Meat & Protein: Dispelling the Myths (Part 3) JoAnn Guest

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Meat & Protein: Dispelling the Myths (Part 3) JoAnn Guest

Sep 21, 2006 19:23 PDT

 

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Meat & Protein:

Dispelling the Myths (Part 3)

Transcript of Gary Null's Radio Show

 

 

Note: The information on this website is presented for educational

purposes only.

It is not a substitute for the advice of a qualified professional.

 

GARY NULL: I'm Gary Null. The topic at hand is one that's so

important,

but rarely discussed in any depth. And that is meat, and when I

include

meat I'm also suggesting chicken in that and veal and pork and lamb.

Protein and that's the primary reason people are eating this and

dispelling the myths. But there are many myths on this topic. None

of

them are easily dispelled because we've lived with them for so long.

So

I'm going to take different categories. I've shown you up to this

point

some of the horrors to the animals at least of why we should

reconsider

our reliance upon meat. Now I'd like to take a look at our food

resources.

 

How big a problem is world hunger? Now we hear so much about world

hunger. People starving to death in underdeveloped countries while

Americans struggle to stay on diets. Although being overweight and

obese

are major concerns and should be for our national health, a

significant

proportion approximately one quarter of the world's population has

been

condemned to a life of hunger and eventual starvation. An estimated

500

million to one billion people are suffering from malnutrition

receiving

such inadequate amounts of nutrients that even their basic

physiological

functions are impaired. Now this is hard to believe since here in

the

United States we have so much wealth and food that we hardly know

what

to do with it. Isn't it strange that children in the United States

routinely throw away food that children in Ethiopia, the Sudan,

Somalia,

India and Southeast Asia pray for but seldom ever obtain? Children

in

drought ridden northeastern Brazil where some 350,000 of the what

are

called flageolets (?) were tormented once have starved to death.

 

Children suffer severe growth abnormalities and irreversible brain

damage for want of the kind of nutrients that collect in our garbage

pails. Infant brain damage is a serious problem in this region of

Brazil

because of chronic dietary protein deficiencies. There seems to be

little disagreement among scientists according to the American

Scientist

Magazine that " a conscientious protein deficient diet produces

irreversible damage to the brain. " We have difficulty imagining the

horrors of world hunger because in our own wealth and comfort we are

so

far removed from it. Most of us have to badger our children to get

them

to eat even half their dinner. It's hard to believe that other

children

are dying because they have absolutely no food. But even though we

have

trouble feeling the immediacy of the starvation crisis we do hear

about

it and try to understand it on an intellectual level.

 

One of the most common explanations for the phenomenon revolves

around

the notion that overpopulation places an undue strain on an already

tenuous food supply of the underdeveloped nations. However this

theory

includes many closely associated assumptions. For instance it is

often

presumed that underdeveloped countries are backwards. That is they

have

failed to obtain the updated machinery and technology needed to keep

pace with modern population growth rates and subsequent food

demands. It

is also presumed that widespread ignorance among the peoples of

these

countries plays a major role.

 

For one thing the argument goes there is little understanding of

those

modern agricultural technologies that could help farmers increase

their

product yield and to make matters worse a general distrust of modern

science in society is responsible for the fact that these people

ignore

birth control and continue receiving bad advice from each other. So

they

have more children with no measure of restraint. And while there is

undoubtedly some truth in some of these observations, they only

explain

the problem. They don't solve it. Moreover they tend to be somewhat

culturally prejudiced in assuming that modern ways of doing things

are

superior to traditional ways that have existed for centuries in many

of

these countries.

 

The most basic oversight in this sort of explanation is that it

presumes

that world hunger can be overcome by increasing agricultural

production

coupled with more stringent birth control measures. It may be that

we

have gotten out of alignment if we continue our present rate of

population growth. Seven hundred years from now people will be

standing

virtually shoulder to shoulder on every square foot of the earth's

land

surface. In 7,000 years our population will be expanding outward

into

space at the speed of light.

 

Even in the United States where the birthrate is double the death

rate

there will come a day when we simply won't have enough food to feed

so

large a population. Reducing the rate of population growth will

obviously ease the strain on our limited food supplies. Yet that

cannot

be the only solution to world hunger. Increasing agricultural

production

may be an immediate solution, but that in turn may create a lethal

drain

on our natural resources as we saw in previous decades. Moreover

increasing output is not an easy task for countries that can ill

afford

modern farming machinery.

 

What must be understood here is that starvation is essentially

manmade.

Population increase coupled with production decreases caused by

droughts

or flood or deforestation or gross soil erosion or other natural

manmade

causes have plagued everyone and these are the primary roles. But

experience shows us that these problems can be dealt with much more

fruitfully if we simply begin to make more economically sound use of

our

land by developing a more efficient food chain. It was Francis

Forlape

(sp?) who showed us that famine is not necessarily a part of the

human

condition even in notoriously poor countries.

 

For instance let's just take Bangladesh. It's by no means a hopeless

basket case. Yes. This small country does have an extremely dense

population and that does create a problem, but Taiwan has twice the

number of people per cultivated acre that Bangladesh has. Yet its

people

are not starving. Population density is not the sole variable

indicating

whether or not a country's available food supply is sufficient to

support its people.

