VeganFuture.org

Feed The Hungry

There is enough food to feed everyone.
All over the world, hundreds of millions of people go hungry every day because much of the land is being used to grow feed grain for animals rather than food grain for people. The wealthiest people on the planet in turn, are consuming grain-fed cattle, pigs, chickens, milk and eggs, while the poor go hungry.

A child starves to death every 2 seconds. 40,000 people starve to death every day while their governments ship grain to the U.S. to feed pigs, cows and chickens so that we may satisfy our desire for flesh, milk and eggs.

If everyone in the world ate like people in the U.S. do, only 2.5 billion people could be sustained. The current world population is 6.3 billion and is expected to be over 9 billion by 2050. If everyone ate a Vegan diet, at least 20 billion people could be sustained.

During the famine in Ethiopia in the mid-1980s, and during the famine in Somalia in the early 1990s, those countries continued to export grain to Europe to feed its cows, pigs, and chickens so that Europeans could eat animal products. Millions of people suffer, starve and die every year in Central and South America as those countries ship their grains to the U.S. to feed cows, pigs, and chickens so that we can satisfy our desire for animal products.

The World Health Organization has called for a shift away from meat production so that people can consume crops directly stating, “Farming policies that do not require intensive animal production systems would reduce the world demand for cereals. Use of land could be reappraised since cereal consumption for direct consumption by the population is much more efficient and cheaper than dedicating large areas to growing feed for meat production and dairying. Policies should be geared to the growing of plant foods and to limiting the promotion of meat and dairy.”

Governments worldwide have ignored this call for compassion. Instead of promoting the growing of plant-based foods, government subsidies and financial incentives are given to animal farmers -- actively encouraging meat/dairy/egg production.

Help Indigenous People

People are losing their lives and homes.
It started with the destruction of the Native American cultures in the 19 th century and continues around the world. The meat industry systematically destroys indigenous people around the world for land to grow their “food animals”.

Native Americans were starved to death when the U.S. government subsidized the mass slaughter of the American bison (the buffalo). The first beef barons were created when the U.S. government then allowed cattle ranchers to graze the prairies and paid them for beef to feed the Native Americans now on reservations.

Genocide continues in the tropical rainforests of Central and South America, as cattle ranchers slash and burn ancient tropical rainforest. Indigenous people who have lived in the rainforests sustainably for thousands of years are losing their entire way of life while the beef and grain grown on their land is shipped to North America and Europe.

Support a Sustainable Planet

Animal agribusiness is not sustainable for our growing population.
Ten years ago, China was a net grain exporter. At that time it seemed assured that it would continue to export grain. But as a direct result of increased consumption of animal products, China is now one of the world’s top grain importers. According to the Worldwatch Institute, all developing countries relying on animal agribusiness will experience similar consequences resulting in an increase in starvation and degradation.

Save The Family Farm

Family farmers are being forced off the farm.
Family farms are being wiped out – forced by the meat cartel to sell grain at prices lower than it costs to raise the crop. Of all agricultural land in the U.S., 87% is used to raise animals for food. Five corporations control 80% of the meat processing industry.

In 1940, there were 6 million farms. By 2000, there were only 2.2 million farms. During roughly this same period, farm employment declined from 12.5 million in 1930 to only 1.2 million in the 1990s. This dramatic decline of the family farm took place during a period when the world population more than tripled and the U.S. per capita consumption of animal products more than doubled. Farming animals is bad business.

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health lists the suicide rate for farmers as double the U.S. national average.

Over 300 family farmers in the U.S. are forced out of farming every week.

Giant agribusiness corporations have dramatically increased profits since NAFTA's implementation. During the first seven years of NAFTA, Archer Daniels Midland's profits went from $110 million to $301 million; Cargill's net earnings from 1998 to 2002 rose from $468 million to $827 million. Meanwhile, family farmers struggle to cover their production costs. Animal agribusiness requires more resources and results in fewer profits for the individual farmer.

