Why should we be vegetarian?

Why should we be vegetarian? We can answer this question from many angles, such as respecting life, protecting animals, protecting the environment and so on. This paper focuses on food safety and environmental protection.

First, food safety hazards in the production of meat, eggs and milk.

From 20 1 1 year to 20 13 years, when I was a postdoctoral fellow in the Institute of Sociology of China Academy of Social Sciences, I conducted a lot of field investigations on the topic of "China food safety from the perspective of risk society-taking animal food as an example", and visited more than 30 farms in depth, covering Shanxi, Shaanxi, Hebei, Zhejiang and so on. The results of this study shocked the author, and the food safety problems highlighted in it are believed to have certain warning significance for people who are still addicted to meat. Through interviews with farmers, we have an intuitive and in-depth understanding of some problems in meat, eggs and milk production. The following is part of the author's investigation report.

(a) The feeding method is extremely barbaric, which leads to animal diseases.

Through investigation, we found that the growth cycle of ducks is about forty days. These ducks have been eating and drinking in greenhouses with little sunshine all their lives, and their feces and urine will be directly pulled down, and they will grow to six or seven pounds in more than 40 days. Those laying hens don't even have a place to lie down. They can only eat and lay eggs standing, and their upper beaks have been cut off, so that they won't peck at each other because of pain. The chicken farm doesn't turn off the lights at night, so you can eat all the time to ensure the number of eggs laid. Chickens in chicken farms lay 240 eggs in eight months. The eggs laid are difficult to shape, and now their life span is over. There are also cows classified by "performance": those who produce more than 40 kilograms of milk a day are given as much as they want; If you produce 20 kilograms of milk a day, as long as you don't die; If the milk yield is too low, go straight to the slaughterhouse. When the milk production value of cows is lower than the feeding cost, they will be slaughtered.

As we all know, when people are in a state of extreme high pressure and panic for a long time, all kinds of pathological changes will occur in the body, and all beings are like this. It is conceivable that these brightly packaged meat, milk and egg products are full of a large number of invisible germs. What should I do if the animal is sick? Take medicine, of course! This in turn leads to the problem of drug abuse.

(two) abuse of various drugs, resulting in excessive drug residues.

Under bad feeding conditions, animals are very prone to get sick, and there are more and more kinds of diseases. We usually think that people often get sick, but in fact animals are more likely to get sick than we are. The author heard from the manager of a large pig farm that pigs raised in 2000 would only suffer from one infectious disease-circular ring disease at a time. At that time, the treatment was very simple, as long as pigs were given drugs to treat tinea. At present, pigs will get five or six infectious diseases at the same time, so the dosage and types of therapeutic drugs should be increased accordingly. In other words, it is hard for us to imagine how many kinds of drugs are contained in the pork that everyone eats! In addition, the farm will also use human drugs. The owner of a farm said that there are too many fake veterinary drugs in China, which not only have no therapeutic effect, but also lead to the death of animals. No way, we can only use the medicine that people eat on animals, because the medicine that people eat is true after all.

Chickens, ducks and geese are only about 20 or 30 grams after hatching, and it takes 40 days to 67 kilograms. The secret of this is to add various antibiotics and even hormones to the feed.

It is also common to throw drugs indiscriminately to meet the market demand. A chicken farm owner said that as long as the chicken is given medicine, it can lay double yellow eggs, and it is very big. In the 1990s, when I was in Beijing, I often bought double yellow eggs. At that time, I thought that the nutritional value of double yellow eggs was very high. I didn't expect this to be born after giving medicine to chickens. Another example is milk. The national standard requires that every 100ml milk contains 2.5g of protein. Generally, the higher the nitrogen content in milk, the higher the protein content, which can be determined by the quality grade of milk. However, the milk produced by cows that only eat straw is not up to standard at all, and some dairy farms have to feed cows straw mixed with chemical fertilizer. Because chemical fertilizer contains nitrogen, the nitrogen content of milk produced is naturally high.

