French journalist Aymeric Caron speaks up against the meat industry and for vegetarianism.

Aymeric Caron publishes "No steak", described as a vegetarian manifesto which focuses on the consumption of meat in the western world.

The French journalist and television commentator Aymeric Caron has written the book « No steak”, published in January of this year 2013. Vegetarian for twenty years, the author speaks up against the meat industry and predicts that more and more people will become vegetarian in the near future. Exerpts from his book were published in lepoint.fr.
M. Caron reveals conditions for animals raised for consumption and for the production of food in France. He addresses, for example, the situation for laying chickens in France where 46 million laying chickens are used per year. Almost 80% live in cages and until 2012 they had only the space of a sheet of paper (550 cm2) in which to exist. Now they have been allowed a little more space, the size of a Post-it. These chickens live their entire lives without natural light but electric lights are used to artificially stimulate egg laying. They lay twice as many eggs as chickens did fifty years ago. After about a year, the chickens end up as a bouillon cube, meat for dogs and cats or in raviolis.
The author addresses the role of government subsidies in the meat industry. The European Union is a major source of subsidies, and then the national government. The promotion of meat-eating is one of the areas subsidized.
Also dealt with in this book is the belief that without the consumption of meat, a diet is lacking in protein. M. Caron underlines the necessity to dispel that concept. He notes that the food which furnishes the most protein is soy, with 40% protein, thus 15 to 20% more protein than found in meat. He speaks of the many foods that provide a source of protein: peanuts (30%), chick peas (20%), wheat germ (25%), but also many other sources: lentils, millet, rice, oats, quinoa, buckwheat, barley, wheat, rye, corn, sesame and sunflower seeds, spinach, broccoli and seaweed. Writing about the need for Vitamin B12 the author, notes that it can be found in milk and eggs. He has, however, personnally given up consumming milk, because of the consequences to calves, separated from their mothers early and slaughtered at a young age.
( Personal note : the calves are often kept in very small spaces where they can't even turn around. The cows are frequently impregnated to produce milk, and slaughtered at 4 or 5 years of age, much earlier than would naturally be the case. )
Aymeric Caron writes also about the horrors of the slaughter of animals raised for consumption. Since 1964 French law has required that animals be rendered unconscious before they are slaughtered. He describes the methods used which don’t in fact always guarantee a painless death.
The impact of the meat industry on soil conditions, water ressources, pollution, climate warming, and the amount of land utilised by the meat industry are also addressed.
"No steak", by 'Aymeric Caron (Fayard, 360 p., 19 Euros), date of publication January 16, 2013

Information for this article is based on an article from www.lepoint.fr dated January 18, 2013 as well as http://books.google.fr, January 16 2013.

Source: Excerpts from the book "No steak" by Aymeric Caron in lepoint.fr
Author: Translation and adaptation of Aymeric Caron's text printed in lepoint.fr and a bio on google books.