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TechnoratiIt's the Meat-Eating, Stupid
How's this for a timely quote: "(It) was the year I decided to find out why people were hungry in the world. The experts were telling us that the population problem was the cause of scarcity. The truth was, we were feeding a third of the world's grain to livestock, and with little return."
That was Frances Moore Lappe, author of "Diet for a Small Planet." The year was 1968.
Since then, meat consumption around the world has risen exponentially. As with our thirst for oil, Americans lead the way when it comes to chomping animal flesh, and by a long shot. As the public dialogue reels over the question of food vs. fuel, it's a good time to look in the mirror, like it or not.
Depending on who's doing the estimating, Americans hammer down something between one-half and three-quarters of a pound of meat per person per day. Some of those big boys eating ribs heaped on their plates at the local buffet probably raise the average for the rest of us.
Groups like People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals are quick to preach about this. PETA often seems to be a PR train wreck of its own making, but Bruce Friedrich, the group's vice president for campaigns, makes some points that really ought to enter the public discussion if we're going to seriously consider food vs. fuel.
Friedrich notes that the amount of grain being fed to animals worldwide is about eight times the amount going for biofuels. He cites a recent United Nations report, "Livestock's Long Shadow," which concludes that eating meat is "one of the most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global."
The report claims that eating meat causes almost 40 percent more greenhouse gas emissions than all the cars, trucks, and planes in the world combined. It concludes that the meat industry "should be a major policy focus when dealing with problems of land degradation, climate change and air pollution, water shortage and water pollution, and loss of biodiversity."
In PETA's inimical fashion, Friedrich goes on to list a number of reasons to eliminate meat consumption that won't sell with most people. These are the guilt-laced arguments that draw the usual guffaws from a public wedded to its food-eating habits, which are driven by a complex mix of cultural and social factors, economic status, family traditions and, yes, government policies. But on a personal health level, he argues effectively that heart disease, cancer and obesity are closely linked to our meat-heavy diets.
Groups like PETA seek to make a moral issue out of the act of eating meat. The food vs. fuel debate focuses more on the moral implications of the consequences of our dietary choices. It is not a subtle difference. In a carefully worded sentence, the U.S. Department of Agriculture says, "The types and amounts of food an individual chooses to eat not only affect his or her well-being, but also have implications for society as a whole."
Americans aren't about to stop eating meat, and that's a good thing for the Wisconsin livestock industry, an underpinning of our agriculture. But since 1970, just after Frances Moore Lappe first explored food scarcity, Americans have increased annual meat consumption by about 22 pounds a person, according to the USDA. We've undoubtedly become more sedentary in that same period, and undeniably our waist sizes have bulged.
Just as we are finally beginning to come to terms with the great fossil fuels bender we've been on, we can look for some incremental and easily achieved changes in other behaviors that affect a world well beyond our doorsteps. We can't really separate one from any of the others.
Gidon Eshel, a geophysicist at the Bard Center in Denver, and Pamela A. Martin, an assistant professor of geophysics at the University of Chicago, offer a bit of positive perspective. They say that if Americans were to reduce meat consumption by just 20 percent, it would be the equivalent of switching from a standard sedan to a Prius. In both cases, we would also save some jingle in a difficult economy.
Bill Berry of Stevens Point writes a semimonthly column for The Capital Times.
© 2008 Capital Newspapers
66 Comments so far
Show AllI know that sheep and cattle emit copious amounts of methane. That's why we have to eat as much of these animals as we can as quick as we can. Vegetarians aren't helping this issue1
@rickster469
120 gallons of water does seem a lot to produce 1 egg, but this factoid came from the Department of Interior (read the link I gave).
Maybe it takes a LOT of water to clean all the bird sh*t off the egg.
Rickster469:
"He's got land to do three or four times that many but he says there's no money in it."
Well that is the whole issue right there isn't it. There is idle farmland all over North/South America.
And its idle because in terms of dollar profit - its not worth the effort.
Rickster:
You are right there about the corn. I try to buy off a farmers market when I can.
I have listed this before Edible Wild Plants. Peterson field guide. Look it up if you want natural NO CHEMICAL foods THAT ARE FREE. When you think about it, ALL plants that farmers or home growers plant started as a wild plant in a field or forest at one time. Then get back to eating it.
tech2 May 28th, 2008 4:22 pm
Where I live, all the cattlemen hay their best fields, and don't let the cattle on it.
In the part of the country I live in a lot of ranchers don't even have hay fields and only use hay when the weather is bad. Around here there are people who have nothing but hay fields and sell their hay to others. It's even shipped out of state but nobody goes into winter without having some hay stored up. It's not uncommon to get a twelve-inch snow it's just uncommon for it to stay on the ground for more than a few days. Most ranches have a winter pasture where cold tolerant grasses are grown.
I'm not a rancher my self and the ones I know real well only keep up to a hundred head. I know one guy that does pretty well with his thirty head of cattle. He's got land to do three or four times that many but he says there's no money in it. Needless to say he almost always has enough grass to feed his cows year round. I'll tell you this; his grass feed beef makes some of the finest T-bone steaks you have ever eaten. Even the chuck steaks are good and tender.
