Elephant in the Room: Factory Farming, the Environment & Our Health

Huyen T. Nguyen

11/15/2009

Good morning fellow congregants & visitors <smile>. Iʼm so pleased that you have taken time out of your busy schedules to come and join us on this beautiful Sunday morning. Iʼm grateful for this opportunity to share on a topic about which Iʼve got, oh, a little bit of passion. I hope by the end of service, you will come away with a sense of wonder and awe at a miraculous world in which we currently exist. And also, with a sense of your special place in it, and what great personal powers we all possess to effect change (hopefully for the betterment of all beings).

So, Iʼm here to bring up the existence of the figurative “elephant in the room”.

We are all (consciously or unconsciously, actively or inadvertently) participants in this activity called factory farming, otherwise known as CAFO (concentrated animal feeding operations). “Oh really?” You might inquire, “so how come Iʼve never heard of or even seen what youʼre talking about”. I believe the reason for this veil of ignorance thatʼs been cast over our mouths is that the people who “benefit” from this method of food production (and I use the word “benefit” loosely, as they are still, after all, part of the food chain) stand to lose a great deal IF the way of “meat making” is perceived consciously by individuals consuming their products.

Definitions of terms may be in order here. What do I mean by factory farming?

According to Wikipedia, factory farming is defined as “the practice of raising farm animals in confinement at high stocking density, where a farm operates as a factory.” Industrialization of animal husbandry began some time in the late 1800ʼs as referenced by the American author, Upton Sinclair in his 1906 classic novel, The Jungle. In The Jungle, the meat packing industry received a shakedown which left a lot of consumers queasy over what they were serving at the dinner table. Things have certainly changed since The Jungle was written.

Technology now permits us to grow a greater number of animals under more concentrated conditions using forced breeding methods, automation in feeding & slaughter, antibiotics & hormones to keep the stressed animals alive until slaughter, and insecticides to grow the crops needed to feed the large quantity of animals.

What do I mean by ʻlarge quantityʼ? According to the Organic Consumers Association, 90K cows & calves are slaughtered every 24 hours in the U.S. alone. The chickens have it worse. In the U.S., 14K chickens are slaughtered for food every minute. Annually in the U.S., 10 billion food animals (not counting aquatic creatures) are killed for human consumption. Thatʼs... a lot of animals. Compare those numbers to the human population in the U.S. which, in

2008, was estimated to be only 304 million or 2 orders of magnitude less than the no. of land animals used for food. Letʼs just say, with this scale of meat manufacturing, humane treatment of animals, animal or human health concerns, and environmental costs are low on the manufacturersʼ priority list.

Itʼs no surprise to find that practically all of the pandemics in the last century (with the possible exception of HIV) have been linked to ingestion of contaminated products linked to factory farming practices. What do I mean by this? The fact that animals are living in unnaturally crowded conditions means that if one becomes sick, many become sick. The practice of feeding animals their own ʻrenderingsʼ was thought to have been responsible for mad cowʼs disease. In order to prevent infections, 24.6 million pounds of antibiotics are given to livestock per year in the U.S. Compare this to the 3 million pounds of antibiotics administered to humans/year in the U.S. In 1960, 13% of staph infections were penicillin-resistant. In 1988, 91% were penicillin-resistant. Granted, some of the penicillin resistance may have come about from the antibiotics used in humans, but given the 2 orders of magnitude greater antibiotic use in food animals, it doesnʼt take a scientist to surmise that antibiotics resistance most likely resulted from our ingestion of abx through our meat and dairy supply. In fact, routine feeding of abx to livestock has been banned in Europe. Not so in the U.S. We have been or will be dealing with cases of Campylobacter (poultry), Salmonella (eggs), E. Coli (USDA estimate in 2000 is that 89% of U.S. beef patties contain traces of the deadly strain), swine flu (pigs), and bird flu (chickens & pigs), to name a few. The most recent pandemic caused by the H1N1 virus is estimated to drop the Gross Domestic Product by 1% if it turns out to be a “mild” pandemic.

