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- Denis Giles
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By Maneka Sanjay Gandhi
Personally I find the thought, of eating an egg, revolting. It is the period blood of a hen and, if you break the egg and expose it to air for a few minutes, it will smell the same as the blood on a sanitary towel. Why would I want to add cholesterol to my daily diet?
But eggs are used in so many things that, even if you don’t eat them directly, you probably will be ingesting them in some form.
Egg shells are powdered and used for fortification of breads and confectioneries, fruit drinks, crackers, condiments. If you see “fortified” on any of these – or glazing on bread – know that this is egg.
Egg membrane protein is used as an ingredient in many cosmetics as a softener. Egg yolks are used in shampoos and conditioners and, sometimes, soaps. Cholesterol, lecithin, and some of the egg’s fatty acids, are used in skin care products, such as revitalizes, make-up foundations and even lipstick.
Louis-Désiré Blanquart-Évrard invented a process using albumen, in 1850, for photographic printing in the 19th century. Paper was laid on a mixture of albumen and salt. When it dried, it made a glossy coated paper. It was so popular that commercial producers of paper kept chickens on site!
Painters used eggs as binders for applying pigments. The pigment colour was produced by ground-up materials found in nature—everything, from lapis lazuli to the tiny bodies of scale insects, was crushed and mixed with egg yolk to produce egg tempera. Egg albumen is still used by artists as a binder for pigments, as an ingredient of waterproof glue, and as a varnish
Avidin is a protein of egg white. It is extensively used in biotechnological applications, particularly in medical diagnostics, as in the Elisa test.
Lysozyme, an enzyme found in egg white, is used for the ripening of certain European-type cheeses. Lysozyme inhibits the growth of Clostridium tyrobutyricum - a bacterium which can be present as a contaminant in milk. A more recent use of lysozyme is in wine preparation as a substitute for sulphites. Lysozyme is used in processed foods to extend the shelf life by inhibiting or destroying spore forming organisms.
Lysozyme is used as an antimicrobial agent in pharmaceutical products.
Liposomes, fatty droplets found in eggs, are used as a controlled delivery mechanism for various drugs. Immunoglobulin yolk (IGY), a simple egg-yolk protein, is used as an anti-human-rotavirus (HRV) antibody in food products.
Shell-membrane protein is being used experimentally to grow human skin connective tissue cells for severe-burn victims and, in Japan, is being used in cosmetics (Antigen specific immunoglobulins (IgYs) from eggs are planned to be used for preventing dental caries: candies, chocolates and gums containing anti-Streptococcus mutans (a bacteria involved in tooth decay) from eggs have been used in Japan.
Ovotransferrin or Conalbumin is another protein of egg white which has been used to remove iron from drinking water. Ovalbumin is the predominant protein in egg white and is utilized in the diagnostic industry.
For more than forty years, fertile eggs have been used as a culture medium for the influenza virus to produce vaccines. The influenza virus is injected into the developing embryo. For three days it multiplies in the egg. The egg is then broken, the fluid extracted and the virus used as vaccine. Egg yolk is added to agar cultures to grow microorganisms bred in laboratories. Fertile eggs are used to preserve bull semen for artificial insemination.
Egg white has been used in the manufacture of edible packing films, for ingredients in the food, chemical and pharmaceutical industries
It is eggs in food that are the biggest problem for a vegetarian. Pastas and bread, confectionary - most of them have egg in them. In fact, make sure you buy unglazed bread. Sponge cakes, meringues or soufflés have whisked egg white. Eggs bind loose crumbly ingredients together, so they are used in patties, croquettes, fritters and fillings. Whipped egg is used as a thickening agent in pie fillings, custard sauces and baked custard. Mayonnaise is made of egg yolk. Pastries use egg white in the crusts. Eggs are put in commercial ice creams, baby food, sauces and dairy products. Egg powders are a key ingredient in meat production (sausages, hamburgers, hams) as well as vegetarian preparations (soya sausages, hamburgers).
