The Geno Michellini Show 2/3/96  8 o'clock hour
KFI Radio (Los Angeles) 

GENO: This hour is a gentleman who I have become aware of in the last couple of months - you may recall we did some stuff about.. an anti-meat show a couple of months ago and got a lot of response and as a matter of fact Howard, a lot of folks sent me a lot of your dialogue and a lot of paper work and so forth and it's good to have you on the show.

HOWARD: It's a pleasure to be with you Geno.

GENO: And I've been looking forward to this, let me just say to those who are not initiated, who don't know about Howard, just give some comments about and some of your background and then you can fill us all in and we can get going cause I got a feeling we're going to have a good hour here Howard.

HOWARD: Terrific

GENO: Howard is an X - 4th generation Montana farmer/rancher/feedlot operator. So you come from that school I mean we're talking about.. the commercials - eat more beef.

HOWARD: Oh absolutely, I happened to have 7,000 head of cattle at one time,.. spent 40 years of my life in animal production and today I travel around the world talking about the proper amount of animal products to have in your diet is being zero.

GENO: OK and so we're not exactly talking about... excuse the expression, one of those bleeding-heart liberals whose coming on here with your whining about don't eat meat and eat more beans or eat more veggies... you come from a different perspective completely...right?

HOWARD: Well I'm sure that there's hardly anyone that's listening to this program tonight that has eaten more red meat than I have in my lifetime,... you know when I was playing football in high school and college I was one of the first 300 pound linemen that was playing in the nation and.. I was doing that well beefed-up on beef.

GENO: Hello...betty! alright let me just give a couple of comments about Howard here. Now, some of the comments that have been made about Howard is "Don't even think about hearing Howard Lyman speak unless you're prepared to be healthier and happier enjoying a nutritionally improved and cruelty-free diet," a cruelty-free diet, OK that's one comment. Another person said, "You have no idea what impact hearing Howard has had on my husband, it may have saved his life." And then a gentleman named John Robbins who's author of the "Diet For A New America,", by the way Howard this is my copy right here OK? I have it right here.

HOWARD: Absolutely.

GENO: I have it here. John Robbins said about Howard, "In every generation there are a few rare individuals who seem to carry the consciousness of their age, Henry David Thoreau was one such person, Martin Luther King Jr. was another, today we have Howard Lyman. Future historians will recognize him as one of the great lights of our time." Those are some pretty, that's pretty heavy company that you're included in there Howard.

HOWARD: Well I'm not so sure that he didn't give me a greater accolade then what I deserve but.. I will say that I appreciate the kind words., but I need to say to you Geno that I came from a background where there was meat on the table every meal. I thought it was absolutely necessary to get that protein and the iron so you could be big, strong and cope with the world and I will tell the listeners right now if I had not changed my diet, I guarantee you I would not be alive today. I would not be on the radio talking, because I would be in Forest Lawn because what I was eating absolutely was killing me.

GENO: So you came from a life-threatening situation then?

HOWARD: Well I ended up when I was about 40 years old , I was paralyzed from the waist down. I had a tumor on the inside of my spinal cord. It really made me stop and take a look at what I was doing on my farm and at that time it had nothing to do with diet, I thought it was more about the chemicals we were using, the kind of farming we were doing and it was not until I committed myself that I was going to go out and educate myself on the facts that they did not teach me when I went to Montana State University and got a degree in agriculture, had enough chemistry, I thought I'd qualified for the Nobel prize, I mean I had to go out and search it out and I'll tell you what a shock it was for me when I finally found out that all of those things that I believed to be true, and each and every one of us,.. the thing that gets us in trouble is not what we know, it's what we know that isn't so and here I was raised on a dairy farm absolutely convinced that milk was nature's most perfect food, you know that milk does a body good that, that you need it, good red meat,.. that where in the world would you get your protein?

When I absolutely went out and researched the fact, I was shocked to death to find that the standard American diet has 5 to 7 times to much protein, 4 to 5 times to much fat and only half enough carbohydrates. You know here we are in America, the surgeon general is saying today, you know C. Everett Coop, absolutely not what you would call a knee-jerk liberal, is saying 7 out of every 10 Americans dying today are dying from something associated with their diet. One out of every two Americans, 50% of all Americans dying today are dying from one thing, heart disease. What causes it? The main contributing factors - saturated fat and cholesterol,, you know all cholesterol comes from animal products, 100%. You need additional cholesterol in your body like a drowning man needs a drink of water.

