Vegetarian Book Report

summary

Diet for a new America provides an in-depth view at the way our society relates to the animals we eat by revealing the effects on your health, consciousness, and on the quality of life on earth. It examines the food we currently buy and eat in the United States and the moral, economic, and emotional price we pay for it.

The book begins with a touching collection of the true stories about then many animals such as dogs, dolphins, and pigs that have sacrificed themselves for people. He then contrasts this with the way we treat the animals that we raise.

Robbins looks at the global implications of a meat-based diet and the consumption of the resources necessary to produce meat is a major factor in our ecological crisis. He also challenges the belief that consuming meat is a requirement for health by pointing out the increased rate of disease caused by pesticides, hormones, additives, and other chemicals that are now a routine part of our food production.

1. If you want to get osteoperosis, eat excess animal protein

Animal protein causes osteoperosis because they are acid-forming and the body needs to buffer the amino acids from these proteins with minerals. Even with very high calcium intakes, the more excess protein in the diet the greater the incidence of negative calcium balance, and the greater the loss of calcium from the bones. In other words, the more protein in our diet, the more calcium we lose, regardless of how much calcium we take in.

Studies show that the excess consumption of animal protein in the American diet is the single greatest cause of disease in our time and The National Dairy Council have scientific evidence to prove that people do not have to eat meat to get the "best quality" protein.

The popular diet trend today is "more protein, less carbohydrates."

I've found that protein has become an obsession in this country and so many people are afraid of not getting enough that they don't really approach it in a balanced way; realizing that there are dangers in getting too much.

I used to believe that bones lost calcium only if there were not enough calcium in our diets. My friend drinks a glass of milk everyday to develop strong bones because she is a runner. However, she also eats a lot of meat for the protein content to build up strength and endurance; which in turn, is producing a negative effect.

If we changed our diet, we would need far less from our land.

We would not have to force it artificially to supply the hyped-up demands we require to feed huge numbers of livestock. Ninety percent of the grain grown in the United States is fed to animals, not people. The process is a very wasteful and inefficient way of producing food for human beings. Pure vegetarian food choices make less than 5% of the demand on the soil compared to meat-oriented choices.

I used to think, what kind of individual effect on the environment am I going to have on the environment by refraining from eating meat. However, every individual who shifts from a meat-centered diet to a vegetarian diet, an acre of tree is spared. I think that if America would change their diets, we would save an immense amount of energy and there wouldn't be a need for nuclear power plants.

"The realities of the modern factory farms serve as breeding grounds for disease, infections, and mass hysteria"

Robbins himself visited farms where pigs, cattle, and chicken were raised in hellish conditions to make the point that modern meat production is inhumane. The small family farm is rapidly disappearing in the face of corporate agribusiness. The priority for maximization of profit in the new agribusiness environment is the spark for brutality.

Virtually all eggs and all poultry sold in the US are derived from massive poultry operations where the birds, as many as 300,000 per building. Their bodies are often featherless and bleeding from constant contact with other birds and the wire sides of the cages. They are "de-beaked with a hot wire cutter as chicks to prevent them from killing each other in their agony and frustration.

Pigs are restrained in steel pens that prevent the natural movement and are often forced to stand or lay in their own feces with insufficient air flow. The humane farming association reported that 70% of the animals examined had pronounced respiratory disease from the befouled air they take in with every breath.

In our "civilized" society, the