The Campaign That Changed The Eating Habits of A Nation
Boycott of Battery Chickens Forces Supermarkets to Think Ethically
Sales of factory-farmed chickens have slumped since a high-profile campaign raised awareness of the cruelty at the heart of the poultry industry and implored consumers to pay more to improve the animals’ welfare.
In a victory for campaigners who have fought to expose the short and brutal lives of broiler birds, shoppers have bought millions more free-range and organic birds while leaving mass-produced chickens on the shelves.
Sales of free-range poultry shot up by 35 per cent last month compared with January 2007, while sales of standard indoor birds fell by 7 per cent, according to a survey of 25,000 shoppers by the market research company TNS.
Supermarkets have been stripped of free-range birds, prompting complaints from frustrated shoppers keen to embrace the movement away from intensive farming.
The rise in sales would have been even higher if poultry producers had been able to keep up with demand. Many suppliers in the £2bn-a-year poultry industry are now expected to convert cramped chicken sheds into more spacious accommodation.
Tesco, the country’s biggest retailer, has doubled its order for higher-welfare chickens while Sainsbury’s has been flabbergasted by the “unprecedented” spurt in demand and forced to import free-range birds from France.
In the weeks after the chefs Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and Jamie Oliver launched a high-profile campaign on Channel 4, supermarkets had stated that sales of “standard” chickens had held up, and even increased.
But the new national sales data suggests that shoppers’ priorities have shifted dramatically. If the TNS data was extrapolated to the rest of the UK, it suggests sales of factory-farmed chickens dipped by 10 million, while shoppers bought 4.4 million more free-range chickens. Overall, chicken sales were down by 4.8 per cent, perhaps because many people, when faced with an absence of free-range chicken, simply bought no chicken.
The campaign against mass-produced poultry, of which a quarter have difficulty walking as a result of wading around in their own waste, is to be intensified. Fearnley-Whittingstall intends to produce a new television show on chickens later this year, updating viewers on the campaign and urging more people to join what he hopes will turn into a free-range revolution. “We are going to keep the pressure up and we are going to do everything we can to make sure that this is not a flash in the pan,” he said.
During his Hugh’s Chicken Run shows, residents of the Devon town of Axminster were invited to see free-range and intensive systems running alongside each other in a shed; many left in tears. According to separate polling by ACNielsen, half of the four million viewers who saw the shows said they would buy better chicken.
The cruelty inflicted on broiler birds was also exposed in secret footage from a farm, reported last month in The Independent. Earlier this month - to the disgust of the National Farmers’ Union and animal welfare groups - Tesco announced a week-long offer of a £1.99 chicken. The move is believed by welfare campaigners to have been an attempt to shift unsold standard birds.
“If the growing consumer demand for free-range, organic and higher-welfare chicken continues, availability in store could certainly become an important barrier to consumer choice, at least in the short term,” said Maria Carrol, ACNielsen’s consumer insight manager.
Compassion in World Farming, a campaign group which shot undercover footage inside a chicken shed in Herefordshire, was jubilant. “It seems to me that there is a swath of people who have been moved by the programmes and it seems to be a lasting move, a definite move away from standard to free-range,” said its food policy officer Rowen West-Henzell. “That’s great. But what we need to do is to work with the people who still buy standard and we are 100 per cent committed to giving consumers the facts about poultry production and letting them make their own minds up. With the programme they were exposed to that reality.”
About 800 million chickens are bred in the UK every year. About 92 per cent of them are still of the “standard” variety, despite the increase this year.
“I am thrilled but I am still a little bit cautious,” said Fearnley-Whittingstall. “I am delighted we have helped create this change and I am delighted that, two months after the show, there appears to be no letting up.
“I just hope the British retailers and the industry are talking to each other, making sure that new free-range farms are built and new RSPCA Freedom Food farms are built to cater for a growing demand for high welfare chicken.”
© 2008 The Independent
This is a move in the right direction, but there are still a range of ethical issues with even “free-range” and “organic” chicken, not to mention environmental issues with the resources used to produce this meat on our already overburdened Earth.
Incorporating more vegetarian and vegan foods, as well as reducing our consumption of animal products as a whole, will surely have the most positive effect.
Maybe Britain is different but in North America “free range” is often a false label.
Chickens still end up brutally slaughtered.
Veganism is the only ethical food system for humans.
Its good for humans and non humans alike.
Plant a garden, and if your town lets you, raise your own chickens or ducks. Then you’ll know what’s what!
Veganism is best.
Plant a garden and fight the fowl for the food.
I wonder how chicken sales would have done if the supermarkets had sold only live birds and people had to slaughter them themselves.
Some fowl can eat grass and other things that humans can not - so they don’t take away from produce that humans need. Cows can also live on grass and things that humans can’t eat. Chickens can forage for thier own food. So if you are very poor or in a bad place, eating meat can keep you alive.
Veganism wouldn’t be best if you were starving or oppressed.
Veganism is best if you are well to do.
Unless you are raising and slaughtering your own livestock, or know a small organic farmer who is, you’re eating tainted carian.
I’m eating a lot of corn, beans, and rice these days . . .
Please dear lord, let build our small farm based communities again like they used to be and are supposed to be. We would not have these problems that we have today if the small farm and farmer reigned king again.
Most people wouldn’t recognize the food if it was raised well. Nothing beats the taste of free range grass fed beef and no one knows how to cook it either, its so lean. Have you noticed the color difference between free range, organic and “standard” chickens? Organic has a white fat layer while free range is corn fed and slightly yellow, “Standard” is yellow with brown tinges and looks and smells way different. Standard looks like the crap it lived in! They are still nothing like the food you grow, slaughter, and raise from little cute chicks on your farm. Home farm raised food tastes so much better, city dwellers would think its a different animal or vegetable all together!
There are no native vegan tribes in lands that snow.
Yeah. Sure. Veganism is best.
Why can’t I eat local, free range, organic eggs and dairy again?
Oh yeah. I forgot. THERE IS NO LOGICAL ARGUMENT NOT TO DO SO. From an animal well-being and/or environmentalist perspective.
I am so sick of self-righteous vegans thinking it’s their way or the highway. I eat a predominantly vegetarian diet with the occasional local ethical chicken or hunted meat.
Sustainable biodynamic farmers and permaculture experts have explained to me time and again about the value of having chickens on their farms. They eat natural pests. Their waste fertilizes the soil. They provide eggs. At the end of their lifespans they are eaten.
But noooooooooooooooo. No comprehensive approaches to agriculture based on what works best in your locale, we all must go Vegan. Let’s all eat soy raised in the Amazon packaged up to look like meat.
Riddle me this: who has the bigger eco footprint… a self-righteous urban dwelling vegan, or an indigenous hunter/gatherer?
Make all the Inuit VEGAN! It’s 2008, they don’t need to live that way anymore. (a vegan actually told me this).
Yeah exactly, let’s have them live as a cancer on the earth like us! Just so long as they don’t kill those cute furry animals. (Whoops, I just smooshed a spider… but who cares about spiders.)
Apparently no one has any problems killing carrots. But let’s just free all our chickens so they can be massacred by foxes, since without us killing them they will obviously become immortal and all death and suffering on earth will disappear. Lions will lie down with lambs and sharks will eat plankton!
Hooray! Isn’t being naive and unrealistic grand!
Here we go again all you PETAphiles
http://www.thirdeyemag.com/nonfiction/essays/stuck-in-disneyland/
perceptionexperiment wrote: “I am so sick of self-righteous vegans …”
The only self-righteous comments I see posted on this thread so far are yours.
I have been a vegetarian for 35 years and a vegan for 20 years, and I will tell you, in the strongest possible terms: I don’t give a crap what you eat. So climb down off your self-righteous pontificating soapbox and stop embarrassing yourself with stupid, belligerent, mean-spirited attacks on people whose dietary choices are different from yours.
Hello, vegan posters: As a child I lived on my grandparents’ small farm, where we had a cow, chickens and a rooster. “youbetterwork” (12:39) wrote: “Cows can also live on grass and things that humans can’t eat. Chickens can forage for their own food.” That’s exactly right. Evolution did not provide us with two stomachs: try eating grass sometime, and see if you can turn it into milk like a cow does!