The majority of saturated fat in our standard American diet is coming from animal products. Here we are today, one out of every three Americans today will have cancer. One out of every four Americans will die of cancer. Our listeners today can take about 91% of the carcinogens, those things that cause cancer in your body and toxins, take them out of your body by doing two things, removing animal products from your diet and buying organic vegetables. I didn't know that, and had I continued to do what I was doing, being the good ol' standard American diet eater, had I continued to do that, I would be dead today.

GENO: You really have brought up some great subjects. You know, one of the things I wanted to discuss with you, and by the way we are already getting calls,.. so it is going to be a good hour,.. things like you know ...to be honest with you, I still eat meat, however I'm one of those people that many years ago I tried to get into a healthier diet and I eat a lot of vegetables, raw vegetables, I do a lot of like, wok cooking, things like that. I try to be more healthy in my diet, but I have never been able to. I mean I eat very little beef, but I still eat things like poultry.., I eat probably more poultry than anything else or fish, things like that and I've been one of those people that eluted myself into thinking that I'm being more healthy.

HOWARD: Well you are doing some things that are right and boy I'm really happy to hear you say that you are eating vegetables, that you are eating things raw. You know, half of your diet should be fresh, raw and organic. Every time you cook food above a hundred and seven degrees, which is not very warm, you kill the enzymes in it. So eating raw food is, is really good for you, but now you tell me you eat poultry. Do you realize that in my opinion the most adulterated.., meat product that's on the market today is poultry.

GENO: OK you see.. I don't mean to cut you off cause we're going to get into this next cause that's what I want you to do is.. now see, we'll just pretend it's you and me talking for awhile here and there's no one else listening. I want you to, to convince me to go over all the way.

HOWARD: OK

GENO: OK? I want...when this hour is over, I want to be able to say, it's time. Because, I've always felt that I, I want to be healthy, I want to eat the right foods and so forth and so on, but then I'll stop by and have myself a grease-burger, you know, a double cheeseburger, whatever and never think twice about it. No, I don't eat there very regularly, but I'll still do it.

HOWARD: Sure

GENO: And, the perspective that I'd like to have you bring to this audience, this show tonight is that from not that it's unhealthy because we all pretty much know that it's unhealthy, but we're talking from, as your perspective is, it's more a poison.

HOWARD: Well if, if we look at it Geno, let's talk about poultry because that's where you started. In my opinion.., no product out there is more contaminated then our poultry.., nothing gets more hormones, more chemicals. Do you realize that the almost 100% of factory-fed chicken in America today, they feed them arsenic. And they feed them arsenic because it stimulates their growth. If you want to know if this is true, it's really easy to find out. Go down to the local chicken emporium, don't buy it, look over the shoulder of somebody eating a drumstick and you will see that, that drumstick is blue.

That blue indicates that, that poultry was fed a poison and in most cases it is arsenic., right now the majority of chicken manure is collected, is cooked and fed right back., I even read about a new modern.., machine they had in the poultry industry. You know, hens that are to old to lay eggs anymore have almost no economic value anymore, and so they're talking about this new machine that would come along and would like a big vacuum cleaner, would suck the hens right out of the cage into the grinder, grind them up live, turn them into feed, put em' in the sack so that you could turn around and feed em' right back to the other poultry that's out there.

You know, how many of our listeners out there today understand that, that product that they are eating today, that poultry.., is fed arsenic,.. is ground up chickens, feathers,, awful that goes there, is turned right back into feed. You know the amount of hormones and chemicals that are fed into it,.. it's like they're being fed a fecal soup.

GENO: OK, we want to get into that and also the other side of the coin is the fact that, OK, vegetarians have a point of view that has validity to it. Too many people don't realize though, that just stopping eating meat is not enough, that there are enzymes, from what I've read anyway, there are ingredients or there are chemicals, or elements, minerals whatever you want to call them, that we have to supplement into our diet that we do get from meat. Now, am I wrong there?

