I agree that the conversation/interview on Ellen left a lot of things out that I would have liked to hear, but I do think that there were some good things that came out of the short (less than 4 minutes) book promo.

I watched the show that day by chance and was happy to see Jonathan speaking about the subject. I noticed that Ellen seemed very uncomfortable during the interview and was almost "holding back" because of what she is allowed to say on daytime TV. The audience was very quiet as well. They did not applaud at times when they usually do.

Ellen has slowly brought more attention to her change to veganism, but is doing it in a gentle manner and not lose her audience. She has cooks that make vegan meals on her show and has spoken about the subject many times, but has to do it in a gentle way or people will start to turn away. Preaching to people who are not ready to hear the truth can be a mistake. Overkill is not always a good thing.

Ellen has promoted Cover Girl, but has gotten a lot of AR people telling her how disappointed they are because of P&G's cruel testing policies. She is aware of the problem and if done right, would be the right person to bring this to the attention of the corporation to make the changes. I think that she may re-consider when her contract is up with them now that she is more aware.

One thing that was said during the interview between Ellen and Jonathan was: "there is nothing more powerful than an informed conversation." The author had some good things to say, and at least they put the topic out there. Many people will not. It may get more people thinking and talking about what they eat and why...and I personally am happy to see that. I am looking forward to reading the book.

I think Josh from Herbivore said it best about our issues with Foer, that we cannot "size him up through an AR lens" and granted I have problems with his 'humane' issue or the fact that he doesn't use the argument of NOT killing for not eating animals - which is why I thought most of us went vegetarian in the first place.

BUT this book can be and I think is a crucial tool at this critical junction in our existence on this planet - if the World Watch Institute is point-on with their report of animal agriculture having a 51% contribution of GHGs to the problem of climate change, then the more informed people we can get to go meat-free/dairy-free or even just to eat less meat/dairy/animal products a week, the better. And yes I know that although Foer may be focusing on just how they're killed as opposed to why, most all meat comes from factory farms so exposing the conditions there could also push for changes to that despicable industry that refuses to be regulated whatsoever and is causing immense environmental damage in this country. 

Because the fact is, meat production, sales and consumption is only expected to increase with China and India's growth and development, and that can only mean replicating Western farming productions, aka the factory farm, for increased production and profit. So any and all steps we can take to pass on the info to the masses, the better off we could potentially all be don't you think?

And hopefully it cause some of those that read it, to think deeper morally and ethically, and realize that killing is killing regardless.

Can Ellen really be called vegan if she endorses one of the worst animal-testing corporations on the planet for her own gain?

I ordered and have received my copy of Eating Animals but like you Stephanie, I haven't had time yet to read it.  Also, like you, I am gratified the book is generating so much publicity and discussion.  The crux of the issue - that of killing innocent animals - never becomes the foremost consideration.  Alas!  Alas!! 

Kathryn, animal abuse of any form is a violent act and as vegans (I'm assuming you are one), we stand in opposition to any and all forms of violence.  The opposite of violence is compassion, understanding, mercy.....and since your comments don't sound like any of those three, it seems like your remarks belong back on the other side of the line.  We vegans need to be the epitomy of compassion and kindness at every opportunity.  You have missed that mark.

I think Foer has a lot of the facts about factory farming right, he's just a bit misguided in his intent and philosophy.

Personally, as a vegan, I see drinking milk as just as evil as eating a steak but everyone is different. People need to be educated to what they don't know.

Same goes for Ellen and Cover Girl, although I find it hard to excuse the lack of research done on such a well-known product. Something tells me other factors were at play there…

Stephanie,  this is the best book ever and I feel that it will revolutionize the way people feel about eating animals. Lots of facts, numbers and some horrid details too which must be told. It pleased me so much to hear today that there were 168 people waiting for it at the main Seattle Library! World, go vegan, for the animals'sake, for our health and for the planet!  

I do not agree with factory farming, and always buy free range (except when eating at restaurants. I really love animals, they're delicious, and i will never stop eating meat. so be it. Being a vegan or vegitarian does not improve health nor make a person live longer (based on scientfic evidence documtned by forensic pathologists), and with responsible sustainable farming practices effect on the evironment would be minimal.

I am really tired of the misconception and false claim that people should "go vegan or go vegetarian for our health"....Being a vegan or vegetarian does not improve health nor make a person live longer (based on scientific evidence documented by forensic pathologists).                                                                                 We are at the top of the food chain, are omnivores, and have canine teeth and not just molars for a reason!!! In fact people with blood type O are naturallydefiecient in intrinsic factor (within the hydrochloric cells of the stomach), folic acid and other nutrients found in meat, other blood types do not need meat, and could maintain health without it. (being replaced by soy, mushrooms, nuts, seeds, or other substitutes).                 

Why do vegans and vegetarians want substitutes that look and taste like meat? lmao too funny, if you do not want to eat meat or animal products  that is your right, does not make sense to pretend.

Do not try to force your views on or control the rest of us, we really love animals, they're delicious!!!

@Debby McCabe: it is you whom are deluded, and it is a myth, disproved by forensic pathologists, whose evidence shows that no matter the diet, nor whether or not people ate meat or not, did not make them live longer or be any healthier.(typically both vegetarians and meat eaters live the same lifespans to about 80). The only common diet related factor in those who were healthier and who lived longer was if the person ate locally, and got enough fiber and calcium in their diet. As i had stated previously, we have canines for the purposes of tearing meat,  and yes molars for crushing seeds and turning food into a pulp and mixing with saliva to start the digestive process, and hence we are OMNIVORES! we are able to eat and digest meat, vegetables, fruits, legumes, nuts, and seeds, in proper amounts, with moderation. If people ate/eat  smaller/small amounts of meat only once a day or only a few times a week (as in the rest of the world), they would not have undigested or partially digested meat rotting in their stomachs.

the common factors in people that did matter and have an effect on health and long life(those who typically live above 80) are:

1)ate locally, and got enough fiber and calcium in their diet

2)rarely saw a doctor, and rarely if ever took pharmaceutical drugs

3)led an active lifestyle

this is fact, based on scientific evaluation and evidence, and facts are immutable and incontrovertible truths, absent of any point of view at all.

and so i say to all whom are complicit and try to promote/proselytize the myth without evidence, it is better to stand there, and look stupid than it is to open your mouth and remove all doubt ..."Never pass up a chance to keep your mouth shut."--- Will Rogers

Excerpted from

"The Comparative Anatomy of Eating", by Milton R. Mills, MD

Which category are humans most suited for?