“Put the family back in farming… Eat lower on the food chain.
By eating locally grown fruits, vegetables, grains and legumes,
in place of factory-farmed meat, milk and eggs, you are
supporting humane and environmentally sound agriculture.”
Harold Brown, Farmer www.AskFarmerBrown.org

Stand Up For Workers' Rights

Workers are being exploited, injured and killed.
A study released by Human Rights Watch, an international human rights group, reports slaughterhouse workers "suffer severe, life-threatening and sometimes life-ending injuries that are predictable and preventable." The study accurately states, "Meatpacking is the most dangerous factory job in America."

Court documents prove several of the biggest slaughterhouse companies kept two sets of injury records, one for themselves and one for the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

Slaughterhouses constantly replace immigrant workers in their dangerous and unpopular jobs. Poor people are recruited using Spanish radio ads and bussed up from Mexico and Central America.

The Immigration and Naturalization Services estimates one quarter of the slaughterhouse workers in Nebraska and Iowa are illegal immigrants.

If workers are no longer needed or become too vocal or expensive, the slaughterhouses betray them and turn them over to the immigration authorities. The companies then seek out anyone who escaped the immigration raids to hire them back to the killing floor.

A common practice to minimize insurance costs is to offer health insurance to employees only after one year of employment. Since immigrant workers, legal or not, seldom spend more than a year in one factory, most slaughterhouse workers work without health insurance. In a 1994 article praising beef companies for minimizing insurance costs, one executive bragged that his firm's slaughterhouses had a 100% annual turnover.

Immigrant workers accept lower wages. Wages in one Greeley, CO slaughterhouse are now 40 percent lower than when the plant opened in 1961.

“The first principle of nonviolent action is non-cooperation with everything humiliating.”
Cesar Chavez, Vegetarian and Founder of United Farm Workers www.ufw.org

Stop Classism and Racism

The poor and people of color are being exploited.
In the U.S., the prevalence of diet-related disease is highest among people of color. Government policies ignore this fact. According to the Physician’s Committee for Responsible Medicine, “Although unintentional, the U.S. Dietary Guidelines as they exist are really a fundamental form of institutionalized racism...”

People eating Vegan diets have far lower rates of heart disease, cancer, hypertension, obesity and diabetes than do those who eat meat/dairy. The USDA continues to push meat/dairy via industry-biased “Food Pyramids” and dietary recommendations.

Women of color are 50% more likely to be obese than white women.

African-Americans’ rate of cancer is 26% higher than whites’.

In the U.S., Hispanic women’s rate of heart disease is double that of white women.

Among Hispanic men, the diabetes rate is 54% higher than among white men.

Native American women have triple the rate of diabetes than white women.

While cows’ milk continues to be subsidized and pushed on U.S. school children, 25% of the white population, 70% of African Americans, 90% of Asian Americans, 53% of Hispanic Americans, and 74% of Native Americans are lactose intolerant. Lactose intolerance is also prevalent in those whose ancestry is Arab, Jewish, Italian, or Greek.

Environmentally hazardous factory farms and processing plants are more often located in communities of color.

More poor children and children of color depend on the National School Lunch Program, but the program is built using biased guidelines that benefit wealthy animal agribusiness over children’s health. 90% of the $3-4 billion program is used to buy cholesterol and fat-laden pork, beef, milk, cheese, and eggs.

Neighborhoods of color are targets of meat/dairy industry billboard advertising. Affordable fruits and vegetables are difficult to find; instead fast food chains push unhealthy “bargains.” The meat/dairy industries are exploiting the poor and people of color without access to health information.

More than 2,500 Americans die each day from heart disease, the number one killer of both women and men.

68% of all diseases in the US are diet related.

The total costs and deaths from excess dietary fat far exceed costs and deaths from all forms of substance abuse, including tobacco, alcohol, and illegal drugs combined.

The human body makes all the cholesterol it needs. Recommended daily intake of cholesterol – zero.

The food-borne illnesses in 1992 afflicted up to 7.13 million people and cost $6 billion. The majority of these come from animal products.

The average North American consumes four times the minimum daily requirement of protein. Osteoporosis and kidney disease are linked to excess animal protein consumption.

There is not one documented case in the U.S. of protein deficiency in anyone who was consuming enough calories.

