Since the consumption of beef and the use of its by-products have become ingrained into our western culture, and is now the fourth largest industry in the United States, few consider the negative impact that the beef industry may have on our environment, on our personal health, our ability to feed the hungry and starving of the world, and even the violence in our streets.  In fact, when the total damage is assessed, we may find that cattle, raised and utlilized by man in its present form, may wreak more havoc on our planet than viruses, wars and other forms of destruction.

The cattle industry affects our lives in many diverse ways from its effect on the costs of health care to that of illegal immigration problems; and it reaches into every area of our lives.  As such an accepted part of our cultural heritage, its virulent potency creeps insidiously throughout our society, spreading its venom like the silent predator it is, steathily wending its way through the veil of darkness with which we have enshrouded ourselves; driven by the advertising media with messages of those like the "Got Milk" commercials on television, and the imprinting of small minds in schools with materials that say protein is obtainable for our bodies' use only through meat and dairy products.

The following are just some of the ways the raising and consumption of beef cattle and the use of dairy products affects us all:

A.  Cattle:

        1.  The total cattle population on the earth is 1.28 billion.  They occupy almost 24% of the land mass of the planet.

       1.  The United Nations estimates that 29% of the earth's landmass now suffers slight, moderate or severe desertification.

        2.  The regions most effected by desertification are all cattle-producing areas and include the western half of the United States, Central and South America, Austraila, and sub-Saharan Africa.

       3. An inch of topsoil takes between 200 and 1,000 years to form under natural conditions.

       4.  The Worldwatch Institute estimates that each pound of feedlot steak costs about 35 pounds of eroded topsoil.

E.  Rainforests:

       1.  In Central and South America, rainforests, which account for 80% of the earth's vegetation and are critical to our ecosystem are being destroyed at an unprecedented rate to make way for grazing land for beef to be exported to the U.S.  This rate is estimated at one acre every 5 seconds.

       2.  Mexico and Central America which used to be covered by 160,000 square miles of tropical rain forest, now have less than 50,000 square miles left, much of the area having been clear-cut and burned to make room for cattle pastures.  The remaining forest cover will likely be eliminated within the next twenty-five years.

        3.  Once the rainforest has been cut and turned into agricultural land, it is useable for only a few years as the topsoil is not very deep, so new areas must be continually cut.  Ninety percent of all cattle ranches in the Amazon go out of business within 8 years due to soil depletion.

       4.  Nearly a quarter of all medications and pharmaceuticals are derived from tropical plants; many of them found in the rainforests. Much of the rainforest will be cutdown along with the secrets it holds for modern medicine long before they may be discovered.

       5.  Every time a quarter pound hamburger is eaten using rain forest beef, it represents the destruction of fifty-five feet of tropical rain forest.

F.  Global Warming:

       1.  Global warming has become the greatest environmental and human threat in history, and the grain-fed cattle complex is now a significant factor in the emission of three of the four global warming gases--methane, carbon dioxide, and nitrous oxides.

       2.  The burning of forests, grasslands, and agricultural waste worldwide releases 50 to 100 million tons of methane into the atmosphere, much of it from the burning of the felled rainforests.

G.  Energy:

       1.  More energy is consumed by the beef industry than any other single industry in the United States.  The fossil fuel required to produce one single pound of beef is roughly thirty-nine times that required to reproduce the equivalent protein value in soybeans.

       2.  If we were to reduce by 50% our meat consumption, we could totally eliminate our reliance on nuclear power throughout the United States.

H.  Migration Patterns:

       1.  In Latin America we find eroding soils, shrinking forests, deteriorating rangelands, expanding deserts, acid rain, stratospheric ozone depletion, the buildup of greenhouse gases, air pollution, and the loss of biological diversity.  Coupled with the high cost of energy and the scarcity of fresh water, and as more and more land is converted to pasture to graze cattle, the campesino is forced to leave and seek employment in urban areas, adding to a burgeoning migrant population.

       2.  While peasant agriculture can often sustain a hundred people per square mile, the average rain forest cattle ranch employs one person per 2,000 head of cattle, or one person per 12 square miles.  Forced from their land, and  traveling the Pan Pacific Highway, many migrate north to Mexico and then seek entry into the United States.