 

Far more significant is how the country's land is used and how

efficiently its food supply is utilized. The demand for animal

protein

is the single most significant factor that condemns hundreds of

millions

to a life of hunger and eventual starvation. It has pitted man

against

animal as they are forced to compete over grain supplies for their

very

existence. The animal industry is based on gross misuse of the land.

Land that would be better used to feed people rather than cattle or

pigs. It is responsible for creating a food supply of meat and dairy

products that are highly inefficient in terms of nutritional return

to

the consumer considering the amount of food and other resources that

were required for its production. Most of which by the way are

subsidized. And I'll discuss that a little later on. For now we only

should recognize that while world hunger is real and does pose a

threat

to human existence in many areas of the planet but not our own

immediately, the situation is by no means hopeless.

 

It is true that if the current population explosion continues, the

world

will eventually reach a saturation point for its food resources, but

estimates predict that our present world population of over six

billion

would increase ten times before we actually face that situation. So

it

does provide for time and a calmly (?) investigation of the problem

and

constructive solutions. So now what would I suggest are some of

these

solutions?

 

Well how about raising food without feeding people? That's a big

problem. Increasing agricultural output may sound like a reasonable

solution to famine, but unfortunately the increasing grain

production in

recent years has gone more and more to animals and less and less to

people. Livestock consumes our grain supplies in gross amounts and

gives

us very little in terms of our dietary requirement return. And

that's

assuming that every single thing you ate from an animal would be

disease-free and produce no adverse ill health effects in you, which

also is not true. So while agricultural output may be going up, our

ability to feed people continues to go down. Just how much food do

we

waste when we eat meat and dairy products? Well here's an eye opener.

 

Let's take beef for example. Cattle consume 16 pounds of feed to

produce

a single pound of flesh. And remember in that flesh is a lot of fat

and

in some cases up to 50 percent. This means that for every pound of

beef

we consume we virtually waste 15 pounds of grain. You might think

that

agribusiness would try to cut down on this tremendous grain drain if

for

no other reason than to save the high cost of feed. They do try, but

they are unwilling to take the most obvious and sensible step.

Produce

less meat and advise consumers to balance their diets better by

eating

vegetables and grains and legumes and nuts and seeds to replace at

least

part of the meat. I'm realistic. I'm not assuming for a moment that

once

someone hears this advice they're going to come to some sensible

conclusion. May be they're part of a problem and want to reverse it

to a

solution. The vast majority of people are not just going to stop and

shift to a vegan diet. Okay. So let them have a transition diet.

Anything that takes them from where they're at to a better place

will

help lessen the burden and it starts a chain event.

 

Instead they find methods for maintaining full weight on the cattle

while having them eat less, and to accomplish this they severely

restrict their physical movements therefore cutting their feeding

requirements. No longer do the cattle graze freely in the meadows

and

drink from babbling brooks beneath shady trees. Instead they are

lined

up in crowded and squalid feedlots. The whole face of the animal

industry has been changed with this new technology. Livestock fed in

these mechanized feed lots can now attain a target weight and be

delivered to the slaughterhouse in about one third the normal time.

This

has greatly increased the profits for the animal factories that

insist

on maintaining their hold on the food market even if it means

tolerating

gross waste that ultimately leads to world hunger. Despite the

industry's attempt to cut down on feed allocation though, cattle

still

require a high caloric intake. And since meat production is rising

steadily so is the overall feed requirement.

 

Use of livestock feed in the United States is now averaging over 250

million tons annually. Now compare to that 100 million tons on the

eve

of the Second World War. Although this figure accounts only for feed

consumption in the United States it's equivalent to all the grain

that

is currently imported by every nation in the world. The number of

poultry as well as livestock that are fed grain has doubled over the

last 30 years with 75 percent of all livestock being currently grain

fed. Pigs consume as much as grain as do cattle with each animal

requiring about 5,000 pounds of grain and soy and additional crops

annually. That's per pig. Not that all the protein being consumed

helps

us much when we eat the animal. A lot of it goes for the normal

growth,

maintenance, and repair of the animal itself; and a large amount is

also

absorbed by the livestock's hair, skin, bones and excrement parts

that

we do not eat.

 

And while agribusiness has stepped up its livestock production, the

United States has still been growing enough feed to export abroad.

But

still the hungry are not being fed. Over 60 percent of all of the

grain

exported from the United States goes to affluent industrialized

nations

rather than the third world that have high rates of hunger and

starvation. Where does it go? Well much of the grain that does

eventually filter into the third world goes to feed - you guessed

it -

cattle rather than the starving mothers and children. So reducing

meat

production is clearly the best solution to the problem of world

hunger.

Yet industrialized nations try to circumvent the issue by inventing

the

so-called green revolution, and what a fiasco that was. Oh what was

it?

Forty years ago this program was intended to end world hunger by

introducing new crops, breads specifically for rapid growth and high

yield and overcoming pestilence. There were several problems with

this

very highly touted system.

 

One was that the new strains of crops like a new rice or a new maize

or

a new corn were very expensive to grow because of the uncommonly

large

amounts of fertilizer used. This allowed the wealthiest farmers to

out

price their competition putting many small farmers out of business

in

countries where farming was the traditional binding socioeconomic

force.

An overemphasis on grain production was another weakness of the

system.