The number one killers in the U.S. (heart disease and cancer) are conclusively linked to consuming meat/dairy and are increasing in the rest of the world as the agribusiness industry pushes the meat/dairy culture.

The average U.S. man who eats meat/dairy stands a 1 in 2 chance of dying of a heart attack, while a Vegan male reduces that risk to only 1 in 25.

A woman who consumes dairy 3 or more times per week has 3 times the risk of breast cancer than a Vegan woman.

A woman who consumes eggs 3 or more times per week has 3 times the risk of dying from ovarian cancer than a Vegan woman.

A man who consumes animal products daily is almost 4 times as likely to die of prostate cancer than a Vegan man.

According to the American Institute for Cancer Research, 40% of the world's cancer cases could be prevented through the adoption of diets rich in grains, fruit and vegetables.

Alzheimer’s Disease has grown from fewer than 800 cases in the U.S. in 1979 to now over 50,000 cases per year. Many of the cases are thought to actually be cases of misdiagnosed Mad Cow Disease. Alzheimer’s is more common in people who consume diets high in cholesterol, saturated fats, and total calories and low in fiber, vegetables, and fruits.

The U.S. has one of the highest rates of consumption of animal protein, which has contributed to one of the highest rates of osteoporosis in the world. When animal proteins are eliminated from the diet, calcium losses are cut in half.

The average Medical Doctor in the U.S. receives only 2.5 hours in nutrition training in 4 years of medical school.

Improve Human Health

The U.S. and the West are exporting disease.
Wealthy consumers in developed countries like the U.S. and Europe are increasingly dying from diseases of affluence -- heart attacks, strokes, diabetes and cancer – the result meat/dairy diets. Meanwhile, the poor in Third World nations are dying of diseases of malnutrition because their food grains are being shipped to the developed countries for consumption by farmed animals.

Consuming meat/dairy has come to be viewed by many as a basic right and a way of life. The consequences of such a diet are rarely considered. When we choose to eat at the highest point on the global food chain, we die of gluttony while our fellow human beings starve.

The diseases of the affluent, meat/dairy consuming countries are being exported to countries around the world as agribusiness and fast food giants push wasteful and unhealthy consumption placing corporate profit over human health.

Wealthy meat/dairy consumers like those in the U.S. are killing themselves. The human costs are enormous. It is imperative for the survival of the planet that the U.S. diet habits are not adopted by other people around the world.

"The beef industry has contributed to more American deaths than all the wars
of [the 20 th] century, all natural disasters, and all automobile accidents combined."
NEAL. D. BARNARD, M.D., President, Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine www.PCRM.org

Get Hungry For The Truth

Become a critical thinker.
Don’t believe the propaganda of industries putting profit above planetary solutions, human health and sustainability. Get hungry for the truth.

“For modern animal agriculture, the less the consumer knows about
what's happening before the meat hits the plate, the better."
Peter R. Cheeke, Professor of Animal Science, Oregon State University;
Editorial Board Member, Journal of Animal Science

Conserve Water

Our water is precious.
The number one user of fresh water in the U.S. is the meat/dairy industry – using over 50%.

A typical meat/dairy consumer requires over 4000 gallons of water per day, while a typical Vegan requires less than 300 gallons per day – or a savings of over 3700 gallons per day. That’s enough water to:

Flush a toilet over and over again 24 hours/day

Run a typical shower 12 hrs./day or a low-flow shower 24 hrs./day

Have 8 glasses of water/day for nearly 14 years

Save over 1.3 million gallons of water per year

One gallon of cows’ milk requires over 700 gallons of water to produce (water for the cows, water for the food for the cows, and processing).

One pound of meat requires over 2500 gallons of water to produce, while one pound of wheat requires only 25 gallons.

Meat and dairy are subsidized heavily by U.S. tax dollars. If the water used to produce meat wasn’t subsidized, meat would cost $35/pound. Those who eat meat/dairy are receiving corporate welfare at the expense of all taxpayers.