Some unscrupulous merchants even use drugs that are explicitly prohibited by law. For example, if malachite green is added to aquaculture, fish will not die even if their scales are broken. But malachite green is a carcinogen. Another example is clenbuterol hydrochloride (also known as clenbuterol). A farming boss in Northeast China told me that Niu Yi, whose weight is below 1000 kg, feeds 60 tablets a day, and Niu Yi, whose weight is above 1000 kg, feeds more than 100 tablets a day. Clenbuterol hydrochloride is an antiasthmatic drug and belongs to adrenal nerve stimulant. Cows don't have asthma. If you eat too much, you will always tremble with pain, and you will sweat all over in the trembling, so you will "tremble" to lose weight, and so will pigs. If people eat meat containing clenbuterol hydrochloride, it is easy to be poisoned. 1997, the Ministry of Agriculture of China issued a document prohibiting the use of this drug in feed and animal drinking water, but it has been banned, resulting in thousands of people being poisoned.

On February 24th, 2002/KLOC-0, China's Ministry of Agriculture issued the latest maximum residue limits of veterinary drugs in animal foods according to the Regulations on the Administration of Veterinary Drugs, and set strict dose limits for various additives, which shows that it is an indisputable fact that there are veterinary drug residues in meat.

(3) There are a lot of pesticide residues in meat.

In addition to a large number of veterinary drugs, human drugs and various antibiotics, there are a large number of pesticide residues in meat. Many people who eat meat will be surprised. Will there be pesticides in the meat? There is a simple reason. There are pesticides in the feed that animals eat, and many of these pesticides are fat-soluble, that is, they can dissolve in fat, penetrate into muscles after being absorbed by animals, and cannot be discharged. When people eat meat, pesticides naturally enter the human body. Compared with the maximum allowable pesticide residue in meat stipulated by the state, the pesticide residue in animals is much higher than that in vegetarianism!

(4) Heavy metals seriously exceed the standard and contain a large number of potential carcinogen residues.

Heavy metals exceeding the standard seriously are usually called lead poisoning and mercury poisoning. Heavy metals in aquatic products exceed the standard because of industrial pollution. Animals in other industrial chains are fed with heavy metals, and iron, lead, cadmium, arsenic and so on are allowed in the feed, because animals grow fast after being added. In order to make their livestock and poultry grow rapidly, some bad breeders add arsenic to their feed, that is, arsenic. Why can arsenic make animals grow quickly? Because arsenic can circulate the blood of animals, and animals will naturally grow faster if they eat more. Animals will exceed the standard of heavy metals, and humans who eat meat for a long time will also lead to cancer. Therefore, there is a direct and important relationship between diet and disease.

2005 1 1 30th, the Hong Kong Sun reported that the Hong Kong Polytechnic University cooperated with Guangzhou Institute of Geochemistry of China Academy of Sciences to analyze the heavy metal content of 58 aquatic products collected from 7 locations in the Pearl River Estuary. The results showed that the contents of carcinogenic heavy metals were all higher than the safety standards, among which the cadmium content of shrimp, crab and shellfish products exceeded the standard 13.5- 16.7 times, and the cadmium content of shrimp was the highest, with 0.835 mg per kilogram of shrimp, which was much higher than the prescribed safety level (0.05 mg per kilogram). And the lead content of fish is twice as high as the standard.

If we carefully analyze the above situation, we will find that these aquatic products contain a lot of heavy metals exceeding the standard, which is very harmful to the human body and not as good as the traditional concept thinks; On the contrary, the reason why people get sick is actually related to foods containing a lot of carcinogens such as excessive heavy metals.

(E) The harm of genetically modified feed

All of the above are feed additives, so what are the main raw materials of feed? Feed is basically genetically modified food, and grain is basically genetically modified food. As we all know, genetically modified soybeans are used as raw materials of edible oil in feed, and many imported genetically modified corn are also used as feed. Studies in many parts of the world have found that feeding animals with genetically modified feed will cause problems in their kidneys, livers and reproductive systems, and affect their immune function.

