Comfortably Unaware

by Dr. Richard Oppenlander

  CHAPTER VII

  Pollution

  Yes, that would be you

  “The activist is not the person who says the river is dirty.

  The activist is the person who cleans up the river.”

  —Ross Perot

  EVERY SECOND OF EVERY DAY, THERE is depletion in the form of pollution. Pollution of any kind depletes the environment of clean healthy soil, waterways, ground-water, and the air we breathe. Some of the largest contributing sectors to this pollution are the meat, dairy, and fishing industries—and those who choose to eat things that these industries produce. “How can that be?” you say. “I simply eat it; I am not polluting.” Well, yes, you are. And here is how it all works: Your contribution to pollution begins with what you decide to purchase to consume. It’s not just with the occasional purchase; it’s with every food item you eat, every day. With meat and animal products, the pollution associated with your choice is massive. In order to raise that animal for you to eat, there is baggage that silently comes along with it—silent to you, that is, although it speaks loudly elsewhere. In the United States alone, chickens, turkeys, pigs, and cows in factory farms produce over five million pounds of excrement per minute. These are the animals raised each year so that people can continue eating meat, and they produce 130 times more excrement than the entire human population in our country. This manure sewage is responsible for global warming, water and soil pollution, air pollution, and use of our resources. The waste produced by the animals raised for food includes with it all the antibiotics, pesticides, herbicides, hormones, and other chemicals used during the raising and growing process. Accompanying this is methane released by the animals themselves, as well as the carbon, nitrous oxide, and additional methane emissions produced during the whole raising, feeding, and killing process.

  Regarding pollution of our global water supply, livestock are responsible for 37 percent of pesticide use, 55 percent of erosion, and 50 percent of the volume of antibiotics consumed.92 This ultimately ends up in our waterways, either directly or through runoff, creating water contamination. Livestock are responsible for 33 percent of the nitrogen and phosphorus loads found in freshwater resources.93 While there is no current assessment of the effective load into freshwater resources of sediments of heavy metals or biological contaminants, it can be reasonably assumed that livestock have a major role in these processes of pollution as well. In the United States, recent EPA studies have shown that 35,000 miles of rivers in twenty-two states and groundwater in seventeen states has been permanently contaminated by industrial farm waste.94 Raising animals for us to eat pollutes our waterways more than all other industries combined.95

  Pollution from animal factories is destroying our oceans as well. Streams and rivers carry vast amounts of excrement and chemical waste from livestock farms, which finds its way to the ocean. Deposits of animal feces, fertilizers, and toxic waste cause death of plants and sea life, as it causes massive algae populations that leave inadequate oxygen for other forms of life. One of the world’s largest “dead zones” can be found in the Gulf of Mexico off the U.S. coast. This is an area about half the size of the state of Maryland, in which nearly all the sea animals and plants have died. A 2006 report by Princeton University concluded that a shift away from meat production would dramatically reduce the amount of nitrogen carried into the Gulf, to levels that would render this dead zone “non-existent.”96 The UN now reports there are 150 dead zones in the world’s oceans, caused by an excess of nitrogen from farm fertilizers and sewage. Another example is the serious loss of marine life and ecosystems in the South China Sea due to nitrogen and phosphorus runoff, where it is now known that livestock are the primary inland source of contamination.97

  Knowing that many fishing areas are becoming devoid of fish, the development of fish farms has exploded in the past few years. Because stocks of most of the top ten fish species are depleted and overexploited, businesses and governments have turned to other ways to produce fish. Aquaculture, the growing of fish in a farmed area, increased by more than three million tons from 2006 to 2007 and is expected to grow faster than all other animal food sectors.98 This growth in aquaculture is driving an increase in global fishing, due to the need for fishmeal and fish oil, which is used in fish farms. It is a bizarre, ecologically unhealthy circle, where the demand to eat fish has taxed the oceans so there has been a proliferation of controlled fish-farm production, which places further stress on the oceans because of the need for fish-meal and oil in the production process.