Grains largely replaced many varieties of legumes and fruits and

vegetables, and that was all ended up being wasted on livestock

anyhow.

In the industrialized countries high yield crops created a surplus,

which needed a market thereby encouraging even greater animal

production, which in turn placed even greater pressure on farmers to

produce even more food for the oversupply of livestock. It became a

vicious cycle of overproduction. Yet nutrition was seldom considered.

 

Dr. Harris, Professor of Biochemistry and Nutrition at MIT, found

that

the indigenous strains of crops being replaced by the new high yield

varieties were actually superior in nutrition. In Food For Naught,

Ross

Hume Hall talks about the shortcomings of the project. He said the

green

revolution devised in western countries as a solution to the

nutritional

problems of other countries and cultures is based on the fully

mechanized technology of western countries. It is not just a matter

of

planting new strains of rice or wheat, it is also a matter of

applying

fertilizer at the right time, irrigating at the right time, applying

insecticides, herbicides, and using new types of machine - a whole

complex of business. Well the use of this modern technology put even

further stress on the local economy and especially where countries

were

okay. They weren't rich, but they weren't poor. They were

sustainable.

It led to an increase in unemployment and subsequently to poverty

and

even greater hunger among the working class.

 

It seems that from every perspective the green revolution only made

matters worse. Most of the production increases that it generated

led to

further economic decline in already troubled lands. Most of the

increased food supply went to livestock for the meat and dairy

industries. It seems to have been responsible for just about

everything

except getting more food to the people who needed it. Let me put it

in

this way. I'll put a human face on this.

 

Let's go to India, which was one of the targets of the Rockefeller

University and whiz kids over there who said the green revolution.

And

it was touted, and we saw all of its benefits. There was wonderful

propaganda about it. Let's take a village in the Punjab area. You

have a

village that has 20,000 people living in it. If you've been in some

of

these villages, they have what looks like an airplane hangar. They

have

booths, and on these booths you might have 50 varieties of grains

and

legumes. They're very cheap. You can buy giant cashews for six cents

a

pound and also have your shoes fixed right there on the spot too.

They

have everywhere these fellows with these little shoeboxes and tacks

and

hammers and scissors, and they're fixing people's shoes. That was

for

two cents. And you had then the vegetables. Vegetables you'd never

see

anywhere else in the world and wonderful exotic fruits. They have

like a

litchi fruit that looks like a little brown fur ball. But you open

it up

and it's just this translucent wonderful sweet succulent fruit. I've

never seen that in the United States. They have dozens. They have a

tamarind paste made from the tamarind seeds that they use in their

chutneys.

 

So you could go in one of these sheds, and they sometimes have one

or

two or three per village. You could think my goodness I've never

been in

a health food store in the world that has all this stuff, and of

course

it was nontoxic. It was grown organically. They used animal manure

because they do not slaughter animals in that area of the world.

They're

sacred, and people were poor. But everyone bartered. Everyone had a

small plot of land and whatever they grew they took in to this kind

of

place and everybody bartered and everybody had plenty of food.

Nobody

was hungry. You couldn't be. It wasn't possible. Not only because

they

had such an abundance seasonally all the time, but also because they

care for one another.

 

Then in come the guys who said hey. We're going to solve your

problems.

We're going to sell you this tractor and with it these seeds and

with it

these chemicals. You're going to plant. You're not going to plant

all

this stuff. You're going to plant rice, but a kind of rice that's

not

going to be susceptible to insects. It's going to have five percent

more

protein. So they planted some rice. Now the rice came in and they

had an

abundance of rice. They were able to export it and actually make

money

on it. More money than what they could make bartering or selling it

for

small amounts in their common community food coops. Then it

expanded.

Those who did have money began to buy the little plots of land from

those who had no money. But now people had a few dollars. Well a few

dollars for a few days or a few months, but at the end of a year or

at

the end of two years one or two people now controlled all the

agriculture. It was wonderful for them. One planting of rice comes

in or

wheat. It's harvested, but then the local people can't afford it. So

they ship it off to other places to eat or to feed to cattle or pigs

on

large farms, and that's what was done.

 

Even in Bangladesh there was more than enough protein to feed all

the

population, but the grains that were grown were shipped out of the

country. Mind you this is in the midst of massive starvation. And

they

had fish farms. And they would have an enormous amount of fish

including

perch that would be grown and they would ship it out to other

countries

that wanted you know their fish. Or it would be ground into fishmeal

for

fertilizer, but the point was that plenty of food was grown. No one

could afford it locally. So local people starved in the midst of

abundant food production. Now you had people who had no money and

they

no longer had land for sustainable agriculture. So they had to

migrate

to the cities for work. Many of them had their children work in

brick

factories or rug factories under the most horrific conditions of

forced

child labor - indentured labor. Many of their daughters were sold

into

prostitution. As a result, exploitation was rampant. And yet none of

this - the starvation, the displacement of communities, massive

poverty

- none of this was ever featured in any of the major propaganda

stories

about the miracles of the green revolution. In point of fact the

miracle

of the green revolution after its inception was a fraud. It was one

massive lie, but no one was there to herald the lie, to spotlight

it, or

focus on it. That's the other side of the story that we're not told.

