Friday, September 7, 2012

Factory farming promotes disease!


In a natural untouched setting you have herbivores, the grazers of the world, tending to our perennial prairie land pastures eating herbs and fertilizing the soil all while miraculously turning cellulose (plant matter) into edible fat and protein for all of the many carnivorous and omnivorous creatures that can't.  You then have nature's cleanup crew, flocks of omnivorous foul, closely tailing the heard scratching through the dung left behind looking for any edible insect that might be on their menu.  And finally you have nature's way of balancing out just the right amount of herbivores per square acre... carnivores.  Without these meat / animal-fat craving creatures of the world (and this includes the omnivorous human), the land would quickly be overrun by plant eaters resulting in a landscape of barren desert waist land due to over grazing, and ultimately leading to many starving animals dependent upon this otherwise healthy fertile soil.

And each individual team (herbivore, carnivore, and omnivore) on this common playing field holds a very important and distinct role dictated by these simple dietary constraints, better yet efficiencies; herbivores eat herbs, carnivores eat herbivorous animal fat and protein, and omnivores consume both.  And despite each players unique role in this game of sustainability, the very thing that sets each apart from the other (their gut) holds one very important commonality spanning them all; a healthy gut dependent upon healthy bacterial environment provides a healthy immune system, and ultimately a healthy relatively disease free existence.  

Despite the resilience of this healthy highly efficient zero-waist system we humans have figured out how to throw a very destructive wrench into this otherwise perfect running machine, and at such a startlingly damaging rate.  Disease is not natural, not at the frequency and efficiency at which it now wreaks havoc on our bodies and our world, and yet we have managed to make life threatening diseases such as cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and autoimmune diseases a devastating and regular occurrence in our lives. 

The healthy balanced gut of a mammal is paradise for (healthy) bacteria, trillions of them, and the tasks they perform (braking down our food so we can utilize its nutrients) is probably the most important job within the body.  Without balanced and efficient digestion, inflammation wreaks havoc on the stomach lining and intestinal walls changing the gut environment from 'friendly bacteria' to 'harmful bacteria' severely compromising the immune system allowing disease to follow. 

So who would think that among these three very distinct digestive groups of mammals (herbivore, carnivore, omnivore) that one common food would be poisoning them all, but it's true!  Grains are not naturally on the  menu for any of these groups of mammals, and yet with the advent of factory farming it has become a major food source for all.  In this unnatural unsustainable unhealthy farming model (factory farming) we feed cheap GMO grains to cattle (herbivores) as well as pigs and chickens (omnivores), depriving them of what they naturally need to survive a healthy disease free life.  Hence the heavy use of antibiotics within factory farming.  And we (omnivores) as well as our carnivorous pets (cats and dogs) are not immune to this poisoning. In fact we get it from all sides.  For humans, we make whole grains an important part of our diets because that's what we've been told is healthy, and any animal protein we do eat is from unhealthy omega-6 rich (grain fed) meat, dairy, and eggs. And as for our pets just look at the ingredients on the package of food (poison) that your feeding them... not only are grains on there in one way shape or form, if they're not the first ingredient they're almost always in the top 5.  And even if you feed them "grain-free" food, unless the animal protein listed comes from organic pastured meats they're still getting their share of poisoning just as we are. 

Grains are high in omega-6 which promotes inflammation, they spike insulin levels due to their glucose content, and  are very difficult to digest.

There is a solution to this global problem that is factory farming... local organic non-GMO sustainable farming!  When we allow animals to eat what nature intended, the result is a healthy relatively disease free life.  This goes for herbivores, carnivores, and omnivores alike.

1 comment:

AllergyFree Search Engine