This is a guest essay from Alex Roth, a financial analyst, attorney, and environmentalist in Washington, D.C.
Matt Prescott, a spokesperson for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, asserted last month that "you just cannot be a meat-eating environmentalist." PETA's pronouncement is part of a cooperative campaign among a number of animal-rights groups. Their message is that meat production exacerbates global warming.
PETA will lead the charge by dispatching an operative in a chicken suit to tour the country in a Hummer. The group will also deploy billboards nationwide with a mocking cartoon depicting climate-change hero Al Gore eating a drumstick, next to the words "Too Chicken to Go Vegetarian? Meat Is the No. 1 Cause of Global Warming." PETA's recent bleating has attracted substantial attention, including a recent story in The New York Times.
The group's campaign is based mainly on a United Nations report released last November. That report is about the environmental impact of livestock, but it doesn't examine wild sources of meat, and it notes that some types of meat are more environmentally preferable than others -- poultry is better than beef, for example. PETA also shoves aside the report's conclusion that many of the environmental harms caused by livestock production can be mitigated through better agricultural practices. And in its rush to judgment, PETA snubs the millions of meat-eating environmentalists who encourage such improved agricultural practices by seeking out locally grown, humanely-raised, pasture-fed meat from farmers' markets.
At its core, PETA's recently discovered position on climate change seems to be just a reformulation of its long-held credo that "meat is murder." The extent to which PETA's conclusions on climate change overlap with the U.N. report it cites or any other scientific study appears merely incidental. PETA's willingness to let the ideological tail of its preconceived conclusion wag the dog of science and fact is reminiscent of the Bush administration's own approach to climate change -- an approach any nonprofit public-interest group should hold itself above.
But what is most remarkable about Matt Prescott and PETA's other staff members is not that their statements are misleading and exaggerated. After all, they are correct in their most important claim: Meat production is a major contributor to climate change and other environmental problems. No, what is most astonishing about a person like Prescott is that someone evidently so well-intentioned can simultaneously be so counterproductive and so irritating.
By saying that "you just cannot be a meat-eating environmentalist," Prescott is recycling one of the oldest and stupidest retorts in the history of the environmental movement. I like to call it "the paper napkin defense." It works like this: An environmentalist says something like, "We have to stop dumping toxic chemicals in our water, because it's poisoning children." Then someone who thinks he's very smart counters that you have no right to speak up, because he saw you use a paper napkin, which is made out of trees and will be thrown in the garbage. As illogical and irrelevant as such a response is, haven't you heard it a thousand times?
And now you've heard it again, because PETA's new campaign is exactly in this vein. Environmentalists say we have to stop burning so much coal and gasoline, because fossil-fuel emissions threaten the future of our planet. And Matt Prescott, the Meatless Genius, wants to shout you down because -- admit it -- you ate a chicken Caesar salad last Wednesday.
Of course, most of us carnivorous environmentalists do sometimes eat factory-farmed meat, just as vegans sometimes eat products made from industrial soybeans. In a nation where more than 85 percent of soybeans are genetically modified, while none of them are labeled as such, it's hard to avoid. Likewise, most environmentalists drive cars from time to time, even though we know driving is bad for the environment. This doesn't mean we're not environmentalists -- it means we live in the real world.
These days, climate change is known to be exacerbated by most human activities, from stir-frying tofu to watching videos of endangered baby harp seals. To me, being an environmentalist simply means supporting policies and practices that promote a healthy environment.
Unfortunately, many people mistakenly believe that being an environmentalist means being a shrill, opinionated extremist who tells others how to live their lives. Many associate environmentalism with exaggerated factual claims and an insufferable holier-than-thou attitude. Prescott, whom I admit is an environmentalist, is only perpetuating such insidious stereotypes.
It is these stereotypes that, for the better part of the last decade, have encouraged the public to ignore environmentalists' well-founded warnings about climate change. Only in the last year or so has the problem of climate change begun to receive the widespread recognition it deserves.
And it is at this moment that Prescott and his furry friends parachute onto the scene, with their oversimplified, sensationalist publicity campaign. It's a move that sounds as gimmicky and vacuous and opportunistic as, well, driving a Hummer around the country while dressed in a chicken suit.
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Comments
View as Flat
Jon Rynn Posted 4:22 am
14 Sep 2007
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TwinsFanatic Posted 4:26 am
14 Sep 2007
I think that http://www.GoVeg.com/eco does a good job of summing up the arguments.
Click here
Although the U.N. report suggests ways to limit the damage, since none of us has to eat meat, the decision to do so is a decision to place a momentary gustatory pleasure ahead of making the right environmental choice.
I also recommend this piece, which quotes from the U.N. report in more depth:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bruce-friedrich/memo-to-env ...
Check out http://www.Meat.org & http://www.GoVeg.com.
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hollycarson Posted 4:35 am
14 Sep 2007
~Holly
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MattPrescott Posted 4:40 am
14 Sep 2007
It might interest some folks to know that my background as an activist is with environmentalism. You name an environmental group and I've probably worked with (or for) them.
In fact, it was my passion for fighting environmental abuses that I became vegan and began working for PETA to promote veganism and vegetarianism full time.
I suspect the author of this story was a little on-edge and perhaps feeling guilty about his meaty ways (hence the shrill tone, which, as a side note, he correctly but ironically says perpetuates negative stereotypes about activists). The fact is, meat IS the number one cause of global warming. The UN found that it contributes more greenhouse gasses than all the cars, trucks, planes, SUVs, Hummers, ships and tanks in the world combined. The UN also found that its a major factor in the "top two or three most significant [environmental] problems, at every level from local to global." The University of Chicago just produced a report saying that switching from a standard car to a hyrbid is less effective at countering global warming than switching from eating meat to being vegetarian.
Moreover, NRDC and Environmental Defense have recently posted information on their web sites about how bad meat is for the environment. Also, did you know that producing one pound of meat is the same (greenhouse gas-wise) as driving a Hummer 40 miles? Or that the meat industry consumes about 1/3 of the fossil fuels and 1/2 the water we use in the US?
Regarding the industrialized soy beans I ate in my veggie hot dog today, which Alex mentions in his article: Its important to note that it takes about 20 pounds (roughly) of those soy beans to produce just one pound of meat. Funneling crops through animals like this is just a highly inefficient way of producing food--no matter where your meat comes from. (On that note, did you know that more than 90% of the Amazon rainforest cleared since 1970 is used for global meat production--whether for grazing or for growing the massive amount of crops that need to be fed to farmed animals?)
Sure, my stir-fried tofu may contribute to global warming, but I choose to stir-fry tofu instead of chicken because let's face it, it does a FRACTION of the environmental damage that meat does (not to mention being better for my health and for animals).
So Alex, like you, I believe that "being an environmentalist simply means supporting policies AND PRACTICES that promote a healthy environment." Which is exactly why I'm vegetarian. If you -- or anyone reading this -- wants more information (including loads of free vegetarian recipes), just check out http://www.GoVeg.com.
If we, ourselves, can't make changes to help the environment, how can we expect others to?
Thanks.
-Matt Prescott
PETA
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claygal Posted 4:44 am
14 Sep 2007
I'm not a fan of PETA, I don't like their campaigns for the reasons stated in the article, but I think that being a vegetarian or at least someone that eats very little meat of any kind is vital to the lessening of global warming.
May I suggest reading Fast Food Nation, or Beyond Beef. Our farming practices and eating habits are going to be the death of us, as well as, our world.
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Colin Bennett Posted 4:44 am
14 Sep 2007
Like I said, I wish grist would stop publishing such non-sense; I'd expect as much from some right-wing soapbox such as Fox news. As far as, facilitating debate, just like the supposed debate on global warming, there is no debate, eating animals is bad for the environment. Shame on you grist for perpetuating such misinformation and confusion. Kudos to PETA for doing the right thing.
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kyotousa Posted 4:46 am
14 Sep 2007
We now all know just how bad smoking is for you and for everyone around you even though its taken a generation for many people to recognize it.
But instead of all the rhetoric about holier-than-though and the like, let's see a discussion about the reasons why eating animal products is good for people and the planet. If eating animals is a good thing, it may not get me to change my diet, but at least I'll stop encouraging people to eat lower on the food chain. What do you say?
Tom Kelly
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robfdavis1971 Posted 4:49 am
14 Sep 2007
From the very beginning, humans have eaten meat. Animals eat meat. It is a cycle of life. Are we to assume PETA will next stop the cougars from killing their prey in Africa? No - it is absurd to think so. Death is not pretty but it is life. We all live...we all die. And we can minimize suffering as much as possible.
I do enjoy veggie cooking and vegan chocolate chip cookies - my favorites - are at the Whole Foods Market. What I do, however, is balance with what is environmentally friendlier and more humane than other options out there.
A few things about PETA that I don't like:
(1) PETA doesn't even want us to own our dogs and cats. Sorry PETA - not following that logic.
(2) PETA wants to ban pit bulls - sorry - not banning a breed for a few bad people out there.
(3) The PETA bus drives up to pick up pets and they have been caught killing them in the vans and not finding them homes. Instead of spending millions on Pam Anderson ads....do some good for the dogs and cats instead of killing them.
So, although PETA makes some very good points, they are not balanced themselves and should really reflect on what they support and don't. You can't have it both ways - don't kill and then kill and call it "humane."
Pet Food Tales
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cliffhodges Posted 4:52 am
14 Sep 2007
Not to mention they are flat out lying when they say "Meat is the #1 Cause of Global Warming". Nice statistic. Who is collecting PETA's data? Pee-Wee Herman and Captain Crunch? Get real guys.
I've been a vegetarian most of my life... But I'm not an idiot. This isn't going to garner PETA any more support and will likely turn a lot of people off.
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ssweitzer Posted 4:55 am
14 Sep 2007
smsweitzer
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mihan Posted 4:57 am
14 Sep 2007
I'm still waiting for someone to explain how "you just cannot be a car-driving environmentalist" is any different from "you just cannot be a meat-eating environmentalist." How many who say the latter deny the former? My guess: most.
Transportation accounts for the largest and fastest-growing chunk of US greenhouse gas emissions, sez the EPA.
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mihan Posted 4:59 am
14 Sep 2007
None of us disagree with you. Did you read the letter at all?
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LucyP Posted 5:00 am
14 Sep 2007
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Catgrrl63 Posted 5:02 am
14 Sep 2007
Obviously, PETA is using hyperbole to make a point. Duh. Any activist group worth its salt does that. And the reason they do it is because it works. Look at how PETA managed to get global warming and animal agriculture's impact on it covered by the New York Times. Seems like they must be doing something right.
The point is: Animal agriculture--local, regional, global, intergalactic--contributes to global warming and host of other environmental problems on a huge scale. This is a plain fact. But it is one that is being largely ignored by many environmental groups. PETA is absolutely right to point out this glaring elephant on the plate that everyone is trying to nibble around.
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ADivineComedy Posted 5:05 am
14 Sep 2007
If we don't want to appear strident in our message and play nice-nice, that's fine. But don't slam the message of other groups making solid points just cause they are willing to be more 'in yo' face'.
Yes, PETA would likely be in the top 5 of groups who are consistently willing to be strident and maybe even get extreme to make a point (gotta concede, even if with a chuckle, that a guy in a chicken suit in a Hummer would qualify) but lets face that such methods work. Or have we already forgotten the strident cries of the Swift Boat campaign? And those guys weren't even telling the truth (Dole went down about 50 points on my scale with that and he only had about 6 points to begin with).
Anyway, Grist... ummm... stop whining. In this case, PETA is not only on the 'right' side of the issue - you are looking like total SCHMUCKS for not espousing their point if not their methods.
You can still pick on PETA if you want... but give them their due. Simply 'minimizing' damage in this area isn't enough. There is so little that individuals can do while this country elects leaders like Bush. Each individual needs to start focusing on EVERYTHING they can do... not just the minimum. I see it all the time with many causes... people going through the motions of the minimum necessary to be politically correct so that they can think of themselves as 'good' and be a bit self righteous.
Guess what? Grist you are guilty of exactly what you are accusing PETA of... being self righteous and judgmental. Kudos.
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Jon Rynn Posted 5:07 am
14 Sep 2007
And second, having a very insulting caricature of Al Gore in an expensive billborad ad is totally ridiculous, and only serves to marginalize PETA more.
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nrbt Posted 5:07 am
14 Sep 2007
Factory farming is an environmental nightmare. Small, sustainable, personal farming is not. It is entirely possible to eat meat and be an environmentalist, if one supports sustainable, humane farming; consumes reasonable (small) quantities; and speaks out against Factory Farming methods. In fact, it is probably the meat eaters who have the biggest clout in changing the horrendous methods under which most meat is produced! Unfortunately, most of them are uninformed about what really goes on, and most of the rest don't care.
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ADivineComedy Posted 5:09 am
14 Sep 2007
I have a great friend that works for the EPA. He's a subscriber to Mother Jones... and got into that path cause of his passionate interests in the environment dating back to the 70s. So yea, he's an old fart now.
He's the most incensed person I've ever seen about the EPA. He stays there hoping he can make some small difference now that he's further up the food chain. Fact is though, he's DISGUSTED with every report that has come out of the place. Everything is skewed to facilitate to 'concern du jour'.
So, your logic is that if cars are the number one cause of global warming, we should just throw our hands up and ignore numbers 2-200?
Brilliant.
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Nelophone Posted 5:12 am
14 Sep 2007
I think environmentalists need to be pragmatic about this. That doesn't mean giving in to the inevitability of ever growing meat consumption, but it means acknowledging the real numbers on the issue: meat and dairy consumption is projected to grow by 50% globally by 2050, according to the UN Report. Many people in poor countries could use the calories. That is not to say that there aren't other ways to get those calories, but meat will inevitably play a part.
Lets focus on mitigating its impacts, rather than preaching like evangelists about personal consumption habits.
Nelson Harvey
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ADivineComedy Posted 5:15 am
14 Sep 2007
Does ANYONE ever notice political extremism? Someone comes out with an outlandishly extreme position on something... gets LOADS of publicity cause they are such nuts and are dismissed. Or are there? After such campaigns, studies can often indicate that the median position on the subject shifted in their direction. Maybe to a miniscule degree..but there it is, a shift.
Ingrid Newkirk was quoted (but not nearly so frequently as other quotes) saying that PETA is a PUBLICITY WHORE. If you put that in the context... the recipe doles out a delightful indication of why their position evolves as it does.
Yes, they also have a point in saying we should all give up our pets. Sure you love them and I love them...but what about the millions that aren't loved? Are you selfless enough to contemplate giving up your emotional satisfaction of making something dependent upon you and then thinking you're great for it, long enough to realize the cruelty/neglect that would prevent and eradicate?
Yes, dogs and cats are carnivores (of varying degrees). Cats are FAR more dependent on meat than dogs. And guess what, people are NOT AT ALL. It's purely some sort of elitism to say that 'well meat is expensive and I am not going to feed it to my cats and dogs if I can't eat it too'. Tradition is NOT the same as Biology.
Sheesh... do some of your own research sometime instead of just making self serving knee jerk reactions... can't ya?
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latenac Posted 5:16 am
14 Sep 2007
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latenac Posted 5:18 am
14 Sep 2007
Cats are obligate carnivores which means they can't survive on anything but meat.
Dogs like humans are omnivores. Show me a vegan that can eat a natural, healthy diet without eating fortified food or taking supplements and maybe I'll change my mind that humans are meant to be omnivores.
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konklarii Posted 5:19 am
14 Sep 2007
This strain of self-righteous veganism is really counter-productive. If you want people to stop eating meat, stop talking down to them and start being helpful. Bust out the delicious meat-free recipes and take baby steps.
Encourage people to buy local, organic meat in the meantime. You're not going to stop industrial farming overnight. But the people whose dollars actually drive factory farming can be persuaded to put those dollars towards more sustainable practices. That's a step in the right direction.
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ADivineComedy Posted 5:21 am
14 Sep 2007
Did you ever bother to read the follow up story? PETA was guaranteeing a HUMANE end for those animals. There IS a limit to what we can rescue. 5 Million animals die per year cause there aren't enough homes. do you know that each person in the US would have to have 5 dogs and I forget how many cats (not 5 per household... 5 per person) to eradicate euthanasia as a way of dealing with the 'excess'.
The shelters that PETA visited with that van were using gasing.. yes just like concentration camps... en masse to kill animals. Do you wanna picture that one? Crowd some animals into a space and assuming fights don't break out immediately you can be sure they will when they panic. Course that only lasts a few minutes (not a few seconds) as the gas does its grisly job.