The Ogallala Aquifer, the major source of ground water in the high plains of the U.S. is being depleted at an alarming rate. Farmers on the outer edges of the aquifer are already running out of water causing a rapidly shrinking amount of farmable land. Without irrigation, the U.S. “breadbasket” is drying up. The Ogallala Aquifer isn't like rivers, lakes or most other aquifers -- it has no source of replenishment. It holds water that has been sealed underground for hundreds of thousands of years. Once it's gone, it's gone forever.

In California, water tables have dropped so low that in some areas the earth is sinking under the vacuum. Some U.S. aquifers are now at their lowest levels since the end of the last Ice Age.

Save The Planet

Stop paying agribusiness to pollute for you.
250,000 pounds of excrement are dumped on the planet by farmed animals in the U.S. every second – equivalent to piling a football field full of excrement 36 stories high every hour.

The number one polluter of water in the U.S. is the meat/dairy industry.

There is 7200 square mile dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico caused by runoff from animal farms. The dead zone cannot sustain aquatic life.

65% of California's population is threatened by pollution in drinking water from dairy cow manure.

The amount of waste produced on egg farms is about equal to the amount of feed/grain trucked in to the farm.

Stop Wars For Resources

Farming animals not only wastes water, it wastes oil and other resources.

Animal agribusiness requires more than 1/3 of all raw materials and fossil fuels used in the U.S.

Producing a single hamburger patty uses enough fossil fuel to drive a small car 20 miles.

A Vegan who drives an average car uses less gas than the average meat-eater who *walks* the same distance.

Save The Trees And The Land

Our trees and land are being destroyed.
Every year, subsidized animal agribusiness receives corporate welfare in billions of dollars from U.S. tax dollars.

U.S. National Forests and Parks are used to subsidize corporate ranchers. Over 300 million acres -- an area equal to the acreage of the entire eastern seaboard states from Maine to Florida with Missouri thrown in -- subsidize livestock production.

Over 260 million acres of U.S. forest have been cleared to produce cropland for a animal-based diet.

An acre of U.S. trees disappears every second.

A Vegan saves over one acre of trees every year.

Over 75% of original U.S. topsoil has been lost. 85% of that loss is attributed to animal agribusiness.

The number one cause of rainforest destruction is animal agribusiness.

Overuse of water, deforestation, and denuding by animals cause over 13 million acres to become irreclaimable desert every year.

“We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children.”
Native American proverb

Save The World's Wildlife

Animal agribusiness kills wildlife.
Under pressure from corporate welfare ranchers, the U.S. government kills tens of thousands of “predator” and "nuisance" animals each year using $20-30 million taxpayer dollars. In a single year, a partial list of animals killed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's “Animal Damage Control Program” included 86,502 coyotes, 7,158 foxes, 236 black bears, 1,220 bobcats, 80 wolves, 4.6 million birds, 9,000 beavers, 5,000 raccoons, and 200 mountain lions and many others. Over 400 companion dogs and 100 cats were also inadvertently killed. Extermination methods used include poisoning, shooting, gassing, and burning animals in their dens.

Wild animals are unable to compete with cattle for food and are dwindling in numbers. Pronghorns have decreased from 15 million in 1900 to fewer than 271,000 today. There were once over 2 million bighorn sheep; there are now fewer than 20,000. The elk population has fallen from 2 million to fewer than 455,000.

In the rush to kill 17 billion fish per year for human consumption in the U.S., billions and billions of other wild animals are killed. For every pound of fish caught and killed for human consumption, up to 14 pounds of bycatch (other living animals like whales, dolphins, sea lions, otters, sea turtles, sharks and other fish) are killed and thrown away in the process.

Factory fish farms are the fastest growing means of “fish production.” Nearly 50% of salmon and 65% of fresh water fish consumed spend their lives in captivity. They are overcrowded and suffer horrible lives and gruesome deaths.

Giant fish farms attract tens of thousands of birds and sea lions who are killed to keep them from eating the profits. While fish farmers like to promote fish farms as an alternative to depleting fish populations, many of the fish they farm are fed ocean fish. It takes five pounds of ocean fish to produce one pound of farmed fish.

Be Kind To Animals
Billions upon billions of helpless animals are suffering and dying to satisfy human cravings.

