“Well from the start you seem to be under the assumption that animals KNOW they are being

kept for food as well as they know their children will be also”

The only assumption here is your need to project a disconnect with nature/animals so you can

justify the butchering of them that you may feel are lesser, within the first lines of your post

in response to my post, are you seriously suggesting that animals are not aware of their

surroundings? or that mother and calf are not connected? Or that an animal knows it’s not

free because it can’t move and go where it would wish to? They “may” not be aware of the

finer details of what’s going on, but they know something is wrong, something is off, Go

outside and observe nature as if you have never seen it before, remove the blind fold of Ego

centric aberrance… What you are responding with is an attempt to furnish a life style choice

with flawed logic, another expression of cognitive dissonance, “we all do it, some to a greater

or lesser degree, but it is only when we except this about ourselves can one then open the

door to change”

Post from a FB friend “I also thought if Im going to eat meat, it was cowardly to disengage myself

from the animal and wanted to eat meat that I raised and killed so I know that it was killed in a

humane way. If I didn’t kill my roosters they would fight and mangle each other. The easiest way to

kill them was gunshot and not while they were roosting because of course it freaked the others out and

no one felt safe . I would try to shoot one when they were in the woods away from the others. THEY

HID BEHIND TREES like people The others knew too because everyone got quiet. Very ashamed of

myself when I did this. So I quit eating meat period” <<this is a person that has consciousness and is

connected to emotion, self and nature…

10 Animals that have been proven to be self-aware, “personally I think Crows and Honey

Badgers should be on that list” this does not mean that other animals are not self-aware, this

is still interim, a variety other animals are not self-aware “I think this may be the case” but

that by now means is concrete, there for the potential of self-awareness in the creatures that

have that connection maybe a connection that we have lost or that we can’t understand or a

connection that only few can resonate with, but then the understanding of what self-

awareness is, is not as clear cut as one might first think “side issue but worth a mention” but

if it is proven that some animals are not self-aware, then surly as “human beings” a

“potentially” superior species that has the capacity for compassion, ingenuity, healing,

companionship, we should be more inclined towards stewardship rather than butchering

defenceless animals… Animals offer up some of the greatest gifts, teachers, examples, their

state of “being” guardians, protectors, forewarning, the list of the gifts animals can give up to

us is extensive, but meat is not on that list…

10 Animals that have been proven to be self-aware

• Humans

• Orangutans

• Chimpanzees

• Gorillas

• Bottlenose Dolphins

• Elephants

• Orcas

• Bonobos

• Rhesus Macaques

• European Magpies

http://www.peta.org/about-peta/why-peta/why-animal-rights/#ixzz31CpLIchS

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5LfYHJWUtE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mn6kJJfNLVA

“ 2 examples of many, one only needs to go out and “observe nature” and make that

connection in the same way you have connected with your Dog your companion…

Every creature with a will to live has a right to live free from pain and suffering. Animal

rights is not just a philosophy—it is a social movement that challenges society’s traditional

view that all nonhuman animals exist solely for human use. As PETA founder Ingrid

Newkirk has said, “When it comes to pain, love, joy, loneliness, and fear, a rat is a pig is a

dog is a boy. Each one values his or her life and fights the knife.” Only prejudice allows us to

deny others the rights that we expect to have for ourselves. Whether it’s based on race,

gender, sexual orientation, or species, prejudice is morally unacceptable. If you wouldn’t eat

a dog, why eat a pig? Dogs and pigs have the same capacity to feel pain, “not forgetting it is

not just about pain, it is also the totality of that animals life, if it is free or not” but it is

prejudice based on species that allows us to think of one animal as a companion and the other

as dinner. <<that cuts through a lot of crap and lays it out directly and plainly on the table..

“pardon the pun”

“You mention the "toll it takes on nature, logistics, fuel, carbon foot prints, the list goes on...

What about all the chemicals produced strictly for plants, pesticides , fungicides and

herbicides or chemical nutrients/additives that destroy the environment way more than fossil

fuels are from the meat industry in which the produce industry is just as much to blame on

that regards”

^ is an empty point, if farming was done “holistically” none of this would be relevant, this is

a pseudo juxtaposition, so there for farming per-say is not the problem, it is the way it has

been directed and manipulated by big Agra and its counter parts, “you know this” we have

chatted about this before, this is a form of flawed logic and self-denial that you seem to be

expressing here. Industries have been set up to be disruptive/destructive as this is part of the

globalist agenda, one could argue that if the meat industries was set to be truly holistic

“resources based not economically based” the global environmental effects would be

drastically reduce “to a point” and I would agree, but then if you was to holistically

implement both methods, farming for veg and fruit Vs Animals/meat for consumption, Veg

and Fruit far out weight and supersede anything meet can offer, when you factor in Veg and

fruit are far more nutritious and balanced and offers up other nutrients, vitamins, riboflavin,

complex carbs, anti-ageing, cell repair, improved memory, improved moods, cognitive

functions, anti-cancer, anti-carcinogenic, DNA repair, immune system boosters and fortifiers,

the quality of protein in Veg as opposed to meat, also sustainability factors, The morale

factor, when one considers all of this, there is no comparison, Meat becomes redundant! Also

you can live a very healthy life, “ and I mean healthy to excesses” on an excellent balanced

diet only eating fruits veg, “certain grains” ground produce, one can have excellent all round

health doing this, you cannot live on a meat diet alone without serious issues to health, this is

very telling in of itself and is another red flag… also meat is not a source of fiber, and

stresses the kidneys and also is loaded with “certain types” of saturated fats that “may” cause

many heart problem’s weight gain and so on, these effects can be mitigated “to a point” if

holistic rearing is involved but it only limits this negative effect it does not purge it, and the

bottom line is the animals will still have to be butchered for an industry that does not need to

exists, so again meat is an abysmal failure in this regard…

If one studies ancient civilizations “not talking official history books here, this is off the

beaten track” you will find there were MASSIVE cities, towns, districts, dwellings built by

rivers and some had populations of at least a couple of million, these ppl were agricultural,

they were farmers, growers, planters, a very small amount of meat was in their diet, but that

is mostly due to the fact that animals do get old and die, and it is better to use it then waste it,

<<this is sustainable, the animals were worked with because of the gifts they offered up, the

animal was seen as a part of the family because of the benefits offered up, they were seen as

having value, not for the protein in their meat but for everything else the animal could assist

in, these ancient civilizations had none of the toxic methods and modern day crap we have

today because “in part” they were connected to the land and their agricultural ancestry and

knew how to grow in sustainable ways, all the tricks and tips “this is all but gone today” what

has survived is very limited but seems to be making its way back, they understood and

respected the animals and the land, and the fact that the vast majority of their diet was

Vegetarian based I think makes the point better than I can, one can track back and observe a

sea change of debauch from about the time of the Babylonian empire and this is mostly

where the meat diet really took hold and was magnified and then social imparted via

indoctrination into other civilizations and or cultures, a lot of the debauch and need for

domination of nature, other humans and animals start to rise up about this time, indicative of

the meat diet, one can see the mentality that some of these toxic civilizations had, so going

back to your point about farming practices, there is a totally viable sustainable agricultural

farming methods how do you think the ancients did it?!... <<rhetorical

“It is to the point that in most regions can't even grow food in the soil anymore. " If you was

to get a plant and cut one of the stems off for food, the plant does not die, it does not bleed to

death, it does not have its parents morn over its dead bleeding body, nope, it regrows the

missing limb and picks up where it left off" We know almost nothing of plant life. Yes we

know they cry out when injured so” how can one assume they can't mourn their companions?

Does pain not show emotion ? When you cut a limb off a plant it does not grow back but

continues to grow as WE do if a limb is cut off. Sure we may bleed out but it is not a fact.

High probability without help yes. And anytime you do take from a plant that plant is stresses

out and stops to grow until its "wound" is sealed. Just as our body heals through the scabbing

process so does a plant. Plants feel happy and sad and I can tell the difference in each of

mine”

^^^ The last part about plants feeling emotion’s and such I agree with, respond well to be

sung to, proven that it has positive benefits for the plant, “sound resonance” like I said I

looked into this some time ago, and yes I agree, my comment about “plants don’t tend to

morn another plant” is assumption, based on my understanding via observation “with the 5

senses as I would exist in nature” with a need to expand my knowledge base, rather than a

need to find convincing pseudo facts to support my self-denigrating culinary meat based

lifestyle… Maybe this mourning may connect and take place in a different way than one

might understand, “if it does take place at all” and for sure more study needs to be done on

this, but the point is, we have a mutual affinity for animals, in so many ways we are alike, we

bleed blood, give birth, feel pain and joy, morn the loss of kin we have beating hearts, many

more examples, you don’t see plants crying in distress because a leaf has been plucked and

showing obvious emotional upset, tears, vocalized distress and so on, signs of trauma “other

than physical damage or infection one might observe on the plant” it is amazing how on one

hand you talk about the feelings of plants and such, and their rights insinuated with “plants

feel discomfort when cultivated, so you can’t say chit, it’s ok to butcher animals” a foe

argument to furnish the redundant meat diet, but you have no qualms about subjecting an

earthling of this planet to a death sentence so you can say >>yummy.. from what we can

ascertain via our 5 senses it is very obvious that animals are far closer to us then plants, very

reminiscent of humans in our modalities of being, not to say that plants should not be treated

with respect, or that they are somehow lesser, indeed plants are an integral part of a healthy

holistic thriving society and I have a very high respect for plants, if I could get my sustenance

from the sun and other forms of ambient and potential energy I would, and would not eat

food altogether, unfortunately this is not the case, so the next best choice that is in balance

with nature and minimizes stress, discomfort and cruelty is the veg/vegan based diet, trying

to justify the butchering of animals by way of comparing the harvesting of plants is the same

tired old retort that duplicitous meat eaters “try” to use, but on closer inspection one quickly

see’s this is no counter point of true merit…

We can only go on what we know and understand, of course there is a deeper aspect here,

and as stated before, we have to eat, plants are far more adapted to this in terms of a

sustainable holistic sources, viable nutritional, far more economic in almost ever nuance as

opposed to animals for food consumption..

