McDonalds opened in 1955. Since then they are proud to advertise that 247 billion beef burgers have been sold. On the web are many sites analyzing this, and there we find that they can get 2024 burgers from a cow. 247 billion divided by 2024 = a total of 122 million cows slaughtered so far! Since the last 5 years, McDonalds boasts of serving over 5 billion burgers per year. That makes 25 million cows per year! Or 67,680 cows per day!!
Animal slaughter equals Social Unrest.
The UN and US Fed Chair Bernanke back it up.
– by Subhavilasa das ACBSP, 24-02-2011.
In recent weeks you have probably noticed more social unrest and rioting around the world. This is being directly caused by increased slaughter of animals. The most influential and recognized economist in the world, U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke recognized this issue this month and so does the United Nation.
I watched the news clip live a few weeks ago as Ben Bernanke talked about the co-relation of eating beef and rising food prices and it drove me to find the quote from Reuters and write this article.
Some excerpts:
The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation Food Price Index on Thursday touched its highest level since records began in 1990 as rising food prices showed no sign of relenting, prompting concerns of social unrest.
He (Bernanke) said higher food prices were stoked by increasing consumer demand in emerging economies for such things as meat.
“As people’s diets are becoming more sophisticated and as they eat more beef and less grains and so on, the demand for food and energy rise and that’s the primary long-term factor affecting the real price of commodity and food,” Bernanke said.
—end—
Bernanke says their diets are becoming more “sophisticated” but in reality “barbarian” is more apt of a term. Now it does not take a genius economist to figure out how to resolve this social unrest and looming crisis for inflation and food prices. It will simply take a return to a natural human diet of vegetarian food.
To explain the crisis some simple stats comparing the production of beef to wheat. It takes 18 times more fossil fuel per calorie to produce beef compared to wheat. It takes 15 times the land to produce beef. It takes a whopping 200 times the water to produce a pound of beef compared to wheat.
The ratios are similarly disproportionate for all major categories of grains. This animals are bred by meat producers and fattened up by giving them about 16 pounds of grain for every pound of beef produced.
All of the above stats do not take into account the inhumane conditions and countless suffering animals are put through just to feed a barbarian diet. Of course, the serious karmic reactions of animal killing is on top of all of these basic arguments.
As Srila Prabhupada said:
“We simply request, Don’t kill. Don’t maintain slaughterhouses. That is very sinful. It brings down very severe karmic reactions upon society. Stop these slaughterhouses”.
McDonalds responsible for the lawless condition of society
In a civilization where God is conspicuously banished, and there is no devotee warrior like Arjuna, the associates of the age of Kali take advantage of this lawless kingdom and arrange to kill innocent animals like the cow in secluded slaughterhouses. Such murderers of animals stand to be condemned to death by the order of a pious king like Mahäräja Pariksit. For a pious king, the culprit who kills an animal in a secluded place is punishable by the death penalty, exactly like a murderer who kills an innocent child in a secluded place. [SB 1.17.6]
The cow is the mother because just as one sucks the breast of one’s mother, human society takes cow’s milk. Similarly, the bull is the father of human society because the father earns for the children just as the bull tills the ground to produce food grains. Human society will kill its spirit of life by killing the father and the mother.[SB 3.2.29]
The principal sign of the age of Kali is that lower-caste südras, i.e., men without brahminical culture and spiritual initiation, will be dressed like administrators or kings, and the principal business of such non-kshatriya rulers will be to kill the innocent animals, especially the cows and the bulls, who shall be unprotected by their masters, the bona fide vaishyas, the mercantile community. In the Bhagavad-Gita (18.44), it is said that the vaishyas are meant to deal in agriculture, cow protection and trade. In the age of Kali, the degraded vaishyas, the mercantile men, are engaged in supplying cows to slaughterhouses. The kshatriyas are meant to protect the citizens of the state, whereas the vaishyas are meant to protect the cows and bulls and utilize them to produce grains and milk. The cow is meant to deliver milk, and the bull is meant to produce grains. But in the age of Kali, the südra class of men are in the posts of administrators, and the cows and bulls, or the mothers and the fathers, unprotected by the vaishyas, are subjected to the slaughterhouses organized by the südra administrators.
[SB 1.17.1]
In Vedic culture the cow is the emblem of peace and religion.
The grandson on King Yudishthira of Mahabharata fame, was named Pariksit. In the Srimad Bhagavatam, 1st Canto [1.12.26 & 1.4.9], it is written:-
Maharaja Pariksit wanted to kill the personified Kali, who was attempting to kill a cow, the emblem of peace and religion. His activities are also wonderful because he chastised Kali, [of Kali-yuga – the present age of quarrel], who was attempting to kill a cow. To kill cows means to end human civilization.
McDonalds = the grossest type of ignorance
Bhagavad-gita, chapter 14, text 16:- The animal killers do not know that in the future the animal will have a body suitable to kill them. That is the law of nature. In human society, if one kills a man he has to be hanged. That is the law of the state. Because of ignorance, people do not perceive that there is a complete state controlled by the Supreme Lord. Every living creature is a son of the Supreme Lord, and He does not tolerate even an ant’s being killed. One has to pay for it. So indulgence in animal killing for the taste of the tongue is the grossest kind of ignorance. A human being has no need to kill animals, because God has supplied so many nice things. If one indulges in meat-eating anyway, it is to be understood that he is acting in ignorance and is making his future very dark. Of all kinds of animal killing, the killing of cows is most vicious because the cow gives us all kinds of pleasure by supplying milk. Cow slaughter is an act of the grossest type of ignorance.