- Rendering is a $2.4 billion-a-year industry, processing
forty(40) Billion pounds of dead animals a year in the U.S.
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- In addition to farm animals, is euthanized pets -the
six or seven Million dogs and cats that are killed in animal shelters
every year.
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- When the gruesome mix is ground and steam-cooked together,
the lighter, fatty material floating to the top is used for Cosmetics,
Lubricants, Soaps, Candles, and Waxes.
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- The heavier protein material including a quarter of
which consists of fecal material is dried into powder. The powder is used
as an additive to almost ALL Pet food as well as to Livestock feed. Farmers
call it "protein concentrates."
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- If you are a Meat eater, it is the food of your food
.
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- The Plain Truth From The Cattlerancher Who Won't Eat
Meat
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- By Howard Lyman with Glen Merzer
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- I am a fourth-generation dairy farmer and cattle rancher.
I grew up on a dairy farm in Montana, & I ran a feedlot operation
there for 20 years. I know firsthand how cattle are raised and how meat
is produced in this country. Today I am president of the International
Vegetarian Union.
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- Sure, I used to enjoy my steaks as much as the next
guy. But if you knew what I know about what goes into them and what they
can do to you, you'd probably be a vegetarian like me. And believe it
or not, as a pure vegetarian now who consumes no animal products at all,
I can tell you that these days I enjoy eating more than ever.
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- If you're a meat-eater in America, you have a right
to know that you have something in common with most of the cows you've
eaten. They've eaten meat, too.
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- When a cow is slaughtered, about half of it by weight
is not eaten by humans: the intestines and their contents, the head, hooves,
and horns, as well as bones and blood. These are dumped into giant grinders
at rendering plants, as are the entire bodies of cows and other farm
animals known to be diseased. Rendering is a $2.4 billion-a-year industry,
processing forty billion pounds of dead animals a year. There is simply
no such thing in America as an animal too ravaged by disease, too cancerous,
or too putrid to be welcomed by the embracing arms of the renderer.
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- Another staple of the renderer's diet, in addition to
farm animals, is euthanized pets-the six or seven million dogs and cats
that are killed in animal shelters every year. The city of Los Angeles
alone, for example, sends some two hundred tons of euthanized cats and
dogs to a rendering plant every month. Added to the blend are the euthanized
catch of animal control agencies, and roadkill. (Roadkill is not collected
daily, and in the summer, the better roadkill collection crews can generally
smell it before they can see it.)
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- When the gruesome mix is ground and steam-cooked, the
lighter, fatty material floating to the top gets refined for use in such
products as cosmetics, lubricants, soaps, candles, and waxes. The heavier
protein material is dried and pulverized into a brown powder-about a quarter
of which consists of fecal material. The powder is used as an additive
to almost ALL pet food as well as to livestock feed. Farmers call it "protein
concentrates." In 1995, five million tons of processed slaughterhouse
leftovers were sold for animal feed in the United States. I used to feed
tons of the stuff to my own livestock. It never concerned me that I was
feeding cattle to cattle.
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- In August 1997, in response to growing concern about
the spread of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (or Mad Cow disease), the
FDA issued a new regulation that bans the feeding of ruminant protein
(protein from cud-chewing animals) to ruminants; therefore, to the extent
that the regulation is actually enforced, cattle are no longer quite the
cannibals that we had made them into. They are no longer eating solid
parts of other cattle, or sheep, or goats.
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- They still munch, however, on ground-up dead horses,
dogs, cats, pigs, chickens, and turkeys, as well as blood and fecal matter
of their own species and that of chickens. About 75 percent of the ninety
million beef cattle in America are routinely given feed that has been
"enriched" with rendered animal parts. The use of animal excrement
in feed is common as well, as livestock operators have found it to be
an efficient way of disposing of a portion of the 1.6 million tons of
livestock wastes generated annually by their industry.
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- In Arkansas, for example, the average farm feeds over
fifty tons of chicken litter to cattle every year. One Arkansas cattle
farmer was quoted in U.S. News & World Report as having recently purchased
745 tons of litter collected from the floors of local chicken-raising
operations. After mixing it with small amounts of soybean bran, he then
feeds it to his eight hundred head of cattle, making them, in his words,
"FAT AS BUTTERBALLS." He explained, "If I didn't have
chicken litter, I'd have to sell half my heard. Other feeds are too expensive."
If you are a meat-eater, understand that this is the food of your food.
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- We don't know all there is to know about the extent
to which the consumption of diseased or unhealthy animals causes diseases
in humans, but we do know that some diseases-rabies, for example-are transmitted
from the host animal to humans. We know that the common food poisonings
brought on by such organisms as the prevalent E. Coli bacteria, which
results from fecal contamination of food, causes the death of nine thousand
Americans a year and that about 80 percent of food poisonings come from
tainted meat. And now we can also be virtually certain, from the tragedy
that has already afflicted Britain, that Mad Cow disease can "jump
species" and give rise to a new variant of the always fatal, brain-wasting
Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in humans.
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- For all too many humans, the first decision they consciously
make about their health is the stark one between by-pass surgery and
angioplasty, or between chemotherapy and radiation. In reality, however,
we knowingly make choices every day that can either lead us toward these
grim options, or else toward happier ones. We do so, of course, every
time we decide what fuel to put in our bodies.
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- To make our choices informed ones, we have to start
with the facts.
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- ====================
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- "It would be difficult to conceive of any topic
of discussion that could be of greater concern and interest to all Americans
than the safety of the food that they eat." -- Judge Mary Lou Robinson
Texas Beef Group v. Oprah Winfrey & Howard Lyman (1998)
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- For over 200 hundred years, our country's legal systems
have refused to recognize "product libel." People can maliciously
libel a human being and be required to pay damages; but not inanimate
products such as Corvairs, Pinto fuel tanks, asbestos, the Dalkon Shield,
fruits, vegetables and meat products. Robust debate and criticism have
turned surmises and suspicions and anathemas into discoveries or recognition
of facts and truths. One has only to look back at our history and see
how the dissenters of the past --criticizing tobacco, coal dust, useless
over-the-counter drugs and a variety of health-damaging food additives
and pesticides -- have been proven right again and again.
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- Now, it seems, CORPORATIONS want to do what King George
III, foreign dictators and bad domestic political bosses were unable to
do -- shut up the American people. The realistic objective of the frivolous
"veggie-libel" statutes and lawsuits is not money; it is to send
a chilling message to millions of people that they better keep their
opinions to themselves. -- Ralph Nader 4/29/98 =================
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- To order "Mad Cowboy" you may call: Voice
for a Viable Future, 818-509-1255 or for more info, please click : http://www.madcowboy.com/
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