Avoiding eggs and meat has become a minefield. Irresponsible and insensitive, so called scientists work with egg industries to find newer ways to use their product. Tall claims are made, but the amount of suffering that is caused is unimaginable. For instance, work is underway to genetically alter chickens so that they produce eggs containing a large quantity of human serum albumin (HSA), a protein used in saline drips in hospitals. Currently the protein is taken from human blood plasma. Using transgenic chicken, research is also being done by commercial companies to produce egg antibodies to combat hepatitis and cancer.
It has been claimed by the egg industry itself that the content of the egg can be changed by simply changing the diet of the hen. This is what they say: "With adjustments to the diets of the laying hen the profile of fatty acids, fat-soluble vitamins, and minerals such as iodine, fluorine, manganese, and B vitamins, can be changed. Using a flax-based diet or rapeseed or fish oils in the feed, eggs can be enriched with omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids. Vitamin E in eggs can be added as well as iodine levels. Research is being done to add conjugated linoleic acids (CLAs)."
If this is true, then the rubbish fed to hens in India – cardboard, powdered granite, dead mashed bodies of other hens, pesticides like fipronil, to name a few ingredients, must have had the effect of making eggs almost valueless or dangerous to health. Our FSSAI should investigate the quality of eggs on the market.
To join the animal welfare movement contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., www.peopleforanimalsindia.org
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- Denis Giles
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By Maneka Sanjay Gandhi
Last year I went to the house of the head of a group of Jains in Nagpur. Along the way I was told how religious his family was, how they all ate before sunset and no root vegetables. I entered the main living room. The huge rug I was stepping on was made of patches sewn together of horse-skin. Young horses are killed for their skin in the United States and the skin stripped off. The skins of different colours are patched together and made into carpets for rich and senseless people. My host kept insisting it was fake until I showed him the leathery skin the hair was attached to.
Something like that has been exposed in England recently. People buy coats with fur linings and fur lined boots for their children, key rings and hairclips with colourful bobbles, shoes with pompoms, soft toys. The buyers believe that since the items are cheap and colourful, the fur is acrylic.
Not true.
An investigation by Humane Society International (HIS) has found that a large number of items are not fake or faux fur, but real fur.
HIS found many shops with no-fur policies selling fur items. Fluffy “faux fur” clips sold by Boots were made from mink; pompom keyrings from Tesco and gloves from Fat Face were made of rabbit fur. Urban Outfitters was selling sweaters with real fur labelled as “faux.” Missguided was found to have cat fur lining their shoes. Real fur was being sold as fake at House Of Fraser, Lily Lulu, Amazon and ASOS, labelled as faux fur. Neiman Marcus was called out for selling three pairs of boots touted as being made with fake fur, except it was real. When a buyer took home a “faux fur” pompom keyring from TK Maxx, she grew suspicious. The retailer reassuring her that the pom-pom had “been investigated by our internal trading standards department” and that they had “been assured that this item is in fact faux fur”. HIS revealed that the pom-pom had actually been made with rabbit fur. Investigators found that TK Maxx was selling jackets made of fox fur. Mink fur earrings, rabbit fur shoes with pompoms and keychains, fox fur hats, fox fur trims and chinchilla fur scarves, were all on sale, advertised as faux fur by Amazon, Boohoo, Miss Bardo, Not On The High Street and Etsy, and through Groupon. Last year, HSUS filed an enforcement petition to the Federal Trade Commission; Neiman Marcus, Kohl’s and Nordstrom were among the 17 retailers named in the report for selling garments that were falsely advertised or labelled as faux fur. Forever 21 has also been the subject of an investigation by ‘Good Morning Britain’.
All these shops had advertised a strict No Fur policy.
Most consumers believe that since pompoms and trims/linings are so cheap, they cannot be fur. The truth is that the appalling conditions that animals suffer on fur farms mean real fur can be produced and sold more cheaply than faux fur.