*Facial Muscles*
CARNIVORE: Reduced to allow wide mouth gape
OMNIVORE: Reduced
HERBIVORE: Well-developed
HUMAN: Well-developed

*Jaw Type*
CARNIVORE: Angle not expanded
HERBIVORE: Expanded angle
OMNIVORE: Angle not expanded
HUMAN: Expanded angle

*Jaw Joint Location*
CARNIVORE: On same plane as molar teeth
HERBIVORE: Above the plane of the molars
OMNIVORE: On same plane as molar teeth
HUMAN: Above the plane of the molars

*Jaw Motion*
CARNIVORE: Shearing; minimal side-to-side motion
HERBIVORE: No shear; good side-to-side, front-to-back
OMNIVORE: Shearing; minimal side-to-side
HUMAN: No shear; good side-to-side, front-to-back

*Major Jaw Muscles*
CARNIVORE: Temporalis
HERBIVORE: Masseter and pterygoids
OMNIVORE: Temporalis
HUMAN: Masseter and pterygoids

*Mouth Opening vs. Head Size*
CARNIVORE: Large
HERBIVORE: Small
OMNIVORE: Large
HUMAN: Small

*Teeth: Incisors*
CARNIVORE: Short and pointed
HERBIVORE: Broad, flattened and spade shaped
OMNIVORE: Short and pointed
HUMAN: Broad, flattened and spade shaped

*Teeth: Canines*
CARNIVORE: Long, sharp and curved
HERBIVORE: Dull and short or long (for defense), or none
OMNIVORE: Long, sharp and curved
HUMAN: Short and blunted

*Teeth: Molars*
CARNIVORE: Sharp, jagged and blade shaped
HERBIVORE: Flattened with cusps vs complex surface
OMNIVORE: Sharp blades and/or flattened
HUMAN: Flattened with nodular cusps

*Chewing*
CARNIVORE: None; swallows food whole
HERBIVORE: Extensive chewing necessary
OMNIVORE: Swallows food whole and/or simple crushing
HUMAN: Extensive chewing necessary

*Saliva*
CARNIVORE: No digestive enzymes
HERBIVORE: Carbohydrate digesting enzymes
OMNIVORE: No digestive enzymes
HUMAN: Carbohydrate digesting enzymes

*Stomach Type*
CARNIVORE: Simple
HERBIVORE: Simple or multiple chambers
OMNIVORE: Simple
HUMAN: Simple

*Stomach Acidity*
CARNIVORE: Less than or equal to pH 1 with food in stomach
HERBIVORE: pH 4 to 5 with food in stomach
OMNIVORE: Less than or equal to pH 1 with food in stomach
HUMAN: pH 4 to 5 with food in stomach

*Stomach Capacity*
CARNIVORE: 60% to 70% of total volume of digestive tract
HERBIVORE: Less than 30% of total volume of digestive tract
OMNIVORE: 60% to 70% of total volume of digestive tract
HUMAN: 21% to 27% of total volume of digestive tract

*Length of Small Intestine*
CARNIVORE: 3 to 6 times body length
HERBIVORE: 10 to more than 12 times body length
OMNIVORE: 4 to 6 times body length
HUMAN: 10 to 11 times body length

*Colon*
CARNIVORE: Simple, short and smooth
HERBIVORE: Long, complex; may be sacculated
OMNIVORE: Simple, short and smooth
HUMAN: Long, sacculated

*Liver*
CARNIVORE: Can detoxify vitamin A
HERBIVORE: Cannot detoxify vitamin A
OMNIVORE: Can detoxify vitamin A
HUMAN: Cannot detoxify vitamin A

*Kidney*
CARNIVORE: Extremely concentrated urine
HERBIVORE: Moderately concentrated urine
OMNIVORE: Extremely concentrated urine
HUMAN: Moderately concentrated urine

*Nails*
CARNIVORE: Sharp claws
HERBIVORE: Flattened nails or blunt hooves
OMNIVORE: Sharp claws
HUMAN: Flattened nails

Michelle R. You are perfectly right. We cannot change people really about "anything" and that includes meat eating. So be it...We must be the chosen ones knowing what is best for the animals and ourselves. I am still hoping that Jonathan's book will make a difference...we can always have HOPE if nothing else.

lol @ holier than thou vegans/vegetarians, do not be so pushy. Vegan/vegetarian proselytism sickens me, is pushy and not to mention overly aggressive and controlling. Do not try to force your views on or control the rest of us (the consistent and constant majority), we really love animals, they're delicious!!! to each their own :)

the following are comments and feelings of real people:...

-irobotzippy --"yea vegans are almost as pushy as the mormans"

-hammie --"Meat is good food. AND...I have NEVER heard of a 110 year old vegan.They smell, and their skin is ... ewwww".

--postal florist --"my roommate in college forced it upon people...we ended up with dead rabbits on our doorstep".

--clayndwoods --"I have vegan friends, they aren't pushy, however they seldom accept dinner invitations at my house. it would also appear that they feel they are above accepting the hospitality and sharing of others even though it might not be what they would choose to eat at home. Instead of being grateful for the offering and sharing and accept what is given, respectfully. As if they would expect something prepared especially for them, instead of accepting what they're being given regardless. ...conceited vegans/vegetarians who think they are better than others".

I'm enjoying the comments by those who present scientific, sound, verifiable reasons for going vegan.  Yes, I am vegan so I am a bit biased about the comments but I have yet to read a sound argument for why meat eating is healthy for humans, the environment, and the animals who give their lives so others may eat.  I don't deny that there are those who enjoy the taste of flesh on their tongue.  If they wish to raise animal food for their own table, so be it.  I do object to the squandering of lives, the destruction of land and waterways, and the release of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere--all of which is destroying the land we all have to live upon--that occur when agri-business in the form of factory farming takes on the task of feeding the world with fast-food burgers, chicken nuggets, and pork rinds. 

thankfully there will be nothing the snobbish holier than thou vegans and vegetarians will be able to do about that!

You can quote all sorts of assumptions from the vegan/vegetarian perspective, however the facts and truth remain. The forensic pathologist who examine humans upon death have determined no basis for the theory/idea that being on a certain diet or whether or not a person consumed meat hat no matter the diet, nor whether or not people ate meat or not, did not make them live longer or be any healthier.(typically both vegetarians and meat eaters live the same lifespans to about 80). The only common diet related factor in those who were healthier and who lived longer was if the person ate locally, and got enough, fiber and calcium in their diet.

-hammie --"I have NEVER heard of a 110 year old vegan.They smell, and their skin is ... ewwww".

what you mean to say is that you prefer or only like the scientific theories and ideas supporting veganism or vegetarianism, despite actual scientific evidence, ...not just hypothesis, theory or mere conjecture, but actual evidence that is fact, and facts are immutable and incontrovertible truths, verifiable and validatable, absent of any point of view at all.

Just because the views and information presented is contrary to the vegan adgenda does not mean it is 'junior high' and not adult discourse or debate. I do apologize for my sloppy typing and posts, however, how dare vegans/vegetarians judge our perspective's (including those i shared here) to be immature or ignorant, 'junior high' or in any way not adult discorse or debate, shame on you.

What separates humans from the other animals? Psychologist Paul Chance struggles with this problem in the January 1988 issue of Psychology Today. The ancient Greeks considered man "the rational animal." Recent studies prove animals do many of the same things we consider evidence of reasoning ability. Chimpanzees, for example, can solve puzzles on their own, in much the same way as humans, and will even do it for no other reward than the mere satisfaction of having done it.

