Customer Reviews

Mad Cowboy: Plain Truth from the Cattle Rancher Who Won't Eat Meat

5 star:		(102)
4 star:		(16)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I truly believe that everyone should be informed, particularly with regards to what they are placing in their mouths, and this is an excellent, easy-to-read personal account that does just that. Howard Lyman, a fourth generation cattle rancher, blows some of the common misconceptions and agribusiness propaganda right out the window in this straight forward and, at times, humorous expose that comes, so to speak, straight from the horses mouth.

Lyman doesn't waste any time in getting right to the gritty, gruesome details behind the highly politicized business of food production. Within the opening pages, he informs us that cattle, chickens, and pigs are fed "protein concentrates" consisting of euthanized pets, ground up diseased farm animals, fecal matter, and roadkill. Not only are fodder animals being fed this vomit-inducing mixture, but our pets are as well. Yummy!

Lyman spends a good amount of time discussing the impact that the aforementioned practice could have on America's potential to see "Mad Cow Disease" effecting people in the not-so-distant future, which has been a steadily increasing problem in Britain. He points out several studies that debunk the myth that spongiform encephalopathy cannot jump species barriers.

In addition to the Mad Cow and Downed Cow issues, Lyman brings up the issue of rBGH (recombinant bovine growth hormone) used to increase milk production in cows and the possible effects this could have on human health. To combat the mastitis that develops from the use of rBGH, cows are given antibiotics that are then passed to the dairy consumer in various milk products. With the increased use of antibiotics comes increased bacterial resistance to antibiotics.

In addition to the gross-out factor involved in the early pages of the book, Lyman points out several benefits of adopting a plant-based diet. The risk factors for diabetes, hypertension, coronary disease, and a plethora of other ailments can be reduced drastically by adopting a plant-based lifestyle as weight tends to decrease. Furthermore, abstaining from flesh-feasting can be helpful to the environment. Lyman spends several pages of his book discussing overgrazing and it's environmental impact. Rainforests are being depleted, in part, due to the need for land for cattle to graze, as are riparian woodlands. Native species are going extinct because of the human desire for burgers and steaks. Flooding and erosion have become a problem because of overgrazing and lack of natural vegetation. The list goes on and on.

Howard Lyman is a rancher/cowboy/meat-eater turned vegan, and this important text is his personal reasoning for making that momentous decision. It may not "convert" some people to veganism or vegetarianism, but it will definitely make you think, which is more than can be said for several books lining bookstore shelves today, and it is certainly a step in the right direction. Though I think this book could have used a little bit more detail in some areas, it is definitely a highly recommended and compelling read. Though this may not have made Lyman popular with many agribusiness officials and proponents, this was a book that needed to be written, and it is a book that needs to be read.

Something needs to be made clear here. You need an open mind to read this book. I was a vegetarian when I read this, but ever since I have been a vegan. I think that might be what this book is most successful at- turning vegetarians into vegans. It's tough to give up meat, since most of us have had it daily for our entire lives, but if you care about animals, the Earth, and most of all, your own health, it's possible to live a healthy enjoyable life without it. This book is 200 pages full of reasons not to consume animal products. No meat eater has ever been able to give me more than three or four reasons why a person should eat meat, and it's usually only "it's got protein and iron" and "it tastes good". I haven't eaten meat in four years and my most recent bloodwork showed iron, calcium, and protein levels to be better than average, without the excess crap- my cholesterol is 130. As for tasting good, I've never had a vegetarian meal that left me unsatisfied, nor has vegetarian food ever made me sick. And ever since I became vegan, I haven't caught a cold. Anyway, this book has everything you need to know. It should be required reading, so people can know what's in their food.

Before reading "Mad Cowboy," I was a confirmed meat eater, although I did want to cut back on or eliminate more and more meat from my diet for health reasons. The book confirmed the wisdom in doing that, but it also opened my eyes to the cruelty done to animals and the destruction done to the planet all for the sake of my taste buds. Now I'm committed to doing my part to alter that by becoming a vegan.

Do yourself and the planet a good turn: Spread the word about how important it is to read this book and take its warnings to heart.

Bless you, Howard Lyman!

This book is great. It has a lot of imformation in it that is hard to find in other books about similar topics. Howard has obviously gone through an intense process of completely rebuilding his life - and with what courage. His life is his message. This takes you behind the scenes and shows you what the meat industry doesn't want you to know. It's convincing to the older generation as well, many people can identify with Howard. This is eye opening. Won't be able to put this down, I read this in two sittings.

I thought I had read everything about the cattle industry but this book by an ex-cattle rancher was very eye opening. Rather than explain the gruesomeness of slaughter houses which is what I expected, this author wrote about the cows about when they were alive. I was horrified to find out what cows are actually fed. Although, because of mad cow they are no longer allowed to feed dead cows to cows, these animals are still being fed horse, pigs, chicken carcasses, euphanized dogs and cats, roadkill and - I still can't believe this - chicken and other animal manure. Also, there are no restrictions on the amount of pesticides used on grain grown for animals, so they are very liberally sprayed - and this all goes into our meat and our milk. It's quite horrifying. There is a lot of other info about how the cattle industry is destroying our environment, info about the bovine growth hormone (I actually started to cry when I heard about what that does to the dairy cows) - the strain of producing all that extra milk sucks all the calcium and fat off them and they become sterile, and a lot about the politics and the clout that Monsanto has with the FDA. It's scary. The state of Vermont was actually sued by Monstanto for wanting to label dairy that had BGH in it - and Monsanto WON.

