FROM RANCHER TO ‘MAD COWBOY’

By MIRIAM MOELLER, Journal Staff Writer



MARQUETTE — Howard Lyman said if he gets cancer, he’ll eat a truck load of raw and organic carrots instead of undergoing chemotherapy.


Lyman, a former commercial farmer who turned vegan and environmentalist, spoke about the benefits of a meatless diet and his experiences with America’s cattle industry at Northern Michigan University Thursday. Cancer and its causes were among his topics.


“Everybody has cancerous cells in their body,” Lyman said to about 100 students and community members at NMU’s Great Lakes Rooms. “It’s when we start putting animal-based food into our body that the immune system gets overwhelmed.”


Lyman explained what he thinks is wrong with the American diet.


“Too much protein, too much fat, too much cholesterol,” he said, adding that he does not eat anything that has “a face, liver or a mother.”


The Montana-born, fourth generation cattle rancher, talked about the period after college when he became a large-scale “agribusinessman.” He turned his family’s small organic farm into an industrial farm using hormones, antibiotics and other chemicals on his cattle to enhance his profits.


“I never met a chemical I didn’t like,” he said.


In 1979, Lyman had a wake-up call when a tumor on his spinal cord paralyzed him. Lying in the hospital, he evaluated his life and decided to change. After a successful operation that allowed him to walk again, he said he discovered the chemicals he used heavily on his farm helped cause the tumor.


“In 1983, I sold my farm and started talking with other farmers not to make the same mistakes I made,” he said.


Lyman eventually started spreading his belief that the cattle industry practice of feeding beef to cows could potentially spread Mad Cow disease.


As a guest on the Oprah Winfrey show in 1996 he talked about the process and on the same show Winfrey said she would never eat a burger again.


After Lyman’s appearance on the show, a group of Texas cattle ranchers filed a lawsuit against Lyman and Winfrey, saying they’d made false statements.


After years of  legal proceedings, the two were finally held “not liable” and the case was dismissed in 2002, Lyman said. He said the ranchers filed the lawsuit for publicity purposes.


“How are we going to deal with the health of the American people, if we’re not talking about what makes people sick?” he asked.


The Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration ended up banning the practice of feeding cows to cows, Lyman said.


Lyman said his switch from a meat diet to a diet that contains no animal or dairy products has lowered his cholesterol by more than 150 points. He said he’s also lost 130 pounds. He blamed the consumption of meat and dairy products for the scary statistics of many Americans dying from cancer and heart disease.


“We have one out of four dying of cancer,” he said. “One out of two Americans dies of heart disease. Diabetes is growing astronomically.”


NMU student Shay Rogers attended the speech and she said she felt Lyman’s speech was engaging.


“I did not feel pressure to go and become a vegan,” she said.