what do you eat?

	Have you ever sat down to eat a juicy hamburger and found 
there was something there you couldn't chew? Perhaps I was unlucky, 
but this happened to me a lot in my younger days, and I hated it. The 
hamburger itself was never good enough to make up for that event. So I 
never took a liking to meat. For a while I took to eating Chicken 
Tenders from Burger King. But I kept coming across gristle - cartilage - 
and what bothered me most about it was that it made me realize just 
what I was eating.


	 As soon as I was old enough so that people weren't telling me, 
"you're too young to be a vegetarian," I quit eating meat altogether. 
I haven't eaten any meat since I was 12. When people asked me why I 
made this personal choice, I didn't want to tell them that I just 
don't like gristle. So I began researching the subject. I got most of 
my information from a book I picked up on Earth Day, 1990, called 
What's Wrong With Eating Meat? From this and other sources, I've 
found that, based on the problems that meat production and consumption 
pose to our environment and health, people (especially Americans) need to 
drastically cut down on eating meat.


	Most meat eaters I've talked to believe eating meat is a "natural" 
for humans. Many have asked me, "I have teeth, what are they for?" or 
they comment, "I accept my natural tendencies." But humans simply do 
not fit the physiological model of a meat eating animal. A carnivorous 
animal has sharp, pointed front teeth, no flat back molar, a digestive 
tract 3 times the length of its body, and a concentration of 
hydrochloric acid in the stomach 10 times the amount in a human 
stomach. Each part of the system was designed for a carnivorous diet; 
the ripping of the flesh, the swallowing of it whole, and the 
breakdown of tissue and bones, taking place mostly in the stomach. 
Humans have the physiology of fruit and nut eating animals. They have 
no sharp, pointed front teeth, but do have flat back molars so 
important in the mechanical digestion of high fiber foods. Humans and 
other plant eating animals have digestive tracts 12 times the length 
of their bodies. Meat takes 5 days to pass through this system (which 
means that it decomposes in the body), so people who make the assumption
that meat eating is natural for humans are just wrong.


	If humans are not supposed to be eating meat, it is understandable 
that eating meat can cause health problems, and that vegetarianism is 
a simple solution. We all know what saturated fat and cholesterol can 
do to our bodies. The top 3 killers of Americans are heart disease, 
cancer and stroke. There are many reasons to believe that a vegetarian 
diet can be a preventative measure against these ills. Consider Dr. 
Dean Ornish's study in which heart disease patients switched to a zero 
animal product diet, and heart disease was virtually reversed within 
one year. The link between meat eating and cancer is also well known. 
An article in the issue of Mother Earth News, called "Edging Towards 
Vegetarianism," points out that a woman who eats meat daily is 4 times 
more likely to develop breast cancer than a woman who eats meat less 
than once a week. In addition, a study of 50,000 Seventh Day 
Adventists (primarily vegetarians) showed an astonishingly low rate of 
cancer among them.


	Another benefit of vegetarianism is not having to think about what 
goes on in slaughterhouses everytime you eat a meal. There is 
scientific eveidence of the suffering animals go through shortly 
before, and during, slaughter. As the Encyclopedia Britannica
states, protein obtained from vegetable sources, "is said to be relatively 
pure as compared to beef with a 56% impure water content." What is 
this "impure water content" in our meat supply? It is mainly uric acid and 
other toxic wastes. When were toxins flushed into this animal's 
flesh? I haven't seen what goes on in slaughterhouses. But I do know 
this impure water content is evidence that the animal goes into shock 
shortly before the time of its death. As a former president of the 
American Humane Society once said, "If slaughterhouses were made of 
glass, this would be a nation of vegetarians."


	A great deal of resources go into the production of meat in 
comparison to the production of non-animal food. This is why you may 
have heard people say vegetarians "eat lower on the food chain." We 
feed a cow 12 pounds of grain for every 1 pound of beef that is 
produced. 2500 gallons of water are consumed for every 1 pound of meat 
produced. That's 100 times the amount of water needed to produce 1 
pound of wheat. What's lost in the process? Of all the grain we feed 
an animal in its lifetime, 100% of carboydrates, 100% of dietary fiber and 
90% of protein are wasted.


	This is why vegetarians can be assured they are not causing world 
hunger. Worldwide, about 1/2 of all grain produced is fed to livestock.
In the U.S. 80-90 % of the grain supply is fed to livestock. Meanwhile, 
250 million people have starved to death since 1970. Even a small reduction
in meat production could make a world of difference. Harvard nutritionist 
Jean Mayer estimated that reducing meat production by just 10% would 
release enough grain to feed 60 million people.


	I've found that people react most strongly to the evidence of a 
link between meat production and world hunger. They want to change, but 
they still have some questions like, "How do you get enough protein?" 
and "What do you eat?" It has been known for decades that the only way 
a person can really have a protein deficiency is if they are not 
getting enough calories. In 1972, Dr. Stare of Harvard studied 
vegetarians of all ages and sexes, and concluded that all groups were 
consuming over twice their minimum daily protein requirement. There is 
also an argument to be made that vegetable protein is of a higher 
quality than animal protein. A very lean cut of beefsteak is 20% 
usable protein, while the same amount of soybeans has 40% usable 
protein.


	Some people ask me, "What do you eat?" Food lovers, especially, like 
to eat a wide variety of foods, and wonder if the variety for a 
vegetarian is lacking. American meat eaters imagine their plate 
without a big piece of meat on it and think they'll be left with only 
a potato and some green beans. I admit this is sometimes true. If I 
eat at a typical American restaurant, I cannot order a whole meal, 
because all of the meals are based around meat. At Country Kitchen and 
Perkins, all I eat is french fries, since I'm not big into lettuce. 
Although I like french fries, it can get tedious having them every 
time I go to a restaurant, so it is true that variety is lacking 
sometimes.


	But I have overcome this problem, and my diet is anything but bland. 
In my hometown (population 25,000 aprox.), I eat Mexican and Chinese 
food, but when I've gotten the opportunity, I've eaten Indian (East), 
Greek, Ethiopian, Middle Eastern, Vietnamese, Thai, and many other 
ethnic foods. I have yet to find any ethnic food, other than American, 
that bases the entire meal on meat. There are always plenty of choices 
available to me at these places. I feel sorry for all my meat eating 
friends who say they haven't experienced the food of other cultures, 
and I have a hard time explaining just how good it is.


	I realize that not everyone who has all the information is going 
to become a vegetarian, but Americans need to recognize the ways that 
their consumption habits affect their lives and the lives of others, 
and hopefully they will begin to change their ways.