[gemy]

I too tried to watch, and will have to take it in sections. The numbers quoted in the first part (pets) are rather astounding; and I'd like to review again the stats. some scenes I'm pretty sure are not from North America. Not that it matters all that much.

I read a book, couldn't get through the whole thing either called The Omnivore's Dilemma. It was truly eye-opening. There are not going to be easy answers, to wrestling back from the "manufacturers of food animals", the lock they have on the market. And yes if you read this book, there are ways we can naturally use the land, scientific ways to plant, to move cattle from pasture to pasture, with no need for the antibiotics, growth hormones, insecticides, having cows live in their own feces, etc.

But this is not "mass production of livestock", and if what I suspect might be true, if every single North American embraced the outlawing of animal mass production, a whole lot of belts will need to be tightened. The cost of meat, will likely go up (a whole lot).

We would have to reclaim a whole lot of land that went into corn that corn that was used to feed the cattle in the huge commercial enterprises. In fact because cows have been forced to eat corn, which is NOT their natural diet, a whole lot of medicine needs to be given to make their systems absorb corn nutrients. Then there are all the corn subsidies that farmers get.

I do remember oh 25-30 years ago or so, most mainstream folks, thought vegetarians were beyond weird, that we were shouting hysterically about what growth hormones are doing, antibiotics in the food chain, pesticides in the vegetables, the danger of pollution, the ozone layer, etc.

I would like to point out, that being a vegetarian requires more forethought and planning to get the nutrients the human body needs. We (the human species) are omnivores. While our diet doesn't need to be as heavily meat based as it is currently, meat protein does have it's place in the development and maintenance of healthy bodies.