The Meaty Truth (22 page)

Worldwide, cows produce about eighty-six million tons of methane a year.
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Since cows make up 30 percent of meat consumption in the United States, and the average American consumes six hundred pounds of dairy per year, the amount of methane released from cows passing gas is significant enough to add substantially to climate change. In fact, methane released from cows is so powerful that in Germany, gassy cows caused a methane buildup so high it caused the warehouse to explode. Who would have thought that possible?
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Meat consumption had tripled between 1971 and 2010 to about six hundred billion pounds and is expected to double by 2050 to about 1.2 trillion pounds of meat per year. We are already experiencing a significant change in weather patterns. The polar vortex of 2014 and heat wave of 2013 are just the beginning. These massive switches will place even more pressure on our food, water, and land resources.
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So, what can you do to help reduce the threat of climate change? Studies by the Environmental Working Group show that eating one less burger a week is the equivalent of taking your car off the road for 320 miles.
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That is just one burger a week. If a four-person family skipped their steak dinner one day a week, it would be as if they didn’t drive for about three months. You really can make that big of a difference! While these statistics focus on meat, the answer is
not
to eat more dairy. Dairy comes from cow’s milk. Milk protein and fat were only designed for newborn babies anyway. Creating a better world can start with yummy soy, almond, or coconut milk at breakfast.

The Cycle of Crap Must End

Worldwide, the livestock sector produces 586 million tons of milk and 285 million tons of meat.
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Factory farming and the livestock sector arguably have the largest human-induced destructive impact on our planet.

We are losing species, killing our oceans, degrading our land, tearing down our forests, polluting the water, sacrificing finite resources, and changing the entire climate just so we can have sausages and eggs for breakfast and cheeseburgers at lunch. Somehow this does not seem to be a good trade-off. What we eat directly determines how long our resources will last, the quality of the water systems, the number of hungry people, and the overall state of our environmental and public health systems. At this moment, the future awaiting us is not looking too bright with higher health costs, more antibiotic-resistant bacteria, animal-factory virus mutations, eroded farm land, dirty water, and a degraded land robbed of its nutrients. We have the recipe for a food system that will keep us happy and healthy and our environment pristine and green.

Know your Sh!t Solutions:

1) Cut down on your meat and dairy consumption. Forgoing one burger or chicken dinner a week will impact the environment and make your heart healthier. Even better, eliminate meat and dairy altogether. Read
Rethink Food: 100+ Doctors Can’t Be Wrong
and have more than one hundred doctors explain why a vegan diet is the very best for your health!

2) Think globally! What you eat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner affects our water, air, land, and hunger worldwide.

3) Give a healthy vegan meal to a hungry person in need. Check out our resources for more information and delicious plant-based recipes!

CHAPTER 10

Cut the Crap; Change the World

“We as a society are on the edge of a great precipice—we can either fall to sickness, poverty and degradation, or we can embrace health, longevity and bounty. All it takes is the courage to change.”

~ Dr. T. Colin Campbell, The China Study

I
t’s time we take a good, hard look at our society. What have we become? We are inflicting unwarranted cruelty on voiceless, beautiful creatures, abusing our technological advances in medicine, unheeding warning labels, protecting the use of toxins and carcinogens in our food, deceiving ourselves on food safety and health, abusing our finite resources, and ravaging our environment. All of this in the name of profit from meat and dairy. Ask yourself: is it really worth it? We don’t think so. Our society is far from the ideals and virtues of a progressive, democratic, and capitalistic country that we so pride ourselves on
being. This is the real America we are living in, and the home next generations are inheriting.

This information is not new. Many great minds before us have written about the horrors of factory farming and the problems with our food system. Yet it takes more than just science and facts to create a change. It takes action and leadership. These issues are not at the forefront of America’s young minds and are often corrupted by industry propaganda. For burgeoning young leaders, we need to change our food system for the better. We cannot afford to tip the scales further in favor of evolutionary disaster. The courage to change and demand better food and transparency begins with each one of us. We do not have to accept what is handed to us by companies. Each one of our actions, whether big or small, can have a tremendous ripple effect to create much-needed, positive change. It’s time to show the food corporations that we mean business by using the power of
not
buying their products.

Luckily, the pressing food, health, and environmental problems facing us today are interconnected and therefore have a combined solution. Who doesn’t love simple solutions? As we have said, never before have we consumed such high volumes of meat and dairy, and we have never been such an unhealthy and disease-ridden society. As our consumption of meat and dairy increases, so have our environmental problems. This is not a coincidence. At the beginning of the twentieth century, Americans ate 120 pounds of meat per year. Now we are eating nearly double that amount.
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Our dairy consumption has quadrupled! It all comes down to rethinking how we eat and cutting through propaganda to realize the truth about our food. We have the power to change not only our own lives, but also industry practices that are wreaking havoc on our health and homes. Already we are implementing the positive changes of renewable energy, recycling, and new technologies. Making dietary and lifestyle changes is the same as changing a lightbulb. It really is that easy.

Life Is About Tasting the Rainbow

The key to a healthier you is healthier food. We understand that learning about our health and food-safety problems can feel overwhelming and, quite frankly, mind-blowing. We also had the experience of sitting back and thinking, “Great, now what?!” Most of us have no idea where to start, how to shop, or what to eat. But friends, don’t despair! We have been in your exact position, and we know how easy it is to make simple, daily changes.

