Blog - Joyful Curmudgeon - Blog
A Mary T. Hoffman Commentary from All-Creatures.org

 

"Joyful Curmudgeon" An oxymoron?
No! I see all the beauty of God's creation and I'm joyful.  At the same time, I see all the suffering and corruption going on in the world, and feel called to help expose and end it so that we may have true peace and compassion.

 

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Eating Filth and Denying It - 22 Jan 2006
By Mary T. Hoffman

Have you noticed all the ads and “health” information centered around killing bacteria? We’ve all seen those ads in which the mother sprays piano keys and other surfaces that children touch; disposable wipes are used on kitchen counters that may be contaminated by animal products; the warnings about using a thermometer to make sure that poultry or other meat products are heated to a high enough temperature, etc., etc.

Every time I see that ad showing the mother spraying surfaces to protect children, I think of what the typical mother feeds her children: hot dogs, hamburgers, chicken, baloney, milk, cheese and so on, ad nauseam. Eating cooked animal products loaded with disease-causing bacteria that come from fecal or other contamination is not my idea of a healthful meal. For example, dairy products contain leukocytes (a. k. a. white blood cells or pus) from painful mastitis in cows that are anything but “happy”! Pasteurized milk contains inactive pus.

Yet we have all been brainwashed from childhood to think that it is normal and desirable to eat lots of animal products. The propaganda of the powerful dairy industry is welcomed into our elementary schools. I still have their booklet our child brought home from public school. Yet many children suffer from illnesses caused by the consumption of these products. Childhood earaches are just one problem linked to milk consumption; lactose intolerance is another. And of course, the allergy to milk.

Eating animal products carries a real risk. That is obvious. Have you noticed how many diseases have their origin in animal products? Vegetables are contaminated by contact with microorganisms from animals. A knife used to cut meat then used, without thorough washing, to cut vegetables or fruit contaminates them.

And what about the advice not to wash meat before cooking? If meat is so germ-ridden that washing it will spread germs in your sink and on your kitchen surfaces, why eat it at all? After all, cooked feces are still feces, aren’t they?

I can go on and on about the salmonella of chickens, the e-coli from the intestines of cattle, etc. Mad cow disease (bovine spongiform encephalopathy) and the much-publicized avian flu are just two notorious killer diseases originating in animals raised for food.

For more information see:
http://all-creatures.org/health.html 

This poem by Bernie Jones pretty well summarizes my feelings about “food animals”:
http://all-creatures.org/poetry/ar-insanity.html 

And for a bit of curmudgeonly poetic humor, may I suggest:
http://all-creatures.org/poetry/ar-anthrax.html 

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