Earth Day is every day. We should be trying to reduce our carbon footprint and do our part to preserve the resources on our planet every day. The choices we make greatly contribute to the well being of this world OR help to destroy our environment every day.
Most people are unaware of the irreversible damage the factory farming industry has on our environment. On my journey to no longer partake in the unethical treatment of animals by becoming a vegetarian I am also choosing to help preserve the planet’s resources. Here are a few facts that you may find shocking:
Livestock farming is responsible for vast amounts of greenhouse gas emissions. A staggering 18-20% of these emissions come from the farming of animals. The world’s entire transportation system including planes, trains, and automobiles is responsible for 13%.
The #1 source of methane gas is agriculture. Methane is 23 times more powerful than greenhouse gas and animal agriculture produces more than 100 million tons of methane a year.
The release of carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide and methane are making our climate change and raising animals is the largest source of these emissions!
Over 30% of our land mass is used for grazing animals and almost half of our water supply goes to factory farming. Growing crops for these animals to be fattened and then killed requires nearly half of our water supply and 80% of our agricultural land. This puts a huge strain on our water supply!
One pound of potatoes takes 99.6% less water to produce than a pound of beef. It sickens me how much water is wasted to raise an animal only to kill it. Why wouldn’t we just eat the crops directly?! Wasting our resources to satisfy our palate just doesn’t seem right.
If you gave up eating beef you would save over 300,000 gallons of water a year which is way more than you would save if you didn’t shower for an entire year. Crazy but true.
Animals eat way more food than the meat that they can produce and doing this requires way more land than crops. It takes 16 pounds of grain to produce a single pound of meat and they eat over 70% of all the grain we produce. They are like backwards food factories as well. It is such a waste to go through all that when we could use our land to grow vegetables that WE can eat directly and skip the whole over feeding and murdering process of the animal! Duh.
Oh and even if they are grass fed which many see as the healthier choice of meat, this takes even MORE land per unit of meat. Animal farming is a waste of land plain and simple. There are over one billion head of cattle on this planet weighing twice as much as the human population!
If the entire world ate like the meat obsessed U.S. people do our petroleum resources would be depleted in less than 11 years. If we switched to a mostly vegetarian country we could cut our oil imports by about 60%.
The demand for meat is so ridiculously out of control (it has tripled since 1960) that land is in great demand leading to the destruction of beautiful rainforests and wilderness. Over 70% of amazon rainforests is now used for grazing animals. The burning of these forests exudes millions of toxins and carbon dioxide into our air and is destroying our atmosphere! Not to mention the thousands of creatures that are becoming extinct due to the loss of their environment.
There is so much livestock in this country that they produce over 250,000 pounds of waste per SECOND. No shit. That’s 20 times as much a humans. This waste gets washed into our rivers and lakes because there are no sewage systems. This waste is filled with nitrates,bacteria, ammonia,etc. and kills plant and animal life continuously. The meat industry is responsible for three times as much harmful waste as all the other industries in the U.S. combined. WOW.
By choosing to no longer eat animals you will effectively reduce your carbon footprint, even more than if you drove a hybrid according to a recent study done at Chicago University.
Every conversation about about global warming should be based around switching to a vegetarian diet because there is nothing more harmful to our environment than eating animals.
Save lives. Save the planet. Choose to eat for a healthier world and keep our earth happy!
Sunday, April 22, 2012
Saturday, April 21, 2012
"So how do you get your protein?"
When stating that I no longer choose to eat animals, an obligatory response from the carnivores of the world is to look at me and inquire with a puzzled look “So how do you get your protein?” This has become almost comical for a variety of reasons. Here is just the short list:
1.) Have you ever heard of anyone suffering from a protein deficiency? Ever. Of course not. The question gets posed regarding protein as if this is some dire emergency situation--OMG how am I going to get my protein?! ((GASP)) If I don’t eat steak and chicken and turkey will I be protein deficient?!?! This makes me giggle.
2.) Anyone in their right mind would know that the dairy and meat industries in this country have done a fine job through use of manipulative advertising and backwards food pyramids to warp the minds of every being on the planet into believing that without eggs, milk, and animal products we will somehow have an inadequate amount of protein in our diets. This is one of the most well orchestrated deceptions told to the American public. I am educated so I know this is inaccurate and it’s just another means to make more money through the use of false information.
3.) I always want to respond by saying a statement like “Why do you care?!” Or “How do you get your anti-inflammatories?” <----which would sound as dumb to them as the protein question does to me.
Why are meat eaters so fricking obsessed with protein anyway? And why do people think that meat is the only thing that has protein in it?! Nuts, beans, tofu, vegetables, and a variety of other things contain protein and a healthier form of it at that. I shouldn’t have to give some quizzical prick a run down on all my protein rich vegetables and nuts I consume only for them to murmur a “Hmm” response. I don’t have to justify my diet to you although I would love to educate the uninformed carnivores out there and state a few facts such as:
1.) The Western diet contains an almost excessive amount of protein. Too much protein can be harmful and stress out your kidneys and disable your organs from ridding toxins from your body. Perhaps that is why vegetarians have a 60% less chance of heart disease and cardiovascular disease. Not to mention a 50% reduction in the rate of cancer. Also, other countries consume almost 50% less protein than us Americans and are about 70% healthier. They also get the majority of their protein from plants. Think about it.
2.) It has been proven ten times over that we do NOT need that much protein to maintain a healthy diet averaging around .36 grams per pound of body weight. I am not a heavy weight lifter that bases my diet around massive protein consumption so my day does not revolve around how much protein I’m consuming. I don’t think about it because I don’t need to and besides I get more than enough protein in my belly by 8 a.m. every morning by a fabulous vanilla whey protein shake and some organic peanut butter.
3.) The way I get my protein through plants is actually healthier as well because meat has to be cooked prior to consumption. Any idiot knows that up to 50% of protein is lost through this process leaving little to be absorbed during the digestion. My spinach and veggies eaten raw are easily absorbed amino acids and turn into direct energy while maintaining ALL of their beautiful protein. My digestion is easier and my poop is cleaner. Just sayin’
4.) A person would actually have to “try” to become protein deficient on a vegetarian diet. Eating fruits and vegetables and getting enough calories makes it impossible to not get enough protein. Unless you are surviving on beer, sugar, white bread, and processed foods it would be almost impossible to not get adequate protein on a vegetarian diet. People that live in poor countries and have bloated bellies are likely deficient in protein but that is because they are starved in general and lacking most every vital nutrient.
5.) Most people have been lead to think that all nine essential amino acids must be taken into the body through the same food and that since no one fruit or vegetable contains all nine amino acids that the vegetarian diet somehow contains “incomplete” protein consumption. Bullshit. This myth was dismissed in the 70’s and there has never been any proof behind the original theory.
6.) If you look good, feel good, and have adequate energy and a quick recovery time from illness you are likely getting enough protein. Also protein from vegetables doesn’t come with fat, cholesterol, and carcinogens. It’s clean. It’s better for the planet and better for your health.
So all you people who think the only way to get protein is through eating dead animal flesh, think again. Go educate yourself and munch on a bowl of raw broccoli while you do it. That vegetable has twice as much protein as your medium-well slab of steak thank you very much.
1.) Have you ever heard of anyone suffering from a protein deficiency? Ever. Of course not. The question gets posed regarding protein as if this is some dire emergency situation--OMG how am I going to get my protein?! ((GASP)) If I don’t eat steak and chicken and turkey will I be protein deficient?!?! This makes me giggle.
2.) Anyone in their right mind would know that the dairy and meat industries in this country have done a fine job through use of manipulative advertising and backwards food pyramids to warp the minds of every being on the planet into believing that without eggs, milk, and animal products we will somehow have an inadequate amount of protein in our diets. This is one of the most well orchestrated deceptions told to the American public. I am educated so I know this is inaccurate and it’s just another means to make more money through the use of false information.
3.) I always want to respond by saying a statement like “Why do you care?!” Or “How do you get your anti-inflammatories?” <----which would sound as dumb to them as the protein question does to me.
Why are meat eaters so fricking obsessed with protein anyway? And why do people think that meat is the only thing that has protein in it?! Nuts, beans, tofu, vegetables, and a variety of other things contain protein and a healthier form of it at that. I shouldn’t have to give some quizzical prick a run down on all my protein rich vegetables and nuts I consume only for them to murmur a “Hmm” response. I don’t have to justify my diet to you although I would love to educate the uninformed carnivores out there and state a few facts such as:
1.) The Western diet contains an almost excessive amount of protein. Too much protein can be harmful and stress out your kidneys and disable your organs from ridding toxins from your body. Perhaps that is why vegetarians have a 60% less chance of heart disease and cardiovascular disease. Not to mention a 50% reduction in the rate of cancer. Also, other countries consume almost 50% less protein than us Americans and are about 70% healthier. They also get the majority of their protein from plants. Think about it.
2.) It has been proven ten times over that we do NOT need that much protein to maintain a healthy diet averaging around .36 grams per pound of body weight. I am not a heavy weight lifter that bases my diet around massive protein consumption so my day does not revolve around how much protein I’m consuming. I don’t think about it because I don’t need to and besides I get more than enough protein in my belly by 8 a.m. every morning by a fabulous vanilla whey protein shake and some organic peanut butter.
3.) The way I get my protein through plants is actually healthier as well because meat has to be cooked prior to consumption. Any idiot knows that up to 50% of protein is lost through this process leaving little to be absorbed during the digestion. My spinach and veggies eaten raw are easily absorbed amino acids and turn into direct energy while maintaining ALL of their beautiful protein. My digestion is easier and my poop is cleaner. Just sayin’
4.) A person would actually have to “try” to become protein deficient on a vegetarian diet. Eating fruits and vegetables and getting enough calories makes it impossible to not get enough protein. Unless you are surviving on beer, sugar, white bread, and processed foods it would be almost impossible to not get adequate protein on a vegetarian diet. People that live in poor countries and have bloated bellies are likely deficient in protein but that is because they are starved in general and lacking most every vital nutrient.
5.) Most people have been lead to think that all nine essential amino acids must be taken into the body through the same food and that since no one fruit or vegetable contains all nine amino acids that the vegetarian diet somehow contains “incomplete” protein consumption. Bullshit. This myth was dismissed in the 70’s and there has never been any proof behind the original theory.
6.) If you look good, feel good, and have adequate energy and a quick recovery time from illness you are likely getting enough protein. Also protein from vegetables doesn’t come with fat, cholesterol, and carcinogens. It’s clean. It’s better for the planet and better for your health.
So all you people who think the only way to get protein is through eating dead animal flesh, think again. Go educate yourself and munch on a bowl of raw broccoli while you do it. That vegetable has twice as much protein as your medium-well slab of steak thank you very much.
Sunday, April 15, 2012
Shopping has pissed me off.
Obviously it’s no secret that I love to shop. Most stores feel like second homes to me and I could seriously browse all day oohing and aahing over the latest handbags, necklaces, and jeans. But today? Well today just pissed me off.
FIRST of all (and this is my main pet peeve of the day) ladies: You need to STOP dragging your men to shop with you! I’ve said it before but SERIOUSLY, having some dude hang on to the end of the clothing rack that I’m trying to rifle through while looking like a half open eyed luring weird-o is uncomfortable for everyone. Stop it.
So all I wanted to do was find a few cute outfits for Vegas. Party tops. Skinny jeans. New earrings. Something bright and fun. Club stuff. This would normally be an easy task but literally nothing worked today. Nothing. All of the tops I tried on were either too baggy at the hips, too low in the neck (on a positive note I did realize that the only tops that look decent on me are “V” necks) or too expensive. Hello? I’m not going to pay $100 for a piece of cloth, especially if it’s mostly cotton. That’s BS. Also, my main reason why none of the shirts were a hit for me can be summed up in 2 words: NO BOOBS.
*ugh it just pisses me off that I’m a member of the itty bitty titty committee. I’m over it!
Ok so then I was in this dressing room trying on jeans. I was even trying on jeans that cost entirely too much money but after 2 hours I was getting aggravated so I was willing to splurge for something hot enough. First off, the lighting accentuated every f’ing pore on my face and I realized that I now have eyebrow wrinkles (I actually thought it was a piece of hair in my face and kept trying to wipe it off until I realized this was actually a permanent line on my face) I couldn’t get passed the fact that I am aging. My mood went sour.
Even worse was the fact that my stretch marks are no longer just marks, they are like a never ending maze, a map to never never land leading around in every direction to where I had to use the 3-way mirror just to inspect what in the hell has happened here. I no longer cared about not finding the perfect bikini for Vegas for there will be no bikini wearing. Oh no. All my time will be spent at the bar drinking away my “stress marks.” That’s exactly what they are doing to me.
Oh and the jeans didn’t fit either because all of the jeans today were either too tall in the waist or the butt didn’t look right or the length was off. I blame the mirror for turning my mood to shit so this may have effected my overall opinion of every item of clothes that I tried on after that...
So. Eight different stores, 15 pairs of jeans, 12 tops, and I found nothing. Without finding any clothes I couldn’t move on to accessories. The only thing I came home with was underwear for my husband. Men’s underwear is expensive by the way!
I have less than 10 days to figure out this clothing dilemma. I probably shouldn’t be inhaling jelly beans like they’re popcorn right now or bitching via blog.
I should be shopping online...
FIRST of all (and this is my main pet peeve of the day) ladies: You need to STOP dragging your men to shop with you! I’ve said it before but SERIOUSLY, having some dude hang on to the end of the clothing rack that I’m trying to rifle through while looking like a half open eyed luring weird-o is uncomfortable for everyone. Stop it.
So all I wanted to do was find a few cute outfits for Vegas. Party tops. Skinny jeans. New earrings. Something bright and fun. Club stuff. This would normally be an easy task but literally nothing worked today. Nothing. All of the tops I tried on were either too baggy at the hips, too low in the neck (on a positive note I did realize that the only tops that look decent on me are “V” necks) or too expensive. Hello? I’m not going to pay $100 for a piece of cloth, especially if it’s mostly cotton. That’s BS. Also, my main reason why none of the shirts were a hit for me can be summed up in 2 words: NO BOOBS.
*ugh it just pisses me off that I’m a member of the itty bitty titty committee. I’m over it!
Ok so then I was in this dressing room trying on jeans. I was even trying on jeans that cost entirely too much money but after 2 hours I was getting aggravated so I was willing to splurge for something hot enough. First off, the lighting accentuated every f’ing pore on my face and I realized that I now have eyebrow wrinkles (I actually thought it was a piece of hair in my face and kept trying to wipe it off until I realized this was actually a permanent line on my face) I couldn’t get passed the fact that I am aging. My mood went sour.
Even worse was the fact that my stretch marks are no longer just marks, they are like a never ending maze, a map to never never land leading around in every direction to where I had to use the 3-way mirror just to inspect what in the hell has happened here. I no longer cared about not finding the perfect bikini for Vegas for there will be no bikini wearing. Oh no. All my time will be spent at the bar drinking away my “stress marks.” That’s exactly what they are doing to me.
Oh and the jeans didn’t fit either because all of the jeans today were either too tall in the waist or the butt didn’t look right or the length was off. I blame the mirror for turning my mood to shit so this may have effected my overall opinion of every item of clothes that I tried on after that...
So. Eight different stores, 15 pairs of jeans, 12 tops, and I found nothing. Without finding any clothes I couldn’t move on to accessories. The only thing I came home with was underwear for my husband. Men’s underwear is expensive by the way!
I have less than 10 days to figure out this clothing dilemma. I probably shouldn’t be inhaling jelly beans like they’re popcorn right now or bitching via blog.
I should be shopping online...
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