101 Reasons Why i Am a Vegetarian

101Reasons Why I’m aVegetarian By Pamela Rice • SIXTH EDITION • 2003

RochelleGoldman

JudeaJohnson

1Today, virtually all of the over 9 billion animals slaughtered for

food in the U.S. every year are theproduct of a swift-moving assembly-line system, incorporating dangerous,unprecedented, and unsustainablemethods of efficiency. If farmers wererequired by law to give their animalshumane living conditions, with spa-cious quarters, clean surroundings,fresh air, sunlight, and opportunitiesfor social interaction—if it were ille-gal simply to administer drugs to ani-mals who would otherwise die fromthe environments they live in—cheapmeat could never exist. Time andagain, the industry fights proposedmeasures designed to improve the abject conditions endured by today’sfarmed animals—even slightly—someof which would cost only penniesmore per animal. Ultimately, lowprices have allowed demand to stayhigh and the industry to becomehighly concentrated. Over the pasthalf century, farming in the U.S. hasbeen allowed to grow into a grim cor-porate monstrosity, the scale of whichis hard to comprehend or even believe.

2When the Clean Water Act wentinto effect in 1972, the government

exempted agriculture. One result:35,000 river miles in just 22 states arepolluted by feedlot operations. And to-day, an entrenched livestock industry,which produces several trillion poundsof manure per year, balks at regulation.In 2003, the government issued two re-ports. The first revealed that only aquarter of the nation’s largest dairiesand hog operations were spreadingtheir manure on enough land to miti-gate toxic runoff. The second said thatthe EPA’s computer systems are grosslyinadequate to track down farms lack-ing manure-management plans. As aresult, millions of tons of waste aresent into our waterways, and the gov-ernment is unable to control it.

3After reviewing 4,500 scientificstudies and papers on the relation-

ship between cancer and lifestyle, ateam of 15 scientists sponsored by twoleading cancer research institutionsadvised those interested in reducing

their risk of many types of cancerconsume a primarily vegetarian dietconsisting of fruits, vegetables, cereals, and legumes. They declaredthat up to 40 percent of cancers arepreventable, with diet, physical activ-ity, and body weight appearing to havea measurable bearing on risk.

4The U.N. Food and Agriculture Or-ganization estimates that nearly 70

percent of commercial fish stocksworldwide are considered fully ex-ploited, overfished, or collapsed. Fish-ers, using rapacioustechniques such assonar, drift nets, long-lines, dredgers, andfloating refrigeratedfish-packing factories,are ultimately not onlyputting themselves outof business but rap-idly destroying oceanecosystems. In the caseof longlining, scien-tists estimate that fish-ers launch 4.5 millionhooks every night.Overall, a quarter ofthe world’s fish catchcomes from nontargetspecies; a third goes tofeed livestock. Early in1998, a meeting of 1,600scientists sounded aclarion call that the oceans were inperil. Five years later, the Pew OceansCommission blamed industrial-scalecommercial fishing for wiping theEarth of 90 percent of the ocean’slargest predatory species found only 50years ago (see #92).

5The Humane Slaughter Act re-quires that an animal be rendered

unconscious with one swift applica-tion of a stunning device beforeslaughter. This requirement, however,can easily be violated, thanks to exces-

sively rapid line speeds that can resultin animals being cut up while fullyconscious. Sped-up conveyor belts pro-duce more profits for packing plants,but the cost is borne by the animalsand by the laborers who have to workon the petrified creatures as they fightfor their lives. As for birds (not legallyrecognized as animals), “humane”preslaughter stunning is not adminis-tered (see #72).

6A meat diet dramatically raisesyour risk for heart attack, but in re-

cent years you’re lesslikely to die from one.Technology will prob-ably save your life, butnow you’re left to live with the conse-quences. In the case ofcongestive heart fail-ure—an increasinglycommon outcome—your heart, now sodamaged, is unable tocirculate blood to therest of your body ade-quately; this resultsin fluid build-up andorgan damage. In theU.S., nearly 5 millionpeople live with thecondition, and about550,000 new cases cropup every year. The dis-

ease is the leading cause of hospital-ization among the elderly, and hospitalbills attributed to it come to $19 billionper year.

7 It might be easy on your con-science to consume the flesh of a

creature perceived to be stupid, dirty,and brutish. It may be surprising tosome, however, that pigs are highly in-telligent. Ask Professor Stanley Curtisof Pennsylvania State University. Hetaught several pigs to understand com-plex relationships between actionsand objects in order to play videogames. Curtis, along with his col-leagues, found pigs to be focused, cre-ative, and innovative, equal in intelli-gence to chimpanzees. Similarly, otherresearchers have found chickens toshow empathy (and to be smart as

101 REASONS WHY I’M A VEGETARIAN

Aqua-cide: Fishers employ high tech to scour the seas

Vegetarian outreach activist JeanThaler raises a voice of dissent atNathan’s hot-dog–eating contest.

PHOTO BY MICHELLE FORNOF

Animalsare not

edibles

SPECIAL THANKS TO CANDLE CAFE, GLEN BOISSEAU

BECKER, MARTIN ROWE, ELENA ROMANOVA,

BERNIE G., JESSIE LEGUE, MIA MACDONALD, TOM

THOMPSON, AND NALITH. BUT MOST OF ALL,

THANKS TO MY HUSBAND, ALAN RICE, FOR HIS

UNENDING SUPPORT, WITHOUT WHICH THIS

BOOKLET COULD NEVER HAVE BEEN WRITTEN.

well), cows to respond to music, andfish to be as individual as dogs.

8U.S. livestock consume five timesas much grain as is consumed

directly by the entire American popu-lation. On average, it takes 5.86 poundsof plant protein (grain and forage) toproduce 1 pound of animal protein—ahorrible waste in a time when hungerpervades many regions of the world(see #31). Albeit, the meat industrycontinually works to improve feed-to-flesh efficiency, but improvementscome at the expense of the animals viagenetic tinkering and growth-enhanc-ing drugs.

9About 25 million pounds of antibio-tics are fed every year to livestock

for growth promotion and disease pre-vention, almost eight times the amountgiven to humans to treat disease.Though perfectly legal, the practice isleading to the selection of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. More and more,these superbugs are causing human ill-nesses that physicians are finding dif-ficult and even impossible to treat. Thepractice is adding to the general world-wide crisis of drug-resistant disease.

10Every year, Americans suffer 76million illnesses, over 300,000

hospitalizations, and over 5,000 deathsfrom something they ate. That some-thing was probably of animal origin.Except in rare instances, neither theUSDA nor the FDA has any regulatorypowers on farms where pathogensoriginate. With the exception of E. coliO157:H7, dangerous bacteria are con-sidered “inherent” to raw meat. Pro-ducers may legally sell infected meat,leaving it up to the consumer to neu-tralize pathogens with cooking.

11Bypass surgery requires thatyour rib cage to be opened, your

heart stopped, and your body hookedup to an external pumping machine soan artery or vein from some other partof your body can be removed andgrafted as a replacement blood vesselto your heart. Memory, language abil-ity, and spatial orientation are still im-paired in 10 to 50 percent of bypass pa-tients six months later. For some peo-ple these side effects never go away.

Gloom and depression affect betweena third and three-quarters of patients.Many will require a second operation.A vegetarian diet, regular exercise,and spiritual nourishment have beenproven to reverse heart disease, thebiggest killer in Western countries.

12Jim Mason and Peter Singerwrite in their book Animal Fac-

tories, “Instead of hired hands, the fac-tory farmer employs pumps, fans,switches, slatted or wire floors, andautomatic feeding and watering hard-ware.” As with any other capital-in-tensive system, man-agers are concernedwith the “cost of in-put and volume ofoutput.…The differ-ence is that in animalfactories the product isa living creature.”

13Eating a plant-baseddiet guards against

disease, first in an activeway, with complex carbohydrates, phy-tochemicals, antioxidants, vitamins,minerals, and fiber, then by default:The more plant foods you eat, the lessroom you have for animal foods, whichclog arteries with cholesterol, strainkidneys with excess protein, and bur-den the heart with saturated fat. In2003, a small but influential Canadianstudy found that a low-fat vegetariandiet, including soy, reduces cholesterollevels by about as much as widely usedstatin drugs.

14Meat packing and poultry pro-cessing are notoriously haz-

ardous and dangerous. Workers maybe crushed by animals falling off theline. Poultry workers typically make asingle movement up to 20,000 times aday and suffer repetitive-stress disor-ders at 16 times the national average.Turnover at plants can be as high as100 percent per year.

15With so many fish species on thebrink of extinction (see #4), gov-

ernments often try to regulate fishinggear, catch size, and catch season—usually without success. Policing isexpensive. All told, illegal fishingaround the world is estimated to equal

between 25 and 50 percent of the re-ported catch. A big part of the problemlies with “flag-of-convenience” poach-ers, operating on ships from nationsthat have not signed on to interna-tional fishing treaties that regulate en-vironmental conventions. These boats,which bring in a full quarter of theworld’s fish, are actually owned bycompanies from signatory countries,particularly the U.S., European states,and Japan. Such “legal” pirating ofthe seas doubled during the 1990s.

16Factory hens today are forced tolive in “battery” cages stacked

in rows by the thousands. Each is con-fined to about 48 to 86 square

inches of floor space. (Thispage is 91 square inches.) Af-

ter months of confinement,necks are covered with blisters,

wings bare, combs bloody, feet torn.Manure fumes and rotting carcasses

force poultry workers to weargas masks. When the hens be-

come what the industry matter-of-factly calls spent, producers truckthe mutilated birds—often long dis-tances—to slaughter, or they will gasthem and grind them up to feed thenext flock.