 

It's quite sobering to learn how much food is wasted by the meat and

dairy industries especially since vegetarianism exists as a simple

and

healthy alternative. In a recent year our livestock used up 145

million

tons of grain and soy to produce a meager 21 million tons of animal

products. Can we really afford to waste 124 million tons of food

every

time we net 21 million? Now this loss of waste is enough to provide

one

cup of grain every single day for every person in the world for an

entire year. So the next time someone from the meat industry or the

dairy industry - at the next one of their cattlemen's association -

who

I've debated. By the way, I've debated the head of the sugar people,

the

dairy people, and the cattlemen's association on network television.

And

they cannot put up the arguments because we have the proof. We could

be

feeding the world sustainable nutrition every single human being on

the

planet if we simply didn't waste what we're spending on our meat.

And

that's just a fact.

 

How would you like to buy 145 gallons of gasoline for your car and

only

be able to use 21 gallons? You would undoubtedly be outraged and

rightly

so. You wouldn't dream of wasting gasoline for your car. So does it

make

sense to tolerate wasting food in those proportions - a waste, which

has

the effect of starving your fellow human beings with whom you share

this

planet? Some might argue that they really don't know what to do

about

solving hunger in distant lands. Or they might think that

governments

should give more money to the needy, and that the Peace Corps and

the

United Nations or other charities should send more trained technical

assistance to underdeveloped countries to teach modern farming

techniques. But now that we see how grossly inefficient and wasteful

meat is we know that the most direct and powerful and immediate

solution

to the problem is to adapt a vegetarian lifestyle.

 

Now I've spoken at length about the waste of grain perpetuated by

the

meat and dairy industries. We have not even looked at the other

nutritious ingredients like wheat germ and fishmeal that are pumped

into

feed. If everyone adopted a low meat or vegetarian diet the combined

surplus of both grain and legumes could be eaten by 800 million

hungry

people in the world every day. Now I mentioned before that cattle

must

be fed 16 pounds of grains to produce a single pound of flesh.

Smaller

animals are more efficient in this regard. To get that same single

pound

of flesh pigs consume about six pounds of feed and poultry need

about

four pounds. Milk requires the least amount of input averaging less

than

one pound of grain for each pint we drink. For each of these

examples,

the amounts vary. We can see how wasteful meat, poultry, and dairy

products are. If 16 pounds of grain were eaten directly by people

instead of fed to cattle to produce a single pound of flesh, we

would

net 20 times the amount of calories and ten times the amount of

protein

from it. And as an extra benefit while getting 20 times the

calories, we

would only be getting three times the fat. And even the fat is a

more

usable unsaturated fat instead of the heavy arachidonic difficult to

digest saturated fats from animal products.

 

Eating meat wastes calories at the same time that it cuts into the

amount of land that we have available to raise vegetables and

grains. Of

100 calories consumed for its production, milk gives us back a scant

15

percent. Eggs give us a tiny seven percent and beef only gives you

four

percent. Well how would you like to get involved in an investment

portfolio that offered you four, seven, and 15 dollars for every 100

dollars that you invest? You'd say well this is ridiculous. That's a

bad

investment. But those are the numbers we play when we consume meat

and

dairy products. Shouldn't we be as concerned about our food supply

as we

are about our passbooks savings?

 

Most people eat animal foods because they want the protein, but even

here there is a tremendous waste and inefficiency. We get to use

only

25, 12, and ten percent of the protein that goes into producing

milk,

pork, and beef respectively. In terms of land use a single acre of

farmland can yield 800,000 calories per acre for growing vegetables.

If

we feed the same vegetables to animals first, the meat and dairy

products that we then get in our food, gives us 200,000 calories.

That

adds up to a 75 percent loss in terms of nutrition. You can see why

as

meat eaters we have to start worrying about whether or not we have

enough land to feed the world's population. If we were all

vegetarians,

there would be an ample amount of acreage for our dietary needs.

 

Eating meat is robbing us of millions of tons of calories and

proteins

without even offering the health benefits of a vegetarian diet. To

sustain the meat and dairy producers we must compromise the use of

our

fertile and pure land and accept a 75 percent loss on return. Then

we

wonder why nature has not provided us with ample resources to feed

all

the world's populations. It has. We've just mismanaged it. Many

people

assume that most of the underdeveloped countries in the world simply

do

not have enough arable land and other resources to support their

population. However that's not true. The root of the hunger problem

according to the best study that I've seen is the misuse of land

resources. Small but powerful groups of wealthy landowners typically

use

the land in their countries to turn profits. By the way that's also

even

true in previously communist countries, which were utterly corrupt

and I

mean utterly corrupt.

 

I have friends who were at the hierarchy in Russia and I have

friends in

Cuba, and I'll tell you something. They never stood in a food line.

None

of their friends ever stood in a food line. They never shared an

apartment with four other families. No. There's always this little

oligarchy within every system that controls the rest of the system

no

matter what name you put on the system. There's always room for the

privileged not to have to adhere to the rules that everyone else has.

 

Even recently in Cuba one of the things that I was there for was to

study land use, and the predominance of land in Cuba, which is

extremely

beautiful country and wonderful people, though I certainly do not

respect its mismanagement under Fidel Castro who I'm not a friend

of.