WTF May 28th, 2008 12:29 pm
120 gallons for 1 egg
Your funny I don't think a chicken could drink a gallon of water in a week much less 120 gallons for each egg they lay on average of once a day. Oh I'm talking about free-range chickens, you know, the ones you let run loose in your back yard. Now the ones that they keep in them giant chicken coops, well they may need 120 gallons of water a day. I wouldn't think so myself. I wonder how many gallons of water a day it take to produce one pound of human. Anybody know?
There again the best tasting eggs and the best tasting chicken comes from free range chickens.
Ergo sum, meat eaters are shit eaters. No wonder meat eaters disgust me so much, and have such bad breath.
Oh goody, one more issue to drive a wedge between people.
Here's a question to ponder: Which type of personalities have been more responsible for pain and suffering - purists or non-purists?
Rickster469
I agree that with proper managment AND the proper level of knowledge and skill the old ways work well. Where I live, all the cattlemen hay their best fields, and don't let the cattle on it. They do spread the manure back onto the field which is the most important part of the cycle.
However, today, feedlots are cheaper because the cost of labour is so high, and feedlots don't require as much manpower.
Its unfortunate becuase I think a lot of young urban teens or young adults would have a great time making a small wage but getting to work on the sort of ranch you are describing.
Same goes for a dairy operation or other farming.
Not as a career, but just an experience for a few years.
That's the only way I can see reducing the labour component, unless you want to have Hispanic slave labour.
alaskamaid, thank you for reminding me about the Alaskan Inuits. Inuits are living much longer these days (average male life expectancy is 63 years) due to medical advances and better nutrition. Prior to the 1970s, the average male life expectancy was 35 years. So if I ate what the Inuits eat, odds are I would have died 30 years ago.
Besides, I have smelt the breath of seals and their pups, so I can guarantee I will not be dating any Inuits.
Food is one of those issues - like religion - that gets people all dogmatic. And or feeling attacked. That's not necessary, but there it is! I really believe that there are many ways to meet the body's nutrition needs. Adaptation has been a key factor in our survival as a species. In the present, as responsible world citizens, it makes sense to understand the impact of our choices and act accordingly. I have been a vegetarian for 35 years and went all the way to vegan now that I am older. This works for me. I am happy and healthy, love my garden, love my farmer's market and know a lot about whole foods. I am married to a man (for 20 years) who does eat meat and we have learned to respect each other's choices. Some people choose to eat locally raised chicken and/or other meat that is free range in moderation. Some people hunt for meat. It seems to me that the key here is being aware. FYI here is some info about nutritional yeast for anyone interested. It can help with protein and the B vitamins. My family loves it!:
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Nutritional yeast from German natural food storeNutritional yeast, similar to brewer's yeast, is a nutritional supplement popular with vegans and the health conscious, who use it as an ingredient in recipes or simply as a condiment. It is a deactivated yeast, usually Saccharomyces cerevisiae. It is produced by culturing the yeast with a mixture of sugarcane and beet molasses, then harvesting, washing, drying and packaging the yeast. It is commercially available in the form of flakes,photo or as a yellow powder similar in texture to cornmeal, and can be found in the bulk aisle of most natural food stores.
Nutritional yeast flakesIt is a source of protein and vitamins, especially the B-complex vitamins. It is also naturally low in fat and sodium. Some brands of nutritional yeast, though not all, are fortified with vitamin B12. The vitamin B12 is produced separately from bacteria and then added to the yeast.
Nutritional yeast has a strong flavor that is described as nutty, cheesy, or creamy, which makes it popular as an ingredient in cheese substitutes. It is often used by vegans in place of parmesan cheese. Another popular use is as a topping for popcorn. Some movie theaters offer it along with salt or cayenne pepper as a popcorn condiment.
In Australia it is sometimes sold as "savory yeast flakes." In Canada it has been known to be called "good tasting yeast". Though "nutritional yeast" usually refers to commercial products, inadequately fed prisoners have used "home-grown" yeast to prevent vitamin deficiency.[1] Nutritional yeast is different from yeast extract, which has a very strong flavour and comes in the form of a dark brown paste. Other species of yeast are used for making beer, wine, and bread
WTF -- then i guess you would be disgusted by the surviving remnants of our Alaskan Inuit peoples, who lived on a marine mammal diet (nothing else around to eat and an extreme climate which required high intake of dietary fat) for millennia ? they are a very wise and peaceable peoples, no word for 'war' in their language,
they dealt with people who were ultimately determined to be a danger to the community by banning them
. . .
humans are adaptavore-omnivores and eating meat has a long history of being a viable survival strategy (just stay away from the monkey brains) -- if you are raising a herd of something, what else are you supposed to do with all the surplus males ? just castrate them and keep feeding them until they die of old age ?
it is interesting that the two plants which produce seeds that are highest in quality and compatability to the amino acids required by humans are also highly controlled and controversial crops -- that would of course be hemp and poppies . . .
The only difference between a piece of meat and a turd is about 10 hours spent in the alimentary canal.
Ergo sum, meat eaters are shit eaters. No wonder meat eaters disgust me so much, and have such bad breath.
The #1 user of water in the US is agribusiness.
- It takes 1500 gallons of water to produce 1 gallon of biofuel.
- It takes 620 gallons of water to produce 1 pound of beef.
- 35 gallons of water for 1 serving of rice, and rice is grown in arid California!
- 120 gallons for 1 egg
- 39,000 gallons for 1 car (not agribusiness, but interesting nevertheless)
http://ga2.er.usgs.gov/edu/sc1action.cfm
Hitler ate squab so he wasnt technically a vegetarian unless you include fowl as a vegetable. Research it.