Since naturally raised chicken, beef and pork became available locally (though expensive), we have switched, and reduced our meat purchases because of the cost. But I’ve never understood the holier-than-thou moral universe of veganism, relative to those of us who eat naturally raised meat. Yes, the animal was alive and is now dead. But so was the carrot you just yanked out of the ground (don’t you think all living things have some kind of consciousness?) and now the carrot will get chopped to pieces and thrown into boiling water. Does that make you a humanitarian?
Some years ago scientists put two identical groups of plants into separate soundproof rooms, and piped classical music and jazz into one room and rock ‘n roll into the other. They all got the same food, water and sunlight, but the latter group drooped and eventually died, while the former flourished. Still don’t believe plants have consciousness?
Even humans are part of the great circle of life, and when we die, “From dust we came, to dust shall we return.” (I like to think it’s stardust!)
I don’t kill spiders. They eat flies and mosquitoes.
The market works when the people, not the politicians, decide.
Let the people decide:
www.ni4d.us
Yes we all know vegan is best, but don’t use the bludgeon. (this thread is pretty mild, but you know who you are)
We grow in steps. From Cig smokin, factory steak eatin, to “I’ll have the chicken instead” to “is that free-range?”, to “which range did it come from exactly?”, to “I’ll have the cabbage”.
But I do feel a sentiment here, the reaction many have on CL when someone raves about vegans. There is a sense of selfrighteousness. Which futhers my belief that you should never tell another how to live or think because that person will end up HATING you.
The best argument here for veganism AND/OR local farm shopping is “Unless you are raising and slaughtering your own livestock, or know a small organic farmer who is, you’re eating tainted carian.”
I’d love to see this tie in to local/vegan etc: We eat TOO MUCH anyway. Any takers?
Reminds me of when I foolishly got in a conversation with a PITA person protesting a zoo…
Me: So what would you do with all these animals?
Pita: Return them to the Wild
Me: and where is that exactly?
Pita: what about reserves in africa?
(note: not all animals are from africa)
Me: and who starts and maintains those?
Pita: the goverment?
Me: well, in part. A lot of support comes from…..
Zoos.
I very much agree, and have written before, that promoting veganism without context - i.e., where you obtain your food and the total environmental cost of producing, packaging, marketing, storing, transporting, utility and other development impact by grocery stores, parking lots, advertising, etc. - is no virtue.
When we look at the environmental degradation caused by industrial farming, it becomes very clear that anything other than grow your own or purchase from small local farms is as much an assault on the planet as anything. In fact, the number one cause of destruction to wild animals is loss of habitat, and a there are two primary causes of loss of habitat - housing/development and industrial farming.
On the other hand, Ducks Unlimited has been a vigorous advocate for habitat preservation, for sustainability, and for eliminating toxins in habitat.
I am continually disappointed to see arguments for veganism that leave out the issue of mass farming and shopping at the local grocery store. Veganism needs to be attached to a grow-your-own message like I am attached to my foot. Otherwise, for me, it fails as an environmental or moral message.
“So climb down off your self-righteous pontificating soapbox and stop embarrassing yourself with stupid, belligerent, mean-spirited attacks on people whose dietary choices are different from yours.”
Hmmmm mean-spirited? Try an attempt at humorous sarcasm.
Stupid? Try logical. I don’t see how you’ve made any attempt to explain how the points I am making are wrong. Again, care to explain why folks can’t eat ethical eggs? Still waiting…..
Self-righteous? Where did I say “My diet is the only ethical diet for all humans” as vegans repeatedly claim.
I must apologize, as when I say “self-righteous vegans” I am not only referring to those who maybe posted here. I am referring to folks I also run into and interact with constantly, and who proclaim their diet as the end all be all solution to our agricultural woes.
And don’t sit here and tell me there are no self-righteous vegans running around giving animal rights activists a bad name. I’ve conversed with them and so have you.
Oh and I should add… I don’t CARE if you are vegan. In fact, I respect veganism wayyyyyyyyyy more than the avg. fast food eating steak obsessed American. My problem is with the ‘tude that comes along with knowing that your diet is THE diet for everyone.
Statements like: Veganism is best! Veganism is the only solution!
I don’t believe there is one right way to live, and we shouldn’t parade around pretending there is one right way to eat. Especially when there is literally no logical way to explain your position and it is solely based on an emotional appeal to some impossible ideal of purity that simply doesn’t exist in the natural world.
“I am continually disappointed to see arguments for veganism that leave out the issue of mass farming and shopping at the local grocery store. Veganism needs to be attached to a grow-your-own message like I am attached to my foot. Otherwise, for me, it fails as an environmental or moral message.”
Here, here!
AdeleTheCzech, when you can prove that plants are sentient creatures, then you can bitch about carrots.
Go vegetarian, go organic, be healthier and live longer.
Well-said, oldgrowthforest. I wonder if you dare to tread in the discussions about ever-increasing human populations as a factor in all this?
To perceptionexperiment: Oh, there are many forms of illogic in your posts; the one that struck me most obviously is your use of the straw man fallacy:
“But let’s just free all our chickens so they can be massacred by foxes, since without us killing them they will obviously become immortal and all death and suffering on earth will disappear.”
Now, I admire your commitment to thinking about food issues in ways that most people I know do not, and I think your mainly vegetarian diet is a productive starting point for further development. I think the greatest challenge you pose to my own thinking is with this: “some impossible ideal of purity that simply doesn’t exist in the natural world.” First, I don’t buy the idea that there is some essential “natural” way to be, and I certainly don’t buy the idea that human action is, could, or should be dictated by such laws; culture and nature are in constant conversation, as I understand it. Yet it is the other part of that statement which I wrestle with most: is adopting an ideal stance, one that I have been told has apparent contradictions, a strong enough and legitimate ethical stance? In the end, given the widespread utilitarian treatment of animals (and I do not adopt a welfare stance on these issues, but rather one like Gary Francione argues connected to liberation) that I believe we both would agree is out there, I think a hard line is necessary. Vegans are proof that we don’t need to base our life on the destruction of other animal life.
I was afraid to read the comments on this story, simply because I expected the routine bullshit from the militant vegans. (Note, of course not all vegans are militant, just like not all christians are militant. Duh.) You know the tripe:
-You can’t be progressive if you eat meat of any kind in any quantity. (dogmatic)
-Meat eaters are belligerent and warlike. (scapegoating)
-Hunters are compensating with guns for small packages. (fallacious)
-Humans are herbivores. (laughable)
I’ve had proselytizing vegans try to justify their intolerance by using infantile “trophic pyramid” and non-cyclical water consumption arguments, and pretending that a few hundred thousand years of archaeological evidence is simply “corporate propaganda.” I’ve yet to hear a convincing argument for excluding animals from sustainable farms, and I’ve yet to hear an ecosystem-based rationale for preferentially taking the lives of plants over the lives of animals to sustain my own. It’s always based on karma or willful ignorance of plant sentience, neither of which make much sense to me.
Don’t get me (or the other non-vegan posters here) wrong… Veganism is not a problem. I’m happy for those who have found their personal solution to the moral dilemma of modern human omnivores. I can’t stand the simpleminded arrogance of those professing to have the only right way to live.
stanfabio:
“First, I don’t buy the idea that there is some essential “natural” way to be, and I certainly don’t buy the idea that human action is, could, or should be dictated by such laws; culture and nature are in constant conversation, as I understand it.”
This statement assumes that human animals can exist independent of the rest of the natural world of which we are part. That is a fundamental problem unique to civilized humans. Human action has been responsive to the laws of nature (e.g. give back more than you take, cooperate instead of dominate, relate with your environment instead of controlling and abusing it) for all but the last 10,000 years or so of our history, and our culture is now beginning to suffer the consequences of these actions (as we’ve forced them upon others for millenia - see the history of western contact with indigenous peoples).
Just because you are not “buying” that there is a natural role for humans in the ecosystems that support our existence, that does not mean that such a role does not exist. The fact that humans have lived sustainably with ecosystems all over the world for thousands of years demonstrates this well enough. The main point to a principled rejection of universal veganism is that the ecosystems on which humans depend are almost infinitely complex and diverse, and one universal lifestyle is not only inappropriate, it is in fact damaging and counterproductive if our goal is to live in harmony with our different landbases.