Does creativity set us apart from nature? Porpoises can be trained not just to perform tricks, but to invent tricks of their own. Making tools? Animal behaviorist Jane Goodall observed wild chimpanzees use toolmaking in obtaining food. Language? Two psychologists in Nevada taught a chimp named Washoe the sign language of the deaf. Not Only did Washoe learn hundreds of signs, she learned to use them in new ways to express new ideas. Sign language has been taught to other chimpanzees and to gorillas and orangutans as well.

The negative traits of humanity have also been observed in the animal kingdom. humans may rape, murder and go to war with greater efficiency and intellectual prowess than other species, but these are not uniquely human acts. Male apes have been seen forcing themselves upon unwilling females of their kind.

Apes have been known to attack and kill members of their own tribe, as well as outsiders, sometimes for trivial reasons. Goodall has even observed organized battles between rival troops of chimpanzees that can accurately be called wars.

Dr. Chance suggests that it is the human quest to find a quality which separates us from the rest of creation which really appears to set us apart. We are the only creature struggling to find its identity, the only creature asking, "How am I different from all the other creatures?" Beyond survival, eating, sleeping, mating and basic bodily maintenance, humans seek to knew their origin, the past, the universe around them and the future. Only we humans ask such questions and appear to have any interest in the answers.

As far as everyday ethics are concerned, there are no morally relevant differences between humans ant the rest of animal kingdom. The one quality which distinguishes humans from other species appears to be spiritual: man's desire to find his place in the universe, his relationship with God. This is irrelevant as far as the oppression, enslavement, torment and annihilation of creatures like ourselves is concerned. If anything, the theistic position of "human dominion" demands that humans show greater justice and mercy towards animals. As far as suffering is concerned, the animals are our equals.  

"When we turn to the protection of animals, we sometimes hear it said that we ought to protect men first and animals afterwards...By condoning cruelty to animals, we perpetuate the very spirit which condones cruelty to men."

---Henry Salt

If the Garden of Eden story is a myth, then so are the beliefs in "human dominion" and the "Flood."  I encounter Christians who seem to want some kind of double standard, in which only humans have rights and other animals don't.  Animals cannot discuss higher topics?  Fine.  Then denying them the right to vote or the right to a college education is not discrimination.  Denying them rights, like the right to life, IS! 

Peter Singer writes that all the attempts to prove human superiority over the other animals fail to shatter this hard fact:  when it comes to suffering, the animals are our equals.

I'm a pro-life Democrat.  However, Matthew Scully, a vegetarian, conservative Catholic, and former speechwriter for George W. Bush takes the position in his 2003 book Dominion that the theistic position of "human dominion" demands that humans show greater justice and mercy towards the animals. 

"In the debate about the rights of the unborn, we are asked to broaden the circle of our moral concern..."

---George W. Bush,    November 5, 2003

George W. Bush's words are also the language of animal rights. Animal rights activists also speak of expanding our sphere of moral concern to encompass an excluded class of beings.  British author John Wynne-Tyson wrote a book in the  '70s on animal rights/vegetarianism entitled The Extended Circle. 

A pro-choicer on AlterNet (another liberal headlines e-newsletter) wrote:
Your rights end at the tip of my nose. In other words, we are free and have rights, but when your rights start to infringe on someone else's rights, those rights end.

That's precisely my point, and it's one I've made a long time ago: my right to swing my fist ends where someone else's face begins.
Recognizing the rights of another class of beings limits our freedoms and our choices, and requires a change in our personal lifestyle.

If the unborn have rights, then your freedom to kill is restricted: you cannot "infringe on someone else's rights."

If animals have rights, then your freedom to kill is (similarly) restricted: you cannot "infringe on someone else's rights." 

Pro-life feminist Juli Loesch wrote back in the '70s: "Each woman has the right (to contraception)...But once a woman has conceived, she can no longer choose whether or not to become a mother. Biologically, she is already a mother...the woman’s rights are then limited, as every right is limited, by the existence of another human being who also has rights."  

Do the unborn have rights? Do animals have rights? What sort of beings can have rights? What is our criterion for personhood? These are the issues we should be debating--not lame arguments about "freedom of choice."

John Stuart Mill wrote:  "The reasons for legal intervention in favor of children apply not less strongly to the case of those unfortunate slaves -- the animals." 

In both cases, we're discussing extending rights to an excluded class of beings; beings on the fringes of our moral community, which are only accorded marginal personhood, which is inconsistent at best. 
 
For example, the unborn are considered children only if they are "wanted", and animals like pets are considered part of the family, while other animals are considered "food," clothing, subjects of medical research, etc. 

I don't think respect for animal life will lead to a devaluation of human life.  If anything, I think the opposite is true.  Dr. Albert Schweitzer said, "If you lose respect for part of life, you lose respect for all of it."

No, Neokuji, shame on you for such a disrespect for sentient beings and s=disregard for their suffering.

"Global hunger could be directly attributed to meat-eating."  ---Chrissie Hynde

Half the world's population does not receive an adequate amount of food to eat.  Ten to twenty million die annually of hunger and its effects.  The Institute for Food and Development Policy reports that, "Forty thousand children starve to death on this planet every day," or one child every two seconds.

The livestock population of the United States today consumes enough grain and soybeans to feed over five times the entire human population of the country.   We feed these animals over 80% of the corn we grow, and over 95% of the oats.   Less than half the harvested agricultural acreage in the United States is used to grow food for people.  Most of it is used to grow livestock feed.

Ronald J. Sider of Evangelicals for Social Action, in his 1977 book, Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger, pointed out that 220 million Americans were eating enough food (largely because of the high consumption of grain-fed livestock) to feed over one billion people in the poorer countries.

The world's cattle alone, not to mention pigs and chickens, consume a quantity of food equal to the caloric needs of 8.7 billion people.  It takes 16 pounds of grain to produce one pound of beef.  According to Department of Agriculture statistics, one acre of land can grow 20,000 pounds of potatoes.  That same acre of land, if used to grow cattlefeed, can produce less than 165 pounds of beef.

In his book, The Hungry Planet, Georg Bergstrom points out that protein-starved underdeveloped nations export more protein to wealthy nations than they receive.  He calls this "the protein swindle."  Ninety percent of the world's fish meal catch, for example, is exported to rich countries.  One-third of Africa's peanut crop winds up in the stomachs of European livestock.  Half the world's cereal crop is fed to livestock and the United States annually imports one million tons of vegetable protein from Third World nations--just to feed its farm animals.

Bergstrom writes: "Sometimes one wonders how many Americans and Western Europeans have grasped the fact that quite a few of their beef steaks, quarts of milk, dozens of eggs, and hundreds of broilers are the result, not of their agriculture, but of the approximately two million metric tons of protein, mostly of high quality, which astute Western businessmen channel away from the needy and hungry."