The life of an animal is worth nothing when the animal is badly kept, hardly fed, forcibly made to reproduce and killed within a few months. Fur farms have millions of animals kept in small wire cages, and Poland, China, France, Finland follow no rules in the sheer viciousness and cruelty of their operations. As writer Tansy Hoskins said in The Guardian, "Fur farms involve 75 million animals kept in tiny cages, many of which become infected with disease, suffer horrific injuries and go mad from grief and stress." They are denied the chance to run free, are often fed on waste, and receive little veterinary care. Animals, that would usually spend hours cleaning themselves in the wild, are left in filthy conditions, and often end up mutilated. It all ends with a brutal death: electrocution, gassing, or even skinning alive. PETA has released an exposé narrated by Paloma Faith containing footage taken on hundreds of supposedly "high welfare" fur farms in Europe, all showing animals who have been driven insane by the cruelty. We've seen foxes with skinless paws forced to live beside their decomposing cage-mates, and minks with untreated wounds, one so severe that his brain was visible. Countless animals have resorted to self-mutilation and cannibalism.
These are just some of the stomach-churning scenes that are documented time and time again. You can see these dreadful farms exposed by undercover operatives on the You Tube. In China, the world's largest exporter of fur, you can see cats, rabbits and dogs being skinned alive. An investigation, earlier this year into fur farms in Finland, revealed foxes who have been reared to be grossly obese – some weighing roughly five times what they would in nature –struggling to breathe, let alone stand up. Larger bodies mean more fur and therefore greater profits.
The skins of coyotes, chinchilla, mink, foxes, rabbits, raccoons, dogs and cats are sold at dirt cheap rates. Consumers want faux fur to look like the real thing – but they don’t want real fur. So the retailers sell the hair of these dead bodies as fake! Fur is no longer just full length mink coats, or fox scarves. It is more deceptive – dyed bright colours, turned into cute pompoms or as trim on hoods or shoes. Often sold for under £10, it is sneaked into accessories. Among the items HSI found for sale are £5 pom pom keychains made from rabbit fur; a parka with raccoon dog fur trim for £35; and a knitted hat with a marmot fur bobble for £3.50. Since there is no legal requirement to label animal fur in all products, this cheats consumers. People expect real fur to come in the form of full mink coats or fox fur scarves. What they don’t expect is that it will be dyed bright colours, fashioned into pompoms or trims, attached to accessories like hats, gloves and shoes, sold at very cheap price and, of course, mislabelled as faux.
Ironically, premium-grade faux fur is expensive. So the easy alternative for sewing factories is to use real fur, as it is cheaper to buy small scraps of real fur than lengths of high quality faux fur.
If retailers like Boots and Tesco can tell lies, selling real fur as faux fur, consumers have to become their own fur detectives.
Here are some tips to all those Indians who will be going abroad to shop.
Look at the tips: The tips, of the hairs in real fur, taper and have pointed ends, whereas the hairs on faux fur are blunt. Hairs on real fur will also be different lengths, while faux fur tends to be more uniform. Hold up the hair against a white surface.
Look at the base: Part the hair to see how it is attached. Animal fur has a leathery backing because it’s attached to the animal’s skin, whereas faux fur will have a material woven backing. Real fur is often completely smooth at the base. Like human skin.
Burn it: Perhaps not in the shop. Try it on something you already own. Trim a few hairs and set fire to them. Real animal fur singes and smells like human hair burning. Faux fur melts in a sticky way, cooling to form hard plastic balls, and will probably smell plasticky. If it smells like burnt paper, burns like paper and become a light, fluffy gray ash, this means the faux fur is cotton, linen or rayon based.
Don’t look at the price : Real fur is cheaper than fake. Smaller bits of fur and fur trims are cheap as they are the discards of dead animals, so don't let the relatively low price of a garment fool you.
Do not buy anything with “fake fur” online : EU regulations state that “textile products” containing fur should be labelled as containing “non-textile parts of animal origin”. However, online products are exempt from that requirement as are footwear and accessories. And although it is illegal to mislead consumers (by claiming that a real fur product is faux fur) retailers are very rarely prosecuted, with most instances being put down to “honest mistakes”.
Feel the fur. Fur feels very soft to the touch, falls in a smooth and sleek line, passes through your fingers as if you're petting a cat. Faux fur feels coarse and rough to touch, can be sticky to touch in humid weather, and might have the same feel as a stuffed toy animal. It might stick to your hands if it's made out of a plasticky material (only works if your hands are sweaty).
Stick a pin into the item (through the fur and its lining). If it goes through easily, this suggests it is faux fur because the pin is sliding through a synthetic base. If it is hard to push through, or resists completely, it is likely to be real fur, as you're trying to push through the leather lining to which the fur remains attached.
