"Intellectually, human beings and animals may be different, but it’s pretty obvious that animals have a rich emotional life and that they feel joy and pain. It’s easy to forget the connection between a hamburger and the cow it came from. But I forced myself to acknowledge the fact that every time I ate a hamburger, a cow had ceased to breathe and moo and walk around."

DID YOU KNOW?

Of all the agricultural land in the U.S., 80 percent is used to raise animals for food and to grow the grain to feed them—that’s almost half the total land mass of the lower 48 states.

Chickens, pigs, cattle, and other animals raised for food are the primary consumers of half the water in the U.S.

An estimated one out of every four cattle who enters a slaughterhouse may have E. coli.

A Consumer Reports study of nearly 500 supermarket chickens found campylobacter in 42 percent and salmonella in 12 percent, with up to 90 percent of the bacteria resistant to antibiotics.

Eggs pose a salmonella threat to one out of every 50 people each year.

In total, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that there are 76 million instances of foodborne illness each year, and more than 5,000 deaths.

Try these easy substitutes to get started! Instead of ...

Butter: Sauté in water, wine, or vegetable broth, use lemon as a dressing, and cook with vegetable margarines and oils.

Ice Cream: Try frozen desserts like Tofutti, Soy Delicious, fruit sorbets, and ices. You’ll never want to go back to the cholesterol and fat of ice cream.

Milk: Try chocolate, vanilla, and plain soy milk, rice milk, and almond milk. Excellent for cooking, on cereal, in coffee and hot chocolate—use them any way you’d use milk. Available in lowfat varieties, too.

Hamburger: There are a wide variety of vegetarian hamburgers. For “hamburger meat” as an ingredient, substitute crumbled veggie burgers in recipes for chili, “meat loaf,” and tacos.

Cheese: Check health food stores for soy cheese, which is great on pizza and sandwiches, as well as in sauces. You can also make a great creamy “cheese” sauce using nutritional yeast flakes.

Eggs: Use commercial egg replacers (made mainly from potato starch) in baked goods. For breakfast, scramble tofu with onions, mushrooms, mustard, turmeric, and soy sauce.

Jello: Look for agar-agar (made without boiling cows’ hooves and pigs’ skin), or try Hain’s Super Fruits, a vegan gelatin that comes in four fruit flavors.

Aren’t humans natural carnivores?

While humans have eaten meat throughout history, there is significant evidence that we are better suited to a vegetarian diet. Carnivorous animals have long, curved fangs, claws, and a short digestive tract. Humans have flat, flexible nails, and our so-called "canine" teeth are minuscule compared to carnivores’. Human teeth are better suited to biting into vegetables, fruits, and grains than tearing through tough hides.

In addition, the health problems associated with meat consumption—a leading contributor to heart disease, cancer, stroke, diabetes, and obesity—should be an indication that we aren’t "meant" to eat meat. In addition, humans are capable of making ethical decisions. We can get all the nutrients we need from plant sources, which means that billions of animals are unnecessarily slaughtered every year at the expense of our health and the environment.

Plant foods improve human health while animal 'foods' degrade it. The most comprehensive study to date regarding the relationship between diet and human health found that the consumption of animal derived "food" products was linked with "diseases of affluence" such as heart disease, osteoporosis, diabetes, and cancer. T. Colin Campbell's landmark research in "The China Project" found a pure vegetarian (i.e. vegan) diet to be the healthiest diet. Dr. Campbell estimates, "...80 to 90% of all cancers, cardiovascular diseases, and other degenerative illness can be prevented, at least until very old age - simply by adopting a plant-based diet."

The meat, poultry, dairy and egg industries employ technological short cuts - such as drugs, hormones, and other chemicals - to maximize production. Under these conditions, virulent pathogens which are resistant to antibiotics are emerging. Millions of Americans are infected and thousands die every year from contaminated animal products. Peculiar new diseases have been amplified by aberrant agribusiness practices. For example, "Mad Cow Disease" (bovine spongiform encephalopathy or BSE), a fatal dementia affecting cattle, was distributed throughout Britain when dead cows were fed to living cows. When people ate cows with "Mad Cow Disease", they got Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD), a fatal dementia which afflicts humans. Another farm animal disease beginning to jeopardize human health is Avian influenza. In Hong Kong, where people have died from the so-called "bird- flu", over one million chickens have been destroyed.

Despite repeated warnings from consumer advocates, the USDA's meat inspection system remains grossly inadequate, and consumers are now being told to "expect" animal products to be tainted.

Do vegetarians get enough protein?

