MEAT & GREET

My name is Dorothy GREET and I eat no MEAT. That was not so the first 70 years of my life for I am the granddaughter of a Pennsylvania dairy farmer and the child of our meat-centered culture.

I used to think it was none of my business what you choose to eat and vice versa, it’s none of your business what I choose to eat. Then I had a heart attack eight years ago and realized no one – not doctors, not nurses, not dietitians – no one was making it their business what I chose to eat. On my own, I found out the leading cause of human mortality and escalating healthcare costs is heart disease, cancer, diabetes and obesity and the leading driver of these diseases is the consumption of animal-based foods. In other words, the more animal foods we eat, the sicker we get. The more plants we eat, the healthier we get.

I used to think it was none of my business what happened on factory farms. Then I had a rude awakening when I learned that over 70 billion farm animals worldwide suffer in crowded, filthy, diseased conditions. Workers are poorly paid. Their jobs are hazardous. Animals and people suffer great misery for us to eat bacon, burgers, wings and fish fillets.

I used to think it was none of my business what happened with animal excrement. Animals produce twice as much excrement as humans but there are laws for treating human excrement, none for animals. Then I became aware that local private wells, public waterways and the very air we breathe are polluted with untreated excrement from the animals we choose to consume three times a day. The greater the demand, the greater the excrement!

I used to think it was none of my business that 57% of all land inhabited by humans is used to graze and grow the crops for farm animals. Then I found out that global animal agriculture is the leading cause of deforestation, rain forest depletion, soil degradation, water scarcity, desertification and ocean dead zones!

Just this week the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a group of over 100 expert scientists from 52 countries, released its alarming summary report. Among its proposals was the urgent global call to “persuade more people to shift their diets away from cattle and other types of meat.”

I am making it my business to do just that. I hope you will join me!