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Vegan cowboy Howard Lyman takes on agribusiness
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(AP Photo/ Charlie Litchfield, FILE)
Howard Lyman is a fourth generation cattle rancher and feed lot operator from Montana who built his family’s farm into an agribusiness factory of 7,000 head of cattle, 12,000 acres of crops and 30 employees. Now, however, Lyman travels the world spreading his message that “the proper amount of animal products in your diet is …zero.”
Speaking to the 2009 class of the Institute for Integrative Nutrition in New York City on June 8, 2009, Lyman told the story of how he received his degree in agriculture from the University of Montana and learned to use pesticides, herbicides, hormones and medications to boost farm output and use “chemical farming” to feed the planet.
Riding high on his success, he was suddenly stricken with a spinal tumor that paralyzed him from the waist down. When he recovered miraculously, he wanted to return to nature and devote his life to sustainable organic farming but found that bankers and the business community laughed at him.
He sold the business and went to Washington, D.C. in 1987 for 5 years as a lobbyist for the National Farmers Union to try to work with the government to change policy and encourage small, local and organic farms. He was disillusioned with what he found there and left when he concluded that “the system is rigged,” and that in America, we have “the best government that money can buy.”
In 1990, Lyman became a closet vegetarian. At that time he was a beefy 300 pounds, his cholesterol was over 300 and he had high blood pressure. A little while later, he became a vegan. His family, friends and neighbors snickered and laughed behind his back but he soon lost 150 pounds. One Thanksgiving, he assured his mother-in-law that there would be a turkey, and when she arrived for dinner, there was indeed one strutting around the yard. He handed her an axe. They had a vegan dinner.
Lyman is best known for a fateful 1996 appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show when his discussion of mad cow disease and Oprah’s exclamation that it “ just stopped me cold from eating another burger,” resulted in both of them being sued by a group of Texas cattlemen for libel and disparagement of a perishable commodity. In 2002, the suit and appeals finally ended with both Lyman and Oprah being exonerated.
Howard Lyman is a passionate and entertaining spokesman for sustainable agriculture and the benefits of a vegan lifestyle.
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