HOWARD: Oh absolutely not... you know the first thing that we need to do is to get the listeners to understand that you can be on a vegetarian diet and still have a terrible, terrible diet. Just because you're not eating meat does not mean that you have a good balanced diet,.. you have to have vitamin B-12,.. vitamin B-12 in the vegetables we have today is not available. Use to be in the old days when you went to the garden and pulled out a carrot, there was a little dirt on it, there was some bacteria in the dirt that gave you all the vitamin B-12 you needed. Well, we've gone to a lot cleaner product today so you don't get the dirt, you don't get the bacteria. We used to drink water out of the crick, it had bacteria in it, get vitamin B-12 from that, we don't get that anymore. But there are sources of vitamin B-12 other than buying a meat product. You know you can get Wheaties for example which is fortified with vitamin B-12, you get all of it you need.

GENO: And also people need to be more aware that just buying bulk vitamins is not the situation because you have to take them in contact with other minerals so that they activate each other, not to mention you can't just take vitamins, with a glass of water or juice and expect them to take affect on you.

HOWARD: Oh no, where you should be getting your vitamins and minerals is out of your food and it should be coming from good green leafy vegetables. You should be eating half of your diet as fresh, raw and organic, you should not over cook your food..

GENO: Hey Howard I'll tell you what, I don't mean to interrupt you but, because we are already rolling here and I'm loving this. I gotta take a quick break, we'll come back and we're gonna start taking some calls and discuss more of this. I thank you very much for you indulgence.

HOWARD: OK

GENO: Here we go.. KFI-am 640, more stimulating talk radio, my name is Geno Michellini and we're talking with Howard Lyman who is the director of the Humane Society's Eating With Conscience Campaign. A former Montana cattle rancher - fourth generation who is now doing his best to promote vegetarianism and anti-meat eating. Howard let me just give a couple of quotes here OK? and then we're going to take some calls.

HOWARD: Sure

GENO: Some folks want to talk with you and well some questions and some folks who don't agree with you but, that's what this is all about. Some interesting comments.. more than half of all the antibiotics in this country, Howard says, are shoved down the throats of animals. Also, an individual can reduce their risk of cancer by 91% simply my eliminating animal flesh and animal products from their diet and buying organic. That's a pretty heavy number there Howard.

HOWARD: Absolutely and it's something that everyone of the listeners out there should think about because it's something they can do for themselves and remember, one out of every three Americans will have cancer, one out of every four Americans will die of cancer.

GENO: You mentioned protein earlier, another one of your quotes here, "Too much protein restricts the absorption of calcium. Persons who are eating the standard American diet are eating four to five times too much protein and up to 4 to 5 times too much fat. The meat your grandfather ate had up to 70% less fat than the meat we are eating today." And yet today the meat is supposed to be healthier.

HOWARD: Well, you know if you look at it when you go to the grocery store today, walk in and look at it in the counter and you will see that, that meat is just loaded with little white flecks. Those little white flecks happened to be the fat. It is... 70% of it is interior in the meat, you can't cut it off, you can't trim it off and remember the carcinogens that, that animal ate, those things that cause cancer in humans are stored in those little flat globules right there. 75% of all the carcinogens ingested by humans, that cause cancer, come in the form of animal products.

GENO: Now.. Howard tell us about mad cow disease.

HOWARD: Well mad cow disease is something that should just scare everybody plum to death,.. over in England today there's between 3 to 800 cows a week coming down with it. It is an abnormal protein that causes holes in the brain and it's killing the animals. The top brain researcher in England today by the name of Sir Barnard Thomlanson came out and said he believed that this could be transferred from animals to humans in the consumption of flesh and in humans it is known as C.J.D., Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease. Everyone that gets it, dies from it. It is 25 to 30 years from the time you are infected till the time you die of it. It is now believed by most researchers to be an abnormal protein, has no R.N.A., no D.N.A., will survive 340 degrees centigrade and the strange thing is when you take this abnormal protein and put it in association with normal protein, it will turn normal protein abnormal.

GENO: Where did this come from?

HOWARD: Well, they believe it came from sheep and when they were grinding sheep and feeding them to cows, they believe they transferred the disease. In the United States today 14% of all cows by volume are ground up and fed back to other cows. A cow is an absolute herbivore, we've not only turned it into a carnivore, we've turned it into a cannibal.