Even though he is a friend of a lot of people in this system. I'm

not

one of them, but the Cuban people I am a friend to. They will tell

you.

Of course they tell you frequently where no one can hear their true

words that they would love to see the sugar cane fields eliminated

and

allow the individuals to have sustainable agriculture. There are so

many

rules and laws about what you can and cannot have and sell, and it's

just been pathetic. But there's a good example. Jamaica's no

different.

The best land in Jamaica is taken for sugar cane. I've gone to

Trinidad.

Same way. Best land sugar cane. Barbados. Best land sugar cane for

making molasses in one and sugar in the other countries. But when

you do

that it destroys the land because sugar cane uses up more nutrients

than

almost anything else other than corn. Corn is about the most useless

food ever grown, but it absolutely destroys the soil of its nitrogen

base. Then people have to find small little tracks frequently on the

sides of hills to grow what they can. So we have plenty of land in

the

world to feed everyone everything they need. It's just that it's

been

mismanaged and it's in the hands of people who do not see beyond

their

own immediate selfishness.

 

Reprioritizing the use of this. So instead of growing grain and

legumes

and vegetables and fruits and nuts and seeds for people many of whom

are

starving all around them the landowners choose to raise cash crops.

Cash

crops are things grown for dollar profit rather than to fulfill

local

dietary needs frequently for export. These crops are typically

exported

to people who will pay dearly for them. What do you take? Well let

me

tell you're supporting and subsidizing starvation. Okay. Let me put

a

mirror up to you for a moment and see if you can see this. Coffee.

So

when you're in your Starbucks or any of these other places ask

yourself.

You're drinking coffee. Did you know what had to happen to land use -

 

not even talking about whether it's organic or nonorganic - just for

that to be used? Sugar cane. Tobacco. Beef. Beef in particular.

Argentine beef. Think of all the beef that's grown in South America

for

fast food hamburger joints here. You say you care about people. When

you

go in and eat a hamburger you realize there could be 1,000 different

animal's flesh in that one single hamburger.

 

Do you know that it could come from South America where the rain

forest

was destroyed so they could grow cheap beef and that the agriculture

is

also destroyed? You don't have deep topsoil in South America. I went

into some of the fields in Venezuela and Brazil and other countries.

You

go down one inch and that's it. You're at clay or rock. So what

happens

is they take these giant tractors and they put humongous chains

between

them. The chains are like a foot around in the links, and they just

have

two tractors with a giant chain in between them. It's like going

down

two sides of a football field. Every tree and every thing just gets

ripped right out. Then they bulldoze all this down, and then they

take

these seed spreaders and they put down a seed for either Bahia or

Bermuda and then the grass grows and then they put all these cattle

in

there are heat resistant. That generally came over from India. They

grow

the beef, but every native species of bird and even native

populations

are out of there all for the hamburger.

 

The poor farmers who toiled the fields to grow them rarely can

afford to

buy any of the things they grow. The bulk of these luxury items are

exported to the wealthier industrialized world, and while beef

production rose over 90 percent in some areas of Latin America for

example local meat consumption dropped by 30 percent. Why? Well the

meat

is ending up not in Latin America's stomachs, but in franchised

restaurants. Staple crops are also raised in the third world of

course,

but even these are used indirectly as cash crops being used

primarily to

feed animals for the lucrative meat and dairy industries. Once these

affordable crops have been used for production of animal foods, they

become unaffordable to all but the affluent minority and the balance

is

shipped out of the country for cash. Now I'm going down to Haiti in

about two and a half weeks because I've been asked to help down

there,

and I intend to. I believe that we can help a lot of the starving

people. In fact I'm donating. I invented something that will help

them,

and I'm going to show them how to do some sustainable agriculture.

I'm

going to fund at least two test sites. We're going to take a look at

the

health of the people, and I'm going to take some people who have

some

serious illnesses especially malnutrition and parasites and AIDS and

I'm

going to work with them. I'm going to have some blood tests drawn on

them and taken to show what will happen every six months for two

years

of how we can reverse the diseases. Reverse their malnutrition. Have

them do it all locally in a sustainable way and because there's

really

no profit in it hopefully the organized crime elements, which are

rampant in Haiti, will not bother them.

 

That's frequently a problem in Africa. You go to put a water well in

a

village to help people get drinking water, and during the night the

guys

with the guns come and dig it up and take it and sell it for its

metal

value. So all that effort becomes for nothing. In any case I believe

that we can turn this problem around in every single country, but we

can't do it if we don't do it. We have to do something because

everything we've done as an official policy has failed and will

continue

to fail because it doesn't take into account how to get people to

become

self sufficient. How do you get them 2,500 calories a day? How do

you

get them vitamins and minerals? You're only going to be able to do

that

if you show them what to do and then show them proper land

utilization.

Then of course on a political level you have to get redistribution

of

land from the wealthy to the poor and that's never been done

voluntarily.

 

You want to talk about a lack of spirituality look in almost all the

countries where there's an inequity in who controls the land and

landlord groups continually bleeds the poor tenant farmer for the

bulk

of their produce by constantly raising their rent. Many are not even

content simply to monopolize the market. They go on to become

moneylender merchants hoarding grain. As grain is held back from the

population in this way, food shortages ensue. By now people are

desperate and hungry and will pay almost anything for the release of

some of their hoarded grain, and the landowner now, the merchant, is

finally ready to sell at instantly inflated prices. But there is a

lot

that can be done, and all we have to do is know that there is a

solution

beyond what we've been told.