Simple Sauce,
You’ve misunderstood my use of the term “dictate.” I never said that humans don’t have a role in ecosystems, but that we exercise far more choice than is suggested by those who want some immutable law to govern their diets (and in my experience those same people only use that line of thinking to justify generally indefensible positions — giving absolute power over to “nature” eliminates the need to employ ethics). Indeed, as I suggested, humans and the non-human world participate in a constant process of negotiation, and I would never suggest some transcendent position for humans with regard to the environment.
to stanfabio:
“Vegans are proof that we don’t need to base our life on the destruction of other animal life.”
Again, how does me eating organic, ethical eggs further the destruction of other animal life?
How does a person being a vegan but still eating the results of industrial agriculture make them not engaged in the destruction of animal life?
I also dislike the use of the term “natural” when in fact everything that exists must be natural. However, I do think it is possible to observe the way a functioning ecosystem works, notice that almost always involves predation, and realize that our eating or not eating of meat is not the crux of what is causing the rampant ecocide and animal rights abuses we are committing.
It is our removal of ourselves from the ecological framework and declaring ourselves gods over those systems. I wouldn’t say that hunter-gather cultures are based on the destruction of animal life. They are based on a profound respect for animal and plant life.
I also don’t think it’s a straw man argument for me to bring up that I have never heard Vegans explain what it is we are to do with livestock animals once we stop eating them or using them in agriculture. I certainly understand that no one is claiming that we let foxes eat the chickens. I am just pointing out that no one addresses what it is we should do with the chickens, and I am also trying to point out that if we don’t eat them other things will continue to eat them.
And to NotSoHotPink: read some books on quantum physics or take some mushrooms or meditate and look around at vegetation and tell me it’s not sentient on some level.
Where do you draw the line on sentience and how sentient does something have to be for it to be wrong to eat it?
Oh, and Simple Sauce, another set of straw men regarding vegan positions:
-You can’t be progressive if you eat meat of any kind in any quantity. (dogmatic)
-Meat eaters are belligerent and warlike. (scapegoating)
-Hunters are compensating with guns for small packages. (fallacious)
-Humans are herbivores. (laughable)
In fact, despite what these anthropocentric characterizations represent, I think many vegans are less committed to attacking people, and more interested in focusing on the lives and deaths of non-human animals. Certainly, human behavior must be addressed in the equation, but the issues need to be framed in terms of addressing the integrity of the animal.
Stanfabio,
I certainly agree with you that many vegans are less committed to attacking people.
However, I think the folks simple sauce are addressing do exist and this isn’t just a list of strawmen.
I’ve heard all of those things come out of the mouths of animal rights extremists.
And I have dealt with vegans that seriously disrespect nonvegans, either covertly or overtly. Vegans that get into peoples face when they disagree with them. I don’t think this helps the cause of animal rights.
I don’t think anyone here has a problem at all with veganism. We have a problem with the way some people choose to represent it as a silver bullet.
perceptionexperiment,
Thanks for an engaging response. First, as I hoped to suggest with my compliment to oldgrowthforest, I am all in favor of a broad range of ethical considerations attached to veganism as a start for best practice. Two brief (can we vegans be moderate despite the claims of many?) points: (1) the issue of eggs is one that has vexed me for some time. In the end, I think that eating eggs contributes to a mindset of instrumentalizing animal life for many people (and I grant that there are many like yourself, I assume, who do not), but to be honest I have not fully thought through the issue. (2)In terms of ecosystems offering patterns for human culture, I would say that ecosystems do not include justice as we understand it. This threshhold changes everything for me.
Again, thanks, and I’ll be quiet now, as many wish.
I’m afraid that if you aren’t walking out your door to the back yard to pick your lettuce, there are enormous environmental impacts associated with all your food.
There is mining, shipping, utilities, deforestation/habitat eradication, packaging, etc. Just consider all the raw materials required to build a grocery store and parking lot, and the equipment and fuel required to do so, all the lighting-heat-cooling-water required by the store, the street lights for the parking lot, etc.
Consider the dead zones in the oceans, which exist due to industrial farming. It’s all runoff from fertilizers, primarily, but also pesticides and herbicides.
The cost of not growing your own is big. It’s very, very big.
As far as I’m concerned there is a problem with veganism if the individual obtains their food from grocery stores.
When I subsistence fish for salmon, catching my alloted 25 fish (at approximately 3-4 pounds per filet for Kenai River reds), and can live on the meat for 4-5 months, I have a far less impact on the environment than any single thing purchased in any grocery store anywhere. Especially if I can the meat rather than freezing it. Then I don’t even use energy storing it.
And no, I don’t feel the least bit guilty killing the salmon. On the contrary, I feel connected. I feel blessed. I feel sustained. I feel like I am provided for by God, by life. I feel a thrill watching the fish come in, leaping and shining in the sunlight, as many as 50,000 or more in a tide. I feel connected to the generations before me that practiced subsistence through hunting and growing their own food. I feel connected to the seals that follow the salmon and fish in the water in front of me, and the gulls that hurry to eat the waste I leave behind. I feel connected to my neighbors who fish beside me, who harvest this bounty so respectfully, so joyously.
We all leave tired, and happy, with new respect for our world and Life and, yes, ourselves. We know we have obtained food in a very good way. I hope this beautiful cycle continues forever, but I fear it will not.
Anyone who truly believes that grocery stores are a superior alternative to a first-hand connection with your food, either by harvesting or growing it yourself, has missed something vital to understanding life.
oldgrowthforest I applaud your commitment to procuring your own food and experiencing that connection.
I feel many of the militant vegans I have dealt with have lived in urban areas much of their life and simply haven’t had those experiences.
Your comments are beautiful and I hope everyone reads them.
This whole discussion is very odd to me. As far as I can figure out we all live on the same mudball. Some want to eat meat, some don’t. For whatever reason, humans seem to have different dietary needs. To me it is all in the balance. A little of this, a little of that.
All this article is advocating is that if you desire to eat chicken, than rationally consider where and how it is raised. That seems to be a good first step in making choices about what we eat. If that means you have to pay more, than it follows that you will eat less and enjoy it more. Is this a moral issue? Or an issue of choice?
I am going to continue to eat meat. But I am also going to make sure I know how that animal was raised and where. I may have to eat less of it, but that’s okay.
Awareness and balance in all things is the key. There is no one answer that suits everyone on every level. To me we should all eat what is good for us in quantities that are sustainable. It’s not a moral issue. At least to me. I will not sit in judgement of others. I have enough problems just dealing with my own issues and choices.
I’ve praise for oldgrowthforest’s comments too. The true problem is not what we eat, per se, but rather how what we eat is produced. We have as much right to meat as any other omnivore or carnivore, but we produce it in a very sloppy and unnecessarily cruel way.
I believe vegans have every right to their diet, but hope they’ll not get preachy about it - it’s highly obnoxious, yes. I’d cringe a bit at a nursing or pregnant woman trying to follow a vegan diet - there’s some evidence it may adversely affect their baby. But, still, I’m not going to get preachy with them, it’s none of my business.
Plus, I think the true underlying problem is indeed overpopulation. I know this can get a bit touchy, and this isn’t quite the appropriate place to discuss it, but in summary: (1) all humans everywhere, regardless of place or situation, need to control their breeding, (2) the best way to do this is through better education and opportunities for women, (3) temporary demographic problems will arise as the last overpopulated generation ages and eventually dies off, but over time these problems will ebb, and (4) population stabilization is not enough to arrive at sustainability, more will need to be done.
Human beings are omnivores. There are no non-animal sources of vitamin B12. Your liver can store up to 5 years worth of B12 that you got from animal sources but after you use those stores you will have to eat animal protein. It is available in flesh foods as well as eggs and milk/milk products.
It was once believed that B12 was available in certain seaweed/algae and some fermented soy products but current science has identified these as non-biologically active analogs. That, of course, can change at any moment.
We are all biochemical individuals. No one diet is right for everyone.
Vegans could only exist in an industrial society that manufactures synthetic vitamins.