In view of the potential risks of genetically modified crops, all countries in the world have formulated corresponding policies, requiring that the risk assessment of genetically modified crops used in food and feed should not exceed a certain amount, and the EU requires that the genetically modified ingredients in food and feed should not exceed 1%. Then, will the use of genetically modified feed to raise animals such as pigs, cattle, sheep, chickens, ducks, geese and rabbits in China endanger the health of people who eat a lot of meat, eggs and milk? In the case that we haven't fully grasped the accidental risks of genetically modified feed, reducing or even not eating meat, eggs and milk is an important way to prevent risks.

In recent years, the output of meat, eggs and milk in China has increased rapidly. Most consumers can't see all the food safety problems brought by these meat, eggs and milk in the production process, but the consequences are all borne by consumers, so the potential health hazards are inseparable. This is why the number of patients with cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases, diabetes, malignant tumors, chronic respiratory diseases and other chronic diseases in China exceeds 300 million, and the death rate of chronic diseases among Chinese residents has risen to 85%. At the same time, chronic diseases have shown a younger development trend and began to attack middle-aged people in their forties and fifties.

Of course, the food safety of meat, eggs and milk is a global problem, not unique to China. For example, in 1986, a large-scale mad cow disease broke out in Britain, killing 654.38+ten thousand cows, and quickly spread to many countries, resulting in 10 deaths. 1999, a feed factory in Belgium mixed dioxin-containing oil into feed and sold it, resulting in a direct loss of 355 million euros and an indirect loss of more than 654.38 billion euros, which eventually led to the collective resignation of cabinet members. In 200 1 year, a large-scale foot-and-mouth disease broke out in Britain and quickly spread to the Netherlands, France and Ireland, resulting in the slaughter of 654.38+10,000 livestock. In 2003, bird flu broke out in the Netherlands. In just a few weeks, poultry140,000 was isolated, sick chickens180,000 were slaughtered, and 80 people were infected with avian influenza virus. Therefore, imported meat, eggs and milk are not safe.

As we all know, there is an old saying that "the disease enters from the mouth". If we can get rid of eggs, milk and meat and eat vegetarian food, people's health will be improved. A few years ago, the author organized two classes of college students to investigate the health status of two vegetarians (including vegan, egg white vegetarian and basic vegetarian) in Meizhou City, Guangdong Province. The results show that more than 50 diseases have been improved or cured after vegetarianism, and the mental state has been much better. I used to lose my temper easily and feel bad. After I became a vegetarian, I was in a good mood, and I stopped losing my temper, and my physical and emotional state improved obviously. These facts may have some implications for friends who still insist on eating meat. For the health of yourself and your family, you should be vegetarian.

Second, the impact of meat, eggs and milk production on the environment.

water pollution

Take pigs for example. Under normal circumstances, a pig excretes 850- 1050 kg of feces and urinates 1200- 1300 kg from birth to slaughter. A farm with 10,000 pigs can discharge 30,000 tons of pure manure and urine every year, and with the intensive production of washing water, it can discharge 60,000 to 70,000 tons of manure and sewage every year. The amount of feces discharged by livestock and poultry is very large. If converted according to biochemical oxygen demand (BOD), a pig's fecal BOD is equivalent to ten people a day, and a chicken is equivalent to 0.7 people. That is to say, a farm with 200,000 layers or a farm with 1 10,000 pigs is equivalent to a town with140,000 to150,000 people.

Aquaculture is more directly caused by water pollution, which is caused by feed, a large number of residual bait, veterinary drug residues and aquatic animal feces. According to the statistical data of China Agricultural Statistical Yearbook, the total area of aquaculture in China in 20 13 is about 8,088,200 hectares. As far as a city in Hangzhou is concerned, its aquaculture area is 123300 hectares, and ammonia nitrogen 1 1720. 18 kg, copper 20979 1.6 1 kg and zinc 6 are discharged into domestic waters every year. The aquaculture area in Hangzhou is only 1% of the national aquaculture area.