GENO: Alright, with that in mind we're going to take some calls now Howard,.. Jerry in San Gabriel say hi to Howard.

caller-JERRY: Hey hi Howard, what's happening Geno.

GENO: We're hanging in there.

caller-JERRY: Hey the only thought that comes off my head is.. the people that I know that don't eat meat are a bunch of vegetables you know, that's all I can think about.

GENO: You know Jerry it's funny, I was going to mention to Howard earlier, back in my old hippie days..., I used to live up in Santa Cruz and, I lived with you know, I wouldn't say in a commune, but I lived with a lot of people, and it was "we don't eat meat, man," you know we eat nothing but vegetables and holistic stuff and this and that and I never went that far over. I mean I eat a lot of vegetables and so forth, and I believe where they are coming from, but one of the things that kept me form doing it Howard and we can discuss this and Jerry just brought up a good point, is I can recall my friends, and a lot of them were like, I just don't eat meat and I eat beans and I eat sprouts and so forth and so on.. and some of them even boiled their own water and so forth, but every single flu bug that came along, every single whatever, they got it, they were sick and down for the count.

HOWARD: I'll tell you right now, that just because a person is a vegetarian does not mean that they have a good diet. You know there are three things out there that are important to good health. One is a good diet, a well balanced diet coming from a lot of sources of green leafy vegetables, half of your diet raw, uncooked organic vegetables,.. getting some variety into it, some grains, some beans, those things. How many people do you know right now that claim to be vegetarians and what they basically live on is lettuce and junk food.

GENO: There you go.

HOWARD: And anybody that thinks that, that is a good diet, and their absolutely going the wrong way. But if you take somebody like.. let's look right now, Robert Perish, the oldest starting center in the NBA, he is 10 years older than the next oldest one and he's out there like a gazelle, and that guy has been a life long vegetarian. Now somebody tells me that guy is not in good shape.

caller-JERRY: He's the chief, they call him the chief

GENO: And also.. basically I guess we're getting back to the point I eluted to before, is that if you're going to do this, I mean we are so addicted to meat and it's not addicted, it's a habit, I mean most people don't usually accept it as part of our life, it's not good, bad or indifferent, "OK we know it's high in cholesterol, but we eat beef anyway." And the problem that we come up against is not knowing what to do when we stop eating the meat.

HOWARD: That's absolutely true. We have more people out there, that are trying to become vegetarians that never do any reading, never do any studying, don't work on it, and don't try to end up with a good diet. And you have to do some reading about it because just toddling along and saying, I'm going to have lettuce and twinkies and I'm going to be a vegetarian, and I'm going to be healthy, that's plum crazy.

GENO: Which brings me to John Robbins book, "Diet for a New America," should we plug that book?

HOWARD: Absolutely, I think that, that guy probably did more for people's consciousness around the country of taking a look at, where your food was produced, what is it doing to you, what's it doing to the environment, what's it doing to the animals. Those are the things that people ought to be looking at when they are selecting food and deciding what kind of a diet they are going to have.

GENO: There we go, Howard thank you and Jerry thank you for your call. We're going to take another quick break Howard, be right back and we're going to get into more phone calls.

GENO: Howard is a member of EarthSave's national board of directors, he's co-founder of the Pure Food Campaign, past executive director of the Beyond Beef Campaign, I like that Howard, executive director of Voice for a Viable Future and director of Humane Society's Eating With Conscience Campaign. We've got the phones backed up, so lets get to some of these calls, let's see..um, Stephanie in San Marino say hi to Howard.

caller-STEPHANIE: Hi Howard.

HOWARD: Hi Stephanie how you doing?

caller-STEPHANIE: Hi Geno

GENO: It's good to have you on.

caller-STEPHANIE: Geno I don't know what the point is of giving up meat if you're still a smoker, shame on you.

GENO: I know, you can dog slap me, just slap me right down, you're exactly right and by the way I didn't make a new years resolution but I did make myself a promise that by the end of this year I will not be smoking anymore.

caller-STEPHANIE: Now what's wrong with today?

