Recently, as part of my new job as editor of a small local paper I have had the opportunity to correspond with fellow journalists concerning a panalopy of personal and political issues.

By far the most fun has been my discourse with PETA activist and writer "Heather." I regret that I no longer have a copy of her original mailing and wish that I could present it here to show the beginning of the conversation and present a more accurate portrayal of Heather's views which in their own way are just as valid as mine. I instead have my reply to begin with and then her's to me and my latest email to her.

Here it is.

Heather,

If vegetables are so safe then how do you account for the E. coli outbreaks from spinach last year?

Furthermore, what happens to insulin dependent diabetics if their medication can no longer be produced due to PETA's complete anti animal product stance?

Sure slaughterhouses are dirty places, but meat is cleaned before it is packaged and shipped and then cooked before being eaten.

The problems you describe don't require a vegan diet, which you fail to mention comes with its own health complications such as the necessity of B12 supplements or dramatic weight loss due to lack of complex fats (though in many cases this could be beneficial).

In recorded history there has never been an exclusively vegan culture, though there have existed those who derived most of their diet from plants. Lets face it, it's easier to chase down a potato than a deer.

From a strictly personal standpoint I would like to refute your claims. Meat is delicious. Predation is a law of nature. Maybe you could convince carnivores to eat tofu, but the fact is that man is an omnivorous mammal. Our systems are designed to consume both plants and animals, to maintain that plants are more natural for us than animal products is a perversion of nature.

Not only is promotion of a vegan diet for moral reasons wrong, but to attempt such blatant scare tactics as you do in your letter is morally reprehensible for completely different reasons. If someone is choosing that lifestyle, it should be from a mature and informed reasoning process, not a knee jerk reaction to unpleasant footage of dying animals which PETA seems so fond of showing off.

Other than that, thank you for your letter and I'm looking forward to hearing from you in the future.

--You'll note how stand-offish I'm being. It's sort of in my nature but came through in a big way here.
Heather's response was much more diplomatic--

Hi Ryan,

Thanks for your comments in response to my letter on contaminated meat. I apologize for the late response and hope you will take the time to read my comments.

If you take a closer look at my letter, I think you�ll understand how spinach and other vegetables may become contaminated with fecal bacteria: �When fruits or vegetables do become contaminated with E. coli, it is because animal manure was used to fertilize crops or leaked into waterways. Cross-contamination can also occur when fruits and vegetables are placed on the same surface as meat.�

The point is that vegetables do not produce E. coli on their own; factory farms or farmed animals are often the source of contamination. For example, when the contaminated spinach outbreak was being investigated, an article in The Los Angeles Times indicated that investigators had traced the tainted spinach to California�s Central Coast, and suspected that waste runoff from nearby livestock operations was responsible for the bacterial contamination. Even though California�the number one dairy-producing state in the country�claims to have a �zero discharge� policy against runoff from livestock operations, the Salinas Valley waterways near the spinach fields, including the Salinas River, Gabilan Creek, Towne Creek, Tembladero Slough, and Old Salinas River Estuary, are known carriers of the strain of E. coli bacteria implicated in the outbreak.

The Environmental Protection Agency has reported that livestock operations pollute our waterways more than all other industrial sources combined. Animals raised for food produce approximately 130 times as much excrement as the entire human population�an astounding 87,000 pounds per second. The waste often seeps into our waterways, killing marine life and sickening people.

It only takes a few bacteria to make people sick: Scientist Guy Plunkett of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where the genetic code of E. coli was mapped, reports that as few as 10 to 100 E. coli bacteria are sufficient to infect a human. According to The Los Angeles Times, a single cow can shed as much as 100 billion fecal bacteria a day.

Ground beef is often recalled because of E. coli concerns. PM Beef Holdings recalled 117,000 pounds of E. coli-contaminated beef and, just recently, Davis Creek Meats and Seafood recalled 129,000 pounds of potentially contaminated beef in 15 states. Now, United Food Group in California has expanded a beef recall to include 5.7 million pounds of beef that was sent to stores in 11 states.