Jeremy Rifkin, author of a dozen influential books and President of the Foundation on Economic Trends, writes in his 1992 bestseller Beyond Beef:

"Cattle and other livestock are devouring much of the grain produced on the planet.  It need be emphasized that this is a new phenomenon, unlike anything ever experienced before.

"Contrary to popular belief, the poor are getting poorer each year...Increased poverty has meant increased malnutrition.  On the African continent, nearly one in every four human beings is malnourished.  In Latin America, nearly one out of every seven people goes to bed hungry each night.  In Asia and the Pacific, 28 percent of the people border on starvation, experiencing the gnawing pain of a perpetual hunger."

"In the Near East, one in ten people is underfed.  Chronic hunger now affects upwards of 1.3 billion people, according to the world Health Organization--a statistic all the more striking in a world where one third of all the grain produced is being fed to cattle and other livestock.  Never before in human history has such a large percentage of our species--nearly 25 percent--been malnourished.

"The transition of world agriculture from food grain to feed grains represents an...evil whose consequences may be far greater and longer lasting than any past examples of violence inflicted by men against their fellow human beings."

In the 1970s, the United Nations Secretary General said that the food consumption of the rich countries is the key cause of hunger around the world.  The United Nations has recommended that the wealthy nations cut down on their meat consumption. 

The Worldwatch Institute has released a remarkable report entitled Taking Stock: Animal Farming and the Environment, which lists nation after nation where food deprivation has followed the switch from a grain-based diet to a meat-based one.

Most of the nations that now import grain from the United States were once self-sufficient in grain.  The main reason they aren't is the rise in meat production and consumption. 

In Taiwan, for example, per capita consumption of meat and eggs increased 600 percent from 1950 to 1990.  With this change, vastly increased amounts of grain have gone to livestock, raising the annual per capita grain use in the country from 375 pounds to 858 pounds.  In 1950, Taiwan was a grain exporter; in 1990 the nation imported, mostly for feed, 74 percent of the grain it used.

In mainland China, the situation is similar.  Increased meat consumption has meant less grain available to feed people.  Since 1978, meat consumption has more than doubled, to twenty-four kilograms.  The share of Chinese grain fed to livestock rose from 7 percent in 1960 to 20 percent in 1990.

Over half Of Latin America's beef production is exported, and the rest is too expensive for any but the wealthy to purchase.  From 1960 to 1980 beef exports from El Salvador increases over sixfold.  Meanwhile, increasing numbers of small farmers lost their livelihood and were pushed off their land. Today, 72 percent of all Salvadoran infants are underfed.

In Brazil, major portions of the Amazon tropical rain forests have been destroyed so that wealthy multinational corporations can produce beef for the wealthy.   Corporations such as Volkswagen, Nestle, Mitsubishi, Liquigas, King Ranch, and Swift-Eckrich have bulldozed and burned literally hundreds of millions of acres, replacing the world's oldest and richest ecosystems, home to two million or more species of plant and animal life with a single crop--pasture grass for cattle.  And here, the beef produced has not gone to feed hungry Brazilians; it has been primarily exported to Western Europe, the Middle East, and North America.  In 1987, the United States imported three hundred million pounds of meat from countries in Central and South America.

With the help of international lending institutions, Brazil has mounted an enormous effort to increase agricultural production, but this has been primarily meat-oriented production and for export.  In the late '60s, soybeans were almost nonexistent or Brazil.  Today, this crop is the nation's number one export--but almost all of it goes to feed Japanese and European livestock.  Twenty five years ago, one third of the Brazilian population suffered from malnutrition.  Today, the figure has risen to two thirds.

Oxfam, the international charity, reports that in Brazil huge cattle ranches take up some of the most fertile soil in the whole country, yet 60 percent of Brazilians are malnourished.  Oxfam estimates that in Mexico, 80 percent of the children in rural areas are undernourished, yet the livestock are fed more grain than the human population eats!  The livestock are exported of course, to satisfy the developed nations' craving for cheap hamburgers.

In the early '60s, sorghum was almost unknown in Mexico.  But by 1980, it covered literally twice the acreage of wheat.  Sorghum isn't grown for humans.   It is fed to livestock.  In the late '60s, livestock consumed only 6 percent of Mexico's grain.  Today, the figure is over 50 percent.  This is a trend throughout the Third World.  Copying the United States' meat-oriented diet, these poor countries devote increasing percentages of their resources to meat production.

In Guatemala, 75 percent of the children under five years of age are undernourished.  Yet, every year Guatemala exports 40 million pounds of meat to the United States. It borders on the criminal!

In Costa Rica, beef production quadrupled between 1960 and 1980, but almost all this beef is exported to the United States, and what does stay in the country is eaten by a tiny minority.  Though more and more Costa Rican land is being turned over to meat production, the population is not eating more meat for the change.  The average family in Costa Rica eats less meat than the average American housecat. 

Throughout Latin America, land availability is a prominent social issue.   Revolutionaries as well as reform-minded moderates have made land reform a major issue.  Yet in many Latin American countries, forests are being leveled in order to create pastures for cattle grazing land. 

In a region where land availability is a central social issue, existing land is being gobbled up by livestock agriculture.   The resulting social tensions have resulted in civil wars, repression and violence.

Hunger is really a social disease caused by the unjust, inefficient and wasteful control of food.  Our food security is not being threatened by the prolific, hungry masses, but by elites that profit by the concentration and internationalization of control of food resources. 

In country after country the pattern is repeated.  Livestock industries are consuming feed to such an extent that now almost all Third World nations must import grain.  Seventy-five percent of Third World imports of corn, barley, sorghum, and oats are fed to animals, not to people.  In country after country, the demand for meat among the rich is squeezing out staple production for the poor.

The same trend can be found in the Middle East and North Africa--increases in grain-fed livestock require more imported feed.  In the early '70s, Egypt was self-sufficient in grain.  Then, livestock ate only 10 percent of the nation's grain.  Today, livestock consume 36 percent of Egypt's grain.  As a result, Egypt must now import eight million tons of grain every year. 

 In the late '60s , Syria was a barley exporter.  But in the intervening years, livestock has consumed increasing amounts of the country's grain.   Now, despite a phenomenal 1,000 percent increase in the land area devoted to producing barley, Syria must import the cereal.

According to Buckminster Fuller, there are enough resources at present to feed, clothe, house and educate every human being on the planet at American middle class standards.  The Institute for Food and Development Policy has shown that there is no country in the world in which the people cannot feed themselves from their own resources.

Moreover, there is no correlation between land density and hunger.   China has twice as many people per cultivated acre as India, yet less of a hunger problem.  Bangladesh has just one-half the people per cultivated acre that Taiwan has, yet Taiwan has no starvation, while Bangladesh has one of the highest rates in the world.  The most densely populated countries in the world today are not India and Bangladesh, but Holland and Japan.