GENO: I'm weak. It's why I still have a cheeseburger once in a while Howard. No, I have Howard on the air right now because I'm trying to get motivation here, and maybe if he can motivate me, cause I know the right thing to be done, I know about that and I've gone that way but I'm also a hypocrite and I'm admitting it.

caller-STEPHANIE: Oh, well that's great. I agree that we eat entirely way to much meat in this country but it isn't the meat it's self as much as it's the way the cattle and the chicken are raised that's the problem.

GENO: Is that right Howard?

HOWARD: Oh, Absolutely you know and..

GENO: So is there good meat that we can eat?

HOWARD: Well there's meat that is, is..

caller-STEPHANIE: Organically grown/farmed.

HOWARD: That has less problems than that, that's grown in the feedlots but remember even if it's organically grown, that it still has to much fat, too much protein and to much cholesterol, but it is much better because it does not have the carcinogens, but Geno remember you smoke, you multiply your risks of everyone of these diseases by four. Just stop to, and think about it, you know one out of every two people dying of heart disease, your going to multiply that risk by four, one out of three, cancer - multiply it by four.

GENO: Well see, your helping push me back, over where I need to be, that's one of the reasons why I'm doing this show.

caller-STEPHANIE: But I have a question for Mr.Lyman, your not saying that absolutely, positively that vegetarians are a lot more healthier than people who do eat meat because I don't think that's true, then people like Linda McCartney who's been a complete vegetarian for I don't know how many years, she just got breast cancer. People like Olivia Newton John, very health conscious, breast cancer.

HOWARD: But remember that we do not get 100% of what we're getting in our food, we still have the water we drink and the air that we breathe..

caller-STEPHANIE: Right, so we can't constantly blame it on the meat, that's not the total and complete culprit and that's what I'm hearing, that it's not, there are other variables.

GENO: No, what he said is you could reduce your risk of cancer by 91%.

caller-STEPHANIE: No, not possibly by just cutting out meat because people have done that and they still get cancer, especially women in this country so it's not just the meat, it's other culprits and if it's just the meat, it just can't be the meat because there's too many vegetarians in this country that are getting sick.

GENO: How do you respond to that Howard?

HOWARD: Well, it's simple, 75% of the carcinogens that cause cancer in humans come in animal products, 16% from vegetables that are treated with herbicides and pesticides. But what I'm saying is that 91% of the carcinogens and toxins that go into the human body can be removed by discontinuing animal products and buying organic vegetables. You're still gonna have problem of that, that's in the air you breathe, the water you drink and the genetics in your family code. But those things are very difficult for you to do anything about, the others very simple to do something about and that's a good risk deterrent, just by looking at what you are putting on your fork.

GENO: And as an indendent to that, it's a rough world we're living in, a period as far as cancer is concerned. I have a friend, a lady I was with for many years of my life who, you talk about diametrically opposed lifestyles, I mean, Howard before I did this for a living, I was a rock and roll DJ, lived in that world for 22 years and am pretty much guilty of you name it, and lived that lifestyle for a long time and the person I was with, that I was involved with was just the opposite. We're talking macro-biotic diet, we're talking very healthy, she used to laugh at me and give me all kinds of flack and so forth and she came down with breast cancer and had a mastectomy and it's come back and it's affected her to the point where we, she's very sick and we may loose her very soon and there's no guarantees, but that doesn't mean, I guess the point I'm trying to make here to our last caller is that, that doesn't diminish what you are trying to do.

HOWARD: No, let's look at right now - second hand smoke, a person that has a wonderful diet, that doesn't smoke, that does everything right but lives with somebody that smokes and if you look at a person that is inhaling second hand smoke just from living with somebody that does smoke, it will double your chances of ending up with lung cancer. So, you know, what you want to do is deal with those things that you can do something about and what I'm trying to say to the listeners out there today is, 91% of the things you can do by what you are putting on your fork, that's pretty...

GENO: I mean there's no guarantees but we're talking about trying to improve the odds.

HOWARD: That's right

GENO: Wanda in Anaheim welcome to KFI, first time caller, say hi to Howard.

caller-WANDA: Oh Hi Howard.