Bush eats meat, Osama Bin laden eats meat. Al Capone started the first soup kitchens in Chicago.
Being a vegan doesnt make you a saint, but its a helluva alot better than wasting water on livestock. People who advocate that are just selfish.
Anyway I think the reason pro meat arguments are full of BS is because it literally gets into the meat. As an FDA insector said in Gail Eisnitz's Slaughterhouse: first we scraped the shit off the meat. Then we washed the shit off the meat. Now the consumer eats the shit off the meat.
No wonder the smartest character on the Simpsons is vegetarian.
The b 12 myths are debunked at http://animalvegfaq.tripod.com
In fact--all the pro meat arguments are debunked there.
The reason people ignore the logic and morality of veganism is because that's what humans do.
Carl Lewis won gold medals on a vegan diet. Johnny Weismuller won swimming golds on a vegan diet.
Martina Naratilova is a vegan.
there are bodybuilder vegans(google it).
If humans are meant to eat meat as a matter of history and tradition than we are also meant to rape and murder.
You cant live in a vaccum when it comes to basic moral reasoning.
BTW
Oprah is on a 21 day vegan diet and she is speaking very highly of it. That will promote veganism way more than a common dreams article.
Hmm... I thought I posted these links about an hour ago.
http://www.geocities.com/RainForest/2062/ana.HTML
http://dolphin.upenn.edu/~pennenv/greentimes/spring97/nomeat.html
I am a firefighter/EMT in Central Florida. EVERY DAY (I am not exagerrating!) EVERY SINGLE DAY, SEVERAL TIMES EVERY DAY I run medical calls that have to do with cardiac issues (the heart). Not all cardiac, but the VAST MAJORITY have to do with high cholesterol. The VAST MAJORITY OF PATIENTS with high cholesterol have it because of their diet, a meat-based diet, the American diet.
I have NEVER, EVER, EVER ran a medical call to a patient who needed me because their vegetarian or vegan diet caused them to call 911, NEVER, EVER, EVER.
What's ultimately good for the environment is good for us. What's ultimately good for us is good for the environment. We are so entangled with our environment, escape is impossible. When will we learn.
Let's unite already and turn this thing around.
www.oneplanetonelife.com
Another interesting perspective is "Guns, Germs, and Steel" by Jared Diamond. Diamond suggests that one of the reasons for the "success" of Western societies was their animal husbandry. Raising and eating animals that did not compete with human food sources gave the West an edge in a number of ways--including building up immunities to animal-bourne bacteria and viruses.
Hollow point May 28th, 2008 8:16 am
"you will be surprised how just a few herbs, etc can make the food great."
Yea it can even make them bland tasting store bought vegetables taste better. Well I don't think you can do anything to help the taste of bi-color corn.
tech2 May 28th, 2008 6:39 am
If we go back to raising animals on grasslands, and feeding them primarily hay (perhaps finishing them with grain is okay)
The production costs of beef will go up, the quality will go up, but more importantly, it will be sustainable and healthy for both ourselves and the animals.
Actually in the long run production cost go down. The secret is in management of the grasslands. Too many ranchers rely on production equipment to management their grasslands, run too many animals per acre, and wait to long to rotate their animals to different pastures.
The successful ranchers I know and there's not very many of them don't use hay unless the weather turns bad. Far to many ranchers grossly exceed the capacity of their land and have to supplement their herds with hay in the winter. This practice allows you to raise more cattle but on a profit per animal bases is not very cost effective
Most ranchers try to control weeds and brush with brush hogs on the back of their tractors, which actually is beneficial to the brush and weeds. Smart ranchers either own goats, if they have a big enough operation, or rent goats to control weeds and brush. A small heard of goats can almost eliminate a weed or brush problem in a very short time.
No matter how much land you have for ranching it has to be crossed fenced or broken up into several pastures. You never allow the animals to crop the pasture to stubble. Pastures can quickly become over stressed by over grazing that it can take a full season or more to recover.
Smart ranchers can take a poor quality parcel of land and turn it into a productive parcel of land in five years. I've seen good quality land destroyed in less than two. I'm a firm believer that grass feed beef can be raised far cheaper with higher quality with out lowering the amount of animals being produced in the world. All it takes is proper management.
Snow Cap:
Canadian food bland?
OK maybe the cook doesn't know what they are doing in the kitchen or get a new wife or husband. You find India food good because it is cooked different, well you can cook Canadian or American food just the same way. It was so good I lost 20 LBS. I like that line, with Canadian food I have to eat more because of the taste? Probably it was you putting more salt or ketchup or sour cream on the food. Talk to the cook of the house and buy a few cook books and take a cooking class at night school, you will be surprised how just a few herbs, etc can make the food great.
Kem Patrick-excellent, I'm not the only one. Gotta function in the morning and a little chocolate goes a long way...
JaneM, Kernel, Snowcrab and others of like mind - I agree!.
If we go back to raising animals on grasslands, and feeding them primarily hay (perhaps finishing them with grain is okay)
The production costs of beef will go up, the quality will go up, but more importantly, it will be sustainable and healthy for both ourselves and the animals.
However, in the context of our current ecomonic system - how could such a situation ever come about. Until the financial concequences of these high production methods, like feedlots becomes very clear, our system won't make the adjustment.
