Barack Obama responds to vegan question (Subtitled)

Senator Barack Obama responds to a question from vegan, Nikki Benoit, during a public meeting at Gibbs High School, Saint Petersburg, Florida (August 1st, 2008)

The transcript of the conversation between Nikki and now president-elect Obama appears below...

Senator Barack Obama: The young lady in the t-shirt, right there.

Nikki Benoit: Thank you, Senator, very much for your strong environmental position.

The United Nations actually has reiterated that factory farming is contributing more to global greenhouse gas emissions than all of transportation. I think that as a global community we really need to be the leader and moving more towards non-factory farming animal agriculture. It's very egregious. There's 10 billion land animals that we are funnelling our precious water and grain through when 70 per cent of all of our grain could help feed the world's hungry. So, as the next leader of the most amazing nation in the world, how can we set the example on the more nutritional, plant-based diet that's more eco-friendly and sustainable, that can maintain our water resources and all of our grain. Thank you very much.

Senator Barack Obama: Okay. Well, it's a great question.

Now, I have to say in the interests of full disclosure, that I do like a steak once in a while. I'm just being honest. I like barbecue. I'm not going to lie. But the young lady makes a very important point and that is this: right now, our food system world-wide is under enormous pressure. It's under enormous pressure because as a consequence of climate change, you've had severe changes in weather patterns. We don't fully understand what these effects are. But, for example, Australia's had huge drought which has taken a lot of crops. Grain production has been much lower. And supplies are tight. You're starting to see riots around food in places like Haiti and other poor countries around the world. And what is also true is that as countries like China and India become wealthier, they start changing their food habits; they start eating more meat, more animals. And what happens then is because it takes more grain to produce a pound of beef than if they were just eating the grain, what ends up happening is that it puts huge pressure on food supplies.

Americans would actually benefit from a change in diet. I don't think that that's something that we should legislate but I think that it is something that, as part of our overall health care system, we should encourage because, for example if we reduced obesity down to the rates that existed in 1980, we would save the medicare system a trillion dollars. We would reduce diabetes rates. We would reduce heart disease. So, the fact that we subsidise some of these big agribusiness operations that are not necessarily producing healthy food and we discourage, or we don't subsidise, farmers who are producing fruits and vegetables and small scale farming that gets produce immediately to consumers as opposed to having it processed. The fact that we are not doing more to make sure that healthy food is in the schools. All those things don't make sense. It is important for us to re-examine our overall food policy so that we're encouraging good habits and not bad habits. For example, just making sure there are more fruits and vegetables in school lunch programs. That would make an enormous difference in how our children's diets develop. That would make us healthier over the long term. It would cut our health care costs and maybe it would help people elsewhere in the world, who are in less wealthy countries, feed themselves as well. So, it's a great question. It's important.

Websites:
Barack Obama - www.barackobama.com
Nikki Benoit - www.myspace.com/nikki1sky
Vegan Future - http://veganfuture.wordpress.com

Download a free vegan starter guide at
http://veganfuture.wordpress.com/reso...

Purchase a Barack Obama book

The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0307...

Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0307...

Of Thee I Sing: A Letter to My Daughters
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0375...

Encourage President Obama to Go Vegan
Email a message from http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/sub...

• Category

  News & Politics

[Kl2O]

Unfortunately you have confirmed that your resources are in fact biased or that you have ignored research all together.

Human's have an intestinal length 7-13x the length of their torso, the same range shared by all herbivores on this planet.

Whereas true carnivores have an intestinal length of 3-6x the length of their torso. The shorter intestinal tract serves to more quickly digest decayed animal flesh, cholesterol, and trans/saturated fat.

[misstowerofpower1]

well Gorillas have canines twice the size of us and are many times stronger and they are veggie, in fact all the biggest and strongest animals on the planet are veggie,

[steviek198]

Bang this in a youtube search.

Raw Food Vegan Bodybuilder cab driver eats no meat

Haha i love the raw plant based diet, it doesnt have ONE single negative!!

[HBSschemers]

haha you talk about being 'Ignorance" but your the most ignorant lmao. your a troll dude lol

[HBSschemers]

very ignorant comment. sheep

[John Wanker]

vegetarians are faggots. pussies are scared of meat lol

[SarethZhukov314]

So how many animals were forcibly driven off that land where your house was built?

[Entropian2012]

Go be vegan in the wild for 3 months with out food I'll hold my breath waiting for you to make it back alive =) Ask any person who lives off the land mountain men hermits tribes universally across the world they would all tell you no they could not. Veganism is a incorrect life style that can only be achieved because of the advancements of society supporting it but in the real world they could never do it. Why you ask? Because it is not natural for our species.

[wamilac]

The only thing gross here is your mental disability. I prescribe a hamburger to cure it.

Double standards often annoy people, so if you don't like being slammed, don't do it yourself.

There's a life tip for you.

[MrGlitterintheair]

fuck off asshole!!!! You are a meat eater and I have no respect for you dirty scumbag. and I'm not a guy, that's just my nickname for YouTube, I have my 2500 facebook followers of friends and family and they all think veganism is great. So fuck off and I don't care if you don't respect vegans. We care for the life of all beings and we are not worthless and selfish like you meat eaters. Stop sending me private messages talking about penises!!! So gross!!