Taking A Critical

 

   Look At Meat    

 

     The average American consumes 607 pounds of animal products each year.  In one’s lifetime that includes: 21 cows, 14 sheep, 12

hogs, 900 chickens, and 1,000 pounds of other animals, that either swam in the ocean, or flew in the air.  Animal muscle tissue

disappears down American throats

by the metric ton each year.

 

ANIMAL Products

Are Big Business

 

     There are now about 100 million

cows in the United States, nearly

one cow for every two and a half

Americans.  Cows are everywhere.

     In the United States some 100

thousand cows are slaughtered

every twenty four hours.  Most

people in the united States have

been trained from an early age

to gorge on beef.  Children

less that seven years of age eat

an average of1.7 hamburgers

per week and by the time they

reach the age of 13, they eat

6.2 hamburgers per week. 

More than 6.7 billion hamburgers

are sold to Americans each year

at fast food restaurants alone,

in fact every second, 200

Americans purchase one or

more hamburgers at fast-food

outlets, resulting in billions of

dollars of revenue for American

restaurant chains.

     This popular food item (ground

beef), is loaded with additives and

legal extenders.  It may be adulterated with coal-tar colors, cochineal(a brilliant red dye made by drying and pulverizing the bodies of the females of a tropical American insect), and sodium nitrate or benzoate of soda.  Sodium sulfite, another additive, can mask the smell of deteriorating meat, and give it a fresh-meat red color.  Sodium sulfite is a poison that destroys vitamin B1, and is capable of causing considerable

damage to the digestive system

and other organs.  Yet tested

samples of ground beef

purchased as ready-chopped

hamburger, are sold at hot

dog stands, cafeterias, and

restaurants, frequently shows

adulteration with this chemical. 

Hamburger meat served in

restaurants often contains

sodium nicotinate to preserve

it bright red color.  Although

this chemical is illegal in some

municipalities, 37 states permit

its use.  Several outbreaks of

poisoning have been traced

to this additive.

 

Antibiotics In You Meat

 

     Of what American consumers

ate, and called food, in 1974 a

billion pounds were pure chemicals

—food additives.  That amounts

to more than five pounds per

person.  And this figure has

increased greatly in  the past

twenty years.

 

     In order to raise the animals

more quickly, shorten the

feeding time, and hasten

marketing to maximize profits,

animals are fed hormone

preparations causing them

to gain weight and grow

quickly.  In 1970, approximately

1,300 tons of antibiotics

were fed to animals in the

United States alone.  Today,

about 99% of all animal feed

contains additives.

     According to the World Health

Organization booklet Public Health Aspects of the Use Of Antibiotics in Food and Foodstuffs, published in 1963, antibiotics are now used to preserve fish and poultry.  Chickens are dipped in solutions of the drug following slaughter.  Fish can be thrown into a tub of antibiotic solution as soon as they are caught, or the fillets can be washed with the drug.  Steers are sometimes injected with antibiotics just before they are slaughtered.

              Many of the drugs and

antibiotics used leave dangerous

residues in animal products if they

are not depleted from the animals

before slaughter or before milk is

collected.  In all, there are more

than 1,000 drug products, and as

many chemicals, approved by the

Food and Drug Administration

that can be used by livestock and

poultry producers.  Farm industry

and pro-farming government

officials downplay the risk, arguing that drugs and chemicals are rigorously tested before they are put into commercial use.

     And yet according to a recent

report put out by the General

Accounting Office, 14 percent

of all meat and poultry sampled

by the department of Agriculture

between 1974 and 1976 contained

illegally high levels of drugs and

pesticides.  The report notes that

many of the substances used

around food animals are known

to be dangerous. 

 

Bacteria In Meat—

Same As Fresh Manure?

      Another serious problem with

meat eating is the putrefactive

bacteria in meat.  The average

eater of meat is quite unconscious

of the fact that each mouthful

that enters the body he has taken

in a mass of swarming micro

organisms identical in character

with those of manure and those

found in dead rats.  All meat

becomes infected with manure

germs in the process of slaughtering and the number increases the longer the meat is kept in storage. 

     What are putrefactive bacteria? 

Putrefactive bacteria are names

used so that the layman is not

shocked.  Putrefactive bacteria

are colon germs. When the animal

is alive, the osmotic process in

the colon keeps putrefactive

bacteria from getting into the

animal.  In the process of

slaughtering animals their

tissue becomes thoroughly

infected with the manure

germs which are found upon

their bodies.  When the animal

is dead, the osmotic process

is gone and putrefactive bacteria

swarm through the walls of the

colon and into the flesh.  The

bacteria rapidly penetrates

the tissues.  Within a few hours

after death, the carcass is

swarming with these filthy

intestinal bacterial.  This is

what helps tenderize the meat. 