PETA took those animals and euthanized them in a way that we have to call humane, if only by comparison. The poor approach in disposing of the bodies was the bad decision of a young PETA employee. Not an excuse... just a fact. Don't confuse what they did and why they were in a position to do it with what happened.
By the way, I lived in the Virginia Beach area at the time... and knew the shelter in NC that was central to the brou-ha-ha.
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redwing Posted 5:25 am
14 Sep 2007
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TwinsFanatic Posted 5:36 am
14 Sep 2007
Since you can do well on a vegetarian diet, if you choose to eat meat, you're making a bad environmental choice. There's a big difference between the amount of meat you eat vs. your dog/cat, and also between the fact that your cat may have trouble as a vegetarian. You won't.
To minimize suffering as much as possible, adopt a vegan diet.
Check out http://www.Meat.org to see what eating meat entails.
Check out http://www.Meat.org & http://www.GoVeg.com.
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TwinsFanatic Posted 5:37 am
14 Sep 2007
Meat causes about 18 percent. All transporation combined causes about 13 percent.
Check out http://www.Meat.org & http://www.GoVeg.com.
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escr1t0ra Posted 5:37 am
14 Sep 2007
It is no more environment-friendly to eat these kinds of cattle than factory-farmed cattle. This kind of farming still damages the environment in the same way the factory farms do: it takes up land, creates huge amounts of waste, emits methane gas, and kills animals. As much as you try to escape the fact, eating meat= harming the environment.
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Sarah K. Burkhalter Posted 5:37 am
14 Sep 2007
I happen to be a vegetarian. If somebody who was a vegan told me that she perceived my egg-eating as inconsistent with her view of environmentalism: fine. Then we could have a discussion about why I live and eat the way I do, and why she lives and eats the way she does.
But if she came in and said "you obviously aren't an environmentalist, you egg-eater you" that would piss me off. Who are you to tell me that my self-identification is wrong? The very idea of someone else mandating how you see yourself is ludicrous.
No wonder everybody's so pissed off. Imposing your agenda on someone is no way to sway them to your side, or even to get them to respectfully disagree with your point of view. This issue wouldn't be nearly so divisive if we were all a tad more open-minded: willing to let go of the idea that our own way of doing things is the Only Right Way.
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C4nier Posted 5:40 am
14 Sep 2007
In the article above, Roth says that PETAs stance isn't fair for those who 1)want to capture their own meat or 2)participate in better agricultural practices. But the AP synopsis of the Lancet article on meat affecting climate change addresses both of these assertions. 1)Wild is fine, but there isn't enough to go around for the developed world's meat lust. We still would have to cut back significantly. "The amount of meat eaten varies considerably worldwide. In developed countries, people typically eat about 224 grams per day. But in Africa, most people only get about 31 grams a day."
2) Well, they spell it out.
"Other ways of reducing greenhouse gases from farming practices, like feeding animals higher-quality grains, would only have a limited impact on cutting emissions. Gases from animals destined for dinner plates account for nearly a quarter of all emissions worldwide."
I don't care for PETAs methods (driving a hummer around the country, while claiming to stump for the environment!) and they are NOT an environmental organization, just an opportunistic animal rights group. But they are right. We need to drastically cut back our meat and dairy consumption, as painful as that might be to hear. Not only would it significantly reduce green house gases, it would free up plenty of hay and corn fields to be real habitat. Maybe we could reverse some of the habitat fragmentation to some allow animals and plants to shift their range north. The change is coming. The question is, how much are we willing to give up to lessen the blow? Every action counts.
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C4nier Posted 5:42 am
14 Sep 2007
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hxSQa9KhHaDXNGyeqOyHHb ...
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vestokes Posted 5:42 am
14 Sep 2007
Vicki Stokes
San Francisco, CA
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The Frustrated Gardener Posted 5:50 am
14 Sep 2007
While I'm not going to wade into the debate over the ethics of eating meat, I will contribute this:
Raising farm animals can contribute to greenhouse gas emissions, but not necessarily just because of CO2 emissions. Large scale factory farms do generate mountains (and lakes) of manure, which can produce nitrous oxides and methane emissions (both much more potent greenhouse gases than CO2). Ruminants also exhale methane, courtesy of the bugs that live in their guts.
The IPCC has even developed methodologies for estimating greenhouse gas emissions (particularly NOx and CH4) that result from farming and animal husbandry activities. Apparently they thought it a potentially important enough emissions source to mention it.
Not to bang the drum: Industrial farming seems at least as dangerous as pissing away fossil fuels to produce electricity or run Hummers.
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C4nier Posted 5:51 am
14 Sep 2007
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pianoyoga Posted 5:57 am
14 Sep 2007
Meat consumption really is a big deal, environmentally, and Grist would be foolish to ignore this environmental issue. Likewise, for a group like PETA, meat production is a huge moral issue - to make a big deal about fur jackets and ignore hamburgers would be pretty idiotic.
Grass-fed local beef production, and free-range chicken living off the fallen fruit and wheat seed heads and various bugs in your backyard - no problem environmental or morally. People living simply in harmony with local ecology, very permaculture.
We really are in desperate straits ecologically, and few Americans know anything real about the food situation because, for one, so few of us have anything to do with food production. I've heard it said that students should visit a slaughterhouse and a sewage treatment plant as part of their schooling. Besides that, have a look at "The Final Empire" (just Google it), available free as pfd files on the Web.
Stephen Brown
(Sharon, PA)
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LaurieO Posted 6:01 am
14 Sep 2007
So how is this argument helping the environmental cause?
It reminds me of conservative Christians telling liberals that they can't be Christians, and vice versa.
Doesn't help, and does a helluva lot to hurt.
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Karen Lee Orr Posted 6:04 am
14 Sep 2007
Links to studies
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Diet, Energy and Global Warming - University of Chicago report:
http://geosci.uchicago.edu/~gidon/papers/nutri/nutriEI.pd ... ...
Sustainability of meat-based and plant-based diets and the environment
by David Pimentel and Marcia Pimentel
http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/full/78/3/660S#FN2
Livestock's Long Shadow - U.N. report
http://www.virtualcentre.org/en/library/key_pub/longshad/ ... ...
The far ranging environmental impacts of global meat consumption -
WorldWatch Institute report
http://www.worldwatch.org/node/1670
World Wildlife Fund: Environmental Impact of Beef
Facts About Beef Inputs & Protein Outputs - Cornell report
http://www.news.cornell.edu/releases/Aug97/livestock.hrs. ...
EarthSave Report: A New Global Warming Strategy:
How Environmentalists are Overlooking Vegetarianism as
the Most Effective Tool Against Climate Change in Our
Lifetimes by Noam Mohr
http://www.earthsave.org/globalwarming.htm
Humans' beef with livestock: a warmer planet
American meat eaters are responsible for 1.5 more tons of carbon dioxide per person than vegetarians every year
By Brad Knickerbocker, staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
from the February 20, 2007 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0220/p03s01-ussc.htm
Full HTML version of this story which may include photos, graphics, and related links
---------------------------------------------------------------
Links to websites and articles
Eco-Eating: Eating As If the World Matters:
http://www.brook.com/veg/
The Poor Get Stuffed by George Monbiot
We cannot feed the world's livestock and the world's people:
http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2002/12/24/the-poor-get-s ... ...
Meet Your Meat (Narrated by Alec Baldwin)
http://www.meat.org/
Rainforest Destruction: What's Meat Got to Do With It? by Steven Best:
http://www.drstevebest.org/papers/vegenvani/rainforest.ph ... ...
Beyond Beef
http://www.mcspotlight.org/media/reports/beyond.html
Save the World With Your Fork
http://www.celsias.com/2006/11/22/save-the-world-with-you ... ...
Global Warming and Meat Overconsumption: A Few More
Inconvenient Truths by Kathy Freston
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kathy-freston/a-few-more-in ... ...
The Coming Crisis: Environmental Disaster, The Global Meat Culture,
And Your Health by Steven Best:
http://www.drstevebest.org/papers/vegenvani/crisis.php
The Case Against Meat: Evidence Shows that Our Meat-Based Diet is
Bad for the Environment, Aggravates Global Hunger, Brutalizes Animals
and Compromises Our Health by Jim Motavalli, E Magazine
http://extreme.trailfire.com/espressoemily/marks/52446
Meat is a Global Warming Issue by Dan Brook, E Magazine
http://www.alternet.org/story/40639/
Warrior for a Healthy Planet by James Faber
http://www.consciouschoice.com/1995-98/cc116/howardlyman. ...
Boss Hog: Rolling Stone report on Smithfield and the pig factory industry
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2006/12/boss_hog_rollin_1 ... ...
Energy Justice Network: Toxic Hazards Posed by Poultry Litter Incineration
http://www.energyjustice.net/fibrowatch/toxics.html
Veganism in a Nutshell - Bruce Friedrich:
http://www.drstevebest.org/papers/book_reviews/vegannutsh ... ...
Q: Who is behind the rapid extermination of the Amazon forest?
A: American agrobusiness giants, ADM, Bunge, and Cargill are. See
http://petroleum.berkeley.edu/patzek/BiofuelQA/Materials/ ... ...
The True Cost of Food:
http://www.truecostoffood.org/leaders.asp
So You're an Environmentalist; Why Are You Still Eating Meat?
Short version by Jim Motavalli, E Magazine
http://www.creationsmagazine.com/articles/C84/Motavalli.h ... ...
So You're an Environmentalist; Why Are You Still Eating Meat?
Full version by Jim Motavalli, E Magazine
http://www.alternet.org/story/12162/
The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine on Vegan & Vegetarian Diets:
http://www.pcrm.org/health/veginfo/
The China Study by T. Colin Campbell and Thomas M. Campbell, II:
http://www.thechinastudy.com/about.html
Mad Cowboy: Plain Truth From the Cattle Rancher Who Won't Eat Meat:
http://www.madcowboy.com/
The Global Leather Trade and the Environment:
http://getactive.peta.org/campaign/US_indian_leather?sour ...
Diet for a Small Planet by Frances Moore Lappe'
http://www.smallplanetinstitute.org/
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Ethan Posted 6:05 am
14 Sep 2007
It is clear that consuming factory farmed animal products is one of the more destructive environmental acts we take part in. It needs to be made clear however that it is the industrial agriculture methods of livestock management that are the problem not meat and animal products themselves.
I also understand though that eating pasture raised, locally produced animal products (especially beef)can be one of the most positive environmental actions we can take. As I understand it, such livestock practices actually can contribute positively to energy systems, top soils and stream ecosystems. Small scale livestock farming is also a much more viable form of small scale farming economically (it is less labor intensive, more profitable and more appealing to young farmers) than production for a vegetarian diet.
The higher up the food chain argument saying that meat eating is less energy efficient does not seem to apply to grass-fed beef and other pastured farming. Such practices can actually build up grass diversity as they consume renewable energy that would not otherwise get consumed - effectively sequestering carbon with net energy gains.
By this logic, dollars spent towards supporting this kind of animal husbandry can perhaps make a larger positive environmental impact than spending on a vegetarian diet, while directly challenging the very destructive practice of factory farming.
Though some may still have issues with animal husbandry all together, it also seems that in these practices that the livestock lead quite fulfilling lives.
Small scale animal husbandry is actually the way that most farming around the world has been and continues to be done. It is very much threatened because of subsidies to large scale industrial farming, food aid and "green revolution" programs of the Gates and Rockefeller Foundations, that do tend towards supporting a very destructive vegetarian diet and potentially degrading to both subsistence and "slow food" efforts around the world.
The inputs for industrial agriculture to support even a vegetarian diet are highly energy intensive, on top of the extra travel involved with the seasonal and climatic demands of a vegetarian diet. Many of our organic carrots come from Israel, our apples come from New Zealnd and China, etc.
I also just read that row cropping soy destroys acres of habitat for wildlife, kills the soils and pollutes water systems, not to mention it promotes the development of GMOs....
...But again, it's the industrialized monoculture model that is the problem, not the plants themselves.
Animal products (milk, beef, lamb, etc) that have been raised in on grass, rather than grain, have been proven to have nutritional qualities that actually fight off heart disease and other health related problems usually caused by consuming industrially raised animal products.
For more on the environemetal, economic adn health benefits of pastured meat go to:
http://www.eatwild.com/environment.html
This website illustrates and links to other resources on how grass fed beef agriculture can actually create net carbon sequestration.
I too would assume that razing forests for any agriculture is probably a negative carbon footprint, but reading this site and thinking about it, it seems that razing forests in the tropics versus utilizing natural grasslands to support livestock are very different contexts. In our temperate climate natural grass and forest lands can be managed in a way the support both animals (and humans) and the environment.
Also, in a temperate climate we are probably less likely to be razing land for cattle than for corn and soybeans- which has a negative effect on soil and its ability to sequester carbon.
Going even further the site says:
Increasing pasture land would help reduce global warming
The grasses and legumes found in pasture are highly effective at removing excess carbon dioxide from the air and storing it in the soil as carbon, a phenomenon known as "carbon sequestration." Soils in the grazing land in the Great Plains have over 40 tons of carbon per acre, while cultivated soils have only 26. In recent years, land that had been planted in row crops was allowed to revert back to pasture as part of the US government's Conservation Reserve Program (CRP). The pasture land gained an average of one-half ton of carbon per acre per year during the first 5 years after planting. This means that 18 million tons of carbon were removed from the atmosphere each year as a result of farmers putting over 36 million acres of land into the conservation program.
I have also seen a disection of the UN report on how it grossly underestimates that COs from driving...
Rather than rigid, divisive, solution-driven, single issue advocacy that seems to dominate change efforts, we can look more at promoting and envisioning more localized, diversified food systems that are also healthy and pleasurable.
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caniscandida Posted 6:07 am
14 Sep 2007
Nevertheless, I must tell you, most regretfully, that I deplore PETA's style. An organization calling itself "People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals" has a pitifully narrow idea of what ethics means, if they believe that they, the enlightened ones, are entitled to shame, bully and blackmail the uninitiated and unevolved. One might have thought that People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals would want other people to LEARN how to treat animals ethically. But in order to do that, YOU have to learn how to treat people ethically, patiently, with respect, and not with violence.
On comparing the benefits of switching to a hybrid car to those of switching to veganism, some calculations have been out for a few years. In "The Way We Eat: Why Our Food Choices Matter," Peter Singer and Jim Mason write (page 240):
<<
Gidon Eshel and Pamela Martin, of the University of Chicago, studied the greenhouse gases emitted by the production of animal products, and concluded that the typical U.S. diet, about 28 percent of which comes from animal sources, generates the equivalent of nearly 1.5 tons more carbon dioxide per person per year than a vegan diet with the same number of calories. By comparison, an average driver switching from a typical American car to one of the more fuel-efficient hybrids would save 1 ton of carbon dioxide per year -- making the switch to a vegan diet a more effective way of reducing one's contribution to climate change. (Though it would, of course, be better still to do both.)
>>
They cite New Scientist, 17, December 2005, p. 19,
www.newscientist.com/channel/earth/mg18825304.800.
To RobFDavis: Yes, PETA's pontificating decrees on euthanizing animals whose lives PETA has decided by its own wisdom are not worth living, e.g. feral cats, homeless cats and dogs, Knut the orphaned polar bear, and the live pitbulls retrieved from Michael Vick's property, amply illustrated by the discovery in trash cans of the bodies of animals killed by PETA workers, are very troubling. That arrogant, from-on-high attitude has sadly provoked a kind of schism in the animal welfare community.
But on another matter, I do not think you argue well, when you say that because you feed meat to your cats and dogs, it makes no sense for you to deny meat to yourself. Well, you do what you want, and eat what you want; I shall certainly not criticize you. But you should realize that the relation of your cats and dogs to meat is entirely different than yours. They are natural carnivores (the dogs being a bit more omnivorous), and eating meat is for them instinctual. For us, however, meat is not necessary for our good nourishment; also, we are moral agents, with the capacity to make choices.
Chickens are our cousins!
So are other sensitive animals!
Enough is enough!
No more factory farms!
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PolluteLessDotCom Posted 6:07 am
14 Sep 2007
Now, don't tell me that even hand-picking and smashing bugs is not OK. If you want vegetables you have to fight other living beings for them.
I have my doubts that there would be half as much of an uproar about the impact on the environment from PETA (or friends) if meat eaters switched to eating insects. This is not about the environment or killing animals - this is about killing animals we can feel for.
