In Addition to the enormous financial potential of this technology, there are a whole host of global benefits that will be derived from it’s application. These benefits will also compel the consumer towards our product.
ENVIRONMENT and HEALTH
The list of negative effects of the pork, poultry and cattle farms of the environment is substantial. Moreover, the use of our increasingly efficient fishing technologies are rapidly depleting our rich oceans; fish that were once common are now becoming scarce. Some of the destructive results of our “traditional” methods of farming food both on land and in the oceans are as follows:
- Current meat production is enormously inefficient. On average, it takes 16 pounds of grain to produce 1 pound of beef, 6 pounds of grain to produce 1 pound of pork and 5.3 pounds of fishmeal to produce one pound of farmed fish.
- It takes an average of 7,000 pounds of water to produce a single pound of meat. According to Newsweek, “The water that goes into a 1,000 pound steer could float a destroyer.” In contrast, it takes only 25 gallons of water to produce one pound of wheat. The water that will not be used for the cattle or the vast amount of grain that would otherwise go towards feeding cattle can be distributed in a more effective way tot the human population and/or for growth of crops to feed the human population.
- The human slaughter act (HAS) requires that animals be rendered unconscious with one swift application of a stunning device before slaughter. In today’s slaughterhouse this requirement is often not adhered to. For poultry birds, it is never followed. Conveyor lines are pushed to breakneck speeds, frequently causing cattle, pigs, horses and sheep to be shackled and throat-slit without first being stunned. Animals often are skinned, boiled or butchered alive.
- Half of every butchered cow and a third of every butchered pig becomes either by-product material or waste. In addition, 920 million animals die on US factory farms before reaching slaughter.
- Nearly all commercial chickens die during bleed-out after a circular blade severs their necks. They are not humanly rendered unconscious by the electrified bath in which their heads are first plunged. Chicken processors keep voltages there only high enough to immobilize any inconvenient flailing. Many birds miss both the low-voltage stunning and throat slitting. Every day 30,000 to 60,000 broiler chickens die in the scald tank that follows the bleed-out chamber.
- The vast majority of rain-forest deforestation is for the purpose of grazing animals. On average, 500 square feet of rain forest is destroyed for every pound of beef farmed from those lands. The rain forest provides a large percentage of the worlds oxygen and is the habitat of thousands of species native to that origin.
- Waste from livestock in the United States amounts to 130 times the waste produced by people. Every time it rains, excess phosphorous and nitrogen from the urine and feces seep into our waterways causing algae blooms to spread. One effect of agricultural runoff is the proliferation of dinoflagellates. Pfiesteria picicida, a particularly nasty dinoflagellates, has the ability to ambush its prey by stunning it with a disorienting toxin before sucking its skin off. The nearly indestructible one-celled creature killed a billion of fish within North Carolina’s estuaries in the summer of 1995. People who came in contact with the tiny predator often experience memory loss and disorientation as well as sores on their skin. In 1982, there were 22 known species of harmful dinoflagellates. In 1997, there were over 60.
- As hog feces and urine collect in giant cesspools around factory farms, the sludge is broken down naturally by bacterial digestion. Hazardous nitrogen is eliminated, but in the process it is converted into ammonia gas. With subsequent rainfalls, the ammonia is returned to the earth, polluting rivers and streams.
- It is estimated that the largest percentage of global pollution contributing to the “Greenhouse” effect is from animal waste. Just one hog farm in Utah. For example, produces more sewage than the entire city of Los Angeles.
These are just a handful of the environmental issues surrounding the beef, pork, fish and poultry industries. Once the technology is employed on a broad-based level, many of these substantial negative impacts on the environment should begin to diminish.
HEALTH:
But at least as compelling as the environment are the issues of “healthier” meat.
- In the United States, farm animals receive 30 times the antibiotics that people do – not so much to threat infection, but to make animals grow faster on less feed and to battle the grotesque unhygienic conditions. Every year, on average, each America becomes sick and 9000 people die from something they ate. The government’s strategy in controlling dangerous bacteria is to inspect meat during processing. Except in are conditions neither the USDA nor the FDA has any regulatory powers on farms where pathogens originate. With the exception of E. coli 0156:H7, dangerous bacteria are legally considered “inherent” to raw meat. It’s up to consumers to neutralize pathogens with cooking.
- Two of the “legal bacteria” – campylobacter and salmonella – account for 80% of illnesses and 75% of deaths from meat and poultry. One traditional hamburger can contain the meat of one hundred different cows from four different countries. All that is needed is one infected animal and that can contaminate 16 tons of beef.
- But as bad as the beef and pork industries are, the poultry industries are far worse. As much as 25% of broiler chicken and 45% of ground chicken is allowed to test positive for salmonella. The center for decease control estimates that campylobacter infects 70% to 90% of all chickens. Campylobacter infections give their human victims cramps. Bloody diarrhea and fever and lead to death for up to 800 people in the United States each year.
- For 1,000 to 2,000 people per year, infection will lead to Guillain-Barre syndrome, a disease that requires intensive care for several weeks. A September 1997 sampling of supermarket chicken in Minnesota found 16% infected with an antibiotic-resistant strain of campylobacter.
- In 1997 a bird virus jumped to a human for the first time in history. By early 1998, the avian influenza strain H5N1 has killed six people. The Hong Kong flu struck fear into world populations as more than 1.3 million poultry market chickens were slaughtered.
- Similarly with cows, we are hearing of more and more people downed by Creutzfeld-Jakob disease, a brain-eating affliction otherwise known as Mad-Cow Disease. Death from this disease is inevitable. Recent evidence confirms the transspecies link gives credence to the notion that the disease, which has a 15- to 20-year incubation period, may someday become much more widespread.
These are just a few of the overwhelming health issues at hand. Obviously our products do not have any of these problems. They will be drug and steroid free, bacteria and disease free, and free from the problems of poor hygiene and nasty living conditions that are standard to the current meat industry.
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