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Quotes about Factory Farms from the world's top natural health / natural living authors

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"When you feed these ruminants grains instead of grass, which is what happens at large factory farms, all sorts of problems occur. In particular, it makes their digestive tracts acidic and they develop subacute acidosis, which means the cows suffer from diarrhea and excessive salivation. This leads to such discomfort that the cows will do things like kick at their bellies, eat dirt, and stop eating to try to stop the diarrhea and salivation. We also know that this acidic environment in their stomachs encourages the development of E. coli bacteria." - Frank Lipman, Mollie Doyle, Spent: Revive: Stop Feeling Spent and Feel Great Again (Get the book.)

"And now that you've been to the feedlots, the food-processing plants, the organic factory farms, and the local farms and ranches, what do you eat?" Fair questions, though it does seem to me a symptom of our present confusion about food that people would feel the need to consult a journalist, or for that matter a nutritionist or doctor or government food pyramid, on so basic a question about the conduct of our everyday lives as humans. I mean, what other animal needs professional help in deciding what it should eat?" - Michael Pollan, In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto (Get the book.)

"Where chicken (and other poultry) is concerned, you'll not only want to look for the meat (and eggs) of grass-fed versus grain-fed animals, you'll also want to be certain that the animals are "free range," meaning that they roam freely in the outside environment, rather than being cooped up in factory farms where they are overcrowded and often subject to inhumane conditions." - Brenda Watson and Leonard Smith, The Detox Strategy: Vibrant Health in 5 Easy Steps (Get the book.)

"Meat eaten in the native cultures where acne is virtually absent comes from wild game and pasture-fed (grass-fed) animals, not from factory farms where cows are routinely given large doses of hormones. One study in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology investigated the relationship between diet and teenage acne and found a significant positive association between acne and milk (skim and whole). The researchers hypothesized that the association may be because of the "presence of hormones and bioactive molecules in milk." - Jonny Bowden, Ph.D., C.N.S., The Most Effective Natural Cures on Earth: The Surprising, Unbiased Truth about What Treatments Work and Why (Get the book.)

"I have heard that at some factory farms, the poor "free-range" chickens only get to roam out of their cages for as little as five minutes a day! The cholesterol in eggs has also given them an undeservedly bad reputation. Our society is suffering from heart disease because nearly all of the fat we eat, and certainly all of the animal fat we eat, is cooked. Harmful cholesterol accumulations result from fats that have been cooked or are rancid. Arterial cholesterol accumulations actually decrease when eating raw fats. According to enzyme expert Dr." - Susan E. Schenck, The Live Food Factor: The Comprehensive Guide to the Ultimate Diet for Body, Mind, Spirit & Planet (Get the book.)

"This less healthy form of fat is also likely to contain hormones, antibiotics, and pesticide residues from animals raised on factory farms. You can reduce your exposure to these chemicals—some of which are known causes of cancer—by shopping for organic meats from grass-fed cattle. (Organic, grass-fed meat is also less likely to carry mad cow disease.) Eat the leanest cuts possible. Skinless chicken and turkey are better sources of protein as they contain little saturated fat. Eliminate trans-fatty acids from your diet." - Hyla Cass, Supplement Your Prescription: What Your Doctor Doesn't Know About Nutrition (Get the book.)

"The first five-year plan, produced in 1929, included a blunt call to convert rhe steppe to factory farms. "Our steppe will truly become ours only when we come with columns of rractors and ploughs to break the thousand-year-old virgin soil."13 Contrary to plan, dust storms blossomed after plows broke up the grassland. The Soviet's virgin land program of the 1950s and 1960s brought a hundred million acres of marginal farmland into production." - David R. Montgomery, Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations (Get the book.) "Corporate factory farms better able to finance increasingly expensive farm machinery and agrochemicals began to dominate American agriculture by the end of the 1960s. Although different in detail from Rome and the South, the economics of large corporate farms similarly discounted concern about soil erosion. Corporations are, by nature, remporary land owners. ... A tenant on corporate land has no assurance whatsoevet of staying on the farm more than a year. ..." - David R. Montgomery, Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations (Get the book.)

"Sustainable Ranching Our factory farms dump a shocking amount of animal waste into our waterways and soil every year. Farm machinery churns a significant portion of greenhouse-gas emissions into the atmosphere—and on top of that, cow flatulence adds abnormal quantities of methane, compounding the greenhouse problem before the equipment even enters the picture. But if we don't want to give up burgers—and we don't have to!—how can we remove ourselves from this cycle of environmental degradation? By buying sustainable meats. What happens on a sustainably run ranch?" - Alex Steffen, Worldchanging: A User's Guide for the 21st Century (Get the book.)

"In the book, Mad Cowboy, former cattle rancher, Howard Lyman details that mad cow disease stems from the feeding concoctions of dead cows and other animals in the factory farms to the living cows. When those living cows are slaughtered and eaten, they pass the mad cow disease on to humans. When one eats the flesh of tortured animals, or the milk of dairy cows, or eggs from factory chickens, one also ingests the fear, the pain, the exhaustion and the sorrow of those beings. These energies manifest within the consumer in the form of negative attitudes, depression and illness." - David Wolfe, The Sunfood Diet Success System (Get the book.)

