Diet and Disease - Part 1

With increasing wealth, people have grown accustomed to feasting at very meal, thus we have the disease of kings and queens.

As scientists are beginning to discover, everything in our environment is connected---what we do to the world around us, and everything in it, eventually determines our own fate. This increase in meat production affects everything from clean water, to enough water, and even global warming.

In order to meet the high demand of an  entire population eating meat for every meal, it is essential to maintain a very large animal population. in fact, there are currently four times more animals than people, and our environment has become very strained truing to support these huge amounts of livestock.

Animals produce six times the waster of humans. When animal stock and plant crops were more equally balanced, the waster was use as fertilizer, thereby benefiting both groups. As urban populations have exploded, beef and dairy farms are no longer neat the plant crops, but rather very close to the ever-expanding cities. Without nearby farms, the fertilizer is not needed, and the waste just piles higher and higher.

High concentrations of nitrates from these waster piles affect the surrounding water supply, causing problems in both the local human and wildlife populations. When nitrates are found in the drinking water, they have been known to cause numerous both defects and some cancers in humans. Nitrates in ponds and rivers cause algae to grow at phenomenal rates, taking all of the oxygen out of the water---thus depriving other life forms. Fish and other marine life are not able to survive in these nitrate infested waters.