Why are you buying fake fur? There is nothing elegant or humane about stealing the skin of another being – or even pretending to do so. Buying something that has real fur in it, even if it’s “mostly” faux, means one more animal was skinned alive, or anally electrocuted, for the sake of “fashion.”
To join the animal welfare movement contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., www.peopleforanimalsindia.org
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- Denis Giles
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Maneka Sanjay Gandhi
Organic farming for me is as important as animal welfare. Both save thousands of species and make the world a better place for humans. When I became minister for Women and Children, we started a new project: we hold an annual Mela in Delhi Haat, the best location, for 15 days, in which 300 women organic farmers are called from all over India to sell their produce. This year we sold Rs 2 crore worth. We also send 50 women to a huge organic mela in Ahmedabad organized by Srishthi and now we are preparing for one in Mumbai in February.
I also make sure that one or more women organic farmers, or groups, get the highest award for women in India, the Nari Shakti award. In 2016 the best exhibition I went to was one of wandering pastoral tribes in India and the NGOs that conserve their cultural forms, camels and their milk. The best exhibition I went to this year was a huge organic one in Noida which had more than 700 companies, institutions, NGOs and individuals taking part. It was organized by OFAI which is headquartered in Goa and headed by Dr Claude Alvares. I bought a beautiful pair of earrings for my sister made of red ratti (used to weigh gold at one point) and white Vaijayanti seeds made by a farmer’s wife. The Sikkim pavilion was the most impressive and the Chief Minister of Sikkim should get a Bharat Ratna for the work he has done to make the whole state organic. There were hundreds of varieties of rice, including one that you don’t have to boil, just simply pour hot water on. I saw vegetables that I have never seen before – huge long, white, aubergines (baingan), every variety of kaddu, cucumber and chilli. I saw red potatoes and at least 50 varieties of rajma ranging from white to purple. When I ate the lunch thali of village vegetables, I thought I’d died and gone to Food Heaven!
I would like you to know these women, who have changed thousands of lives by simply collecting old seeds of long forgotten vegetable varieties.
The Vanastree Malnad Garden and Seed Savers Collective in Sirsi, Karnataka is run by women. They have documented 120 varieties of vegetables, from the tiny sparrow ladies fingers (bhindi) to old varieties of sugarcane. All these are heritage seeds . You can get in touch with them at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it...
Annadana is a Karnataka NGO started by Sangita Sharma. For the last few years it has been practicing and teaching sustainable farm practices and conserving over 200 old vegetable seeds. She realized that seed corporations and agricultural institutes were blasting seeds with toxins, chemicals and pesticides, contaminating all food. So she decided to start collecting, growing and distributing seeds to farmers. So far she has distributed 3 lakh free seed packets to marginal farmers and is selling them at a low cost to garden enthusiasts. She has a training programme, called Seed to Seed, on soil health management. Her core group now is 18 farmers who teach. You can contact them at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Niranjana Maru is from Wardha and has formed an NGO called Chetana Vikas. They have a demonstration farm of trees, grasses, tubers and fodder and concentrate on wasteland regeneration through teaching a mixed cropping system to local farmers. You can write to her at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Sabarmati Tiki is the daughter of Prof Radhamohan who bought degraded land in Nayagarh and, despite people calling his mission impossible, decided to regenerate it. He named the farm “Sambhav” or “Possible”. Sabarmati and her team grow 314 traditional rice varieties at the farm and distribute the seeds to farmers in Orissa. Contact her at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Pebble Garden is a land regeneration project started by Deepika Kundaji on 7 acres of laterite soil which was severely eroded with no topsoil. She and her partner set out to bring the old forest back, created water bodies, built up the soil by putting organic mulch and neighbourhood kitchen waste. Today the land grows 80 varieties of vegetables, herbs and medicinal plants, many of which are endangered and never seen in markets. The seeds of these plants are shared with other farmers and seed savers. Contact her at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Mohinee Bhiste comes from Raigarh, Nainital and is part of a network of women farmers called Jan Prerna Sangathan. In 2009 she and her friends started exploring traditional seeds. They have made a bank of seeds of local wheat, millet, maize, barley and vegetables, where farmers can take freely provided they return double the quantity after the harvest. You can contact them at 09568254945.