Cows do not give milk if they do not have a calf every year. 50% are bulls. So if you consume milk products you can actually calculate pretty well how much beef you should eat to get rid of the bulls.
The evil is not meat-consumption, the evil is meat production designed to produce cheap meat in huge quantities. The tolls on animals and environment are high and should be re-thought and certainly talked about. PETA started a discussion. Well done. I wish it would be honest and include all facts as well as drop the viewpoint that some animals are worth sympathizing for while others are not. The torturous and ecologically damaging living conditions, transport, and slaughter of the animals that are the consequence of modern meat production need to be looked at. If those conditions did not exist, meat consumption would be acceptable from a ethical and environmental point of view.
Karsten PolluteLessDotCom
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robfdavis1971 Posted 6:08 am
14 Sep 2007
Michael Vick killed far less - and he lost an NFL contract.
PETA kills 14,000 and no one seems to take notice? PETA shouldn't shout "animal rights" and "we have no right to kill them" when they are doctors of death themselves. I guess if they do it then it is fine.
Better programs, better processes, better education, etc... can bring about real change - not million dollar ads with Pam and friends. Use the money wisely and to help, not kill is what I'm trying to get at.
I used to support PETA, but do not any more for 4 reasons:
Funds being used unwisely - marketing campaigns over helping homeless animals
Wanting to ban breeds
Wanting us to no longer have pets
Killing dogs and cats and being hypocrites about it.
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Catgrrl63 Posted 6:08 am
14 Sep 2007
"sustainable," "family" farms. Does anyone who says this have any idea how many animals are killed every year to "sustain" America's meat habit? It's something like 25 billion, if you include the billions of fish vacummed out of the ocean (but not including the millions of dolphins, turtles, birds, and other sea animals killed as "by-catch.")25 billion! That's, what, 4 times the human population of the entire planet?
Anyway, the point is, we are eating too much meat to be sustained by "sustainable" farms. We simply have to cut back our meat consumption to put a dent in the vast quantities of resources being wasted.
Oh, and one thing people seem to be forgetting--even "sustainably" raised animals produce manure and methane, and most of them have to be fed grain and other feed, which would be more efficiently used if it were fed straight to humans.
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jimmotavalli Posted 6:12 am
14 Sep 2007
It's posted at http://www.emagazine.com/view/?142&src=
It drew something like 500 letters, our biggest haul to date.
Jim Motavalli
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activist247365 Posted 6:13 am
14 Sep 2007
Of course, that's not new to PETA, which used to run the greenmeanies website urging members to stop contributing to their environmental organizations because those organizations had no stance on using animal testing to assess chemicals toxicity (silly us, we're just trying to get the 3,000 new chemicals created each year to be tested AT ALL, but apparently we're supposed to do the animal rights movement legislative work for them as well). And then there was their wonderful "charismatic megafauna" billboards by whale watching tour sites - attacking enviros and nature lovers for spending resources on saving the whales.
I've worked in the corporate-responsibility and grassroots environmental movements for a good while now, and from that I've come to see the worth of many ideologically purist groups within the movement. I'll never live in a purely green designed, zero waste commune, but from communities such as those new ideas and new technologies are born. But those groups don't attack potential friends all the time, and PETA does. I doubt many of their members would agree with it if they knew the pattern. They may donate to PETA to protect the rights of animals, but many also donate to environmental groups because they understand the value of enviros' work as well (namely stopping the mass extinctions engulfing our planet). It's not the same work, environmentalism is about saving ecosystems and species, not all individual animals, but it is work almost any animal rights supporter can and does get behind.
I never thought I would issue a call such as this about any group - I believe in having more organizations in the movement, not less, and I've always seen infighting among organizations as the ultimate sin, but PETA has already lauched this attack with almost every major environmental group, so here it is:
If you are an animal rights supporter and an environmentalist, don't give to PETA. Not one dime. Give to the Humane Society instead - they're a legislatively saavy group that gets far more results. And unlike PETA they don't try to hurt the other causes and movements critical to building a just and sustainable world while doing it. The road ahead for the world we all want to build is too long and too steep for us to carry PETA any longer.
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Mary Posted 6:16 am
14 Sep 2007
THE CASE AGAINST MEAT
Evidence Shows that Our Meat-Based Diet is Bad for the Environment, Aggravates Global Hunger, Brutalizes Animals and Compromises Our Health.
http://www.emagazine.com/view/?142
In addition to cutting out meat, we should also reject eggs and dairy products. With all the marvelous alternative products that are more environmentally responsible, genuinely humane, healthier, readily available and reasonably priced, there plainly is no good reason or excuse to continue eating animal products.
If that makes you mad so be it, but don't shoot the messenger, or resort to infantile condescension. It's likely just misdirected anger at one's self for lack of self-discipline.
In addition to being environmentally harmful, consuming animal products causes animal suffering and death. That's the case with conventionally obtained products and "happy meat" (and eggs and dairy products). It also takes a lot more land to produce the latter. (Fans of Michael Pollan's "The Omnivore's Dilemma," read this:
HARD TO SWALLOW
The Atlantic Monthly, B. R. Myers, September 2007
http://www.powells.com/review/2007_08_28.html )
Respect Life - including your own. Go Vegan.
http://www.TryVeg.com
Mary
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escr1t0ra Posted 6:25 am
14 Sep 2007
Does history remember best those who fought for justice, or the people who sat and did nothing?
Like the quote says: "All my heroes have FBI files"
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wayneluke Posted 6:27 am
14 Sep 2007
My wife works in a no-kill animal rescue that has over 1500 animals currently. They are mostly cats and dogs but there are horses and other farm animals as well as a few abandoned raptors. They have never had to kill an animal because they "don't have room". If someone dropped off 100 animals tomorrow, they would create room, build them shelter and take them in for as long as they wanted to live. Of course they have a $2 Million yearly budget and a couple hundred acres of land to support this. However, I am sure there are other similar shelters of varying degrees to help find home for the animals that had to be "humanely put to death".
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Matt G Posted 6:40 am
14 Sep 2007
Basic points in the article:
* PETA went too far by calling meat-eating environmentalists non-environmentalists. Fair point, but this is what PETA does - it's their strategy to ignite debate. There are other organizations out there making calmer, less incendiary arguments - but I doubt you've heard of them.
* Eating meat isn't as bad as they say it is. No, it's as bad as they say it is. Sure, it doesn't have to be that bad - you can eat only meat that gathered its food from the wild. But other than non-farmed fish, most people in the US never run across this kind of meat. Just as it's a bad argument that ethanol can be made only from fallen fruit that wouldn't be used anyway (whereas in reality most is from farmed corn), saying it's ok to eat meat because it could be farmed in sustainable ways is a bad argument.
* Eating meat doesn't make you a non-environmentalist. I agree. I encourage people to live as greenly as possible. But everyone needs to find a happy balance.
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robfdavis1971 Posted 6:45 am
14 Sep 2007
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daisydaisy Posted 6:49 am
14 Sep 2007
Bong Hits 4 Jesus
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daisydaisy Posted 6:55 am
14 Sep 2007
Bong Hits 4 Jesus
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OsoEco Posted 7:00 am
14 Sep 2007
Have you seen the way the site lit up? Kudos to both you and Grist for picking such a hot topic.
Keep doing what your doing.
Best,
OsoEco
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activist247365 Posted 7:01 am
14 Sep 2007
I am not associated with Humane Society, nor do I know anyone who works for them. I gave them as an example as I respect their abilities. They might not be happy about being cited this way, but they are in my opinion a far better group at getting results for the animal rights cause.
Thinking about it, I don't like my call for folks to never again give to PETA. I modify that call to withholding 1 contribution this and telling them why you are doing so. The problem with PETA is they are only tactical thinkers - really the amount of people the environmental is converting to become conscious of their personal ecological impact is a huge opportunity for them to then convert a percentage of those folks to their cause of veganism. But they only think at the level of tactics; those tactics being shock and controversy. And thus they damage the overall future their members want as well as their own cause. PETA members need to use a respectful amount of pressure to make them change course and embrace a more positive, and longer-term a more productive approach to engaging the environmental movement.
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robfdavis1971 Posted 7:02 am
14 Sep 2007
I do believe I make moral choices everyday....I can attempt to be as humane as possible by purchasing grain fed and cage free chickens and eggs. I can also petition my representatives to pass humane killing laws for animal farms and producers. I can support organizations that help animals in need. These are things we can do that can minimize animal suffering. Some of us, however, will minimize the suffering more than others.
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OsoEco Posted 7:09 am
14 Sep 2007
Now that is probably not even true, but it gets the point across that as long as people support/buy from breeders instead of a shelter, dogs WILL unnecessarily die.
For anyone who is going to purchase a dog from a breeder, I suggest you first go to a local shelter and watch them put dogs down. Really watch. Look in the dog's eyes and watch them take their last breath.
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Gorgeously Green Posted 7:16 am
14 Sep 2007
Gorgeously Green
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Shamu44 Posted 7:16 am
14 Sep 2007
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EcoReason Posted 7:18 am
14 Sep 2007
Save the planet, kill a tree...
Paradoxes abound in this mixed up world of ours. That's what makes it so much fun. Now I'm going to go get me a free range burger and turn this blasted thing off.
KC
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Brandon Becker Posted 7:18 am
14 Sep 2007
Supporters of animal rights want to abolish animal use for any purpose. We do not promote "humane" animal slavery.
"The Philosophy of Animal Rights" by Tom Regan
http://www.cultureandanimals.org/animalrights.htm
-----
The other animals humans eat, use in science, hunt, trap, and exploit in a variety of ways, have a life of their own that is of importance to them apart from their utility to us. They are not only in the world, they are aware of it. What happens to them matters to them. Each has a life that fares better or worse for the one whose life it is.
That life includes a variety of biological, individual, and social needs. The satisfaction of these needs is a source of pleasure, their frustration or abuse, a source of pain. In these fundamental ways, the nonhuman animals in labs and on farms, for example, are the same as human beings. And so it is that the ethics of our dealings with them, and with one another, must acknowledge the same fundamental moral principles.
At its deepest level, human ethics is based on the independent value of the individual: The moral worth of any one human being is not to be measured by how useful that person is in advancing the interest of other human beings. To treat human beings in ways that do not honor their independent value is to violate that most basic of human rights: the right of each person to be treated with respect.
The philosophy of animal rights demands only that logic be respected. For any argument that plausibly explains the independent value of human beings implies that other animals have this same value, and have it equally. And any argument that plausibly explains the right of humans to be treated with respect, also implies that these other animals have this same right, and have it equally, too.
It is true, therefore, that women do not exist to serve men, blacks to serve whites, the poor to serve the rich, or the weak to serve the strong. The philosophy of animal rights not only accepts these truths, it insists upon and justifies them.
But this philosophy goes further. By insisting upon and justifying the independent value and rights of other animals, it gives scientifically informed and morally impartial reasons for denying that these animals exist to serve us.
Once this truth is acknowledged, it is easy to understand why the philosophy of animal rights is uncompromising in its response to each and every injustice other animals are made to suffer.
It is not larger, cleaner cages that justice demands in the case of animals used in science, for example, but empty cages: not "traditional" animal agriculture, but a complete end to all commerce in the flesh of dead animals; not "more humane" hunting and trapping, but the total eradication of these barbarous practices.
For when an injustice is absolute, one must oppose it absolutely. It was not "reformed" slavery that justice demanded, not "reformed" child labor, not "reformed" subjugation of women. In each of these cases, abolition was the only moral answer. Merely to reform injustice is to prolong injustice.
The philosophy of animal rights demands this same answer - abolition - in response to the unjust exploitation of other animals. It is not the details of unjust exploitation that must be changed. It is the unjust exploitation itself that must be ended, whether on the farm, in the lab, or among the wild, for example. The philosophy of animal rights asks for nothing more, but neither will it be satisfied with anything less.
-----
Now about this topic...
I don't like PETA as they misrepresent animal rights, but they are correct on this issue.
If you live in civilization, you cannot call yourself an environmentalist if you eat animal flesh.
This is something that many environmental groups continually avoid. Only a few well-known groups, such as Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, Rainforest Action Network, and Earth Island Institute actually discuss the links between diet and the environment and encourage eating lower on the food chain. The many "big green" groups probably know and understand the issue, but are afraid to talk about it because of a fear of losing members and donations.
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Brandon Becker Posted 7:26 am
14 Sep 2007
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1282796533661048 ...
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Jon Rynn Posted 7:28 am
14 Sep 2007
I just want to add that people generally don't appreciate how many cars and how many car-miles there are, and how many coal plants spewing what they spew there are, so even all the lakes of cow manure don't get anywwhere close.
Another issue, I don't know if this has been brought up, is that I've read, if my memory serves me, that it takes 1500 pounds of water to make 1 pound of cattle meat.
Finally, any direct links to that UN report?
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caniscandida Posted 7:28 am
14 Sep 2007
To Activist247365: I join you in endorsing the HSUS, which style-wise is far superior to PETA.
To RobFDavis: Of course I understand why you eat meat, now that you explained it as you did. This is a totally different argument than the one you used before, and anybody who lives with a dog, and who loves that dog, will know exactly what you are talking about. Eating with those we love is a blessed event, a communion, a sacrament. So of course you want to share chicken with them.
Chickens are our cousins!
So are other sensitive animals!
Enough is enough!
No more factory farms!
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Brandon Becker Posted 7:38 am
14 Sep 2007
Vegan Starter Guide
http://www.friendsofanimals.org/img/Vegan_Starter_Guide.p ...
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Shamu44 Posted 7:53 am
14 Sep 2007
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robfdavis1971 Posted 8:02 am
14 Sep 2007
Thanks!
Robert
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veganchick Posted 8:15 am
14 Sep 2007
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Karen Lee Orr Posted 8:47 am
14 Sep 2007
Here's the link to the U.N. report, "Livestock's Long Shadow:"
http://www.virtualcentre.org/en/library/key_pub/longshad/ ...
Best,
Karen
Summary: This report aims to assess the full impact of the livestock sector on environmental problems, along with potential technical and policy approaches to mitigation. The assessment is based on the most recent and complete data available, taking into account direct impacts, along with the impacts of feed crop agriculture required for livestock production.
The livestock sector emerges as one of the top two or three most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global. The findings of this report suggest that it 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.
Livestock's contribution to environmental problems is on a massive scale and its potential contribution to their solution is equally large. The impact is so significant that it needs to be addressed with urgency. Major reductions in impact could be achieved at reasonable cost.
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Pandu Posted 9:32 am
14 Sep 2007
Then Grist animal killers can take birth in pigs' wombs to help understand what it's like to live in a factory farm and then have them cut your throat. With pig brains maybe they will understand a little better.
I've been reading Grist e-mails and participating here practically since its beginning. Now that Grist is actively promoting animal slaughter, I'm not sure whether I should unsubscribe from the mailing list now or just keep this up until one of the animal killers at Grist deletes my profile here.
Fifteen years ago I wrote a research paper in college showing that meat eating causes so much environmental harm that it is impossible to be an environmentalist and eat meat. Now I'm finding that it's impossible to read Grist and keep my self respect.
Our almost-vegetarian cats are better environmentalists than the Grist staff. They eat vegan cat food supplemented by our leftovers and an occasional vole they catch; and they don't drive. They also don't speak hypocritical nonsense like Grist.
Just so you know, eating meat isn't just the number 1 cause of global warming. The taste for blood is also the ultimate cause of war.
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iprefertherain Posted 9:39 am
14 Sep 2007
Vegetarianism is just the HUMANE thing to do. Its a humane way to treat animals and a humane way to treat humans.
For example, the Nobel Peace Prize winning buddhist Thich Nhat Hanh writes:
"UNESCO tells us that every day, forty thousand children in the world die because of a lack of nutrition, of food. Every day, forty thousand children. And the amount of grain that we grow in the West is mostly used to feed our cattle. Eighty percent of the corn grown in this country is to feed the cattle to make meat. Ninety-five percent of the oats produced in this country is not for us to eat, but for the animals raised for food."
Caring for animals, is to me, the basic point of empathy, but if you need more convincing look no further than how it affects ourselves.
"Environmentalism" though, typically means someone cares about more than just humans, more than even animals. They care about protecting tiny little plants and flora and even microorganisms. I've heard environmentalists say they even empathize with water itself.
So "Environmentalism" is a step BEYOND vegetarianism, since you can be a vegetarian and not an "environmentalist". Someone can still earn the title of "vegetarian" by refusing to eat meat, even if that person doesn't typically get behind "environmental" issues or candidates.