Many of us believe that hunger exists because there's not enough food to go around.  But as Frances Moore Lappe' and her anti-hunger organization Food First! have shown, the real cause of hunger is a scarcity of justice, not a scarcity of food.

i want to say something in kathryn's defense.  vegans aren't robots.  some are in-your-face and some are kumbaya.  different approaches work on different people.  maybe calling ellen a sell-out will get someone out there thinking. and frankly,  you can't get on someone's case for being unkind and then turn around and call someone else 'deluded'.

I would like to see organized religion take up the struggle for animal rights. Religion has been wrong before. It has been said that on issues such as women's rights and human slavery, religion has impeded social and moral progress. It was a Spanish Catholic priest, Bartolome de las Casas, who first proposed enslaving black Africans in place of the Native Americans who were dying off in great numbers.

 The church of the past never considered human slavery to be a moral evil. The Protestant churches of Virginia, South Carolina, and other southern states actually passed resolutions in favor of the human slave traffic. 
 
Human slavery was called "by Divine Appointment," "a Divine institution," "a moral relation," "God's institution," "not immoral," but "founded in right." The slave trade was called "legal," "licit," "in accordance with humane principles" and "the laws of revealed religion." 
 
New Testament verses calling for obedience and subservience on the part of slaves (Titus 2:9-10; Ephesians 6:5-9; Colossians 3:22-25; I Peter 2:18-25) and respect for the master (I Timothy 6:1-2; Ephesians 6:5-9) were often cited in order to justify human slavery.  Some of Jesus' parables refer to human slaves. Paul's epistle to Philemon concerns a runaway slave returned to his master. 
 
The Quakers were one of the earliest religious denominations to condemn human slavery.  "Paul's outright endorsement of slavery should be an undying embarrassment to Christianity as long as they hold the entire New Testament to be the word of God," says contemporary Quaker physician Dr. Charles P. Vaclavik. "Without a doubt, the American slaveholders quoted Paul again and again to substantiate their right to hold slaves. 
 
"The moralist movement to abolish slavery had to go to non-Biblical sources to demonstrate the immoral nature of slavery. The abolitionists could not turn to Christian sources to condemn slavery, for Christianity had become the bastion of the evil practice through its endorsement by the Apostle Paul. Only the Old Testament gave the abolitionist any Biblical support in his efforts to free the slaves. 'You shall not surrender to his master a slave who has taken refuge with you.' (Deuteronomy 23:15) What a pittance of material opposing slavery from a book supposedly representing the word of God." 
 
In 1852, Josiah Priest wrote Bible Defense of Slavery. Others claimed blacks were subhuman. Buckner H. Payne, calling himself "Ariel," wrote in 1867: "the tempter in the Garden of Eden...was a beast, a talking beast...the negro." Ariel argued that since the negro was not part of Noah's family, he must have been a beast. Eight souls were saved on the ark, therefore, the negro must be a beast, and "consequently, he has no soul to be saved." 
 
The status of animals in contemporary human society is like that of human slaves in centuries past. Quoting Luke 4:18, Colossians 3:11, Galatians 3:28 or any other biblical passages in favor of liberty, equality and an end to human slavery in the 18th or 19th century would have been met with the same kind of response animal rights activists receive today if they quote Bible verses in favor of ethical vegetarianism and compassion towards animals.  

Some of the worst crimes in history have also been committed in the name of religion. There's a great song along these lines from the early 1990s by Rage Against the Machine, entitled "Killing in the Name Of".  

Someone once pointed out that while Hitler may have claimed to be a Christian, he imprisoned Christian clergy who opposed the Nazi regime, and even Christian churches were subject to the terror of the Nazis. Thinking along these lines, I realize that while I would like to see organized religion support animal liberation (e.g., as was the case with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the American civil rights movement) rather than simply remain an obstacle to social and moral progress (e.g., 19th century southern churches in the U.S. upheld human slavery on biblical grounds), this support must come freely and voluntarily (e.g., "The Liberation of All Life" resolution issued by the World Council of Churches in 1988). 
 
Religious institutions can't be coerced into rewriting their holy books or teaching a convoluted doctrine to suit the whims or the secular political ideology of a particular demagogue. American liberals argue that principle of the separation of church and state (upon which the United States was founded) gives us freedom FROM religious tyranny and theocracy. Conservatives argue (the other side of the coin!) that one of the reasons America's founding fathers established the separation of church and state was to prevent government intrusion into religious affairs.

I agree with Reverend Marc Wessels, Executive Director of the International Network for Religion and Animals (INRA), who said on Earth Day 1990:   "It is a fact that no significant social reform has yet taken place in this country without the voice of the religious community being heard.  The endeavors of the abolition of slavery; the women's suffrage movement; the emergence of the pacifist tradition during World War I; the struggles to support civil rights, labor unions, and migrant farm workers; and the anti-nuclear and peace movements have all succeeded in part because of the power and support of organized religion.  Such authority and energy is required by individual Christians and the institutional church today if the liberation of animals is to become a reality."

I try to stay noncontroversial when it comes to religion/animals... I've found what works best is to remind people that "No one will betray their faith if they refuse to kill animals".  I say this in hopes of putting a "good gOd", "bad gOd" in perspective...

A vegetarian interpretation of Scripture is possible, as St. Jerome, Thomas Tryon, John Wesley, William Metcalfe, Ellen White and other distinguished figures in the Christian tradition have all demonstrated, but it is much like an anti-capital punishment interpretation of Scripture...it will appeal to a liberal minority.

It's time to bring the religious community on board with animal issues!

According to the Bible, God intended the entire human race to follow a vegetarian diet (Genesis 1:29). Paradise is vegetarian. Rashi (Rabbi Solomon von Isaac, 1030-1105), the famous Jewish Bible commentator, taught that "God did not permit Adam and his wife to kill a creature and to eat its flesh. Only every green herb shall they all eat together." Ibn Ezra and other Jewish biblical commentators agree.

According to the Talmud, "Adam and many generations that followed him were strict flesh-abstainers; flesh-foods were rejected as repulsive for human consumption." Although man was made in God's image and given dominion over all creation (Genesis 1:26-28), these verses do not justify humans killing animals and devouring them, because God immediately proclaims He created the plants for human consumption. (Genesis 1:29)

In a letter to Pope John Paul II, challenging him on the issue of animal experimentation, Dr. Michael Fox of the Humane Society argued that the word "dominion" is derived from the original Hebrew word "rahe" which refers to compassionate stewardship, instead of power and control. Parents have dominion over their children; they do not have a license to kill, torment or abuse them. The Talmud (Shabbat 119; Sanhedrin 7) interprets "dominion" to mean animals may be used for labor.

Man was made in God's image (Genesis 1:26) and told to be vegetarian (Genesis 1:29). "And God saw all that He had made and saw that it was very good." (Genesis 1:31) Complete and perfect harmony. Everything in the beginning was the way God wanted it. Vegetarianism was part of God's initial plan for the world.