Remember, putrefactive bacteria

are colon germs and colon germs

are manure germs and this is

what tenderizes meat—manure

germs!

 

Cancer And Meat Eating

 

     Within the last one hundred years, meat consumption has risen four times and the per capita consumption of meat in the United States is still increasing yearly.

         Diet has been linked to cancer. 

There are many carcinogens in

the food and animal products

that are consumed by most

Americans today.

     While many of these chemicals

have been suspected of having

negative effects on health, one

in particular, sodium nitrite

has the dubious distinction

of possibly being fatal. 

More important, studies now

link nitrites in the diet with

the development of cancer

in laboratory animals. 

Nitrites are used specifically

in hot dogs, ham, bacon,

luncheon meat and similar

products.

 

UNHEALTHY ANIMALS

 An average of 10 to 30 percent

of beef livers at slaughterhouses

are condemned because of abscesses.  USDA records showed that during a one year period, Americans ate millions of pounds of beef from cattle that had “cancer eye” or similar tumorous disorders. The diseased parts were merely cut out and the remainder

of the carcass was permitted

to be marketed.  Agriculture

officials claim that such localized

tumors pose no threat to human

beings eating meat from other

portions of such animals.  A

government report showed that

more than 10 percent of the 30.1

million cattle carcasses approved

by federal inspection underwent

some post-mortem cutting for

removal of some diseased part.

     Another report showed that

2,400,000 cattle whose cancerous

or tubercular livers were on to

be processed for food.

 

More Reasons For

Not Eating Meat

 

  • Blood Pressure—When meat was added to the diets of vegetarians their blood pressure was elevated after 11 days. 
  • A follow-up in European studies with the elderly showed a drop of blood pressure to within normal range after
  • 2 months when they were put back on a vegetarian diet.
  • Difficult to Digest—All animal protein is difficult to digest.  One of the main reasons is because man does not secrete
  • the uricase enzyme that meat-eating animals do. 
  • Meat then becomes putrefactive. 
  • Meat can take up to 60-100
  • hours to digest whereas normal
  • digestion takes only about 24-30 hours.

  • Uric Acid—The flavor in meat is partly due to the presence of uric acid which is the major cause of gout. 
  • Uric acid is a purine, a toxic waste that is poisonous to living tissues. 
  • When not promptly and thoroughly removed from the blood by the kidneys, it will
  • be deposited in the tissues which then can give rise to gout and can also cause kidney and bladder stones.

  • Poisonous Waste—Meat contains considerable quantities of the end
  • products of cell metabolism. 
  • These are in the tissues at death and continue to build up until the cells cease functioning.  These wastes are poisonous.  Instead of giving added strength as many believe, these give meat a stimulating property identical to that in caffeine, alcohol, vinegar, or any other drug.
  • Over 10 Times The Pesticide—Meat products contain over ten times as much pesticide as commercially-
  • sprayed fruits and vegetables because these chemicals are stored in the animals body tissue over the course of its life, and become more and more concentrated.
  • Meat lacks Fiber—Meat lacks fiber which is abundantly found in fruits, vegetables, nuts, and grains.
  • A high meat diet results in constipation, with hard and infrequent stools because of the lack of fiber.
  • Meat is High In Saturated Fats the fat found in all animals except fish, and in dairy products is high in saturated fat. 
  • Fats in the diet can raise the blood cholesterol and speed-up the development of hardening of the arteries by the process of the number-one and number-three killers in this country, but are only miner causes of death in countries where there is little or no meat in the diet.
  • Cows are Fed Offal, Manure,
  • Restaurant Waste, and Other
  • Unsavory Materials. 
  • Scott Williams, Executive Director of the Farm Animal Reform Movement (FARM) said:
  • “Animal agriculture is a grisly, grisly business.  You may imagine a contented cow chewing its cud, but the cow is more likely being fattened on the intestines of its slaughtered comrades”

 

           Few meat eaters would like to hear the words putrefaction, rigor mortis, and rotting flesh applied to their sirloin and pot roast.   But flesh is flesh,  though the euphemisms,  ripening,    

toughening, and  enzymatic action are kinder to the ear.                     

   Vic Sussman,  The Vegetarian Alternative.                                                                                                        

                                      Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.

      1Corinthians10:31

            Katy Chamberlin,

Box 1540,  Grants Pass,

Oregon,  97528