  These fish farms now greatly contribute to water pollution on two levels. The first is by further concentrating toxin levels and creating a higher potential for our exposure to them. When fishmeal and fish oil are used in aquaculture, the process concentrates carcinogens such as dioxins. This occurs because various contaminants and chemicals are found in many types of fish, which are then passed on, in more condensed forms, as they work up the food chain. Farmed salmon, for instance, consistently have much higher levels of dioxin than their wild counterparts. This is because they are fed a constant diet of fishmeal, which now has concentrated amounts of the many pollutants to which all the fish comprising the meal were exposed during their lifetime. Farm-raised salmon and other fish now dominate certain markets, such as on the West Coast of the United States.99

  The second level of pollution for which fish farms are responsible is the massive amount of waste they produce, which further depletes our oceans. Farmers confine thousands of fish into tiny enclosures in the ocean, with enormous amounts of feces and other waste being created and deposited into our waterways. Farms typically grow up to 90,000 fish in a pen that is 100 feet by 100 feet. In one area with adjoining pens, as many as one million fish can be grown at one time.100 Organic and chemical wastes from these farms occur from all of the following sources:

  • Fish feces and bodily waste products

  • Fish mortalities that sink to the seabed

  • Fish blood from farms that kill and bleed fish on site prior to sale

  • Uneaten food

  • Eight types of antibiotics

  • Feed additives and coloring agents to make their white flesh appear pink

  • Zinc and copper

  • Paints and disinfectants

  All of these produce increased nitrogen levels and toxins that cover seafloors beneath these farms, creating large dead zones.101 One study in 2001 revealed that the farmed salmon just in British Columbia for one year produced as much nitrogen as the untreated annual sewage from 682,000 people.102 A professor of fisheries at the University of British Columbia has noted: “They [fish farms] are like floating pig farms.”103 Antibiotic use is common, as well as pesticides and copper sulfate, an algaecide. This is because diseases and parasites run rampant in the cramped, overcrowded fish-farm conditions. Swarms of sea lice actually end up being inadvertently incubated on the captive farmed fish and then attach themselves on wild salmon and other fish as they swim past the farms in the ocean.

  While fish-farm pollution has been studied and documented in North America, accurate reports have not been available for other areas of the world, such as China, where the industry has exploded. China produces over 70 percent of the global supply of farmed fish.104 It can be safely assumed that along with that is the production of massive amounts of ocean depletion of marine life and pollution. Fish farms exist because we have depleted our oceans of numerous species of marine life.

  The solution to loss of marine life is to eliminate the demand for fish, not to create new aquaculture industries that create an even greater level of depletion from additional fishing and pollution.

  Whether discussing land, water, or the air we breathe, our food choices heavily affect the level of pollution and ecological sustainability. The more you choose to eat animal products, the more you contribute to the worldwide pollution. It really does not matter whether it is in the form of livestock or fish; there still will be an excessive and unnecessary amount of depletion and
pollution.

  CHAPTER VIII

  Why Do We Do It?

  A word about nutrition—do you really care?

  “We are not just killing Mother Earth; we are killing ourselves.

  Earth will be here long after we are gone.”

  —Blackfoot tribesman

  CERTAINLY, THERE IS NO MYSTERY as to whether meat, dairy, and food derived from animal parts is good for your health; it is not. This is not just my opinion. Meat is factually not healthy for you, and there is an exhaustive amount of peer-reviewed literature that supports this. Additionally, numerous health organizations, such as the American Dietetic Association, the American Cancer Society, the American Heart Association, Physicians for Responsible Medicine, and many others, all recognize the health benefits and advantages of a plant-based diet and have supporting statements to indicate this. Then the question remains, why are the vast majority of people still eating meat? Why do we do it? The answer lies in a complex web of interactions that results in a continued tunneled belief that it is still healthy for you, despite the facts. You may wonder why I’ve included a chapter on nutrition in this book, which is meant to be about global depletion. The answer is simple: no book on global depletion would be complete without some mention of how the food we choose to eat causes profound depletion of our health.