"It appears that the first intention of the Maker was to have men live on a strictly vegetarian diet," writes Rabbi Simon Glazer, in his 1971 Guide to Judaism. "The very earliest periods of Jewish history are marked with humanitarian conduct towards the lower animal kingdom...It is clearly established that the ancient Hebrews knew, and perhaps were the first among men to know, that animals feel and suffer pain."

After the Flood, God revised His commandment against flesh-eating. Human beings, since eating of the forbidden fruit, seemed incapable of obedience on this issue. One Jewish writer comments, "Only after man had proven unfit for the high moral standard given at the beginning, was meat made a part of the humans' diet."

It is important to note that before the Flood, when humans were vegetarian, lifespans were measured in terms of centuries.  Adam, for example, lived to be 930 years old.  Seth (Adam's son) lived to 912.  Enoch (Seth's son) to at least 905.  Kenan (Enoch's son) lived to 910, all the way up to Methuselah, who lived for 969 years. After the Flood, when flesh-eating was permitted, human lifespans were reduced to decades.  Abraham, for example, lived to be only 175.  Genesis 1:29-31 was a blessing; Genesis 9:2-4, a curse.

A Jewish legend says Moses was found to be righteous by God through his shepherding. While Moses was tending his sheep of Jethro in the Midian wilderness, a young kid ran away from the flock. Moses ran after it until he found the kid drinking by a pool of water. Moses approached the kid and said, "I did not know that you ran away because you were thirsty; now, you must be tired." So Moses placed the animal on his shoulders and carried him back to the flock. God said, "Because thou has shown mercy in leading the flock, thou will surely tend My flock, Israel."

In his essay, "The Dietary Prohibitions of the Hebrews," Jean Soler finds in the Bible at lest two times when an attempt was made to try the Israelites out on a vegetarian diet.  During the period of exodus from Egypt, the Hebrews lived entirely on manna.  They had large flocks which they brought with them, but never touched.

The Israelites were told that manna "is the bread which the Lord has given you to eat." (Exodus 16:5)  For forty years in the desert, the Israelites lived on manna (Nehemiah 9:15,21).  The apocryphal Wisdom of Solomon (16:20) calls manna the food of the angels. Manna is described as a vegetable food, like "coriander seed" (Numbers 11:7), tasting like wafers and honey (Exodus 16:31).

On two separate occasions, however, the men rebelled against Moses because they wanted meat.  The meat-hungry Hebrews lamented, "Would that we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the flesh-pots."  God ended this first "experiment in vegetarianism" through the miracle of the quails.

A second "experiment in vegetarianism" is suggested in the Book of Numbers, when the Hebrews lament once again, "O that we had meat to eat."  (Numbers 11:4)  God repeated the miracle of the quails, but this time with a vengeance:  "And while the flesh was between their teeth, before it was even chewed, the wrath of the Lord was kindled against the people, and He struck them down with a great plague." (Numbers 11:33)

The site where the deaths took place was named "The Graves of Lust."  (Numbers 11:34; Deuteronomy 12:20)  The quail meat was called "basar ta'avah," or "meat of lust."  The Talmud (Chulin 84a) comments that:  "The Torah teaches a lesson in moral conduct, that mean shall not eat meat unless he has a special craving for it, and shall eat it only occasionally and sparingly."  Here, according to Soler, as in the story of the Flood, "meat is given a negative connotation.  It is a concession God makes to man's imperfection."

In their book, The Nine Questions People Ask About Judaism, Dennis Prager and Rabbi Telushkin explain:  "Keeping kosher is Judaism's compromise with its ideal vegetarianism.  Ideally, according to Judaism, man would confine his eating to fruits and vegetables and not kill animals for food."  In his book Judaism and Vegetarianism, Dr. Richard H. Schwartz notes that God's blessings to man throughout the Bible are almost entirely vegetarian:  products of the soil, seeds, sun and rain.  (e.g., Deuteronomy 8:7-9; Isaiah 30:20,23; Nehemiah 9:25)

There is considerable evidence within the Bible suggesting God's plan is to restore His Kingdom on earth and return mankind to vegetarianism.  Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, the Chief Rabbi of prestate Israel, wrote:  "It is inconceivable that the Creator who had planned a world of harmony and a perfect way for man to live should, many thousands of years later, find that this plan was wrong."

Rabbi Kook believed the concession to eat meat (Genesis 9:3) was never intended to be a permanent condition.  In his essay, "A Vision of Peace and Vegetarianism," he asked:  "...how can it be that such a noble and enlightened moral position (Genesis 1:29) should pass away after it once has been brought into existence?"

Rabbi Kook cited the messianic prophecies (Isaiah 11:6-9), in which the world is again restored to a vegetarian paradise.  The Bible thus begins and ends in a Kingdom where slaughter is unknown, and identifies the one anointed by God to bring about this Kingdom as "Mashiach," or the Messiah.  Humanity's very beginning in Paradise and destiny in the age of the Messiah are vividly depicted as vegetarian.  "In that future state," taught Rabbi Kook, "people's lives will no longer be supported at the expense of the animals."  Isaiah (65:25) repeats his prophecy again.  This is God's plan.

Rabbi Kook taught that because humans had an insatiable desire to kill animals and eat their flesh, they could not yet be returned to a moral standard which calls for vegetarianism.  Kook regarded Deuteronomy 12:15,20 ("Thou mayest slaughter and eat...after all the desire of thy soul,") as poetically misleading.  He translated this Torah verse as:  "because you lust after eating meat...then you may slaughter and eat."

In his excellent A Guide to the Misled, Rabbi Shmuel Golding explains the orthodox Jewish position concerning animal sacrifices:  "When G-d gave our ancestors permission to make sacrifices to Him, it was a concession, just as when He allowed us to have a king (I Samuel 8), but He gave us a whole set of rules and regulations concerning sacrifice that, when followed, would be superior to and distinct from the sacrificial system of the heathens."

Some biblical passages denounce animal sacrifice (Isaiah 1:11,15; Amos 5:21-25).  Other passages state that animal sacrifices, not necessarily incurring God's wrath, are unnecessary (I Kings 15:22; Jeremiah 7:21-22; Hosea 6:6; Hosea 8:13; Micah 6:6-8; Psalm 50:1-14; Psalm 40:6; Proverbs 21:3; Ecclesiastes 5:1).

Sometimes meat-eating Christians cite Isaiah 1:11, where God says, "I am full of the burnt offerings..."  They say the word "full" implies God accepted the sacrifices.  However, in Isaiah 43:23-24, God says:  "You have not honored Me with your sacrifices...rather you have burdened Me with your sins, you have wearied Me with your iniquities."  This suggests, as Moses Maimonides taught and Rabbi Shmuel Golding confirms above, that "the sacrifices were a concession to barbarism."