       Much of the Latinization of the United States is directly attributable to the changing land-use patterns in Mexico, Central and South America where cattle grazing and feed grain production have replaced subsistence agriculture.  And while much of the population remains undernourished, a vast majority of grain produced there goes to feed livestock which is then exported to the United States.

       3.  More and more land around the world is being used to raise cattle, particularly in the Third World and developing countries.

I.  Migrant workers:

        1.  Many Latinos forced across the Border into the United States in order to find work that will provide for food and shelter for themselves and their families, are employed by the companies in the slaughter houses along the Border.  Others find work in the agricultural fields.

        2.  Working conditions in the slaughterhouses is hazardous and unsanitary; personal injury is the second highest of any injury in the U.S.  Turnover rate is as high as 43% monthly in the slaughterhouses as management prefers to employ workers only for short periods of time so that they do not organize and protest the working conditions.  They are forced to live in squalid and unsanitary conditions, and the illiteracy rate is among the highest of any occupational group in the U.S.

J.  Herbicides and Pesticides:  

       1.  Feed for cattle is saturated with herbicides.  Eighty-percent of all herbicides used in the U.S. are sprayed on corn and soybeans which are primarily used as feed for cattle and other livestock.  When consumed by animals, these pesticides accumulate in their bodies and are then passed on to the consumer in the finished cuts of beef.  The higher up the food chain, the higher the rate of concentration.

       2.  Beef is the most dangerous food in the U.S. in herbicide contamination and ranks third in insecticide contamination.

       3.  Dieldrin, one of the most potent carcinogens ever known, and which takes decades to break down has been found in the flesh of 96% of all meat, fish and poultry in the U.S., and in 85% of all dairy products.

K.  Steroids:

        1. Anabolic steroids which are given to cattle to improve weight gain have been shown to adversely effect brain growth in humans, and are found in 95% of all feedlots.

L.  Antibiotics:

        1.  Antibiotics are given to dairy cows which make up about 15% of all beef consumed in the U.S.  Antibiotic residues often show up in the meat people consume, making the human population increasingly vulnerable to more virulent strains of disease-causing bacteria.

M.  Bovine Diseases and Viruses:

       1.  Cattle are known to have an imunodeficiency virus whose genetic structure is closely related to the HIV or AIDS virus.  It is unknown at this time whether BIF (bovine imunodeficiency virus) can be transmitted to humans; however, the USDA has been investigating this link.

       2.  BSE, or bovine spongeform encephalopathy, is a disease which eats away at the cow's brain  causing it to become spongelike and driving the animal mad.  Ten deaths in England have been attributed to the transfer of this disease from cattle to humans, causing surrounding countries to ban the sale of English-grown beef.  England destroyed much of its cattle population due to the threat of this disease.

       3.  BLV (bovine leukemia virus), is an insect born retrovirus that causes malignancy in cattle.  BLV antibodies have been found in human leukemia patients.

       4.  E-coli bacteria found in beef and, in particular, fatty hamburger, which has been undercooked, has been verified as the cause of death in several highly publicized cases.  

N.  Health Risks:

       1.  Beef rates second only to tomatoes as the food posing the greatest cancer risk due to pesticide contamination according to the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences.

        2.  The National Research Council estimates that beef pesticide contamination represents about 11 percent of the total cancer risk to consumers from all foods on the market today.

       3.  In 1986, milk contaminated with dangerously high levels of heptachlor was recalled in Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana, Kansas, Missouri, and Oklahoma, and beef donated to California elementary and high schools had to be recalled for the same reason.  A Hawaii study of 120 infants whose supply of breast milk was contaminated with heptachlor, found the development of the infants' brains to be significantly retarded.

       4..  The Surgeon General of the United States has reported that of the 2.1 million deaths in the United States in 1987, 1.5 million were related to dietary factors, including consumption of saturated fat and cholesterol.  Diets high in saturated fats and cholesterol played a key role in three of the nation's top ten causes of death:  heart attack, cancer, and strokes.

       The number one cause of death in the United States is coronary artery disease which is largely caused by life-style factors which include the consumption of foods high in fat and cholesterol.

        Cancer is the number two cause of death, and colon cancer is number two in cancer deaths.  Studies have connected red meat consumption directly to colon cancer.  It has been shown that meat eaters have a higher incidence of kidney stones.  