This book was very well written, easy to read, and believable because this man was actually in the business. We were already vegetarian but ate organic dairy. Now we're vegan.

I was a pretty hardcore carnivore - loved eating meat & seafood all the time.

I picked this book up "on a whim" because I love reading many different viewpoints on various subjects. I thought this book might be interesting.

Little did I know, this book would change my life!

I have not eaten any meat or seafood since the day after I read this book about 10-months ago and would highly recommend it to anyone who can open their mind to the possibility that eating meat might *not* be the right thing to do.

Read this book openly and allow yourself to really question your most closely held values about food & health.

I used to hunt and have not touched a gun since. Might consider it only for target practice, but would NEVER hurt an animal again.

Please, please, please read this book! It has changed my entire outlook on farming and nutrition. I haven't touched meat or dairy products since reading it and do not miss my old meat-rich diet one bit. I lift weights and am exremely active. My new vegetarian diet has not hindered me as I once thought it would. Be enlightened...read this book!

My family has been farming in America for 150 years; I was born and raised on the family farm in Ky. I was taught at an early age to kill animals with a gun, for no reason. My grandfather had a large dairy farm and a massive pig operation for 50 years of his life; I partook in the torture and slaughter of animals for meat consumption. We then switched to grain farming, and I was involved with massive spraying of highly toxic chemicals on the food that YOU eat every day. My father was a Microbiologist, I witnessed the slaughter and torture of innocent animals for experiments, and their suffering was burned into my memory. I took a tour of a pig slaughter house one time, it was not a pretty sight, the animals were dismembered while alive with large hydraulic cutting tools, blood flowed like rivers inside that house of horrors. I watched our neighbor, a cattle rancher, clear one of the last remaining stands of virgin timber in the state of Kentucky; he did it to graze his cattle on. I have driven across the US and seen the massive feedlots, which Howard describes in his book. We have a rendering plant up the road, if you like hamburgers, that is not a place you want to go or smell.

I became very sick one day while in the United States Navy; I was exposed to radiation while working around reactors. A lot of it also had to do with my diet; I was a fast food junkie, 6' tall and 125 pounds. I suffered for 14 years with major health complications; it eventually cost me my career and my wife and child. I was diagnosed with a lung disease, a digestive disease, loss of partial vision, Scoliosis of the spine, blood in my urinary track and an endless list of severe symptoms. One day, I got tired of being sick, and I knew I was dying. I went home and threw away everything in the kitchen, the bathroom, and the medicine cabinet and started from scratch. I have been on a chemical and animal free diet for 4 months now and all of my symptoms have vanished completely, years of needless suffering finally ended.

I can relate to Mr. Lyman's book in a very BIG way, in a way that I pray most of you never have to. No human should suffer the way I did, and his book is the road map to recovery. I did not go on any special diet, all I did was what he described but I did it before I found his book, it just felt natural and the results came very quickly. I read a lot of books, but not one has had more of an impact on my life than this one, it makes more sense to me than the Holy Bible ever did, I can actually UNDERSTAND this one. Within the last three days I met a girl who's mother just died from a heart attack in her mid 40s, a friend was diagnosed with throat cancer, and my mother's best friend is back in the hospital. The BEST health coverage you can get for your family is to read, study, and learn from this book!! I live around the corner from a "hamburger joint"; I can only feel sorrow for all of the victims lined up in their $45,000.00 SUVs to buy a slow death at $1.25 per pop...how could anyone be so STUPID?!? Look at what is happenning in America: go into DEBT, get a job you hate and be a slave to your posessions, watch TV until you puke, then slowely kill yourself and your family and MY environment because you want another hamburger!?! The bovine is getting it's revenge, one heart attack at a time...

I went from full-time meat-eater to meat-less almost overnight thanks to this book. The Author's emphasis is not so much on the "ugly" details of meat processing, rather the inevitable dynamics that will ultimately lead to a meat-free planet. It's the real-life health, environmental and financial analysis of meat producing that will convince you, not the horrors of the slaughter house. If you read this book, face up to the reality it reveals and follow your own common sense, you will no longer eat meat. Lyman has experienced both the extreme pro-meat life and vegan life .. and writes from experience. This work is not on the edge, it's right in the middle and that's what makes it so compelling.

Former cattleman and Oprah Winfrey co-defendant, Howard Lyman, blows the whistle on what might be described as the single most exploitive industry of our time - commercial meat production. Lyman's prior experiences as a cattle rancher and a feedlot operator give the reader a rare, behind the scenes look at the dirty business of factory animal farming. With an unquenchable thirst for profit, Lyman exposes an industry that shares a mutual disdain for its own employees, the animals it abuses, the environment it exploits, and the consumers which unknowingly defend it. Backed by big budget congressional lobbying, advertising blitzes, and intimidation tactics, Lyman portrays a greed-bent industry that rivals big tobacco in its capacity for human destruction. Fasten your seat belts; this is a must read for vegetarians and meat-eaters alike.