Added to that the hidden cost is not the ranchers problem, but one that society as a whole bears, so there is even less incentive to move towards sensible agriculutral practices.
This article mentions a reduction, not elimination of meat in our diets would be a good enviromental decision - as a meat eater, I would go for that - I have no problems decreasing my meat consumption. I have to admit sometimes its just too much work to wash and cut vegetables, etc... and meat is easy to cook.
Healthwise I would probably be better off with LESS meat.
I grew up on a farm. Our animals lived a good life until they went to the market. I ate meat until a few months ago when I saw the cruelty on those factory farms. A fork lift driver was trying to lift a downed cow and jammed the fork into the side of the cow. I don't want to be a part of that system anymore.
Chicken and pork chops don't taste very good anymore anyway.
roncypert
You are absolutely right.
Gyptian
Your are correct Humans can not live on veggies or for that matter just meat.
Humans are fruit eaters by nature and thrive on sugar if you can believe that not meat or vegetables.
Plant a fruit tree and save the planet.
life-enhancement.com:
Believe it or not, the richest sources of vitamin B12 are sewage, manure, soil, and mud, which harbor anaerobic bacteria that contain abundant amounts of this vitamin.
Hey that's cool. Maybe someone will try my mud cookies now.
I do not believe anyone can reach optimal health without eating meat. I do know that animals fed on wild grasses are healthier. I will take pasture fed meat anyday over grain fed. But I'll never give up meat.
I would like to find a farmers market or some other exchange program for fruits and vegetables somewhere here on Long Island. But I think that is wishful thinking as the population density is so bad that I haven't even seen any pastures since I left Idaho.
I also want to find farmers who raise organic meat and buy from them, instead of the supermarkets. Even Whole Foods is a dissapointment. But again, I think I'd have to travel far and wide to find that..
iammyself-we buy any meat from our local farmer-it's raised organically and sustainably. Yes, it costs more, but then our household also eats less.
Same here, Recycle1. The only problem is when I go out to eat. I'll have to work on that one.
people are doing amazing things on vacant city lots which puts the lie to food dependence on big ag . . .
I think the move to micro-agriculture is great and necessary, alaskamaid. I'd love to see us give big ag the boot, but of course, it won't happen quickly. It will happen one enlightened person at a time.
The real point, IMO, is that we re-develop local communities where most of what we need can be gotten locally - including most or all of our food.
Obviously, our food chain is crucial to our lives. We need to eat as sustainably as possible, and in that regard, I agree with our vegetarian friends. The only problem with that logic is that so much of our produce is grown and shipped by big ag, which model the totalitarian method of food supply. I think, though, that we can eat some meat - we just need to eat it when it is raised in sustainable and humane ways and on small, local farms. Itsanaziworldorder may be right about being herbivores, but I'm personally not convinced. Maybe I will be at some point. I'll leave my mind open to that.
snow crab -- i agree that one of the main reasons people overeat is that their food is not nutritionally, emotionally or spiritually satisfying . . .
many years ago we had to kill a black bear that had become dangerous and spent a long summer night skinning it out and cutting it up (it was so very old that its teeth were rotting out, which is why it had become a hazard) . . . i was so amazed at the musculature and bone structure underneath the hide . . . it looked exactly like a sumo wrestler, exactly similar bone structure to humans in the paws and feet, and a barrel shaped torso . . . bears are omnivorous and so are we . . .
different types of people have different metabolisms and some may do well on a vegetarian diet but some definitely need meat . . . we used to raise Galloway beef cattle and they are a really nice small farm breed ...
chickens and ducks don't take up much space and are very valuable as egg layers (you will never go back to storebought eggs again after enjoying fresh eggs)
people are doing amazing things on vacant city lots which puts the lie to food dependence on big ag . . .
think globally, eat locally . . .
We didn't eat meat normally before we learned to make fire and cook it.
"Lappee's "Diet" and Pollan's "Omnivore's Dilemma" are good reads."
I still have to read the latter. Check out "Unmentionable Cusine" for another angle.
~Recycle 1~ is greedy.
So am I.
I think what the article is promoting is a reduction in meat eating, not necessarily vegetarianism.
Recycle, I'm with you. Smaller quantities and higher quality.
Unfortunately, most people perceive paying more for higher quality food to be a waste of money, which is a really sad thing.
American agriculture has two things going for it that allows monoculture, many more hours of sunshine than in more northerly altitudes and those great flat central plains.
Farmers in other parts of the world with lumpier geography and less hours of sunshine have to operate in a more strategic manner and produce much more food per acre. But this industrial agriculture process, that only works well in a very few areas of the globe has been forced down the throats of indigenous people all around the globe by the World Bank and that whole cabal of rich people who only think of maximizing paper money, (electronic now) at the cost of real product. Since the only thing that matters to them is money, the only way an individual can hurt them is by refusing to give them money.
iammyself-we buy any meat from our local farmer-it's raised organically and sustainably. Yes, it costs more, but then our household also eats less.
YES!!! I drink coffee. I also eat chocolate. Call me greedy, but I refuse to give those luxuries up.
I'm an omnivore and I don't have much of a problem with that. What I do have a problem with is the fact that I don't always verify where my meat comes from. The meat I buy is raised locally on small farms with plenty of room. It is either organically fed, or natural (not organic, but no hormones or antibiotics).