Already, $6.15 billion have been spent by our government for vaccines & related supplies to contain the virus.

Infectious disease aside, the even greater immediate threat to human health from animal protein consumption can be observed all around us. Obesity, diabetes, coronary artery disease, osteoporosis, cancer, autoimmune diseases, and dementia have all been linked to animal protein consumption. Dr. T. Colin Campbell, professor of Nutritional Biochemistry at Cornell University, author of The China Study, arguably one of the most comprehensive studies of nutrition ever conducted, wrote, “Whether scientists, doctors and policy makers think the public will change or not, the layperson must be aware that a whole foods, plantbased diet is far and away the healthiest (and I might add, safest) diet.” Dr. Campbell made this conclusion based on initial animal testing to field his hypotheses, confirming the hypotheses with population studies in China (with comparison to U.S. & European populations).

To put it briefly, he noted that the higher the animal protein consumption in a given population, the higher the above disease incidences. And also, the reverse: The more plant-based the diet, the lower the incidence of those diseases. His work has been corroborated, especially in the realm of heart disease, by Dr. Dean Ornish, a cardiologist from Harvard Medical School who did the Lifestyle Heart Trial in the 1980ʼs where he put 28 patients on a low-fat, plantbased diet (along with yoga, walking, stress reduction & group counseling) & noted reversal of their heart disease within 1 year. Another physician, Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn, Jr. from the Cleveland Clinic studied 18 people with known coronary artery disease placed on a low fat, plant based diet & saw their coronary arteries start to open up within the first 6 months of the program. Not only did these patients enjoy an improved quality of life free of chest pain, but they did so without or on very minimal medications and without surgery.

Similar findings have been noted with other diseases such as diabetes, obesity, cancer, etc. In The China Study, Dr. Campbell found that nutrition trumped genetics and environmental pollutants as the major predictor of cancer. I hate to titillate in this way, however, due to the time limitations, I will have to refer you to your own reading & research. If you want reading suggestions, please see me after the service.

The cost of these diseases on all of us is enormous: Current estimates put U.S. health care expenditure at about 16% of GDP, and expected to rise to 19.5 % of GDP by 2017 (thatʼs only 8 years away, folks). Just imagine, as a collective, if we were to go on a plant-based diet & cut that spending down to, say one half of what it is now, we could conceivably pay off the current U.S. deficit (at $12 trillion) in about 12-13 years. That seems like a pipe dream, but I can still dream, and I donʼt think itʼs all that unreasonable. As a healthier nation, if we could cut the strain on the healthcare system by 10, 20, 30%, or even if we could arrest the rise in cost, wouldnʼt that mean the next generations could take a deeper breath & conceivably enjoy a more stable future?

Speaking of the future, this brings me to the topic of the impact large scale animal farming has wreaked on the environment. It has been estimated that 1 billion tons of unrecycled waste is produced annually by U.S. livestock (or average of 250K pounds per second). Guess where all that waste is going?

Thereʼs no sewage system for all the solid & liquid excrement (as there is with humans). The EPA has reported that 25% of all river miles surveyed have been degraded with agricultural pollutants. How many of us have seen signs along creeks & streams that warn: “donʼt eat the fish”? Itʼs all going into the rivers, ground water & eventually, the ocean. And, as the natural life cycle would have it, we are all consuming it, one way or another. I canʼt imagine a better illustration of karma.

And all this excrement, besides being aesthetically unpleasing to us, generate heat-trapping gases that contribute to global warming: methane (23 times the global warming potential of CO2), and nitrous oxide (296 times the global warming potential of CO2). According to UN estimates, 18% of emissions responsible for global warming come from animals raised for food. This outnumbers the amount emitted from cars, buses & airplanes, combined. Ammonia (from urine) is also produced contributing to acid rain, which disrupts aquatic life as well as affects the soil and plant life.