17Consumer Reports went to 60cities in 8 states in 2003 to pur-

chase and test 400 packages of chickenand beef to check them for bacterialcontamination. It found that thoughincidence of bacteria in chicken haddecreased since their 1997 tests (75 per-cent then compared to 50 percent in2003), many more of the contaminatedbirds this time harbored antibiotic-resistant strains of salmonella andcampylobacter. It also found 25 per-cent of the beef contaminated with listeria, a pernicious and elusive bugusually associated with cold cuts.Listeria carries a high incidence ofdeath from infection. Cooking kills it,but store labels say “ready-to-eat.”

18An English study that com-pared the diets of 6,115 vegetar-

ians and 5,015 meat eaters for 12 yearsfound that the meatless diet yielded a40 percent lower risk of cancer and a20 percent lower risk of dying from


Plant Parade: Antioxidants, phytochemicals, fiber

any cause. After monitoring 2,000 vege-tarians and near-vegetarians for 22years, German researchers found thatcompared with the general populationgroups of people who eat little or nomeat can expect to cut their death ratesfrom diseases by 25 to 50 percent.

19Half of every butchered cow anda third of every butchered pig be-

comes either by-product material orwaste. In addition, 920 million animalsdie on U.S. factory farms each year be-fore reaching slaughter. What’s an in-dustry to do with all this death andgore? Call the renderer straightaway!Recycling, they call it. Lips are exportedto Mexico for taco filling; horns aremade into gelatin; other parts are fash-ioned into everything from drugs toaphrodisiacs and cosmetics. The rest isminced, pulverized, and boiled downfor more products. Much is dried to apowder to be mixed into animal feed. In1997, feeding ruminant slaughterhouseby-product to cattle became illegal—astopgap attempt to safeguard the publicagainst mad cow disease (see #63). Tobegin with, the measure remains rid-dled with loopholes. And then, in 2001,the FDA found hundreds of animal-feedproducers in violation.

20Essentially, if a farming practiceis established as “accepted,”

“common,” “customary,” or “normal,”no matter how inhumane, anticrueltystatutes do not apply. Such a legal envi-ronment serves to grant meat produc-ers carte blanche for the development ofstill other cruel practices and technolo-gies. In general, the laws that are writ-ten to protect animals are rarely en-forced. Fines for violations are negligi-bly small, and prosecutors may have todemonstrate that a defendant was in aparticular mental state when an act wascommitted. Basically, the meat industryenjoys a privilege unique in the worldof law: Instead of society judging whichof its actions should be legal or illegal,it makes this determination itself. Isthere any wonder that precious littleeconomic loss exists for the benefit offarmed animals?

21In the mid-1970s, chicken proces-sors argued that in order to keep

up with skyrocketing demand theyshould be allowed merely to rinse offfecal matter from bird carcasses ratherthan cut away affected parts. The gov-ernment gave in to their pleas. A num-ber of studies have since proved thatrinsing, even up to 40 times, is ineffec-tive at dislodging the filth. Moreover,the violent motion of defeathering rubber fingers not only works to squirtfeces out from the chickens’ bodies butcan push bacteria deep into crevices ofbirds’ skin where no process is able to dislodge it.

22Many of the world’s mightiestrivers no longer reach the sea,

and aquifer levels everywhere are drop-ping precipitously. For these we can inlarge part blame the fivefold increase inworldwide meat production that tookplace over the past half-century, and thetrend is far from over. Indeed, meat is awater guzzler. Producing a pound of an-imal protein requires about 100 times asmuch water as producing a pound ofvegetable protein. As Newsweek onceput it, “the water that goes into a 1,000-pound steer would float a destroyer.”Seventy percent of the water that ispulled from the world’s rivers, lakes,and underground wells goes to agricul-ture, and 40 percent of the world’s graingoes to feed animals for slaughter.

23Castration makes bulls easier tohandle. It makes their meat more

marketable also. There are three castra-tion methods, two of which shut off theblood supply so that the testicles eitherare reabsorbed into the animal’s body orsimply fall away after a couple of weeks.In a third method, the scrotum is cut sothat the testicles can be pulled out.Anesthesia is rarely given before any ofthese procedures, and sometimes opera-tions are botched. One livestock expertadvises would-be emasculators, “Sloppycastration means lower profits.”

24As many as one person in threein industrialized countries may

be affected by foodborne illness eachyear, with children, pregnant women,the sick, the poor, and the elderly beingthe most at risk, according to the WorldHealth Organization. Furthermore,Stacey A. Sawel, director of scientific

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and regulatory affairs for the UnitedFresh Fruit and Vegetable Associa-tion, tells us that “outbreaks of food-borne illness associated with produceare very rare. CDC [Centers for Dis-ease Control] data for 1986–1996 shows3,227 outbreaks occurred from all foodsources, but only 21…were associatedwith produce. And of those, al-most half were due to cross con-tamination with raw meat prod-ucts during food preparation.”

25In 2000, the USDA releasedits official dietary guide-

lines, as it does every five years,and as always it told people toeat less meat. Of course it didn’tuse those words. When it did, in1979, the meat industry soundedsuch a hue and cry that the U.S.agency quickly retreated. Re-duce “saturated fat and choles-terol” it says now, somethingthat means little or nothing tomany people.

26Birds are cheap and cagesare expensive, so battery

hens live out their dreary days inspace just about the size of theirbodies. No hen gets to run, builda nest, enjoy a cleansing dust bath,mate, lift a wing, protect a chick, for-age in the sun, perch, or fly. Instead,this creature will spend her timecrouching and fending off the franticfeather pulling of cage mates. Andevery egg that is laid will roll awaydown the slope of a wire floor, whichwill also cripple her legs and feet.

27The senseless waste of theworld’s growing meat-centered

diet is illustrated by a hypotheticalstatement put forth by the PopulationReference Bureau: “If everyoneadopted a vegetarian diet and no foodwere wasted, current [food] produc-tion would theoretically feed 10 billionpeople [65 percent more people thanalive today], more than the projectedpopulation for the year 2050.”

28 In 1997 a bird virus jumped to ahuman for the first time in his-

tory. The avian influenza strain H5N1eventually killed six people as well asentire chicken flocks in Hong Kong.

Fearing the strain might be signalingthe beginning of a pandemic (see #35),authorities slaughtered and buried 1.3million poultry-market chickens inthe city over a chaotic three-day pe-riod. Similarly, a pig virus directly in-fected 250 people in Malaysia in 1999.As a result, a million pigs were herded

into pens and shot or beaten to death.Some pigs ended up being buried alive.

29Gigantic open-air cesspools ofurine and feces are invariably

situated adjacent to the barns thathold thousands and even millions offactory animals. The stench that theygive off is exceedingly more pungentthan everyday farm odor—even milesaway. It will hammer you, perhapsonly intermittently like Chinese watertorture. In one Illinois case, assess-ments on nearby homes were officiallyreduced by 10 to 30 percent.

30A male calf born to a dairy cow:What does a farmer do with this

by-product of the milk industry? If heis not immediately slaughtered or fac-tory-raised, he is made into fancy veal.To this end, he is locked up in a stalland chained by his neck to preventhim from turning around for his en-tire life. He is fed a special diet withoutiron or roughage. He is injected withantibiotics and hormones to keep him

alive and to make him grow. He is keptin darkness except for feeding time.The result? A nearly full-grown ani-mal with flesh as tender and milky-white as a newborn’s. The beauty ofthe system, from the standpoint of theveal industry, is that meat from today’s“crate veal” still fetches the premium

price it always did when suchflesh came only from a babycalf. But now each animal yieldsmuch more meat.

31On October 12, 1999, thepopulation of the world

hit 6 billion, at least in theory.This number is expected to near10 billion by 2050. The GreenRevolution, which fueled muchof the recent growth, appears tohave come to an end. Indeed,grain production worldwide hasbeen declining since 1983, andbiotech is not likely to reversethe downturn. Today, 70 percentof grain in the U.S. and 40 per-cent of grain worldwide lav-ishly goes to feed livestock. Andjust when the world seems tothink it needs more land to cul-tivate grain to feed to animals

(so more people can eat them), per-capita world cropland declined by 20percent—this in the 1990s alone. TheWorld Health Organization says 1.2billion people in the world don’t getenough to eat. More meat productionis definitely not the answer.

32Polychlorinated biphenyls(PCBs) are highly toxic chemi-

cals, once used widely in a number ofindustrial applications. Though theyare now banned in the U.S. and otherWestern countries, their residues havebecome part of the food chain, lodgedin the fat of fish, beef, pork, and milkproducts. Various studies have linkedprenatal exposure to PCBs—even tinyamounts—to impaired intellectual de-velopment in children. Women whoplan to become pregnant are advisedto avoid foods containing them, be-cause the chemicals can accumulate intheir bodies for years.

33Some U.S. farmers feed theirchicken flocks manure. No, it’s


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Such a mural may not take on any particular significancefor the everyday person, but a vegetarian may make noteof the crazed look in the veal calf’s eyes and a vandal’ssplash of paint above the nose. The air vents above the faceadd an extra touch of ignobility to the composition. Appropriately, the photographer found this one in the decrepit meat district of New York City.

PHOTO BY MICHELLE FORNOF

not illegal, and yes, animals will growby eating it. According to the FDA, thepractice is safe if, during composting,the feces are allowed to reach highenough temperatures to destroy harm-ful bacteria. The problem is, farmersrarely take all the necessary steps inthe composting process.

