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.

Includes endnotes (p. 191-205), bibliography and index.

Howard Lyman is president of the International Vegetarian Union. He lives in Alexandria, Virginia.