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 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.
Persuasive, straightforward, and full of the down-home good humor and optimism of a son of the soil, Mad Cowboy is both and 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.
“Howard Lyman, a straight-shooting, no nonsense Montanan with uncommon integrity and courage, has a dynamite story to tell. Read in this startling book why this son of the ranchlands won’t be bulled by the beef establishment anymore…and why you shouldn’t be either.”
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“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?’”
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