34The late parent advisor Dr. Ben-jamin Spock maintained that

cows’ milk “causes internal blood loss,allergies, and indigestion and con-tributes to some cases of childhood dia-betes.” In the last edition of his famousbaby book he recommended that chil-dren after the age of 2 essentially ad-here to a vegan diet. But dairy milk isnot recommended for infants either. According to renowned nutrition researcher T. Colin Campbell, “Cows’-milk protein may be the single most significant chemical carcinogen towhich humans are exposed.”

35Because of animal agriculture,the world sees a global pandemic

of influenza three or four times per cen-tury. Ducks are often the original incu-bators for a new subtype. In turn, pigsare periodically able to act as hosts forboth the avian viruses and the humanones. Within the pigs’ lungs, the trans-species viruses swap genetic material,creating a new strain that may bepassed back to humans. Historically,the most fertile place for this to happenhas been Southern China, where bil-lions of pigs, domesticated ducks, andpeople all live in close proximity to oneanother.

36Beef cattle are best suited tomoist climates, like those of

Europe, where they evolved. But in theU.S., many are herded in the West on thenation’s most arid land. Native grasseslong ago were overrun by heartier for-eign varieties, inadvertently broughthere on bovine hooves. Grazing usuallytakes place along fragile riparianzones—the strips of land along riversand streams where wild species ofplants and animals concentrate and re-generate. These delicate ecosystems,which serve as natural purifiers of thewater, are summarily trampled by cowsand contaminated by manure.

37Adopting one of the popularhigh-protein diets today may

help you lose weight in the short run,but so might other unhealthful prac-tices, such as smoking. Eventuallyyou’ll need to learn how to eat. TheAmerican Heart Association and othermajor health organizations have ada-mantly warned people against theAtkins diet and others, because theycan unnecessarily strain the kidneys aswell as cause fatigue or dizziness.They’ve also been shown to cause dehy-dration, which may remain undetected.Furthermore, upping fat and loweringcarbohydrate intake—part and parcelof these risky diets—have been found toimpair brain function over time.

38Genetics through single-trait se-lection has become as important

a component of today’s intensive farm-ing as drugs and confinement hardware.The animals themselves, right down totheir DNA, must stand up to the rigorsof the industrial process, both in lifeand in carcass form. They must produceat breakneck speeds and do so on as lit-tle feed as possible. And ultimately, theparticular output they unwillingly giveforth must please our final end user, theconsumer, in texture, taste, uniformity,convenience, and price. Mutant genesthat would not survive in the wild for aminute are cultivated to monstrousends. Today’s hen produces 300 eggs peryear; her wild forebears would have laid2 dozen. Today’s cow yields a staggering9.1 tons of milk per year on the average,whereas 2.3 tons was the norm in 1940.Sows, breeding cows, and hens havesimilarly been reduced to piglet-, calf-,and chick-making machines.

39U.S. subsidies to ranchers onpublic lands come to about $500

million annually. To eliminate livestockpredators—real or anticipated—onegovernment program uses steel-jawleghold traps, firearms, cyanide, andpoison gas to exterminate thousands ofblack bears, mountain lions, bobcats,foxes, and coyotes every year.

40Though osteoporosis is a diseaseof calcium deficiency, it is not one

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Cows’ Milk: Most significant chemical carcinogen

the diet. Excesses can leach calciumfrom the bones. The typical meat-eatingAmerican is eating about five times asmuch protein as needed.

41Young women who ingest, onthe average, 23 percent of their

calories from animal fat—particularlyfrom red meat and full-fat dairy prod-ucts—are at a 33 percent greater riskof developing breast cancer than thosewomen whose calorie intake from ani-mal fat averages 12 percent, accordingto an eight-year study. Researcherslooked at 90,000 women, ages 26 to 46,and reported in 2003 that the kind offat, not the amount, was key. Non-hydrogenated vegetable fats, such asolive oil did not affect a woman’s risk.

42When faced with a flock ofspent hens, an egg farmer

knows he can induce production againby way of a forced molt—accom-plished with starvation and water de-privation for periods of up to twoweeks. No U.S. law prevents this, andin fact most hens are molted at leastonce in their lives. So cruel is the prac-tice that even McDonald’s couldn’tstomach it. In 2000 the burger giant an-nounced that it would not purchaseeggs from suppliers that employ it.

43Fish make vibratory soundswith various “calls” that re-

searchers have identified as communi-cating alarm and aggravation. Theypossess fully formed nervous systemsas well as complex social behaviors.They are also capable of learning com-plicated tasks. British researchers dis-covered in 2003 that fish have the cere-bral mechanisms to feel pain. As oneanimal activist put it, “Fish are notmerely vegetables that can swim.” Itdoes seem all too convenient for com-mercial and sport fishers to declarethat fish do not feel pain.

44 In any factory-farm operation, apercentage of the animals are

sick or crippled. The industry callsthem “downers.” Federal law does notprotect them in any way. Downers aredealt with conveniently. Veterinarycare is not wasted on them. If unable towalk, a downer is likely to be draggedby chain or pushed by a tractor or fork-

lift to slaughter. Such animals may beleft to starve or freeze to death. Thedowner phenomenon would be drasti-cally reduced if all stockyards refusedto receive and process them.

45Over the last century, midwest-ern farmers drained more than

105 million acres of wet-lands, half of all thatonce were. In Iowa alone,prairies that once tookup 80 percent of the stateare down to .01 percentof their acreage. Wet-lands and prairies allownative species to flour-ish, cleanse and filterpollutants from the wa-ter, and need no artifi-cial fertilizers to exist.Monotonous stretches ofnon-ecological and pol-luting feed crops—mostly corn and soy-beans—have taken their place.

46Cattle thrive best on grass andhay. But to give beef its signa-

ture fatty marbling and to speedgrowth, ranchers fatten them with ahigh-grain diet, mostly corn. Withoutthe use of antibiotics, the rich feedwould cause abscesses to form on thelivers of 75 percent of the animals.Such routine drug use raises the riskfor the development of antibiotic-resistant bacteria (see #94).

47If you like the idea of being wel-come at the places where your

food is produced, don’t count on yourlocal poultry grower allowing you tosee his birds anytime soon. Just barelyholding onto life in their drugged-up,overbred, and chronically immuno-deficient state, chickens and turkeysin today’s factory systems must be pro-tected from infection brought in fromthe outside. If even slightly lax in ap-plying rigorous measures of “biosecu-rity,” farmers over wide geographic re-gions can be forced by a mass outbreakto destroy millions of birds at a time.

48The livestock industry eu-phemistically refers to football-

field–size outdoor manure pits as “lagoons.” But these cesspools of feces

and urine, which percolate with bacte-ria, wormy parasites, and viruses, es-sentially need to be defined as sites ofhazardous industrial waste and regu-lated as such. Livestock waste can be10 to 100 times as concentrated as hu-man waste. The National Resources

Defense Council docu-mented at least 1,000 ma-nure spills and at least200 fish kills in 10 statesfrom 1995 to 1998.

49Eating fish fromcoral reefs is like

burning the Mona Lisafor kindling. Reefs arehome to 25 percent of allknown marine fishspecies. Yet a burgeon-ing demand from restau-rants for live coral-reeffish has created huge in-centives for divers tocapture the fish with

cyanide. First they dissolve concen-trated tablets of the poison into plasticsquirt bottles. Once the prey isstunned, full immobilization tends notto take place until after the fish havehad a chance to burrow back into thereef. Divers extract their catch withdestructive tools. Some reefs are over amillion years old. Yet 20 percent havebeen destroyed, in large part, by fish-ing in just the past two decades.

50 According to a European studyof 400,000 people, a high-fiber

diet can slash the risk of developingdeadly cancers by as much as 40 per-cent. Fiber is also an answer to theobesity epidemic, because it has beenproven to satiate. Moreover, if diabet-ics ate the recommended 50 grams offiber per day, they would be able tocontrol their blood-sugar levels signif-icantly. Because only plant foods con-tain fiber, and meat has none, mostAmericans do not get enough of it tofend off disease.

51North Carolina today is host to10 million pigs—animals that in-

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1998. A year later, Hurricane Floyd in-undated some of the pits and sent wasteinto the Pamlico Sound. There it conta-minated marine nurseries that replen-ish fish all along the eastern seaboard.

52Animal agriculture routinelymutilates farmed animals for its

own convenience. Debeaking, branding,castration, ear notching, wing andcomb removal, dehorning, teeth clip-ping, and tail and toe docking are ever-present tasks on today’s farm andranch. Not veterinarians, but ranch andfarm hands, who learn on the job, per-form the surgeries and procedures using restraint only—no anesthesia.

53Egg producers consider malechicks a liability. Chick sexers

will divert them for expedient deaths.Humane methods are not required byany law. Most often, the little ones,chirping wildly for their mothers, aredumped in trash bins to die by crushing,suffocation, starvation, or exposure.

54Though sometimes considered apanacea for our time, fish and

shellfish farming, or aquaculture, iseven more disruptive to the environ-ment than fishing the seas. � The con-struction of pens along shorelines is amajor reason for the decimation ofmangrove forests, where fish repro-duce. � Some fish will not breed in cap-tivity, so fish farmers must acquirestock from the wild. These species willhave less chance to replenish theirnumbers in nature. � Farmed fish oftenescape into the wild, corrupting the ge-netic purity of wild species and spread-ing disease at the same time. � Shrimpare fed on a mashed-up aquatic proteinmix. So-called biomass fishing, used toderive the feed, is done with fine nets.(Normally, nets are wrought loosely toallow juvenile fish to escape and repro-duce—thus assuring future stocks.) Bio-mass fishing extracts fish indiscrimi-nately. The fish that are caught may beendangered or may be the food onwhich endangered fish live. � Hugeamounts of nitrogenous waste emanatefrom fish farms, just as with all inten-sive animal agriculture.

