The anti-meat-eating lobby

I have always been very interested about how things are done, food beeing produced and processed.
When I buy something, I usually tend to look at the item and picture it's chain backwards, from the source until it came to my hands.

While developing my little organic clothing brand I got to see really closely the ugly truth of the textile industry. What we acquire, wherever that is, is an apparent form with a background that we often do not want to see.
It is easy not to know, because it usually hurt us less in our daily lifes when we already too busy and overwhelmed with our jobs, stresses and emotional problems. Beeing also concerned, would take too much energy.
I am aware, that we, the consumers, are the ones truly capable of making consistent and durable changes in the whole industry: we have the unshakable right to demand the best. And the industry will listen believe me, if you stop consuming this and that because it no longer serves you.

If we take a closer look into the food industry, and we take meat as an example: this really red yummi piece of roastbiff wrapped in a not so yummi PVC package (proven cancerogenic by the way... And wondering how the contact with it may or may not contaminate the food), do you care how it landed in your plate?

Well, there is something called "the concept of clean protein, recalling us the rules of certification for organic foods, which state that it is free from pesticides. According to the Environmental Agency, 90 to 95 percent of all pesticide residues are found in meat, fish and dairy products". Where and when did we miss out this information, did we avoid it or has it be hidden from us?

We have undoutably the social responsibility of  knowing what we are eating and giving to our kids and the necessity of wanting to educate ourselves to recognize pesticide-free meat/vegetable/fruit.

I am not going to go into details but here are some points that one should consider about clean protein if you wish to continue eating meat:

- Humanely raised animals,
- Drug-free reaised animals,
- Antibiotic-free meat,
- Artificial-free grown hormones used,
- Natural grassy diet raised animals,
- Low-stress environment raised animals.

For all the above choose an organic certified source.

As a vegetarian myself, I have stoped eating meat for several reasons. The one that is on the top of my list is defenetly that I was feeding my system with non-beneficial, unhealthy and sick rubbish. If you still are a meat lover, you could try finding organic certified alternatives. They are certainly more expansive, but decreasing the harmfull effects on your health and environment.

If you wish to slowly try the wonders of vegetarianism and still get your necessary protein intake, then you could look into some other options like introducing the following into your diet:

- soyabeans
- eggs
- spinach, broccoli, cauliflower and parsley
- almond nuts
- beans
- rice

Just to compare, we find more protein ,(plant and meat protein are slightly different and there is some adjustments to make the account for the necessary daily intake because they are absorbed differently in our system), in a broccoli ( around 45%) then in a beef stake (25,8%). Parsley contains 34%, and chicken 23%... Of course we need to weight what we are eating and choose a balanced diet.

But these are only a few figers to help us understand the meat/veggy worlds and the alternatives available out there for us.

If you wish to know more, here are 2 good resources:

- "Food as medicine" by Dharma Singh Khalsa
- http://www.vrg.org/nutrition/protein.php

Don't forget, eat healthy, and if you do not want to do it yourself, help your kids eat better, they will appreciate it!

*The information given in this text was based on the 2  mentioned sources.