You are making the comparison between plants and humans and healing in response to my

point about plants in comparison with meat…, na ahh, back up buddy!!,this is about food for

consumption, so the comparison has to be made Veg Vs animal “in the context of this thread”

cut off a cow or a sheep’s leg leave it in the field and it will die, so when you say >>> “When

you cut a limb off a plant it does not grow back but continues to grow as WE do if a limb is

cut off. Sure we may bleed out but it is not a fact. High probability without help yes. And

anytime you do take from a plant that plant is stresses out and stops to grow until its "wound"

is sealed”… <<< you are brushing over the point, comparing one irrelevant thing to another,

“how humans heal and how plants heal” and you are actually making my point for me, the

point is, parts of a plant can be culled for consumption and the damage is minimal i.e. it

grows back or continues to yield bloom on a different part of the plant, the plant does not die

and can recoup… If you chop the leg or head off a cow or sheep, it will bleed out, it is as

good as, plants can shed limbs, branches old foliage, animals cant shed legs and feet and their

heads “lizards tails is irrelevant here” so this point you are trying to make here is ridiculous,

there is no solid comparison here, “other than the main theme in regards to respecting all life”

if your concern for plants in regards to being stressed and mistreated is why you don’t eat or

support a veg diet, then what about the animals who’s suffering is far more visceral and real

“in relation to the human condition” and can be detected by us?, on a very real emotional

level?, trying to trade one for the other, trying to morale validate one action in juxtaposition

to another, One option is viable sustainable and far less cruel, the other is just a toxic imposed

addictive way of life that ppl want to cling to…

“And you bring up the morality of things... Morals differ with EVERY society and change

with that society as it is manipulated by/to whichever means so all the mom and dads

mourning over their dead bloody young death and suffering morals are a moot point plain and

simple and only play on emotional heart strings for the vegetarian propaganda”

^^^^ A lot of misunderstanding and temp patches I am seeing here, if one is centred in true

self/soul and is of a higher self-morality, internally, they are hardly going to act out in

immoral ways to other humans or animals, as above so below, the external is always

secondary the internal is always primary “self-love, self-understanding” the model of

morality you are using/describing is absolutely spot on “props” it is based on the super ego,

the social persona “if the group says its right, then it is right, even if it is wrong” << that is

pseudo morality, collectivized morality, but that is not what I am talking about or not close

to where I am coming from, and has no standing or merit here, you seem disenfranchised

with morality because of the bull chit model you have been exposed to, I can totally

understand that, but then if you don’t factor “true inner self morality” then you will never

truly understand what has been repressed, sequestered, shut down and what has been put in

its place as a toxic prop, this may go some way in explaining the contradictions you are

expressing…

" you can eat plants and poop out the seeds “animals do this all the time” this is a form of

propagation, so nature is actually set up in this way," Do animals not eat meat ? So Nature is

ALSO set up that way. ALL in harmony with all else.”

^^^ More delusion and flawed logic, in one instance you talk about the right to butcher

animals and suggest it is ok because they are lesser, and because there’s this pseudo “humane

animal farming” that somehow makes up for the fact that the animal is a slave and is going to

be butchered regardless, this is sugar coating to delude one’s self that they can still eat meat

and not have a guilty conscious about it, “one can only hope they would still have a

conscious about it, that is an indication of soul/self ” there is nothing harmonious about the

vast majority of the meat trade as it stands today, and yes of course “some” animals eat meat,

“but then a lot of animals diets are vegetarian based” btw the largest land mammals on the

planet are all vegetarian, obviously plant protein is not only effective it is extremely viable

“If we weren’t meat eaters our teeth would also be different. They are set up for both

chewing and tearing. And how do we know that animals "Strive to live" any more than a

plant does ? If plants didn’t strive to live they wouldn't do things like send shoots off to

sprout in other locations to spread itself. They wouldn't drop their seeds to reproduce. In

many regions a lot of varieties of foods can NOT be grown. Like the one I am in. Fruits don't

grow so well here where as leafy green shade lovers do. Without a grocery store you cannot

sustain yourself in a healthy manner on ONLY the stuff you grow in your garden alone any

more than I can just on eating the Animals I raise.”

^ Ahh now we are getting to it, as a vegetarian I am thankful for the teeth that can tear, and

they have its use in a none meat diet, again “we are meat eaters because of teeth” this is just

flawed logic and the same old excuses and bad info doing the rounds, but then again these

teeth that tear also service eating certain veg and such, if you factor in the raw diet, “ancient

civilizations were more aligned to this then eating meat” one can really see why these tearing

teeth are also needed, so this argument about tearing teeth and meat is moot, I will say again,

“I know what all the excuses are because I have used them myself”… Yes of course animals

strive to live, as do plants, I don’t see the point you are trying to make? If it comes down to a

lesser of 2 evils “in regards to nutrition” then obviously plants are the better choice, when

you add in the morality factor and superior nutrition, pretty much on every check point, the

sustainability factor the natural balance factor, it is a no brainer, The point about things will

grow here and wont grow there, has “in part” always been the case, “also levels of

contamination and nutritionally soil depletion/bad farming practices in the modern context”

all adds and causes disruption… Ancient civilizations were blooming and growing in

sustainable ways that were in balance with nature, much of the probs with growing food

today is linked into the state of mother earth, the soils being nutrient deficient “for the most

part” hence the fertilizers and crap they keep chucking on plants and soil, then there’s the

mass soil contamination, the chemtrails, the toxic electromagnetic soup we are embedded in,

and of course dead water full of crap falling from the sky’s, a whole list of other stuff that

disrupt effective horticulture and agricultural processes and our connection to mother earth,

this all plays into disrupting this sustainable type of holistic independence to keep ppl tied to

the meat diet and dependent and aligned to “The systems way of thinking” that is based in

toxicity, waist, debauched life styles, domination, a mind-set of might is right and affinity to

violence “in all its permutations” ….

“Fruits don't grow so well here where as leafy green shade lovers do. Without a grocery store

you can not sustain yourself in a healthy manner on ONLY the stuff you grow in your garden

alone anymore than I can just on eating the Animals I raise.”

^^^ And that is the point of the agenda, to make it so difficult for ppl to embrace a way of

living that frees them up and raises their consciousness i-e vegetarian/vegan and raises their

harmonic and spiritual vibrations, this is all by design, the fact that ppl are being arrested for

trying to grow organic food, or growing food in their gardens or that hemp is pretty much

illegal but yet the establishment fully backs and puts out the toxic chemical meat based

lifestyle, should be a massive red flag for you, also with things like hydroponics and other

“viable” systems can make growing veg and fruits far more attainable and doable than ever,

the amount of supressed technology in this regard alone could free up humanity from meat

based diet that creates servitude, dependency, addiction, all round bad health, and

debauchery… ….

"Also if humans had to butcher there own food or grow it, I think you will find the majority

would rather grow their own food" How can you even say this.... Until the processed food

crave started this is how EVERYONE IN THE WORLD ate”

^^^ you are making this up as you go along, this may be a small portion within historical

timer line reflects this, but if you dig a lill deeper for facts rather than anecdotes that support

your miasma, you will clearly see that what you are saying is a misnomer, and I have done

the study on this, please see previous post about the rise of the meat diet and Babylon, what

you are asserting is all the conditioning and mind control coming from the movies the

schooling system and so on, The agenda players would love the masses to think this is the

way ppl always ate, because it supports their agenda, this is no different than the Vatican

declaring the world is flat, or that religion claims the history of man is only 7000 years old,

same gig different day…

“......again emotions nothing more. ...”

^^ Telling comment, you seem to be down playing emotions as irrelevant, well emotional

intelligence, intelligence of the heart is an aspect of consciousness of self/soul/heart,

soul/self/heart has perception independent from the cognitive process, ppl who are devoid of

this, have no probs brutalizing and subjugating other beings, “animals or human” to their

whim, because of the lack of compassion and understanding, education of the mind without

education of the heart is a dangerous combination, “just take a look around the so called

civilized world” I often find ppl that can’t understand that “earthlings” are not here for

mistreatment and consumption of humans” this lack of understanding and the mind set is a

corruption of the connection to nature, an aberration that the system does well to play on,

such ppl have a serious lack of “true” compassion, empathy and emotional intelligence, on

the one hand they will stroke a dog and call it friend, on the other they would not think twice

about butchering or supporting the butchery and mistreatment of animals….

"For example, the amount of land, water, energy and resources it takes to raise animals to fed

everyone on the planet is unsustainable." Again how does this differ from the amount of

Land, water and energy that it takes to grow food to sustain everyone on the planet which in

fact we don't in either situation with the amount of waste there is”

^ moot point “I have added some info that deals with this further on in this summer” the

system is set up to be wasteful and destructive, if the holistic method was embraced none of

this would be a factor, but always the eating of meat requires the butchering and incarceration

of animals no matter how one plays it, and again, the nutrition factor makes meat redundant

when compared to fruit, veg, spices, herbs and such

“I am guessing you grow all your own food so you are not buying FDA/USDA regulated

organic but true organics from your own garden? Then you know how much water it takes to

raise your gardens which are FAR more than I ever used on the farm for our animals. We are

talking hundreds gallons in difference if not thousands depending on the amount of each and

also depends on if those animals are Free range which means they would have access to

water from some type of watering hole or filled trough And you would know the amount of

land that it would take to sustain ones self let alone an entire family just growing veggies and

fruits, Energy I am stumped on”

^^^^ many highly efficient systems to cater for this, none of them are being implemented

“on mass” in the modern world, the points you raise are not due to growing veg and such, it is

because of the methods used that serve the agenda, wasteful, destructive, not nature

resourced based, in the same way that we don’t need to pay for energy because there are

many systems out there, Proven, viable, sustainable, free ultra-economical have been bought

and shelved by the corporation so they can maintain their hegemony of their corporate

infrastructure and keep ppl under the heal of their globalist boot and in servitude to

government, look at the story of Nikola Tesla, Wilhelm Reich, and many more besides, “If it

facilitates despotism, scarcity, domination, hierarchy, control, absurdity and so on, it will be

made abundant. If it supports balanced growth, freedom, true expression, compassion,

abundance, true beauty, nature and so on, it will be shut down and made unavailable” it is

amazing to me that in all of this you have not once mentioned that fact, and I know you are

aware of it, spurious at best… another expression of cognitive dissonance…

“Don't know of any energy used to raise animals unless you are raising animals not suitable

for the region in which one lives. Other than Human energy in which it takes A LOT more to

sustain a healthy garden.....Resources?” which are those that haven’t been gone over prior?

