What Has Eyes,
Intelligent People Do Not Eat
People,
Don’t Eat Us! Please
Let Us Live!
Don’t
Eat Meat! Why? Every year 45 billion animals are killed
worldwide for human consumption. For example, in Germany it is
332,100,000 roasting chickens, 40,200,000 pigs, 24,000,000 soup
chickens, 20,300,000 turkeys, 14,200,000 ducks, 4,100,000 cows,
1,000,000 geese, 900,000 sheep or goats and 7,500 horses. And in the US
the numbers are even greater: In 2002, for example, a total of 10,108
million animals were killed and raised for food. These included for
instance, 41 million cattle and calves, 116 million pigs, 4.2 million
sheep, 304 million turkeys, 25,6 million ducks, as well as 2,133 million
broilers and 484 million laying hens.
There is no intelligent reason for this! Because: Factory
Farming The Animals Lament:
The Pig
Ghetto:
“In groups of 80 to 200 animals, we pigs
are kept on gratings in nearly constant darkness. We stand on split
flooring with no straw on it, which often leads to damaged joints. We
are produced as if in a factory. The breeding sows are artificially
inseminated in individual pens. During their 15 weeks of pregnancy, they
are kept vegetating in very dimly lit tiny concrete stalls. To give
birth they are tied up in special birthing pens. They can hardly move,
and can merely stand up and then lie down again. So it is impossible for
them to care for their young.”
The Hen “Torture Chamber”:
“We laying hens vegetate away our brief lives
in
 windowless halls where we live in group cages up to 8 stories high.
Twenty-two hens share 1 square meter of space; and the stench is
unbearable. Already after 14-18 months of the hen torture chamber, our
egg-laying performance is not high enough, and so we land in the soup
pot. However, up to 20% of us do not even survive these 1 1/2 years: We
die of stress, infection, bone disease, etc.”
The Calf Prison:
“We are shut into narrow wooden pens,
 where we
can hardly move. Right up until our murder, which you call slaughter, we
are not given more than 1 square meter of space – this is how those who
fatten us maximize their profits. Instead of mother’s milk we get only
a fatty, white brew, consisting of skim-milk powder, tallow, whale fat
and lots of salt. We get terribly thirsty from all the salt and since we
do not get any water, we drink even more of the salty brew. In this way,
we are fattened to our slaughtering weight in a very short time. During
our whole brief and lonely life, we never even see a green meadow. We
see the sun for the first time on our way to the slaughterhouse.”
The Turkey Death Cell:
“We turkeys in factory farming suffer even
more than
 chickens being fattened for slaughter. Since our breast is
the most desirable and expensive piece, our skeleton, legs and
ligaments are bent under the weight of our flesh because they cannot
keep up with the accelerated growth of our body. At the end of our
22-week lives, we slide around or we lie on our extra-wide and heavy
breast. Just like the hen torture chambers, our beaks and those of ducks
are cut off – without anesthesia. Pain and constant irritation are the
result - comparable to having your human lips cut off.” Eating
meat is cruel
The Animals
Lament
Miserable transport:
“You transport us thousands of kilometers all
through the continent. We are crammed into the tightest
 space for days,
without water, without food, in unbearable heat, in icy cold, with
broken bones or open wounds. Many of us do not survive the
transportation. We die of thirst; we are crushed; we die of severe
injuries or from panic and stress. On the way to the slaughterhouse,
many of us are so weak that we can’t even walk 100 meters further. So
that we move more quickly, we are prodded with metal hooks in the
mouth, eyes or anus.”
Brutality in the
Slaughterhouse:
“When the butchers slit us open,
cut our
 throats or saw off our legs we are often still conscious. We
bellow on the hooks; we twitch in death anxiety and under hellish pain.
And the animals next in line have to witness the final agonies of their
brothers and sisters, knowing that it will be exactly the same for them.
But you know no mercy. You call this reasonable, because you want to eat
us.”
The
Execution:
“You try to numb us
 pigs with
electric tongs. The pain shoots through our head, our whole body, like a
bolt of lightening. You think we don’t feel anything, when after the
electric shock you throw us into boiling water to burn the hair and
soften our hides for skinning. But your numbing doesn’t work for very
long. We experience on our living body how our lungs fill with boiling
hot water ... a terrible death!”