 

Let us take a look at something that has not received much attention

in

the United States and that is King Cattle. In the early part of the

19th

century, cotton had become the chief cash crop in the United States.

King Cotton as it was called was the source of tremendous profit for

the

southern gentleman who farmed it and also for the northern

industrialist

who used it to make finished products. Everyone was profiting

almost.

Everyone except the slaves who were worked mercilessly pulling it

from

the plantation fields and the land that was depleted for years to

come

because of the reluctance to rotate cotton production with other

crops.

Plantation owners were bound to get everything they could while the

getting was good. Of course cotton was eventually dethroned. Slavery

ended and the vast plantation fields laid in waste. The magnificence

of

southern plantation had never recovered and the economy in general

is

just beginning to be reestablished where King Cotton once reigned.

 

In the 20th century cattle had become king bringing with it much of

the

same human, ecological, and economic abuse. As recently as just

1950,

each American was consuming an average of 60 pounds of beef, the

same

amount of pork, and 25 pounds of poultry per year. By the 1970's

though,

per capita beef and poultry consumption had doubled. The American

Meat

Institute having seen meat consumption dropped considerably since

1930

was waging an all out war to regain prominence in the American diet.

In

a published source book, it described how " from 1938 to 1956 the

American Meat Institute worked successfully against a declining rate

of

meat consumption by sponsoring an education and promotional program.

The

Institute invested more than 30 million dollars in consumer

advertising

in the last 17 year period to convince Americans that meat is a fine

food. "

 

The American Meat Institute carefully plotted its every move in

route to

totally duping the wide-eyed American public. It ran ads in the

American

Dietetic Association Journal claiming " magical results " from eating

meat. It was presented as a cure all that reversed everything from

pernicious anemia to pellagra. It was even held up as

the " nutritional

necessity for the steadily drinker and smoker, " as if these blatant

drug

abuses could be ameliorated by complimenting the diet with pork or

beef.

More bluntly meat was advertised as " the health guardian for men,

women,

and children. " These quotes are directly from the advertising in The

American Dietetic Journal. Eating meat seemed to be as important as

avenging the attack on Pearl Harbor.

 

" To argue as some governmental economists and experts do it was

reasoned

in meat three times a day that Americans should reduce their

standard of

living by ten percent through substitution of grains for a portion

of

meat, eggs, and milk that they now consume is to misunderstand the

spirit of Americans and what lies back of our country's greatness

and

productivity. Instead of talking about how low our meat consumption

can

be cut and conditioning researchers to discover whether or not an

ounce

or two a day is sufficient we should be working at increasing meat

to a

pound of day or even more. " The dairy industry was not to be outdone.

 

Americans had shunned dairy products and milk was generally known to

create too much bodily mucous and allergic reactions. Many mothers

nursed their babies or had them tended to by professional wet

nurses.

Cow's milk had been much criticized for the health hazards it posed

to

infants. The National Dairy Council struck back. The largest

provider of

nutrition education material for our schools systems. It boasted the

merits of milk and cheese. Sponsored self-serving research and

ultimately won the hearts of Americans. Infants were pulled from

their

mothers' breasts and introduced to the milk bottle while milk in the

classroom is now as common as beer to a bar. The America public was

not

to be taken lightly. The meat and the dairy industries were not

newcomers to public education and mass appeal techniques.

 

Knowing full well that the public could be convinced with some

supporting government reports and statistics they enlisted the aid

of

the United States Food and Drug Administration and the USDA. The

USDA

proposed the dietary concept of a basic four-food group, but mind

you

the dairy and meat and egg industries were right in on those

meetings

and so were their friends in high places. Those friends always knew

you

don't want to sass back the people who you may be working for in the

future. After all how many times have we seen that government

agencies

bend over backwards to take care of their friends?

 

Along with The American Dietetic Association, an avid almost rabid

meat

and dairy industry supporter, it proceeded to grossly oversimplify

the

guidelines to proper nutrition. Any close examination of the diet

suggested by the basic four-food group concept reveals a regimen

that

does not do anything to assure proper nutrition. It is grotesque. It

does assure a very healthy profit for agribusiness. The plan

suggests

that each person eat from the basic four food groups to be sure of

receiving " the recommended daily allowance of all nutrients. " The

four

food groups also aimed exclusively of course at meat and dairy

product.

 

The four-food groups were preceded in the 1930's by the 12-food

group,

and then that became the seven-food group. By the 1940's the 12 food

groups were milk and milk products, potatoes and sweet potatoes,

dried

mature peas, beans and nuts, tomatoes and citrus fruits, leafy

greens

and yellow vegetables and other fruits and vegetables, eggs, lean

meats,

poultry, fish, flour and cereal, butter and other fats and sugars.

Well

that's actually not bad if you eliminated milk and milk products as

number one. Then your top eight are all good. Then the basic seven

had

three fruit and vegetable groups and that was good, but neither of

these

groups sufficiently supported the public education demands of the

meat

and dairy industries. With too many people eating from the 12 food

groups and the basic seven groups, not enough animal products were

being

consumed to satisfy their profit plans.