^^^^ This is so shrouded in miasma and distorted observation, the fact that nutrition in meat

don’t come close to veg and fruits, this has not been taken into account not even lightly

touched on, you seem to be really scrapping the bottom of the barrel to find some

justification, maybe I am not understanding your point, but so far all I am seeing is self-

fulfilling miasma, no mention of the loss of ancestral agriculture, the lost methods, the

lost/sequestered gnosis, butchered by the establishment to create historical amnesia, the

implanting and conditioning to push ppl towards a meat diet, and to down play vegetables

and fruits, the change in earth climates, the dying off of bees, the polluted water, and all the

other stuff that imped the delicate global balance that in turns has massive effects on flowers,

growing plants and maintaining gardens, nature has it all work out, it always has, again the

ancients did not have half the technology we do today “debatable, but that aside” but they

managed just fine, so obviously the points you are raising here is about the impeding

structure of society that pushes ppl into uneconomical none sustainable methods, none of this

is brought out in your response’s, this is rather interesting considering you are aware of these

factors? “ppl who are avoiding the internal work/self work often see what they want and find

facts to fit their theories, even if they are inaccurate”…

Both the meat-based average American diet and the lactoovovegetarian diet require

significant quantities of nonrenewable fossil energy to produce. “remember this is all under a

system that seek to not be balanced and economical, but even in this retarded version/system,

Veg is still more sustainable then meat, not adding in other contributing factors that really

leaves meat at the start line” both food systems are not sustainable in the long term based on

heavy fossil energy requirements. However, the meat-based diet requires more energy, land,

and water resources than the lactoovovegetarian diet. In this limited sense, the

lactoovovegetarian diet is more sustainable than the average American meat-based diet

<<<this is just one of many studies done to show the sustainability factors, this is not a

solution but even in this adulterated form, Veg still comes out tops

Raising animals for food requires massive amounts of land, food, energy, and water and

contributes to animal suffering.

Land

According to the United Nations, raising animals for food (including land used for grazing

and land used to grow feed crops) now uses a staggering 30 percent of the Earth’s land

mass. More than 260 million acres of U.S. forest have been cleared to create cropland to

grow grain to feed farmed animals, and according to scientists at the Smithsonian Institution,

the equivalent of seven football fields of land is bulldozed worldwide every minute to create

more room for farmed animals.

Livestock grazing is the number one reason that plant species in the United States become

threatened and go extinct, and it also leads to soil erosion and eventual desertification that

renders once-fertile land barren.

While factory farms are ruining our land, commercial fishing methods such as bottom

trawling and long-lining have virtually emptied millions of square miles of ocean and pushed

many marine species to the brink of extinction. Commercial fishing boats indiscriminately

pull as many fish as they can out of the sea, leaving ecological devastation and the bodies of

none target animals in their wake.

Food

Raising animals for food is grossly inefficient, because while animals eat large quantities of

grain, soybeans, oats, and corn, they only produce comparatively small amounts of meat,

dairy products, or eggs in return. This is why more than 70 percent of the grain and cereals

that we grow in this country are fed to farmed animals.

It takes up to 13 pounds of grain to produce just 1 pound of meat, and even fish on fish farms

must be fed up to 5 pounds of wild-caught fish to produce 1 pound of farmed fish flesh.

Energy

It takes more than 11 times as much fossil fuel to make one calorie from animal protein as it

does to make one calorie from plant protein. Raising animals for food gobbles up precious

energy. Simply add up the energy-intensive stages of raising animals for food: (1) grow

massive amounts of corn, grain, and soybeans (with all the required tilling, irrigation, crop-

dusters, etc.); (2) transport the grain and soybeans to feed manufacturers on gas-guzzling 18-

wheelers; (3) operate the feed mills (requiring massive energy expenditures); (4) transport the

feed to the factory farms (again, in gas-guzzling vehicles); (5) operate the factory farms; (6)

truck the animals many miles to slaughter; (7) operate the slaughterhouse; (8) transport the

meat to processing plants; (9) operate the meat-processing plants; (10) transport the meat to

grocery stores; (11) keep the meat refrigerated or frozen in the stores until it’s sold.

Water

Between watering the crops that farmed animals eat, providing drinking water for billions of

animals each year, and cleaning away the filth in factory farms, transport trucks, and

slaughterhouses, the farmed animal industry places a serious strain on our water supply.

Nearly half of all the water used in the United States goes to raising animals for food. In

2008, John Anthony Allan, a professor at King’s College London and the winner of the

prestigious Stockholm Water Prize, urged people worldwide to go vegetarian because of the

tremendous waste of water involved with eating animals.

It takes more than 2,400 gallons of water to produce 1 pound of meat, while growing 1 pound

of wheat only requires 25 gallons. You save more water by not eating a pound of meat than

you do by not showering for six months!

Rain Forest

According to Greenpeace, all the wild animals and trees in more than 2.9 million acres of the

Amazon rain forest in Brazil were destroyed in the 2004-2005 crop season in order to grow

crops that are used to feed chickens and other animals in factory farms.

One of the main crops grown in the rain forest is soy—in fact, much of the enormous amount

of soy that is needed to feed the world’s farmed animals now comes from the rain forest.

(The soy that is used in veggie burgers, tofu, and soy milk in the United States is almost

exclusively grown domestically, not in the Amazon.)

If we simply ate soy and other plant foods ourselves instead of feeding them to farmed

animals, we would not need to raise nearly as many crops, and we could eliminate the need to

decimate the rain forest.

Pollution

What do we get back from all the grain, fossil fuels, and water that go into making animal

products? Tons and tons of feces. According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA),

the runoff from factory farms pollutes our waterways more than all other industrial sources

combined.

Fecal Contamination

Animals raised for food in the U.S. produce far more excrement than the entire U.S.

human population, roughly 89,000 pounds per second, all without the benefit of waste-

treatment systems. According to Oregon State University agriculture professor Peter Cheeke,

factory farming constitutes “a frontal assault on the environment, with massive groundwater

and air pollution problems.”

There are no meaningful federal guidelines that regulate how factory farms treat, store, and

dispose of the trillions of pounds of concentrated, untreated animal excrement that they

produce each year. This waste may be left to rot in huge lagoons or sprayed over crop fields;

both of these disposal methods result in runoff that contaminates the soil and water and kills

fish and other wildlife. The concentration of parasites, bacteria, and chemical contaminants in

animal excrement can wreak havoc on the ecosystems affected by farm runoff and can sicken

people who live near these farms.

The Water We Drink

Many of the millions of pounds of excrement and other bodily waste produced by farmed

animals every day in the U.S. are stored in sprawling, brown lagoons. These lagoons often

seep or spill into surrounding waterways and kill massive numbers of fish and other animals.

The EPA reports that chicken, hog, and cattle excrement has polluted 35,000 miles of rivers

in 22 states and contaminated groundwater in 17 states. When 25 million gallons of putrid

hog urine and faeces spilled into a North Carolina river in 1995, between 10 million and 14

million fish died as an immediate result.

In West Virginia and Maryland, scientists have discovered that male fish are growing ovaries,

and they suspect that this deformity is the result of factory farm runoff from drug-laden

chicken faeces.

The massive amounts of faeces, fish carcasses, and antibiotic-laced fish food that settle below

fish farm cages also contribute to water pollution and have actually caused the ocean floor to

rot in some areas.

The Air We Breathe

A Consumers Union study in Texas found that animal feedlots in the state produce more than

14 million pounds of particulate dust every year and that the dust “contains biologically

active organisms such as bacteria, mold, and fungi from the faeces and the feed.” The

massive amounts of excrement produced by these farms emit toxic gases such as hydrogen

sulphide and ammonia into the air.

When the cesspools holding tons of urine and faeces get full, factory farms frequently dodge

water pollution limits by spraying liquid manure into the air, creating mists that are carried

away by the wind. People who live nearby are forced to inhale the toxins and pathogens from

the sprayed manure. In addition, according to a report by the California State Senate, “Studies

have shown that [animal waste] lagoons emit toxic airborne chemicals that can cause

inflammatory, immune, irritation and neurochemical problems in humans.”…

In Central America, 40 percent of all the rainforests have been cleared or burned down in the

last 40 years, mostly for cattle pasture to feed the export market—often for U.S. beef

burgers…. Meat is too expensive for the poor in these beef-exporting countries, yet in some

cases cattle have ousted highly productive traditional agriculture.

—John Revington in World Rainforest Report

The Center for International Forestry Research reports that rapid growth in the sales of

Brazilian beef has led to accelerated destruction of the Amazon rainforest. “In a nutshell,

cattle ranchers are making mincemeat out of Brazil’s Amazon rainforests,” says the Center’s

director-general, David Kaimowitz.

—Environmental News Service

Grassland destruction followed, as herds of domesticated animals were expanded and the

environments on which wild animals such as bison and antelope had thrived were trampled

and replanted with monoculture grass for large-scale cattle grazing. In a review of Richard

Manning’s 1995 book Grassland: The History, Biology, Politics, and Promise of the

American Prairie, Pulitzer Prize-winning writer James Risser observes: “Many experience

anguish at the wreckage of clear-cut mixed-tree forest, destined to be replaced by a single-

species tree farm. Few realize, says Manning, that a waving field of golden wheat is the same

thing— a crop monoculture inhabiting what once was a rich and diverse but now ‘clear-cut’

grassland.”