HOWARD: Hi Wanda, how you doing?

caller-WANDA: OK, and hi Geno. Geno when you become vegetarian you will no longer be weak and you'll be able to quit smoking..(laugh)

GENO: We're talking spiritually weak here Wanda..(laugh)

caller-WANDA: OK, (laugh) and I'd also like to mention real quick that Linda McCartney, eats dairy and dairy is just as bad as the flesh, when it comes to making you ill and causing breast cancer and all, so we're over looking that part here, and I wanted to mention that my mother in-law had diabetes when she came to live with us, my father in-law died and she went on our vegan diet, that's no animal-products what so ever and in within 6 months the doctor took her completely off her insulin, she went off of her heart patch, everything. She just did great. She was 76 years old then and she lived to be in her late eighties.

GENO: Wanda you just made me think of something here, Howard maybe you can help me out here. Grant it I'm coming from a neophyte point of view on this, I try to take care of myself and eat as healthy as I can within my boundaries and grant it they could be better, but are there foods or are there ingredients I can put in my foods that are what we call anti-cholesterents, that can help negate some of the things that I have done that are not good like eating beef.

HOWARD: Oh, absolutely. You know we have things right now that are called anti-oxidants and when we end up with these oxidants in our blood, we are finding that we will have a higher per chance of having cancer. Vitamin C, you remember Dr.Linus Pauling talking about, vitamin C is an anti-oxidant, vitamin E, there are things that you can do..

GENO: I've been on the Manterion mushroom for about two years now too, they say that's high in anti-oxidants.

HOWARD: That's correct. You know, Wanda just talked about Linda McCartney being on dairy products, remember that dairy products are nothing other than liquid meat. Look at in India where they have life long vegetarians, never eat flesh and their heart disease is sky-rocketing and you look at it, it is because of the amount of dairy products that they are consuming. So, if you're going to do something about, use some common sense. Take animal products out of your diet, quit smoking...

GENO: I'd like to make fun of the French as well, but, the incidence of their heart disease I guess is quite a bit lower do to the fact that they don't eat a lot of dairy products as far as that goes and beef and, red wine, they do drink red wine.

HOWARD: Well, there's some interesting things that have happened in France, if you look at it, the second world war, the Germans basically put the entire country on a vegetarian diet. It takes about 40 years to build up the heart disease from the bad habits that are out there. The French have some good habits, you know they have a little wine with their dinner, they stretch out their meals, it takes longer. They're not eating near as much saturated fat and cholesterol as we are, but don't let anybody kid you that they have the secret to it because if you look at the recent data you will find that the amount of heart disease in France is climbing and is approaching what's in the US and, so the Mediterranean diet probably is better than even the French diet.

GENO: Alrighty, let's go to Eric in Torrance, welcome to KFI say hi to Howard.

caller-ERIC: Hello Howard, how are you today?

HOWARD: I'm well Eric

caller-ERIC: Well good. I do have a question and I applaud that you take your stand and want to make people healthier and that you go out and speak, that's what makes our country great. I'm just wondering if you or any of the people you are working with are advocating passing laws that would prohibit, because I'll have to tell you the truth, I'm a prime rib fan, are you planning on getting laws passed that would prohibit meat?

GENO Hey it's not the prime rib Eric, It's the horse radish that goes with it.

caller-ERIC: Well I don't use horse radish, I use salt.

HOWARD: I absolutely believe we have more laws right now than what we can stand. What we're talking about right now is people and common sense..

caller-ERIC: I know it's probably not very good for me, but I do enjoy it every once in a while and I just don't want it to be made illegal.

HOWARD: No, I think that's a ridiculous way to go, but you know what I would say to you Eric even eating meat or whatever. You can do better tomorrow than what you did today, you know, you don't have to eat as much of it, you can eat smaller portions of it.. get more exercise. Anything that you do will help you, and who knows, lets say you're eating meat seven days a week right now and decide you are only going to do it four, you do it at four and you say dog gone it you know I feel a lot better, maybe I'll only do it at two. Doing better tomorrow than what you did today, that's what we're advocating, common sense, going out there doing better and when your body reports back to you that you're feeling better, move forward from there, no laws.