It’s often said that if everyone knew the abuses suffered by animals in agribusiness, everyone would go Vegan. Given most people are compassionate, the truth would shut down animal agribusiness.

Animals have individual personalities; they feel pain, fear and hunger. 10 BILLION land animals (and 17 BILLION fish) will be killed in the U.S. this year to satisfy human cravings – millions of animals every hour.

99% of the animals killed in the U.S. are killed for human consumption. Yet 1 in 4 companion animals in the U.S. will receive a Christmas present this year. Why love one animal and torture and kill another?

Animal products are unnecessary, unhealthy and cause immense suffering and death. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, each year over 900 million of the animals raised as food never reach the slaughterhouse. They die on the farm due to stress, injury, and disease.

Expand Your Circle Of Compassion

93% of U.S. adults agree farmed animals should have their pain and suffering reduced as much as possible.

90% of U.S. adults agree that current methods of raising farmed animals in spaces so confining that sows and calves can't turn around and where laying hens are unable to stretch their wings are unacceptable.

Over 80% of U.S. adults believe animal agribusiness industries should be held legally responsible for protecting farm animals from cruelty.

58% of U.S. adults agree that fast food restaurants and supermarkets that profit from factory farming should be held legally responsible for protecting farm animals from cruelty.

Laws don’t protect farmed animals from animal abuse on the farm however inhumane or cruel.

Living Dairy-Free

Cows produce milk for the same reason humans do – for their babies. In order to keep a dairy cow lactating, she is forcibly impregnated at least once every year of her short four-year life. When she can no longer produce enough milk to be cost-effective, she will be slaughtered for U.S. hamburger and leather.

Over half of the cows in the US suffer from mastitis, a painful bacterial infection of their udders caused by over-milking. It causes misery for the cows and has resulted in large amounts of bacteria, blood and pus in dairy products. The dairy products in every state in the U.S. currently exceed the federally mandated allowable level of pus (3%).

The veal industry was created as a by-product of the dairy industry to take advantage of the unwanted male calves. When the babies of the dairy cows are born male, they are forcibly removed from their mothers. They will spend their short 16 to 18-week lives immobilized in complete darkness to ensure improperly developed soft flesh.

The same fate awaits dairy goats: over-milking, forced impregnation, separation of the kids from their mothers, and ultimately slaughter when they are no longer profitable to the dairy farmer.

A word on organic dairy: the same cycle of impregnation, veal, over-milking and slaughter takes place on organic farms. Organic dairy does tend to have less pus in it because of restrictions on the use of antibiotics and growth hormones.

Living Egg-Free

More than half of egg-industry chicks are male and are thus considered worthless by the egg industry. They haven’t been bred to grow enough flesh quickly enough for the meat industry. These male chicks are disposed of by being thrown in the trash, suffocated or ground up alive.

The average wingspan of an egg-laying chicken is 26 inches – they are allowed an average of 6 inches in egg factories.

Total U.S egg production in 2003 was 73.93 billion eggs. If factory farming operations (including “free-range” confinement) were banned, it would be impossible for producers to supply so many consumers without animal cruelty. The best way to end animal cruelty in the egg industry is to not support the industry.

"Free-Range" Industry Scam?

There are no laws or government standards regulating terms like “free-range” or “free -roaming” on egg cartons.

The egg industry is hoping its labels will ease our concerns about the mistreatment of farmed animals. But “free-range” labels make little difference for the animals themselves. According to The Washington Post Magazine , for birds, the term free-range “doesn’t really tell you anything about the [animal’s] … quality of life, nor does it even assure that the animal actually goes outdoors.” Even Egg Industry magazine editor Dr. Charles Olentine stated, “Just because it says free-range does not mean that it is welfare-friendly.”

The “free-range” females are so overcrowded that they would peck each other to death, so the ends of their sensitive beaks are seared off with a hot blade. More often than not, they will be crowded in a shed with thousands of other birds. Farmers are not required to ever allow them sunlight or fresh air. And when these “free-range” chickens are “spent” after one-two years, they will be tossed into trucks and slaughtered alongside the billions of battery-caged hens.