Water usage is also affected by factory farming. It has been said that, in the future, the next wars will not be over oil, but over water. Aquifers all over the world are beginning to run dry due to the amount of water being abstracted to support our meat-eating habit. In the U.S. alone, the amount of water used annually to produce feed for livestock is 17 trillion gallons. It takes 2,500 gallons of water to produce 1 pound of meat, compared to 25 gallons to produce 1 lb of wheat.

The above statistics are sobering and to me, even depressing. However, when I take stock the amount of suffering, water usage, heat-trapping gases, and pollution I avoided by making the decision to nourish myself with only plantbased nutrients, I am so grateful to the Universe for allowing me such an relatively simple and enjoyable way to contribute to life. According to Jeffrey

Moussaieff Masson, author of The Face on Your Plate the Truth about Food, going vegan saves (on average) 2000 animals over a personʼs lifetime. Going vegan does more to alleviate global warming than driving a hybrid car. The fact that I am physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually healthier for it suggests to me that Mother Nature in all her infinite wisdom, has blessed this ecosystem of ours with all it needs to survive and thrive. And that, to tamper with her resources for reasons having nothing to do with life or survival is to reap the consequences which we have been reaping.

I have to admit, however, the initial decision to become vegan was not based solely on the environment or even necessarily the animals, but on my own personal health. Gynecological issues which plagued me since my early 30ʼs prompted me to look at my own nutritional habits with a critical eye. Blessed with mostly good genes, I took my good health for granted. I was physically active since my teenage years and followed a relatively low fat diet of mostly veggies, some animal protein and lots of white rice, pasta and bread. My diet temporarily degenerated during medical school & residency, consisting mostly of cheese- topped hospital food. After some years of working as an internist, I suffered excruciating pelvic pains before my cycles & was diagnosed with endometriosis (a condition where the lining of the uterus is transplanted outside of the uterus). I was offered estrogen-lowering injections and surgery to remove the transplanted tissue. I politely declined. Reading how dairy played a role in elevating estrogen levels, I cut out virtually all dairy (no milk, yogurt, cheese, ice cream, etc.). I also cut down significantly on red meat & chicken (lots of hormones there also). But, I clung to seafood. This was a residual from being raised in Vietnam. And then, during my late thirties, abnormal tissue growth in my uterus required surgical removal and post operative chemotherapy to make sure the abnormal cells donʼt implant and spread. Frustrated & scared, I wanted to make sure that I maximized my healing. At around the same time, I had started attending the SA Vegetarian society meetings & enjoying the wonderful vegan offerings at the potlucks. I remembered feeling so good after eating my fill of a variety of vegan dishes that I decided, intuitively, that this was what I was meant to do to help myself heal. My trips to Vietnam to visit my grandmother, and a particular scuba diving trip there where I connected and ʻplayedʼ with a school of squid ended my culinary relationship with seafood. Since then, my cholesterol dropped 100 points from my college days (of 260) to my vegan days (of 160). I have no more pelvic pain and the endometrial mass that was occupying my right ovary has shrunk down to nothing. Two years later, I attended & completed my studies to become a yoga instructor. My transformation is ongoing.

And, I have not looked back. Studying nutrition and noting how food is made and how it makes me feel has empowered me as taking an injection or a pill never did. As a physician and as a yoga instructor, I try to convey my experience to my patients and have had mixed results. I remain guardedly optimistic.

So how does all this relate to you, my fellow UU members? Well, as of June 2008, the General Assembly has selected “Ethical Eating: Food and Environmental Justice” as the Associationʼs new Congregational Study/Action Issue. A resource guide is available for download from the UUA website for individual congregations to develop material for the Statement of Conscience to be voted on by the GA in 2011.

So, your call, if you choose to accept it, as individuals and as congregants, is to examine this issue at length, using the resource guide as a menu to design your own living meal. The time has come for us, my brothers & sisters, to step up to the plate, to live the principles of Unitarian Universalism, to take an abstraction and make it real. A reminder: “A free and responsible search for truth and meaning; the goal of world community with peace, liberty and justice for all; and respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.”

So be it.