55The continued adoption of meatdiets in developing nations

threatens to wreak financial disaster onfledgling economies, according to re-searchers in India. Without treatmentinfrastructures in place, the inevitableneed for high-tech medical proceduresputs undue strain on national coffers.

56A report issued by the NationalAcademy of Sciences in 2000 said

that 60,000 children are born in the U.S.each year with neurological problemscaused by mercury exposure. Environ-mental groups later concluded that thetoxic threat of mercury in seafood wasgreater than previously thought, espe-cially for children and pregnantwomen. Their warning advised thatcertain ocean fish, not just species offreshwater fish, should be avoided.

57Hoof-and-mouth disease is rarelyfatal for its victims but it might

as well be a death sentence. When blis-ters form on hooves and lips andgrowth slows because of fever, fate dic-tates execution and incineration. In2001, to save its export trade, GreatBritain responded to an outbreak by de-stroying nearly 4 million mostlyhealthy cattle, sheep, and pigs at a costof (U.S.)$4.8 billion. There were only2,030 known cases of the disease. Therest of the animals were done awaywith as buffers to contain the outbreak.

58 If you want to find a lawless in-dustry, you don’t have to look far-

ther than the people who produce ani-mals foods. In February 2000, USA Today broke a not-atypical story aboutan IBP slaughterhouse in Nebraska.The Justice Department was accusingit of emitted up to 1,800 pounds ofhydrogen sulfide a day—18 times thelevel that is to be regulated. One expertdescribed the poison’s effects: “It’s thisprogressive loss of brain,” he ex-plained. Also, H2S corrodes the lungsand destroys a person’s ability tobreathe. Some of the townspeoplewalked around with tanks of oxygen,but most were just gagging. The chemi-cal is similarly to blame for the fact that70 percent of all workers employed inhog barns suffer from bronchitis. Notsurprisingly, the USA Today story notedthat IBP had a 20-year history of envi-ronmental misconduct.

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59Genetic manipulation throughsingle-trait selection has al-

ready created monsters as well asmonstrous suffering for farmed ani-mals. Cloning threatens to jack up thatmisery yet another notch, that is ifthis perfect monoculture of the mostfreakish, super-producing specimenstakes hold. Cloning for productionagriculture is, albeit, a ways off, if itever becomes commercially viable. Inthe meantime, as the technique is per-fected, cloned animals will suffer pre-mature deaths and deformi-ties, and their meat andmilk are all but guaranteedto enter the human foodsupply.

60 In 1982, E. coli O157:-H7 poisoning was

rare. In 1999, the USDA re-vealed that the deadlystrain may infect half of thecattle that are processedinto ground beef. Today’sfeedlot cattle live in theirown excrement, which is thecarrier of the bug. Caked-onmanure will aerosol its way to edibleportions at the slaughterhouse, whereline speeds of 300 animals per hourcause mishaps. Ground beef today ismade up of mixtures of hundreds oreven a thousand animals, and thegrinding process brings surface patho-gens to the interior. In 2003 a univer-sity study reported that E. coli O157:H7can now also be harbored in the inte-rior of a solid piece of meat.

61From the animal-feed bread-basket of the nation’s midwest,

massive amounts of fertilizer, pesti-cides, and manure runoff travel downthe Mississippi River and end up inthe Gulf of Mexico. This high-nutrientmix causes an ecological chain reac-tion that ultimately ends with micro-scopic organisms robbing the bottomof the ocean of oxygen. Marine lifemust relocate or die. Slow and nonmo-bile species will suffocate. The phe-nomenon is known as hypoxia. Scien-tists have dubbed affected areas “deadzones.” Each summer the Gulf ’s deadzone grows to the size of a small U.S.

state. If an area so big and devoid oflife occurred on land it would be con-sidered catastrophic.

62 In what is still the most compre-hensive study of diet and life-

style ever made, the China Projectfound that the ingestion of animal pro-tein, even a little, is linked to chronicdisease. The findings from this grandepidemiological study are especiallycompelling because the data collectedhave allowed meaningful comparisonsbetween populations with similar ge-

netic backgrounds yet with nonhomo-geneous diets and lifestyles.

63One by one we’re hearing ofpeople downed by the very mys-

terious new-variant Creutzfeldt-Jakobdisease, a brain-eating affliction thatexperts say is the human version ofbovine spongiform encephalopathy(BSE), or mad cow disease. At presstime, the number of definite or proba-ble nvCJD cases since 1986 (dead andalive) is 137—a relatively tiny number.The worldwide horror about the dis-ease arises from the hideous nature ofit. Over a prolonged and ghastly pe-riod, victims display involuntarymovements and appear insane. Thetheory is that these people became in-fected with the brain-wasting diseaseafter eating beef from cows who hadbeen fed brain and nerve tissue ofscrapie-infected sheep. Evidence con-firming the transspecies link gives cre-dence to the notion that the disease,which has an undetermined though ap-parently long incubation period, maysomeday become much more wide-

spread. Projections run as high as halfa million human victims over time.Though feeding ruminant remainsback to ruminants was outlawed in theU.S. in 1997, the imprudent practice ofrecycling animal parts back to live-stock had been going on for decades.

64Though considered morehealthful than beef (not the

best endorsement), fish is still a high-fat, high-calorie, fiberless food imbuedwith artery-clogging cholesterol. Morethan a quarter of the nation’s lakes

post advisories warning con-sumers that fresh-caughtfish may be contaminated(see #32 and #56). But ac-cording to one expert quotedin a 1992 TIME article, youcould drink water from a pol-luted lake over a lifetime andnot absorb the chemical con-tamination you would getfrom just one fish meal.

65When researchers em-ployed videocameras

in the kitchens of 100 homesto watch residents prepare

designated pathogen-prone dishes, theywere shocked to find the study partici-pants undercooked the meat 42 percentof the time, risked cross-contaminationof deadly pathogens to raw foods nu-merous times, and even put their youngones in danger—in one case returninga baby bottle to the mouth of a child after it had been dipped in raw egg. Themeat industry claims it does not have toprovide pathogen-free products, de-spite the fact that bacteria in animalfoods have become increasingly deadly.

66From farm to table, animal foodsare a filthy business. Antidotes

to the many pathogens they harbor arean ever-burgeoning industry. � On thefarm, there are ionizing systems to re-duce pathogen-laden dust. � In theslaughterhouse, there are steam, salineand acidic solutions, irradiation, ultra-high pressure, competitive exclusion(which adds benign bacteria to crowdout the lethal kinds), electrolyzed wa-ter, liquid nitrogen, and ozone gas. � Inthe supermarket, detection tabs moni-tor food temperature. Other detection


Bacterial firewall: Many ingenious antidotes to filth

Factory broiler chickens on the Delmarva Peninsula.PHOTO BY PAMELA RICE

devices include scat scanners and fiber-optic pathogen sensors that use vibrat-ing quartz crystals. � In the kitchen, asilver-coated cutting board kills foodbacteria. � Then, if you still get sick, youcan take a drug to absorb the toxicity.What’ll they think up next!

67Cows tend to want to be milked—to unload their burden—and,

when in heat, to receive a bull naturally.Still, according to the Handbook ofLivestock Management, “Two or morepeople may be needed to force her intothe [milking] parlor.” Similarly, thebook notes, “A cow in heat may requiretwo or more persons to move her fromher group.” Once she is pried away, shewill be tethered in a stall with a swing-ing gate behind her rearend allowing it access toa bull pen. Stock mendesignate the stall asthe breeding rack. Ani-mal activists call it therape rack.

68Today the poul-try industry is a

vertically integratedoligopoly, meaning thata few giant chickencompanies control pro-duction, from chickhatching to grocery-store delivery. Squeezedinto the arrangement isthe contract grower.The big company owns the birds; thegrower supplies the farm hands and thefactory confinement hardware. The sit-uation often appears good to the growerwhen she signs her first contract andgoes into debt by several hundred thou-sand dollars. It’s not long before shefinds that the multi-billion-dollar cor-poration she’s dealing with is now call-ing all the shots, and that the debt she’sincurred has reduced her to little betterthan indentured servitude. And now, asfederal manure-handling regulationsbegin to be instituted, their burden islikely to fall solely on the growers, allowing the giant chicken conglomer-ates to slough off any responsibility.

69About 22 percent of human re-lated emissions of methane is re-

leased by the world’s 1.2 billion belch-ing ruminant livestock. This adds up to80 million tons per year of a potentgreenhouse gas associated with globalwarming. Meanwhile, ranchers con-tribute significantly to the clearing ofthe Amazon rainforests, which natu-rally release oxygen and absorb carbondioxide. At the current rate, these won-drous “lungs of the world” are pro-jected to be gone in 80 years.

70Up against the powerful meat in-dustry, inspectors are more and

more facing hostile and even violentworking environments. A 2000 survey of6 percent of the U.S. meat-inspectionforce revealed that almost half chosenot to report animal feces, vomit, metal

shards, and other conta-minants, weekly ormonthly. A Freedom ofInformation Act find-ing revealed in 1998 thatseven meat plants wereallowed to operate, evenafter each had receivedmore than a thousandcitations.

71Turkeys todayhave been selec-

tively bred to such anextent that their hugebreasts make it impos-sible for them to accom-plish the sex act ontheir own. The industry

must artificially inseminate them. Thejob is nearly as dehumanizing for theworkers—who must work rapidly forlong hours and low wages—as it is de-plorable for the tortured breeder birds,who are essentially raped once or twicea week for 12 to 16 months until they aresent to slaughter.