  First on the list is heart disease—the number-one cause of death in the United States—which accounts for more than one million heart attacks and 500,000 deaths every year.105 Many studies have found that lifelong vegans have a nearly 60 percent reduced risk of death from heart disease.106 The American Dietetic Association has declared that a vegetarian diet reduces the risk of many chronic diseases and conditions, not only heart disease but also including cancer, obesity, hypertension, and diabetes.107 They further conclude: “Vegetarian diets offer a number of nutritional benefits, including lower levels of saturated fat, and cholesterol, as well as higher levels of fiber, magnesium, potassium, folic acid, and antioxidants, such as vitamins C and E and phytochemicals. Vegetarians have lower death rates from heart disease, lower blood cholesterol levels, lower blood pressure, and lower rates of hypertension and type 2 diabetes, and lower prostate and colon cancer.” It is now widely known that vegetarian diets can even reverse heart damage already present.108

  Then, there is cancer. The American Cancer Society (ACS) has as its number-one recommendation, on nutrition for cancer prevention, to eat a diet “with emphasis on plant sources.”109 This is supported by numerous studies that show that individuals who do not eat animal products have a 50 percent less likelihood of developing many cancers. The ACS and researchers at Yale have found that meat-based diets can cause cancers of the stomach, esophagus, colon, prostate, and lymphoma.110 People who eat hot dogs, sausages, and other cured meats have a 70 percent increase in pancreatic cancer.111 The World Cancer Research Fund goes further and recommends a plant-based diet, listing fruits and vegetables as “convincing/probable risk reducers for cancer of the bladder, breast, cervix, colon, endometrium, esophagus, kidney, larynx, liver, lung, mouth, pharynx, ovary, pancreas, rectum, stomach, and thyroid.”112 Clearly, animal products eaten as food significantly increase one’s risk of numerous disease states, such as the three largest causes of death—heart disease, cardiovascular disease, and diabetes—as well as many forms of cancers.113 Eating meat and dairy also increase one’s chances of contracting kidney stones and kidney disease, gallstones, and osteoporosis.114 The obvious effect of all of this concurring information is the need for a change in dietary choices.

  While there is much to be said about all nutrition issues as they relate to food choices and risk factors, let’s look more closely at the relationship of the consumption of meat and dairy products to osteoporosis, as this represents an area of gross public misinformation and a subsequent state of being unaware. Despite what the dairy industry wants you to believe by its massive multimillion dollar ad campaigns, milk and milk products do not “build strong bones,” and they will not prevent osteoporosis. In fact, numerous studies have shown that it is more a problem of limiting calcium loss than it is of increasing calcium intake. Countries that consume the highest amount of dairy products, such as Switzerland and the United States, have some of the highest incidence of osteoporosis, while other countries, such as in Africa and Asia, where virtually no dairy products are consumed, have the lowest rate of osteoporosis and hip fractures. While genetics and hormonal interaction may have roles, the principal reason for these findings may reside in the simple truth that individuals who consume high amounts of animal protein and dairy products are at a risk of depleting their calcium stores, regardless of how much calcium they consume. Animal protein found in all meat products has sulfur-containing amino acids, such as methionine, and large quantities of phosphorus, both which have been found to impair calcium balance. While you may think eating more protein in the form of meat and dairy is healthy, it actually is not. Your body cannot store any excess protein, and it must be excreted by the kidneys. During the elimination process of this, and in the attempt to balance excessive phosphorus from animal sources, calcium from your body is needed and used; thus, the unlikely loss begins. Beef and chicken, for instance, have phosphorous-to-calcium ratios of 15:1, while most vegetables have ratios averaging near 1:1, allowing for a much healthier calcium balance. Green leafy vegetables, such as kale, have quite a bit of calcium, which is as absorbable as that of meat and dairy products but without the baggage of excessive phosphorus and sulfur-containing amino acids. Eating kale may not provide you with a “milk mustache,” and you may never be aware of its benefits through television or magazine advertisements, but it will create a healthier calcium balance for you and be much better for our planet than eating any meat or dairy product.