Meat is not thoroughly cleaned before it is packaged and shipped. Affidavits from meat inspectors offer these descriptions of tainted meat: �Company employees told us that rats were all over the coolers at night, running on top of meat and gnawing at it. � [W]e saw fecal contamination get through�up to one-foot smears�as well as flukes [liver parasites], grubs [wormlike fly larvae that burrow into the cow�s skin and work their way through the animal�s body], abscesses [encapsulated infections filled with pus], [hide] hair, and ingesta ....�

Delmer Jones, president of the U.S. Meat Inspection Union, warns, �The [USDA] labels are misleading the public. The label should declare that the product has been contaminated with fecal material.� The details are in this Web page if you are interested:

http://goveg.com/contamination_bacterial.asp.

Vegan diets are much healthier than animal-based diets. Animal products are generally high in saturated fat, cholesterol, and concentrated protein. Numerous studies have linked the consumption of certain animal products to serious illnesses, such as heart disease, strokes, diabetes and breast, colon, prostate, stomach, esophageal, and pancreatic cancer.

Unlike animal products, plant-based foods are cholesterol free and generally low in fat and high in fiber, complex carbohydrates, and other vital nutrients. Researchers from the University of Toronto have found that a plant-based diet rich in soy and soluble fiber can reduce cholesterol levels by as much as one-third. According to David Jenkins, professor of nutrition and metabolism at the University of Toronto, �the evidence is pretty strong that vegans, who eat no animal products, have the best cardiovascular health profile and the lowest cholesterol levels.�

Studies have shown that, on average, vegetarians and vegans are at least 10 percent leaner, and live six to 10 years longer, than meat-eaters. The American Dietetic Association (ADA) has reported that �vegetarians, especially vegans, often have weights that are closer to desirable weights than do non-vegetarians.�

The ADA and Dietitians of Canada have issued a joint statement saying, �well-planned vegan and other types of vegetarian diets are appropriate for all stages of the life cycle, including during pregnancy, lactation, infancy, childhood, and adolescence.�

Vegans can get ample vitamin B-12 from a multivitamin or B-12 supplement. Vitamin B-12 is also found in some nutritional yeasts and many fortified cereals and soy milks. A vegan diet is easy and nutritious. Trust me; I�ve been vegan for more than 16 years and I�m in excellent health.

Most anthropologists and biologist believe that humans are better suited to a plant-based diet. Dr. William C. Roberts, M.D., the editor of the American Journal of Cardiology, says, "[A]lthough we think we are one and we act as if we are one, human beings are not natural carnivores. When we kill animals to eat them, they end up killing us because their flesh, which contains cholesterol and saturated fat, was never intended for human beings, who are natural herbivores.� You can read more at http://goveg.com/naturalhumandiet.asp.

Ryan, from your comments, I suspect that you are hesitant to try a vegan diet because you think, �Meat is delicious.� I used to think that too, but now I know that there are tasty, healthy, and humane alternatives. Here�s a link to our VegCooking.com Web page showing popular mock meats, etc. http://goveg.com/vegetarian101.asp. This site also list vegetarian and vegan options at national and regional restaurants and other helpful information.

You may also be interested to know that one of PETA�s vice presidents is an insulin-dependant diabetic. Low doses of Humulin, a synthetic, non-animal insulin, and a healthy vegetarian diet helped her control her diabetes. Here�s her story: http://goveg.com/diabetes_controlled.asp.

I appreciate your interest in our campaigns and hope this has answered your questions. Thanks again for taking the time to write.

Sincerely

Heather

--See what I mean about diplomacy? I tried hard to be equally courteous but dropped the ball a few times--

Heather,

Thank you for your reply. Answers to sticky questions such as these must be well thought out to be coherent. When one makes a real case for a vegan or vegetarian lifestyle (possibly hoping to gain a convert) it is key to have well reasoned points.

I made the statement in my last correspondence that "meat tastes good." I stand by this and note that this may be a personal bias on my part, having been a meat eater since the time of my birth (except for one 6 month vegetarian trial in college). This argument clearly falls on the side of nurture in an argument on conditioning being the determining factor of human digestion.