As long as there are slaughterhouses, there will be battlefields. -Leo Tolstoy
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josullivan58 Posted 10:08 am
14 Sep 2007
PETA's "if you like to eat hamburgers, you must like clubbing baby seals" rhetoric is counterproductive. They preach their way is the only one true way to save the planet. Unfortunately few people will follow their way, and the shrillness and the hostility of their ads are off-putting.
Effective action to stop global warming needs broad support from society as a whole. Measures that are seen as too extreme by most people are not realistic goals. Infighting and extremist demands are a waste of time and energy.
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Karen Lee Orr Posted 10:18 am
14 Sep 2007
It's a lot to read.
Here are two videos. One is on animal factories for food and the other is about the leather trade.
Meat:
http://www.meat.org/
The Global Leather Trade and the Environment:
http://getactive.peta.org/campaign/US_indian_leather?sour ... ...
I couldn't make it through either one of them. Can y'all?
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Matt G Posted 10:18 am
14 Sep 2007
Why? That doesn't seem to be a very good world-changing attitude. Maybe only a few people will switch to flickering compact flourescents. Maybe only a few people will drive a hybrid. And fewer still an electric car. But the reality is that changing your diet can have a far greater global impact.
I understand the distaste for PETA's tactics. But why does everyone have such a harsh reaction to this particular change of lifestyle?
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kevcon Posted 11:00 am
14 Sep 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/29/business/media/29adco.h ...
Advertising:
Trying to Connect the Dinner Plate to Climate Change
By CLAUDIA H. DEUTSCH .29Aug07.New York Times
EVER since "An Inconvenient Truth," Al Gore has been the darling of environmentalists, but that movie hardly endeared him to the animal rights folks. According to them, the most inconvenient truth of all is that raising animals for meat contributes more to global warming than all the sport utility vehicles combined.
The biggest animal rights groups do not always overlap in their missions, but now they have coalesced around a message that eating meat is worse for the environment than driving. They and smaller groups have started advertising campaigns that try to equate vegetarianism with curbing greenhouse gases.
Some backlash against this position is inevitable, the groups acknowledge, but they do have scientific ammunition. In late November, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization issued a report stating that the livestock business generates more greenhouse gas emissions than all forms of transportation combined.
When that report came out, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals and other groups expected their environmental counterparts to immediately hop on the "Go Veggie!" bandwagon, but that did not happen. "Environmentalists are still pointing their fingers at Hummers and S.U.V.'s when they should be pointing at the dinner plate," said Matt A. Prescott, manager of vegan campaigns for PETA.
So the animal rights groups are mobilizing on their own. PETA is outfitting a Hummer with a driver in a chicken suit and a vinyl banner proclaiming meat as the top cause of global warming. It will send the vehicle to the start of the climate forum the White House is sponsoring in Washington on Sept. 27, "and to headquarters of environmental groups, if they don't start shaping up," Mr. Prescott warned.
He said that PETA had written to more than 700 environmental groups, asking them to promote vegetarianism, and that it would soon distribute leaflets that highlight the impact of eating meat on global warming.
"You just cannot be a meat-eating environmentalist," said Mr. Prescott, whose group also plans to send billboard-toting trucks to the Colorado Convention Center in Denver when Mr. Gore lectures there on Oct. 2. The billboards will feature a cartoon image of Mr. Gore eating a drumstick next to the tagline: "Too Chicken to Go Vegetarian? Meat Is the No. 1 Cause of Global Warming."
*
The Humane Society of the United States has taken up the issue as well, running ads in environmental magazines that show a car key and a fork. "Which one of these contributes more to global warming?" the ads ask. They answer the question with "It's not the one that starts a car," and go on to cite the United Nations report as proof.
On its Web page and in its literature, the Humane Society has also been highlighting other scientific studies -- notably, one that recently came out of the University of Chicago -- that, in essence, show that "switching to a plant-based diet does more to curb global warming than switching from an S.U.V. to a Camry," said Paul Shapiro, senior director of the factory farming campaign for the Humane Society.
The society, Mr. Shapiro said, is not only concerned with what happens to domesticated animals, but also with preventing the carnage that global warming could cause to polar bears, seals and other wildlife. "Our mission is to protect animals, and global warming has become an animal welfare issue," he said.
Even tiny pro-veggie operations are starting to squeeze dollars out of their shoestring budgets to advertise the eating meat/global warming connection. Vegan Outreach, a 14-year-old group in Tucson with just three full-time workers and a $5 million annual budget, is spending about $800 this month to run ads and links to its Web page on about 10 blogs. And, it will give more prominence to the global warming aspect of vegetarianism in the next batch of leaflets it orders.
"We know that vegetarian organizations have sometimes made exaggerated health and environmental claims, but that U.N. report is an impartial, unimpeachable source of statements we can quote," said Matt Ball, executive director of Vegan Outreach.
Like Mr. Prescott, Mr. Ball is incensed that high-profile people like Al Gore -- or environmental groups with deeper pockets than his -- have not stepped up to the plate.
"Al Gore calls global warming an existential risk to humanity, yet it hasn't prompted him to change his diet or even mention vegetarianism," he complained. "And I guess the environmentalists recognize that it's a lot easier to ask people to put in a fluorescent light bulb than to learn to cook with tofu."
*
Advertising specialists warn that this new attention to global warming may attract enemies as well as converts.
"Using global warming as a tactic for advancing the cause of vegetarianism feels a bit opportunistic," said Hank Stewart, senior copywriter at Green Team Advertising, which specializes in environmentally themed ads.
He also questions the logistics. "You want to get the message as close to the meat-purchasing moment as possible," he said, "but can you imagine a supermarket allowing 'Attention, Planet-Destroying Carnivores' on the in-store radio?"
Environmental groups, meanwhile, readily concede that mobilizing against meat eaters is not their highest priority.
"We try to be strategic about doing the things where each unit of effort has the most impact," said Carl Pope, executive director of the Sierra Club. Mr. Pope notes that his group has stopped short of castigating people for driving S.U.V.'s or building overly large homes, too.
"We'll encourage companies to make more efficient S.U.V.'s, and we'll encourage consumers to buy them," he said, "but we do not find lecturing people about personal consumption choices to be effective."
Environmental Defense is also "in agreement on the value of eating less meat," said Melanie Janin, director of marketing communications. But, she added, her group would rather spend its time and money influencing public policy -- specifically, getting Congress to regulate greenhouse gases.
Mr. Gore declined to make himself available for comment. Chris Song, his deputy press secretary, simply noted that a suggestion to "modify your diet to include less meat" appears on Page 317 of Mr. Gore's book version of "An Inconvenient Truth."
He did not address Mr. Gore's personal food choices.
Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company
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Cassman47 Posted 1:26 pm
14 Sep 2007
Peta neither road the backs of the UN nor did they create the Facts. I have been Vegan for the better part of 10 years now, and for 10 years I have been saying that you really can't be a true greeny unless you give up meat and dairy (notice I skipped eggs and honey but that is another story) Even in the post factory farm happy cow in the field happy chicken in the barn smiling pig in the meadow world. they still use a minimum of twice the resources that plant based alternatives do ....and you cannot eat beef without cutting down rainforest it takes almost 25 acres of land per cow not to mention the vast resources of water to raise each cow. And milk directly effects health and environment of every region it's in world wide
But really why eat meat? Haven't we evolved? The cave man ate meat I would like to think my family has evolved quite a bit in the last 20000 years. And knowing what I know about nutrition what is the point of growing vast fields of soy beans, wheat, millet just to feed to animals when the soy beans, Wheat & Millet have more usable protein & Vitamins than the meat of the animals they kill to feed to human animals.
I think the real issue now is that the western diet if extended to the entire population of the planet so all 6.7 billion of us ate 100 kilos of meat per years we would need about 9.7 earths to do so if the same number of people just ate plant based food well we can all have children and restore about 50% of our farm land to wildlife.
The numbers add up and they are well documented do your own search you will find what I found.
one report I read about 3 years ago claimed that 40-60% of all fossil fuel was used in the production, transport refrigeration and storage of meat, next time your in the grocery store just look how much of the fridge section is dedicated to storage of meat and dairy. The list goes on an on. Sorry meat eaters this is not a football match that you can win or loose we either all win or we all loose. And I for one think that if there is hope it come from compassion not asserting our dominance over the world but trying to live in our world...
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jennyt Posted 1:35 pm
14 Sep 2007
That said, Roth's arguments are ridiculous and then some. He writes, "Of course, most of us carnivorous environmentalists do sometimes eat factory-farmed meat, just as vegans sometimes eat products made from industrial soybeans." Uh, Mr. Roth? It takes a much smaller toll on the environment to grow a pound of industrial soybeans than it does to raise a pound of meat.
According to "Choosing Nature, Three Times a Day: The True Cost of Food" on the Sierra Club website, "It takes up to about (some estimates are higher) 2,500 gallons of water to
produce one pound of grain fed beef. With the same water, farmers could produce . . . enough soybeans for three pounds of tofu". And that's just the water. Pound for pound, raising meat takes more land and pesticides and creates more pollution and waste than growing plants.
Roth also writes, "PETA also shoves aside the report's conclusion that many of the environmental harms caused by livestock production can be mitigated through better agricultural practices". Yeah, but as anyone who's taken Biology 101 knows, even with better ag practices, raising livestock still takes way more energy than growing plants. From the College of Agriculture Sciences at Penn State, "In a food chain, an animal passes on only about 10 percent of the energy it receives." That's why it takes about 10 pounds of grain to get one pound of beef.
Then he states, "To me, being an environmentalist simply means supporting policies and practices that promote a healthy environment". Everyone from the UN to the University of Chicago is publishing evidence that by switching to a plant-based diet can lessen one's impact on the environment by as much or more than switching to a hybrid vehicle. So, by his own definition of what it means to be an environmentalist, Roth should, if not adopt a plant-based diet, at least support those who do, and at the very least, keep his yap shut when others promote veggie diets for environmental reasons.
He continues, "These days, climate change is known to be exacerbated by most human activities, from stir-frying tofu to watching videos of endangered baby harp seals." True enough. But some activities exacerbate climate change more than others. From the UN report:
"The livestock sector emerges as one of the top two or three most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global. . . The livestock sector is a major player [in climate change], responsible for 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions measured in CO2 equivalent. This is a higher share than transport".
Some behaviors are also easier to change than others. Reducing my carbon footprint by driving less and biking more has proved more challenging than adopting a plant-based diet, by at least a degree of magnitude. So, if eating meat creates a huge amount of greenhouse gases and it's fairly easy to avoid eating meat, why eat meat?
Roth continues, "No, what is most astonishing about a person like Prescott is that someone evidently so well-intentioned can simultaneously be so counterproductive and so irritating". Funny, I was just thinking same thing about you, Mr. Roth.
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nrfreeburg Posted 2:22 pm
14 Sep 2007
The real problem isn't that people eat too much, or that they eat the wrong things (both of which are true). The biggest problem is that we are over populated. Soon it won't matter how efficient we are with producing our food or green we try to be, we simply can not healthily support a population our size for any extended period of time.
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Steve Erickson Posted 2:26 pm
14 Sep 2007
Think practically. When petro fuel makes long distance transportation of most goods, including food, prohibitively expensive, will preparation of land for planting be done by:
a. Biodiesel or vegetable oil fueled machinery.
b. Horses, oxen, or other draft animals.
c. Biological "no-till" methods, such as "chicken tractors."
All of these methods require additional land in addition that actually used for growing the vegetable crop.
The first must have additional land left fallow to recover from the biomass removal invovled in producing the oil seed for fuel. It provides a motive source. It saves labor, but requires a large industrial infrastructure to support.
The second and third options require additional land for support of the animals, either directly (pasture and hay for the horses/oxen) or indirectly (land not used for growing the crop that the chickens are rotated onto). Like the first option, these both save labor. But in addition, these options can enhance the fertility of the farmland so its not "mined" of nutrients and retains tilth. And they provide something else that our bodies have evolved to take advantage of: protein and nutrients that have been concentrated by other animals. They are also self-replicating; industrial infrastructure isn't needed to create and maintain horses and chickens. And a dead horse or chicken can be recycled much more easily than a dead tractor. Think compost. Think dinner. Think food for the dog that keeps the coyotes away from the chickens.
I think that any discussion that doesn't base its view on a possible future society that is sutainable in the most basic sense is shortsighted and not very useful, given the crisis that our species is causing in the biosphere (and not just from climate change). And ultra-vegetarianism is not systemically sustainable.
Steve E.
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Steve Erickson Posted 2:41 pm
14 Sep 2007
This comes down to how you define the problem. PETA doesn't give a rat's ass about climate change. They believe that eating animals is immoral. Their newfound discovery of climate change is simply an ad campaign of convenience.
I define the problem differently:
What would a sustainable food system look like for humans on this planet?
I don't believe its possible without having animals integrated into the system. And if there's critters available, people will use them for everything useful our inventive minds can come up with, including food.
Steve E.
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Pandu Posted 3:01 pm
14 Sep 2007
... and I don't disagree. We don't need to treat animals nicely, not eliminate them.
I'm a vegetarian who keeps several farm animals, mostly to serve to them as a token apology for my childhood eating meat and on behalf of the human race; but they also contribute in various ways without having to kill them.
The thing about keeping animals like this is that we don't need many. It's nothing like a feedlot. It looks more like a rustic backyard.
Here's a little census, with their contributions:
1 cow (4 year old heiffer): manure for garden, religion, mows the lawn. If we breed her, she may provide our milk for as much as 10 years.
3 sheep: wool, fertilize pasture
2 goats: mohair, fertilize pasture
11 guinea fowl: eats bugs, announces visitors
5 cats: preys on mice & voles
1 dog: just a friendly vegetarian dog.
1 macaw parrot: ? (he was a rescue)
a frog: (I staunchly refused vivisection in college, saying I could learn more from live animals than dead ones. The frog is a reminder of that.)
a tank of fish: Adding ambiance to the temple room, the fish are blessed to be in view of our Deities and hear our daily chanting of Hare Krishna.
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Jon Rynn Posted 3:34 pm
14 Sep 2007
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Pandu Posted 3:43 pm
14 Sep 2007
Anyway as far as I'm concerned the best thing is the animals and the plants get to hear daily
hare krishna hare krishna
krishna krishna hare hare
hare rama hare rama
rama rama hare hare
Even the grass becomes liberated.
Anyone can become a vegetarian practically by chanting Hare Krishna, easily! I am sure of that. Easy reference is http://vedabase.net to see Srila Prabhupada's books. Simply chant this Hare Krishna mantra and it melts your heart with love of God so much that you cannot think of hurting animals. Or if someone really wants to kill animals then they are doomed without this chanting of "Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare, Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare." But even the meat eaters can give that up anutomatically when they taste the love of God who is Sri Krishna by chanting His names of Hare Krishna.
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caniscandida Posted 4:06 pm
14 Sep 2007
<<
"Environmentalism" though, typically means someone cares about more than just humans, more than even animals. They care about protecting tiny little plants and flora and even microorganisms. I've heard environmentalists say they even empathize with water itself.
>>
Probably some people will disagree. But my own feeling is very close: the fundamental value of environmentalism is the good life of the entire community of living creatures. "Good life" of course needs to be defined in the respective contexts of those creatures. And while water is indeed precious, I am not sure I "empathize" with it as though it were a living being.
To my good friend Pandu:
I do not understand the writers and editors of Grist to be endorsing or promoting the slaughter of animals for their meat. If there can be said to be a Grist consensus, they seem to be suggesting that environmentalists who choose to eat meat should be allowed to do so in peace. They may also be suggesting that the claim, made by some vegetarians and animal-rights supporters, that the raising of livestock, especially cattle, for food is a principal source of GHG emissions, even surpassing some sources that receive frequent and regular attention in Grist, is a bit exaggerated. But I am not sure that they would agree with that. Anyway, please do not leave.
I do not know what exactly you feed your dogs and cats, so as to vegetarianize them. If they like what you give them to eat, then I am happy for all of you. But please remember that cats are naturally strict carnivores, and dogs are largely carnivorous omnivores; to tamper with those facts of nature might look like a form of violence. At least your cats have the opportunity to catch and eat voles (but hopefully NOT birds).
Macaws are among the most beautifully colored of all creatures. Surely your macaw's contribution to your household, a splash of sensational tropical splendor, merits more than a "?." : )
To NRFreeburg, on evolution and the human diet: It is true that our ancestors were meat-eating omnivores, and that even now most people continue to rely on such a diet for their nourishment. But it just as true that our intellect has evolved, so that we understand how to feed ourselves well without including animal products in our diet; and our morality has evolved too, so that we can be moved by the sufferings of animals, and can conceive of our exploitation and killing of animals, for some material benefit to ourselves, to be a form of wrong-doing.