Every year, pollutants discharged from various places continuously pollute surface water, groundwater and offshore waters. For decades, the pollutants accumulated in aquaculture have become the biggest "culprit" in polluting rivers, lakes and seas in China.

(2) Air pollution

1. Odor gas

Studies have shown that farmyard manure, urine, sewage, padding, feed residue, gas discharged from digestive tract, secretion of sebaceous glands and sweat glands, pheromones of livestock, dirt attached to the body surface, dead birds and dead animals will affect human respiratory tract and eye mucosa, reduce the disease resistance of mucosa and endanger human health. There are air masses with pathogenic microorganisms floating around, which can easily lead to the epidemic of infectious diseases and endanger human health.

2. Smoke

In recent years, there have been frequent large-scale smog weather in China, which not only affects the health of the people all over the country, but also affects China's international reputation. Many people don't think that smog has much to do with aquaculture, because farms emit a lot of ammonia into the atmosphere, and ammonia is the fundamental reason for the formation of most secondary particles in PM2.5. F.Paulot of Harvard University conducted a study. According to their global ammonia emission monitoring data from 2005 to 2008, the annual ammonia emission in China is about102,000 tons. It has surpassed the sum of North America and Europe. In addition, in the past two decades, China has been the largest ammonia emitter in the world.

(3) Soil pollution

At present, the main consumption mode of livestock manure in China is to directly return it to the field as organic fertilizer. Although livestock manure contains nutrients needed for crop growth, it also contains a lot of harmful substances such as pathogenic microorganisms and heavy metals, which will cause soil pollution and seriously affect soil quality. Some pathogenic microorganisms that are pathogenic to humans and animals can remain pathogenic for several years or even decades in soil.

Some data even point out that China uses about 300,000 tons of trace element additives every year, but about 290,000 tons of minerals that are not used by animals are discharged with feces. A pig farm with ten thousand pigs may discharge more than one ton of arsenic in 5-8 years. When the amount of sodium arsenate in soil is 40mg/kg, the rice yield will be reduced by 50%, when it reaches 1.60mg/kg, the rice will not grow, and when the arsenic content in irrigation water reaches 20mg/kg, the rice grains will not be harvested.

(d) Grassland degradation

China is the second largest grassland country in the world, but with the improvement of people's meat-eating level, the number of herbivores such as sheep and cattle is increasing. The overload rate of grassland livestock in China is 50%- 120%, and even as high as 300% in some places. 90% of the available natural grasslands in China have been degraded to varying degrees, and half of them have been degraded to varying degrees, such as reduced coverage, desertification, salinization and so on. For example, the available grassland area in Inner Mongolia is more than 63.59 million hectares, and the degraded grassland area has reached 38.67 million hectares, accounting for 60% of the available grassland.

Grassland degradation not only affects the sustainable development of animal husbandry and the national economy and people's livelihood, but also leads to the frequent occurrence of sudden disastrous weather phenomena such as sandstorms, which endangers the ecological security of the country.

Climate warming

China is a big emitter of greenhouse gases in the world. In the Outline of the Twelfth Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development, the emission reduction target of "reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 17% by 2020" is clearly formulated. Among many factors affecting global warming, animal husbandry has a great influence.

During the 25 years from 1989 to 20 13, the carbon emission of pig breeding industry in Hunan Province increased from more than 200,000 tons to more than 600,000 tons. From 200 1 year to 20 12 year, the greenhouse gas emission equivalent of animal manure in Dalian increased from 278,568 tons to 399,008 tons, an increase of 43%.

Large-scale animal husbandry has aggravated global warming, caused ecological and environmental disasters such as glacier retreat, sea level rise and desertification, and also affected agricultural production. In 20 14, the statistical data in the second glacier catalogue of China showed that since the middle and late 1950s, the glacier area in western China has shrunk by about 18%, with an average annual area of 243.7 square kilometers.

Third, to care for life, we should choose vegetarian food.