I do know that I could eat less meat, and will strive to do so. I will also strive to know where my meat comes from.
As far as the biggest contributors to global warming and disease - I think we'll never know because everyone has their own agenda - including myself. AFAIC, meat is a problem only when it is raised in a totalitarian way. Most of our produce in the industrialized world is raised in a totalitarian way. Our food - 99 percent of it - is under lock and key and we are forced to support the totalitarian culture that produces it. If we don't grow or hunt or gather our own food, we are serfs under totalitarian agricultural rule and splitting hairs about what we eat means little.
In traditional food economies, still practiced in developing countries, animals graze on land too rough and steep to cultivate or graze areas that need a break from and refertilization following intensive cropping.
On the northern prairies where the season is so short one setback can put paid to an entire wheat crop cattle are turned into the fields to eat those plants which will not now mature in time to produce a grain crop. Up to 1/4 of the fields in Alberta and Saskachewan that were originally planted to field crops end up feeding cattle because of weather issues.
Raising meat animals can be a very valuable strategy to maximize food production efficiency from a given portion of land. And this meat is pretty healthy and well excercised. Tasty too.
However consumers want that fat laden, soft fiber, neutral tasting meat you get from animals who get no exercise and eat very high calorie, low bulk, neutral tasting grain. Feed lots are about maximizing volume, not quality. You are what you eat, consumers are turning into fat laden, soft muscle fiber animals from a high calorie, low bulk, low taste diet.
The smart ones figure this out and pay lots more for range fed meat and organically grown vegetables from heritage seeds. They get more taste with every bite and are satisfied sooner. Fat is cheap, that's why agra business pushes it so hard.
On my first trip to India I lost twenty pounds eating middle class Indian food. I ate far less volume because every bite was so flavorful I was satisfied far sooner than I would be on a bland Canadian food. I use lots more herbs and spices now. They are very economical and some can even be grown on the kitchen counter. You make choices about the economy every time you go shopping.
The whole meat eater versus vegan/vegetarian is just a red herring that distracts and polarizes people and leads to no workable solution.
"Growing food to grow food is stupid."
All that poster was trying to say is that using one linear food production process (growing grain) as an input to another food production process (feeding livestock) is inefficient, and therefore stupid.
There have been a couple of comments on here so far that brought it up, but even the UN mentioned that all of the problems brought up in their report pertain to the industrial meat system.
Thus, the pasture-raised grass-finished kinds of meats from local farmers and ranchers are not necessarily the kind that are causing all of the problems. Nor are the wild meats eaten by hunters.
Therefore this issue does not have to degenerate to the typical absurdity of the debates between folks of different diets, but don't hold your breath.
"Growing food to grow food is stupid."
I'm not sure if I entirely get that one, either, but I think I do understand the main point of Treefitz's post, which is that he or she is delineating and/or satirizing the various possible viewpoints that various people have regarding this topic: some people are vegans, some are mostly vegetarians but eat some animal protein, some eat lots of meat, some think it's more important to grow food to feed cars than it is to grow food to feed humans, some think we are part of nature and some think we are not, some think that eating meat is bad for their health and some think that not eating meat is bad for their health.
So I guess the point is that everyone is different and therefore each person has their own way of looking at the eating meat or not eating meat question, so there's no one perfect answer that will make everyone happy. So we each have to do what will make us happy - and what makes us happy won't necessarily make everyone else happy.
dustin-- I am pretty sure PETA doesn't "make" that claim ... they are citing a UN Report, called "Livestocks Long Shadow" ... if you can "debunk" a consensus document like that one, i think the meat industry would like to hire you, as I know of no such rebuttal. Congrats on limiting your intake of meat and dairy!
Anyway
People are socialized to believe many different things, and the idea that meat eating is a necessary component to the diet is one of them. It is incredible to see the ferocity that some people will defend their right to animal flesh with, while completely ignoring the hazards it creates. Sure, vegans need to get some B12--but that is nitpicking compared to the disaster that is heart disease and cancer. As long as vitamin b12 can be fortified into soy milk and such, that argument (if done with the idea of preserving the status quo on the meat inudstry as a whole) is useless.
I do take issue with the part of the article stating that PETA uses arguments that "do not sell with most people." Unfortunately, and I wish I could conduct a poll to validate this, but it is my feeling that more people go vegetarian because they disapprove of the cruelty and slaughter involved. I say unfortunately because, as it turns out, people in the west seem to not care if their diet makes some kids in Africa or Haiti starve to death. "Shouldn't be having so many kids," they say. Our world could be fed many times over if we all adopted a vegetarian diet. Is it going to happen? No. Ever? Probably not. But is that a true statement? YES. Deal with it all you meat apologists. Returning again to the "moral" argument-- It seems that many people cannot handle watching animals be slaughtered, and could never fathom gutting a dead animal let alone actually killing it themselves. I personally (yes I know, this is very unscientific) have two friends who became vegetarians because of the compassion for animals alone, two more who it was a direct combination of the human consequences and compassion for animals arguments, and one who did it simply for environmental reasons. (She is a biologist, who to this day says she doesn't really care about killing the animals, just the devastating impact it has on the environment) Once again, I realize this is hardly a representative sample, but I think it is more accurate than Bill Berry might be admitting.