There is absolutely nothing unnatural or anti-evolutionary about veganism.
Chickens are our cousins!
So are other sensitive animals!
Enough is enough!
No more factory farms!
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marylounoble Posted 5:34 pm
14 Sep 2007
I am extremely proud of the fact that my extended family of 15 are all vegetarians, one of whom is a vegan. My very healthy dog is a vegetarian, as well. I drive a Prius, use fluorescent light bulbs, recycle every item possible, have no lawn, and support numerous environmental organiztions and all legislative proposals to reduce negative impacts upon the environment.
I do believe, however, that it is important to award credit to all individuals who take steps, however small, to enhance the quality of our environment. It is most likely counterproductive to be hypercritical of those who do not live up to the expectations of the "ideal" environmentalist. Education on the measures that can be taken to reduce harm to the environment will surely produce more positive results.
Marylou Noble
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charlesjustice Posted 6:44 pm
14 Sep 2007
I don't own a car. But I don't preach about it to other people. As much as I'd like to see a world without cars it doesn't help to tell people to stop driving cars. You can be much more effective if you are indirect. If you get people to think about environmental problems and what choices they have that's half the battle. Being holier-than-thou is always counterproductive.
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Karen Lee Orr Posted 9:57 pm
14 Sep 2007
I just discovered that many of the links to articles, studies and websites I posted to this discussion didn't make it in working order to Grist.
If you'd like to receive these links, just drop me a line at (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
//
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var output = '';
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msambos Posted 11:21 pm
14 Sep 2007
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laralou Posted 12:52 am
15 Sep 2007
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caniscandida Posted 4:16 am
15 Sep 2007
On page 229 of their "The Way We Eat," Peter Singer and Jim Mason write:
<<
In his otherwise useful book So Shall We Reap, Colin Tudge claims that unless it is the case that everyone in the world ought to become vegan, there can be no moral obligation on any of us to do so. He points out that for many people living in difficult environments at high latitudes or in semi-deserts, vegetarianism is not a viable option. He then draws on the 18th-century German philosopher Immanuel Kant as an authority for the view that "no ethical principle is really acceptable unless it could in principle be recommended to the whole world." He concludes that vegetarianism and veganism fail this test and therefore cannot be ethical principles.
... But to understand Kant as Tudge suggests turns his moral law into nonsense. It would mean, for example, that it would be unethical to become a teacher, because if everyone in the world became a teacher, there would be no farmers to grow food for them. It is perfectly possible to restrict the application of moral principles to specific contexts, and we do this all the time. We tell people to keep their promises, but not when the only way to save the life of a road accident victim is to break your solemn promise not to be late for the start of the school concert in which your daughter is playing the violin. Similarly, we could say, "Be vegan, unless the circumstances in which you live prevent you nourishing yourself properly from plants alone."
>>
(It is a subtly entertaining aspect of reading this book, to guess which parts were written by Singer, and which by Mason. We are here presumably in Singer territory.)
Whether Singer and Mason are themselves actually pronouncing the imperative, with qualifier, in that last sentence, is not perfectly clear. But let us assume that they are. In that case, they are being a good deal more moderate and negotiable than other supporters of animal rights would be. And those other supporters might even accuse Singer and Mason of being disgracefully anthropocentric.
Anyway, at least it should be amply clear that not all vegans and supporters of animal rights wish to urge your neighbors, and other members of the First Peoples, to relinquish their traditional diets.
Chickens are our cousins!
So are other sensitive animals!
Enough is enough!
No more factory farms!
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Karen Kieckhefer Posted 4:30 am
15 Sep 2007
Pollution from factory farms often emit irritatating and health threatening pollutants into the air. Ammonia, hydrogen sulfide, carbon dioxide, particulate matter and health threatening pollutants into the air.
Energy: raising animals for food requires more than one-third of all raw materials and fossil fuels used in the U.S. Producing a single hamburer patty uses enough fossil fuel to drive a small car 20 miles. Health is another issue.
Albert Einstein, George Bernard Shaw, Leonardo Da Vinci, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Edison, 14th Dalai Lama, Steve Jobs, and many more geniuses throughout history have observed a vegetarian diet and affirmed its necessity from the standpoints of both morality and logic. So people can say the need to eat meat but it is only an excuse to not further investigate a truly healthful vegetarian diet.
We are just beginning to see the impact of a meat eating diet and the implications on this earth, I highly recommend reading John Robbins book "Diet for a New America". It changed my life.
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Wklawrence Posted 4:36 am
15 Sep 2007
Seriously, Peta is long past any point of credibility. They've attacked Steve Irwin, Al Gore, and just about every other person who contributes to envrionmental or conservation education. Peta can't compete with these people, nor can they keep up with the other more credible environmental orgs. The Humane Society is much more reliable source for animal issues.
But to be fair to the issue. Meat production is indeed a major contributor to global warming with both methane emissions as well as Co2 due to production and transport. WWF has acknowledged this, Jane Goodall has acknowledged this, and so have others. A meat based diet contributes to global warming pollution as well as other forms of pollution including water and crop contamination due to waste run-off. Those are the facts.
But to attack potential allies as Peta constantly does is hideous and irresponsible. The millions of people they could have brought into their mission by embracing Steve Irwin and paying tribute to him, gone because their egos were too big. The millions more they could be recruiting by supporting Al Gore, gone because of their radical views. They've lost potential allies and it's rather upsetting and should make us question their intentions even for animal issues.
I'm a vegetarian not only because of the impact meat-based diets have on the environment, but also because of health factors associated with eating plant-based diets, and my own ethical personal choice not to consume animals who have suffered and felt pain. But I don't demand the same of everyone. We all have our own journey.
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spaceshaper Posted 6:08 am
15 Sep 2007
To those who feel that Peta's in-your-face approach will lose them allies: I really don't think they are trying to win any popularity contests or get you to join their jolly club. Or to get others to join your jolly club for that matter. If just a few more Grist readers have started making the connection between their eating habits and their environmental aspirations as a result of discussions like this then I would guess they'd think they've succeeded.
The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.
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Meredith Simonds Posted 7:00 am
15 Sep 2007
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iprefertherain Posted 7:18 am
15 Sep 2007
I think they are saying that vegetarianism is just the right thing to do. That doesn't mean attempts that don't quite live up to that are worthless. They're just not ideal.
I would be one of those people that believe vegetarianim is right, but I just am not quite disciplined enough to do it.
The key is that I'm trying, though.
Why people find that so hard to say?
As long as there are slaughterhouses, there will be battlefields. -Leo Tolstoy
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Pearl Posted 7:27 am
15 Sep 2007
divergence is highest when preferred food (succulent fruit) is scarce,
and that niche separation is clear only at such times (Gautier-Hion &
Gautier 1979: Terborgh 1983). - Foraging profiles of sympatric
lowland gorillas and chimpanzees in the Lopé Reserve, Gabon, p.179,
Philosophical Transactions: Biological Sciences vol 334, 159-295,
No. 1270
'One of the most famous anatomists, Baron Cuvier, wrote:
"The natural food of man, judging from his structure, appears
to consist principally of the fruits, roots, and other succulent
parts of vegetables. His hands afford every facility for
gathering them; his short but moderately strong jaws on the
other hand, and his canines being equal only in length to the
other teeth, together with his tuberculated molars on the other,
would scarcely permit him either to masticate herbage, or to
devour flesh, were these condiments not previously prepared
by cooking."
..
Linneaus, who introduced binomial nomenclature (naming
plants and animals according to their physical structure) wrote:
"Man's structure, external and internal, compared with that
of other animals shows that fruit and succulent vegetables
constitute his natural food."
Dr. F.A. Pouchet, 19th century author of The Universe, wrote
in his Pluralite' de la Race Humaine: "It has been truly said
that Man is frugivorous. All the details of his intestinal canal,
and above all his dentition, prove it in the most decided manner."
Professor William Lawrence, FRS, in his lectures delivered at the
Royal College of Surgeons in 1822, said:
"The teeth of man have not the slightest resemblance to those of
the carnivorous animals, excepting that their enamel is confined
to the external surface. He possesses, indeed, teeth called canine;
but they do not exceed the level of others, and are obviously
unsuited to the purposes which the corresponding teeth execute
in carnivorous animals. Thus we find, whether we consider the
teeth and jaws, or the immediate instruments of digestion, that the
human structure closely resembles that of the apes, all of whom,
in their natural state, are completely herbivorous (frugivorous)."
Professor Charles Bell, FRS, wrote in his 1829 work, Anatomy,
Physiology, and Diseases of the Teeth: "It is, I think, not going
too far to say that every fact connected with the human
organisation goes to prove that man was originally formed a
frugivorous animal. This opinion is derived principally from the
formation of his teeth and digestive organs, as well as from the
character of his skin and the general structure of his limbs."
Professor Richard Owen, FRS, in his elaborate 1845 work,
Odontography, wrote: "The apes and monkeys, whom man
nearly resembles in his dentition, derive their staple food from
fruits, grain, the kernels of nuts, and other forms in which the
most sapid and nutritious tissues of the vegetable kingdom
are elaborated; and the close resemblance between the
quadrumanous and the human dentition shows that man was,
from the beginning, adapted to eat the fruit of the tree of the
garden."
"Behold! I have given you every plant-yielding seed which is
upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its
fruit; you shall have them for food."---Genesis 1:29
"Man, by nature, was never made to be a carnivorous animal,"
wrote John Ray, FRS, "nor is he armed for prey or rapine, with
jagged and pointed teeth, and claws to rend and tear; but with
gentle hands to gather fruit and vegetables, and with teeth to
chew and eat them."
According to Dr. Spenser Thompson, "No physiologist would
dispute with those who maintain that men ought to have a
vegetable diet."
Dr. S.M. Whitaker, MRCS, LRCP, in Man's Natural Food: An
Enquiry, concluded, "Comparative anatomy and physiology
indicate fresh fruits and vegetables as the main food of man."
More recently, William S. Collens and Gerald B. Dobkens
concluded: "Examination of the dental structure of modern man
reveals that he possesses all the features of a strictly herbivorous
animal. While designed to subsist on vegetarian foods, he has
perverted his dietary habits to accept food of the carnivore. It
is postulated that man cannot handle carnivorous foods like the
carnivore. Herein may lie the basis for the high incidence of
arteriosclerotic disease."
..'
http://www.all-creatures.org/murti/tsnhod-14.html
'Furthermore, William C. Roberts, M.D., Professor and Director
of the Baylor University Medical Center, and Editor in Chief of the
American Journal of Cardiology, stated in this peer-reviewed journal,
Thus, although we think we are one and we act as if we are one,
human beings are not natural carnivores. When we kill animals to
eat them, they end up killing us because their flesh, which contains
cholesterol and saturated fat, was never intended for human beings,
who are natural herbivores.[11]
..
[11] Roberts, William C. American Journal of Cardiology.
Volume 66, P. 896. 1 Oct, 1990 .
..'
http://animalliberationfront.com/Philosophy/Morality/exam ...
See also: http://www.iol.ie/~creature/BiologicalAdaptations.htm
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caniscandida Posted 8:03 am
15 Sep 2007
As for the author of Genesis 1, we should exercise care. That is the same guy who has God tell the first people, "You have dominion over" all creatures.
To WKLawrence: Yes, PETA has a very complex record, and they are responsible for many good and worthwhile things. Spaceshaper makes the excellent point that this too is a happy success, that they have now got people to think about the connexion between carnivory and global warming. But do not worry about alienating them, if we criticize them about anything; they seem insensate to criticism.
Chickens are our cousins!
So are other sensitive animals!
Enough is enough!
No more factory farms!
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josullivan58 Posted 8:09 am
15 Sep 2007
http://www.peta.org/living/AT-Summer1999/purr.html
and do this
http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G1-15794304.html
One of the major threats to ecosystems is invasive species. Rather than remove feral pigs PETA would rather watch them destroy ecosystems and drive other animals and plants to extinction. Conservation of ecosystems and stopping extinctions that are caused by people are core values of environmentalism and conservation. Stopping work which helps the environment, like removing animals that are destructive because they are in unnatural situations and conserving ecosystem, is the opposite of being an environmentalist.
This is not to mention ad campaigns that have been criticized for being sexist
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0820/is_n210/ai_16 ...
and that unforgivably compared the murder of millions of people in Nazi concentration camps to eating meat.
http://www.adl.org/Anti_semitism/holocaust_imagery_ar.asp ...
http://www.adl.org/PresRele/HolNa_52/4235_52.htm
And not to mention defending people who are at best vandals and at worst terrorists
http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?si ...
And funding and supporting groups that have been labeled as terrorist organizations
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PETA
Yes PETA's campaigns get people talking, but much of what they say is "wow those PETA people are a freak show, and I won't listen any environmentalists anymore, they're all crackpots". PETA is an extremist animal-rights group whose actions are hurting the chances of reaching the broad-based political consensus needed to stop global warming.
http://www.tolerance.org/news/article_hate.jsp?id=724
The NDRC has a good take on this.
http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/jcoifman/go_pluck_yours ...
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Pearl Posted 9:06 am
15 Sep 2007
"As for the author of Genesis 1, we should exercise care. That is the same guy who has God tell the first people, "You have dominion over" all creatures."
Well, not necessarily the same guy. Check it out..
'As far back as the 18th century, biblical scholars started to recognize
that the Pentateuch or Torah was riddled with doublets, i.e., two versions
of the same story, each complete and self-contained. This would have
been insignificant in itself, but they also noticed that one of the versions
invariably identified the deity as Yahweh, while in the other account the
deity was Elohim. Recognizing that they were looking at a riffling together
of two older documents that had been written independently, they called
the author of the Yahweh stories "the Jahwist," in German, or "Yahwist,"
in English, and for convenience thereafter referred to him simply as "J."
The author of the Elohim stories became "the Elohist" or "E." A little
later, they came to the realization that the Elohim stories were the work
of two authors, one from the 8th century B. C., who retained the "E"
designation, and the other a Levitical priest from the 7th century, who
became "the priestly author," or "P." When the author of Deuteronomy
was recognized as "none of the above," he became "the Deuteronomist"
or "D." Finally, in the late 20th century, Richard Friedman of USCD
demonstrated that the person who combined the separate documents
into a single narrative, long thought to be the Priestly author, was in
fact a much later editor, whom he called "the Redactor" or "R."
While it is not unanimous, the most widely accepted dates for the
various authors are J, ca. 920 B. C.; E, ca. 770 B. C.; D, 621 B. C.;
P, 621-612 B. C. ; and R, 434 B. C. The reasoning behind those
dates is that J shows signs of having been written during the reign of
Rehoboam (ca. 922-915 B. C.), whom he consciously flattered.
E could be off by as many as fifty years. D clearly wrote shortly
before the "discovery" of his book in Yahweh's temple in 621 B. C.
(2 Kings 22:8-11). P was written after D, which showed no awareness
of P's existence, while P referred to Assyria as an existing reality, as
he could only have done before Assyria's annihilation in 612 B. C.
Since the Torah's final version, containing sections not from J, E, D,
or P, turned up in the hands of high priest Ezra in 434 B. C., with no
explanation of where it came from or why Ezra suddenly changed
the ritual for the feast of booths from the formula in Deuteronomy
to that in Leviticus, the logical conclusion is that it did not exist
seven years earlier when a Deuteronomic booths was celebrated.
Indeed, the most logical assumption is that Ezra himself was R.
..'
http://www.infidels.org/library/magazines/tsr/2000/5/205m ...
'By the 12th century B.C.E., the Hebrews assumed an identity
unique enough in the archaeological record to become discernible
for the first time. In the mountains and plateaus of the northern
highlands of Canaan, from Jerusalem north to the Jezreel Valley,
the highland settlements, poor for their day, begin to show a single
distinguishing feature from other, similar highland settlements in
regions around them. There is little to go on - pottery shows an
impoverished lifestyle, with little decoration and use other than as
storage and cooking vessels. Yet one thing is clear - the bones of
pigs become absent from the archaeological record. The prohibition
on eating pork is therefore the oldest archaeologically supported
feature of Jewish culture. It is representative of the beginnings of
the transformation of the god "El" into "El-ohim," the god of
gods, the god of Israel.
We now know this Mesopotamian god as "El-ohim," and our
author "E," one of the earliest scriptorialists writing about this time,
first has El introducing himself to Abraham as "El Shaddai"
(El of the Mountain). He also appears as El Elyon, or El of Bethel
in other, non-canonized scripture, and his name is also preserved
in such Hebrew names as Isra-El and Ishma-El. The word Elohim
was originally a plural of El.2
To the south, from Bethel to the Valley of Beersheba, a similar
transformation is taking place. In this climatically and geologically
harsher place, a place with a much smaller and less settled population
with greater geographical isolation, the Canaanite god Yahweh is
being transformed by a culturally similar people of the land of Judah.
The unknown author known to scholars simply as "J" has his god
being familiar with and comfortable with Abraham, and he casually
appears to Abraham in Genesis 18, introducing himself as Yahweh.
But "J's" contemporary, author "E" in the north can't have God
being so casual, and first appears as a voice, commanding
Abraham to leave his people in Mesopotamia and settle in Canaan.3
Yahweh, in his transformation from a pagan Canaanite god to the
god of the Jews, becomes a cruel and vindictive god in the hands
of author "J." He commands Abraham to sacrifice his first born
son, an act which is not at all surprising given the nature of the pagan
religions of the time. Many of these pagan religions (and remember
that Yahweh got his start as a Canannite pagan god) considered
the first-born to be the seed of a god. Because of this, they were
often sacrificed to the god who presumably sired them.
Yet Elohim in the north continues to be a much more subtle god,
who directs the affairs of men by revelation of the voice, hidden
from the view of mere mortals. There is a tension among these
peoples, both of whom identify themselves as culturally decendants
of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. One people, perhaps, but two gods.
..'
http://www.bidstrup.com/bible.htm
'Before Abraham's time, it was impressed upon the young from this
voice of Mal_khiy-tzehthehq , whose fleeting importance is apparent
in Genesis, in the ancient account of Torah [The account is actually
a last minute insertion into the Torah by a small but persistent
survivorship of later northern tradition 'Eloists who survived the
Assyrian crushing of the Northern Kingdom in 722 BCE], that
'ELOHIM was the GOD of blessing, and the earth a blessing of
'ELOHIM , the TRUE GOD of all. The tithes and offerings brought
to 'EL were nothing more than thanksgiving offerings given out of
gratitude.
Still, these accounts from Torah are only faded remnants attempting
to capture the relational values established between the peoples of
Kh_na'an and 'ELOHIM . Most accounts concerning 'ELOHIM,
accounts compiled 1,000 years after, are badly distorted by Yahwistic
redaction, notably the Abraham / Isaac account of blood sacrifice
wrongly attributed to as if directed by 'ELOHIM.
'ELOHIM does not and will not accept blood sacrifice. Such
appeasement, petition, and sacrifice is blasphemy.
Far into the past, deep into antiquity, all that was ever brought before
this ancient GOD of Kh_na'an / Canaan, when agriculture was still
young, and a miracle before the people, long before blood sacrifice
began, long before the pain of seasons set in, grain and fruit offerings
were brought to this GREAT ONE in gratitude for the fruits of the
harvest and the earth, never in blood, never in the shedding of blood
to appease imagined "sins" or wrongs. That was a desert fear, easily
overcome by the truth.
'ELOHIM , in the beginning, was, to the most ancient of Canaanites,
a GOD of Thanksgiving, a GOD to WHOM gratitude was given in
celebration of LIFE as a sacred and wonderful gift. Pesach, the original
spring festival was given in honor of the fruitfulness and rebirth of the
earth, its fertility and promise.
..
Only later did that change when a fusion with his "sons" or "children"
began.
Despite the tendency of three thousand years to believe otherwise,
YHWH and 'ELOHIM are not and were not the same.
..
Biblical redaction and tampering have twisted, mixed up, and confused
the actual representations in the early accounts of Genesis.
..'
http://web.archive.org/web/20050905122123/http://www.mess ...
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iprefertherain Posted 9:18 am
15 Sep 2007
That just undermines any kind of intelligent and constructive debate.
Furthermore, their message is one that is worth debating. It is also the focus of this article which you seem to sidestep, in favor of starting a PETA witch-hunt.
Anyone can argue about whether or not vegetarianism is required for environmentalism. By name-calling you completley undermine any solid logic their arguments hold.
As long as there are slaughterhouses, there will be battlefields. -Leo Tolstoy
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ONEwithEarth Posted 9:32 am
15 Sep 2007
This past week I read an article about how obesity can be by zip code. The surveys showed that highly affluent neighborhoods with sidewalks and ammenities out the whazoo - had thinner people. Not to mention these people had access to fresh produce - organic produce - at nearly every turn.
Gee, imagine that - these people were significantly thinner than those in a zip code with less income.
A prime example is the fact that I just moved less than 15 miles away from my old affluent neighborhood into a more, well, let's just say "diverse rural population." These new neighbors boast of the deer they kill and eat - but it feeds them all winter long. They see me as the "whacky vegetarian neighbor."
Okay - make them eat produce instead? I think not. The nearest market is not within walking distance, and is at a very expensive grocery store. The closest store is our trusty ol' community destroyer, Wal-Mart and guess what? They have no produce, they have no REAL food. Everything that is within the grasp of those unfortunately impoverished, is rich in MSG, High Fructose Corn Syrup and everything else that is called "food" but isn't.
Before we begin to scream vegan/vegetarian, meaties or meatless - let's discuss how to feed the poor who depend on these animals to survive long winters with their families.
Instead, let's get riled up about a government that spent a trillion dollars on a war, when today, even the middle class in the this country can barely afford to buy anything more than packaged, processed nutrition-lacking foods, GMO vegetables, antibiotic latent meats, and dairy products full of hormones.
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givingjane Posted 12:50 pm
15 Sep 2007
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givingjane Posted 12:55 pm
15 Sep 2007
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zyclop Posted 6:46 pm
15 Sep 2007
zy
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RIRedinPA Posted 8:47 pm
15 Sep 2007
The harm they'll cause from their "campaign" to the environmental movement will do more to drive people away from the movement than bring people into the fold. It's basically Mapplethorpe art - look at me! look at me! I am so outrageous! but when you dig beneath the surface there is little substance. Great for shouting to the kids but in the adult world these issues need to be resolved with a bit more complexity.
Telling folks that if you eat meat you cannot be an environmentalist is really not the message people like my parents want to hear, born in their fifties and set in their ways it was a major accomplishment for me to get them to switch to flourescent light bulbs.
And as like most PETA campaigns it is at best exaggerated and misleading. Not many people know that most broccoli in this country is grown 20 miles from the average American...and then transported an average of 1800 miles to market. The average food item travels 1500 miles. Certainly beef and other meat products are part of this massive foot print but so too are vegetable and vegan products.
If your a vegan or vegetarian perhaps you ought to just cast stones at your own house before you begin to tell me to clean up my act. Which is why PETA's comments and upcoming ad campaign will do more harm than good. Their position isn't to save the planet, it's to save animals. Perhaps there is overlap in some of these areas but it isn't their main motivation.
http://www.midatlanticoutdoors.com
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walkabouts3 Posted 9:31 pm
15 Sep 2007
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Karen Lee Orr Posted 11:01 pm
15 Sep 2007
The PETA website has a good section on the environment. It's organized by "Wasted Resources" (land, food, energy, water, rainforest, animal suffering), "Pollution" (feces, water, air, global warming) and "What You Can Do" (eating your way to a smaller 'ecological footprint').
PETA's environment pages can be viewed here:
http://www.goveg.com/environment.asp
PETA also produces some excellent (and difficult to watch) videos. I recommend that consumers of animal products watch two of them.
"Meet Your Meat" (narrated by Alec Baldwin)
http://www.meat.org/
The Global Leather Trade and the Environment:
http://getactive.peta.org/campaign/US_indian_leather?sour ...
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spaceshaper Posted 2:16 am
16 Sep 2007
To RiR etc.: PETA is indeed not an environmental group. That's exactly why it is pointless to complain that they are "turning people off" environmentalism: they have their own very clear agenda which is actually different from yours. The coal industry may as well say that the environmental movement is "turning people off" burning vast quantities of dirty coal to generate electricity which is then squandered. Oh wait a minute, that's what they do say.
To give a parallel example of PETA's stance: I personally am deeply puzzled by those many professed Christians who support pre-emptive war abroad and the death penalty here in the US. It would seem very clear to me that these forms of socialized murder are directly at odds with such fundamental Christian teachings as "Thou shalt not kill" and "Love thy neighbor as thyself". If I am not a part of that faith community am I therefore to be excluded from expressing this critique? To me it's a very reasonable call at this moment in our history to suggest that non-carnivory may indeed be fundamental to practical environmentalism. And whether that call comes from card-carrying "environmentalists" or not is actually quite irrelevant. You know, sometimes we need a comment from the outside to help us question those many comfortable self-justifications and self-satisfactions that we as a species seem so amply capable of.
The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.
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caniscandida Posted 4:25 am
16 Sep 2007
Thanks, Karen Lee Orr, for doing some valuable PETA research for us. It seems reasonable to believe at this point that PETA is neither all good nor all bad. IMHO, it is mostly good. (But style counts! "Le style est l'homme," and equally, "Le style est la NGO.") Therefore, we ought to take the time to be fair, and you have helped us do so.
Somebody in this thread (but I cannot find the comment now) had said something about how raising livestock on hillsides, or other land not able to be cultivated, is the best use of that resource. Or words to that effect. Well, no. First, it would be much better not to think of a piece of wilderness as a "resource." Secondly, it would be much better to allow the native wild flora and fauna continue living there in peace.
Spaceshaper, you are absolutely right to point out yet another example of Christian hypocrisy. It should be remembered that there are many Christians who are concerned about the environment and animal welfare, and consider that concern to be an important cause in Christian ethics. And there are church leaders who have written and spoken some very good words on the subject. But it is still not possible to say that that has raised the consciousnesses of many Christians in their local churches. As for those (generally conservative, sexually uptight, law-and-order-dependent, punishment-wielding) Christians who prominently uphold the so-called "pro-life" ethic, it is outrageous, not only that they have no qualms about waging unnecessary wars and executing under-control convicts, but also that they are unwilling to recognize that concern for the environment and for animals deserves as prominent a place in an ethical code that is called "pro-life" as any other concern.
Chickens are our cousins!
So are other sensitive animals!
Enough is enough!
No more factory farms!
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vaslav tchitcherine Posted 6:12 am
16 Sep 2007
If the livestock industry were reformed to grow and slaughter fewer animals and to do so under more humane conditions (for many of us, treating your supper to a good life before killing it does not seem cruel, especially given the cruelty of the "natural" world) as well as greener ones (less shipment of meat and so on), then PETA would be once more reduced to squeaking about what meanies carnivores are.
Nor are arguments about the "ideal" diet of human beings any more convincing than the utopian fantasies of the past. The current theories of anthropologists and nutritionists are surely doomed to a shorter life than the tendency of human populations to consume available animal proteins. The few exceptional herbivorous cultures tend to be so because of geographic and economic constraints (eg India and its cows).
Perhaps what is most interesting about the flamboyance and aggression of groups like PETA is their preference of animals to most people. This is one reason why PETA is widely considered to be a bunch of hysterical jokers. To most folks, it is obvious that any good-hearted committed activist would be more concerned about human rights than those of animals. Appreciating arguments for the legitimacy of vocation do not excuse this troubling priority; PETA members and proponents are frequently vitriolic and hateful toward people who do not agree with them. Considering this celebrated misanthropy, it is perhaps no surprise that the first words that spring to mind for their propagandists are "guilt" and "denial".
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Karen Lee Orr Posted 8:43 am
16 Sep 2007
Some don't care for PETA's methods and PETA's syle but PETA's activities gave us the opportunity to put forward some good information, like 'em or not.
Below is an interview with Ingrid Newkirk that might be of interest to those who have a variety of views on the PETA methods.
Soldiering On: The Satya Interview With Ingrid Newkirk
Part I: PETA at 20 Years
http://www.satyamag.com/novdec00/newkirk.html
In the Hot Seat
The Satya Interview With Ingrid Newkirk: Part II: Activism and Controversy
http://www.satyamag.com/jan01/newkirk.html
And here are several other articles about PETA:
Alec Baldwin Narrates PETA's Meet Your Meat: A Vegetarian's Most Powerful Advocacy Tool Just Got Even Better
Film Review by Paul Shapiro
http://www.satyamag.com/aug03/shapiro.html
PETA: Whatever It Takes
By Jan Frel, AlterNet
http://www.alternet.org/story/26094/
PETA's Agent 007: A James Bond for the Animal Rights Movement
The following is an excerpt from chapter 9 of Committed: A Rabble Rouser's Memoir" by Dan Matthews. Matthews, a long-time activist for PETA, took to sneaking into media attended events and stealing the headlines with his animal rights message. This episode has Matthews telling the story of how he dressed up like a Catholic priest to sneak into a fashion show in Zurich.
http://www.alternet.org/story/50933/
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caniscandida Posted 9:40 am
16 Sep 2007
You write:
<<
Some don't care for PETA's methods and PETA's syle but PETA's activities gave us the opportunity to put forward some good information, like 'em or not.
>>
Yes indeed. But why "but"? There is no contrast between the first clause and the second. Methods and style are as much good information, like 'em or not, as anything else.
Chickens are our cousins!
So are other sensitive animals!
Enough is enough!
No more factory farms!
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RIRedinPA Posted 11:38 am
16 Sep 2007
You and I obviously have a higher than average interest in this topic so we can look at the various players out there and determine exactly what type of organization they are. But th average American couldn't tell you the difference between PETA, Greenpeace or the Nature Conservancy, all three would get lumped into "liberal organizations".
So when PETA starts making comments such as "meat eaters are not environmentalist" the average American hearing that would see it as a "liberal organization" being arrogant once again, not making a distinction on area of concern or "expertise" of that organization. For many, those kind of comments will drive them away from doing even the simplest of environmental moves, if only to make some sort of statement in contention to the comments directed at them and their barbeque pit.
And let's face it, the comment was by no means an attempt to raise the environmental consciousness of the vast majority of Americans who enjoy a flame broiled over Swiss chad. Like the occasional al Queda video or the former pop music queen taking a stroll sans panties it was just a pathetic cry for attention, a sorry attempt to establish some relevance in a world that is quickly passing them by.
http://www.midatlanticoutdoors.com
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John Fish Kurmann Posted 2:03 pm
16 Sep 2007
I became a lacto-ovo-vegetarian for ethical reasons about 21 years ago, then a vegan who even avoided honey about a year-and-a-half later. I remained a self-righteous, proselytizing vegan for about 8 years, roughly the last 3 of those years as a very public activist on behalf of veganism (and zero population growth). In other words, their comments are familiar because I've spoken and written very similar words myself--in the past.
Then I read two mind-opening books by Daniel Quinn, Providence: The Story of a Fifty-Year Vision Quest and The Story of B. Even though vegetarianism is only mentioned twice in the former and never in the latter, these 2 books, over time and in combination with content on Quinn's website, prompted me to radically reshape my worldview. Once I'd read those books, I could no longer convince myself that it was any more "wrong" for humans to eat cows or pigs or monkeys than for lions to eat antelopes, or rattlesnakes to eat rodents, or black widow spiders to eat insects, or orcas to eat seals, or...well, you get the idea. Feeding and being fed upon is central to life, the primary driving force in evolution, and humans are a part of the living world. We evolved not as herbivores nor as carnivores but as omnivores--we're biologically prepared to eat an enormous range of foods, including animal foods.
Yes, at least some of us can survive without eating animals, but there's no evidence to think humans, as a species, can be optimally healthy over the long-term without eating animals. And vegans and vegetarians (veg*ns from now on) would be wise to keep in mind they are a self-selected group; those who feel poorly on these sorts of diets early on stop eating that way. Those who do all right on them, at least in the short-term, are much more likely to stick with such diets.
Most, though not all, veg*n diets are grain- and legume-based (though hopefully with lots of veggies). Unfortunately for advocates of veg*n diets, there's evidence that grain- and legume-based diets aren't particularly healthy for people. The fact of the matter is that grain- and legume-based diets are a very recent phenomenon evolutionarily-speaking, even among those populations whose ancestors adopted them earliest. Evolution takes time to adapt the anatomy of a species, and humans haven't had enough time to evolve to thrive on grain- and legume-based diets.
More evidence about our omnivorous nature can be found here.
Yes, it's true that the Standard American Diet--SAD--isn't healthy for people, either, but that's not because it contains animal foods. No, it's due to the fact that most of the animal foods Americans are eating have been produced in animal factories, resulting in higher total and saturated fat and lower essential fatty acids plus contamination with a variety of harmful substances including antibiotics and other drugs and, in cattle, growth hormones. Foods from animals that, in the case of ruminants such as cows and bison, are entirely grassfed have healthy nutritional profiles, as do foods from chickens and pigs that are pastured. Check out the Eat Wild website for more about this.
And don't forget that the SAD isn't only high in animal foods produced in factories: it's also high in grains and grain-derived foods, including breads, pastas, cakes, and so on, plus hydrogenated fats. And it's much too high in Omega-6 fatty acids, as are many veg*n diets.
I also wholly agree with folks who think PETA's tactics are counterproductive with most people. Sure, some small percentage of folks will be receptive to such an "in your face" message, but most folks are turned off by it. But that doesn't matter much to PETA I bet: they'd rather feel "right" than be effective. In fact, I suspect they expect to not be very effective because they seem to take a very dim view of their own species.
One of the conclusions I came to as I moved away from veganism was that most people who think it's "wrong" for people to eat animals are just as anthropocentric--just as convinced that humans are separate from and in some sense superior to other animals--as those who take the view that we can do pretty much whatever we want with animals, that it's our right to dominate them. They've just come to different conclusions about what our superiority means we ought to do. Those who think it's wrong to eat animals (and "exploit" them in other ways) think we shouldn't do so because our particular sort of mind enables us to feel compassion, to empathize with their pain--because we have a capacity for emotion and understanding they do not. Those who think we are the masters of other animals do so because our particular sort of mind has enabled us to conquer most of the world and (as they see it) subjugate animals to our wishes. Of course a lot of them think this was ordained by the deity they happen to believe in, too. Once you see that our human minds don't set us above and superior to the rest, though, both conclusions become untenable. Once you see we are simply one of many species, you start thinking in terms of how best to relate to your neighbors in the community of life instead.
PETA's also factually wrong in their claim that "you just cannot be a meat-eating environmentalist" but I'm not going to tackle that here in Gristmill. Perhaps I'll make time to write an article and submit it for publication.
The world is sacred, and I am part of it.
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Karen Lee Orr Posted 2:14 pm
16 Sep 2007
Matthew Scully, author of Dominion, might reach some people who PETA never could.
Matthew Scully served until August 2004 as special assistant to George W. Bush and deputy director of presidential speechwriting.
Fear Factories: The Case for Compassionate Conservatism - for Animals
By Matthew Scully
The American Conservative, May 23, 2005
http://www.matthewscully.com/fear_factories.htm
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Survival Posted 3:12 pm
16 Sep 2007
Comparing factory farmed meat to soybeans is erronous on two levels:
What do you think factory farmed animals are eating? Duh! Industrial soybeans & corn. Mostly grown in clearcut Rain Forests. Even if we ate the Industrial soybeans (many veg products use organic non-GMO soy) at least the energy ratio has less negative impact on the environment.
On an ethical level (GASP!), being an environmentalist who wants to live in a more compassionate world, comparing what a factory farmed animal goes through in it's life to what a soybean goes through - as if they are equal - is insulting and dizzying.
Most industrialized people do not need meat to be healthy.Animal agriculture wreaks havoc on ecosystems. And, in many cases, animal agriculture is inhumane.
It seems only logical for people who are able to make the decision to eat less meat, to do so if they agree with at least 2 of these facts.
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Survival Posted 3:17 pm
16 Sep 2007
Comparing factory farmed meat to soybeans is erronous on two levels:
What do you think factory farmed animals are eating? Duh! Industrial soybeans & corn. Mostly grown in clearcut Rain Forests. Even if we ate the Industrial soybeans (many veg products use organic non-GMO soy) at least the energy ratio has less negative impact on the environment.
On an ethical level (GASP!), being an environmentalist who wants to live in a more compassionate world, comparing what a factory farmed animal goes through in it's life to what a soybean goes through - as if they are equal - is insulting and dizzying.
Most industrialized people do not need meat to be healthy.Animal agriculture wreaks havoc on ecosystems. And, in many cases, animal agriculture is inhumane.
It seems only logical for people who are able to make the decision to eat less meat, to do so if they agree with at least 2 of these facts.
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caniscandida Posted 4:21 pm
16 Sep 2007
Do you find it to be an effective rhetorical device, JFK, when you are speaking with someone who you think is arrogant and bullying, to smile and say, "Ah yes, I was like you, once upon a time, an obnoxious horse's ass"?
Many people have said for many years that human beings are naturally adapted to include meat in their diet, so much so that a diet from which meat and other foods of animal origin are absent is deficient and unhealthful. It is enough to repeat the first part of that, by way of answering those arrogant bullies who shout at you saying, "You MUST become a vegan, if you wish to be thought a good person." But the second part is highly controversial. And there seem to be plenty of worthy, professional experts in nutrition who defend vegan and vegetarian diets, and even find them more healthful than many or all partially carnivorous diets, for reasons not related to the Standard American Diet. (The sole deficiency that is noted by them leads to their customary bit of medical advice, that strict vegans should take a B-12 vitamin supplement.) Hence, shouts of "You MUST eat meat, if you wish to be healthy" do not deserve to be heeded, any more than their counterpart at the opposite extreme.
Many veg*ns try to proselytize (and in so doing, often make nuisances of themselves), but by no means all. We have chosen to regulate our diets in these ways for a number of good ethical reasons. The codes of ethics that we personally follow are correspondingly varied. And so it should come as no surprise that for very many of us, proselytization is a no-no. Certainly, I think most of us are prepared to talk about why we made the choice that we made, if we are asked. But that is not at all the same as proselytization.
I do not know the work of Daniel Quinn, and shall look out for the books that you named. Meanwhile, though there is little to go on in your comment, and it has a rather impressionistic quality, your anthropology and your ethics seem questionable. I suppose it is true that on one level, the devouring of a hamburger by a human being is morally equivalent to the devouring of a trout by an eagle, or the devouring of a gnu by a crocodile. But it would be false to our humanity, were we to linger on that level. Yes, because of our sense of ethics, the sense of kindness, fellowship and compassion that gives us some real responsibility for the well-being of any and all vulnerable sentient beings, and sometimes even what well deserves to be called love for them, humanity is a special case within the community of living creatures of the Earth. And it is by no means either anthropocentrism or a deluded flaunting of an alleged superiority, to accept that responsibility, to embrace that love, and to act on them.
Chickens are our cousins!
So are other sensitive animals!
Enough is enough!
No more factory farms!
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Pearl Posted 9:27 pm
16 Sep 2007
" there's no evidence to think humans, as a species, can be optimally healthy over the long-term without eating animals."
'Well-planned vegan and other types of vegetarian diets are appropriate
for all stages of the lifecycle, including during pregnancy, lactation,
infancy, childhood and adolescence. Appropriately planned vegetarian
diets are healthful, nutritionally adequate and provide health benefits in the
prevention and treatment of certain diseases.' These 'certain diseases' are
the killer epidemics of today - heart disease, strokes, cancers, diabetes etc.
This is the view of the world's most prestigious health advisory body, the
American Dietetic Association and Dietitians of Canada, after a review of
world literature. It is backed up by the British Medical Association:
'Vegetarians have lower rates of obesity, coronary heart disease,
high blood pressure, large bowel disorders, cancers and gall stones.'
....
http://www.vegetarian.org.uk/mediareleases/050221.html
'Analyses of data from the China studies by his collaborators and
others, Campbell told the epidemiology symposium, is leading to
policy recommendations. He mentioned three:
* The greater the variety of plant-based foods in the diet, the
greater the benefit. Variety insures broader coverage of known
and unknown nutrient needs.
* Provided there is plant food variety, quality and quantity, a
healthful and nutritionally complete diet can be attained without
animal-based food.
* The closer the food is to its native state - with minimal heating,
salting and processing - the greater will be the benefit.
..'
http://www.news.cornell.edu/Chronicle/01/6.28.01/China_St ...
'Campbell TC, Junshi C. Diet and chronic degenerative diseases:
perspectives from China. Am J Clin Nutr 1994 May;59(5 Suppl):
1153S-1161S.
A comprehensive ecologic survey of dietary, life-style, and mortality
characteristics of 65 counties in rural China showed that diets are
substantially richer in foods of plant origin when compared with
diets consumed in the more industrialized, Western societies. Mean
intakes of animal protein (about one-tenth of the mean intake in the
United States as energy percent), total fat (14.5% of energy), and
dietary fiber (33.3 g/d) reflected a substantial preference for foods
of plant origin. Mean plasma cholesterol concentration, at
approximately 3.23-3.49 mmol/L, corresponds to this dietary
life-style. The principal hypothesis under investigation in this paper
is that chronic degenerative diseases are prevented by an aggregate
effect of nutrients and nutrient-intake amounts that are commonly
supplied by foods of plant origin. The breadth and consistency of
evidence for this hypothesis was investigated with multiple intake-
biomarker-disease associations, which were appropriately adjusted.
There appears to be no threshold of plant-food enrichment or
minimization of fat intake beyond which further disease prevention
does not occur. These findings suggest that even small intakes of
foods of animal origin are associated with significant increases in
plasma cholesterol concentrations, which are associated, in turn,
with significant increases in chronic degenerative disease mortality
rates.'
'Plasma lipids and diet groups
The first article published about this study compared concentrations of
total cholesterol and various lipoprotein fractions in 4 diet groups:
vegans, who never ate animal products; vegetarians, who never ate meat
or fish but did eat dairy products, eggs, or both; fish eaters, who ate
fish but no meat; and meat eaters (4). Both total- and LDL-cholesterol
concentrations were significantly lower in vegans than in meat eaters,
whereas vegetarians and fish eaters had similar, intermediate values.
HDL-cholesterol concentrations were highest in fish eaters but did not
differ among the other diet groups. Mean cholesterol concentrations for
vegans, vegetarians, fish eaters, and meat eaters, adjusted for age and
sex, are shown in Table 1. On the basis of these results, it was predicted
that the incidence of ischemic heart disease might be 24% lower in
lifelong vegetarians and 57% lower in lifelong vegans than in meat eaters.
....
The most striking results from the analysis were the strong positive
associations between increasing consumption of animal fats and
ischemic heart disease mortality [death rate ratios (and 95% CIs) for
the highest third of intake compared with the lowest third in subjects
with no prior disease were 3.29 (1.50, 7.21) for total animal fat, 2.77
(1.25, 6.13) for saturated animal fat, and 3.53 (1.57, 7.96) for dietary
cholesterol; P for trend: <0.01, <0.01, and <0.001, respectively].
In contrast, no protective effects were noted for dietary fiber, fish,
or alcohol consumption. Consumption of eggs and cheese were both
positively associated with ischemic heart disease mortality in these
subjects (P for trend, < 0.01 for both foods).
..
http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/full/70/3/525S
and..
'Dietary Risk Factors for Colon Cancer in a Low-risk Population
..
Strong positive trends were shown for red meat intake among
subjects who consumed low levels (0-<1 time/week) of white meat
and for white meat intake among subjects who consumed low levels
of (0-<1 time/week) of red meat. The associations remained evident
after further categorization of the red meat (relative to no red meat
intake: relative risk (RR) for >0-<1 time/week = 1.38, 95 percent CI
0.86-2.20; RR for 1-4 times/week = 1.77, 95 percent CI 1.05-2.99;
and RR for >4 times/week = 1.98, 95 percent CI 1.0-3.89
and white meat (relative to no white meat intake: RR for >0-<1
time/week = 1.55, 95 percent CI 0.97-2.50; RR for 1-4 times/week
= 3.37, 95 percent CI 1.60-7.11; and RR for >4 times/week = 2.74,
95 percent CI 0.37-20.19 variables to higher intake levels.
..'
http://aje.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/148/8/761.pdf
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wackatalpidae Posted 10:57 pm
16 Sep 2007
WAR IS THE NUMBER ONE CAUSE OF GLOBAL WARMING!
LET'S DISCUSS WAYS TO NURTURE LIFE RATHER THAN DESTROY LIFE.
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Survival Posted 12:12 am
17 Sep 2007
Comparing a human eating a hamburger to an eagle eating a fish is a hugely flawed comparison for many reasons:
Context. While the Eagle eats the fish for survival and the two animals function as important components to their healthy ecosystems, most industrialized people do not need to eat meat to survive or be healthy - nor is the relationship symbiotic and beneficial as a whole to the ecosystems affected. Eating commercial meat is a choice, not a need. PETA and other AR organizations and individuals have no qualms with humans who eat meat as a means of sustenance. I don't have a problem with an Eskimo who eats a fish or even a Uru who eats a monkey.
Wild fish and factory farms are not equivalent. Not only is the consumer (in this case the the industrialized human as opposed to the fish) not present for the killing, in many cases the cow (or pig or chicken or farmed fish) is subjected to an entire lifetime of confinement and suffering and ultimately a messy death.
This is a social justice issue, not a personal choice issue. There are animals with brains and nervous systems who, given the opportunity, remove themselves from situations of pain. To say "it's your choice to eat meat" is like saying "its your choice to beat your child" disregarding the interests of the animal or the child in favor of YOUR personal preference.
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mtvyfan Posted 1:29 am
17 Sep 2007
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juliefrancine Posted 2:14 am
17 Sep 2007
PETA, it seems to me, approaches their cause with a sense of humor, intelligence, and it is their intent to provoke us so that these issues at LEAST will be discussed. Many people in this country are sleep walking, never having heard of factory farms or puppy mills, or any of the other outrages of our modern time. But, why, I wondered, does Alex Roth get so defensive and attack PETA? Maybe he has a guilty conscious because he is a meat eater. The fact that Al Gore won't even discuss the link between global warming and raising animals for meat should cause ALL of us to pause and wonder, not just PETA and PETA supporters.
Julie Kirkpatrick
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Pearl Posted 2:48 am
17 Sep 2007
See: http://www.iol.ie/~creature/BiologicalAdaptations.htm
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robfdavis1971 Posted 2:51 am
17 Sep 2007
Instead of hunting, I choose to work in a different industry and someone else does the "hunting" now known as factory farming.
The same with buying clothes, shoes, buying soaps, etc... We have evolved as a society where some will do the killing while others choose to pay for the killing.
What is lost in the production is the fact that a life was lost so someone could eat....so the respect or spiritual factor to it all I believe has been lost somewhere....and the connection to the killing is gone.
So if we go back in time and kill for food then we are fully justified and PETA will not harp about eating meat anymore, right? Quite frankly, if factory farming wasn't as bad as it is....then PETA wouldn't have a leg to stand on....all the videos are about pain and suffering. But if more farms would treat livestock with respect and find ways to kill with less painful methods....then we would not be "eating horror."
Regards,
Robert
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amc89 Posted 3:02 am
17 Sep 2007
The fact is that PETA is only one animal advocacy group out there and there are loads more with better behavior and less alienating campaigns, but Alex of course focused on PETA because it's the easiest to target.
Vegetarian or not, I think we should put aside this arguing and work together. Most envionmental groups, like the Sierra Club, Greenpeace, and Environmental Defense, adcknowledge that eating meat, particulary factory farmed meat, is hugely destructive. For example, the Sierra Club recently had Mollie Katzen, a popular vegetarian cookbook author, on their radio show. Here Greenpeace discusses how vegetarianism helps the environment: http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/getinvolved/green-guide/gre ...
Think about how much we could accomplish if we stopped hurling insults at each other and worked together to promote A. the reduction meat consumption around the globe and B. an end to factory farming and a switch towards more sustainable farms.
Both A. and B. are important, we must acknowledge that it won't be possibe to "mitigate" our way out of this problem. "Sustainable" farming of livestock will not be able to meet the needs of our growing population's current demand for meat, we must have a reduction.
A word about poultry, which Alex claims is not as bad for the environment as other types of meat. Maybe in terms of climate change, but not in other aspects. The phosphate runoff from chicken poultry factory farms has a huge impact on local waterways. Much rainforest land has been destroyed to grow soy for chicken feed. And let's not forget about the potential for a birdflu pandemic, which will be more likely to happen if intensive poultry production continues to increase, especially in China and other parts of Asia.
And if we all turned to wild sources of protein, well I don't even want to think about what that would look like....
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elasticsoul Posted 4:38 am
17 Sep 2007
United we stand, divided we fall is as true now as it ever was. PETA's stance - that you can't be a meat-eating environmentalist - will rightly be mocked as hypocritical, and will paint the sustainable movement as unrealistic and fanatical. Detractors will latch onto PETA's message and say that:
Anyone who drives a car is not an environmentalist.