  If animal products are killing us, why do we still eat them? The answer is quite frustrating and is wrapped in multidimensional levels. First, although there is a massive amount of supportive information in journals as ample validation, much of this information is passed over or overtly suppressed. Why? Because this information is controversial. In fact, I feel that this information is most controversial and damaging to the powerful industries and corporations that currently have the ability to suppress it—or to make life miserable for anyone who attempts to publicize it. Second, most individuals do not believe (or do not want to believe) that those meatballs that their mother or grandmother used to make were actually unhealthy or that eating them contributes to a number of debilitating diseases. To be honest, those very same meatballs (and similar animal products) consumed over a number of years may well have been one of the largest reasons for Grandma’s death.

  Milk—as much as you may want to believe otherwise—is not healthy for you either. A vast amount of evidence reveals problems with milk’s protein, sugar, fat, contaminants, and lack of nutrients. Milk should no longer be recommended or considered required for growth or health benefits, as many organizations now recognize that it is unhealthy for consumption, due to the many health risks. It has been shown that milk contains numerous allergens, bovine growth hormones, and chemicals (herbicides, pesticides, fungicides, DDT, and others).115 Some studies have documented as many as seventy-three contaminants found in any one milk sample.116 It is also now understood that cow’s milk causes asthma, food allergies, and chronic constipation, particularly in children.117,118 For these reasons, the American Academy of Pediatrics now recommends that no cow’s milk be given to infants under one year of age.119

  It is interesting to note that the majority of individuals in the world are lactose intolerant, meaning they are unable to digest milk and other dairy products. In 2000, findings in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association revealed that “approximately 75 percent of the world’s population has lost the ability to completely digest lactose after infancy.” For these individuals, consumption of any dairy products causes stomach upset, bloating, and distress. In the United States alone, those who are lactose intolerant include 83 percent of
African Americans, nearly 90 percent of Asians, 60 percent of Native Americans, and 75 percent of Hispanics.120 For these populations, milk should not be a dietary option, strictly from a physiological standpoint, as they lack the enzyme to digest it.

  The answer to why we keep drinking milk lies in the fact that it has been, and still is, heavily ingrained in us by the dairy industry that it is a “health food” and is necessary for proper growth and bone development, which it is not. The original Food Guidelines and Pyramid that Americans use as a guide to proper nutrition was established by the Dairy Council and USDA years ago, with their own economic motives in mind. This very misleading guide was pushed by these organizations into every school system and home across America. Misleading marketing by the dairy industry still pervades today, with the “got milk” mustache campaign, and sayings such as “Milk gives you strong bones,” and now, “You can even lose weight by drinking milk.” As pointed out earlier, perhaps the public could be enlightened to the fact that milk does not give you “strong bones,” as well as to all the documented ill effects that drinking milk presents.

  The meat industry is even more involved with misleading the public that their animal products provide health benefits. This is despite the fact that there now is an enormous amount of medical and epidemiological studies that implicate animal products as a cause of cancer of the colon, rectum, stomach, prostrate, and breast.121 Also, all meat has cholesterol and saturated fat, too much of which your body does not want or need. Many meat products, when cooked, have cancer-causing heterocyclic amines and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons.122 Additionally, no meat of any kind will give you fiber, antioxidants, phytonutrients, or many vitamins or minerals that you need for optimal health. The scientific evidence against eating meat is indicting. Yet people still eat it because of cultural/social implications and misleading marketing. They simply cannot get themselves past the following hurdles: