Food for thought

Mr Toastmaster, fellow toastmasters and guests. I wonder if you'd indulge me for a moment; I'd like to know how many of you eat meat. So if all the meat eaters could kindly raise a hand. Thank you. Well, like a lot of your I enjoy meat. There's nothing lime the aroma of sizzling bacon wafting through the air to make your stomach rumble, or the taste of a succulent steak oozing juices and melting in your mouth. I have thought quite a bit about the food I eat and where it comes from. I have seen, as we probably all have, plenty of TV programs highlighting the plight of animals, who are variously force-fed, caged, genetically altered and generally maltreated in order that we can have meat to eat. I remember two scenes particularly vividly. One about cows who have been genetically altered to have two sets of rump muscles, in order to provide more prime steak, and consequently must give birth to their calves by caesarean section. And another where turkeys are packed so tightly into barns to meet the Christmas rush, that they develop gangrene in their legs due to lack of movement. These things shock and horrify me, and sometimes cause me to cut down or even give up meat. But, as any vegetarian will tell you, on whiff of bacon and all your good intentions can disappear. So, I know that turkeys are squashed, force-fed, and then killed in a cruel and terrifying manner. But I still eat meat. I know that calves are taken away from their mothers, imprisoned in tiny wooden boxes, and allowed no sunlight for all of their short lives, in order to provide us with top quality veal. But I still eat meat. I know that all reprocessed meats such as chicken nuggets and turkey roll can contain diseased meat and can be very dangerous. But I still eat meat. So what will ever make me stop? Well, maybe this will. I recently discovered that roughly half of the world's grain produce and over a quarter of the world's fish catch is fed to animals. 60% of the grain used to feed our animals in Europe comes from the developing world where extreme poverty and famine are rife. We are taking away food from the starving, to feed our animals, to feed ourselves. Not only that but the vast majority of rain forest depletion is caused by meat producers, like McDonalds, who destroy it in order to create more pasture for cattle. After just 3 or 4 years, the topsoil is eroded and the land is useless. And, if anyone has had a McDonalds recently, you'll know it's not even good quality meat. So, I asked myself, why do we eat so much meat. And to give you an idea of just how much of it we do eat, India's per capita meat consumption is 1 Kilo per year. Here in Ireland it's about 80 Kilos, and in the world's self confessed most advanced and greatest nation, the US of A, they eat on average 130 Kilos of meat, per year, each. The average american on death has between 1 and 2 Kilos of undigested meat in their gut. Now, we do get 35% of our protein from the meat we consume, but that is only because we consume so much of it. In fact, our bodies can only use two thirds of the proteins in meat. Also the more meat protein we consume, the more calcium is drained from the body because of an overload of acid, which must be neutralised by a release of calcium from the bones. Lack of calcium is a direct cause of osteoporosis. Now, if that isn't enough to turn us all into overnight vegetarians, let's take a look at the logistics of producing meat : It takes 120 gallons of water to produce on Kilo of wheat. But it takes 5000 to produce one Kilo of meat. It takes 10 kilos of soya protein to produce one kilo of beef, the other 9 kilos are excreted, causing nitrogenous pollution. Methane gas, which cattle expel as part of their digestive process, is 20 times more effective that carbon dioxide in warming the globe. The current global population is somewhere around 5 and a half billion people. If the rest of the world ate the way we do, in the so called developed world, the n the earth's resources could only support a population of 2 and a half billion. Now, and this is the thing that really blows me away If just one person decides not to eat meat it allows the resources for another two to live. And we think meat is food ? Think again.