eating, we will have replaced our old with the new behavior. Although this certainly is quitting acting out the old behavior from the sheer repetition of the act; it’s easier to accomplish by using the concept of “replace.”
Of course, when we want to do something new in place of some old habit, we want to give ourselves the easiest path to follow. That path involves planning one simple action that will be repeated over and over again. It also requires saying “replace” instead of “quit.”
Of course, we don’t. We have every intention of carrying out our newly designed plan that we’ve been considering for some time. We have the motivation, and we know all we have to do is,
a) 
Use a supplement without researching its research and realizing that the referred to research isn’t public, is disorganized, was done using inconclusive method, doesn’t exist, is too old, was mismanaged, was word of mouth, used evidence-based information based on a control group of 30 people on which all world info is based, was gathered by the manufacturer and publicized in a magazine published by the manufacturer.
We need one-pointed focus to embark on any strategy. It’s hard enough without our giving ourselves scattered mind.
b) 
Join a gym, a dance class, meditation session now, even though you don’t want people to see the many rolls of fat you have. Waiting means not progressing, so go, go, go today!
The Environmental Protection Agency (epa.gov) regulates pesticides, but the amounts it allows in our fruits and vegetables is not so easy for the lay person to evaluate. Partly because we don’t have the time to look up the more than 1055 approved pesticides in use in the US and partly because the EPA is not offering the easiest chart for consumers. Agricultural Pesticides
Whatsonmyfood.org gives us some excellent information about the presence of pesticides on foods. It takes its info from the US Department of Agriculture, Pesticide Data Program, currently using 2005 data. For example, it lists that blueberries have a particular percentage of all blueberries in the US, on average, have pesticides A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z, AA, BB, CC, DD, EE, FF, GG, HH, II, JJ, KK, LL, MM, NN, OO, PP, QQ, RR, SS, TT, UU, VV, WW, XX and YY present. It would be great if we could easily find a table showing the EPA tolerances (amount of pesticides that are permitted to be present and still be safe for consumption) for each of those pesticides.
The Environmental Working Group has created a consumer guides that lists which top fruits and veggies have the most and least pesticides so that we can choose how to spend our money and ingest fewer pesticides. This group is the environmental health and advocacy organization whose work resulted in the Food Quality Protection Act in 1996.
APPLES
Pesticides are here, both on organic and conventional produce. Synthetic pesticides can burn the mouth, lungs, the respiratory system, cause nerve damage, cause skin to peel or change color, cause temporary blindness when exposure is high. Hopefully, we are never exposed to enough at once to cause anything like this. But it makes us think about how safe pesticides are in smaller quantities on our food.
Animal protein is known to clog arteries. Plant-based is not known to do this.
If people are healthier and use less medical services, less pharmaceuticals; they will reduce their own personal costs. They will also reduce the pharmaceutical and medical equipment manufacturing rate as well as the distribution and transportation costs which are 1.5 to 4.5% of their sale price, according to Transportation Journal, Jan., 2005.
If we could avoid running over a dog or cat in the road, would we do it? Of course, we would. In the same way, if we transitioned to a plant-based diet, we would be doing just that. We would automatically be eliminating the need for the animal industry to replace food we just ate. This means we would slow down the process of using animals for food, which, more times than we would like to think, abuses, terrorizes and mutilates animals. Although there are hard, honest workers in the animal food industry, if there are other choices, can we make them?
Another reason for considering a plant-based diet (or its direction) is personal to me. Therefore, please consider this in evaluating it.
2)
This makes complete sense from a visceral point of view. Let’s say we have not had cake, cookies, candy, ice cream for a while because we always eat too much or because we have heard sugar is bad. What happens when we have some?
According to some old US Department of Commerce sales reports, researched, converted to approximate consumption and infographed by Stephen Guyenet, an obesity researcher at University of Washington, B.S., biochemistry, PhD, neurophysiology, and Jeremy Landen, as of 2012, we consumed approximately 100 pounds of sugar per year. In 1822, we consumed 6.3 pounds per person per year. Another way of looking at it is that in 1822, we consumed the equivalent of a can of cola’s worth of sugar in five days. Now, we consume that number in seven hours. That’s 19 times an increase.
According to the FDA’s food labeling provisions, not all sugars are required to be listed. Currently, regulation 101.9(c)(6)ii requires that the sugars that must be counted within the labeling system are mono- and disaccharides. That means glucose, fructose, lactose, sucrose. All other sugars may be included voluntarily. That includes fiber and sugar alcohols such as sorbitol, xylitol, mannitol.