GENO: And the big thing also, and this is something that I've become aware of is that you really do have to put some mental effort into the situation. You just can't take it for granted and stop eating something, and I'm guilty of this too, this is another one of the reasons why I have Howard on here, because I'm kind of using him as a sign post for me to look at and read and be aware of what I'm doing, that you do have to, unfortunately can't just kick back and say I'm not going to eat this anymore and I'm going to be better..

caller ERIC: I didn't know they did that with chicken up until today, and I didn't know they did that with cows. I know a guy, I was, lived in Barstow for awhile and he, his family got a cow, a steer, and we fed it grain and alfalfa and all that other stuff, and they round up, they got it to eat and so they round up eating it and I round up moving to LA before you know, but I just sort of assumed that that's how the cows was fed.

HOWARD: Well that's absolutely not true, you know if you went to a factory feed lot today, one of those big ones, 95% of the cattle in factory feedlots are fed hormones...

caller-ERIC: Where can we buy meat, I mean if we are going buy it, where can we buy meat that's fed properly?

HOWARD: I think if you go to a health food store and you look and, there's some there. There's a guy in Colorado that is, has now a multi-million dollar business that is called Coleman Meats, there are no herbicides, pesticides, hormones, or medication fed in them. That in my opinion is much better for you than what you're getting coming out of the factory feedlots..

caller-ERIC: Are they fed other cows?

HOWARD: No they are not.

caller-ERIC: Coleman Meats, do they go nation wide?

HOWARD: Absolutely and I think if you go to a health food store and talk to them you will find that most of them will have access to it. You know anything that is fed organically and California has some of the best organic standards in the nation and we're very fortunate out here in what's available, but as a consumer you need to go out and search it out.

caller-ERIC: I guess so..

HOWARD: But never, never forget that even if you get one that is fed correctly you're still getting a product that has more protein than what your body needs, more fat than what your body needs, and probably the biggest problem - cholesterol. And you need additional cholesterol like a drowning person needs a drink of water. When they did a forty year heart study back at Framingham in Massachusetts, they never had one person that had a Heart Attack in forty years that had a cholesterol reading below 150 and the American Medical Association today will basically tell people that go in, that it is OK to have a cholesterol reading up around 200 or 212. Half of those people will have a heart attack. Do yourself a favor, get your cholesterol down. The way you do that is by not eating it and you will eliminate yourself from what is killing half of America.

GENO: Eric, thank you for the call and Howard we're going to take another quick break here and coming back I've got a gentleman who is a FDA meat-packer that wants to talk to you.

HOWARD: I'd love to talk to him.

Part 3 (Howard vs. USDA meat-packer and a retired meat manager)

GENO: KFI am640, more stimulating talk radio, Geno Michellini, I'm on the phone right now with Howard Lyman who is the director of the Human Society's Eating With Conscience Campaign, a former 4th generation Montana rancher, hey we're talking cattle rancher here who has now gone over to the other side, quite vehemently so, and Howard I mentioned I have a gentleman on the line, Kurt in LaPersenta who is a FDA packing plant ins..?

caller-KURT: USDA

GENO: USDA, OK how you doing Kurt, welcome to the show

caller-KURT: Ya, welcome

GENO: Say hi to Howard

caller-KURT: Hi Howard

HOWARD: How you doing?

caller-KURT: Not bad, I got a few bones to pick with you..

GENO: Alright, lets get into it! Lets go, C'mon!

caller-KURT: (Laugh) Well one thing I happen to know for a fact is that the USDA does not allow the use of growth stimulants or hormones in the use of any chicken production in the United States. It is a patent falsehood for you to say that. Growth stimulants and hormones are not allowed in chicken, now in beef and other meat products they are allowed, but not in chicken. They do not collect the manure from chicken and feed it to them. I don't know where you got this told to you but it just does not happen. And I don't mind people coming across and wanting to be vegetarian or eating less beef because even I in the meat industry will agree with you that eating a 16oz steak is a ridiculous thing and if you ate 16oz's of beef everyday, you're going to get a heart attack.

GENO: Kurt do you eat chicken?

caller-KURT: I eat chicken and I know for a fact that they did not collect the manure, the manure was never collected and used as feed in anyway shape or form.

GENO: Now are you speaking for all plants, or just the one that you work in?

caller-KURT: I'm speaking that the United States Department of Agriculture forbids the use of hormones or growth stimulants in the production of chicken.. period.