And who can forget the contribution of Dr Vandana Shiva, who has been writing and working for non violent farming and biodiversity since 1984. She has been actively involved in conserving 5,000 crop varieties, among them 3,000 kinds of rice, 150 kinds of wheat, 150 kinds of rajma and the rest vegetables and pulses. They have their own seed bank of 45 acres in Sherpur, Uttarakhand. I buy a lot of my monthly rations from Navdanya. You can contact her at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
This year for Diwali, I didn’t give useless mithai / statues / ganeshes / dates or badams as gifts. I filled baskets of organic grains, pulses, jams, pickles, brought from small organic farmers from all over India, and gave these. Needless to say each recipient was more than happy. After all, each one of us likes to eat well and the taste of organic wild rice, for instance, is incredible! We also like to feel safe – that our food is not giving us cancer. And we can only do that if we go forward to insisting on nonchemical, non-poisonous food. If you know any farmers, try to make them switch. As starter gifts, you can buy seeds from these women and give them to farmers.
Two Hindi proverbs say : kathiya gehu kargi dhan, jo bove vah chatur kisan. Farmers who grow Kathiya wheat and Kargi rice (both organic old varieties) are clever (because both can grow in dry, rain fed, conditions.
Kodau kare bhale mein chote, chote bade bhartev pet: Kodo, a millet, may be small in size but it feeds everyone from children to the elderly under adverse conditions.
Shamika Mone has written a Source Book on India’s Organic Seeds. You should definitely buy it from OFAI, Mapusa, Goa This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
To join the animal welfare movement contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., www.peopleforanimalsindia.org
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- Denis Giles
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By Maneka Sanjay Gandhi
Is it possible to be vegan in a world which is now totally dependent on truly useless things made from animals? I asked myself this question when handed a toothpick on an airline meal. To think that a living, breathing, magnificent tree, lord of the rain, home to thousands of other beings, has been chopped to gouge out waste from my teeth, makes me very sick.
Every vegetarian is careful about checking that their food does not contain any animal products. Some will not even eat in restaurants where meat is served. However, we fail to look at the other ways in which we are eating and using animal products in our daily lives. For instance, the company Vanras has 100% vegetarian stamped below its plates (as against bone china plates made from bone)! Ever thought about checking a shampoo bottle for a ‘100% vegetarian’ stamp?
Animal glands and organs are frequently found in daily-use products. These include endocrine glands, brains, livers, lungs, pituitary glands, pancreas, stomachs, kidneys, ovaries. Brains, nervous systems and spinal cords are a source of cholesterol. These are used as emulsifiers in cosmetics and for the synthesis of vitamin D3. Duodenum substances, taken from the digestive tracts of cows and pigs, are added to vitamin tablets and some medicines. The ovaries of pregnant sows are a source of extracting progesterone and estrogen to treat reproduction related problems in women. Heparin, which is used to thin blood and delay clotting during surgery or transplants, is extracted from the liver, lungs and lining of the small intestines of pigs and cattle. Insulin, used for diabetes injections, is taken from the pancreas of pigs and cows. According to the Diabetes Forecast magazine more than two tonnes of pig pancreas were needed to extract eight ounces of purified insulin. Prednisone and cortisone are extracted from animal bile produced by the gall bladder. Ground liver from cows, pigs is mixed with acidified hot water and turned into liver extract which is used by the pharmaceutical industry as a source of Vitamin B 12 and a nutritional supplement. Glucogen, extracted from the pancreas, is used to increase blood sugar in alcoholics. Melatonin, extracted from animal pineal glands, is being evaluated for the treatment of insomnia. Bile, from cattle and pigs, is sold either dry or in liquid form and is used for the treatment of indigestion, constipation and liver disorders.
The list is endless. Adrenaline is made from the adrenal glands of pigs, cattle and sheep. Hyaluronic, acid used in cosmetics, comes from the fluids round animal joints.
