Why go Veg?

Why should I consider giving up my beloved burgers, cheese, yogurt and eggs?

Why?

Because it’s not just my health that’s at risk anymore. Well, it hasn’t ever really been about my personal health, so much as it has been about the health of the human race and the earth we live on.

Without even knowing it, we American’s are steadily and increasingly eating away at the health of our planet, the place we all must call home. Most of us are oblivious to the simple acts of industrialization, over production and pollution wrecking havoc and potentially ending life as we know it. However the evidence does not lie and all we have to be is willing to open our senses and see what’s happening around us.

I think more often, people are becoming aware and are beginning to understand the devastating effects, but have no idea how to help. Do we donate money to a green energy charity? Change light bulbs in our homes? Purchase a Prius? How much of an impact can one person, one family make? The problem is so huge, how can me recycling my plastics bottles really make a dent in the grand scheme of things?

It’s frustrating. Like many people, I have had that defeatist idea. If I can’t do it all, I am not going to do anything. Or when I try to speak out against industrialized farming and for local economies, I am looked at like I have three heads. Did I mention my brother in law is one of those industrialized farmers? Well, he is and I love him and he provides for my sister and my niece and nephew like any family man. It just kills me that the comfortable life they live directly destroys the earth and the health of humanity. I did mention I love him and would obviously never begrudge him and his family prosperity or should I at the expense of others?

I grew up in a small southern town that comprised of small family farmers until the agriculture shift of the 1970’s. In 1973 Nixon’s Secretary of Agriculture Earl Butz, in an attempt to drive down the price of commodities such as corn and soy beans encouraged farmers to plant “fence row, fence row”. This was the birth of over production and farm subsidies for said commodities in the United States. Today those subsidies cost tax payers $19 billion a year and only about 3,100 farmers nation wide benefit from those funds. The small farmers of my fathers child hood and mine have slowly sold out and have retired or changed careers.

On average, we are producing 2.800 calories per person per day. That’s 17% more per person per day than 30 years ago. No wonder obesity is on the rise. And it is not just the over production of food, agriculturally speaking. It’s what happens to the over produced food. Fifty percent of the corn raised in the United States goes to feed animals and the rest of it goes to producing junk food, usually in the form of high fructose corn syrup. Sixty percent of soy in the US is found in processed foods, while globally 90% is fed to animals.

So what’s wrong with all that industrialized corn and soy going to meat production and processed foods? The problem I see is that it is not a field to table crop. Meaning, we can not directly eat the food we are raising on our home soil. Monocrop farming strips the land of its natural balance. When small farmers planted and harvested a diversified crop, the land was constantly being replenished with nutrients. There is even mention of this in the bible, rotating species of plants and giving the land rest on the Sabbath or seventh rotation. Now, farmers use petroleum based chemicals to provide synthetically manufactured “nutrients” that further strip the land of its natural health, not to mention contribute to depleting our supply of petroleum.

Livestock production produces more greenhouse gases in a year then our total transportation budget (cars, trains, air planes and trucking). American livestock is raised in such conditions that require antibiotics to keep the animals alive (not healthy) long enough to fatten up and slaughter for consumption.

So what can we all do? I am challenging myself to adhere to a vegetarian diet. Not interested in following me? How bout being a vegetarian one day a week? You absolutely can make an impact on our environment and yes, changing your light bulbs helps. But if you are like me and are interested in the next step, join me.

Take the challenge, it’s only one day a week without meat, but doing this for a year will lower your green house emissions the equivalent to 760 driving miles and if you cut out all processed foods on that day as well, you will lower your emissions by 1,160 miles that year. That’s a huge impact with very little effort. Just think what you could change if you had a couple more veggie, meat free days in the next year ahead.