Once the social distance is removed, and once the vocabulary actually represents what you are eating, many people are extremely turned off by the idea of meat. The only thing they hold on to is that they HAVE to eat meat, it is NECESSARY. It is not.
But just to make it clear, you are entitled to eat whatever you want. Just know the consequences.
"As long as there are slaughterhouses, there will be battlefields" -Leo Tolstoy
I think that the key issue remains answering the question, Do we decline as a species because our actions were prideful and greedy or do we decide to make some ethical decisions and perhaps decline less rapidly? From what I can tell, many of the alleged progressives on this site will only succumb to market pressure, fighting tooth and nail to maintain their wasteful lives. I don't pity those poor fools. I just want them to go away.
>> TreeFitz: If we overburden our ecosystem with inefficient food production, we'll die out. Growing food to grow food is stupid.
Huh? How is growing food less efficient food production than feeding livestock?
And... growing food to grow food... stupid? Like gardening? Vegetable farming? Planting apple trees? TreeFitz, How do you expect to be fed?
Or, maybe I don't understand what you're trying to say.
Growing food (grain) to grow food is an extremely inefficient way to feed humans. We grow grain and then feed it to cattle. If we used the grain to feed humans, presto! the end of hunger.
I don't understand why so many humans don't understand that we human animals are subject to the laws of nature, just like everything else on this planet. We are not gods. We are animals.
If we overburden our ecosystem with inefficient food production, we'll die out.
Growing food to grow food is stupid.
I don't think humans need to stop eating meat altogether. Our economic ecosystem would collapse very dangerously if everyone stopped eating meat all at once. I don't advocate vegetarianism, not at all.
If the statistics in this column are accurate -- and I think they are -- if the average Americana really does eat eight to twelve ounces of meat every single day, guess what? That is not sustainable and it's not healthy. Has anyone ever heard of cholesterol?
If you want to get B-12 from vegetable sources only, the only truly safe way to do it is to grow your own garden and to not wash your produce too thoroughly. B-12 is found in the soil, in the form of the bacteria that live there, so if you don't wash your veggies too thoroughly, especially tubers like potatoes and carrots, you'll get enough B-12, which your body needs only very small amounts of. If you don't want to do that you should probably either take vitamin supplements or eat some animal protein. This site's george w bush went into this in far greater detail than I have, though, so you might want to take a look at his post.
But the real point of this article is that we eat far too much meat for the sake of our health and our environment. And there's no getting around the reality of this.
The last paragraph in the article pretty much says it all:
"Gidon Eshel, a geophysicist at the Bard Center in Denver, and Pamela A. Martin, an assistant professor of geophysics at the University of Chicago, offer a bit of positive perspective. They say that if Americans were to reduce meat consumption by just 20 percent, it would be the equivalent of switching from a standard sedan to a Prius. In both cases, we would also save some jingle in a difficult economy."
Ok it takes 32 litres of water to grow the beans for that morning coffee. How many above posters drink coffee? Sorry I only eat Canadian beef. It is allowed to walk around eat grass and I am having some tonight.
A price floor for farmers! Will help them switch from less commodity crops (forgot the word) like corn and soy, and will also make feasible small scale meat production. I have a minimum wage. Why doesn't a farmer? (Rhetorical question)
Small scale meat farming is the way to go. Oh, and screw the 'new' (and old) Food Pyramid.
Personally, I am currently severely limiting my meat and dairy intake- mainly to loose weight, and it works! It is hard, mostly to break the cravings, especially when there aren't many 'filling' choices at restaurants, and grocery veg/soy sections are not that impressive… but it's Farmer's Market season!!! Yeah!!
A while back, I had to debunk PETA's claim of 40% worldwide carbon emissions- more than all the cars…….. Yes, the industry is a big polluter, but it does a disservice to the car problem and those fighting that…. I'm gonna havta find my stats again…..
You must have B12. It is ridicuolous to say otherwise.
Food and environmental management is a balance... and we have become unbalanced. Is meat-eating the cause? No. People have eaten meat without our current problems. I like my steak and BBQ as much as the next guy. The problem is the AMOUNT of meat we eat and that we are feeding our food to the animals to produce it.
So... we coop our critters into little pens (because they are so many) and feed them corn, hormones and antibiotics in order to meet the insane demand. Is there really any question that this is not good?
The bigger and more immediate problem is that we are now burning our food for fuel... to run our cars, hair-dryers, and computers.
I find it baffling that so many on this site, supposedly progressives, are so resistant to the premise of this article. Whether you give a damn about animal cruelty or not, the author shows that raising livestock for food is a huge contributor to greenhouse gases and world hunger. It is worse than all planes, trains and automobiles combined. And yet, people continue to whine "We're meant to eat meat," "We can't be healthy without meat," "We'll get sick without meat," ad nauseam. What a joke. Most heart disease and many cancers can be directly blamed on eating meat. It makes about as much sense as someone saying, "We're meant to drive Hummers."
micah 303 writes...
".and B12?…..a non-issue…..once your body is used to not having it, you dont need it….."
Ignore your body's use for B12 at your own risk.
Vitamin B-12 deficiency can potentially cause severe and irreversible damage to the brain and nervous system. At levels only slightly lower than normal, a range of symptoms such as fatigue, depression, and poor memory may be experienced. However, these symptoms by themselves are too nonspecific to diagnose deficiency of the vitamin.