 

Let's take a look why agribusiness is very happy to offer not 12 or

seven but only four food groups, which by the way even though they

are

totally challenged today as outmoded still have not been fully

replaced.

The basic four are well known to most consumers in the United

States.

Why not? We were indoctrinated with them. The milk group contains

dairy

products like butter and cream and cheese and milk, and the USDA

recommends three to four servings a day for children, two for

adults,

and three for pregnant women and four for lactating women. A cup of

milk

is considered a single serving. In The Dairy Council's Milk's The

One

commercials the word glassful was substituted for cups. So that four

to

six ounces above even USDA's recommendations were actually being

recommended. The meat group includes beef and pork and fish and

poultry

and eggs. Two daily servings are recommended.

 

By the very name of the group though and because they're listed as

secondary sources, the non-meat items are easily overlooked.

Vegetarians

and meat eaters alike are likely to be misled into presuming that

the

meats contain a better quality and greater quantity of protein. In

actuality the vegetarian items are just as good and frequently

better in

this regard. Still the public is left with the impression that

protein

deficiencies - ah oh - are going to result if you're a vegetarian.

Not

true. Now of course you can take someone who is misinformed and

misguided who is applying vegetarianism in an extreme way and yes

you

can find someone who gets sick. But no more so than someone that

overeats all of the standard foods and gets sick.

 

What you have to do is look at someone who's doing something

correctly.

Then take a look at the hormones in their bodies, c-reactive

proteins,

fibrinogen, and homocysteine. The meat eaters are going to have

elevations. When you have elevations, have greater heart attack,

greater

cancer, and greater stroke. Vegetarians you have less stroke, less

cancer, less heart attacks, and less diverticulitis and other

digestive

conditions and you're going to live longer. It's plain and simple.

It's

in the science. The vegetable fruit group is the third category. It

includes all the fruits and vegetables in a wide variety of foods.

It

certainly deserves to be classified but not as a subgroup. But

instead

they are. Four servings is the daily recommendation, but four

servings

of fruits and vegetables are not enough. All the science today shows

that the one thing that you can do to help your body prevent disease

is

to have antioxidants, and antioxidants are the single best

preventative

of disease. Plain and simple. Why? Because they block free radicals.

Your fruits and vegetables are a good source of that. Nine servings

minimum a day of fruits and vegetables are important.

 

Yet we're not getting it because when people saw that fruits and

vegetables we're not one of the main categories they kind of thought

well. As long as I get my primary dishes in - you know my meat

dishes,

my dairy dishes, then I'm okay. So people got their meat and dairy,

and

then didn't have an appetite or desire for the fruits and

vegetables.

Occasionally an apple or banana or orange and maybe a pear in

season.

Grapes sometimes. Fresh peach. But those were not regular daily

items.

Oh but they had to have that meat three times a day. To be a good

conscientious homemaker yes you prided yourself. I remember my

family.

They all had to have their meat three times a day. Treats. Canadian

bacon or sausage.

 

I remember my older brother eating like seven sausages and bacon and

eggs and white bread toast and coffee in the morning. No vitamins.

Of

course he smoked. Grilled cheese sandwiches and hamburgers for lunch

and

roast beef or something like that or pot roast for dinner.

Vegetables

were rare and when they were they were overcooked. Fruits. Not a

whole

lot of fruits. No such thing as a fresh fruit juice. It didn't

exist.

Milk. Plenty of milk. Plenty of cheese. All over the place. My

younger

brother would take a piece of cheese and stick his thumb with the

cheese

or finger with the cheese in the mustard jar or the mayonnaise jar.

Of

course that killed it for everyone else unless they were equally as

gross. Never drank out of a glass I don't think in his life. He

always

preferred drinking directly out of the container. Fine.

 

But I guess we were just like most typical homes and everybody

thought

they were getting everything they needed, but it wasn't true. We

were

living by propaganda. Of course the last group is the bread cereal

group, and while four servings are again recommended the question is

what were the benefits. Well the benefits are close to zero based

upon

how most people actually consume that basic four. It's in refined

carbohydrates causing a myriad of conditions from overweight to

gluten

intolerances to digestive difficulties, ph imbalances, extra mucous

throughout your body all because processing of the grains.

 

Since Americans have been force-fed the propaganda of the basic four

food groups, they have taken a beating in so many ways. While the

profits in the meat and dairy industries have increased greatly, the

average consumer has had to be in a position to pay for their own

health

consequences. Now of course when we start changing over to a

vegetarian

diet every thing can change for the better. Let me just give you

some

examples of this, and I want to focus some attention on one specific

area. That is can we be healthy eating meat. Now there's a healthy

case

for relying on organic whole grains and vegetables and legumes for

our

nutrients. But what about the anti meat side of the vegetarian

argument?

 

Meat can contain substances that are potentially harmful to the

human

body. For example meat is strongly susceptible to bacteria and

antibiotics are often injected in to it. The problem has long been

recognized. In fact Science Newsletter reported in 1948 that in

1947 " 40

million pounds of unfit meat reached the unsuspecting American

public. "

Now in this case the problem was mainly a matter of inadequate

inspection of poultry, but the poultry, which was inspected, 20

percent

was declared unfit for human consumption. Clearly this whole issue

merits a closer examination.