Even the perfume industry uses animal organs. Musk, which forms the essence of high end perfumes, is made from the musk pouch of the Himalayan Musk Deer. The deer is killed and the dried gland is cut into small pieces and soaked in alcohol. Castoreum is a paste that is taken from a gland found between the pelvis and tail of a killed beaver. In perfumery, castoreum has been used as the leather scent, evocative of fine leather upholstery, or in classic leather-themed perfumes. So, when the upholstery of your new Mercedes smells of leather, it may be a dead beaver’s glands. The anal glands of the African civet cat give out a rich smelling secretion when it is beaten, so the animals are caged and brutalised for years by perfume manufacturers. These days civet paste from farmed animals in Ethiopia are imported into Europe and the United States, traditionally shipped in the horns of zebu cattle. Each dried horn holds about five hundred grams of paste, the amount one civet can produce over a period of about four years. In India, I caught the priests of Tirupati temple holding civets illegally in cages , beating them to extract paste which was sold to devotees for Rs 500+ to put on the Devi. Ambergris comes from the digestive system of the sperm whale and is used as a fixative for perfumes. Though it is illegal, many whales are murdered for it.
Many moisturisers contain cerebrosides and arachidonic acid. Cerebrosides are fatty acids and sugars found in the covering of nerves and brain tissue of animals. Arachidonic acid is found in the liver, brain, glands and fat, of animals and used in skin creams. Lecithin, from animal tissues, is used in lipsticks, eye creams, hand creams, lotions, soaps, shampoos and other cosmetics.
Oleic Acid, taken from animal fats and oils, is used in the production of nail polish, soap, creams, lipsticks, permanent wave solutions and a number of skin products. You may have read/heard the names keratin and provitamin B-5 in a number of shampoo and conditioner advertisements – both come from animals. Keratin is a protein that comes from the ground-up horns, hooves, feathers, quills and hair of various animals. Oleyl alcohol is extracted from fish and used for softening fabrics and as a detergent,
Shark liver oil, known as squalene, is used in lubricating cream, lotion, lip balm, sunscreen and hair dye. Collagen, taken from the cells of fish, is used in a number of anti-aging creams and masks. Even animal placenta is widely used to make skin creams, shampoos and face masks.
Chitosan, extracted from shrimp and crabs, has a wide range of applications in the cosmetic and pharmaceutical industries as a preservative. Rennet, which is extracted from the inside of a goat, calf or sheep’s stomach, is used to make cheese. Lipase, from the tongue glands of calves, kids and lambs, is used for the same thing and in cosmetics. So is pepsin which comes from a pig’s stomach.
Knowledge is needed before one can stop being a predator on this planet. When something is advertised as “natural sources” it usually means animal sources.
To join the animal welfare movement contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., www.peopleforanimalsindia.org
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- Denis Giles
- Hits: 2099
By Maneka Sanjay Gandhi
While carbon dioxide is often painted as the main criminal in climate change, a far more deadly, and less talked about gas, is methane. UN’s Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change estimates that methane accounts for approximately 16% of total greenhouse gas emissions. Despite a relatively smaller portion, methane is much more harmful for climate change.
Methane is a super-insulating gas – making the earth much warmer than carbon dioxide can. It is more potent than carbon dioxide in capturing the sun’s radioactive force and traps more heat in the atmosphere. Scientists have calculated that its ‘global warming potential’ may be 28 times more than that of carbon dioxide.
Carbon dioxide emissions have not increased since 2013. Yet the temperature in 2017 has gone up by another 1 % . The reason is a startling rise in the emission of methane. In the early 2000s, methane concentration in the atmosphere was rising annually at about 0.5 parts per billion (ppb). In 2007 methane started rising rapidly, and in recent years it has spiked to annual increases of 9.9 ppb and 12.5 ppb. The current atmospheric concentration is 1,853 ppb.
Methane is not produced in by factories or cars. It is produced by meat eaters. Animals reared for meat and milk are the major contributors of the gas- chickens, cows, goats, sheep, pigs. All plant eating animals emit methane gas in the form of burps and gas through the anus. The Journal of Animal Science says that cows produce between 250 and 500 litres of methane gas every day – which is huge.