For serious threats to our food supply from Codex Alimentarius (UN Food Code) see: www.healthfreedomusa.org
stan:
I don’t think anyone here wants for you to shut up. That’s not the point. The arguments that I listed are not strawmen, and though I doubt that they’re universally held among vegans, they’re arguments that have been posted on this site in the last few weeks since the slaughterhouse video came out.
To your point about ecosystems not including justice as we know it (or the Justice of western philosophy, abstracted from circumstance), I’ll wholeheartedly agree. I see that more as a reason to reconsider what we mean by justice than whether we should follow the guidance of the natural systems that support our existence. Again, I don’t think that we disagree much, and I’d much prefer to have this conversation in a non-text-based format.
–
I think oldgrowthforest and Rebel Farmer have it right on the money - it’s about connecting intimately with the lives we take to support our own, not about dogmatic rules for which lives are more acceptable to take than others - the ecosystem will communicate with us each to help us understand the guidelines for that.
And perceptionexperiment: it sounds like we’ve talked with some similar people.
All you evolution fans out there take note. Human teeth are omnivore teeth. Cows and sheep etc. have vegetation type teeth. Dogs have meat eater canine teeth.
As far as teeth are concerned we are like rats as they have omnivore teeth as well. We are, of course, the big dangerous ones.
Animals raised in as sustainable and humane way possible can be added in a reasonable amount to a mostly vegetable, fruit, nuts, and grain based diet.
Mass corporate agriculture is no good for producing any foodstuff. It does, however make a really toxic mess.
Whether you eat meat or not doesn’t mean sh-t, because billions of people do eat meat, will continue to eat meat, and would eat meat if they could. The point of this article was about growing livestock in a humane fashion and about the standards that need to be adopted by industry and farmers around the world. It was not about your food preferences, or how you think other people should eat. Your worlds are so small, it’s pathetic. Do you know that sheep are shipped live from Australia to the Middle East so they can be slaughtered “halal?” Kind of like the slave ships, except not as cushy. Do you know that bush meat (monkeys and apes) are being slaughtered to feed loggers and others working in remote areas of Africa? Do you know that the Chinese love shark fin soup? That the Japanese (in one town) slaughter dolphins for food? If you only applied one percent of your self-righteousness in the direction of changing the system, animals would be much better off than they will ever be just because you don’t eat meat. That would mean getting off your vegan ass and getting politically involved.
Alot of strong arguments here…
Someone said, “Vegans could only exist in an industrial society that manufactures synthetic vitamins.:
I totally agree with this statement. I’ve done a fair amount of studying, and without being able to take synthetic vitamin B12, nobody could be a vegan.
We were designed to eat meat. That is factual. That doesn’t mean everyone would want to, and those who don’t often choose not to for spiritual reasons. I respect that, but for me there is nothing anti-spiritual about eating meat. It was intended that we do.
I do hope that society can get back to the small family farms that produced the meat and milk and eggs that humans thrive on. I used to buy eggs from a farmer in Idaho when I lived there, and the flavor was so superior to store bought.
I made an attempt at Veganism in the early 90s, but at that time I was not aware of the need for B12, as well as supplementation of other vitamins and minerals that Vegans end up deficient in… it lasted a week. I was light headed and couldn’t think straight. I was living in Salt Lake City at the time, and there was an Arby’s on 21st south and State Street, across from the Salt Lake community college where I attended courses. During that week, the smell of that roast beef nearly did me in. By Sunday I was scarfing down two or three Giant roast beef sandwiches with horsey sauce..
Never have had the desire since to be a Vegan. And with the subsequent study that proved to me it is unhealthy, never will again.
But, for those who get into that… more power to you.
And for those who feel threatened by the attitudes of some who feel Veganism is superior - don’t let it get to you. It’s like a religion. Those who are into it always feel their way is best. Just shrug it off. Their numbers will never be sufficient enough (due to the dietary needs we humans can only fulfill by eating meat), for it to matter. Our ability to eat meat will never be threatened by their movement.
perceptionexperiment, the only self-righteous people I meet regarding vegetarianism are the ones who claim that animals were put here on earth for us to eat.
I’ve only been a vegetarian for three years, and I’ll never go back to eating flesh foods. I honestly don’t know how people can kill defenseless animals. Cows that look at you with their big brown eyes, provide milk for us and don’t harm us, cute little chicks that grow up to be chickens who also don’t harm us, etc. Why kill them? They have as much right to live as we do.
But eat whatever you want, it’s not my concern. I don’t go around telling people to not eat meat. It’s just my own conscience that tells me not to.
“We were designed to eat meat. That is factual. That doesn’t mean everyone would want to, and those who don’t often choose not to for spiritual reasons. I respect that, but for me there is nothing anti-spiritual about eating meat. It was intended that we do.”
While, it is your right to hold a moral position re. your choice of food, your justification suffers from the “argument from authority” fallacy even giving the benefit of the doubt that it is somehow possible for us to figure out what nature “intends.”
As far as the “design” argument goes, while the human body can digest meat, it functions better on a fully plant-based diet (the obvious B12 caveat throw in [Ref: The China Study - by Dr. Campbell]). This is not an argument that someone should only eat a plant-based diet as we still have choice - there is no requirement that we must eat only healthy food.
NRA Freedom: “Veganism is not “like” a religion, it IS a religion. And Vegans are every bit as intolerant of non believers as the most wild eyed Muslim fanatic or born again Christian.”
There are positions that can argue that veganism is a religion - but intolerance is not one of them. Tribalism is endemic to the human population, and explains the observable intolerance.
My thanks to all who point out the damage caused by industrial farming, and who encourage consuming locally grown produce.
— Reasons why I choose to be vegan —
From an ethical perspective, I choose to leave animals to their own destiny with minimal interference from humans. We interfere in globally anyway - no point piling on and interfering at the individual level. For the record, I do not support “animal rights” - it brings to mind an image of slave owners discussing how best to treat their slaves.
The above principle based on non-inteference, leads to formulations including, but not limited to:
- no support for forms of slavery (e.g. raising animals just for food)
- no support unneccessary killing
- staying away from areas of the world where the environment is harsh and does not support the cultivation of plants
- provides a simple rationale to stay from eating organic eggs or free range meat
Further, from personal experience, the bodily fluids and the breath of meat-eaters smell bad - the closest I can describe it is a low-grade smell similar to that of burning hair.
Gee, let’s paint with a broad brush. Vegans = militant = wild eyed Muslim fanatics…, etc. We each have our own reasons for choosing to eat meat or not. I’m a vegan, but I’m not judging you, ok? To thine own self be true.
I’m a vegan because I don’t want to kill animals. I love animals (and not in the way NRA-guy does, because they “taste good.”). I don’t want to be complicit in the killing of animals. I don’t want to consume dairy because the dairy industry contributes to the killing of animals (e.g., newborn males that are worthless to the dairy industry are slaughtered on the spot or fattened up and then slaughtered for veal). And the cows, even if raised on organic, grass-fed farms, end up at the slaughterhouse. That’s not okay by me. And the chickens, even organic, free-range chickens, also end up in the slaughterhouse, so I don’t want to eat the eggs that come from those chickens, because then I believe I’m complicit in their slaughter. Also not okay with me.
I don’t want to eat fish, because I think fish do feel pain at some level, and because they’re sentient creatures, again, on some level. Plus, marine mammals get caught up in the nets with the fish that are caught. Also not okay with me.
As for eating vegetables and the whole issue of whether plants “feel” something. Yes, I believe they respond to stimuli, such as music or kind words, etc. I’ve read/heard the studies. But I don’t believe they feel “pain” the way an animal does. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe it’s something we’re unable to measure, and maybe they’re silently screaming when we pluck them up. I can’t hear the screams of the vegetables (if they do in fact silently scream). But you can hear the screams of animals being slaughtered.
If I didn’t eat vegetables because they respond to stimuli if plucked or cut, that would leave fruitarianism (where you only eat the fruit that drops off — no plucking, no “pain,” and yes, I’m serious, people think about this stuff). But I don’t believe fruitarianism, even if I could do it, would give me adequate nutrition. Of course, there’s breatharianism, which I think is ridiculous.
