Animal Cruelty

Not only are factory farms polluting our water, air, and environment, but they strive to produce the maximum amount of meat, milk, and eggs as quickly and cheaply as possible. They place them in absolute minimal amounts of space, which are clearly not enough, and are abusive conditions for animals. Cows, calves, pigs, chickens, turkeys, ducks, geese, rabbits, and many other animals are kept in cages so small, they are unable to turn around. They are deprived of exercise in the hopes that they will produce more flesh, eggs, and milk for consumption because they can't spend their energy on other things. Food containing drugs is fed to them to fatten them more quickly, and they are genetically mutated to produce excessive amounts of flesh, milk, and eggs. Much more then they would naturally. Cows are repeatedly artificially inseminated so they produce milk.
Several problems can result from overproduction of milk in a female cow. Mastitis is the painful swelling of mammary glands, they are manipulated with hormones and antibiotics to produce maximum amounts of use, and because they are hooked up to machines so much, they often suffer from cuts on their utters, which leads to pus and blood particle in the milk we drink.


Many products are labeled "free range" or "organic", however, due to regulations and actual enforcement of regulations, it is difficult to determine which are truly organic and free range. All forms of cruelty are not necessarily stopped just because they are labeled as "free range" or "organic". Debeaking (removal of beak), tail-docking (removal of tail), ear-notching (slicing of ear skin), and dehorning (removal of horns), all still exist in factory farms today. Tail Docking
Ear Notching

Switching to a vegetarian has never been healthier, tastier, and easier. It allows you to touch the earth gently, while being compassionate of all its inhabitants. There are many great vegetarian options today. Whether you are going vegetarian because of the environment, health reasons, or animal cruelty, you have the power to change the world, just by changing what is on your plate.

Sources used:
http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/ds089
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Docking_%28animal%29
http://www.peta.org/mc/factsheet_display.asp?ID=96

How Does Eating Meat Effect Air Quality?

“Producing a little more than 2 pounds of beef causes more greenhouse-gas emissions than driving a car for three hours and uses up more energy than leaving your house lights on for the same period of time.” According to a 2006 report put out by the United Nations, animals raised for food generates more greenhouse gases than all the cars and trucks in the world…combined. If that isn’t a big enough hint as to what change needs to happen, I don’t know what is. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), the American meat industry produced more than 1.4 billion tons of waste in 1997—five tons for every U.S. citizen and 130 times the volume of human waste. Some farms have realized their carbon footprint and not wanted to sacrifice their farms or their way of life.

The “latter method” has been adopted by several Vermont dairy farms and works well. Cow manure is stored in the digesters (huge tanks) at 100 degrees Fahrenheit and deprived of oxygen. That encourages the bacteria to break the manure down, releasing biogas that is 90 percent methane. This fuel is captured and burned in an engine to generate electricity. Unfortunately, the equipment is expensive, starting at $200,000 up to $1 million, depending on the size of the digester needed for the farm. Only 32 farms in the U.S. were using digesters as of 2009, so only a tiny amount of methane production has been mitigated in this way.

What would be your drive for becoming vegetarian?
	To Reduce Fecal Contamination
	Health Reasons
	Cruelty to Animals
	To Reduce Air Pollution
	All the Above
	I Will Never Become a Vegetarian
pollcode.com free polls

http://www.emagazine.com/view/?4264
http://www.peta.org/mc/factsheet_display.asp?ID=144

Fecal Contamination

"Animals raised for food produce 130 times as much excrement as the entire U.S. population." This amount of fecal matter, which is roughly 89,000 pounds per second, can have severe affects on people and the environment. The problem with this waste is that the pollution strength of raw manure is 160 greater than that of raw municipal sewage. Since their are no regulations on what farms or factories need to do with their waste, the concentrated feces is being left in huge lagoons to rot or sprayed over crop fields. Both of these "disposal" methods are just leeway for parasites, bacteria, and chemicals to land in water runoff. If humans live near such farms, it is not uncommon for them to become very sick from the pollution. A statement put out by he Senate Agricultural Committee offered this warning: "It's untreated and unsanitary, bubbling with chemicals and diseased...It goes onto the soil and into the water that many people will, ultimately, bathe in and wash their clothes with and drink. It is poisoning rivers and killing fish and making people sick...Catastrophic cases of pollution, sickness, and death are occurring in areas where livestock operations are concentrated...Every place where he animal factories have located, neighbors have complained of falling sick."

Vegetarianism and the environment

Global climate change is effected by several factors. Several of the factors directly have to do with what we eat and they way we get our food. 1/3 of all fossil fuels produced in the United States are used towards animal agriculture. The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (1), says the production of one calorie of animal protein requires more than ten times the fossil fuel input as a calorie of plant protein. Many agricultural crops farmed in the United States aren't even harvested to feed people, they are used to feed livestock. The average hog eats 500 pounds of grains, soy, and nuts before its time of slaughter, which means hogs in the United States eat tens of millions of pounds each year. With that being said, do you believe that global climate change is truly being greatly effected by they way we eat or do you believe it is other causes that are changing our environment?





Source:
(1) David Pimentel and Marcia Pimentel, “Sustainability of Meat-Based and Plant-Based Diets and the Environment,” American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 78.3 (2003)
The New Scientist,“It’s Better to Green Your Diet Than Your Car,” 17 Dec. 2005.