Vegan for Life - Jack Norris [85]
There is no requirement to include soy in your diet, but there is no reason to avoid these foods either. Since variety is an important factor in planning healthy diets, we recommend limiting soyfoods to three to four servings per day. Veggie burgers and other foods made from soy protein can be part of an overall healthy diet, but to get the full nutritional—and culinary—benefits of soy, be sure to explore some of the more traditional foods such as tofu and tempeh. The Soyfoods Primer on pages 119–123 can help familiarize you with these foods.
ISOFLAVONE, PROTEIN, AND CALORIE CONTENT OF SOYFOODS
CHAPTER 16
WHY VEGAN?
Modern farming methods force animals to live in conditions most people cannot imagine. The abuses that we describe in this chapter are not unusual in the world of today’s agricultural industry. Many are standard and routine and are depicted in the trade magazines of animal agriculture. We’ve also included observations from some of the undercover investigations that have given Americans a look at the shocking conditions—some legal, some not—under which animal foods are produced.
We think you’ll agree that the facts make a compelling case for going vegan.
Some of the information in this book comes straight from publications of the agriculture industry, but much of it is the result of undercover investigations by four national nonprofit organizations. More information, including videos of many of these investigations, can be found on their websites:
• The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) www.humanesociety.org
• People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) www.peta.org
• Mercy For Animals (MFA) www.mercyforanimals.org
• Compassion Over Killing (COK) www.cok.net
You can also view videos of factory farming investigations on the Vegan Outreach website: www.veganoutreach/video.org
LIFE ON A MODERN FARM
Films and photos produced by the agricultural industry show pictures of clean facilities and animals who appear well cared for and in good health. Investigations by animal protection advocates reveal a different story: filthy conditions, birds missing feathers, and animals with sores and injuries. While it’s hard to say what the average farm is like, animal protection advocates document squalid farms on a regular basis. They also frequently find cases of wanton cruelty against farm animals despite the industry’s insistence that such incidents are rare and highly unusual.
People don’t like to think that farm or slaughterhouse employees would intentionally cause an animal to suffer. The truth is that those whose job it is to “process” thousands of animals an hour are likely to develop an insensitivity toward the “product.” In a 2008 undercover investigation of Aviagen Turkeys Inc., one of the world’s leading turkey breeding companies, PETA documented employees stomping on turkeys’ heads, punching turkeys, hitting them on the head with a can of spray paint and pliers, and striking the turkeys’ heads against metal scaffolding. Workers also shoved feces and feed into turkeys’ mouths and held turkeys’ heads under water.1
When a supervisor was questioned about the treatment, he responded: “Every once in a while, everybody gets agitated and has to kill a bird.”
While the industry might downplay the significance of certain practices, they don’t deny the use of many of the systems that we talk about in this chapter. Almost all of the methods used on different factory farms have three common elements—and all are aimed at maintaining high efficiency and low costs:
1. Factory farms maximize the number of animals who can be raised in a given amount of space. Confined animals save on space, and they also can’t move much, which reduces their feed requirements. (Manipulating lighting reduces