From: ra-AT-alor.univ-montp3.fr
Date: 23 Jan 1997 09:27:42 UTC   (05:27:42 AM in author's locale)
To: RA-L-AT-bred.univ-montp3.fr

Date: Wed, 22 Jan 1997 17:40:06 -0330 (NST)
>From: Alka Chandna <ac-AT-math.mun.ca>
Yes, I would have to agree with Tom on this one. According to a report
of the WorldWatch Institute that was published a few years ago (1993, I
think), many of the environmental problems being witnessed presently in
the U.S. are the result of excessive reliance on animal protein, and the
inefficacy of this choice. I believe John Robbins' book, "Diet for a New
America" documents that food for the average vegan uses 1/8 the amount of
land used for someone who eats the standard American diet. The USDA has
noted that 85¨f the topsoil that has been lost in the U.S. is directly
attibutable to livestock raising. The New Internationalist, in an issue
that was devoted to Animal Rights, noted that at the height of the
Ethiopian famine, Britain was importing grain for its cattle from
Ethiopia! Tom is quite right in noting that some 70¨f all of the major
grains and beans harvested in the U.S. are grown for livestock.
Meanwhile, the figure worldwide is closer to 50 or 529 Again, there
were some good stats in a New Internationalist magazine that appeared in
the summer of '95, pointing out that India (a primarily vegetarian
nation that has succeeded in producing enough food for her people) uses
2¨f her grain to feed livestock, while that percentage rises to 70Ÿor
the U.S. Many people complain that John Robbins' book has become dated.
A new book, which includes the latest statistics (for the environmental,
health & animal facets of veganism) as well as the latest on the
China-Oxford-Cornell Health Study and the latest on Mad Cow Disease, is
due out in the Fall of '97. The book is titled, "Vegan", is authored by
Erik Marcus (who did his research at Cornell University), and will be
published by a small Ithaca-based publisher called McBooks. If anyone
would like to obtain more information, you can email me. There is a www
site associated with the book, but I've temporarily misplaced it.
Cheers,
alka

On Wed, 22 Jan 1997 ra-AT-alor.univ-montp3.fr wrote:
> Date: Tue, 21 Jan 1997 14:15:32 -0500 (EST)
> >From: the product of a few thousand years of propaganda
> <tma95588-AT-pegasus.cc.ucf.edu>
>
> I vehemently disagree w/ the statement that vegans, or vegetarians in
> general, use more land than "mixed eaters"-most grains, for example are
> grown specifically for livestock (as I recall, the figure is 70Ÿor the
> US...I don't know what it is globally)-considering that much of the
> cattle, & still more of the other foodstuffs consumed in "1st-World"
> nations is produced in 3rd-world conditions, the political justifications
> for vegetarianism are fairly easy to see-these do not include the related
> ecological justifications, of course...
>
> -Tom
>
"The crises of our planet-time, whether viewed in military or ecological or
social terms, result from a dysfunctional and pathogenic concept of self. It
is a mistake about our place in the order of things. It is the delusion that
the self is so separate and fragile that we must delineate and defend its
boundaries, that it is so small and needy that we must endlessly acquire and
endlessly consume, that it is so aloof that we can - as individuals,
corporations, nation-states or as a species -