72 In most large commercialchicken slaughter plants the in-

verted heads of doomed birds are firstplunged into an electrified brine bath.The electric current is set at a voltagejust high enough to immobilize thebirds and to promote bleedout withouthemorrhage. The birds not only aresentient during slaughter but must alsosuffer the excruciating shock. The cur-rent serves to minimize inconvenient

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flailing that would interfere with theslaughter process.

73Legally, the term free-range isvirtually meaningless. The fed-

eral government has only the vague re-quirement that the animals from whichsuch meat is derived have access to theoutdoors. This could mean one smallopening for thousands of birds. Thereis nothing in the law to prevent these“free-range” animals from receivingthe same kind of cruel treatment im-posed on any other factory-farmed ani-mals. Moreover, Consumer Reportsfound free-range poultry actually morecontaminated with salmonella andcampylobacter than other poultry.

74 In 2000, New York State’s De-partment of Environmental

Conservation and its Department ofHealth released a flyer called “EatingSport Fish.” The advice speaks for it-self: No one should eat more than onemeal of fish per week from any of thestate’s fresh waters; chemical contam-inants may be a problem; trim all fat;don’t consume cooking liquids. On theother hand, if you still want to enjoythe “fun” of sport fishing but don’twant to contaminate yourself, the flyersuggests “catch and release.” But don’ttear out the hook, “cut its leader.” Alsoavoid playing fish to exhaustion, theflyer advises.

75Okinawa has the healthiest andlongest-lived people in the world,

boasting the highest percentage of peo-ple who live to 100 years old. The superseniors found there also tend to retaintheir mental keenness, and few need tolive in nursing homes. Surprise: Oki-nowans eat very little food of animalorigin, according to a 25-year study onthe island. Genes could take some ofthe credit, although researchers be-lieve that many of the centenarianswould not have made it even into their80s in the meat-laden U.S.

76As markets for animal-basedfoods become more global,

“carnivore conflicts” increasinglythreaten international peace. In justthe first month after a “mad cow” wasdiscovered in Canada, the beef indus-try there estimated that import bans

cost it (U.S.)$410 million. In 2001, hoof-and-mouth disease (see #57) instantlyresulted in countries all over the worldsevering trade with the entire Euro-pean Union, although the disease wasmostly confined to England. Mean-while, the hormone-in-beef dispute be-tween the U.S. and the EuropeanUnion continues to simmer, as do dis-putes about safety standards in meatthat vary from one nation to another.In 1997 the United Nations reportedthat over 100 countries were involvedin fishing disputes.

77The population explosionshould not be thought of exclu-

sively in terms of people—not whenthe combined weight of the world’s 1.2billion domesticated cattle exceedsthat of the entire human population.Cattle disrupt ecosystems over halfthe world’s land mass. In the past halfcentury alone, more than 60 percent ofthe world’s rangelands have been dam-aged by overgrazing, the most perva-sive cause of desertification.

78 It is estimated that 40 to 50 per-cent of U.S. dairy cows are in-

fected with mastitis at any one time.The painful udder infection is consid-ered a man-made condition. Cows get itby improper care, poor milking proce-dures, overmilking, and improperlyfunctioning milking machines. Add tothe misery the genetically engineeredbovine growth hormone Bovine Soma-totropin (bST), which boosts milkyields: Its use is also linked to mastitis.

79Animal foods are high insodium, which causes the blood

to retain water. They also cause plaqueto build up in the arteries, narrowingthe flow area for blood. Combine thesephenomena and you have a recipe for adisease that afflicts about 50 millionAmericans: high blood pressure. Youcan take calcium channel blockers anddiuretics to control it, but studieswarn that you risk losing intellectualfunction if you do.

80 In the early twentieth centuryman learned how to extract ni-

trogen from the air, cheaply and inlarge quantities. The discovery has al-lowed 2 billion more people to inhabit

the Earth and given humans the lux-ury of feeding crops to livestock. Yetwhat gives the world abundance has,by way of runoff, poisoned waterwaysfrom the China countryside to theOhio Valley. (Excess nitrogen causesalgae to grow, robbing waterways ofoxygen.) Even human sewage has be-come more nitrogen-rich, especiallywith the many more meat eaters thatthe world can now support. Waterwaysin North America and Europe have 20times the nitrogen they did before theIndustrial Revolution. To produce agram of meat you need over 15 grams

of nitrogen; to produce a gram ofwheat flour, only 3 grams.

81Food animals are transported inall weather. When it is cold, ani-

mals may freeze right to the sides oftrucks or become frozen in the urineand feces that build up on truck floors.In hot weather, heat stress kills many.Losses, however, are figured into thecost of doing business. According toswine specialist Kenneth B. Kephart,“Even with a zero death rate thatmight be associated with providingmore space on a truck, the hogs thatwe save would not be enough to pay forthe increased transportation costs ofhauling fewer hogs on a load.”

82 When meat, fish, or poultry isbarbecued, dripped fat over the

open flame sends up plumes of smokethat coat the food with carcinogens.Other unhealthful chemicals are cre-ated just by extended cooking times.Chemists are telling meat eaters todayto keep those grill times down. Evenenvironmentalists are saying thatrestaurant grilling is a major source of


Okinawan Longevity: Not a chance in meaty U.S.

soot and smog. But you still need tocook your meat thoroughly: How elseare you going to kill all of that deadlybacteria?

83As a result of the introduction ofcattle to this hemisphere, major

forest fires in the American West occurtoday at the rate of one every threeyears, where earlier they may have oc-curred only once in a century. Histori-cally, ranchers suppressed “cool” grassfires on the bovines’ behalf, allowingtinderboxes of dense foliage to build upbelow taller trees. Factor in cheatgrass,a nonnative plant that would not havehad the opportunity to take root inAmerica without the overgrazing ofcattle. This prolific weed provides dry,papery kindling in early summer, per-fectly conducive to massive forest fires.

84Negotiating truck on- and off-ramps can be a cruel challenge

for large mammals bred for musclewithout attendant skeletal strength.Broken bones are common. Likewise,the bones of egg-laying hens are espe-cially fragile, weakened by a life of in-tense egg production. Industry researchhas revealed that by slaughter time,over one in four will have broken bones.And since chicken catchers—the labor-ers who gather up birds into transportcages—are poorly paid by the job, notthe hour, they are invariably swift andbrutal on the birds.

85Clog up your arteries on a dietloaded on saturated animal fat

year after year and you risk a heart at-tack or stroke. Of course, you can opt toavert these afflictions with a now-rou-tine operation known as angioplasty,which may have to be performed re-peatedly. The $12,000 procedure is per-formed with a balloon-tipped catheter,which flattens plaque against arterywalls, thus opening up passageways forblood flow. A whole-foods vegetariandiet—along with regular exercise—can,however, have the same effect.

86More than half of the nation’sseafood companies do not follow

federal food-safety guidelines. Regula-tors from the Food and Drug Adminis-tration visit processors only once a yearto oversee essentially voluntary com-

pany sanitation measures. Inspectionsoften entail nothing more than anoverview of the company’s paperwork.Moreover, three-quarters of all fish con-sumed in the U.S. are imported. Only afew of the largest foreign processingplants are ever seen by U.S. inspectors.

87Joel Fuhrman, M.D., who hascured hundreds of people from

chronic diseases with no-nonsense veg-etarian diet plans, says that it is impos-sible to devise a diet that conforms tothe recommendations in the scientificliterature about food and health if ani-mal foods are included in significantquantities. Sure, meats contain nutri-ents, but plant foods give you more nu-trition for your calorie.

88Just as smokestack emissions re-sult in acid rain, toxic fumes

from decomposing livestock waste onfactory farms become poisonous to fishwhen they are returned to the Earth viarainfall. The errant ammonia also rav-ages terrestrial ecosystems becauseplants that thrive on nitrogen are fa-vored over species that don’t. Falloutcan degrade environments as far awayas 300 miles.

89Pursuing food from animalsmust be considered highly risky

behavior, as humans more and morecatch diseases from animals: Creutz-feldt-Jakob disease, Nipah virus, in-fluenza, and now SARS can all becounted as examples. Exotic and oftenendangered animal cuisine, increas-ingly provides the conduit for a poten-tially deadly pandemic (see #35 and#28). In China, so-called wet marketsdisplay caged and often sickly creatures,such as cobras, civet cats, and anteaters,for consumers who want that “taste ofthe wild.” In Africa, bush meat is all therage and likely to wipe out species ofour closest relatives, the larger pri-mates. Contemporary air travel andtrade promise to speed up the process.

90Even if meat eaters are sparedthe big killers (heart disease,

stroke, diabetes, and cancer) that canend life, they may be robbing them-selves of good health just the same. Ameat diet can also lead to nagging con-ditions and ailments. A whole-foods,

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high-fiber vegetarian diet, full ofgrains, fruits, vegetables, and legumes,is just the ticket to ease arthritis pain,cool irritable-bowel disorders, mitigatecommon back pain, relieve cold and allergy symptoms, and lower risk forgallstones, kidney stones, and heart-burn. And perhaps the most immedi-ate relief that vegetarianism can bringis its ability to cure constipation!

91Drains and sewers at slaughter-houses often become backed up

with guts and coagulated blood. Thepools that develop may rise to workers’ankles—whole heads of shackled ani-mals may even be dragged throughthem. The muck may splash up ontothe animals, spreading contamination.

92As fishers find that their usualcatch has been diminished by

overfishing, they are likely to turn tospecies lower on the aquatic foodchain to fill their nets. Knowingly orotherwise, people today are puttingfish that would normally be food forendangered fish on their own dinnerplates. If the trend continues, expertspredict, marine food webs will collapsein 25 to 35 years. (see #4).

