The World Peace Diet: Eating For Spiritual Health And Social Harmony

Profiting from Destruction / 191
breaks of pfisteria can kill millions of fish and seriously harm human
swimmers in downstream rivers and bays. According to the
Environmental Protection Agency, more than thirty-five thousand miles
of rivers were polluted by large-scale feedlots in the past decade. 28 When
factory farms pollute groundwater, it is typically public money, rather
than industry funds, that is used to clean up or contain the pollution. 29
Livestock excrement causes horrific air pollution as well, as those
who are unfortunate enough to live near these operations attest. The
stench causes mental stress and respiratory ailments, and when the
manure dries, it can blow for miles around. Livestock also emit large
quantities of methane gas, which is a major factor in global warming
because it retains heat more strongly than carbon dioxide. Grilling animal
flesh creates more air pollution: researchers have discovered that
much of the smog haze over cities is formed not just by cars but by the
smoke and fat particles of thousands of fast-food restaurants and
kitchens grilling meat. 30
Healing the Earth and the Economy
We don’t seem to realize that our economy would be far healthier if we
switched to eating plant-based meals. If we all ate a plant-based diet, we
could feed ourselves on a small fraction of the land and grains that eating
an animal-based diet requires. For example, researchers estimate
that 2.5 acres of land can meet the food energy needs of twenty-two
people eating potatoes, nineteen people eating corn, twenty-three people
eating cabbage, fifteen people eating wheat, or two people eating
chicken or dairy products, and only one person eating beef or eggs. 31
Everyone on earth could be fed easily because we currently grow more
than enough grain to feed ten billion people; 32 our current practice of
feeding this grain to untold billions of animals and eating them forces
over a billion of us to endure chronic malnutrition and starvation while
another billion suffer from the obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and cancer
linked with eating diets high in animal foods.
The drugs we take to combat these diseases are discharged through
the urine, flow into the water and become yet another major stream that
adds to the pollution of our earth. This is an especially serious problem