"He worried that adopting fertilizers as standatd practice on factory farms would emphasize maximizing profits at the expense of soil health. "The restoration and maintenance of soil fertility has become a universal problem. . . . The slow poisoning of the life of the soil by artificial manures is one of the greatest calamities which has befallen agriculture and mankind."11 The Second World War derailed adoption of Howard's ideas. After the war the companies that supplied the world's armies rurned to pumping out fertilizer, this time cheap enough to eclipse soil husbandry." - David R. Montgomery, Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations (Get the book.)

"Over supply by factory farms is a problem, not an answer. • rBGH is not needed to improve the health of dairy cows. The manufacturer's own label warns that the growth hormone can trigger a wide range of harmful effects. rBGH is not needed to help family farmers. Their costs already are too high, without another artificial chemical to buy. And the artificial hormone makes cows sick, leading to higher costs for veterinary care and antibiotics. • Furthermore, rBGH is very different than natural milk, and poses cancer and other risks to consumers." - Samuel S. Epstein, M.D., What's In Your Milk?: An Exposé of Industry and Government Cover-Up on the Dangers of the Genetically Engineered (rBGH) Milk You're Drinking (Get the book.)

"The meat (and milk) that comes from cows that primarily spend their lives being fattened up on grain at CAFOs (confined animal feeding operations or "factory farms") is simply not the same meat or milk that comes from their pasture-fed, grass-grazing brethren. The fat content is different, the nutrients are different, and except for the protein, it's just not the same food." - Jonny Bowden, Ph.D., C.N.S., The 150 Healthiest Foods on Earth: The Surprising, Unbiased Truth About What You Should Eat and Why (Get the book.)

"Even forgoing pesticides, California's newly industrialized organic factory farms are not necessarily conserving soil. When demand for organic produce began to skyrocket in the 1990s, industrial farms began planting monocultural stands of lettuce that retained the flaws of conventional agriculture—just without the pesticides. Agroecology doesn't necessarily mean small farms instead of large farms. Haiti's tiny peasant farms destroyed soil on steep slopes just as effectively as the immense slave-worked plantations of the American South. And the problem isn't just mechanization." - David R. Montgomery, Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations (Get the book.)

"Although the Paul, Idaho, farm was small in comparison with other super factory dairy farms, it was still large, and its animal husbandry practices appeared to blur the line between factory farms and ideally humane organic farms—at least according to its critics. The Cornucopia Institute, which represented small organic farm interests, filed a formal complaint in 2005 with the USDA's Office of Compliance asking them to initiate an investigation into alleged violations of the federal organic law by the Horizon dairy in Idaho. Grass is the end all and be all of cows." - David Steinman, Safe Trip to Eden: Ten Steps to Save Planet Earth from the Global Warming Meltdown (Get the book.)

"Leon is out there supporting factory farms. Leon is allowing the use of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in the state of Vermont even though the majority of people want to see their use restricted. Leon is helping to destroy small family farms and sitting back and watching as federal officials come into our state and steal our property. My sheep were stolen six months ago. Where are the test results? Where is the financial compensation? Our family was making our living farming, and now we are struggling to make ends meet. Is this what we want Leon to teach the rest of the country?" - Linda Faillace, Mad Sheep: The True Story Behind the USDA's War on a Family Farm (Get the book.)

"There are no "factory farms" for cattle in India—all cows are "grass fed." Therefore, all the health benefits of grass-fed butter discussed under "Butter" (above, page 175), apply completely to ghee. As Amanda Morningstar explains about the cow in her excellent book Ayurvedic Cooking for Westerners, "her milk and her butter, clarified as ghee, are like mother's milk in Ayurveda, absolutely essential for health and well-being. They must be pure to do this. Many Westerners are concerned that the use of ghee will increase their cholesterol or add unnecessary amounts of fat to their diet." - Jonny Bowden, Ph.D., C.N.S., The 150 Healthiest Foods on Earth: The Surprising, Unbiased Truth About What You Should Eat and Why (Get the book.)

"Bucolic-looking farms are always featured in the defensive propaganda of the chemical corporations, not the corporate factory farms that use their products, dominate U.S. agriculture, and are the opposite of pastoral and rural. Regular-looking farmers, versus slick corporate farmers, are trotted out to testify how invaluable the chemicals or the GMOs are. Finally, many farmers have figured out this propaganda system and are beginning to read other published material. They are learning with their neighbors how to reduce or eliminate these poisons." - Will Allen, The War on Bugs (Get the book.) "This is a pivotal time to aggressively confront the chemical corporations and the factory-farm proponents because of a growing safe-food movement in the United States and a huge opposition to genetically modified foods and factory farms around the world. As a result, farm kids and first-time farmers are beginning to take the plunge into farming once again. We are in the midst of another farm-revitalization movement in the United States, but this time it is part of a global movement toward sustainable farming." - Will Allen, The War on Bugs (Get the book.) "As the strength of the organic movement increased around the world, so did international antagonism to the American- and European-style factory farms and to chemicals and seeds from the Green Revolution. For more than fifty years, the belief system in U.S. agriculture rested on the presumption that bigger was better. Recently, however, research has shown that small and medium-sized farms are more efficient than large-scale farms, and that both animals and the land are cared for better on smaller-scale farms." - Will Allen, The War on Bugs (Get the book.) "This lament is reminiscent of the complaints that led to Shays's Rebellion and the Whiskey Rebellion as well as that of today's demonstrators against corporate factory farms. The editorial delivers a broadside against the aristocratic and corporate power that controlled farming and most of the country. Throughout this populist period, several farm journals and the Farmers' Alliance movement promoted biological agriculture, complete with natural fertilizer advice and biological pest-control strategies." - Will Allen, The War on Bugs (Get the book.)