93 In nature, swine avoid filth andwill trek and root over 9 miles

in a night. Yet factory internmentbrings a breeding sow cold, strawlessfloors, noxious filth, deafening noise,and space barely bigger than her ownbody. This highly intelligent creaturewill be driven insane as she enduresrepeated pregnancies via artificial in-semination. Her body will be pinned inplace to expose her teats to her piglets.When her productive capacity wanes,she will be sent to slaughter.

94 It’s the high-energy starch ofcorn that makes beef cattle

grow to slaughter weight so fast—14 to16 months today, versus 4 to 5 yearsearly in the twentieth century (see#46). In fact, as food energy goes, cattlemight as well be gaining their weighton Snickers bars. Feedlot manure isnot only too rich with nitrogen to beused as fertilizer, it is so laced withhormones and other pharmaceuticalsthat fish downstream can be foundwith strange sexual characteristics.

95Except for a single decade fromtime to time, the climate above

America’s Ogalalla aquifer is bone-dry. Thanks to titanic amountsof water tapped from this an-cient underground lake, how-ever, for the last fifty years theland has been blanketed withthirsty feed grains. Farmers insome years have irrigatedtheir land with more waterthan the annual flow of theColorado River. Since thisaquifer was originally the giftof a glacier in another age, to-day’s rainfall has essentiallyno recharging effect. Conse-quently, the experts give onlyfifty years before this phenom-enal creation of the naturalworld is gone for good.

96A 25 percent decline inheart disease in Poland

in the early 1990s coincidedwith the country’s switch to amarket economy that endedgovernment subsidies to meat.A switch to primarily veg-etable fats and the increasedimportation of fruit were alsoseen as factors in the decline,according to a report made bya team of multinational re-searchers. The authors of thereport noted that the declinewas “apparently withoutprecedent in peacetime.”

97To produce foie gras,male ducks are force-fed

6 or 7 pounds of grain threetimes a day with an air-drivenfeeder tube. This torturousprocess goes on for 28 days un-til the ducks’ livers, fromwhich the pâté is made, bloatto 6 to 12 times their normalsize. About 10 percent of theducks don’t make it to slaugh-ter: They die when their stomachs burst.

98Every year, 24,000 fishers world-wide die on the job, making

fishing the most dangerous occupa-tion in the world, according to theFood and Agriculture Organization of

the U.N. In the U.S., a fisherman is 16times as likely to die on the job as a po-liceman or fireman. On one day in

2003, more than 200 fisherswere drowned after nearly 60Bangladeshi fishing boatssank in the Bay of Bengal dur-ing a storm. As fish become in-creasingly scarce, thanks tounsustainable fishing, fishersmust take more and morerisks to get to the places wherefish are.

99Every day 600 people inthe U.S. die so suddenly

from cardiac arrest that theydon’t even make it to the hos-pital. Of the victims, 90 per-cent have two or more arteriesnarrowed by atherosclerosis(hardening of the arteries), adisease inexorably linked to ameat-based diet.

100Vegetarians are be-lieved to be less

likely to suffer from certaincancers, stroke, and hardeningof the arteries because theirblood tends to contain highlevels of salicylic acid, the ac-tive ingredient in aspirin. AScottish study found vegetar-ian subjects to have levels ofsalicylic acid 12 times as highas meat- and fish-eating sub-jects. The chemical is a power-ful anti-inflammatory agentfound in abundance in fruitsand vegetables.

101A symposium of sci-entists predicted in

the mid-nineties that energyshortages, exhausted land,scarce water, and a doublingpopulation will impose moreof a plant-based diet ontoAmerica’s dinner tables by2050. They acknowledged thatthis diet, born of scarcity,would “actually be a healthier

one.” Surely the sooner we all learn toenjoy it the better!

Feedlot Fish: Strange sex characteristics downstream

COPYRIGHT © 2003 BY PAMELA RICE

COPY EDITING BY GLEN BOISSEAU BECKER

REFERENCES

1. David Wolfson, Beyondthe Law: Agribusinessand the Systemic Abuse ofAnimals Raised for Foodor Food Production, FarmSanctuary, 1999, pp. 12–16.

2. “Reducing Water Pollu-tion from Animal FeedingOperations,” EPA, Con-gressional testimony, May13, 1998.

Joby Warrick and ToddShields, “Maryland Coun-ties Awash in Pollution-Causing Nutrients,” TheWashington Post, Oct. 3,1997, p. A1.

Emily Gersema, “Farm-ers Need More Land toSpread Manure, USDAStudy Says,” Assoc. Press,Jul. 10, 2003.

Katharine Q. Seelye, “U.S.Report Faults Efforts toTrack Water Pollution,”The New York Times,May 27, 2003.

3. David Brown, “Panel: Upto 40% of Cancer CasesAre Preventable,” TheWashington Post, Oct. 1,1997, p. A12.

4. John Heilprin, “StudyFinds Large Drop inPredatory Fish,” Assoc.Press, May 14, 2003.

William J. Broad and Andrew C. Revkin, “Hasthe Sea Given Up ItsBounty?” The New YorkTimes, Jul. 29, 2003, p. F1.

Carl Safina, “The World’sImperiled Fish,” ScientificAmerican, Nov. 1995,pp. 48–49.

“Scientists Sound AlarmAbout Ocean Perils,” Jan.6, 1998, Assoc. Press.

Kenneth R. Weiss, “SeaTurtle Is Losing the Raceto Poachers, Fishing In-dustry,” Los AngelesTimes, May 4, 2003.

5. Gail Eisnitz, Slaughter-house: The Shocking Storyof Greed, Neglect, and In-humane Treatment Insidethe U.S. Meat Industry, PrometheusBooks, 1997, p. 24.

Karen Davis, PrisonedChickens, Poisoned Eggs:An Inside Look at theModern Poultry Industry,Book Publishing Co.,1996, p. 139.

“Meat Inspectors SayUSDA Ignores HumaneSlaughter Act,” Reuters,June 13, 2001.

6. “2001 Heart and StrokeStatistical Update,” Amer-ican Heart Assoc., p. 19.

Denise Grady, “As HeartAttacks Wane, Heart Failure Is on the Rise,”The New York Times,May 4, 1999, pp. F1, F4.

7. “He’s Smarter Than YouThink,” The ElectronicTelegraph, May 31, 1997.

8. David Pimentel, “Live-stock Production: EnergyInputs and the Environ-ment,” report to the Canadian Society ofAnimal Science, Mon-treal, Jul. 24–26, 1997.

9. “Food and Environment:Antibiotic Resistance,”Union of Concerned Sci-entists, Jun. 16, 2003.

10. Nicols Fox, Spoiled: TheDangerous Truth About aFood Chain Gone Hay-wire, Basic Books, 1997,pp. 139–40, 274.

Nicols Fox, “Safe Food?Not Yet,” The New YorkTimes, Jan. 30, 1997,Op/Ed page.

“How Safe Is Our Meat?”Modern Meat, PBS Onlineand WGBH/Frontline,Apr. 18, 2002.

11. Sanded Jauhar, “Savingthe Heart Can SometimesMean Losing the Mem-ory,” The New YorkTimes, Sep. 19, 2000, p. F1.

Rani Hutter Epstein,“Facing Up to DepressionAfter a Bypass,” The NewYork Times, Nov. 27, 2001,p. F8.

12. Jim Mason and PeterSinger, Animal Factories,Crown, 1980, p. 18.

13. “Position of the Ameri-can Dietetic Assoc. andDietitians of Canada: Vegetarian Diets,” 2003.

“Vegetarian Diet May CutCholesterol as Well asDrugs,” Assoc. Press, Jul. 22, 2003.

14. Slaughterhouse (see #5),pp. 32, 62, 76, 271.

Eric Schlosser, Fast FoodNation, Houghton MifflinCo., 2001, p. 172.

“Trouble on the Line,”Consumer Reports, Mar.1998, p. 16.

15. Paul Brown, “UN toCrack Down as PirateBoats Threaten to DriveFish to Extinction,” TheGuardian, Aug. 15, 2000.

“The Tragedy of theOceans,” The Economist,Mar. 19, 1994, p. 21.

16. Prisoned Chickens(see #5), pp. 54–55, 64,76–77, 106–07.

17. “How We Tested Beef andChicken,” Consumer Re-ports, Aug. 2003.

“Of Birds and Bacteria,”Consumer Reports, Jan.2003.

“Listeria OutbreakPrompts Blame Game,”Assoc. Press, Oct. 16, 2002.

18. “Eat Your Vegetables!”Harvard Health Letter,Nov. 1994, p. 8.

“Going Vegetarian—theHealthy Way,” MayoClinic Women’s Health-Source, Nov. 1997.

19. “FDA Warns LivestockFeed Makers ViolatingMad Cow Rules,” Assoc.Press, Jan. 12, 2001.

Sandra Blakeslee, “Fearof Disease Prompts NewLook at Rendering,” TheNew York Times, Mar. 11,1997, p. C1.

“Number of VictimsReaches New High,” TheFARM Report, newsletterof Farm Animal ReformMovement, Summer/Fall1997, p. 8.

J. Peder Zane, “It Ain’tJust for Meat; It’s for Lotion,” The New YorkTimes, May 5, 1996, p. 5.

20. Correspondence, DavidWolfson, author of Be-yond the Law (see #1).

21. Elliot Jaspin and MikeWard, “Chicken OnceTainted by Feces Sal-vaged, Sold,” AustinAmerican-Statesman, Jun.18, 1998.

Richard Behar andMichael Kramer, “TheEpsy Scandal is MinorCompared With the Waythe USDA Has Favoredthe Poultry Industry,”TIME, Oct. 17, 1994.

Beatrice Trum Hunter,“Overlooked Threats ofFoodborne Illness,” Con-sumers’ Research, Oct. 1,1995, pp. 14–15.

