Edging Towards Vegetarianism

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Back in the United States, more than half of all agricultural lands are used to raise beef, an allocation that carries serious cost implications. Furthermore, it takes 16 pounds of grain and soybeans to produce one pound of feedlot beef, five pounds of protein must be fed to chickens to produce one pound of chicken protein, and almost eight pounds to hogs for one pound of pork protein. When grain is fed to livestock, most of its protein (90%), carbohydrates (100%) and dietary fiber (100%) is wasted. An acre of land-my backyardcan produce 20,000 pounds of potatoes but only 165 pounds of beef, approximately 20 pure vegetarians can be fed on the amount of land needed to feed a single meat eater.

I must admit that a desire for a better environment and good nutrition for all humankind are only part of the attraction. If truth be told, I envy Mother Teresa's long life as much as I admire her good works. And a meat-free diet, I have learned on this journey, may even prolong life. Certainly Frances Moore Lappe's book argues that point, and research conducted by Seventh Day Adventists (vegetarians themselves) at the Loma Linda University Medical Center in California, supports it as well.

MARVIN Harris, on the other hand, contends that "while plant foods can sustain life, access to animal foods bestows health and well-being above and beyond mere survival." That's food for thought, but we may have, *in fact, already despoiled our planetary habitat to the degree that "mere survival" is the appropriate level at which to begin again. Dr. Murray E. Jarvik, inventor of the artificial heart, writes, "The moral is clear: Despite the fact that our ancestors loved meat and that we do, too, it carries with it the danger of heart disease."

In the end, as Havel and Milosz 'insist, it all boils down to a sense of personal responsibility. Perhaps responsibility for the health of the global environment begins with responsibility for personal health. The rates for cancer, for example, are indicators of widespread failure of personal and social responsibility. Need I emphasize that they are alarmingly high among meat, dairy and egg eaters? The strong correlation between meat consumption and colon cancer is well-known, and breast cancer is four times higher for women who eat meat daily than for those who consume it less than once a week. Cases of fatal prostate cancer are three and a half times greater among men who eat meat, eggs and dairy foods daily than among those who rarely eat such products. Such are the wages of environmental sin.

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