Hunting Terror from Ambush: “The hunters set up a trap and lure us wild pigs with
feed bait, in order to better shoot
 us – comfortably and cowardly from
outside the confines of the trap. But one cannot always talk about a
”quick death.” Some of my friends and relatives are shot and wounded in
the open. ‘Expansion bullets’ tear blood and intestines out of severely
wounded, fleeing animals.” “Over 60% of the deer hunted do not die immediately.
Many drag themselves along through the forest for hours and days,
severely injured, with intestines hanging out. Fawns watch helplessly as
their mothers bleed to death.” “A special favorite is the hunting drives against us
field
 hares. Even though we can run so fast, we don’t have a chance.
When the hunter’s round of buckshot hits, we scream in pain like little
human children. Many hit hares turn several somersaults in the air,
screaming from pain until they lie dead.” The consumption of meat, sausage, fish and poultry is
a risk factor for numerous illnesses. The one who wants to live a
healthy life should avoid these products. Seen from a
dietary-physiological point of view, meat is a superfluous form of
nutrition. There is no longer any doubt among experts that one’s dietary
needs can met with a vegetarian diet. This is true for all ages With
some diseases, for example, high blood pressure, rheumatism or metabolic
disorders, a vegetarian way of life is the most sensible therapeutic
measure there is. How each person wants to decide about eating meat is
up to him, but he should be clear about the consequences. Cancer,
Diabetes, Osteoporosis …
•
Meat
and Diabetes:
A high consumption of saturated fatty acids can lead to an insulin
resistance and encourages the development of diabetes mellitus. Animal
products generally contain a lot of saturated fatty acids. •
Meat and Obesity:
Saturated fatty acids further the development of
being overweight. Being overweight is a risk factor for heart disease,
heart attacks, strokes and circulatory disorders. •
Meat and Bones:
On the average, meat products contain more phosphorus
then calcium. A raised phosphorus/calcium ratio results in an increased
release of calcium from the bones. As some studies have shown, there is
a close relationship between a high dietary consumption of phosphates
and a raised risk of osteoporosis and broken bones.
•
Meat and Cancer:
The National Institute of Health, the largest medical
research institution in the world, determined in 2001 an increased risk
of cancer with the consumption of red meat. Argentina and Uruguay are
some of the world’s largest consumers of beef and also belong to the
countries with the highest rates of breast and colon cancer. A study by the University of Minnesota published in
September 2002 shows that the consumption of barbecued red meat promotes
the development of pancreatic cancer. •
Meat and Inflammation and Pain:
Animal products
contain high levels of arachidonic acid, which forms inflammatory
substances. These can lead to the development of neuro dermatitis,
inflammation of the small intestines or colon, asthma, arthritis and
rheumatism.
•
Meat and Heart Attacks and Arteriosclerosis:
A too-high intake of iron
brought on by the consumption of red meat is a dangerous source of free
radicals that damage the blood vessels. The risk of a heart attack
increases, particularly with men. •
Meat and Depression:
Meat has a negative effect on the psyche. A study in
1998 showed an increased occurrence of anxiety and depression in meat
eaters in comparison to vegetarians.
•
Meat and Intelligence?
A diet rich in protein leads to an increase in
cortisone in the blood plasma and saliva. A chronically raised
concentration of cortisone damages the hippocampus, which leads to a
clear deterioration of memory. According to a study by the Loma Linda
University in California, meat-eaters have twice as high a risk of
developing dementia.  20 billion “slaughter animals”
live on our planet. What do they eat?
40% of the worldwide grain harvest lands in the factory farms of
industrial nations. In order to “produce”
1 kilo of beef, you need
9 kilos of
grain. The poor nations are partly forced to sell for
animal feed highly nutritious plant foods that are necessary for the
human diet. We import
60% of the
animal feed
used in factory farming (grain,
soybeans, peanuts, etc.) from developing countries. For a
200 gram steak, up to 2 kilos of grain are used as animal feed. These 2
kilos of grain would satisfy the hunger of ca. 8 children. 40,000
children starve to death every day! 50
million people starve to death every year!
If the industrial countries would reduce their
meat consumption by
a mere
10%,
100 million additional people could be fed. No
one has to starve!
“The rich man’s cow
eats the poor man’s bread.”