“From Cradle to Gravy,”Consumer Reports,Mar. 1998, p. 14–15.

22. Danielle Nierenberg,“Factory Farming in theDeveloping World,” World-watch, May/Jun. 2003.

“Global Water SupplyCentral Issue at Stock-holm Conference,”Reuters, Aug. 14, 2000.

Roger Segelken, “End Irrigation Subsidies andReward Conservation,Cornell U. Study Ad-vises,” Cornell Chronicle,Jan. 30, 1997.

“Shortage of Fresh WaterPredicted,” Assoc. Press,Aug. 27, 1998.

23. Matt Claeys, “Castration:Not Cutting Will CutProfits,” Animal Hus-bandry NewsletterJan./Feb. 1996.

John W. Comerford, “Getthe Calves Castrated,”Livestock Notes, PEN-pages, Feb./Mar. 1997.

24. “Foodborne Diseases Areon the Rise in Europe,”FAO news rel., Feb. 25, 2002.

“Letters: Is ImportedProduce Safe to Eat?”The Washington Post,Aug. 5, 1997, p. Z4.

25. Marian Burros, “Guide-lines Mix Politics andChicken Skin,” The NewYork Times, Jan. 25, 2000.

26. Prisoned Chickens(see #5), pp. 54–55.

27. “Diverse Diets With Meatand Milk Endanger WorldFood Supply,” HearstNews Service, Mar. 8, 1997.

28. Rone Tempest, “New,Lethal Flu May Stemfrom ‘Chicken Ebola’ ,”Los Angeles Times, Dec.14, 1997.

Kathy Wilhelm, “HongKong Made Mass Slaugh-ter Errors,” Assoc. Press,Jan. 2, 1998.

“A Horrible End forMalaysia’s Porkers,” TheEconomist, Mar 25, 1999.

29. Tara Burghart, “TaxBreak for Hog FarmNeighbors May Set Precedent,” Assoc. Press,May 26, 1998.

30. John Robbins, Diet for aNew America, StillpointPublishing, 1987,pp. 112–17.

31. Ed Ayres, “Will We StillEat Meat?” TIME, Nov. 8,1999, pp. 106–7.

David Pimentel, “HowMany Americans Can theEarth Support? Eco-Future, May 18, 2000.

“Population Expected toHit 6 Billion,” Assoc.Press, Oct. 9, 1999.

T.R. Reid, “Feeding thePlanet,” National Geo-graphic, Oct. 1998, p. 65.

32. Elizabeth Kolbert, “TheRiver,” The New Yorker,Dec. 4, 2000.

Jane E. Brody, “StudyFinds Lasting DamageFrom Prenatal PCB Exposure,” The New YorkTimes, Sep. 12, 1996, p. A14.

33. Michael Satchel andStephen J. Hedges, “TheNext Bad Beef Scandal:Cattle Feed Now ContainsThings Like Manure andDead Cats,” U.S. News &World Report, Sep. 1, 1997,p. 22–24.

34. T. Colin Campbell, Ph.D.,“New York Times: RealityCheck Needed,” essay,Oct. 26, 2000.

Joe Crea, “Don’t Have aCow, Man: Making Senseof Warnings About theHazards of Milk,” DailyNews, Oct. 21, 1992, p. 6.

35. Judy Foreman, “TeamHopes to Unearth 1918Flu Virus,” The BostonGlobe, Nov. 3, 1997, p. C1.

David Brown, “SecondPerson Identified WithFlu Previously FoundOnly in Birds,” The Wash-ington Post, Dec. 3, 1997,p. A2.

36. Jeremy Rifkin, BeyondBeef: The Rise and Fall ofthe Cattle Culture, Dutton,1992, pp. 187–88, 205, 211.

Todd Oppenheimer, “TheRancher Subsidy,” The

Atlantic Monthly, Jan.1996, pp. 26–38.

37. E. J. Mundell, “High-Protein Diets DehydrateEven the Very Fit,”Reuters, Apr. 22, 2002.

“High-Fat Diets Linked toPoorer Brain Function,”Reuters, Feb. 21, 2001.

38. Lance Gay, “Hen Starva-tion to Boost Egg Produc-tion Draws Fire,” ScrippsHoward News Service,Aug. 2, 2001.

Jack Norris, “But It Doesn’t Hurt the Cow,”Vegan Outreach, Mar. 1, 2000.

Dan Looker, “The MilkMeisters,” SuccessfulFarming, Nov. 1998.

39. “The Rancher Subsidy”(see #36), p. 38.

“Grazing Fact Sheets,”Forest Guardians, SantaFe, NM, 1996.

“Hot Issues for the Sec-ond Session of the 105thCongress” (fact sheet),Humane Society of theU.S., Jan. 7, 1998.

40. Michael Klaper, M.D., ADiet for All Reasons(video), Institute ofNutrition Education andResearch, 1993.

41. Maggie Fox, “Animal FatsLinked With Breast Cancer in U.S. Study,”Reuters, Jul. 16, 2003.


Rod Smith, “McDonald’sGuidelines Send SignalAcross All Animal-Production Segments,”Feedstuffs, Aug. 28, 2000.

43. Peter Singer, Animal Lib-eration, 1990, pp. 171–174.

Patrick Bateson, “ThePain League for Ani-mals,” New Scientist,Apr. 25, 1992, p. 30.

Michael Holden, “Fish DoFeel Pain, Say British Sci-entists, Reuters, May 2, 2003.

44. “Why Farm Sanctuary IsDriving for Protection of‘Downers’” (fact sheet),Farm Sanctuary.

45. Gale Norton and AnnVenman, “There’s MoreThan One Way to ProtectWetlands,” The New YorkTimes, Mar. 12, 2003.

Verlyn Klinkenborg,“Keeping a Lost WorldAlive: A Last Remnant ofIowa’s Tallgrass Prairie,”The New York Times, Aug.7, 2003.

46. “High-Calorie CattleFeeding Studied,” Assoc.Press, May 20, 2001.

47. Kenton Kreager et al.,“Biosecurity Tips,” Cali-fornia Poultry Letter, U. of California at Davis, Jan. 1997, p. 19.

Peter Jackson, “Poultry

REFERENCES

Epidemic Threatens Industry,” Assoc. Press,June 23, 1997.

48. “Pork Power,” 60 Minutes,CBS–TV, Dec. 22, 1996.

Spills and Kills, NRDC,2000.

49. Dirk Bryant, et al., Reefsat Risk, WRI, ICLARM,WCMC, and UNEP, 1998,pp. 5, 7, and 15.

“Coral Reefs: MagnificentCreations of Nature,”The Coral Reef Alliance.

50. “Fiber Helps DiabeticsControl Blood Sugar,Study Says,” Reuters,May 10, 2000.

“High-Fiber Diet Can CutCancer Risk by 40 Per-cent,” Reuters, Jun. 23,2001.

51. Heather Dewar and TomHorton, “Seeds ofSolution to NitrogenGlut,” Baltimore Sun,Sep. 28, 2000.

52. Richard A. Battaglia,Handbook of LivestockManagement Techniques,2nd Ed., Prentice Hall,1998.

53. C. David Coats, Old Mac-Donald’s Factory Farm,Continuum, 1989, p. 84.

54. Kieran Mulvaney, “A Seaof Trouble,” E/The Envi-ronmental Magazine,Jan./Feb. 1998.

“Imperiled Fish” (see #4),pp. 49–50.

55. “Cardiovascular DiseaseEpidemic Threatens Developing Countries,Global Economy,” Amer-ican Heart Assoc. newsrel., Feb. 16, 1998.

56. Robert Braile, “WarningSounded on Safety ofSeafood,” The BostonGlobe, Mar. 11, 2001, p. W1.

57. “England Posts Foot andMouth Costs,” Assoc.Press, Oct. 30, 2001.

58. Elliot Blair Smith, “Special Report: StenchChokes Nebraska Meat-packing Towns,” USAToday, p. B1.

Andrew Nikiforuk andDanylo Hawaleshka,“Should We Fear the Fac-tory Farm?” Reader’s Di-gest Canada, Jun. 2001.

59. Gina Kolata, “In Cloning,Failure Far Exceeds Success,” The New YorkTimes, Dec. 11, 2001, p. F1.

Sharon Schmickle, “It’sWhat’s for Dinner: Milkand Meat from Clones,”Minneapolis Star Tri-bune, Dec. 1, 2001.

60. Gina Kolata, “DetectiveWork and Science Reveala New Lethal Bacteria,”The New York Times, Jan.6, 1998, pp. A1, A14.

“New E. coli Report Ques-tions Safety of U.S. Beef,”CNN, Nov. 11, 1999.

Interview with RobertTauxe, “Modern Meat,”draft transcript, PBS On-line and WGBH/Front-line, Apr. 18, 2002.

Robert Bazell, “Steak maybe bearer of bacteria,”NBC News, Jul. 3, 2003.

61. Tim Beardsley, “Death inthe Deep: ‘Dead Zone’ inthe Gulf of Mexico Chal-lenges Regulators,” Scientific American, Nov. 1997, pp. 17–18.

62. Jane E. Brody, “HugeStudy of Diet Indicts Fatand Meat,” The New YorkTimes, May 8, 1990, p. A1.

63. Sandra Blakeslee, “NewEvidence Said to DispelDoubt on Mad Cow Dis-ease,” The New YorkTimes, Sep. 30, 1997.

Terence Chea, “‘MadCow’ Fears Create a Mar-ket,” The WashingtonPost, May 29, 2001, p. E1.

“Bungled,” The Econo-mist, Mar. 14, 1998. pp. 21–23.

