Several vegetarian groups, including The interfaith Council for the Protection of Animals and Nature (ICPAN) and Jewish Vegetarians of North America (JVNA) announced today that they are starting a campaign to make people aware that the current publicity about E. coli 0157:H7 contamination in spinach should actually be a wake-up call to the need to shift away from animal-based diets and agriculture. While the current focus is on spinach, JVNA believes that we should consider how modern intensive animal-centered agriculture (factory farming) threatens our entire agricultural system and the health and welfare of people in the United States and worldwide. The vegetarian groups believe that the following factors should be considered:


While the cause of the current spinach scare is still not known, there is a strong possibility that it is related to manure and by-products from factory-farmed animals. E. coli is an intestinal bacteria of mammals, and that the only way spinach or any other vegetable could be contaminated by E. coliis from water polluted with animal or human fecal material. Further, since the strain of E. coli causing this outbreak, O157:H7, is very pathogenic to humans, it is almost impossible for it to have come from unsuspecting human sources, and it also was established in numerous previous cases of E. coli O157:H7 contamination that the source was animal agriculture.

Currently over 10 billion animals are raised for slaughter annually in the United States. The manure from these animals is at least 13 times that from the entire human population of the United States. This manure is generally untreated and it often ends up in our rivers and streams, badly polluting them. This introduces toxins into our drinking water and irrigation water, thus endangering our entire food supply. Please see the NY Times September 21, 2006 op-ed article immediately after this press release.

While only a few people died and less than 200 have been sickened by the E. coli O157:H7 found in some bagged spinach, about 1.5 million Americans die annually from heart disease, strokes, several forms of cancer and other chronic degenerative diseases that have been conclusively linked to animal-based diets. Many millions more suffer from illnesses related to the consumption of animal products.

The high amounts of pesticides and chemical fertilizers used to grow feed crops for farmed animals also threaten human health and our land and water.

Over half of the antibiotics produced in the United States is added to animal feed to reduce diseases in animals who are raised in crowded, unsanitary conditions. This is leading to a resistance to antibiotics in people who consume animals that have high amounts of antibiotics in their flesh.

While there are many causes for the current widespread hunger, we should consider that over 70% of the grain produced in the United States and almost 40% of the grain produced worldwide are fed to animals raised for slaughter, while an estimated 20 million of the world's people are dying annually and close to a billion are suffering from the effects of chronic malnutrition. Many lives would be saved if that grain was fed directly to people.

Animal-based diets require up to 14 times as much water than plant-diets, largely because of the need to irrigate feed crops. This is significant because experts are projecting that over half of the world's people will live in areas chronically short of water by the middle of this century.


Animal-based agriculture contributes significantly to the major greenhouse gases: carbon dioxide, due to the burning of forests to produce grazing land and land to produce feed crops and due to the mechanization necessary for the modern mass production of animal products; methane, from the digestion and excretion processes of cattle; nitrous oxides from the nitrogen in chemical fertilizers. Since climate change is arguably the greatest threat to humanity and one of the greatest moral issue of our time, reducing these major contributions to greenhouse gas emissions should be a major consideration today.

The combination of increased global warming and widening water shortages, along with the erosion and depletion of arable land and the increasing formation of deserts is threatening the world's food security with many more people facing future food shortages. Making the situation even worse is the fact that countries like China, India and Japan are increasingly shifting to animal-based diets. In 1995, China shifted from a grain exporter to a major grain importer.

In summary, while the current “Spinach Scare” is a cause for concern, it has caused a relatively small number of deaths and illnesses. By contrast, the current widespread production and consumption of animal products threaten our agricultural system and, indeed, all of humanity. Hence, it is essential that people become more aware of these threats and the importance of shifting to plant-based diets, for the sake of their health and that of our imperiled planet.