Grassland covers more land area than any other ecosystem in North America; no other

system has suffered such a massive loss of life.

—Richard Manning in Grassland

Another solution [to grassland depletion in Africa] would be a shift from cattle grazing

toward game ranching. Antelopes, unlike cattle, are adapted to semi-arid lands. They do not

need to trek daily to waterholes and so cause less trampling and soil compaction…. Antelope

dung comes in the form of small, dry pellets, which retain their nitrogen and efficiently

fertilize the soil. Cows, in contrast, produce large, flat, wet droppings, which heat up and

quickly lose much of their nitrogen (in the form of ammonia) to the atmosphere…. An

experimental game ranch in Kenya has been a great economic success while simultaneously

restoring the range.

—Paul R. Ehrlich, Anne H. Ehrlich, and Gretchen C. Daily in The Stork & The Plow

Fresh water, like land, seemed inexhaustible for most of the first 10 millennia of civilization.

So, it didn’t seem to matter how much a cow drank. But a few years ago, water experts

calculated that we humans are now taking half the available fresh water on the planet—

leaving the other half to be divided among a million or more species. Since we depend on

many of those species for our own survival (they provide all the food we eat and oxygen we

breathe, among other services), that hogging of water poses a dilemma. If we break it down,

species by species, we find that the heaviest water use is by the animals we raise for meat.

One of the easiest ways to reduce demand for water is to reduce the amount of meat we eat.

The standard diet of a person in the United States requires 4,200 gallons of water per day (for

animals’ drinking water, irrigation of crops, processing, washing, cooking, etc.). A person on

a vegan diet requires only 300 gallons a day.

—Richard H. Schwartz in Judaism and Vegetarianism

A report from the International Water Management Institute, noting that 840 million of the

world’s people remain undernourished, recommends finding ways to produce more food

using less water. The report notes that it takes 550 liters of water to produce enough flour for

one loaf of bread in developing countries…but up to 7,000 liters of water to produce 100

grams of beef.

—UN Commission on Sustainable Development, “Water—More Nutrition Per Drop,” 2004

Let’s say you take a shower every day…and your showers average seven minutes…and the

flow rate through your shower head is 2 gallons per minute…. You would use, at that rate,

[5,110] gallons of water to shower every day for a year. When you compare that figure,

[5,110] gallons of water, to the amount the Water Education Foundation calculates is used in

the production of every pound of California beef (2,464 gallons),you realize something

extraordinary. In California today, you may save more water by not eating a pound of beef

than you would by not showering for six entire months.

—John Robbins in The Food Revolution: How Your Diet Can Help Save Your Life and the

World

Waste disposal, like water supply, seemed to have no practical limitations. There were

always new places to dump, and for centuries most of what was dumped either conveniently

decomposed or disappeared from sight. Just as you didn’t worry about how much water a

cow drank, you didn’t worry about how much it excreted. But today, the waste from our

gargantuan factory farms overwhelms the absorptive capacity of the planet. Rivers carrying

livestock waste are dumping so much excess nitrogen into bays and gulfs that large areas of

the marine world are dying (see Environmental Intelligence, “Ocean Dead Zones

Multiplying,” p. 10). The easiest way to reduce the amount of excrement flowing down the

Mississippi and killing the Gulf of Mexico is to eat less meat, thereby reducing the size of the

herds upstream in Iowa or Missouri.

Giant livestock farms, which can house hundreds of thousands of pigs, chickens, or cows,

produce vast amounts of waste. In fact, in the United States, these “factory farms” generate

more than 130 times the amount of waste that people do.

—Natural Resources Defense Council

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, livestock waste has polluted more

than 27,000 miles of rivers and contaminated groundwater in dozens of states.

—Natural Resources Defense Council

Nutrients in animal waste cause algal blooms, which use up oxygen in the water, contributing

to a “dead zone” in the Gulf of Mexico where there’s not enough oxygen to support aquatic

life. The dead zone stretched over 7,700 square miles during the summer of 1999.

—Natural Resources Defense Council

Energy consumption, until very recently, may have seemed to most of us to be an issue for

refrigerators, but not for the meat and milk inside. But as we give more attention to life-cycle

analysis of the things we buy, it becomes apparent that the journey that steak made to get to

your refrigerator consumed staggering amounts of energy along the way. We can begin the

cycle with growing the grain to feed the cattle, which requires a heavy input of petroleum-

based agricultural chemicals. There’s the fuel required to transport the cattle to slaughter, and

thence to market. Today, much of the world’s meat is hauled thousands of miles. And then,

after being refrigerated, it has to be cooked.

It takes the equivalent of a gallon of gasoline to produce a pound of grain-fed beef in the

United States. Some of the energy was used in the feedlot, or in transportation and cold

storage, but most of it went to fertilizing the feed grain used to grow the modern steer or

cow…. To provide the yearly average beef consumption of an American family of four

requires over 260 gallons of fossil fuel.

—“Meat Equals War,” web-site of Earth Save, Humboldt, California

It takes, on average, 28 calories of fossil fuel energy to produce 1 calorie of meat protein for

human consumption, [whereas] it takes only 3.3 calories of fossil- fuel energy to produce 1

calorie of protein from grain for human consumption.

—David Pimentel, Cornell University

The transition of world agriculture from food grain to feed grain represents a new form of

human evil, with consequences possibly far greater and longer lasting than any past

wrongdoing inflicted by men against their fellow human beings. Today, more than 70 percent

of the grain produced in the United States is fed to livestock, much of it to cattle.

—Jeremy Rifkin, Los Angeles Times, 27 May 2002

Feeding grain to animals is highly inefficient, and an absurd use of resources.

—Vaclav Smil, University of Manitoba

Global warming is driven by energy consumption, to the extent that the principal energy

sources are carbon-rich fuels that, when burned, emit carbon dioxide or other planet-

blanketing gases. As noted above, the production and delivery of meat helps drive up the use

of such fuels. But livestock also emit global-warming gases directly, as a by- product of

digestion. Cattle send a significant amount of methane, a potent global-warming gas, into the

air. The environmental group Earth Save recommends a major reduction in the world’s cattle

population, which currently numbers about 1.3 billion.

One ton of methane, the chief agricultural greenhouse gas, has the global warming potential

of 23 tons of carbon dioxide. A dairy cow produces about 75 kilograms of methane a year,

equivalent to over 1.5 [metric] tons of carbon dioxide. The cow, of course, is only doing what

comes naturally. But people are inclined to forget, it seems, that farming is an industry. We

cleared the land, sowed the pasture, bred the stock, and so on. It’s a human business, not a

natural one. We’re pretty good at it, which is why atmospheric concentrations of methane

increased by 150 percent over the past 250 years, while carbon dioxide concentrations

increased by 30 percent.

—Pete Hodgson, New Zealand Minister for Energy, Science, and Fisheries

There is a strong link between human diet and methane emissions from livestock…. As beef

consumption rises or falls, the number of livestock will, in general, also rise or fall, as will

the related methane emissions. Latin America has the highest regional emissions per capita,

due primarily to large cattle populations in the beef exporting countries (notably Brazil and

Argentina).

—United Nations Environment Programme, Unit on Climate Change

Belching, flatulent livestock emit 16 percent of the world’s annual production of methane, a

powerful greenhouse gas.

—Brian Halweil and Danielle Nierenberg in State of the World 2004

Fight Global Warming With Your Knife and Fork

—Article by Elysa Hammond in Sustainablebusiness.com

Food productivity of farmland, as noted above, is gradually falling behind population

growth. When Paul Ehrlich warned three decades ago that “hundreds of millions” of people

would starve, he turned out to have overstated the case—for now. (Only tens of millions

starved.) The green revolution, an infusion of fertilizers and mass-production techniques,

increased crop yields and bought us time. That, combined with more complete utilization of

arable land through intensified irrigation and fertilization, enabled us to more or less keep

pace with population growth for another generation. A little additional gain—but only a

little—may come from genetic engineering. Short of stabilizing population (which will take

another half century), only one major option remains: to cut back sharply on meat

consumption, because conversion of grazing land to food crops will increase the amount of

food produced. (Some argue that grazing can use land that is useless for crops, and in these

areas live- stock may continue to have a role, but large areas of arable land are now given to

cattle to roam and ruin.)

Let’s say we have 20,000 kcal [kilocalories] of corn. Assume that we feed it to cattle (as we

do with about 70 percent of the grain produced in the U.S.)…. The cow will produce about

2,000 kcal of usable energy from that 20,000 kcal of corn (assuming 10 percent efficiency;

the efficiency is actually somewhat higher than that, but 10 percent is easy to work with and

illustrates the point reasonably). That 2,000 kcal of beef would support one person for a day,

assuming a 2,000 kcal per day diet, which is common in the U.S. If instead people ate the

20,000 kcal of corn directly, instead of passing it through the cow, we would be able to

support more people for that given unit of land being farmed; not necessarily 10 times more,

because people are not as efficient as cattle at using corn energy, but considerably more than

the one that could be supported if the corn were passed through the cow first!

[So], we could support more people on Earth for a given area of land farmed if we ate lower

on the food chain—if we ate primary producers instead of eating herbivores (corn instead of

beef). Or, we could support the same number of people as at present, but with less land

degradation because we wouldn’t need to have so much land in production….

—Patricia Muir, Oregon State University

While 56 million acres of U.S. land are producing hay for livestock, only 4 million acres are

producing vegetables for human consumption.

—U.S. Department of Commerce, Census of Agriculture

Communicable Disease doesn’t travel from one place to another all by itself; it has to

hitchhike—whether in dirty water, the infected blood of rats or insects, or contaminated meat.