Anita Manning, “MadCow Disease Runs a Baffling Course,” USA Today, Science, Dec. 2, 1997.

64. Neal Barnard, M.D.,Power of Your Plate,Book Publishing Co.,1995, pp. 22, 194–196.

Leon Jaroff and JaniceM. Horowitz, “Is YourFish Really Foul?” TIME,Jun. 29, 1992, p. 70.

65. Lauran Neergaard, “Hygiene Lapses Cited As Cause of Food Poisoning,” Assoc. Press,June 20, 2000.

66. References are too nu-merous to list. Contactthe VivaVegie Society.

67. Handbook of LivestockManagement Techniques(see #52), pp. 187, 191.

68. Larry McKnight, “AllFarmers Have a Stake inOur Chicken War,” National Contract Poultry Growers Assoc.,Feb. 1997.

69. “Ruminant Livestock andthe Global Environment,”EPA, May 31, 2002.

“Brazil’s Government An-nounces Measures to SlowAmazon Deforestation,”Assoc. Press, Jul. 2, 2003.

70. “Julie Vorman, “Feces,Vomit on Raw Meat: AGrowing Risk,” Reuters,Sep. 7, 2000.

Scott Montgomery andElliot Jaspin, “Cox NewsService, Special Report:USDA Found Foul Condi-tions, Left Plants Open,”The Atlanta Journal andConstitution, Jan. 18, 1998,p. A1.

71. Jim Mason, “Inside aTurkey Breeding Factory:

Of Rape and Pillage,”Farm Sanctuary News,Fall 1997, pp. 5–7.


73. “Home, Home onthe…Small Patch ofDirt,” Consumer Reports,Mar. 1998, pp. 14–15.

74. For a copy of the flyer, call 800-458-1158, ext. 27815.

75. Richard Saltus, “Oki-nawans, the World’s Long-est-lived People, Have a Lotto Teach Americans,” TheBoston Globe, May 21, 2001,p. A14.

76. Melinda Fulmer, “Banson Meat: Imports FuelClaims of U.S. Protection-ism,” Los Angeles Times,Mar. 21, 2001.

Jonathan Friedland,“Eco-Threats: RedefiningNational Security,” DowJones News, Nov. 25, 1997.

Roberta Rampton, “Desperate Times forCanada’s Beef Industry,”Reuters, Jul. 12, 2003.

77. Beyond Beef (see #36),p. 1.

“Be an Environmental-ist,” EarthSave news-letter, EarthSave Founda-tion, Mar. 1995, p. 6.

78. Handbook of LivestockManagement Techniques,(see #52), p. 196.

79. Diet for All Reasons(see #40).

Theresa Tamkins, “BloodPressure Drugs Affect Intellect,” Reuters, Dec. 3, 1997.

80. Tom Horton and HeatherDewar, “Seeds of Solutionto Nitrogen Glut” and“Feeding the World, Poi-soning the Planet,” Balti-more Sun, Sep. 28 andSep. 24, 2000.

81. Slaughterhouse (see #5),pp. 100–1, 211.

Kenneth B. Kephart,“Handling Hogs,” PEN-

pages, Oct. 15, 1997.

82. “Smogburgers Would BeOut Under Air-QualityPlan,” San Jose MercuryNews, Sep. 6, 1994, p. 3B.

“These Few Tips MakeFood Cooked on the GrillHealthier,” The WallStreet Journal, June 2,1997, p. B1.

83. Mark Robichaux, “Scientists Fight Fires ByTrying to Outwit a VeryPersistent Weed,” TheWall Street Journal, Sep. 1, 2000, p. 1.

84. Gene Bauston, BatteredBirds, Crated Herds: HowWe Treat the Animals WeEat, Farm Sanctuary,1996, p. 46.

85. Diet for All Reasons(see #40).

“An Abandoned Drug Offers Hope for Heart Patients, Study Finds,”The New York Times, Aug. 7, 1997, p. A19.

86. Melinda Fulmer, “Study:System for Seafood SafetyInspections Flawed,” Los Angeles Times,Feb. 14, 2001.

87. Joel Fuhrman, M.D., Fast-ing and Eating for Health,St. Martin’s Griffin, 1998,p. 51.

88. Robbin Marks, Cesspoolsof Shame, NRDC, Jul.2002, p. 18.

Gert-Jan Monteny,“Quantify [sic] AmmoniaEmissions From Build-ings, Stores, and LandApplication,” Conference:Livestock Farming andthe Environment, Ger-many, Sep. 28–29, 2000.

89. Kerry Bowman, “PleaseDon’t Eat the Animals,”Globe and Mail (Canada),Jul. 7, 2003.

90. Neal Barnard, M.D.,Foods That Fight Pain,Three Rivers Press, 1998.

91. Slaughterhouse (see #5),pp. 30, 83–84.

92. William K. Stevens, “Man

Moves Down the MarineFood Chain, CreatingHavoc,” The New YorkTimes, Feb. 10, 1998, p. F3.

93. “Pigs in Hell,” Viva!LIFE,Summer 2001, p. 2.

Matthew Scully, “Don’tTolerate the Cruelty onHog Farms,” St. Peters-burg Times, Sep. 29, 2002.

94. Terry Gross, producer,“Michael Pollan Dis-cusses the U.S. BeefIndustry,” Fresh Air,WHYY–NPR, Apr. 3, 2002.

Michael Pollan, “PowerSteer,” The New YorkTimes Magazine, Mar. 31, 2002.

95. Richard Cowen, “Chap.18:Mining Ground Water,”lect. notes, Geology 115,Earth Sci., Hist., and Peo-ple, Dept. of Geology, U. ofC., Davis, CA, Mar. 2003.

“Water: Drying out,” TheEconomist, Sep. 18, 1999.

96. “Diet Credited for Fall inPolish Heart Deaths,”Reuters, Apr. 6, 1998.

97. “The Grief Behind FoieGras,” PETA, May 15, 1997.

98. “Fishing at Sea ClaimsMore Than 70 Lives a Day,FAO Says,” FAO newsrel., Jan. 25, 2001.

John Hendren, “No Expe-rience Necessary to Oper-ate Fishing Vessel,” Seat-tle Times, Apr. 22, 2001.

“More Than 200Bangladeshi FishermenFeared Drowned,”Reuters, Jul. 28, 2003.

99. Power of Your Plate(see #64), pp. 12–14.

“2001 Heart and StrokeStatistical Update” (see #6), p. 3.

100. Patricia Reaney, “WhyVeggie Diet May ReduceHeart Disease, Cancer,”Reuters, Jun. 27, 2001.

101. “Scarcities to Force aLeaner Diet, ExpertsSay,” The New YorkTimes, Feb. 18, 1995, p. 22.

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INC.SOCIETY

T his docu-ment, whichyou now

hold in your hands,is all about ethicalchoices. Once youare aware of these“reasons,” your

conscience will never be able toignore them, even if you neverbecome a vegetarian.

My “101 Reasons Why I’m aVegetarian”—if you don’t alreadyknow—does not spare the reader.And as is often the case with thetruth, what you’ll find here isnot always pretty. If you justtake the time to read this doc-ument, you will forever knowthat eating meat is not with-out a lot of ugly, though com-pletely unseen consequences.

The marketers behind ani-mal-derived foods are calculat-ed in their quest to hide thethings that I reveal here. It is theirmission to keep you disconnectedfrom the realities behind your food.They are particularly intent on hav-ing you see animals as nothing morethan abstractions.

If I’ve done my job, however, “101Reasons” will reconnect you by mak-ing it clear that in exchange for amoment of personal pleasure, younot only bring misery to some cor-ner of the world, your survival hasnothing to do with it. There is, in

fact, no nutritional requirement toconsume meat, and, on the contrary,

animal foods are likely toimpede good health.

But enough about depri-vation. If you take mywords to heart and adoptthe vegetarian diet, youwill discover that thisway of life is in fact awonderful creed to liveby, which will actually

open doors on foods,rather than shut them.

May I suggest that asyou read my “101 Reasons”you not neglect to glance

over the boxed copy from thefifty-five sponsors whose namesand advertisements appearhere. Feel the exuberance

behind them. Just don’t let itscare you away.

—PAMELA RICE

History of the VivaVegie Society

The VivaVegie Society is a non-profit, 501(c)3, organization,dedicated to public education

about vegetarianism. When thegroup was formed in 1991, its objec-tive was vegetarian street advo-cacy—reaching out to New York Citypedestrians with the group’s hall-mark publication, “101 Reasons WhyI’m a Vegetarian.” Then, as now,

founder Pamela Rice would wear asignboard—created by her sister,Julia Fauci—which reads “Ask MeWhy I’m a Vegetarian.”

Thanks to a gift from costumedesigner Janet Bloor, the group

has enjoyed the use of a giant “peapod” suit (see left) to draw interestfrom pedestrians. VivaVegie makesappearances at street events in NewYork City where it knows it can findgreat numbers of people. At theEaster Parade, 2002, VivaVegieachieved a record: handing out—towilling, inquisitive recipients—2,000copies of “101 Reasons Why I’m aVegetarian” in only three hours.

VivaVegie regularly enjoys cover-age of its activities—in the past,most notably from CNN, The NewYork Times, WNYC-Radio, The NewYorker, Time Out, and New York 1.

Since 1992, VivaVegie has pub-lished its own magazine, TheVivaVine. And in 1999, the groupopened a vegetarian center, which itmaintained for four years.

Founder Pamela Rice is an experton vegetarian issues. She gives lec-tures on government subsidies tothe meat industry and the environ-mental impact of society’s meat-cen-tered diet. She has organized andemceed numerous vegetarian eventsin New York City.

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