Jesus taught his disciples to pray for the coming of God's kingdom (Matthew 6:9-10), the kingdom of peace, in which the entire world is restored to a vegetarian paradise (Genesis 1:29; Isaiah 11:6-9).  Recalling Psalm 37:11, he blessed the meek, saying they would inherit the earth.  (Matthew 5:5)  The kingdom of God belongs to the gentle and kind (Matthew 5:7-9)  Christians are to "Be merciful, just as your Father is also merciful."  (Luke 6:36)  Those who take up the sword must perish by the sword.  (Matthew 26:52) 

Jesus repeatedly spoke of God's tender care for the nonhuman creation (Matthew 6:26-30, 10:29-31; Luke 12:6-7, 24-28).   Jesus taught that God desires "mercy and not sacrifice."  (Matthew 9:10-13, 12:6-7; Mark 2:15-17; Luke 5:29-32)  The epistle to the Hebrews 10:5-10 suggests that Jesus did not come to abolish the Law and the prophets (which Paul, and not Jesus, regarded as "so much garbage"), but only the institution of animal sacrifice, as does Jesus' cleansing the Temple of those who were buying and selling animals for sacrifice and his overturning the tables of the moneychangers in the Temple.  (Matthew 21:12-14; Mark 11:15-17; Luke 19:45-46; John 2:14-17)  

Jesus not only repeatedly upheld Mosaic Law (Matthew 5:17-19; Mark 10:17-22; Luke 16:17), he justified his healing on the Sabbath by referring to commandments calling for the humane treatment of animals.     When teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath, Jesus healed a woman who had been ill for eighteen years.  He justified his healing work on the Sabbath by referring to biblical passages calling for the humane treatment of animals as well as their rest on the Sabbath.  "So ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham...be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath?" Jesus asked.  (Luke 13:10-16)   On another occasion, Jesus again referred to Torah teaching on "tsa'ar ba'alei chayim" or compassion for animals to justify healing on the Sabbath.  "Which of you, having a donkey or an ox that has fallen into a pit, will not immediately pull him out on the Sabbath day?"  (Luke 14:1-5)
Jesus compared saving sinners who had gone astray from God's kingdom to rescuing lost sheep.  He recalled a Jewish legend about Moses' compassion as a shepherd for his flock. 

"For the Son of Man has come to save that which was lost.  What do you think?  Who among you, having a hundred sheep, if he loses one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness, and go after the one which is lost until he finds it?

"And when he has found it," Jesus continued, "he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing.  And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors saying to them, 'Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost!'

"I say to you, likewise there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine just persons who need no repentance...there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents."  (Matthew 18:11-13; Luke 15:3-7,10)

"The compassionate, sensitive heart for animals is inseparable from the proclamation of the Christian gospel," writes the Reverend Andrew Linzey in Love the Animals.  "We have lived so long with the gospel stories of Jesus that we frequently fail to see how his life and ministry identified with animals at almost every point.

"His birth, if tradition is to be believed, takes place in the home of sheep and oxen.  His ministry begins, according to St. Mark, in the wilderness 'with the wild beasts' (1:13). His triumphal entry into Jerusalem involves riding on a 'humble' ass (Matthew 21).  According to Jesus, it is lawful to 'do good' on the Sabbath, which includes the rescuing of an animal fallen into a pit (Matthew 12).  Even the sparrows, literally sold for a few pennies in his day, are not 'forgotten before God.'  God's providence extends to the entire created order, and the glory of Solomon and all his works cannot be compared to that of the lilies of the field (Luke 12:27).

"God so cares for His creation that even 'foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.'  (Luke 9:58)  It is 'the merciful' who are 'blessed' in God's sight and what we do to 'the least' of all we do to him.  (Matthew 5:7, 25:45-46)  Jesus literally overturns the already questionable practice of animal sacrifice.  Those who sell pigeons have their tables overturned and are put out of the Temple (Mark 11:15-16).  It is the scribe who sees the spiritual bankruptcy of animal sacrifice and the supremacy of sacrificial love that Jesus commends as being 'not far from the Kingdom of God.'  (Mark 12:32-34)

"It is a loving heart which is required by God, and not the needless bloodletting of God's creatures," concludes Reverend Linzey.  "We can see the same prophetic and radical challenge to tradition in Jesus' remarks about the 'good shepherd' who, unlike many in his day, 'lays down his life for the sheep.'  (John 10:11"

In Christianity and the Rights of Animals, Reverend Linzey finds two justifications for a Christian case for vegetarianism:

"The first is that killing is a morally significant matter.  While justifiable in principle, it can only be practically justified where there is real need for human nourishment.  Christian vegetarians do not have to claim that it is always and absolutely wrong to kill in order to eat.  It could well be that there were, and are, some situations n which meat-eating was and is essential in order to survive.  Geographical considerations alone make it difficult to envisiage lie in Palestine at the time of Christ without some primitive fishing industry.  But the crucial point is that where we are free to do otherwise the killing of Spirit-filled individuals requires moral justification.  It may be justifiable, but only when human nourishment clearly requires it, and even then it remains an inevitable consequence of sin.

"The second point," Linzey explains, "is that misappropriation occurs when humans do not recognize that the life of an animal belongs to God, not to them.  Here it seems to me that Christian vegetarianism is well-founded.  For while it may have been possible in the past to rear animals with personal care and consideration for their well-being and to dispatch them with the humble and scrupulous recognition that their life should only be taken in times of necessity, such conditions are abnormal today."

Jesus insisted upon the moral standards given by God in the beginning (Matthew 5:31-32, 19:3-9; Mark 10:2-12; Luke 16:18), and this did not go  unnoticed by early church fathers such as St. Jerome.

From history, too, we learn that the earliest Christians were vegetarians as well as pacifists.  For example, Clemens Prudentius, the first Christian hymn writer, in one of his hymns exhorts his fellow Christians not to pollute their hands and hearts by the slaughter of innocent cows and sheep, and points to the variety of nourishing and pleasant foods obtainable without blood-shedding. 

According to Father Ambrose Agius:

"Many of the saints understood God's creatures, and together they shared the pattern of obedience to law and praise of God that still leaves us wondering.  The quickest way to understand is surely to bring our own lives as closely as possible into line with the intention of the Giver of all life, animate and inanimate."

The Reverend Alvin Hart, an Episcopalian priest in New York, says:

"Many Georgian saints were distinguished by their love for animals.  St. John Zedazneli made friends with bears near his hermitage; St. Shio befriended a wolf; St. David of Garesja protected deer and birds from hunters, proclaiming, 'He whom I believe in and worship looks after and feds all these creatures, to whom He has given birth.'  Early Celtic saints, too, favored compassion for animals.  Saints Wales, Cornwall and Brittany of Ireland in the 5th and 6th centuries AD went to great pains for their animal friends, healing them and praying for them as well."

It is said that St. Francis of Assisi (1182-1226) bought two lambs from a butcher and gave them the coat on his back to keep them warm; and that he bought two fish from a fishwoman and threw them back into the water. He even paid to ransom lambs that were being taken to their death, recalling the gentle Lamb who willingly went to slaughter (Isaiah 53:7; John 1:29) to pay the ransom of sinners.