Globalization has vastly increased the mobility of all of these media, and one consequence is

that outbreaks which in past centuries might have been contained within a single village or

country until they died out are now quickly spread around the globe. When a case of mad

cow disease was detected in the United States in 2004, it was discovered that parts of that

single cow had been distributed to about a dozen different states. The problem of containing

outbreaks in a system of global distribution is exacerbated by the use of mass-production

facilities that rely on antibiotics rather than more costly cleaning of facilities to fend off

infection and disease. As antibiotic resistance increases worldwide, the movement of diseases

becomes increasingly unimpeded. Some of the most dangerous outbreaks result from the

growing illegal trade in bush meat, in which diseases harboured by forest primates, such as

HIV—which in the past might have remained sequestered in remote jungles—are now

brought into an unregulated global marketplace.

A report by the U.S. Department of Agriculture esti- mates that 89 percent of U.S. beef

ground into patties contains traces of the deadly E. coli strain.

—Reuters News Service

Animal waste contains disease-causing pathogens, such as Salmonella, E. coli,

Cryptosporidium, and fecal coliform, which can be 10 to 100 times more concentrated than in

human waste. More than 40 diseases can be transferred to humans through manure.

—Natural Resources Defense Council

According to the World Health Organization, more than 85 human deaths have resulted from

at least 95 cases of ebola reported in the Congo’s remote Cuvette-Ouest region. The tip-off to

a possible outbreak came when gorillas in the region began dying. Tests of their bodies

confirmed the cause of death…. Officials suspect the human outbreak stems from villagers

eating infected primates including chimps, monkeys, and gorillas…. When primates are

butchered and handled for bush meat, humans come into contact with contaminated blood.

People also get the disease when they eat the infected meat.

—Ebola Outbreak Linked to Bush meat, www.janegoodall.net

It is believed that a sub-species of chimpanzee in west-central Africa may be the original

source of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, and that the transmission of the virus, a simian

immunodeficiency virus (SIV), to humans was the result of blood exposures from the

handling of chimpanzees killed by hunters.

—Jane Goodall, from a lecture at Harvard Medical School, 2002

Lifestyle disease, especially heart disease, might not have been regarded as an

“environmental” problem a generation ago. But it’s now clear that the vast majority of public

health problems are environmental, rather than genetic, in nature. Moreover, most

preventable diseases result from complex relationships between humans and the environment,

rather than from single causes. Heart disease is linked to obesity resulting both from

excessive consumption of sugar and fat (especially meat fat) and from lack of exercise

facilitated by car-oriented urban design. The environmental problems of suburban sprawl, air

pollution, fossil-fuel consumption, and poor land-use policies are also all factors in heart

disease.

The irony of the food production system is that millions of wealthy consumers in developed

countries are dying from diseases of affluence—heart attacks, strokes, diabetes, and cancer—

brought on by gorging on fatty grain-fed beef and other meats, while the poor in the Third

World are dying of diseases of poverty brought on by being denied access to land to grow

food grain for their families.

—Jeremy Rifkin, Los Angeles Times

Who says meat is high in saturated fat? This politically correct nutrition campaign is just

another example of the diet dictocrats trying to run our lives.

—Sam Abramson, CEO, Springfield Meats

Meat contributes an extraordinarily significant percentage of the saturated fat in the

American diet.

—Marion Nestle, chair of the Department of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health, New

York University

Not only is mortality from coronary heart disease lower in vegetarians than in none

vegetarians, but vegetarian diets have also been successful in arresting coronary heart

disease. Scientific data suggest positive relationships between a vegetarian diet and reduced

risk for…obesity, coronary artery disease, hypertension, diabetes mellitus, and some types of

cancer.

—American Dietetic Association

He is a heavy eater of beef. Me thinks it doth harm to his wit.

—William Shakespeare in Twelfth Night

The average age (longevity) of a meat eater is 63. I am on the verge of 85 and still work as

hard as ever. I have lived quite long enough and am trying to die; but I simply cannot do it. A

single beef-steak would finish me; but I cannot bring myself to swallow it. I am oppressed

with a dread of living forever. That is the only disadvantage of vegetarianism.

—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)

Biodiversity loss and threat of extinction:

Above and beyond the destruction of forests and grasslands for cattle ranching, and the

creation of oceanic dead zones by manure-laden runoff, the growing traffic in bush-meat is

decimating the remaining populations of gorillas, chimpanzees, and other primates that are

being killed for their meat. (A photo we received but declined to print in this issue shows a

severed gorilla’s head sitting in a food basket next to a bunch of bananas). As the planet

becomes more crowded, poor populations are increasingly venturing into wildlife reserves

looking for meat—and not always just for their own subsistence. In these areas, it’s not

enough just to say “eat less meat.” Here, the long-term solution will depend on stemming the

building of logging roads (which facilitate more rapid invasion by hunters) and stronger

protections against poaching and black-marketeering of bushmeat. It will also require more

equitable distribution of the world’s limited food output, and of the income with which to buy

it.

The real trouble has come in the last 10 years or so, as the big multinational companies,

particularly European companies, are opening up the [central African] forest with their roads.

Hunters from the towns can use the logging trucks to go along the roads…. They shoot

everything from elephants down to gorillas, chimpanzees, bonobos, monkeys, birds—

everything. They smoke it, they load it on the trucks and take it into the cities, where it’s not

to feed starving people—it’s where people will pay more for bushmeat than for domesticated

meat…. The pygmy hunters who’ve lived in harmony with the forest world for hundreds of

years are now being given guns and ammunition and paid to shoot for the logging camps.

And that’s absolutely not sustainable.”

—Jane Goodall in Benefits Beyond Boundaries, a film by Television Trust for the

Environment shown on BBC in 2003

The animals have gone, the forest is silent, and when the logging camps finally move, what is

left for the indigenous people? Nothing.

—Jane Goodall in Benefits Beyond Boundaries

Albert Einstein, who was better known for his physics and math than for his interest in the

living world, once said: - “Nothing will benefit human health and increase chances of

survival of life on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet.” We don’t think he was

just talking about nutrition. Notice that in this article we haven’t said much at all about the

role of meat in nutrition, even though there’s a lot more to talk about than heart disease. Nor

have we gone into the ethics of vegetarianism, or of animal rights. The purpose of those

omissions is not to brush off those concerns, but to point out that on ecological and economic

grounds alone; meat-eating is now a looming problem for humankind. You don’t have to

have any conscience at all to know that the age of heavy meat-eating will soon be over as

surely as will the age of oil…

Of course one must use discernment here, ppl have axes to grind, movements are covertly co-

opted, and so on, so one must tread diligently in regards to information, but even so, it

becomes very clear, very quickly that there is absolutely no comparisons here in terms of

sustainability and natural harmony when one takes of the rose colour glasses of denial and

self-delusion and sees the meat diet for what it really is…

“And that entire part about what Andy Larsen said ( I am assuming he is some vegetarian nut

job advocate) just cracks me up”....

^^^^ Nut job hmmmmm why the need to demonize or put down? “not that I am a fan or this

guys PR agent, but calling him a nut job because he holds an apposing view to yours that’s

actually well researched “to a point” as always discernment is required, This mild defensive

attack under the gize of being “dismissive” is indicative of ppl that dictate that “anyone who

is of the opinion that 9-11 was an inside job or that chemtrails are real should be made to

ware tin foil hats, or to put it another way… “ad hominem”

“If there was benefit to eating meat we wouldn't gain energy from it”

^^^ Of course there are benefits to eating meat, “you could gain energy from eating a baby”

but the “only” benefit to eating meat is limited nutrition, off the back of that comes a whole

host of other problems that come with eating meat, after that it is an unsustainable practice

that’s based in debauchery, so the only benefit is the eating of the meat but not when

compared to the values one gets from fruit, veg, herbs spices, one clearly sees that there is no

need “unless we are talking extenuating circumstances and survival, one has to do what one

has to do” but the epicentre of this topic is about so called “civilized habitual ways of being”

via mind control, indoctrination and matriculation and the baseless lies that accompany such

kinds of social conditioning and the fact that using animals as food products in our society is

immoral and wrong and adds to the global state of decay…

“Meat is by far one of the best sources of protein and amino acids, (Remember not all plants

can be grown anywhere) Meat is also rich is Iron and zinc and also high in certain vitamins A

and D to be sure of but I know there are others.”

Ok that ^^^^ made me blurt out tea all over my mac in ridiculous laughter, I don’t know

where you are getting your information from but I think you have read “establishment pseudo

facts” that are pretty much telling you what you want to hear so then you can pass this off as

some kind of valid motion… (Remember not all plants can be grown anywhere) lol your

reaching again, plants grow “for the most part” on all of the inhabitable planet in its many

forms, there is far more vegetation, plants, herb’s grasses, trees and such, then there is of

anything else, lol dude you are in a hole man, stopping digging and learn when to put down

the shovle… Meat has been sold as the best source of protein in the same way that ppl were

sold on the calcium benefits of milk or Obama care, same chit different scam, ok let’s break

this down and put it in its correct place, remember complete proteins are important but it is

also the quality of the protein, and the other many many benefits that plants/veg offer, and the

irony is, most “farmed animals” are for the most part fed on plant based feed, or graze ground

provision “if the feed is meat based this is unnatural and unhealthy” so they are getting their

body building protein’s from plants “lol” the irony…

So “meat by far is better protein ah?”

1. Spirulina

Spirulina is 65 - 71 percent complete protein compared to beef, which is only 22 percent,

and lentils, which is only 26 percent.

In addition to being protein-rich, spirulina is an excellent source of vital amino acids and

minerals easily assimilated by your body. You would need to consume only two tablespoons

of spirulina as a protein substitute for a meal.