To me, there’s hypocrisy in everything we do. No one is “pure.” But it’s a matter of degree. I try to do the best I can, and to do as little harm as possible. I don’t believe in killing people. I don’t believe in killing animals. I don’t believe in killing fowl. I don’t believe in killing fish. I don’t believe in killing sentient beings, period. I’ve drawn the line at vegetables, fruits and grains, because I need them to survive. In this day and age, I don’t need animals or fish or fowl to survive. And if I have to take a B12 supplement, fine. I’m not thinking about what humans were “meant to eat.” I don’t care if we’re carnivores, omnivores, or herbivores by nature. If I can survive without eating animals or fish or fowl, that’s what I’m going to do. And if that makes me a fanatic, then so be it.
What’s up with all the hostility toward vegans? Where are these supposed “self-righteous”, “intolerant”, “proselytizing” vegans? I have yet to meet any finger-wagging vegans or vegetarians. If someone said “Socialism is best” or “Socialism is the only ethical system” (as opposed to veganism) would a bunch of progressives get all hot under the collar or would they think, this person is merely stating their opinion which might be different from my own.
We all make our food choices based on own belief systems. Ultimately, we have to live with ourselves. Years ago, I read Peter Singer’s “Animal Liberation” and found his arguments for not causing suffering to sentient beings very compelling. I was forced to ask myself questions about my food choices and make changes. Occasionally, people (usually omnivores) try to “catch” me in some moral inconsistency. No one is morally pure. We try our best to live in line with our beliefs. I currently live in a small, conservative community. I never discuss my vegetarian eating habits with co-workers as I don’t want to alienate people. My partner was a conscious omnivore for years (and I was fine with that). He couldn’t find free-range meat in our new, little community. He also had to deliver some building materials to a local slaughterhouse and making eye-contact with the distraught pigs clinched it for him. So, he gave up eating meat and is now basically a vegetarian too.
I think the real point of this article is that in ENGLAND they were presented with the horrors of factory farming….and then the CONSUMERS in ENGLAND began buying only free-range/organic…thereby getting a healthier food….
I was in England last summer and I was so amazed at how many TV commercials and billboards were geared toward changing lifestyles for a HEALTHIER PLANET/HEALTIER YOU…it was so positive…the kids tv channel was full of positive ways to keep the carbon footprint down…and there was at least one environmental comercial per hour of TV time…
MY point is that WE the consumer have the power….we can stop the strangle hold corporations SEEM to have on us by simply not buying into their psychological ploy to get us to buy their stuff.
As I said in another post…the corporate advertising has been fed to us since birth, our post WWII parents were bombarded with how wonderful cigarettes were…and how they had to be modern and buy.. buy.. buy.. buy.. buy (Interestingly enough the exact same kinds of bilboards used in the late 40’s are identical to the ones they are using in “developing” countries) belive me, Madison
Avenue knows the human psyche/ego very well..
So now we have been informed…we have the power to make informed choices…and those choices may be pesticide free/artificial hormone free/ free range/organic/harvested sustainably/free trade/without developing country slavery/ etc….the point is choice and the power to use it for a healthier planet
I seriously wonder if any of you people espousing the virtues of eating meat has ever chased down an elk (or rabbit, or deer, or javelina, or whatever), caught it with your bare hands, bit into its throat until it lay motionless, tore into its intestines, and began devouring it from the inside out while its heart was still beating. If you have, you are a meat eater. If you haven’t, you are a VEGETARIAN PRIMATE.
Vegan vs Omnivore.
Issues like this divide the Left.
That seems to be their Purpose.
Only the privileged have time for this kind of bullshit.
As the article points out, the People make moral and healthy choices with food if they are informed, this is another encouraging sign for progressives.
Stop falling into this infighting like chumps.
Co-operation is the way forward.
-matti
Scores of millions of Americans have developed compassion for the factory-brutalized animals they once mindlessly ate.
That’s good.
But, by way of food-for-thought, a question:
Why is it so easy for us privileged Americans to do something dramatic about the suffering of our chickens — while it remains so hard for us to do something dramatic about the suffering of our fellow humans?
One of the amusing things about christians and their societical demands is that they are just never satisfied. That’s why the american right never bothers to actually outlaw abortion - it’s pointless. No matter what they do, it would never be enough.
Vegans are pretty much the same. Rather than bitching like christians, read “How to Win Friends and Influence People”. If you want society to be more ethical, then start by saying “This is a wonderful, positive, life-affirming step”. ‘Cause it’s true.
There are good reasons for promoting less meat eating. Too much of the stuff harms our health and industrial meat production harms the planet. But there are also several silly emotional critiques of meat eating that do not work with anyone but ignorant children and are insults to poor and simple living people who make meat an important part of their diet.
Try to think through the implications of your rhetoric and fine tune your critique of meat eating.
Chicken products will never be cruelty free ass long as the animals are murdered at the end of their non stop egg laying days.
Organic may be alot better then battery cages but it is usually hundreds of chickens shoved together in a disease ridden shed
Say isn’t there a bigger issue here besides how or what we chose to eat? (My apologies to those who feel strongly about being vegetarian, vegan or whatever diet you chose).
But I’m very impressed the Brits are actively forcing a change in the way corporations do business in their country. By changing their buying habits they’ve upset a whole industry!
Americans, take note! Activism at the grass roots level works! We too can make a difference - if we only stopped buying gas-guzzling cars, corn syrup laden processed foods, etc., the corporations would get the message! When we demand change with our buying power - big business will listen!
Maybe, we could even influence the political parties to better serve the pubic as well, if we all showed them we mean business by voting them out of office!
“Why kill them? They have as much right to live as we do.”
This is the line that most Vegans have bought that led them to meatless diets. I disagree. Animals do not have as much a right to life as we do. I will agree that while they are alive they have the right to live in as healthy a environment as possible. But they do not have rights beyond that.
This is really the crux of the argument for or against as I see it. Those who feel animals have this right are obligated to be Vegans - otherwise they would see themselves as murderers in a sense.
Those of us who do not believe animals have the same rights to life as humans have no problem biting into a roast beef sandwich.
Thought Shaman says,
“While, it is your right to hold a moral position re. your choice of food, your justification suffers from the “argument from authority” fallacy even giving the benefit of the doubt that it is somehow possible for us to figure out what nature “intends.””
I don’t argue my position as moral or immoral. It is possible for us to figure out what nature intended just on how our teeth and digestive systems evolved. We are natural meat eaters, and that is a matter of scientific fact, not some moral pontificating.
” HolisticActivism February 28th, 2008 11:51 am
This is a move in the right direction, but there are still a range of ethical issues with even “free-range” and “organic” chicken, not to mention environmental issues with the resources used to produce this meat on our already overburdened Earth.”
Believing you mean excessive water usage, I wouldn’t worry about these small fowl until we’ve first and drastically reduced the number of large animals raised for meat, particularly hogs and larger. Next in line would be sheep and goats, only I don’t know of these being raised in huge numbers, so I don’t know that they’d represent excessive water usage if their numbers weren’t reduced and the numbers of the larger raised animals were drastically reduced.
Of all of those, fowl consume far less water; although, and given the huge numbers raised, it would likely be beneficial to reduce the number.
Continuing with HolisticActivism’s post:
“Incorporating more vegetarian and vegan foods, as well as reducing our consumption of animal products as a whole, will surely have the most positive effect.”
Vegetarian is good, but some people need protein that we don’t and can’t obtain enough of with only vegetables. Soy and nuts, some nuts anyway, can be used for meat substitute, protein source, but these are also allergenic foods, so people allergic to these (I am to soy) might not have any choice but to eat some meats and/or fish, or seafood.
People who live near enough to sufficiently non-toxically polluted waters could catch their own fish, though we may return empty handed and often enough; and after spending many hours trying to catch desirable fish (f.e., NOT carp, which I once had and won’t try again, for I don’t appreciate the taste of mud, which is what that fish tasted like; if I want that taste, then I can go to the spring area in the back end of the backyard and dig up a little mud without spending a penny to get there).
” kelmer February 28th, 2008 11:53 am
Maybe Britain is different but in North America “free range” is often a false label.”
Also happens with ‘organic’, which I suppose most people are aware of by now; should be anyway.
“Chickens still end up brutally slaughtered.”
That’s not necessary, but a lot of consumers won’t go to the relatively little trouble involved in finding better providers or producers.
And as long as “Americans” continue their human genocides around the world, I don’t see any moral concerns being of priority when it comes to how animals are killed. I’m certainly against maltreatment of any and all animals, as well as simply Nature, and while I’ll support calls for govts to put an end to business malpractices, I definitely won’t make a big case of it when the imperialist-West is majorly slaughtering and brutally slow-killing, -genociding innocent humans beings, overthrowing good govts, etc.
If we don’t stop those extreme crimes, then I will care about the rest, but to heck with it.
“Veganism is the only ethical food system for humans.”
TRY PREACHING THAT TO THE INUITS and you might get some reality-based teaching. They are not abusive to animals though; killing, but not sadistically, no sadism whatsoever being involved, and strictly for food and clothing. And the same would be true of peoples living in jungles, f.e.; those who do hunt animals for the same reasons, food and clothing. None of these people make any sadistic “sport” out of their hunting, just like no [respectful] North American who hunts does it with sadism; doing it always respectfully, carefully.
It’s certainly fine to be vegan and vegetarian, but humans also have been omnivorous for as long as we’ve existed, or nearly that long anyway. And apes and monkeys, some anyway, have been found to be omnivorous. Most animals consume other animals; nothing new about it. But no wild animals kills INSANELY and/or without [need], too.
Humans in business raising animals, the large corp. schmucks anyway, are the species that need to be stopped; subspecies, given that they’re also human, like other humans who are [respectful] and holistically so.
As long as that damn greed, sometimes sadism or callousness, for some small-scale animal raisers also are … damn sadistic in their treatment of animals, then we will have a serious problem. Stop this crap, and then raising animals will be done without sadism, and without excess in terms of the impact on the environment.
After all, real hunters who are respectful are not going to stop their respectfully conducted hunting, and I’d never think of asking any of them to stop. I don’t hunt, but have done it a little, and had friends and relatives who did every year, all respectfully. Some go out during moose season and then for deer, while also going for partridge; it’s a serious outdoor activity for them and they don’t abuse.
” TurnoffyourTV February 28th, 2008 11:59 am
Plant a garden, and if your town lets you, raise your own chickens or ducks. Then you’ll know what’s what!”
AND THAT IS AN EXCELLENT idea, as well as being recreationally healthy to do, gardening your own food, that is. Not everyone enjoys gardening, but for those of us who do, it’s even a form of therapy, good for the morale, uplifting, …; and those who add some serious learning of environmentally healthy ways of gardening get to enjoy learning interesting subjects. Therapeutic? Maybe it’s due to gardening bringing us that much closer in our relationship to NATURE, Momma.
There is hope for mankind, after all!
AdeleTheCzech (February 28th) writes:
“Some years ago scientists put two identical groups of plants into separate soundproof rooms, and piped classical music and jazz into one room and rock ‘n roll into the other. They all got the same food, water and sunlight, but the latter group drooped and eventually died, while the former flourished. Still don’t believe plants have consciousness?”
I reply: do you suppose you could provide us with some citations?
Vegan extremism… it’s great that Common Dreams is providing an outlet here. Given a sudden disappearance of vegetables, I sometimes I think vegans would rather eat humans than animals… Let’s say there’s a locked, ventilated room full of vegans and a healthy chicken, along with a firepit, firewood, kindling, matches, and a spit.
When does the rubber hit the road for the chicken?
I think there’d be quite an long period of suffering while the vegans hugged the chicken. But eventually, instinct would take over. Wouldn’t it, vegans? Wouldn’t it?
I should have mentioned that because of an allergy, I’ve been forced on a glutten-free diet. No wheat products. It’s a nightmare.
But hey I’m all for free-range chickens. But, in a sense, isn’t that what Vegan-Americans are anyway? Free-range chickens? I’m subconsciously conflicted I guess
ok sorry, cheap shot.
With so much happening in the world, I just can’t get fired up about dietary advocacy. Don’t want to eat meat? Don’t eat meat. Cruelty is wrong, sure, but people are starving. That’s pretty cruel. It is what it is.
My chickens live the happy life: they are truly free-ranging in their natural habitat on our 5-acre woodland homestead. Most roost in the henhouse but several prefer to roost in trees. And the eggs that we don’t find by errant layers provide food for wildlife. Our Great Pyrenees watches over them and keeps the foxes and marauding dogs away. But our chickens also work: our flock of 25 help me with weeding, pest control (they will even eat Japanese beetles!), fertilizing, and tilling our garden during the dormant season. I protect the garden space with inexpensive mesh barriers during the growing season. They also are very good at turning over the compost heap and cleaning up under our fruit trees.
And they are so much fun to watch!
Their eggs have deep orange yolks and in appearance, taste and texture are quite superior to the eggs you get at the grocery store.
We occasionally need to slaughter extra cockerels or an older hen. However, up to the very moment of their demise, they are able to live a great chicken life.
To live in harmony with the other living things — including the human kind — requires thoughtfulness, compassion, respect, appreciation, and a big helping of humility.
aquietman writes:
“Animals do not have as much a right to life as we do. I will agree that while they are alive they have the right to live in as healthy a environment as possible. But they do not have rights beyond that.”
Now, you can see why it took the human civilization millenia to disavow slavery. Replace animals by slaves and it generates an apparently plausible argument for slavery.
It is time the human civilization discarded ethical systems based on a “hierarchy of beings” in favor of ethical systems based on a “hierarchy of actions and values.”
aquietman: “It is possible for us to figure out what nature intended just on how our teeth and digestive systems evolved. We are natural meat eaters, and that is a matter of scientific fact, not some moral pontificating.”
- Intention presupposes an intelligent conscious agent. To ascribe intent to some notion of nature one must first demonstrate that the notion in question, is in effect a “who,” capable of active thought. Further, one must demonstrate why any person must follow the dictates of this entity to overcome the “Argument from authority” fallacy.
- Evolution is a bad example to use as evidence for your position. At best, evolution provides information of how organisms adapted to environmental stresses. Different organisms adapt to similar stresses differently. What we observe are the results of this interaction.
- Even granting that the “hierarchy of beings is okay,” and accepting “evolution as evidence of so-called intent” one runs up against the fact that while the human body can consume meat, it performs better on a plant-based vegan diet [Ref: The China Study - by Colin Campbell]. By the logic you have hitherto employed, you should switch to a vegan diet based on the aforementioned fact alone, as your formulation would be something like “Nature intends for us to go vegan as the human body performs better on a plant based diet, and we should only eat meat when there are no other options.”
Maybe it is time simply say that you eat meat because you choose/like to do so. But, this would require you to jettison the “argument by authority” you appear to like very much.
The big risk is that the capitalists will inflate land prices, hire more illegals at rock bottom wages, and shift the petro-chemicals from the corn/bean fields to the rangeland. Instead of giant tractors spewing toxins and carbon, giant platoons of “range rovers” with mechanical arms to pluck ripe animals will spew even more. Instead of little cages for the animals, miles and miles of electric fences blocking wild migrations. Instead of highly productive trees producing feed, inefficient trade secret annual pastures that require irrigation will be planted.
More water, check. More materials, check. More labor, check. More petroleum, check. More bank loans, check. More concentration of the market, power and control into fewer hands, check. All this is necessary for economic growth, the capitalist tells the farmer. The farmer nods in agreement, but does not benefit.
Progressives want industrial modes to mature and stabilize for maximum benefit to the people. The capitalist wants a constant evolution of industrial modes, yet another dimension of “tail wag dog”. Constant change means constant recycling, reinvention, readjustment to new ways of doing things, not better ways, just different ways. It keeps the people distracted from what they really want. It keeps maximum volume of dollars churning in the economy. This is the engine of empire and plunder, not the engine of peace and prosperity.
Progressives should advocate a holistic approach to food that starts with land ownership for as many people as possible. We want a large scale replication of small scale ownership/production, not driven by profits but by ecological, economical, political sustainability and stability.
My arguments were never for or against veganism or vegetarianism. I fully respect people’s right to avoid animal foods if they choose, and I have spent some years of my life choosing only vegetarian foods.
My issue is with the “vegetarianism/veganism is an answer to environmental problems and/or can save the planet” mantra. This website has published several opinion pieces along that line. And I have never seen one of these advocates promote home gardens and small local farms. In fact, one author sang the merits of Burger King’s garden burger as an environmental alternative.
It simply is not true that vegetarianism is environmentally or morally superior if you don’t address how those vegetables are obtained. It is patent nonsense. And the idea that people don’t have to kill animals because they can go to the grocery store is not intelligent or sane as an environmental argument.
Environmentally, and we are really going to need the environment to continue this discussion into the future, otherwise it’s all moot anyway, vegetarianism based on grocery store/development shopping and large scale farming is damaging to the planet and to future generations.
If the environment is a moral issue, and I believe it is, then eating meat in an environmentally responsible manner is morally superior to irresponsible veganism. Veganism that is dependent on the huge environmental drain required by a consumer culture is irresponsible. Be a producer, grow your own, promote home gardening along with being a vegan, and your morality arguments will have more merit.
Plants only supply B-12 to humans when the soil containing B-12-producing microorganisms has not been washed from them. Vegan humans who eat only washed vegetables must take special care to supplement their diets accordingly. - wikipedia
It appears that humans evolved getting their B-12 from the dirt on their plant food. They had to compete with hebivores for these plants so they killed them, and to keep the scavengers away they ate the kill. Their omnivorous diet probably helped them achieve the “royal” feat of dominating the planet. In an era of over-population and over-consumption, humans can lighten their footprints by eating unwashed plants. Dirt GOOD!! (we really need the ratio of risk/reward)
Resumption of fox hunting?
Aristocrat Mr. Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, or his free-range chickens could tell us.
perceptionexperiment:
Thanks for that tirade and tangents… I guess… but to what end? Did anyone here validate PETA to compel you to start whining about them? Most of the people on this thread are able to think beyond their framework or whatever it is that sets you off.
And let’s listen to everyone’s endearing arguments that their local meat is the cat’s meow. Well, it is. And it’s a sustainable choice. I’d decline it for grains/beans/whatever, but people that have it, cool.
But don’t call hypocrisy on vegans/vegetarians for seeing the bigger picture that not everyone can have ethical meat. It’s ultimately “elite meat,” which is again fine, but not possible for everyone.
Therefore… if you want to practice some consistency across the entire population, little or no meat consumption is really the only humane choice. Or you’ll have your yuppies with their organic grass-fed, and the poor folks will still be buying the Valu-Pac torture-roast, because that’s just the way it is.
—–
youbetterwork:
Veganism’s best only if you’re well to do? What stereotypes and/or rocks have you been hiding under?
About 60 years ago I ate my first chicken on the farm where it was raised as a TRUE free-range animal. Before I reached school age, our cruelty as a species had become a problem for me. Not long after that, became a vegetarian. There are still times I have an impulse for some “southern fried,” but then the idea makes me want to throw up, too. I’ve seen the videos, but I’ve seen it in person - everyone who wants to eat meat should have to do the same.
it’s still murder. and anyone who eats meat is the living grave of the murdered animal……….
http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/extension/newsletter/hortupdate/julaug01/art5jul.html
Someone should really tell these people to become vegans:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/01/080122-refugees-bushmeat.html
Then all our problems would be solved. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention they eat dogs in Korea and the Philippines, and probably elsewhere. Wildlife is disappearing (being eaten or used in “medicine”) all over Asia. The point, my vegan friends, is that your choices - some of you even call them sacrifices - aren’t doing anything about these real problems, although I’m sure they make you feel better. I despair of ever finding solutions to these problems because people do not want to engage, preferring instead to retreat in their own cocoons. And, frankly, I do the same thing because it’s so hard to take. At least, in England, someone did something and it had a real impact.
merwan:
You asked for a citation for AdeleTheCzech’s mention of purported plant consciousness. I believe ATC was referring to Dorothy Retallack’s experiments of 1973, but you might also find Cleve Backster’s experiments an interesting diversion.
There’s also the well-known book The Secret Life of Plants and a movie that used the book as its basis with some interesting time-lapse clips.
I won’t promise they’ll change anyone’s opinion on the question of plant sentience, but they’re interesting nonetheless, if you’re the curious sort. I think the whole issue is moot and speciesist myself, with much more important facets to the problems of being an overpopulating omnivorous species.
Thanks, wonderingyou, for the links. Interesting stuff.
Thoughtful Shaman said:
” Even granting that the “hierarchy of beings is okay,” and accepting “evolution as evidence of so-called intent” one runs up against the fact that while the human body can consume meat, it performs better on a plant-based vegan diet [Ref: The China Study - by Colin Campbell]. By the logic you have hitherto employed, you should switch to a vegan diet based on the aforementioned fact alone, as your formulation would be something like “Nature intends for us to go vegan as the human body performs better on a plant based diet, and we should only eat meat when there are no other options.”
I ‘m sorry, there’s just no truth to that statement. There is no evidence that the human body runs better on plant food than meat. There is a mountain of evidence that it runs better on meat than on plant food. Thus what you call ‘logic’ is illogical.
As for the hierarchy of beings.. come on now. When you all start stating that you consider a kitten or a rat to be equally as important as a human child (or any age for that matter), and to have the same rights….. that is when I say you are spouting nonsense. Furthermore, comparing an animal being killed for food to the misery of human slavery to me is just idiotic. To most of us, it is obvious the human slave is several notches higher in the hierarchy of beings. I think trying to compare the slaughter of an animal to human suffering is an insult to those who have suffered in slavery.
aquietman March 1st, 2008 1:41 pm
–”I ‘m sorry, there’s just no truth to that statement. There is no evidence that the human body runs better on plant food than meat. There is a mountain of evidence that it runs better on meat than on plant food.”
This is one of the sadder displays of ignorance I’ve seen in a while.
Seems to me that everything I’ve read and [pun intended] digested points to the idea that the human body runs better on a combination of mostly plants and a little meat. Rebel Farmer got it right (IMHO) with the idea of balance. The U.K. is discovering that they’re way out of balance–that was my take on the article, at least.
aruca5ive–right on. Most nutritionists advise eating as little meat (and other animal products) as possible. To those with allergies to soy, nuts, wheat, etc., try rice and beans–so simple and nourishing. There is plenty of protein available in many grains and legumes. There is also a gross misrepresentation in the corporate “food” industry of how much protein humans need. Meat-eaters generally consume way too much which leads to kidney failure and other health problems. The point is, if you want to eliminate animal products from your diet, it’s very simple to do so. If you care about the suffering of animals, you will. That’s why vegans are so passionate about our lifestyle–we genuinely do care. And we also care deeply about human suffering. Most vegans/vegetarians that I know are far more politically involved than the average meat-eater.
Also, while there may be more important issues to focus on, choosing to eat consciously and compassionately is one thing each individual can do to make the world a less vicious place. And a healthy activist is a more effective activist.
Obviously, there are those humans who want to eat meat…no matter how much impact raising and slaughtering vast amounts of animals has on the planet…
but…when aquafiers are drained…when shipping and handling costs really soar… well, maybe then, Americans will cut down on their 3 + meals a day each containing large amounts of meat…
Awareness that Americans do eat a disproportionately large amount of meat is a step that some of us haven’t made yet.
All one has to do is go to a restaurant and watch the amount of food that is left on plates to be thrown out or go into any school cafeteria and watch the garbage cans fill with tossed lunches and one starts to realize how much we waste and how those animals have gone through miserable lives and equally miserable deaths to be thrown into the land fill…then multiply what you’ve just seen by the number of schools and restaurants that exist in just America…the numbers are stunning…
For those hard core meat eaters or those who think they need to eat meat…take the time to know your meat…raise it from infancy and know what it eats and where it has lived…and then slaughter it…use all of it, skin, bones, teeth…It makes one appreciate the meat and the animal that much more…(it also tastes a thousand times better than the cardboard factory farmed meat does) It also makes one appreciate all of the work that a rancher has to do to get that steak to your plate…these are small steps in becoming more aware…
To those Vegans and Vegetarians, be gentle to the human animals as well, for “they know not what they do”…words spoken by a man who raised havoc in a temple because they were selling animals for ritual sacrifice…
We all live on this planet together…none of us is more than the other.. all of us are leaving large carbon footprints all over the place….we all kill things on a daily basis…be it the bug on the windshield or the squished one we walked on…we cannot judge anyone but ourselves…and all of us can only try to do our best to become more aware of how each of our actions has an impact….Blessed Be the Peacemakers.
I think that the graph in the original article says a lot. If the actual volume of sales were plotted on the graph instead of the misleading change in volume, the number of free range birds sold would hardly show up. This type of disceptive propaganda runs rampant with liberal fools. Note that I did not say “with liberals” just “liberal fools”. Humans are designed to eat some meat. It is possible to avoid meat in the diet, but it is tough to maintain good health. That said, most Americans eat too much meat as well as too much of everything else. Food production that uses less land leaves more land for natural habitats. If folks want to raise free-range livestock and people want to but these animals then fine. But don’t pretend that this results in healthier food or a better environment.
“It is possible to avoid meat in the diet, but it is tough to maintain good health.”
This is false. One does not need to eat meat at all to maintain good health. You may be confusing vegan with vegetarian. The vegan diet needs to find a good source of B12 (the only complication), which is not a problem in vegetarian diets.
aquietman, Aruca5ive and others have addressed the incorrectness of “There is no evidence that the human body runs better on plant food than meat.” Therefore, there is no need to address it again, except to say that you might want to read the “The China Study” to be better informed. The book very nicely presents that good health is not the same as efficiency of food absorption, which is the mistake that meat eaters make.
“To most of us, it is obvious the human slave is several notches higher in the hierarchy of beings. I think trying to compare the slaughter of an animal to human suffering is an insult to those who have suffered in slavery.”
You missed the point entirely - The argument focuses on the agents that perpertrate those acts, not on the beings that suffer the obvious and easily discernable consequences.
I advocate the transition away from the “hierarchy of beings”, and instead recommend a “hierarchy of actions/values.” Your argument is further evidence of how that failed framework defines current thinking in society. The same framework that justified human slavery, justifies flying planes into buildings, and justifies the subjugation and harvesting of animals who for the most part, will be fine without our interference; the theme of “‘they’ are less than ‘us’.”
The common thread of your posts argues that “it is not wrong to eat meat.” The point, in this context, is that we ought to question whether “eating meat is right.” There is a difference between “avoiding the wrong thing” and “doing the right thing.”
i would never argue that humans are a vegan species since in nature we would probably eat whatever we needed to to survive. however, it is interesting to note that humans are the ONLY primate, be it monkey or ape, that eats a primarily animal based diet. chimps eat approximately 95-98% plant foods and there is some anecdotal evidence that the hunting we now see is a learned behavior from watching humans.
Eating meat is not the only thing we do differently than our primate cousins. Hunting is considered by some to be one of the fundimental behaviours that started us on a seperate evolutionary path. It allowed us to develope large, protein-guzzling brains. Some have used this “intelligence” to deny themselves this protein. Plant protein is available, but it is harder to maintain good health without some animal products in the diet. This observation is in no way meant to advocate our current diets. We eat too much and much of it is bad for us.
“Hunting is considered by some to be one of the fundimental behaviours that started us on a seperate evolutionary path.”
Humans started eating meat out of desperation. There was little else to eat so we SCAVENGED what we could. Once this occurred, and specifically once we started cooking the meat, we became addicted. Humans have very little ability to take down many animals with our bare hands so we developed tools. Evolution doesn’t create tools, if we are to believe current thought on the subject, it creates longer canines and sharper claws, stronger muscles and straighter intestines. These are just a few of the characteristics of meat eating animals. Humans go to extraordinary lengths to make their meat taste like anything but meat. We can’t stomach raw carcass. Take the A-1 slogan as a prime example:
“yeah, it’s that important!”
If we were meat eaters we would love the thought of taking down an elk with our bare hands, tearing into its throat until it lie motionless, ripping into its intestines and devouring it from the inside out while its heart was still beating. But we don’t. NOBODY is sickened to their core at the thought of eating an apple.
Eating raw meat is common among primitive societies and among a minority of people in “civilized” societies. Among the first tools created by man were weapons to take down game. Evolution of the brain (among some) also occurs. Man developed as a hunter-gatherer, not as a gatherer. If you don’t want to eat meat then that is your choice. We also now commonly detest furs. Don’t confuse instinct with conditioned responses. We cook meat to kill pathogens. Duh…
Mr. Obvious says it is “harder” to maintain good health without some animal products in the diet. Is that because it’s easier to slap a piece of meat on the fire than to eat a varied diet of fruits, vegetables, legumes and grains? I guess the answer is yes, if one is focused on convenience. I’m sure the average vegan is healthier than the average meat eater.
Are averages the measure that you want to use to measure success? Based on averages, evolution is false. I prefer to use the the intelligent members of a group. Eating a predominent meat diet is neither smart nor healthy. Including some meat in a diet is both smart and healthy. I do not support our gluttonous society, nor do I support neo pagans. A little meat is healthy, too much is very bad. Go figure….
carnivores do not need to “kill pathogens”. duh…
“carnivors do not need to “kill pathogens”. Duh duh duh, pathogens kill carnivors every day. Duh duh duh, what planet do you live on? Bigger brains must have skipped a generation.
Well, I can spell “carnivores”…
I’m proud of you. You should compete in a spellig bee. I am a very poor speller. Must be a brain worm that I got from eating raw meat.
Based on the “if it needs to be cooked its an unatural food” hypothesis, you better eliminate kidney beans and soybeans from your diet. Meat can stay since unlike these raw beans, uncooked meat does not contain compounds (proteins -lectins and protease inhibitors) that will poison us.
Aren’t you the one that said we cook our meat to “kill pathogens”? Are those not “compounds that will poison us”? Look, if you want to eat meat, you know as well as everyone else that that is your choice, but it is just that. A CHOICE. Animal products are unnecessary to human survival. My wife and I have been thriving on a vegan diet for 6 years and our 14 month old daughter seems to be doing just fine. Yes, we take a b-12 supplement due to the sterile environment we live in and that is just fine by me. Like I said, if you can take down an animal with your bare hands, bite into its throat until it lie motionless, tear into its intestines and devour it from the inside out while its heart is still beating, more power to you. 99.999% of the world population cannot which leads me to believe we are a vegetarian species. Again, I would never argue that humans are a vegan species. In the wild we would eat what we needed to to survive. I agree that a vegan diet is best if you grow your own food but that’s not practical for many people myself included. When we have our own house, soon I hope, I do plan on growing a lot of our own food. So in the meantime we go to farmer’s markets and the grocery store and do the best we can to lessen our impact on the environment. I try not to judge people who eat meat; I did for 26 years. NOBODY is sickened to their core at the thought of eating an apple.
Nobody is sickened to the core at the thought of eating an apple but some are actually sickened to the core. Those with allergy to apples (yes this is actually a common allergy) cannot eat apples. Your choice to be a vegan is fine with me. We evolved with tools like spears, so your tangential rant about taking animals without tools is irrelevant. We eat meat (muscle) not intestines. We also eat choice organs like the liver. Eating the heart raw while still beating is a common ritual among primitive cultures. I wish you good luck on your home purchase. My wife and and I actually bought our land/farm while still renting. We are high intensity vegetable farmers allowing us to convert 90% of our farm to natural habitats. You may not like my philosophy, but I think you might approve of our actions. We have put in a pond, three wetlands and over 25,000 trees. And yes, I hunt and eat what we kill. However, we support far more animals than I take and the poulations are growing. Meat is a natural food for humans, but we can do without it if we take suplliments and are very careful. The unnatural argument just does not fly.
P.S. Pathogens are not produced by animals but are commonly present, similar to fungal toxins in corn (e.g. aflatoxin - really bad toxin). This does not rule out corn as an evolutionarily important food. All raw kidney beans are toxic. Sorry, but fire has been with us for a while.