Many people worry that vegetarian food is not nutritious enough. In fact, all seven nutrients (protein, fat, carbohydrate, vitamins, minerals, water and cellulose) that our human body needs are contained in vegetarian diet. As long as you know the reasonable collocation, you don't have to worry about the consequences of malnutrition caused by vegetarianism.

(1) protein

As far as protein is concerned, food, vegetables, fruits and beans all contain protein. Among them, beans are the best in protein, and protein of melon seeds, peanuts and walnuts is also of very high quality. The protein content of cereals is generally 8- 12%, and the protein content of many nuts, nuts and beans is about 30%, while that of soybeans is as high as 40%, which is about twice that of meat (the thinnest steak only contains 20% of available protein). However, what many vegetarians don't know is that protein, a grain such as rice and flour, lacks lysine, while protein, a bean, lacks methionine and cystine. As long as these two foods are mixed, its protein will become "complete protein". For example, traditional foods in China, such as eight-treasure porridge, rice bean products, soybean milk, sesame cakes, fried dough sticks and so on. , is rich in protein, which is beneficial to human health. In addition, directly eating soybeans, protein's digestibility is only 65%; If it is made into bean products such as soybean milk, yuba and bean curd skin, the protein digestibility is above 90%, which is no less than meat.

(2) Fat

As for fat, the peanut oil, salad oil, sesame oil, sunflower oil and olive oil we eat now are all from plants. In fact, many plants have higher fat content than meat. For example, the oil content of walnut is as high as 66.9%, peanut 48.7%, sesame 48.23% and soybean 20.20%. Nutritionists believe that everyone's daily fat intake should be controlled at: weight (kg) ×0.45 (g), and the daily fat intake of people weighing 70 kg is 3 1.5 g. In fact, most people's daily fat intake is far beyond the standard.

(3) Carbohydrate

Carbohydrate is the most important nutrient we need and the main source of body energy. The main ingredients in the rice and pasta we eat every day are carbohydrates. In rice, wheat, corn, barley, oats, sorghum, sugarcane, melon, watermelon, banana, grape, nut, carrot, sweet potato and other crops, there are a lot of carbohydrates.

(4) vitamins

About vitamins, there is almost everything in vegetarian food, but not in meat. For example, there is no vitamin C in meat, so people who eat meat are most likely to get scurvy. Another example is vitamin E, which is rich in vegetables but rare in meat.

(5) Minerals and trace elements

In vegetarian food such as grain, vegetables and fruits, the contents of minerals and trace elements are very rich. Vegetarian foods rich in calcium include tofu, dark leafy vegetables and cauliflower. Grains rich in iron include polished rice, lentils, peanuts, peas, soybeans, sesame seeds and wheat bran; Iron-containing vegetables include spinach, Nostoc flagelliforme, laver, rape, celery, radish tassel, shepherd's purse, day lily, asparagus, mushrooms and so on. Other vegetarian foods containing iron include brown sugar, dried fruit, lotus root starch, yuba, peony bark, black dates, auricularia auricula, seaweed and yeast. These vegetarian foods can completely meet all kinds of minerals and trace elements needed by the human body at all stages.

(6) cellulose

Nutritionists recommend that adults consume about 20-35 grams of dietary fiber every day. The cellulose content of common foods is arranged as follows: cereals, wheat grains, barley, corn, buckwheat flour, coix seed flour, sorghum rice and black rice; Beans, such as soybeans, mung beans, broad beans, kidney beans, peas, black beans, adzuki beans and mung beans; Potatoes, potatoes, sweet potatoes; The content of dried mushrooms and dried bamboo shoots in vegetables is very high, and the rest contain more cellulose, such as pepper, bracken, cauliflower, spinach, pumpkin, Chinese cabbage, rape and so on. Among fruits, dried red fruits, dried mulberries, cherries, wild jujubes, pomegranates, apples and pears all contain cellulose.

It can be seen that as long as it is reasonably matched, choosing vegetarian food can completely ensure the nutritional needs of the body, and it is also the safest and healthiest eating habit. For the health of ourselves and our families, to protect the environment and not to harm animals, we expect more and more people to become vegetarians!