A couple of years ago the religious scholar Dr. Alan Wauters from New York
told me that Nostradamus (French astrologer, 1503-1566, known for his prophecies)
is believed to have said that at the end of the 20th century smoking will be
banned from public buildings and at the beginning of the 21st century meat eating
will be taboo.
There is evidence world-wide, but especially in the western countries, that
this prediction is not far from the truth.
Health
More and more people are adopting a vegetarian diet or reducing their meat consumption
drastically. Vegetarianism has become a modern trend, attracting especially
the young generation. Between thirty and forty-per-cent of meals at universities
in Germany and Switzerland are vegetarian. While 30-40 years ago only few people
knew the meaning of "vegetarianism", today every child knows the word.
Many epidemiological studies have proved that a vegetarian lifestyle is healthier
and, contrary to what the meat and dairy industry claim, it is now known that
not only is it possible to live without animal protein, it is even advisable.
Many studies, which were undertaken already many years ago are coming to light
only now thanks to the Internet. This allows authentic information to be accessed
by all and sundry in an uncensored form. I am firmly convinced that thanks to
the World Wide Web the vegetarian lifestyle will be adopted rapidly by more
and more people in every country.
The most famous naturalists - i.e. Carl Liné, Alexander Humbold, Charles
Darwin - left no doubt that humans were and are plant eaters. They deduced this
from researching the history of origins and the comparative anatomy. Humans
eating meat is the same as cows being forced to eat animal protein. The mad
cow disease (BSE) and the Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease have shown the world what
happens to creatures that have not been given the diet programmed for them by
nature. Cancer, coronary heart disease, rheumatism, arteriosclerosis, diabetes,
Parkinson"s, Alzheimer, Creutzfeldt-Jakobs, Osteoporosis disease are only
a few of the diseases that have increased rapidly parallel to the growing consumption
of processed food and animal products.
During the last century the diet in western countries has transgressed and unfortunately
it seems that the trend is also spreading throughout Asia.
Compared to the year 1900, a person nowadays in Europe and America consumes,
on average, 35% more dairy products, 50% more beef, 70 % more fish, 120% more
eggs and 280% more poultry. During the same period, with the exception of the
war years, heart disease and cancer increased by 3-5% annually and are still
on the increase. Cancer is the most common cause of death in children under
the age of twelve.
Instead of recommending a healthier lifestyle and trying to avoid such health
risks, the medical researchers create new ways of replacing destroyed organs.
After exhausting the supply of human organ donations, which are never enough,
they are now looking into the terrible prospect of xeno-transplantation (animal
to human transplants) where animals, especially pigs, will be turned into spare
part factories, and will be plundered for their organs.
Destruction of our environment
More than 6 billion inhabitants are living on our earth and every second 5 more
children are born. How can they all be fed?
A meat based diet requires 20 times more land and 14 times more water than a
plant based diet. The production of 1kg of meat requires 10-16kg of cereals
and other plant food. 70% of the world"s water production is needed for
the production of fodder. About 70% of meat produced is waste! The mad cows
have shown us what happens if the waste is used as "concentrated food"
for herbivores. Animal excrement (110t per second in Europe and America), pesticides
and fertilisers are responsible for the pollution of lakes, rivers and groundwater
(fish become hermaphrodites and infertile).
Two-thirds of the excrement is liquid manure. The evaporation of the ammonia
from this liquid is partly the cause of acid rain, after having changed to nitric
acid. Eighty-five percent of the ammonia, considered to be mainly responsible
for the dying forests, is being caused by emissions from livestock.
Animal suffering
But the main reason why we should abstain from meat eating is because sentient,
suffering creatures are being robbed of their life for it. Every year in the
world 13 billion animals are slaughtered. The production of such a large number
of animals is only possible in factory farms. The animals are confined to narrow
spaces, with no place to rest, are fed on unnatural food, and have no social
contact. All this causes the animals a lasting stress and the torture has to
be combated with a growing amount of medicines, antibiotics, hormones, drugs,
tranquillisers, etc. The medicines accumulated in the body of the animals are
then in the end-effect served up to the consumer.
Recently the production of "Bio" meat has become popular. The animals
are kept and raised under so-called natural conditions. But the fact remains
that their most precious possession, their life, is generally taken after only
a very short time.
"Bio" (coming from the Greek) means "life". It is worthwhile
to note that not so long Brigitte Bardot said, that meat is swrved as "nicely
decorated carcass".
More and more famous people are prepared to confess with pride, the fact that
they are vegetarians: Martina Navratilova, Edwin Moses, Richard Gere, Bruce
Springsteen, Paul McCartney, Robert Redford, Madonna, Tina Turner, Whitney Houston,
Montserra Caballé, Queen Sofia from Spain, Swiss Traffic Minister Moritz
Leuenberger, Stevie Wonder and Peter Gabriel to name only a few. Throughout
the past there have always been people who adopted a vegetarian lifestyle for
various reasons: Albert Einstein, Bonifatius, Chrysostomus, Benjamin Franklin,
Mahatma Gandhi, Sven Hedin, Horaz, Alexander Humboldt, Charles Darwin, Isaac
Singer, Leonardo da Vinci, Zarathsutra, Mother Theresa.
To conclude I have added a few quotations from famous vegetarians which might
help "still meat eaters" to rethink their eating habits:
Albert Schweizer said: "Nothing on earth will benefit human health and
increase the chance for survival on earth as much as the adoption of a vegetarian
diet."
Leo Tolstoi : "As long as there are slaughterhouses there will be battlefields".
George Bernard Shaw, who was a vegetarian for more than 60 years: "Animals
are my friends and I don"t eat my friends."
Sigrid De Leo, Secretary of the European Vegetarian Union,
Bluetschwitzerweg 5,
9443 Widnau,
Switzerland,
Tel./Fax: +41 71 722 64 45,
email: evu@ivu.org