The need for veganism or near veganism
Our diet is more involved than just weight watching. There are four dimensions to it:
Personal Health
Americans are suffering from an unbalanced diet known as the Standard American Diet (SAD) which is:
If it tastes good, it must be good
The SAD leads to an overconsumption of meats, dairy, eggs, sweets, and refined carbohydrates(breads, cakes, cookies, crackers) with an under consumption of fruits and vegetables.
Because of this, we have the highest or near the highest rates of obesity, diabetes, heart disease and cancer (especially breast cancer) in the world.
Dietary prevention of illness is poorly promoted or taught in the US. Advertising promotes poor diet. It has a “whatever makes money, must be good” bias. Tom Brady and his wife, Gisele, are too smart for that.
The information has been around for quite some time that other cultures with better eating habits have drastically lower illnesses and live a longer. The Blue Zones analysis is a study of five of these cultures. Studies of Seventh Day Adventists point in the same direction. Countries like Japan that don’t eat the SAD diet are healthier and live longer. Studies have shown that Japanese who move to the U.S. and change to the SAD diet develop higher incidences of poor diet illnesses.
Community Health
The ill effects of the SAD make the American healthcare the most expensive in the world. This puts a drain on the quality of life both financially and psychologically.
The cost growth rate will eventually cause more rationing of healthcare with higher co-pays and lower employer contributions. It’s ominous that the Medicare Trust fund is heading for depletion in 10 years or less. This pays for about 25% of Medicare. What are we going to do? Nothing so far.
America must practice more prevention through diet.
Fueling the SAD is cheap animal protein and the misconception that we need a lot more protein than we do.
Factory farms or Confined Animal Feeding Operations (CAFO’s) produce cheap animal protein by packing animals extremely close together in the filthiest heartless conditions. They use massive amounts of antibiotics to keep the suffering animals from getting sick. They use the same antibiotics that we use. This creates an excellent breeding ground for antibiotic-resistant or immune bacteria. When it happens, the usual remedy is to kill off thousands or millions of infected animals or to destroy the meat. This will probably happen more times in the future with risks of epidemics. Much of the meats sold today are often infested with bacteria, but cooking kills them. So far, so good.
Viruses that are almost always immune to drugs can infect animals and jump to humans. Ebola, Swine flu, Bird flu and probably Covid-19 have had some connection with animals being eaten. So far, the very deadly Bird flu has rarely jumped to humans and doesn’t jump from humans to humans. Not yet.
Factory farms also use growth hormones and antibiotics to fatten up the animals fastest. Much of these remain in the meats bought by consumers. This contributes to much of the overweight and obesity epidemic in the US. The European Union will not allow the importation of US beef because of this. There is a known correlation between eating a lot of red meat and colon cancer. The reasons for it are still under study, but one preventive measure would be not to eat any.
Environmental health
Farm animals greatly outnumber humans and of course they produce far more sewage. Only human sewage has to be legally treated so the waste in stored in ponds. These often pollute drinking water and rivers.
Grazing more animals and plowing more fields to feed factory farm animals is a major cause of deforestation worldwide especially in the Brazilian rain forests. This is destroying our atmosphere.
Moral Health
Almost everyone is against cruelty to animals. There are laws with penalties and even prison sentences against it. In factory farms, these don’t protect food animals much or at all even though they have feelings and intelligence equal to or higher than cats and dogs. It is hard to imagine treating animals more cruelly than how they are in factory farms. They are treated like things without personalities or feelings. Any kind of reduced cruelty will raise costs and prices.
A carton of eggs looks innocent, yet it is the end product of obscene suffering. The male chicks are all killed after hatching. Their sisters suffer a far worse fate. Most egg-laying hens are confined in battery cages so cramped they can hardly move. When they become “spent” laying fewer eggs after a about 18 months they are released from their hell and killed. For more info and a detailed video click here.
A glass of milk also looks nice, but it too is the end product of obscene suffering. The cows are kept pregnant all the time mostly in stalls to keep them producing milk. When they give birth to a calve, the baby is taken from them, causing great motherly emotional suffering and they are artificially inseminated again.
The female calves are raised to go through the hell their mothers went through. The males may go to veal crates or are killed. When the mothers produce less milk they are killed and replaced by their daughters. For more info
Bacon and ham are also the end product of merciless production. Sows are often confined to gestation crates where they can hardly move. They are artificially inseminated to produce the piglets that will be raised to replace their mothers or be killed and eaten. The conditions are usually filthy and very confined. More info
All the above animals suffer one final degradation and sufferings. They are transported cramped in trucks without food or water no matter how cold or hot. The trip can take days. They are then brutally herded to slaughter.
A thousand years ago people believed the Earth was flat and that the Sun went around the Earth. We outgrew those false beliefs. There is another false belief we must outgrow to save ourselves and planet. We believe that we have to eat meat, eggs and dairy to get enough protein to be healthy. Millions of healthy vegans have proven this wrong for thousands of years. Today, millions of happy vegans and near vegans (like Tom Brady and Giselle Bündchen) are the healthiest people on Earth who live the longest.
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