We give up meat, he thought, contemplating the future of the world. We give up meat. He’d been reading a book entitled “Veganist” by Kathy Freston, and what caught his eye, what prodded him to sit down and write was the following discussion with Michael, MD, on Factory Farming and Superbugs in her book:

“KF: Where does E. Coli come from and how does it get into food? Why is it often found on vegetables?”
MG: E. Coli is an intestinal pathogen. It only gets in the food if fecal matter gets in the food. Since plants don’t have intestines, all E. Coli infections – in fact all food poisoning – comes from animals. When’s the last time you heard of anyone getting Dutch elm disease or a really bad case of aphids? People don’t get plant diseases; they get animal diseases. The problem is that because of the number of animals raised today, a billion tons of manure is produced every year in the United States – the weight of 10,000 Nimitz-class aircraft carriers. Dairy cow and pig factories often dump millions of gallons of putrefying waste into massive open-air cesspits, which can leak and contaminate water used to irrigate our crops. That’s how a deadly fecal pathogen like E. Coli 0157:H7 can end up contaminating our spinach. So regardless of what we eat, we all need to fight against the expansion of factory farming in our communities, our nation, and around the world.”
(Veganist, Lose Weight, Get Healthy, Change the World, Kathy Freston, Weinstein Books, 2011, pgs, 116-117)

He thought, too, of the consequences of weaning off meat. What would the poor ranchers do? There must be incentive farming to aid farmers and ranchers to restore a portion of their land to free range farming, and free range cattle. Stop. He couldn’t help thinking about how the good doctor said that animal poop is the cause. But what about free range cows, doesn’t that endanger the crop? Certainly not. It’s not being held in a cement cesspool with no way to decompose back into nutrients for the soil. It just plops out of the cow’s butt, and the bugs and the dirt, and the worms and the cycle of farming, turns it back into nutrient-rich soil.

He thought again about not eating meat. Certainly not the CAFO kind. No kind, for right now.