Choose Life

Choose Life.

A line from the movie Trainspotting. The movie dealt with the horrors of heroin addiction and the catch line of the main characters monologue was choose life. It’s obvious to see an addiction such as heroin abuse. There are needle marks on their body, loss of weight, sallow skin, mood swings and risk of disease.

This is an obvious addiction to see and I am not here to talk about this addiction. What I am here to talk about is another addiction. An addiction that I too am fighting. An addiction that is socially acceptable to the point that “Choosing life” is a deviation from the norm. That addiction is that of eating meat.

Already I’m aware that there are a few people who on hearing that line have ceased to listen having been bombarded over and over again by Patrick Holford Bible Bashing Vegetarians who wear Ché Guevara t-shirts and tie their dreadlocks back with hemp rope while signing Kumbaya.

I’m not going to tell you not to eat meat. What I am going to tell you is some of the facts on eating meat. Facts that went toward changing my mind. Facts that I hope will make you investigate this idea of not eating meat further.

From a humanitarian point of view, eating meat is the height of selfishness. This year alone 23 million people will die of malnutrition. One child every 2.3 seconds. Think about that. By the end of my speech 130 children would have died. How does this correlate to eating meat? If the US alone reduced its meat consumption by 10 % 100 million people could be fed off the land freed from cattle farming. One acre of land can be used to produce 129 kg of edible beef or 18 000 kg of potatoes to feed the hungry.

Environmentally, we are all aware of the drastic changes attributed to global warming. As we speak the south east of Britain, China, Thailand and the Philippines are all experiencing floods. Australia and Central Africa are having their worst drought in 60 years while the whole of the Gulf of America is trying to recover from their 3rd category 4 hurricane. A recent German study on the effects of farming on the environment showed that an individual diet with meat is responsible for producing in a year as much greenhouse gas as driving 4758 km. That’s from here to Cape Town and back, twice. Where as an organic vegan diet, 281 km. Here to the Berg. This doesn’t include the 260 million acres of forest land that has been cleared to make way for crops to feed the meat industry attributing to the loss of 1 000 species a year. Meat farming is widely accepted as the second largest contributor to greenhouse gasses after industry with cars a distant third.

In addition meat eating is devouring our oil reserves. It takes 78 calories of fossil fuel to produce 1 calorie of beef as opposed to 2 calories of fuel for every calorie of soybean for example. Doing the math if every human ate a meat centered diet, the worlds known oil reserves would last 13 years. While if we stopped eating meat altogether we’d be able to extend our reserves by 260 years.

What about health? A 100g serving of beef has 43% of its calorie count as protein but 57% as saturated fats while broccoli has 50% of its calorie count as protein, more than the beef, and the rest as carbohydrates and fiber.
As for milk it is wondrous for a calf. Milk is designed to assist a calf to double their weight in 47 days and reach 130 kg by its first birthday. As a result it is more than 50% fat and has 3 times as much protein as human breast milk. We have long been fed the lie that you need milk to grow strong bones. The opposite is actually true. The high protein content of milk results in raising the ph level of your blood. To counteract this excessive acidity the body leeches calcium from the bones to neutralize the blood actually causing long term calcium deficiency.
Statistically you’re 3.8 times more likely to develop breast cancer as opposed to your vegetarian neighbor, 3.6 times for prostate cancer. Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in the western world killing 1 person every 45 seconds. The average meat eaters risk of death from a heart attack, 50%. The average vegetarian, 15%.

Lastly I want to look at the ethical reasons. Forget about religion, philosophy, karma, dharma and dogma and let’s just look at compassion. In the US alone 660 000 animals are killed for meat every hour. An average person will eat in their lifetime 11 cows, 3 sheep, 23 pigs and 1 100
chickens.
Mahatma Gandhi said “The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be measured by the way in which its animals are treated.”

As I said I’m not going to tell you not to eat meat. I’m going to ask if you still want to?