Solid
and Liquid Manures:
The
production of 1 kilo pork generates ca. 15 kilos of liquid manure – US
farm animals produce 1.4 billion tons of solid manure per year – 130
times the amount produced by the human population. The
nitrates
contained in it pollutes the
groundwater. The ammonia fumes from manure and slurry is a major
contributor to the development of
acid rain
and
dying forests.
Greenhouse Effect:
The
production of meat releases great quantities of CO2,
especially through the burning of the rain forests for hamburger
chains. Aside from this, cows produce 100 million tons of methane
annually – 20% of the entire emission of this highly poisonous gas. Rain Forests:
Every two seconds an area of forest the size of a
football field is destroyed – in great part for planting pastures.
5
square meters of rain forest
are cut down to produce
one
hamburger.
The
consequences of this destruction for the water and climate cycles of the
Earth cannot yet be estimated.
Soil
Erosion:
The percentage
of soil erosion caused by the production of meat and of milk is 85% -
that is a total of 24 billion tons every year. Raw
Materials: One third of all raw materials are consumed by
factory farming: plant foods, fossil fuels, wood and minerals.
Drinking
Water:
50% of
the entire consumption of drinking water is accounted for in factory
farming. For the production of 1 kilo of meat, 100 times more water is used
on the average than for the production of 1 kilo of grain or vegetables.
And yet, according to the United Nation more than 1.4 billion people in
the world do not have access to safe drinking water. What
has eyes, intelligent people do not eat
Albert
Einstein: physicist:
“Nothing will increase the chances of survival for life on Earth as much
as the evolution to a vegetarian diet.” Thomas Alva Edison: inventor
of the light-bulb:
“I am a vegetarian as well as a passionate anti-alcoholic, because I can
thus make better use of my brain.” Leo
Tolstoy: author: “Eating meat is a left-over of the greatest
brutality; the transition to vegetarianism is the first and most natural
consequence of enlightenment.” Leonardo da
Vinci, universal genius:
 “Man is truly the king of all animals, because his cruelty surpasses
theirs. We live from the death of others. We are walking graves!” Brian
Adams, singer: “I have been vegetarian for twelve
years. And I have never been seriously ill. Vegetarian food strengthens
the immune system. I think that meat makes you sick.”
Mahatma
Gandhi, Nobel Prize winner: “I think that spiritual growth compels
us at a certain point to stop killing our fellow creatures for the
satisfaction of our physical wants.”
Volker Elis
Pilgrim, author: “The meat we eat is a carcass that is at least 2 to 5
days old.” Albert
Schweitzer, physician, Nobel Peace Prize:
“My view is that we stand up for treating the animals in a considerate
way, for completely renouncing the eating of meat and also for speaking
out against it. This is what I do myself. And in this way many a one
becomes aware of a problem that was put forward so late.” Paul
McCartney: “One may not eat what has a face.” Wilhelm
Busch, author:
 “A true human culture will only exist when not only human gluttony, but
all eating of meat is considered cannibalism.”
George Bernard Shaw, Irish playwright; Nobel Prize winner 1950: “Animals are my friends – and I don’t eat my friends!”
“In every animal, but in every plant as well, the mighty creator-force
is present: God, the omnipresent universal eternal Spirit, the
All-intelligence. Anyone who has just a little heart for nature can
sense in the expression of an animal, or in the beauty of a plant, in
the shape of a rock, or in liquid substances that Earth could be a
paradise.
To justify the boundless exploitation of nature, the following words of
the Creator are often quoted: Subdue the earth (Gen. 1:28). The
word ”subdue,” however does not mean that animals may be tormented,
forests and plants annihilated, or that everything may be destroyed that
is within mankind’s grasp. The word “subdue” means the commandment to
preserve the nature kingdoms and all of the Earth. We are called upon to
treat animals with love and to care for them. We are called upon to
respect, cherish and love all life forms on Earth, even Earth as a
whole, because everything in all things is the work of the Almighty –
the love for humans, animals, plants and rocks, for the entire Earth.
Anyone who has ever cared for an animal feels that internally he has
grown richer and more conscious of nature. But anyone who builds meat
factories and slaughterhouses, or who condones these by consuming the
flesh of his second neighbors, such a person’s consciousness will grow
ever more narrow because such a person is impoverished in his inner
being.
Excerpt from Prophet No. 15, “Animals
Lament, The Prophet Denounces” |