"This less healthy form of fat is also likely to contain hormones, antibiotics, and pesticide residues from animals raised on factory farms. You can reduce your exposure to these chemicals—some of which are known causes of cancer—by shopping for organic meats from grass-fed cattle. (Organic, grass-fed meat is also less likely to carry mad cow disease.) Eat the leanest cuts possible. Skinless chicken and turkey are better sources of protein as they contain little saturated fat. Eliminate trans-fatty acids from your diet." - Hyla Cass, M.D., Supplement Your Prescription: What Your Doctor Doesn't Know About Nutrition (Get the book.)

"People in animal reform attribute the cause for downed livestock to the inhumane treatment of animals raised on factory farms and the stressful procedures when transporting the animals for slaughter.) Marc Lappe, PhD, works with Ethics and Toxics, a nonprofit environmental group based in California. He asserts that an estimated three hundred thousand farm animals who die each year are classified as "downers." When University of Wisconsin veterinary scientist Richard Marsh inoculated U.S. cattle with the infected mink brains, the cattle died. When Dr." - Ann N. Martin, Food Pets Die For: Shocking Facts About Pet Food (Get the book.)

"And yet, even with such enormous use in hospitals, the Union of Concerned Scientists announced in 2001 that antibiotics in factory farms account for the overwhelming majority of all antibiotic use in the country. The scientific consensus regarding antibiotic-resistant bacteria has been gathering strength for many years. It's now widely recognized that the routine use of antibiotics in factory farms has eroded the ability of these medicines to cure human illness." - John Robbins, Food Revolution: How your diet can help save your life and our world (Get the book.)

"Although in 1997 the FDA established some controls, there are significant loopholes such as farmers being allowed to feed cow's blood to cattle, even though research shows the blood can transmit the prions of Mad Cow Disease, and factory farms are still allowed to feed pigs and poultry the remains of slaughtered cattle and the remains of these slaughtered, cattle-fed animals can be fed back to cattle. The Center for Disease Control refuses to make CJD a reportable disease. At least one U.S. company that wants to test all its cows has not been allowed to by the U.S." - Gabriel Cousens, M.D., Spiritual Nutrition: Six Foundations for Spiritual Life and the Awakening of Kundalini (Get the book.)

"Every time you choose to eat plant foods rather than the products of today's factory farms and feedlots, you are helping to reduce water pollution. Each of us is ultimately responsible for the integrity and consequences of our actions. A new direction for America's food choices would mean that the water in our children's lives might yet be clean and plentiful. Wasting the West Livestock today are raised in a variety of environments. In the United States and other industrialized countries, pigs and chickens are almost all housed and fed in factory farms." - John Robbins, Food Revolution: How your diet can help save your life and our world (Get the book.)

"Large-scale agriculture concentrates polluting chemicals, antibiotics, and manure and can rapidly transform thriving ecosystems into toxic wastelands. factory farms are noxious neighbors, polluting groundwater, creating unbearable odors, and diminishing property values. And economies of scale, which ignore externalized costs such as these yet are reinforced by government subsidies, enable factory farms to undersell smaller-scale farms. Small farms can't compete; economic opportunities shrink; and communities disintegrate." - Sandor Ellix Katz, The Revolution Will Not Be Microwaved (Get the book.)

"Steroids are being used to produce larger and fatter livestock faster. Bovine growth hormone is being injected into dairy cows to induce increased milk production. Along with that production comes increased mastitis and the need for more antibiotics to treat the diseased cows. Of course, if ir's in the cow, it's in the milk, so milk drinkers beware. By now, we've all heard about mad cow disease, salmonella, Campylobacter, listeria, and E. coli. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (www.cdc." - David H. Rippe, Jared Rosen, The Flip: Turn Your World Around (Get the book.)

"Thev are all transmitted to human consumers through chickens and other animals raised in factory farms. And little wonder. In the filthy, crowded pens, harmless micro-organisms mutate into virulent pathogens. Routine use of antibiotics ensures their resistance to life-saving drugs. It makes one wax nostalgic for the good old days when meat eating was associated only with heart disease, stroke, cancer, diabetes, and atherosclerosis."10 No one disputes that the Salmonella, Campylobacter, E. coli, and other bacteria that sicken, cripple, and even kill U.S. consumers stem from factory farms." - John Robbins, Food Revolution: How your diet can help save your life and our world (Get the book.)

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