2. Hemp

Protein Content: Seeds, 6 g per ounce; Milk, 2 g per cup

If you're allergic to soy, or just freaked out by its estrogenic activity, hemp products are your

next best bet. Sold as a dairy alternative or as seeds, hemp is one of very few plant proteins

that supply you with all the essential amino acids, acids your body can't produce on its own to

build muscle and create more protein. The fatty acids in hemp seeds and hemp milk also

boost your immune system, and the crop itself is highly sustainable, growing as fast as 10

feet in 100 days and naturally requiring very few pesticides. <<note the sustainability factor

3. Chia Seeds

Protein Content: 4 g per ounce

Though the protein content isn't as high as some other vegetarian foods out there, chia seeds

pack a huge nutritional punch. For starters, they're an incredible fiber resource with nearly

half (11 g) of the amount you need every day in a single ounce. That helps fill you up and eat

fewer calories. They also contain 18 percent of your daily calcium requirement, more than

triple that of milk, which helps your bones. Chia seeds have no flavor, so you can add a

tablespoon to any food you wish to without altering its flavor, and unlike flax, chia seeds

don't need to be ground in order for your body to absorb all the nutrients.

4. Quinoa

Protein Content: 1 cup of cooked quinoa (185 g) contains 8.14 grams of protein.

Quinoa is perhaps one of the most perfect non-animal sources of protein on the planet. What

makes quinoa (pronounce keen-wah) Quinoa is a plant based source of complete protein.

"Complete" means that it contains all 9 of the essential amino acids that are crucial to human

function and health. It is also a wonderful option for those that follow a gluten free diet, since

it is completely gluten free.

5. Tempeh

Protein Content: A firmer, chewier cousin of tofu, a half-cup serving of this soybean-

based bite has 15 grams of protein.

Fermented foods ought to be part of everyone’s diet, vegetarian or not. Tempeh is one that is

chewy and delicious, even to die-hard burger fans. It’s healthy and a much better bet than

heavily processed tofu or “mock meats” that are brimming with poor-quality modified

proteins, sodium, chemicals and starchy fillers. In my opinion it doesn’t compare

nutritionally or in taste to a juicy steak but as vegetarian options go it ain’t half bad.

6. Almonds and Almond Butter

Protein Content: (between 6 and 8 grams, per handful).

When adding a handful of nuts to your salad for protein, go with almonds. Almond butter is

less toxic and allergenic than peanut butter, although the protein amounts are similar by

comparison. Still, this is about quality protein, not necessarily the amount.

7. Veggies

Yep, good old greens will pack a protein punch. One cup of cooked spinach has about 7

grams of protein. The same serving of French beans has about 13 grams. Two cups of cooked

kale? 5 grams. One cup of boiled peas? Nine grams.

8. Lentils and Beans

A cup of iron-rich lentils packs 18 grams of protein, almost as much as three ounces of

steak. One cup of chickpeas, contains 15 grams of protein, as does a cup of black or kidney

beans.

9. Organic, Plain, Greek Yogurt (not vegan)

Protein Content: 15 to 20 g per 6-ounce serving

All dairy products are good sources of protein. A glass of milk provides you with 8 g, but

Greek yogurt is a protein powerhouse, with twice the protein and half the sugar and carbs of

regular yogurt. In fact, Greek yogurt contains the same protein as a three-ounce serving of

lean meat. Top that with a handful of nuts and you could get half of your daily protein intake

at breakfast.

10. Eggs (not vegan)

Protein Content: 6 g per egg

There's a reason the incredible, edible egg is such a popular breakfast choice. The protein in

eggs has the highest biological value, a measure of how well it supports your body's protein

needs, of any food, including beef. And the yolks contain vitamin B12, deficiencies of which

are common in vegetarian diets and can cause attention, mood, and thinking problems while

raising blood homocysteine levels, a risk factor for heart disease, dementia, and Alzheimer's.

Hemp Seed Nutrition (hulled/shelled hemp seeds)

• Calories/100 g567

• Protein 30.6

• Carbohydrate 10.9

• Dietary Fiber 6

• Fat 47.2

• Saturated Fat 5.2

• Monounsaturated Fat 5.8

• Oleic 18:1 (Omege-9) 5.8

• Polyunsaturated Fat 36.2

• Linolenic 18:2 (Omega-6) 27.6

• Linolenic 18:3 (Omega-3) 8.7

• Linolenic 18:3 (omega-6) 0.8

• Cholesterol 0mg

• Vitamine A (B-Carotene) 4IU

• Thiamine (B1)1mg

• Riboflavin (B2) 1mg

• Vitamine C 1.0 mg

• Vitamine E 9 IU

• Sodium 9mg

• Calcium 74mg

• Iron 4.7mg

Dating back as far as 2700 B.C. hemp has been recorded as a source for not only clothes, but

for food as well. Even the founding fathers wrote about the virtue of hemp in food and

everything. There is an unstoppable amount of products that can be cooked up using hemp

seeds. The seed can be crushed, shelled, dehydrated, roasted, and from there it’s used to

create bread, milk, butter, cereal, or kept raw and added as an ingredient. The endless list of

benefits from the hemp plant. Fuel, paper, clothes, hair care, skin care, and so on up to 25,000

different uses and products from hemp alone (Popular Mechanics, 1938), and of course has

been proven to cure cancer… Unlike some other plants, hemp can grow in some of the

coldest, driest, hottest, and wettest areas across the globe. Meat can never ever come close to

this, on the point of hemp alone, the debate is done…

Note: Not All plants can offer up complete proteins, this is essential for building muscle, but

some plants do offer this, and because it is plant based and is intrinsic with fibre, it breaks

down and processes in the body far more quickly and effectively then meat does, meat has no

fibre and puts a tax on the body and liver, also mix and match a few veggies to get all the

protein you need, but also you will be getting way more than just protein, micro nutrients and

so on, meat cannot offer this…

….

Meat offers none of the above…

Meat does not offer none of the above

The Evidence speaks for it’s self…

Cha ching!!!! Is that bright light flashing above your head and resonating in your heart? Or

are you trying drown out the voice in your head that you obviously try to silence so one can

hold onto outdated, cruel, ineffective and destructive ways of living

Other than protein, Meat offers none of the added benefits of the above…

Again one might argue that with the toxic farming methods employed today it is no wonder

that cows milk is full of crap you would not wash your face in, let alone shove down a child's

throat, but Even if this was not the case and adequate methods were used to produce “cleaner

milk” still does not matter, milk is a form of Liquid protein, essential for calf’s and such in

there early stages of life when still growing, but in the semi early stages mothers milk yields

no more to the calf, the mother stops nursing up to about 10 months, the calf will seek

another form of sustenance “humans would do well to mimic this natural understanding”

bovine growth hormones and lacto intolerance, also, as stated milk is a fatty liquid protein,

and the thing about protein is it limits the body’s ability to absorb and processes calcium, btw

milk is one of the worst sources of calcium, the amount is minimal and also when you

consider what else is in milk, but one would not know this if one was to embrace the

propaganda put out by these toxic industries that seek to push the redundant meat diet in ever

ones faces… A few good reasons not to drink milk, once you start adding in how cows are

treated, how they are beefed up with a type of pharmaceutical crack to make their milk yields

super-efficient, the cow suffers horrendously and much of these toxic hormones and such end

up in the food chain, including, blood, puss and god knows what…

Meat does not offer the benefits of the above

Certain leafy green vegetables, spinach, and such are good sources of high quality calcium

far superior to milk in quality and amount, in particular chick peas are an excellent source of

calcium, milk from cows do not come close to the calcium intake above

There are significant health differences between vegetarians and meat-eaters, with the

majority of the positive ones falling on the side of the plant-eaters. Vegetarian diets

themselves differ: Ovo-vegetarians include eggs in their diet, lacto-vegetarians include milk

and lacto-ovo-vegetarians include both. There are two less restrictive categories, too:

pescatarians, who consume fish, and semi-vegetarians (“flexitarians”), who consume meat

occasionally. Regardless of the type of vegetarian, consuming a primarily plant-based diet

can yield a great deal of health advantages.

Characteristics of a Plant-Based Diet

Plant-based diets are naturally lower in calories, saturated fat and cholesterol than

carnivorous diets but are higher in fibre, vitamins, minerals and health-promoting

antioxidants. Plant-based nutrients include potassium, magnesium, folate and vitamins C and

E. This difference in nutritional value is likely responsible for the health benefits experienced

by vegetarians, but this is true only when the diet emphasises plants, avoids processed foods,

is balanced and includes variety.

Lower Risk of Disease for Vegetarians

Those who follow a plant-based diet are found to have lower cholesterol and blood pressure

levels and a lower risk of cardiovascular disease, stroke, cancers, type-2 diabetes and insulin

resistance. Those who eat meat frequently have a higher risk of cancer and overall disease.

Semi-vegetarians, who eat meat about once a week, do not reap the same level of benefit but

are still found to have intermediate protection against lifestyle diseases.

Vegetarians are less likely to develop food allergies, are less in danger of food born illnesses,

and consume fewer of the hormones and antibiotics that are administered to animals and

passed on to humans through the carnivorous food chain. Vegetarians are more likely to be

educated and health conscious, to exercise regularly and avoid cigarettes and alcohol. Clear

skin and increased energy levels are also benefits commonly seen among plant-eaters.

Better Mood, Better Sex

Eating plants can have a positive impact on your disposition and libido. A higher intake

results in more energy, calmness and feelings of happiness. These affects are experienced on

the days that vegetables and fruits are eaten and also throughout the following day. Plant

foods contain libido-boosting properties, and a lower body weight assists with increasing sex

hormones as well.

Potential Nutrient Deficiencies

Contrary to popular belief, vegetarians consume about the same amount of most key nutrients

as meat-eaters. Zinc and vitamin B-12 are of most concern, while intake of calcium, vitamins

A, C, D, E, magnesium and iron are typically no lower than that of meat-eaters. Vitamin B-12

can be challenging as it's mainly found in animal products. Plant sources include fortified

cereals, veggie burgers and nutritional yeast. Zinc is found in beans, pumpkin seeds, wheat

germ and dairy.