       Some studies show that too much protein may contribute to the loss of calcium from the body and contribute to the high rate of osteoporosis in women.  The March 1983, "Journal of Clinical Nutrition" reported the results of the largest study ever conducted on bone density and found that, by age 65 in the United States, female vegetarians in the U.S. had an average measurable bone loss of 18% while female meat eaters had a bone loss of 35%.  Male vegetarians showed a loss of 3 percent for vegetarians to 7% for meat eaters.

        The link between the consumption of read meat and breast cancer which effects one in ten women in the United States has also been found.  Scientists believe that the increased fat consumption triggers the cancer by stimulating the release of prolactin, a hormone responsible for regulating fat metabolism and lactation.  Cancer of the breast is now more prevalent among younger women.  Studies now show more women are getting breast cancer in their late 20's and early 30's than before.

        5.  Over 34 million people in the United States are fat, and 24 to 27 percent of the population of the United States is overweight.  Americans spend $5 billion a year trying to lose weight.  Obesity occurs more in middle-aged people and people of low socio-economic status, and the percentage of obese black American women is higher than the percentage of white women.  Even being a little overweight has been shown to increase the risk of death compared to a person who is not overweight.

        The number of fat cells of an individual is determined by age two, and if an individual is fat at that age, it is more likely that the individual will become obese as an adult.

        Obesity is a critical factor in predicting heart disease, and studies have shown a direct link between obesity and diabetes.  

        6.  Americans have a much higher rate of heart disease and cancer than do Asians who remain in their own countries due to the difference in dietary habits.  However, after they move to the United States, the incidence increases.

        Americans consume over a ton of grain, or approximately 2,000 pounds per year, 80 percent of it by way of eating cattle, while Asian adults consume between 300 and 400 pounds of grain per year, most of it directly.  Asians consume 56 grams of protein of which only 8 grams is animal protein.  Americans consume 96 grams of protein of which 66 grams is derived from animal sources.

O.  Dairy Products:

       1.  The National Dairy Council is the foremost supplier of "nutritional educational" materials to classrooms in the United States.  These materials promote that it is very important that we eat lots of protein and that the only way to get good quality protein is through eating meat, eggs, and dairy products.

       2.  Studies show that only 2 1/2 to 8 percent of our daily calories are necessary as protein.  Legumes, grains, vegetables, fruits, nuts, and seeds are more than adequate sources of protein.  

       Combined vegetable proteins have been shown to outrank meat in their value to the body, and almost all cultures in their traditional diets that have evolved over time, combine vegetables and protein in this manner.  In Latin America for example it is rice and beans.  

P.  Bottle-fed Infants:

        1.  The National Dairy Council introduces into hospitals literature designed to encourage bottle-feeding of infants.  However, bottle-feeding has been shown to break the bonding process so necessary to the development of the infant, and, in particular, brain development.  Research also indicates that breast fed infants are more intelligent than bottle-fed infants.  Bottle feeding is more prevalent among black mothers than white mothers.

       2.  In 1979 the government of California funded the first scientific study ever made of the root causes of crime and violence, and found three years later that the first and foremost cause of the epidemic of violence in America was the violence done to mothers and infants at birth in hospitals.

Q.  Poultry

       1.  In March of 1996, Russian officials gave the U.S. poultry industry notice that it will stop importing chickens from the United States, if its complaints regarding the health of flocks and of substandard sanitary conditions are not addressed.

       Chickens are also increasingly fed abnormal diets naturally foreign to them and high in sulfa drugs, hormones, antibiotics, and nitrofurans in order to increase their weight and keep them healthy under the circumstances under which they are forced to live until marketime.  The truth is however, that chickens are now riddled with disease, and the hormones and antibiotics found in the meat of chickens are passed on to humans when they are consumed as food.  

       Many sources today advise against eating raw eggs as they may contain salmonella, and it is advisable to cook poultry thoroughly for the same reason.  Countertops should be thoroughly cleaned where uncooked chicken has touched the surface, and contact with other foods should be avoided.                

HOW YOU CAN REDUCE HEALTH HAZARDS AND THE NEGATIVE EFFECTS OF BEEF AND DAIRY PRODUCTS