For some, this is a big step and completely life altering. But isn’t that the point? We want a healthier, happier life, which means dropping the food that just doesn’t make the cut. Do yourself (and the animals) a favor by saying goodbye to feces-filled meat, chemical-laced processed foods,
and pus-filled dairy products. So now what do we indulge in? The entire rainbow is at our fingertips! From veggies to fruit, legumes, grains, and nuts (as well as soy-based dairy and meat products), the opportunities are endless. We should be experiencing the tastiest (and healthiest flavors) food has to offer. Meat and dairy are not them.

A great place to begin is to familiarize yourself with the vegetable section at the grocery store. As most Americans eat significantly fewer vegetables than they should, it will be a useful and exciting new experience for many of you. Don’t be afraid to try something new. Kale might be one of the newest (and best) fads, but it really does have an enormous amount of benefits to offer. Love kale? Also try chard, bok choy, mustard greens, collard greens, and cauliflower. These cruciferous vegetables are some of the healthiest, cancer-fighting foods around. Try to eat as many different colors as possible. All the colors of fruits and vegetables offer different phytonutrients that restore our DNA, fight off free radicals, and bolster our bodies’ immune systems. One of the most comprehensive studies to date on antioxidants in food found that plant foods have sixty-four times the number of antioxidants than animal-based foods do, including meat, fish, dairy, and eggs.
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Food really is medicine for the mind, body, and soul.

A common misconception is that vegetables are boring. Yet they are some of the tastiest foods around. Giving up meat and dairy does not mean living on salads either; we just don’t realize it, because we don’t focus on cooking vegetables. It’s not complicated. Just like you used to marinate meat to eat it, you can dress up vegetables with an array of herbs and spices that bring out their delicious taste. The best part? Most herbs and spices are an amazing source of antioxidants and phytochemicals that promote health at every meal. For instance, some of our favorite spices, such as cinnamon, can help keep sugar in check for diabetics, and turmeric, a key ingredient in curry, is a powerful anti-inflammatory agent that works to keep cancer at bay. Additionally alliums, such as onions and garlic, are powerful and potent defenses against inflammation and cardiovascular disease. While garlic cloves are great for the heart, we don’t
recommend eating them right before a date, especially a first date! First impressions are everything and eating a whole-food, plant-based diet will make you irresistible, radiating health inside and out (Be sure to try our recipes at the end to get you started.).

If cutting meat out cold turkey is a bit challenging, then try participating in Meatless Mondays or reduce your meat and dairy intake by 50 percent. There are amazing meat substitutes such as Beyond Meat, Gardein, and Tofurky that can help during the transition period. While we don’t endorse eating meat because we have your best interests at heart, if you do buy meat, know where it comes from and don’t support factory farms. Don’t be fooled by labels. It might not say “Tyson,” but you have to remember that big agribusiness players like Tyson own smaller companies that appear to be local. If you are not sure if something is grass fed and organic, ask! If your store does not sell organic or locally raised meat and dairy, ask for it. Stores will gladly provide what consumers want to buy, so make a point of speaking up for humanely raised foods and fresh, local products. Again, we have to stress that just because it says cage free does not ensure that the hens did not receive drugs throughout their lives or weren’t bred in crowded conditions. A good indication is to look for the Humane Farm Animal Care label.

If we were to pick one animal product for you to ditch first, it would be dairy. Dairy is one of the most contaminated foods that masquerades as healthy. We understand how hard this can be to eliminate. Dairy is naturally addictive. It actually contains casomorphin, which acts in a similar way to heroin or morphine in our bodies.
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But just as we know heroine and morphine aren’t good for us, our dairy product habit needs to be kicked.

Dairy products are everywhere, and it can be so frustrating how milk fat is snuck into so many of our foods. Even foods we least expect, such as crackers, bread, and salad dressings are tainted with the dairy disaster. Have hope! You can choose delicious, nondairy and soy-product versions over dairy products. There are thousands of recipes for delicious snacks, desserts, and meals that are made without all the crap and are just as creamy. You won’t even know the dairy is missing. If you don’t have time
to cook, you can order online or go to your local grocery store to pick up these yummy treats and meals. If nondairy is something to work toward, choose local and organic dairy. This will give you the best chance of limiting the amount of pus you drink, since local and organic dairy cows are not given growth hormones that promote infection.

Old habits die hard, so changing how we eat is a gradual process. Don’t get frustrated or give up in the beginning. Take baby steps, and on the way you will experience how great you feel when you begin to cut out the crap. Choosing to cut out meat and buy more veggies, grains, legumes, and fruit or choosing to only eat organic meat, as well as choosing nondairy products will show the meat and dairy industries that enough is simply enough. Get shopping, make dinner, and have some friends over to enjoy your feces- and pus-
free
dinner and dessert! We promise you won’t look back.

Cheap Is Expensive

For many of us young professionals or college students, living on a budget means eating the cheapest food possible. Doesn’t it seem ironic that we tend to invest so much time and money into our careers and education but very little into our own bodies? It’s time to learn to invest in our health. It’s very easy to take good health for granted, because we will only experience the repercussions or healthy success years down the line. Yet, just as it takes time to be at the top of our game, our bodies need us to take the time to fuel them properly. We will never be the best if we are operating on sub-optimal fuel. Subsidies have made it so the cheapest food available is also the unhealthiest. The newest research shows that eating healthy costs $1.50 more per day, or $550 per person over the course of a year.
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In the long run, this could be financially prohibitive for some people, especially those with families. At the same time, let’s think about how many three-dollar Starbucks coffees we drink each week. That’s two days of eating healthy. Eating healthy does not have to be expensive. It is actually possible to eat a plant-based diet on four dollars a day. Beans, rice, legumes, and bulk vegetables are nutritious staples. More importantly, this disparity
evidences just how important it is that we vote with our dollars so the food that is good for us is more affordable.