GENO: Well alright, let me just ask a quick question here Kurt and Howard you jump in here to. Then if that is the case, why is it necessary for them to state on the chicken that no hormones are used?

caller-KURT: They can not state that on the chicken. It is illegal for them to put that on the label. They can state it in an advertisement over the air..

GENO: Well.. naturally grown, or..

caller-KURT: Naturally grown is something completely different, that is where they roam free, they're not pinned up in a cage.

GENO: Alright Howard, go ahead

HOWARD: Well, I believe that about 99.9% all of the chickens that are produced in the United States are produced in factory settings., in cages, in what I would call a factory feedlot. I disagree with him that the, the chicken manure is collected, it is ground up, it is cooked, it is fed back, along with the feathers that are collected and they are ground up and they are fed back and, you know I stand by..

GENO: Have you seen this Howard?

HOWARD: Absolutely

caller KURT: Well I tell you it hasn't occured in any USDA plant because if it did they'd shut em' down in a minute.

GENO: Now Foster Farms also has a reputation of being one of the better outfits too, right?

HOWARD: I have never been there, I have never seen that one and so I could not state about that, but, you know the majority of the chicken manure is collected, the majority of the feathers are ground up..

caller-KURT: Well, the majority of the chicken manure is collected and it's sold as fertilizer, it is used as a feed supplement, I can tell you that right now. Now the by-products of the chickens, the evisceration, all the guts and stuff they are flaked and dried, it is a good protein source and yes they are fed back to the chickens and so is the blood, is sprayed dried and also fed back to the chickens but it is sterilized, it is cooked and it is cleaned up, and you know the idea that they're being fed their fecal matter is an absolute patent falsehood and I don't mind you guys coming on and praising a vegetarian diet because I think, I'll be right frank and honest with you, that we do eat to much beef in our diet, but I don't see the problem with eating a 3 or 4 or 5oz portion of beef, it does not give you to much protein, it does not give you to much fat if it is eaten in moderation.

GENO: Okie dokie, Kurt thank you for your call, I don't mean to be rude but I have to cut you off because we are coming to the end and we need to take another call, but thank you for your input Kurt very much. OK, lets go to John in Agura Hills, John How you doing?

caller John: Yes good evening

GENO: Welcome to the show

caller-John: The gentleman that was on the phone just prior to my talking to you just about covered everything I wanted to say. I've been a meat manager, just retired, for a certain company in the Los Angeles area, worked for them for 37 years and Mr.Lyman I don't know where, is this guy in this century?, I mean where the hell is this guy coming from?

GENO: Howard?

HOWARD: Well, I'll tell you..

caller-John: With regards to cattle being ground up and...

HOWARD: Well I'll tell you right now! ...

caller-John: Chicken manure etc. being ground up and fed back to the chickens. As the previous gentleman stated, all these government, all these um.. abattoirs etc. where the cattle are slaughtered, the same in the chicken pins etc. where they're raised, they are all strictly controlled by government inspectors, and believe me if anything was out of hand etc. as you stated, chicken manure being fed back to them, they'd close those places down within 24 hours..

GENO: OK, Alright..

HOWARD: Absolutely not true and you take right now, when that goes into the renderer, there is no government inspection that goes into rendering. Government statistics, 14% of all cows volume are fed back to other cows it is an absolute fact and rather you want to believe it or not, that is the fact of what's going on, and I'll tell you right now there has never been a government inspector that's going into the rendering plants, and that's where all of the by-products are coming there. They collect the road kill, the dogs and cats that are put down by veterinarians, the animals that die are collected, they are put in there, ground up, turned into feed and they are fed back, and those are absolute facts rather you want to believe it or not.

GENO: Well Howard we've come to the end and you got em' fired up, you definitely did.

HOWARD: Well that's what it's all about

GENO: And it was a pleasure having you on, I look forward to having you on again, thanks for getting em' stirred up Howard

HOWARD: Well it's a pleasure to be with you Geno, get rid of that smoking and clean up your diet

GENO: Next time we talk, I hope to have a better report for you

HOWARD: Good

GENO: Thank you very much.

And that's all folks!

If you want to know more about the EATING WITH CONSCIENCE CAMPAIGN or would like to contact Howard, call:

1-800-444-8359