Plant Protein

Plant protein can adequately meet or even exceed recommended requirements when a variety

of plant foods are consumed. Eating whole grains and legumes (for example, rice and beans)

together creates complete proteins. These do not have to be eaten in the same meal and can

be spread throughout the day. Plant-based proteins are most favourable because they contain

beneficial nutrients such as complex carbohydrates, minerals, vitamins and fiber. Vegetable

protein sources include beans, peas, lentils, nuts, seeds and grains. Whether you're vegetarian

or not, these foods should be a central part of your diet. If you are considering going meat-

free and have any concerns, you can meet with a dietician to form a personalised plan to fit

your life, just make sure they know what they are talking about, a lot have gained their

certificates and such in establishment arenas of learning and matriculation, they end up being

mouth pieces of the corporate structure “if they know it or not” and magnified the problem by

way of disseminating the lie, the meat industry is embedded in this in all it’s permutations….

I could go on, verbatim, ad infinitum….

“So you are saying that people since the beginning of time have been wrong? Amazing it has

taken us what over 250,000 years to get to this point ? So from what I have read the entire

debate is over emotions induced by the processed food industry big pharma chemical over

load”

The only thing wrong here is your misunderstanding of history, going to establishment

history books or the history channel won’t help you if you seek truth, the rise of the meat diet

to the point when it became abnormal and vogue can for the most part be tracked back to

around the time of the rise of the Babylonian empire, “as mentioned before” studying history

from before that time, will show you a different story, there has always been an agenda to get

humans into consuming meat coming from a certain royal edict, a certain blood line and

hegemony because it is indicative of bloodletting and blood rituals or gradually acclimatises

one to that, it then puts a wedge between humans and nature/animals, it lowers the body’s

vibration and makes one more malleable and toxic and ripe for the overarching agenda,

slightly off topic but still relevant in the totality of this study, I don’t like to go down this

road “ancient civilizations” when segwaying from another topic because it is very extensive,

and one has to lay out the back ground and such just to bring a person up to scratch, when

one starts getting into civilisations and such it is very nuanced and convoluted, a lot of

muddying of the waters have gone on to conflagrate thought and knowledge, so this is a topic

best dealt with as a separate entity…. But I will also add 250,000.000 ppl or more supporting

an error or lie, does not give that lie or error any merit what so ever even if it continues to be

propagated over many eons…

And finally… I challenge you.. forget the facts, forget the stats, forget what you “think” you

know, go detox for about 2 to 3 weeks, in that time set your-self up with a veg fruit spice

herb diet, Brown rice, legumes/beans ground provision, limit meat intake to every Sunday

“make sure the test diet has what your body needs, this is the mistake a lot of newbie

vegetarians make, the tailored made diet is very important” if you was to do this, takes time

to get beyond that “need for the meaty taste” conditioning needs to be reconditioned, if you

did do this, “I know you won’t” and found an alternative that you’re really liked, you would

never go back, once you feel it in your sola plexus, that vibrating warmth and that warm

yummy swirl in your tummy, your Sacral chakra like a soothing candle glow, when you’re on

track with your higher self and nature, there is nothing no one can tell you or say to you that

will distract from the truth, no explanation will serve you better than the experience itself, the

only question is, do you have the balls for it… if you have tried it before… try it again… if at

first you don’t succeed….

I appeal to your higher self, your intuition, your capacity for intelligence and knowledge and

the potentiality of your potential wisdom, one cannot slay the demons that loom in shadow, if

one does not slay the demons from within first….

Further reading…

Green vegetables are all rich in protein, and relatively low in calories. They provide generous

amounts of most micronutrients with no cholesterol and virtually no fat. Meat on the other

hand, is relatively low in micronutrients. Remember whole grains, beans and seeds are also

high in protein and should be utilised to achieve adequate protein on a diet with no or

minimal animal products. But the point in this example was to illustrate how weight-loss

favourable green vegetables are and that no matter how many green vegetables you eat, you

still cannot take in too many calories. If you fill up on greens, they will reduce your desire

and ability to overeat.

Please note that 100 calories of steak is only about one ounce, which is not much meat to fill

you up. More typically, 4 – 8 ounces is eaten, supplying too many calories and too much

animal protein without the lifespan enhancing micronutrients. Bottom line—eat more greens

and less meat to get more micronutrient bang per caloric buck and to suppress your calorie

intake.

[C]omplementing proteins is not necessary with vegetable proteins. The myth that vegetable

source proteins need to be complemented is similar to the myths that persist about sugar

making one's blood glucose go up faster than starch does. These myths have great staying

power despite their being no evidence to support them and plenty to refute them.8

Jeff Novick, M.S., R.D.:

Recently, I was teaching a nutrition class and describing the adequacy of plant-based diets to

meet human nutritional needs. A woman raised her hand and stated, "I've read that because

plant foods don't contain all the essential amino acids that humans need, to be healthy we

must either eat animal protein or combine certain plant foods with others in order to ensure

that we get complete proteins."

I was a little surprised to hear this, since this is one of the oldest myths related to

vegetarianism and was disproved long ago. When I pointed this out, the woman identified

herself as a medical resident and stated that her current textbook in human physiology states

this and that in her classes, her professors have emphasized this point.

I was shocked. If myths like this not only abound in the general population, but also in the

medical community, how can anyone ever learn how to eat healthfully? It is important to

correct this misinformation because many people are afraid to follow healthful, plant-based,

and/or total vegetarian (vegan) diets because they worry about "incomplete proteins" from

plant sources. ...if you calculate the amount of each essential amino acid provided by

unprocessed plant foods ... you will find that any single one, or combination, of these whole

natural plant foods provides all of the essential amino acids. ...

Modern researchers know that it is virtually impossible to design a calorie-sufficient diet

based on unprocessed whole natural plant foods that is deficient in any of the amino acids.

(The only possible exception could be a diet based solely on fruit.)9

John A. McDougall, M.D.:

Many people believe than animal foods contain protein that is superior in quality to the

protein found in plants. This is a misconception dating back to 1914, when Osborn and

Mendel studied the protein requirements of laboratory rats.[11]... Based on these early rat

experiments the amino acid pattern found in animal products was declared to be the standard

by which to compare the amino acid pattern of vegetable foods. According to this concept,

wheat and rice were declared deficient in lysine, and corn was deficient in tryptophan. It has

since been shown that the initial premise that animal products supplied the most ideal protein

pattern for humans, as it did for rats, was incorrect.... From the chart, it is clear that even

single vegetable foods contain more than enough of all amino acids essential for humans....

Furthermore, many investigators have found no improvement by mixing plant foods or

supplementing them with amino acid mixtures to make the combined amino acid pattern look

more like that of flesh, milk, or eggs.[35-44] ... People have actually lived for long periods of

time in excellent health by satisfying their entire nutritional needs with potatoes and water

alone.[33] ... Nature has designed vegetable foods to be complete. If people living before the

age of modern dietetics had had to worry about achieving the correct protein combinations in

their diets, our species would not have survived for these millions of years.10

Andrew Weil, M.D.:

You may have heard that vegetable sources of protein are "incomplete" and become

"complete" only when correctly combined. Research has discredited that notion so you don't

have to worry that you won't get enough usable protein if you don't put together some

magical combination of foods at each meal.10.5

Charles Attwood, M.D.:

Beans, however, are rich sources of all essential amino acids. The old ideas about the

necessity of carefully combining vegetables at every meal to ensure the supply of essential

amino acids has been totally refuted.11

The original source of the protein combining myth recants!

Interestingly, it's very easy to trace the protein combining myth to its original source: A

bestselling book called Diet for a Small Planet, in 1971. The author, Frances Moore-Lappé,

wanted to promote meatless eating because meat production wastes horrific amounts of

resources. But she knew her readers would think you couldn't get enough protein on a

vegetarian diet, so she set out to reassure them, by telling them that if they carefully

combined various plant foods, like rice and beans, the inferior plant proteins would become

just as "complete" as the ones in meat.

Lappé got her idea from studies that were done 100 years ago, on rats. The researchers

found that rats grew best when the proteins in their diets were in the same proportions as

found in animal foods. From this finding, animal proteins were arbitrarily labelled first-class

while plant proteins were deemed inferior. The problem with this conclusion is that rats are

not simply smaller version of people. Baby rats actually need a higher percentage of protein

than baby humans, because they grow a lot faster. People grow slowly. It takes a baby half a

year to double its birth weight. A rat does it in only four and a half days.4.8

So clearly rats

are going to need more protein. In fact, rat milk is a whopping 49% protein4.9

— much higher

than the mere 6% found in human mother's milk.

Lappé's idea of protein combining spread like wildfire. Soon the National Research

Council and the American Dietetic Association, without bothering to verify the hypothesis,

joined in by saying that plant proteins were inferior and had to be combined.4.6

But it wasn't long before Lappé realized her mistake, and owned up to it. In the 1981

edition of Diet for a Small Planet, she recanted:

In 1971 I stressed protein complementarity because I assumed that the only way to get

enough protein ... was to create a protein as usable by the body as animal protein. In

combating the myth that meat is the only way to get high-quality protein, I reinforced another

myth. I gave the impression that in order to get enough protein without meat, considerable

care was needed in choosing foods. Actually, it is much easier than I thought.

With three important exceptions, there is little danger of protein deficiency in a plant food

diet. The exceptions are diets very heavily dependent on [1] fruit or on [2] some tubers, such

as sweet potatoes or cassava, or on [3] junk food (refined flours, sugars, and fat). Fortunately,

relatively few people in the world try to survive on diets in which these foods are virtually the

sole source of calories. In all other diets, if people ar getting enough calories, they are

virtually certain of getting enough protein."13

[emphasis in original]

Moore-Lappé has always been one of my heroes, and this is one reason why. Anyone

can make a mistake, but it takes someone of integrity to own up to it. Especially when

that mistake was instrumental in the person's success in the first place. And the mistake

aside, Moore-Lappé pretty much single-handedly jump-started the vegetarian movement in

the U.S. in 1971, and deserves a place in history for that alone.