"Be conscious, O man, of the wondrous state in which the Lord God has placed you," instructed Francis in his Admonitions (4), "for He created and formed you to the image of His beloved Son--and (yet) all the creatures under heaven, each according to its nature, serve, know, and obey their Creator better than you."  St. Francis felt a deep kinship with all creatures.  He called them "brother" and "sister," knowing they came from the same Source as himself.

Francis revealed his fraternal love for the animal world during Christmas time 1223:  "If I ever have the opportunity to talk with the emperor," he explained, "I'll beg him, for the love of God and me, to enact a special law:  no one is to capture or kill our sisters the larks or do them any harm.  Furthermore, all mayors and lords of castles and towns are required to scatter wheat and other grain on the roads outside the walls so that our sisters the larks and other birds might have something to eat on so festive a day.

"And on Christmas Eve, out of reverence for the Son of God, whom on that night the Virgin Mary placed in a manger before the ox and the ass, anyone having an ox or an ass is to feed it a generous portion of choice fodder.  And, on Christmas Day, the rich are to give the poor the finest food in abundance."

Francis removed worms from a busy road and placed them on the roadside so they would not be crushed under human traffic.  Once when he was sick and almost blind, mice ran over his table as he took his meals and over him while he slept.  He regarded their disturbance as a "diabolical temptation," which he met with patience and restraint, indicating his compassion towards other living creatures.

St. Francis was once given a wild pheasant to eat, but he chose instead to keep it as a companion.  On another occasion, he was given a fish, and on yet another, a waterfowl to eat, but he was moved by the natural beauty of these creatures and chose to set them free.

"Dearly beloved!" said Francis beginning a sermon after a severe illness, "I have to confess to God and you that...I have eaten cakes made with lard."

The Catholic Encyclopedia comments on this incident as follows:  "St. Francis' gift of sympathy seems to have been wider even than St. Paul's, for we find no evidence in the great Apostle of a love for nature or for animals...

"Francis' love of creatures was not simply the offspring of a soft sentimental disposition.  It arose from that deep and abiding sense of the presence of God.  To him all are from one Father and all are real kin...hence, his deep sense of personal responsibility towards fellow creatures: the loving friend of all God's creatures."

Francis taught:  "All things of creation are children of the Father and thus brothers of man...God wants us to help animals, if they need help.  Every creature in distress has the same right to be protected."

According to Francis, a lack of mercy towards animals leads to a lack of mercy towards men:  "If you have men who will exclude any of God's creatures from the shelter of compassion and pity, you will have men who will deal likewise with their fellow men."

Roman Catholic Cardinal John Henry Newman (1801-90), wrote in 1870 that "cruelty to animals is as if a man did not love God."  On another occasion, he asked:

"Now what is it that moves our very heart and sickens us so much at cruelty shown to poor brutes?  I suppose this:  first, that they have one us no harm; next, that the have no power whatever of resistance; it is the cowardice and tyranny of which they are the victims which make their sufferings so especially touching...there is something so very dreadful, so satanic, in tormenting those who have never harmed us and who cannot defend themselves; who are utterly in our power."

Cardinal Newman compared injustices against animals to the sacrifice, agony, and death of Christ upon the cross:

"Think of your feelings and cruelty practiced upon brute animals and you will gain the sort of feeling which the history of Christ's cross and passion ought to excite within you.  And let me add, this is in all cases one good use to which you may turn any...wanton and unfeeling acts shown towards the...animals; let them remind you, as a picture of Christ's sufferings.  He who is higher than the angels, deigned to humble Himself even to the state of the brute creation."

Some of the most distinguished figures in the history of Christianity have been vegetarian.  A partial list includes:  St. James, St. Matthew, Clemens Prudentius, Origen, Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria, St. Basil, St. Jerome, St. John Chrysostom, St. Benedict, Aegidius, Boniface, St. Richard of Wyche, St. Columba, St. Thomas More, St. Filipo Neri, John Wray, Thomas Tryon, John Wesley, Joshua Evans, William Metcalfe, General William Booth, Ellen White, Dr. John Harvey Kellogg, and Reverend V.A. Holmes-Gore.

Reverend Marc Wessels of the International Network for Religion and Animals (INRA) writes: 

"The most important teaching which Jesus shared was the need for people to love God with their whole self and to love their neighbor as they loved themselves.  Jesus expanded the concept of neighbor to include those who were normally excluded, and it is therefore not too farfetched for us to consider the animals as our neighbors.

"To think about animals as our brothers and sisters is not a new or radical idea.  By extending the idea of neighbor, the love of neighbor includes love of, compassion for, and advocacy of animals.  There are many historical examples of Christians who thought along those lines, besides the familiar illustration of St. Francis.  An abbreviated listing of some of those individuals worthy of study and emulation includes Saint Blaise, Saint Comgall, Saint Cuthbert, Saint Gerasimus, Saint Giles, and Saint Jerome, to name but a few."

According to contemporary Benedictine monk, Brother David Steindl-Rast:

"...the survival of our planet depends on our sense of belonging---to all other humans, to dolphins caught in dragnets, to pigs and chickens and calves raised in animal concentration camps, to redwoods and rainforests, to kelp beds in our oceans, and to the ozone layer."

In a sermon preached in York Minster, September 28, 1986, John Austin Baker, the Bishop of Salisbury, England, attacked the overcrowded confinement methods of raising and killing animals for food ("factory farming"), choosing as his example, the treatment of chickens:

"Is there any credit balance for the battery hen, denied almost all natural functioning, all normal environment, lapsing steadily into deformity and disease, for the whole of her existence?" he asked.  "It is in the battery shed and the broiler house, not in the wild, that we find the true parallel to Auschwitz.  Auschwitz is a purely human invention."

Rick Dunkerly of Christ Lutheran Church says: 

"The Bible-believing Christian, should, of all people, be on the frontline in the struggle for animal welfare and rights.  We who are Christians should be treating the animal creation now as it will be treated then, at Christ's second coming. It will not now be perfect, but it must be substantial, otherwise we have missed our calling, and we grieve the One we call 'Lord,' who was born in a stable surrounded by animals simply because He chose it that way."

Rose Evans, editor and publisher of Harmony:  Voices for a Just Future, a "consistent-ethic" periodical on the religious Left, says there are more Christian vegetarians than Jewish vegetarians.  Yet some people still react to the idea of Christian vegetarianism as though it were an oxymoron.

"Every year," says Reverend Andrew Linzey, author of Christianity and the Rights of Animals, "I receive hundreds of anguished letters from Christians who are so distressed by the insensitivity to animals shown by mainstream churches that they have left them or are on the verge of doing so...The time is long overdue to take the issue of animal rights to the churches...

"I derive hope from the Gospel preaching that the same God who draws us to such affinity and intimacy with suffering creatures declared that reality on a Cross in Calvary.  Unless all Christian preaching has been utterly mistaken, the God who becomes incarnate and crucified is the one who has taken the side of the oppressed and the suffering of the world--however the churches may actually behave."