I’ve been reading the absolutely outstanding The Food Revolution by John Robbins (that’s Robbins as in “Baskin-Robbins,” incidentally) and one section really hit me when I read it. I knew that for a long time cow parts were rendered into feed for other cows resulting in “cow cannibalism,” if you will. Fortunately, in 1997 a law was passed in the United States to prohibit this (in order to prevent the spread of Mad Cow Disease), but the naturally herbivorous cow is still fed a variety of other animals that wind up at the rendering plant.

And here’s the crazy part… for all those people that joke about how Asian countries eat cats and dogs: if you’re eating beef, you are too. To quote cattle-rancher-turned-vegan Howard Lyman, “Another staple of the renderer’s diet, in addition to farm animals, is euthanized pets—the six or seven million dogs and cats that are killed in animal shelters every year. The city of Los Angeles alone, for example, sends some two hundred tons of euthanized cats and dogs to a rendering plant every month. Added to the blend are the euthanized catch of animal control agencies, and roadkill.” Believe it or not, it gets more disgusting… but I’ll let you read more through the previous link, if you’re so inclined.

I don’t intend to gross out the visitors to the Veg Blog, but I feel the need to mention things like this because it continues to astound me what has become common practice in the meat industry. These are things I simply never knew and only learned about after I became vegetarian. Sometimes I wonder how much sooner I would have stopped eating meat if I had known what I know now…