Regulation of sugar intake is good. Knowing what sugary substances we ingest is great. If we don’t stress our bodies by putting them through the sugar roller coaster, we are better off. If our bodies react poorly to high sugar intake, we can notice it. Is sugar bad for our health? It depends upon which kind of sugar, the condition of our health, how much and our lifestyle.
We are often not aware of sickness habits or wellness habits. For the most part, when we’re sick, we are consumed with feeling sick. Hopefully, you can’t relate to this feeling, but most of us can and do. And when we are well, we are not thinking about sickness.
So far, the only times I have been sick have happened in the past couple of years since I turned 60. And both times, my “specialist” physicians could give me no definitive cause for what I was feeling. That did prompt me to pine for a non-fiction version of Dr. House, MD, the TV series diagnostician, extraordinaire and gave me a bit of anxiety. I even wrote an article about it which you can access at the end of this article.
What I realized immediately was that the position of the proposed 48-hour position of the head was the suspended head position we teach in tai chi that brings stability to the region, allows the most oxygen to freely flow to the lungs, taxes the neck less than any other position and allows the most alertness and focus. It maintains tai chi principle by keeping the bones and body in proper alignment. It turns out it also helps to alleviate dizziness.
When we are sick, we may be nauseated, and we may not feel hungry. If we don’t eat, unfortunately, we will deplete our body nutrients.
1) 
May we all have more healthy days than sick, and may we take responsibility for turning sickness into health.
There is one secret to habit change. We don’t need to be college-educated to understand it. We don’t have to have been brought up in a wealthy home to use it. It is the same in every country. It applies to every habit. We all know the concept as it applies to daily life. Yet, it’s still a secret.
In order to hear it, we must be ready at this very moment to realize its truth; and that if we don’t make it a priority in our lives, we will go another way. Easiest is best, and that’s upon what this secret is based.
Picture the situation where we get an urge to eat cake. We are on a strict regimen not to include cake in our food plan. If we don’t act with instant motion within five seconds of the urge, we have already given ourselves time enough to plan which way we will walk to the cake store, passing an Automatic Teller Machine along the way, since we keep no cash with us to avoid running out to buy food. Oops, we forgot about the ATM card. Or figuring out how to run up an account with the local grocer if we have no cash, if we have remembered not to have an ATM card around.
Imagine it’s the end of the work day, we are closing up our store and start getting the urge to join all our buddies across the street and drink alcohol. Yet, we know, at this time, we have decided to abstain from alcohol because it does not support us. So, when we feel that craving, we have a choice: we can act within 5 seconds and take a new action that does not involve alcohol OR wait and go drink alcohol, a behavior we already know is not working for us. If the people at the pub are really our buddies, we will see them later, not in the bar.
We have a very short window of opportunity in which to execute the one secret to habit change. It’s usually in that five second range that we must act. If we don’t take a new action within that time, we will habitually do our old behavior. And changing our habit will wait on the sidelines another day.
Do it. It is massively impactful, requires little activity, not much effort other than the effort of doing magic on or tricking one’s own mind. And it works on all the urges to a large degree.
When learning to change a habit, looking too far ahead is usually a deal breaker. If we are looking at the end result, meaning that we changed our habit; it may look vast, overwhelming, impossible, certainly difficult that it’s quitting time, quitting the process of change, that is.
When we decide we will change a habit forever, we are locking ourselves in a prison. To give up an old behavior is not as difficult if we tell ourselves that we might be able to go back to it at some point in the future. It makes it easier to start, and it is not as scary a process. Change A Habit For Today, Not Forever
How many times have we thought we had ourselves together, and we stopped behaving in the way that was working for us? We had changed our habit so long ago that we thought we could stop the technique that got us to change the habit?
Imagine a U.S. Senator whose family members all speak street language. She was the only member of the family to go to school. She was raised on “ain’t,” “anyways,” “nucular energy,” “athalete,” “asterik,” “supposubly,” “mischieveeous.” She goes to visit her original home for a week and her entire family speaks their normal street speak to her or with her. Then she comes back to D.C.
Once we have accomplished doing the new action and have a routine going that includes the new behavior, we can rejoice in the fact that we have begun to change the habit and that we had the power to start. If we forget to be joyful which includes acknowledging ourselves for changing, we are missing out on the joy that can sustain the new behavior.