Vitamin B-12 deficiency has the following pathomorphology and symptoms:
Pathomorphology includes: A spongiform state of neural tissue along with edema of fibers and deficiency of tissue. The myelin decays, along with axial fiber. In later phases, fibric sclerosis of nervous tissues occurs. Those changes apply to dorsal parts of the spinal cord, and to pyramidal tracts in lateral cords.
In the brain itself, changes are less severe: they occur as small sources of nervous fibers decay and accumulation of astrocytes, usually subcortically located, an also round hemorrhages with a torus of glial cells. Pathological changes can be noticed as well in the posterior roots of the cord and, to lesser extent, in peripheral nerves.
Clinical symptoms : The main syndrome of vitamin B-12 deficiency is Addison's disease and Biermer's disease (pernicious anemia). It is characterized by a triad of symptoms:
1) Anemia with bone marrow promegaloblastosis (Megaloblastic anemia)
2) Gastrointestinal symptoms
3) Neurological symptoms
Each of those symptoms can occur either alone or along with others. The neurological complex, defined as myelosis funicularis, consists of the following symptoms:
1) Impaired perception of deep touch, pressure and vibration, abolishment of sense of touch, very annoying and persistent paresthesias.
2) Ataxia of dorsal cord type
3) Decrease or abolishment of deep muscle-tendon reflexes;
4) Pathological reflexes - Babinski, Rossolimo and others, also severe paresis.
During the course of disease, mental disorders can occur which include: irritablity, focus/concentration problems, depressive state with suicidal tendencies, paraphrenia complex. These symptoms may not reverse after correction of hematological abnormalities, and the chance of complete reversal decreases with the length of time the neurological symptoms have been present.
Vitamin B-12 is naturally found in foods of animal origin including meat (especially liver and shellfish) and milk products. Animals, in turn, must obtain it directly or indirectly from bacteria, and these bacteria may inhabit a section of the gut which is posterior to the section where B-12 is absorbed. Thus, herbivorous animals must either obtain B-12 from bacteria in their rumens, or (if fermenting plant material in the hindgut) by reingestion of cecotrope feces. Eggs are often mentioned as a good B-12 source, but they also contain a factor that blocks absorption. Certain insects such as termites contain B-12 produced by their gut bacteria, in a manner analogous to ruminant animals. An NIH Fact Sheet lists a variety of food sources of vitamin B-12.
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. According to the U.K. Vegan Society, the only reliable vegan sources of B-12 are foods fortified with B-12 (including some plant milks, some soy products and some breakfast cereals), and B-12 supplements. Fortified breakfast cereals are a particularly valuable source of vitamin B-12 for vegetarians and vegans.
While lacto-ovo vegetarians usually get enough B-12 through consuming dairy products, vitamin B-12 may be found to be lacking in those practicing vegan diets who do not use multivitamin supplements or eat B-12 fortified foods. Examples of fortified foods often consumed include fortified breakfast cereals, fortified soy-based products, and fortified energy bars. Claimed sources of B-12 that have been shown through direct studies of vegans to be inadequate or unreliable include, laver (a seaweed), barley grass, and human gut bacteria. People on a vegan raw food diet are also susceptible to B-12 deficiency if no supplementation is used[.
The Vegan Society, the Vegetarian Resource Group, and the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, among others, recommend that vegans either consistently eat foods fortified with B-12 or take a daily or weekly B-12 supplement.
I find it interesting that those who bring to the discussion little but their ideology and have precious little acutal experience with growing food or raising livestock delight in thumping on those, like Kernel, who do.
The only meat that should be "eaten" is man-flesh. that swollem muscle of mass.
If that was the case, i can GUARANTEE that 2/3 or more of the male population would be instant vegans.
Would you beat a cow or pig or other livestock??? If man-meat was respected like it should be, there would be fewer, FAR fewer cases of meat getting beaten.
Think about it.
The energy it takes to raise a single unit of male muscle is FAR less than raising livestock!!! PLUS, an added advantage is that there is less waste product in the end.
Lappee's "Diet" and Pollan's "Omnivore's Dilemma" are good reads.
Four out of five of us in our home eat meat. For the four that do, meat is at most, 10% of the diet and used more as a condiment to the meal than the focus. And during the growing season, that percentage drops to zero.
My husband was raised on a dairy farm here in Wisconsin and grew up eating beef, beef, and more beef, with a little chicken thrown in for variety.
To get folks to change their diets, takes education. Nutritional education. Not a lot of folks want to increase their fruits and veggies and eat whole foods, though, or stories like these wouldn't need to be published.
even as they ravenously consumed, they argued about the stopping - about the conceptual need to stop, the specific activities to be stopped or not, and the degree...about the methods and the timing of it...why should I stop, they each cried, hands and mouths and stomachs and fat cells and colons and waistlines and toilets and basements and garages and driveways and yards and closets and attics and storage units and town dumps and city dumps and nuclear repositories and superfund sites filled to overflowing with 'product'...who can stop anyway, they each asked, interwoven layers of industries and jobs created solely to support other industries and jobs to support other industries and jobs until natural life was both illegal and impossible, all held together by continual disinformation, financial obligation, reliable distraction and incomprehensible cooperation...how would we live otherwise, they each challenged, with no property, no home, no electricity...no job, no money, no car, no gas, no 'stuff'...no spirit or imagination...I am not an animal...where would I get my air? my water? my food? Where would I urinate? defecate? sleep? Who would protect me?