In any event, if you came to this page with the idea in your head that plant proteins

have to be combined, I hope it means something to you that the person responsible for that

idea being in your head in the first place said that she was wrong.

It's ironic, isn't it? Everyone who has the mistaken idea about protein combining got it from

Moore-Lappé, directly or indirectly, but she took it back.

What's really crazy is how many people cling to the myth even after learning that

Moore-Lappé admitted she was wrong. It would be akin to the news reporting that there

was an earthquake in Japan, then correcting themselves and saying that the earthquake was

actually in China, but people insisting on believing the earthquake was in Japan simply

because that's what the news said first. Likewise, most people insist on believing that plants

are incomplete even though the person responsible for getting that thought into their heads in

the first place now says it's not true.

Digestibility is not a problem

Some critics have screamed at me that plant protein isn't digested as well as animal

protein. Once again, these critics haven't bothered to look up the numbers.

The protein in beef and fish in 94% digestible. That's actually less than the digestibility

than plant foods like white flour (96%) and peanut butter (95%). Peas, rice, whole corn, soy

flour, oatmeal, and whole wheat flour aren't far behind (86-88%). Beans, despite their high

protein content, are a bit further down on the digestibility scale (78%).3 (By the way, the

WHO report didn't list other vegetables, or I would have listed them here.)

This shows that digestibility isn't a problem at all, in practical terms. Plant foods still

provide more than enough protein, even after considering lower digestibility. From the

numbers above, the protein in meat is digested 20.5% better than that of beans. If we take

someone with a higher than average need for protein (10% of calories), and add 20.5% to that

figure to account for lower digestibility, we now need 12.5% protein instead of 10%. And

again, grains average 13% protein and vegetables average 22%—more than enough.

Protein quality is not a problem

Some critics have pointed to various measures of protein quality, such as PDCAAS, which

say that plant protein is inferior. Such critics are missing the obvious: The quality measures

are mostly based on the amounts of amino acids in foods, and I've already explained in detail,

with a nice chart, using numbers from official sources, that vegetables absolutely contain as

much or more than you need of each individual amino acid. That is, plant foods provide

more than enough protein even after you account for any differences in digestion or protein

quality. Your body doesn't care whether the protein quality of what you're eating is "very

high" vs. simply "high". It's concerned only that you eat enough. As long as your body is

getting as much protein as it actually needs, it doesn't matter what form the protein comes in.

1.

1.

Critics are confusing more with better. Yes, animal foods have more protein, but that's not a

benefit. There's absolutely no advantage to eating way more protein than your body can

use. If you need 2500 calories a day, would you be healthier with 3000 calories a

day? No. In fact, eating that much more than you need would be detrimental to your

health. The same is true of eating too much protein. Excess protein intake has been linked to

bone loss, osteoporisis, kidney damage, kidney stones, immune dysfunction, arthritis, cancer

promotion, low-energy, and overall poor health.13.3

The science on this is very clear.

1.

Vegan diets supply plenty of protein for building muscle

Plant foods supply plenty of protein even for athletes and those trying to build muscle.

In a recent study older adults doing either lower-body or whole-body resistance training

increased their muscle strength and mass on the US RDA for protein of only 0.36 g per lb. of

body weight.14.5

For a 120-lb. person eating 2000 calories or a 180-lb. person eating 2500

calories, that's 8.6% to 10.4% of their diets as protein. And remember, vegetables average

22% protein and beans 28%.

Another study suggested that established bodybuilders need around 0.48 g of protein

per pound of body weight per day (1.05 g/kg).15

(Incidentally, it also found that

bodybuilders required 1.12 times and endurance athletes required 1.67 times more daily

protein than sedentary controls.) For an 180-lb. athlete the 0.48 g/lb. figure is 90 grams (360

calories from protein). For a 3000-calorie diet, that's 12% of calories from protein. And

again, vegetables average 22% and beans 28%.

Those starting a muscle-building program may need more protein, 0.77 g/lb. (1.7 g/kg).16

For a 180-lb. athlete that's 139 grams (556 calories). On a 3000-calorie diet, that's 18.5%, still

less than supplied by common vegetables.

If the athlete eats more than 3000 calories a day, or weighs less than 180 lbs., then the

percentage of protein required goes down even more.

In 2009 three major health organizations endorsed the 0.5 to 0.8 g/lb. (1.2-1.7 g/kg)

figures above (American Dietetic Association, Dietitians of Canada and the American

College of Sports Medicine)17

More is not better. As one paper said, "Ingesting more protein than necessary to maintain

protein balance during training (e.g., >1.8 g/kg/d) does not promote greater gains in strength

or fat-free mass."17.5

.

Jack Norris, RD points out that nutrient recommendations are always "padded" with

safety margins. That is, most people need less:

Considering the information reviewed above...it seems reasonable to conclude that the

protein needs of most vegan bodybuilders are somewhere between 0.8 and 1.5 g/kg (0.36 and

0.68 g/lb) of body weight....

The Food and Nutrition Board, which sets the RDA, reviewed Lemon et al.'s study and others

and concluded there is no sufficient evidence to support that resistance training increases the

protein RDA of 0.80 g/kg [0.36 g/lb] for healthy adults.18

For more on protein and muscle-building, see my separate article on Protein &

Strength.

Other objections

I get lots of misinformed objections to this article, but some of it is really wacky. One

particular objection is that my use of recommendations from the World Health Organization

(WHO) is wrong, because supposedly the WHO's recommendations are designed only to

prevent extreme malnourishment among impoverished third-world residents.

Such critics have apparently never actually read a WHO report, since WHO reports say the

exact opposite. For example:

• "The levels of energy intake recommended by this expert consultation

are based on estimates of requirements of healthy, well-nourished individuals."18.5

(emphasis in original)

• "[T]he objective of this report is to make recommendations for healthy,

well-nourished populations..."18.5

• "The requirement...can be accepted as the best estimate of a population

average requirement for healthy adults."3

A number of people have also complained about my statement that lettuce has more

than enough protein (26%), because, they say, to get a day's worth of calories from it (e.g.,

2000 calories), you'd have to eat 31 pounds of it. Others suggest that even for higher-calorie

foods, it would be boring to eat just one food. Here's an example of such criticism:

How to lie with (food) statistics: [To] get 2000 calories out [lettuce], you would need to eat

more than 14 kilos of the stuff. [Bluejay's] article cites 19 different sources. Yet by a single

bullcannon claim - a true one! - it utterly fails the common sense test. Hint: DO NOT USE

water-lettuce to boost yer average fer protein levels in veggies. This is on a par in stupidity

level with suggesting that just because 7-UP isn't alcoholic you can still get drunk on it if you

have at least 50 litres. (source)

I'm hesitant to answer this, because if the answer isn't already glaringly obvious to these

critics or those who believe them, can they even understand the explanation? But here goes

anyway:

The reason we look at the protein you'd get by eating an entire day's worth of calories from a

single food is that this is simply a handy method of comparing the protein content of various

foods, not to suggest that anyone should or even could eat 31 pounds of lettuce. Sure, you

can't eat 31 pounds of lettuce in a day, but whatever amount of lettuce you do eat helps (and

doesn't hurt) your protein intake. You could certainly eat 1% of your calories as lettuce, and

if you did, that lettuce would supply more than 1% of your protein needs. Ergo, lettuce

supplies sufficient protein.

The "getting drunk on 7-UP" analogy is ridiculous. 7-UP doesn't have any alcohol, but

lettuce does have protein. (And more protein than you need, calorie per calorie.)

It's really meat that's incomplete

When you think about it, it's kind of silly to single out protein, just one of the many

nutrients, just so we can declare plant proteins to be incomplete (although they're not).

Why aren't we declaring meat to be an incomplete vitamin? Because it is, you know. For

example, beef is completely devoid of Vitamin C, an essential nutrient without which you'd

die. And beef doesn't just have a lower level of this essential nutrient, it has zero. So why

didn't the authorities ever caution us that we need to combine various foods to get a complete

vitamin?

But actually, no combination of meat will make a complete vitamin, since every single

kind of common meat has zero Vitamin C. And it's deficient in other vitamins as well. So

while plants aren't actually deficient in protein, meat is definitely deficient in vitamins. But

I'm sure you never heard about vitamin deficiency in animal foods. All you've heard about is

the supposed deficiency of protein in plants.

And speaking about biases, the whole protein-combining idea supposes that vegetarians

are eating just one food, which is allegedly incomplete. Okay, how many people do you

know who eat one food? And since nobody eats just one food, the whole idea of protein

combining would be unnecessary anyway, even if it were true. So here again, what would be

the point of harping on protein combining when it doesn't matter?

Using some common sense

The largest land animals in the world, elephants, are exclusively vegetarian. They grow

up to 10,000 pounds, by eating nothing but plant matter. They couldn't grow so big if plants

weren't loaded with protein.

Amazingly, many readers have protested this by saying "But we're not elephants!", as

though they've made some sort of point. If they mean to suggest that elephants don't need

protein, they're wrong: Every living creature on the planet does. Elephants don't have some

magical superpower which allows them to live and grow without eating protein. They need it,

eat it, and use it, like everyone and everything else.

Perhaps the point was supposed to be that elephants utilize protein differently? Not in

any meaningful way. All protein, whether plant or animal, is broken down into the individual

amino acids before the body uses it. And that goes for anybody, elephant, human, or

otherwise.

Maybe the idea was that elephants get enough protein from plants only because they eat

so much? No, because once you adjust for body weight, elephants eat less than we do. Per

100 lbs. of body weight, Americans eat about 3 lbs. of food per day, while elephants eat only

1.9. 13.5

And elephants aren't the only huge vegetarian animals roaming the planet. There are

also horses, camels, giraffes, elk, rhinos, cattle, and more. Clearly if these massive animals

are eating only plants, then plants have more than sufficient protein.