I grew up on the farm. My hand was in every gory detail. Today, my Vegan food choices are driven by an understanding that there are blinking eyes full of pain behind each cellophane-wrapped pink package of meat. I hear the cries of lonely, frightened animals shaking in the dark corners of factory farms. I feel the back of the family farmer snapping under the weight of big industry. I ache for every one of the 40,000 people starving to death every single day while we waste grain by raising animals for food. I see our planet straining to produce the resources demanded for the production of meat. And I take some comfort knowing I’m doing my part and asking others to do the same.

Please keep in mind that consuming even the most humanely raised animals still causes the clear-cutting of forests, water pollution, the destruction of public lands, wasting of resources and enormous health consequences. It still causes unnecessary suffering and death. These animals are still mutilated to increase profits and overcome inherent problems of overcrowding. These procedures include searing off beaks, clipping wings, castrating, tail docking, ear notching and teeth pulling or clipping, all without any anesthesia. Male chicks born into the egg industry are still discarded in the garbage or grinders while alive -- worthless.

Escaping the circle of pain may seem difficult. Veganism goes against what we in the U.S. have been taught about what’s good for us. We’re taught that we must eat meat for protein, that we must drink cows’ milk for strong bones, and that animals are ours to do with as we please. But think hard about who is teaching you and why.

As an advocate for animals, I find it’s almost impossible to be heard above the lies of a multibillion-dollar industry. When we finally see through the clouds of oppression and deception and come with excitement to offer the truth, too often we are dismissed as crackpots or extremists.

I hope you’ll read my words in the spirit in which they were written. They’re offered with sincerity and hope for a better world for all of us, a sustainable planet for generations to come, and an end to the suffering. The most important thing you can take away from this message is a desire to know more. Start your search for the truth today – go Vegan.

Matt Bear, Nonviolence United www.NonviolenceUnited.org

Nonviolence unites us.

Those of us fighting for social justice are all on the same side. Support each other with your time and resources, but also in what you choose or don’t choose to consume.

Explore why the great leader of the farm workers’ movement, Cesar Chavez, was a vegetarian and promoted nonviolent dissent through corporate boycotts. Discover the reasons why social justice icons like Coretta Scott King are becoming vegan; why animal advocates and those who care about the environment are becoming fighters for civil rights, workers’ rights, women’s rights, fair trade and organic farming; why caring for the environment entails one to be against factory farming. When we come down from the mountaintops of our movements, we find our common ground: nonviolence.

An unethical corporate monster feeds on the unquestioning. Your purchasing power builds or dismantles that monster. Live in alignment with your values. Reject the constant demand to consume at the expense of others.

We desperately need a system that is rewarded for doing good instead of harm -- a system in which corporations are for people over profit; where leaders lead from the heart; where the people throw off the chains of presumed helplessness and fulfill their obligation to leave the planet better than they found it.

How sad to teach our children to have less empathy – to ignore their love of others, of animals, of nature. We have the opportunity to, instead, show them the wonders of expanding our circle of compassion and connecting with the people and wonders of the world.

Join us at NonviolenceUnited.org where many of us are joining together to build a brave new world… for the People, for the Planet, for the Animals.

Resources (more info coming very soon, please check back or email info (at) NonviolenceUnited.org for more immediate source information)

Most of the information on this site was compiled through these books/websites. We will try to offer more specific sources to each item as time allows. In the meantime, we highly recommend you read the books and glean even more information not contained herein. Thanks.

Books:

Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser
http://www.mcspotlight.org/media/books/schlosser.html

Diet for a New America by John Robbins
http://www.neaforever.org/vegfacts.html

Vegan: The New Ethics of Eating by Erik Marcus
http://www.vegan.com/

Beyond Beef: The Rise and Fall of the Cattle Culture by Jeremy Rifkin
http://www.mcspotlight.org/media/books/rifkin.html

Websites:
www.NonviolenceUnited.org

National Endowment for the Animals www.NEAforever.org

World Watch Instutute www.WorldWatch.org

World Health Organization

Compassion Over Killing www.COK.net

BlackVegetarians.org

United Farm Workers www.UFW.org