Kernel
I hope you believe what you write. I don't. And I never have after following many of your posts. If you are a spin doctor you are pretty much below average.
Go organic, that market is increasing at 30% per year globally, you cannot go wrong. Higher prices for your product and no synthetic chemicals, GM seeds or anti-biotics and other trash.
Human Beings are omnivores. That is not debatable.
I am a vegetarian and know that some people eat meat; that's fine with me.
The point here is the absurdity of the WAY we get our meat these days. DCBeltway got is right; eat locally, support less consuming meat sources (ie; don't buy the 1 dollar cheeseburger from wendy's, but buy the 8 dollar one from the local restaurant)
however, the idea that one CANNOT be healthy without eating meat is totally absurd....
certain people have problems digesting it; i do....my DOCTOR told me to get my protein and iron from vegetables...and 15 years later i am healthier than ALL the meat eaters in my life...
militants on both sides make me mad.....
BUT...my iron levels, protein absorption, mineral intake, etc.. are all 2,000 times better than when i ate meat....and B12?.....a non-issue.....once your body is used to not having it, you dont need it.....however, they do make a good B12-fortified soy milk that is more easily digestable than even dairy....
I see an unfortunate and quite common refrain running through this thread.
If we are to have any hope for dealing with the the myriad, massive problems that are upon and before us (as a nation and as a species), we must stop ignoring (at best) that which we do not want to hear.
Humanbeings have been eating meat since we came into exhistence. It just was the grass fed wild kind and not the corn fed kind. However, I respect people who choose to eat vegeterian. Eat Local is your best bet, then organic if you can or even better yet grow your own food. For meat support your local farm or butcher. Many kosher or halal meat stories have much higher quality meat then your local grocery store.
No meat? How do you get Vitamin B12? Eggs, dairy or supplements? Meat eating is part of the natural diet of humans. And yes, I read Diet for A Small Planet in 1973. It had a huge influence on my efforts to eat a plant based diet.
As the price rises, meat consumption will fall. If the government stopped subsidizing animal feedlots and stopped protecting them from liability for the damage they do, they would go away. This is, in many ways, a government created problem.
There is nothing wrong with being a vegetarian or a vegan but it requires a very well planned whole foods diet. Otherwise, people will get sick. A lot of the "feeling better" that people tout when they stop meat eating is related to diminished digestive enzymes. If not dealt with, that situation, initially ameliorated by removing meat, will continue to deteriorate.
For health reasons, the best plan is to limit meat and try to eat it earlier in the day. There is, of course, the issue of biochemical individuality--some do better with meat, some do not.
Why not just tell the truth? Humans are herbivores. That is a good reason to stop eating meat. http://allinharmony.org
Humans are a part of the environment. And as it turns out, the environment needs us to realize our place in it so it can heal from our stupidities.
It will also heal our disease-laden 'affluent' society.
Cattle are brought to market in 2 years with grain and growth hormones, rather than the 4 required by natural grazing. Corporate will not stand for delays in harvesting the money.
Yes joneden, somebody did suggest that maybe there were now too many of us. During the 1960s and early 70s there was an active zero population growth (ZPG) movement that advocated couples have no more than two children. During that era, other actions included India Prime Minister Indira Gandhi sterilizing Indian citizens.
By 1980s you would be looked upon as a traitor for advocating ZPG, and an assassin let Gandhi know what he thought of her sterilization policy.
The economic model that most of the world subscribes to requires growth and that growth can only be sustained by increasing global population. An increasing number of impoverished people, desperate to work for low compensation is an added bonus for capitalists, even though it works against the rest of us who need to work for a living.
Jane___ I many years of raising and feeding livestock, I have never noticed that grain feeding itself caused need for more antibiotics. The problem is when animals are jammed together in small areas, which is no different than children being closely together in schools and making each other sick.
If animals were fed grass instead of grain in the same feedlots, there would be the same need for antibiotics. However, many people like the taste and tenderness of cattle that have been grainfed and it may take awhile to change that.
As cattle gain weight much faster in a lot with grain, it might be impossible to produce enough beef to meet demand using only grass and free range. However, with the high price of corn, the feeding of it will eventually slow unless grain prices return to their previous levels, so that may be one result of the ethanol use of corn, as well as foreign demand.
Did anyone suggest that maybe there are now too many of us?
www.StudentsForTheEarth.org
"Humans are not designed to live on vegetables alone; it just is not healthy."
Wow ! This gem needs to be thoroughly examined and the myth destroyed but i dont have the friggin time ...
It's true that humans can't live just on corn (or greens, or potatoes, or beans) but the healthiest diet of all is a variety of grains, fruits, and vegetables,---and no meat.
Besides which there are too many people to support meat eaters, unless half of them live on the edge of starvation. This is a moral issue. And please, please, Monsanto, don't try to help.
Meat producing animals, such as cattle, are ruminants, and should be eating grass. Grass-fed animals are healthier for us to eat, and they turn grass, which we cannot digest, into high quality protein. The problem is that we are feeding most of our ruminants corn, which they are not designed to digest. This is why we have to give them massive doses of antibiotics. In fact, the corn industry has it's imprint on almost everything we eat which is why we are less healthy than we used to be. Humans are not designed to live on vegetables alone; it just is not healthy.