Every year the number of animals, kept for killing by humans, rises. In 2017, 70 BILLION animals were killed for food. With huge numbers of cattle being reared for meat and dairy, methane production has gone up exponentially. Recent estimates show that the livestock industry alone annually produces a quantity of methane which equals 2.2 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide.
India, China and Brazil together are the top producers of meat and dairy. Brazil and India are in the top three largest exporters of beef in the world. India is also the largest producer of milk in the whole world. More milk is produced in India than all the European Union countries combined. Between the three of us we create 70% of the methane being released into the air (the other methane producers are coal and rice, and China and India are number one in both) .
The sheer number of animals is destroying the planet as we know it. You eat meat and a tsunami destroys parts of the Philippines. You eat meat and a cyclone hits Sri Lanka or Tamil Nadu. The connections have to be made.
But I come back to the point of this article. If the sheer numbers of cattle were not enough, there is another factor that is creasing the amount of methane that the cattle emit: antibiotics.
Most meat/milk producing animals are grown in huge factory farms . You can call them dairies and ranches but they are holding prisons for animals. The animals are overcrowded, badly fed, treated with the utmost violence. As a result, most of them – from chicken to cattle – are ill. The cattle industry grows every year, and the techniques to extract the largest possible profit are also becoming more sophisticated. It is common practice to regularly inject cattle with antibiotics, specially tetracycline, to help them grow larger, gain weight quicker, and mitigate diseases they have picked up through bad sanitation and food in the factory farm. Livestock animals are fed 80% of the world’s antibiotics.
There are a number of problems with this – it builds antibiotic resistance in animals and humans consuming the meat or dairy. But my purpose in this article is different. The problem with antibiotics most relevant to our discussion is the fact that they increase the level of methane emissions from cattle.
Research conducted at the University of Colorado in Boulders shows that antibiotic treatment more than DOUBLES the methane production of the animal. If a cow is producing 500 litres, it now produces 1000 litres of methane every day. The study indicates that tetracycline treatment reduces the natural bacteria in the stomach of cows and encourages the growth of methanogenic archaea – methane producing microbes – in the intestinal tract, altering the balance permanently.
The dung of cows treated with tetracycline had a different microbial balance, leading to the production of nearly 50-80% more methane than the dung of non-treated cows. Both the dung and burps of antibiotic-fed cows have been observed to have high methane content.
On one hand the world is looking for ways to reduce methane production by promoting renewable sources of energy, introducing energy efficient devices, setting safety parameters for landfills, checking natural gas leaks and finding ways to reduce coal.
On the other hand we are feeding increasing amounts of antibiotics to cattle, dangerously increasing their levels of methane emission. More than 1.4 billion cows are being bred globally to feed humans. Animal agriculture as a whole, which includes over 10 billion animals, now contributes 20% of the total greenhouse gas emissions in the world.
Millions of dollars are being spent by researchers in New Zealand on developing a vaccine to help reduce the burping of cows! German scientists are breeding a genetically modified cow who will produce less methane. Why not consider the simple option of keeping cattle better, improving the feed and holding conditions in factory farms so that antibiotics are not needed or used. The methane emissions will immediately come down by half.
The problem is that the meat and dairy industry want to increase their profits TODAY. Less money spent on welfare of the animals and more spent on cheap antibiotics that keep them alive till they are killed makes more money today. They would much rather put money into a genetically modified cow who is bigger and fatter with bigger teats and shorter legs .
A 2006 United Nations report indicates that more greenhouse gases are produced by raising cattle than cars and trucks combined.
The core of the problem lies in the fact that we have allowed businessmen to get away with enormous cruelty for almost a century now. Naturally this will start to affect us as well , if you believe in the law of Karma.
Removing antibiotic usage from the animal rearing industry will reduce methane. But it can only be done if the cattle themselves are well treated, allowed to roam free, given good food. The best way to remove methane is, of course, to stop eating meat. And the demand reduces, so will the supply.
Methane stays in the atmosphere for a much shorter time than carbon dioxide. If we were to stop producing it, it would disappear from the atmosphere in 4-9 years and global warming would come to a halt. It all depends on what you eat and how little you care about your own survival.
To join the animal welfare movement contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., www.peopleforanimalsindia.org