 

Animals like humans continuously eliminate waste products from their

tissues and cells to the surround blood. This natural process comes

to

an abrupt halt when the animal is slaughtered. All of the waste

material

present inside the body inside the tissue remains intact. And as

such

when you eat any flesh you're ingesting all of the unsavory

substances

that should have been excreted. By doing so you add unnecessary

stress

to your organs of elimination. The human body already has plenty of

waste to get rid off: worn out cells, byproducts of digestion.

Polluting

the system with additional animal waste may cause wear and tear on

this

biological mechanism. In the five organs of elimination - the lungs,

the

bladder, the kidneys, the sweat glands, and liver - may bear the

brunt

of the waste overload by developing any of the several degenerative

diseases.

 

To make matters worse meat unlike fruits and vegetables starts to

decay

the moment the animal dies and continues to degenerate during the

processing, packaging, and transportation to the market or butcher.

After slaughter a steer is sectioned and moved into cold storage.

Now

depending upon the cut the meat is then aged for a designated period

of

time to make it tender. It may be stored in a meat warehouse before

being sent to a butcher or a supermarket where it is packaged. There

it

sits in the meat section of the market until the unsuspecting

consumer

picks it up and finally prepares it and cooks and eats it. Whoever

eats

that meat ingests hundreds of millions of pathogenic bacteria in

every

piece of meat. Even if the meat looks fresh, it is still replete

with

bacteria.

 

Each gram of sausage stored at room temperature for nearly 20 hours

increases live bacteria count by 70 million. Each gram of beef -

that' a

gram of beef - that's a tiny amount - by 650 million bacteria per

gram.

Each gram of smoked ham a whopping 700 million additional bacteria

per

gram. Consumer Reports says that " 50 percent of the government

inspected

frankfurter sampled had begun to spoil and contained at least 20

million

bacteria per ounce. " Now what's an average hotdog or frankfurter

weigh

about four ounces? Well how about 100 million bacteria in your body

from

one hotdog?

 

You may reason that you would never leave meat out to spoil at room

temperature for such a long time. However you really can't know how

this

perishable item was handled before you bought it. The recent mystery

meat scandal in Denver, Colorado led to the conviction of a man for

doing something really terrible with meat. Lengthy testimonies

against

the owner of a cattle meat packing company exposed his methods of

operations. He ordered his workers " not to throw anything away. To

use

every bit and piece even the blood clots as a matter of practice. "

That

packing company added rotten meat in with the chopped beef and

brought

dead animals into the slaughterhouse. Inspectors also cited the

plant

for unsanitary conditions including rodent and cockroach

infestation,

paint chips, people urinating on the floor, repackaging of re-

returned

tainted meat, and falsification of inspection dates.

 

The plants' health inspectors apparently weren't watching. Many of

the

illegal happenings occurred while they were on their breaks. If

you're a

hamburger lover you should know that before it's shut down that

particular cattle venture was a major supplier of meat for The

Department of Defense, many supermarkets, and for the Roy Rogers and

Wendy's fast food chains. They also supplied nearly one-fourth of

the

hamburger meat designated for our nation's school lunch programs.

The

breaking of this scandal prevented an estimated 20 million pounds of

questionable meat from entering the food market. We'll never know

how

much tainted meat had already been consumed by the public, and how

much

is presently being sold. That's just one case. Not an isolated case.

 

Nebraska Beef Processors was recently charged with shipping rancid

meat

and changing USDA inspection stamps and was cited for the

violations.

USDA has had to provide additional inspectors for 13 meat packing

plants

experiencing chronic problems. So when you go to eat a piece of meat

how

do you know it's fresh? You don't. How do you know how much bacteria

is

in it? You don't. There's a big question because these problems are

happening everywhere. Admitting the health violations of that

particular

incident, its attorney commented, " Well those things happen like

they do

in every other meat packing plant in the United States. " That was

his

excuse.

 

The whole inspection system is inadequate. Many meat inspectors are

poorly trained and often over the period of a single day they're

expected to check more than 1,000 chickens and a hundred head of

cattle

in one day without the use of a microscope. It's a joke. Hundreds of

billions of bacteria go marching on. Where do they go? In to your

system. Just look at The Center For Disease Control. It

says, " Although

commercially ready to eat pork products are required by law to be

cooked, frozen or otherwise treated to kill spirulus larva, federal

and

state inspection procedures do not actually include examining of the

pork for the presence of the larva at the time of slaughter. The

burden

of the responsibility lies on the consumer. "

 

Hello. Did anyone tell you the last time you had a piece of pork you

better go have this inspected for the T-spirulus, which can cause

you a

lot of problems. No. That wasn't happening. Then again the average

American is just unaware of how bad it is. I'm Gary Null. I want to

thank you very much for listening to this part of our program. We

will

continue with our next segment. (End of Meat, Protein and Dispelling

the

Myths Part Three)

 

 

© 1996-2006 Gary Null & Associates, Inc. (GNA). .

Some of the articles and materials that appear herein are reproduced

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Consult

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what

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If you are using any medications, you must consult with your

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The information on this website is presented for educational

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JoAnn Guest

mrsjo-

www.geocities.com/mrsjoguest/Diets