Product Description

When former cattle rancher Howard Lyman appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show in 1996 to share his insider view of the danger of Mad Cow Disease spreading to this country, his revelations about the beef industry prompted a group of Texas cattlemen to file a lawsuit charging Lyman and the talk show host with "food disparagement." That wasn't enough to silence Howard Lyman, and in this stirring account of his journey from meat-loving cowboy to vegetarian environmental activist, he tells the whole truth about the catastrophic consequences of an animal-based diet.

Lyman is well aware of what goes into our livestock -- high doses of pesticides, growth hormone, and the ground-up remains of other animals. A fourth-generation Montana farmer, he regularly doused his cattle and soil with chemicals. It was only when he narrowly escaped paralysis from a spinal tumor that Lyman began to question his vocation and the effect it was having on people and on the land he loved. The questions he raised and the answers he found led him, surprisingly, to adopt a vegetarian diet. As a result, he lost 130 pounds and lowered his cholesterol by more than 150 points. He is now one of America's leading spokesmen for vegetarianism.

Along the way, Lyman learned even more about the alarming dangers associated with eating meat. Here he blasts through the propaganda of the beef and dairy industries (and the government agencies that often protect them) and exposes an animal-based diet as the primary cause of cancer, heart disease, and obesity in this country. In a powerful and original voice, he warns that our livestock industry has repeated the mistakes that led to Mad Cow Disease in England while it simultaneously visits frightful, lasting damage on our environment.

Persuasive, straightforward, and full of the down-home good humor and optimism of a son of the soil, Mad Cowboy is both an inspirational story of personal transformation and a convincing call to action for a plant-based diet -- for the good of the planet and the health of us all.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1126865 in Books
• Published on: 1998-06-03
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 224 pages

Review
Studs Terkel Howard Lyman is fighting not only for our health but our nation's sanity as well. He challenges not only mad cows, but a mad system that gives us the dead wrong answer when we ask, "What's for dinner?"

Ingram
This impassioned, no-nonsense account of the dangerous and potentially fatal practices of the cattle and dairy industries is told by a man uniquely qualified to blow the whistle--a former cattle rancher who has become a high-profile advocate for vegetarianism. Author signings.

Customer Reviews

more on diabetes and veganism
One of the problems in this book seems to be that people are bothered Lyman's gloss over diabetes. While it's true that type-I (or "juvenille") diabetics do not produce enough insulin to meet even basal-insulin needs (this the amount of insulin a person would need even if she wasn't eating anything), I think that Lyman probably meant that a vegan diet can help diabetics in other ways.

A diet which includes a lot of animal products is very high in cholesterol. All people, diabetic or otherwise, should watch their cholesterol levels... but diabetics, both type-I and type-II, tend have higher levels of cholesterol than "healthy" individuals; therefore, they are already at a higher risk for cholesterol-related problems (hardening of arteries, high blood pressure, and heart disease). If a diabetic turns to a vegan diet, she can significantly reduce her cholesterol levels, which would stave off cholesterol-related problems.

Straight From The Cattle's Mouth! Or No Udder nonsense!
From a former real cowboy and rancher, you can take this book to the bank! For anyone who eats meat or drinks milk, this book will tell you why you shouldn't! It is indeed straight from the cattles mouth and udder, and why I paid attention and you should too!

Simply put, these highly human adulterated, drugged meats and pus-filled milk are unhealthy for humans directly and indirectly, because the cattle they come from are also very unhealthy to the enviroment. We really are competing with these trampling and fecal generating bovines for the control of the planet and our water supply! They are not an efficient food supply to rely on. Growing organic vegetables and grain multiplies the planet's efficiency for self-sustinence where cattle has the opposite effect.

The author mentions a vegetarian alternative, though I don't agree with all his recommendations, such as using Canola oil (olive oil is still the safest) and certain soy derivatives (which are fractured foods) they are still a much better alternative than eating anything from a cow from people who don't care what they feed it, or what they inject in it. Their whole mantra seems to be with milk or meat is, "just get rid of it" and repeat the process. I guess they even find what they are doing disgusting!

There is an interesting part on drinking milk with the unproven rBGH growth hormone milk. The real reason the drug company won't remove this guinea-pig type and useless drug is told in the book. It's borders on appalling considering milk is given mostly to growing children.

He also makes a interesting case about why we have gotten fatter on supposedly low-fat diets. The simple fact of the matter is, most of us have not really tried a low-fat diet such as McDougalls, Ornish or Pritkin, and most of us get EXCESS calories to begin with! This is common sense and he points it out to us.

It is interesting to note that the author (a life-long meat and diary eater) states he is the only healthy one of all his friends who never changed their meat diet and nearly all now have heart disease or cancer, of few of which have already died and that he is the only healthy survivor since switching to a meatless diet.

HE'S NOT THE ONLY ONE!
Reading this book, to me, was like preaching to the converted, as I am already vegetarian, and 99% vegan. The comment I want to make is that my father, a butcher by trade, became a vegetarian for the same reasons that are cited in this book. This is an honest, straightforward book that should be required reading for school children, most of whom haven't a clue where their food comes from and who say they "love" animals.