Scruton on Eating Animals

In response to “Eat Animals! It’s for Their Own Good,” by Roger Scruton, Column Right, July 25:

What on God’s temporarily green Earth ever possessed you to print Scruton’s column? Any such justification to continue our counter-survival habits can set back the human race.

There is growing evidence, printed in newspapers including your own, that meat and dairy products are major contributors to heart disease, cancer and diabetes. If consumption of dead animals were harmless, why is heart disease the No. 1 killer in this country, while countries which seldom eat meat have a lower incidence of our top three killer diseases?

Significant levels of DDT found in carnivorous mothers’ milk is 99% compared to 8% in vegetarian mothers’ milk. Not only is our health endangered by meat consumption, but so is the health of the planet. According to the U.S. government, animal agriculture is the No. 1 cause of water pollution and topsoil erosion. Two-thirds of our forests have been destroyed to graze cattle, not to mention the wanton destruction of the rain forests. With every billion burgers sold, another 100 species becomes extinct. It takes 16 pounds of grain to make one pound of beef. If that grain were fed directly to humans, we could feed 10 times as many people.

But people such as Scruton will defend their vices because it’s much easier than changing them. Let’s face it, most of us are not willing to take the responsibility of giving up one single learned pleasure even if it means preventing hunger, suffering or our own coronaries.

GINGER GULLIE

Woodland Hills