“Malnutrition is the number one cause of death in our society today.”

 

“Malnutrition is the number one cause of death in our society today.”      (From an article by T. Colin Campbell)

Malnutrition, including the dietary patterns that produce obesity and chronic disease, such as heart disease and diabetes, and is the number one cause of death in the world today.  It kills literally millions of adults and children worldwide every year.  The costs to both affluent individuals and governments struggling to meet their economic projections, continues to grow, despite being largely ignored by healthcare policy institutions, the media, and the public.

The word malnutrition is most often used to describe diets that are deficient in calories or essential nutrients and associated with starvation and extreme poverty.  The word malnutrition literally means “poor” nutrition.  It needs to be applied equally to dietary patterns of excess that produce obesity, and diet-related diseases like heart disease and type II diabetes.

More than1.9 billion adults worldwide are now overweight or obese.  This is four times as many people then those who are undernourished (462 million).  This gap is growing most pronouncedly in high-income countries, but now even the low and middle income countries are experiencing rising rates of obesity and overweight.^[1]

To a greater or lesser extent, malnutrition plays a role in virtually all of these causes of death. For example, up to 90 percent of heart disease deaths,^[3] 70 percent of cancer deaths,^[4] and 50 percent of stroke deaths^[4] could be prevented by the informed use of nutrition. Likewise, it is widely accepted in the medical community that most type II diabetes could be prevented by better nutrition.

A vegan diet provides all the protein, vitamins, and other nutrients needed for optimal health without the fat, cholesterol and empty calories of the meat and dairy based diet.  GO VEGAN!

 

The Planet Needs Protection From Pandemics and Other Dilemmas

 

Speciesism, the exploitation of non-humans by humans, is the cause of zoonotic disease and other dilemmas.  Zoonotic disease, which causes epidemics and pandemics, is from human – animal interaction.  The most serious infectious diseases are zoonotic, causing an estimated 3 million human deaths per year even before Covid-19.  Emerging diseases are invariably zoonotic: Covid-19, HIV, Ebola, SARS, MERS, Swine and Avian Flu, etc.  Without understanding the creation and spread of zoonoses and the cause of other major issues – Speciesism, and rectifying it with an enforceable international law, it is impossible to prevent the next pandemic and other issues, such as: 

 

Climate Change:  Scientific facts prove that the main cause of global warming melting polar ice caps and raising sea water levels is methane.  Methane traps heat in the atmosphere more effectively than carbon dioxide.  The meat and dairy based diet is directly responsible for the impending disaster we are currently facing. 

 

Hunger:  Land used to grow crops to feed animals killed for food, could be used to grow crops to feed people.  This would significantly reduce world hunger especially in developing nations which export crops while experiencing hunger.

 

Human Health Mortality and Morbidity:  There is copious documentation that transitioning from the traditional fiber rich plant-based diet to the fat and cholesterol filled meat and dairy based diet causes human mortality and morbidity from heart disease, cancer, diabetes and antibiotic resistance. 

 

Pollution: Air, water, and land pollution is a direct result of animal agriculture.  In the United States, animal agriculture produces more pollution than all other industries combined.

 

Misuse of scarce resources: Land and water are being used unsustainably. Rainforests are cut and burned down to provide grazing land and land, and to grow crops to feed to animals raised for food.  It takes a hundred times more water to produce meat than vegetables.

 

Species extinction and Habitat Destruction:  As animal agriculture grows, it needs more and more resources of land and water, destroying the habitats of existing species and causing extinction of irreplaceable individuals.

 

Justice:  Speciesism is unjust, unsustainable and destructive.  It is treating animals as slaves of humans.  The unfortunate individuals, who are eaten, used for clothing, experiments, and entertainment, have no rights of their own.  As you know from the past, the individuals kidnapped in Africa, and forced to be slaves, did not want to be treated better, they wanted to be free and have rights.  This is true not just for humans, but for all species.  The world needs a United Nations Convention Against Speciesism.  www.VeganInternational.org

 

 

 

Covid-19, a zoonotic disease, is caused by unjust exploitation of animals by humans.

Zoonotic diseases, the cause of epidemics and pandemics, is from human – animal interaction.  The most serious infectious diseases are zoonotic, causing an estimated 3 million human deaths per year even before Covid-19. 

Zoonotic disease occurs when a pathogen ‘jumps’ from animals to humans, and then transmitted directly among humans.  Emerging diseases are invariably zoonotic: Covid-19, HIV, Ebola, SARS, MERS, Swine and Avian Flu, etc.  Without understanding the creation and spread of zoonoses, and rectifying these issues, it is impossible to prevent the next pandemic. 

COVID-19 originated from an animal extrajudicially executed in a live animal market – an innocent, exploited individual sold and murdered for profit.  HIV/AIDS, also from zoonotic origins, occurred through the hunting and butchering of innocent wild animals. Ebola virus disease is from zoonotic origins.  Bites and injuries caused by primates kept as pet animals can also cause viral transmission.

Modern food production invites zoonotic disaster.  Innocent, incarcerated animals are relentlessly stressed, confined, forced to share space with dead or diseased animals, share bodily fluids and airborne pathogens, expel waste on each other, all while being fed a steady supply of antibiotics. 

The problem: Zoonotic Disease.  The Solution: Vegan!