May 23rd, 1998
TAKE A DEEP BREATH - CAUTIOUSLY
By Jackie Alan Giuliano
No matter where you live, this Memorial Day weekend will undoubtedly bring the smell of
barbecuing food to your nose. In fact, it is probably one of the biggest barbecuing
weekends of the year. The odor will hang heavy in the air, bringing back memories to some
of family days (and causing grief to many vegetarians).
My students will often say "But the air is so much better today, isn’t it."
Well, that all depends upon your point of view. For example, the lighter fluid fumes from
those fun backyard barbecues in Los Angeles alone dump up to four tons of hydrocarbons a
day into the air, equal to the emissions from a typical oil refinery.
You may go out to eat this long weekend, treating yourself and your family to a nice meal
somewhere. As you drive down your local "restaurant row," you will smell the
cooking food as you decide where to go. And you have a lot of choices. But did you ever
think about how many restaurants there are in your town? In Los Angeles, there are
thousands, each one with a smoke stack sending fumes from the grill up into the
atmosphere.
The South Coast Air Quality Management District (AQMD), the air pollution regulating body
for Southern California, has repeatedly refused to regulate this industry because of
successful lobbying by the business owners.
The results - meat particles make up nearly 1/5th of the particulate component of L.A. air
pollution, making it the largest single source of this life-threatening category of
toxins. This an amount greater than that generated by car exhausts, forest fires, and
aircraft. Seems unbelievable, doesn't it?
Particulate air pollution is a deadly component of our challenged air. These fine,
microscopic particles lodge deep in our lungs and cause many deaths per year. A study
conducted in Los Angeles revealed that for each 10 microgram increase in the concentration
of particulates in the air, admissions at local Kaiser Permanente hospitals were found to
increase by 7 percent for chronic respiratory disease patients, 3 percent for
cardiovascular disease patients and 3.5 percent for acute respiratory illnesses (see
Resource #2 below).
The National Resources Defense Council claims that 17 percent of the deaths in Los Angeles
can be attributed to particulate air pollution - that's 9,000 deaths per year.
And it turns out that grilling meat releases heterocyclicamines (HCAs) which are potent
animal carcinogens and may play a role in causing cancer in humans. Even the fumes of
cooked meat contain HCAs, which have been implicated in cardiomyopathy, breast cancers,
and colon cancer in animal studies. HCAs are formed during cooking when naturally
occurring amino acids in meat react with muscle tissue in the meat. They are among the
most potent carcinogens known.
The July 1994 issue of the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry reported that there
was an increased risk of respiratory tract cancers among cooks!
And don't think that eating chicken will get you out of the frying pan. Grilled chicken
contains two to seven times more HCAs than beef. A grilled soy-based tempeh burger, by the
way, contains no HCAs.
It is so easy to accept, so easy to throw up our hands and say, "What can I do about
it?" We are part of a culture that considers lifestyle modification a
"sacrifice" and "giving up the good life." Yet what good are those
things we have defined as pleasurable if they have such an impact on our world and our
lives? Our food choices have profound effects, not only on our own personal health, but on
the health of everyone around us as well.
We may need to reexamine our values and take a new direction. We may need to stop what we
are doing, challenge our assumptions, make new life choices, and pause and take a deep
breath - cautiously.
Sometimes, when a bird cries out,
Or the wind sweeps through a tree,
Or a dog howls in a far-off farm,
I hold still and listen a long time.
My world turns and goes back to the place
Where, a thousand forgotten years ago,
The bird and the blowing wind
Were like me, and were my brothers.
My soul turns into a tree,
And an animal, and a cloud bank.
Then changed and odd it comes home
And asks me questions. What should I reply?
-- Hermann Hesse
RESOURCES
1. To read a scientific article substantiating the amazing facts about meat particles in
L.A. air, read http://www.arb.ca.gov/rd/resnotes/notes/1994/94-19.htm by the
California Air Resources Board. 2. Learn about the hospital study that found a direct
correlation between increased air pollution episodes and hospital admissions at http://www.dieselnet.com/news/9711aqmd.html
3. Read about the particulate problem at the National Resources Defense Council site at http://www.nrdc.org/search/fzintr.html
4. The details about HCAs and grilling meat can be found at http://ehpnet1.niehs.nih.gov/docs/1996/104(6)/forum.html
5. Find your Congressional representatives and e-mail them. If you know your Zip code, you
can find them at http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/ziptoit.html
and tell them your feelings about the air quality standards and encourage them to regulate
restaurant air pollution. 6. Learn about alternatives to eating meat at http://www.earthsave.org/mission.htm
the web site of Earthsave International. 7. If you are walking or bicycling in a major
urban area, you might consider wearing breathing protection. The RESPRO company markets
masks that filter out toxic pollutants. You can learn about them at the web site at http://www.respro.com/ and inquire about
purchasing their products from http://quorumallergy.com/respro2.html 8. Learn about the issues. Seek
out books on the subject. A good source for used (and new) books is Powell’s
Bookstore in Portland, Oregon at http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/associate?assoc_id=212
where you will find a wonderful alternative to the massive chain bookstores taking over
the market. 9. Visit the owlcam at http://members.aol.com/owlbox/nest98.htm to see a family of owls
living and raising their young. Remind yourself of the miraculous cycles of life. Updated
daily. {Jackie Giuliano, can be found taking cautious breaths in Venice, California,
trying not to think about breathing meat. He is a Professor of Environmental Studies for
Antioch University, Los Angeles, and the University of Phoenix Southern California
Campuses. He is also the Educational Outreach Manager for the Outer Planets/Solar Probe
Project, a NASA program at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory to send space probes to
Jupiter’s moon Europa, the planet Pluto, and the Sun. Please send your thoughts,
comments, and visions to him at jackie@deepteaching.com
and visit his web site at http://www.jps.net/jackieg}
|
