Your Opinion: Animal agriculture industry defended

Dear Editor:

I am really disappointed in Joel Timonn. For Thanksgiving he gave us tofu turkey and for Christmas he hawked a lentil roast. Here it is Lent and I was expecting something like a leg-of-lentil or tofu ham for Easter and I am curious what kind of egg does a vegetarian color.

We Christians, especially Catholics, abstain from meat on Ash Wednesday and on Fridays but not the whole 40 days.

As for his reference to the Bible, Genesis 1:29, the Garden of Eden was an idyllic habitat created for Adam and Eve. They ate seeds from plants and trees and animals ate green plants. Then there was the fall. It was a game changer and it has long been theorized that without the fall the rest of us would not exist.

What I find interesting is that of Adam and Eve's two sons (born after the fall) Cain was the tiller of the soil and Abel was a keeper of the flocks. We all know the story - the tiller of the soil killed his brother, the keeper of the flocks and lost favor with God.

So while you vegetarians are attempting to smite the livestock industry, maybe you should keep that in mind.

Again you have referred to a 2007 U.N. report and again I have to remind you that the scientists who authored that study used flawed information and their findings were denounced.

Between 1977 and 2007 the carbon footprint of beef shrank 18 percent as livestock producers raised 13 percent more beef with 13 percent less land, 14 percent less water and 9 percent less fossil fuel energy.

Harvard researchers found no association between eating unprocessed red meat with the development of heat disease and diabetes. But processed meats raised the risk of heart disease by 42 percent and diabetes by 19 percent.

The American Heart Association has certified three cuts of beef as being heart-healthy.

Again you characterize animal agriculture as being cruel and inhumane because that's what some anti-livestock web sites put in your head. We do care about our animals. Being cruel to them is not productive.

Hunger, maybe that's what this country needs to appreciate agriculture.

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