The notion that eliminating all meat, eggs, and dairy products from the diet (100% vegetarian, or vegan) might result in a protein deficiency remains one of the most common and unfounded beliefs about vegetarianism. Adequate protein intake is easily achieved by consuming a variety of whole grains, vegetables, fruits, and legumes. According the American Dietetic Association, complementary proteins do not need to be consumed at the same time. (Back in the 1970s, it was thought that such "food mixing" was necessary.) For those vegetarians who choose to consume high levels of protein, soy products such as meat analogs provide a low-fat alternative to animal flesh. Even professional athletes (and weightlifters) do not need meat, eggs, or dairy products.

Brandy

"I’m 23 now, and I’ve grown into this woman. I feel sexy and more mature. I wanted these inside changes to be reflected in both my look and music. I am a vegan now, and it was a conscious decision. I studied a lot about African culture and health and the best way to take care of the body. I really wanted to be healthy. At first I was just trying to challenge myself; I thought it was a phase and that I would grow out of it, but it wasn’t. I found out a lot about the body and what [hormones] they put in meat. My taste buds started changing, and I didn’t crave [meat and dairy products] anymore."

Without meat, eggs, and dairy, are there any tasty meals left?

Unlike most of the world, the Western diet is laden with animal products. In America, animal products typically are consumed at every meal. Vegetarians and vegans usually broaden their tastes to encompass other cuisines which are not so heavily biased toward meat and dairy products. Indian, Mediterranean, Chinese, and Thai cuisines offer an enormous variety of vegetarian entrees. Vegan Italian, Mexican, and Japanese entrees are becoming more widely available in U.S. restaurants as well. For those who still love American cuisine, easy substitutes for almost all animal products already exist in abundance, from meat-free burgers, hot dogs, and deli slices to rich, dairy-free desserts. With just a little exploration, delicious vegetarian meals are easy to come by, whether or not you like to cook for yourself.

Carrots are Cool!

If I stop consuming dairy products, won’t that put me at greater risk for osteoporosis?

High-protein foods, such as meat, eggs, and dairy products, produce poisonous byproducts when they are broken down so the body buffers the toxins with calcium before they are eliminated. This leaches calcium from the body, including from the bones, resulting in a loss that cancels out the dietary intake of calcium from animal products. In countries where dairy products are not generally consumed, there is less osteoporosis than in the United States, where dairy consumption is among the highest in the world. The Harvard Nurses’ Health Study followed 78,000 women for 12 years and found that milk did not protect them against bone fractures. In fact, those who drank three glasses of milk per day had more fractures than those who rarely drank milk. To learn more, please visit PCRM.org.

Also, an excellent discussion of dietary links to osteoporosis can be found in Dr. John McDougall’s The McDougall Plan and in Dr. Neal Barnard’s The Power of Your Plate.

OK, so vegetarianism's great if you're a health freak or a gorilla, but what's in it for me?

Extra energy, fewer illnesses, clearer skin and a clearer conscience (among other things). But you'll never really know unless you try it. It's not a one-way street; you can always go back to eating meat if you aren't happy. At best you'll have started a new way of eating that'll keep you healthier for life, at worst you'll have had a go at being a veggie and found it wasn't for you. What have you got to lose?

Pamela Anderson
"Men hunt because they have something wrong with their own equipment and they need something else to shoot." (Newark Star-Ledger)

RECIPE
Squash, a word of Native American origin from the Narragansett area in Rhode Island, is a member of the flowering Cucurbitaceae family, which includes gourds, pumpkins, cucumbers, and some melons. Popular summer squash varieties include crookneck, pattypan, and zucchini. The most frequently available winter squash are acorn, hubbard, honey delight, and turban.

A union of native squash with an exotic Middle Eastern dish called baba ghanoush appears below:

1 pound any yellow summer squash
1 medium eggplant
2 Tablespoons tahini (sesame butter)
2 Tablespoons sesame seeds
1 large garlic clove, minced
Juice of 1 lime or lemon
Salt to taste
1 teaspoon olive oil
1/4 cup freshly chopped parsley

Scrub (don't peel) squash and cut into olive-size cubes. Steam squash, drain, cool, and lightly mash to a coarse consistency. Pour into a serving dish. Meanwhile, pierce eggplant skin in at least twenty places with a fork. Broil eggplant in a fire-proof pan set about six inches from flame. Turn eggplant until uniformly browned. (This takes at least 30 minutes.) Cool eggplant, slit lengthwise, and spoon out interior pulp into bowl containing mashed squash. Combine well and slowly add tahini, sesame seeds, garlic, lemon or lime juice, and salt. Chill dip. Drizzle cooled dip with oil and garnish with parsley before serving. This dip keeps well if refrigerated. Serve with pita bread or crackers.