Please don't make the mistake that I'm some sort of nut arguing for a carnivorous diet. Though, this would not be without precedent from peoples like the Inuit who survived thousands of years on a diet almost entirely of fish. What I'm driving at here is that man is a natural omnivore, born with the capabilities to consume his choice of red flesh or leafy greens.

However, aside from this there is the matter of the chemical compounds and enzymes found in the human digestive system and it's relative size to as compared to the body. Biologically speaking the majority of herbivores have various enzymes and specialized digestive organs that allow for the break down of cellulose. It is notable that humans, though blessed with an assortment of enzymes for the break down of certain types plant matter have nothing that can handle cellulose. It passes through our bodies in the same way a chunk of wax would (which is why those chunks of corn are still visible in your bowel movements), unusable to us other than as fertilizer. Overall our digestive system is relatively simple. Looking at it in overall length the intestine alone at 23 feet gives us more than seven times body length. This puts us somewhere in between cats (3.5 times body length) and some common plant eaters such as cows (20 times b/l) and horses (12 times b/l).

Other factors to look at include human teeth. Notably we share common from teeth to herbivores, slicers that will cut their way through tough vegetable skins, but we also come equipped with those nice and pointy teeth, known as canines, which are designed by evolution to grip and tear flesh. The back teeth are simply universal grinders for the things we stuff in our talk holes.

Furthermore our very lifestyle leads me to believe that we have always been consumers of meat on some level. Analysis of herbivores will show that most of their daily activities involve the gathering of food. Only modern agriculture has made it possible a truly effective plant diet. Simply put, in the wild most plants are very low in food value, without agriculture this communication over an electronic messaging system would be impossible as we'd spend most of our day gathering food to keep ourselves going without anyone having had time to invent the wheel, much less modern computer technology. It was hunting combined with gathering that gave us enough leisure time to make use of our enlarged cranial capacities.

Certain anthropological studies can be seen to show evidence of primate evolution as meat eaters. Jane Goodall herself establish years ago that chimpanzees kill and consume meat. With the diversion of upright hominids six to 14 million years ago we might assume that our diet could have swung more towards meat since then.

On another front you've caught me. My reference to diabetics was indeed a thinly veiled commentary about Mary Beth Sweetland, I'm sure you get alot of those. While it is true that insulin is now produced synthetically, this was not always the case. Furthermore, its very development was most assuredly animal tested, something PETA is against in all its forms. This includes research which could help sufferers of terrible diseases like AIDS. PETA president Ingrid Newkirk once said that even if animal research could lead to a cure, "we'd be against it.

So you can, perhaps, see if I take that as a mixed message. You tout the health benefits of a vegan lifestyle while at the same time supporting an organization which opposes life saving research. I must apologize for this paragraph even as I write it. I realize it must read as very accusatory, that is not meant to be so.

While I'm apologizing I'll also take back my spinach sarcasm. That was blatant antagonism at best and I regret it.

I think that what is happening here is that we are not really arguing the same thing. You hold the position that from a health standpoint plant energy and nutrient sources are the way to go. You'll get no disagreement from me there, the science supports you in that regard. My position is different, but not the opposite of yours. I consider the omnivorous diet to be more naturally suited to humans and I believe that science is on my side in this matter.

This having been said I must point out that it is nearly impossible to get all scientist to agree on anything, much less the general populace. One scientific study may prove something while a different study using slightly different but equally valid methods may prove the exact opposite. The general populace has almost not chance, judging from the unexplainable amount of people who will deny evolution.

On a personal level I find your commitment to the vegan cause admirable. If a convert is truly what you want in this conversation then perhaps it would be best to end it. You'll have a hard time convincing a person like me who has taken game in some of the most ancient (and possibly most brutal) ways possible. I apologize again if this last statement offends you.

--So that's the conversation to date. I enjoy the stimulating reparte so I can only hope she replies once again. She is probably better researched on the subject than I am, but never forget the old proverb "It's nearly impossible to win an arguement against someone who doesn't know what he's talking about" or something like that.--