Anyone who flies in a place...
Anyone who uses a computer...
Anyone whose home is not passively solar-heated...
Anyone who works for a large company...
Etc, etc. Therefore, it is impossible to be an environmentalist, and so why even try? PETA has provided an easy way to mock people who want to make the world a better place, by implying that you go all-the-way - or you're nothing.
* Inconvenient Truth presenter
* Green Party of Canada candidate
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kevcon Posted 5:17 am
17 Sep 2007
here's a bizarro animating the point re: humans as carnivore v. herbivore:
http://www.beansandgreens.net/index.php?/archives/111-Are ...
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melindabrooks2001 Posted 5:30 am
17 Sep 2007
A meat-loving, SUV-driving, soccer-mom probably does care about the environment and is concerned about climate change. But she is also over-worked, under appreciated and just plain tried. She'd probably be interested in making some earth-friendly changes, but needs to feel empowered to do so AND not overwhelmed with too much. I would envite her to visit her local farmer's market to buy locally grown foods. I'd say "Thanks for taking an interest and trying. Here's another easy thing to do ..." Before you know it she might be working with the PTA to get the school board to include locally grown food in the lunch menu.
Doesn't that seem more productive?
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John Fish Kurmann Posted 11:57 am
17 Sep 2007
First, you put words in my "mouth"; I didn't call anyone "an obnoxious horse's ass." Regarding what I actually wrote, it wasn't a rhetorical device, caniscandida, but simply the truth of my experience, a way of saying I've lived in shoes very much like their own, I have a rough understanding of where they're coming from, I have relevant insight into why they think what they think--and I disagree.
Regarding the healthfulness of veg*n diets, it's important to remember that studies on this subject have been conducted on a self-selected group, not a random population, and they aren't particularly long-term in nature, certainly not over a period of generations. And the fact remains that we are anatomically omnivorous, with only a very short history of eating grain- and legume-based diets. No one has commented on the article I cited regarding this subject.
Vitamin B-12 is not the only nutrient to worry about for veg*ns. Long-chain Omega-3 essential fatty acids are also a matter of very real concern as they are, well, absolutely essential to the proper function of our brains and the rest of our nervous system, our cardiovascular system, and more. The type of Omega-3 fats (alpha-linolenic acid or ALA) found in most plant foods, including flaxseed, are not nutritionally equivalent to those found in animal foods (eicosapentanoic acid, EPA, and docosahexaenoic acid, DHA) and must be converted for use; the ability to make this conversion varies in effectiveness from person to person and so there's reason to question whether everyone could get sufficient EPA and DHA on a vegan or even a vegetarian diet.
I didn't assert that all veg*ns are obnoxious proselytizers. In fact, I know a few personally who aren't. I was addressing PETA and multiple commenters to this blog post.
* I suppose it is true that on one level, the devouring of a hamburger by a human being is morally equivalent to the devouring of a trout by an eagle, or the devouring of a gnu by a crocodile. But it would be false to our humanity, were we to linger on that level. Yes, because of our sense of ethics, the sense of kindness, fellowship and compassion that gives us some real responsibility for the well-being of any and all vulnerable sentient beings, and sometimes even what well deserves to be called love for them, humanity is a special case within the community of living creatures of the Earth. And it is by no means either anthropocentrism or a deluded flaunting of an alleged superiority, to accept that responsibility, to embrace that love, and to act on them.
Emphasis added.
Sure reads to me like an assertion that humanity is separate from and superior to the rest of the animals. Why do you think "humanity is a special case within the community of living creatures of the Earth?"
The world is sacred, and I am part of it.
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John Fish Kurmann Posted 12:14 pm
17 Sep 2007
'Well-planned vegan and other types of vegetarian diets are appropriate for all stages of the lifecycle, including during pregnancy, lactation, infancy, childhood and adolescence. Appropriately planned vegetarian diets are healthful, nutritionally adequate and provide health benefits in the prevention and treatment of certain diseases.' These 'certain diseases' are the killer epidemics of today - heart disease, strokes, cancers, diabetes etc.
Emphasis added.
Note the need to stress that such diets be well or appropriately planned--you have to work at it to have a truly healthful vegan or vegetarian diet over the long-term. And the planning they're talking about assumes the continued existence of supermarkets with a wide variety of foods available that have been shipped from far away--something I think we neither can nor should count on as global energy supplies begin to decline and greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere continue to rise. We need many different diets adapted to the particular places of the world cultures inhabit, not long-distance diets. I bet few if any such place-based diets will be "well-planned" and healthy veg*n diets.
The other studies you cite compare health outcomes on plant-based, vegan, or vegetarian diets (three distinct diets) to health outcomes on the Standard American Diet (SAD). I'm not advocating the SAD, I'm talking about the health benefits of animal foods from wild-caught and grassfed, pastured animals.
The world is sacred, and I am part of it.
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spaceshaper Posted 12:56 pm
17 Sep 2007
JFK: your claims that flesh-eating is necessary for normal human health are quite simply preposterous. Healthy vegetarian cultures have existed for many centuries, and long-lived healthy vegetarian individuals are extremely common in the modern period, from George Bernard Shaw onward. And healthy vegetarian diets require no more special "planning" than does healthy carnivory.
The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.
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John Fish Kurmann Posted 2:26 pm
17 Sep 2007
Please name one healthy vegetarian culture that has existed for centuries. India's out, since only a minority of its population even today is vegetarian, possibly less than 20%, though estimates vary, with 42% apparently being the highest.
Perhaps you should talk to the American Dietetic Association about the planning necessary to be healthy on a veg*n diet.
A handful of long-lived, apparently healthy--or at least healthier than your average American--vegetarians is meager evidence for a claim that all people can be healthy on a vegetarian (much less vegan) diet when matched up against the evidence that: we evolved as omnivores; we don't do well on grain- and legume-based diets; we have trouble getting the long-chain Omega-3 essential fatty acids we need for healthy brain/nervous system and cardiovascular health and vitamin B-12 from plant sources; and so on...
For the record, I really enjoy a lot of foods that contain no animal ingredients--but I'm not going to be a vegan again if I have any say in the matter.
The world is sacred, and I am part of it.
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Karen Lee Orr Posted 3:42 pm
17 Sep 2007
http://www.pcrm.org/health/veginfo/
Vegetarian Starter Kit
http://www.pcrm.org/health/veginfo/vsk/index.html
The China Study by T. Colin Campbell and Thomas M. Campbell, II:
http://www.thechinastudy.com/about.html
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spaceshaper Posted 8:06 pm
17 Sep 2007
20% -40% of 1.2 billion people in India is not an insignificant number by any standard.
Considering how few people in our culture ever try the non-carnivorous life the number of extremely healthy long-term vegetarians in our own culture is most certainly good evidence that meat-eating is not generally necessary for health. I accept there may be some for whom this is not the case and your own experience may be a case in point, but I suspect that most who claim that meat-eating is necessary, unlike yourself, have never given it a try.
Re the argument from authority: I have no interest whatever in "talking to the ADA" about my food needs. They have their own agenda and it's too much affected by the same industrial food lobbies that bombard the general population with dietary misinformation for my taste. I am happy to take responsibility for my own care and feeding. I've followed my own body's promptings in a mostly vegetarian diet (occasional dairy, very occasional fish) for 25 years and I'm comfortable that it has been a very good path for me. Now approaching sixty, I take no regular medications or supplements and my doctor tells me I am in excellent general health and have no signs of any deficiency diseases. Many of my non-carnivore friends will tell a similar story.
We are fortunate to live in a culture which offers us an enormous range of choices to satisfy our dietary needs. If it were ever true we needed to kill to eat, it is not true now. I encourage others to ignore the scare-mongering about non-carnivory and and give it a try.
The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.
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Pangolin Posted 8:40 pm
17 Sep 2007
The numbers of naturally inclined vegetarians in our culture can be easily ascertained by the impossibility of getting a decent vegetarian meal outside of the major East and West Coast cities. You have to hunt for it using specialist websites and magazine guides. "Great Vegetarian Food" is not a highway sign that you are going to get bored of seeing.
Personally I advocate eating all sustainably raised meat including dog, horse, iguana, guinea pigs, kangaroo, geese, pigeon and in special cases whale. There are no indigenous vegetarian peoples, no vegetarian bushmen, tropical forest dwellers, New Guinea tribesman, Celts, Inuit, Mongols, Beduins, Tibetans, Amerindians, Pacific Island peoples, or Laplanders. None. ZERO.
Vegetarianism ONLY emerges in cultures that can till flood-plains with plows drawn my animal or machine power. A farmer trying to rely upon his own labor to raise a vegetarian diet for a family of four would invariably fail in a bad crop year. You only have to fail one year in ten for the whole premise to go kaput. Starvation is hard on reproductive success.
The deliberate conflation of feedlot raised meats with all meats is another fallacy that PETA promotes. The industrial polluting processes of feedlots, poultry factories and stockyards were only possible after the invention of the railroad. Before that the problem of transporting the large amounts of grain and fodder would make such operations moot. The damage of the feedlot is not the cows fault nor is it required to raise meat for the table. It's only function is increased profits for agricorps.
Given all that PETA is hijacking peoples concerns about climate change in order to promote their own twisted agenda. Their ilk will never amount to a political mass large enough to shift congress in any meaningful way and should be ignored.
Put the Carbon Back
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Pearl Posted 8:45 pm
17 Sep 2007
You did state that "there's no evidence to think humans, as a species, can be
optimally healthy over the long-term without eating animals.", and now, shown
some evidence, you say it's "weak"? despite being the view of the world's most
prestigious health advisory body after a review of world literature, backed up
by the British Medical Association, and further supported here with large-scale
epidemiological and clinical studies (and that was just the tip of an impressive
iceberg...). Bizarre. Nevertheless, you do now acknowledge that it is possible
"to have a truly healthful vegan or vegetarian diet over the long-term". Yes, of
course the diet should be "appropriately planned", but what that translates to
is variety, quality and quantity, with minimal heating, salting and processing.
The importance of quality:
'Mineral content: This may be the most important nutritional difference
between organic and regular produce since heavy use of fertilizer inhibits
absorption of some minerals, which are likely to be at lower levels to
begin with in soils that have been abused. This may be caused in part
by the lack of beneficial mycorrhizae fungi on the roots since high levels
of fertilizer tend to kill them. Standard diets tend to be low in various
minerals, resulting in a variety of problems including osteoporosis.
http://math.ucsd.edu/~ebender/Health%20&%20Nutrition/ ...
The B12-Cobalt Connection
http://www.championtrees.org/topsoil/b12coblt.htm .
Note from this article that domestic bovines ('cattle') are routinely given
cobalt or B12 directly, and, what can be done to remedy deficient soil.
Bacteria in the gut require cobalt to produce B12.
'The Bacterial Flora of Humans
..
'(8) While E. coli is a consistent resident of the small intestine, many other
enteric bacteria may reside here as well, including Klebsiella, Enterobacter
and Citrobacter.
1. The normal flora synthesize and excrete vitamins in excess of their own
needs, which can be absorbed as nutrients by the host. For example, enteric
bacteria secrete Vitamin K and Vitamin B12, and lactic acid bacteria produce
certain B-vitamins.
.. '
http://textbookofbacteriology.net/normalflora.html
Emphasis* added:
'Suzuki1 (1995, Japan) studied 6 vegan children eating a genmai-saishoku
(GS) diet, which is based on high intakes of brown rice and contains plenty
of sea vegetables, including 2-4 g of nori per day ("dried laver"); as well as
hijiki, wakame, and kombu. The foods are organically grown and many
are high in cobalt (buckwheat, adzuki beans, kidney beans, shiitake, hijiki).
Serum B12 levels of the children are shown:
Results of Suzuki.1
age(yrs) years vegan sB12
7.1 4.4 520
7.7 4.4 720
8.6A 8.6 480
8.8A 8.8 300
12.7 10 320
14.6 10 320
average 443 (± 164)
A - Exclusively breast-fed until 6 months old. Mothers had been vegan
for 9.6 and 6.5 yrs prior to conception. Both mothers consumed 2 g of
nori per day.
..'
http://www.veganhealth.org/b12/plant
Eating meat does not guarantee healthy levels of B12, btw..
'Are You Vitamin B12 Deficient?
Nearly two-fifths of the U.S. population may be flirting with marginal
vitamin B12 status-that is, if a careful look at nearly 3,000 men and
women in the ongoing Framingham (Massachusetts) Offspring Study is
any indication.
..
The researchers found no association between plasma B12 and meat,
poultry, and fish intake, even though these foods supply the bulk of B12
in the diet. "It's not because people aren't eating enough meat," Tucker
says. "The vitamin isn't getting absorbed." The vitamin is tightly bound
to proteins in meat and dairy products and requires high acidity to cut
it loose. As we age, we lose the acid-secreting cells in the stomach. But
what causes poor absorption in younger adults? Tucker speculates that
the high use of antacids may contribute.
..'
http://www.epic4health.com/areyouvitb12.html
On to EFAs. This relates to "quantity".
'.. it is important to ensure that there are sufficient amounts of ALA, which is
necessary for the production of EPA and DHA. Most healthy vegetarians
would be well advised to double their intake of ALA, providing 1% of
energy from n-3 fatty acids or 1.1 g/1000 cal. For those with increased needs
or decreased capacity to convert, an intake of 2% of energy or 2.2 g/1000 cal
may be necessary. The primary sources of ALA are selected seeds, nuts, and
legumes (flaxseed, hempseed, canola, walnuts, and soy) and the green leaves
of plants, including phytoplankton and algae.
..
Practical guidelines for achieving optimal EFA intake in vegetarians are as
follows. 1) Make a wide variety of whole plant foods the foundation of the
diet. 2) Get most fat from whole foods- nuts, seeds, olives, avocados, and
soy foods. 3) If using concentrated fats and oils, select those rich in
monounsaturated fats, such as olive, canola, or nut oils. n-3-Rich oils can
also be used but should not be heated. Moderate use of n-6-rich oils is
recommended. 4) Limit intake of processed foods and deep-fried foods
rich in trans and n-6 fatty acids. 5) Reduce intake of foods rich in saturated
fat and cholesterol. 6) Include foods rich in n-3 fatty acids in the daily diet.
Aim for 2-4 g ALA/d. 7) Consider using a direct source of DHA. Aim for
100-300 mg/d. '
...
For those with increased needs for EPA and DHA (eg, pregnant and
lactating women) or at greater risk for poor conversion (persons with
diabetes, those with neurological disorders, premature infants, the elderly),
it may be prudent to ensure that there is a direct source of EPA and DHA.'
While they are the original sources of EPA and DHA (fish do not produce
long-chain n-3 fatty acids), most are not concentrated sources because of
their extremely low total fat content. An important exception is a DHA-rich
microalgae that provides 10-40% DHA by dry weight and is currently
available in supplement form. When supplementing with a direct DHA
source, 100-300 mg/d is recommended. Blue-green algae (spirulina and
Aphanizomenon flos-aquae) are low in long-chain n-3 fatty acids. Spirulina
is rich in -linolenic acid (GLA, n-6), while A. flos-aquae is more
concentrated in ALA. Though blue-green algae is not a significant source
of EPA or DHA, some research indicates that it has a very high conversion
rate in comparison to other plants (R Kushak et al, unpublished observations,
1999). Macroalgae, otherwise known as seaweed, is even lower in fat than
most vegetables (< 1-14% of calories from fat), although it does contain
small amounts of long-chain fatty acids. A 100-g serving provides, on
average, 100 mg EPA but little DHA. Seaweeds do not contribute
significantly to EPA intakes in the Western world but are important sources
where people use large quantities of seaweed on a daily basis (eg, Japan
and other parts of Asia). Thus, while vegetarians can rely on eggs and/or
microalgae supplements for DHA, most consume little if any EPA.
However, < 10-11% of DHA is retroconverted to EPA; thus, if sufficient
ALA and DHA are consumed, total EPA production would be expected
to be adequate (61).
...'
http://tinyurl.com/65xn7
Ongoing depletion of wild fish, and fish-farming with all the harm it causes,
or algae-culture to easily serve as a sustainable source of DHA for those who
require it? Trivial pursuits like 'flavour' aside, what makes sense to you as an
environmentalist?
And you mention grass-fed. The chinese studied farmed in a traditional manner,
but you saw the abstract. Scroll back some and also read my post "humans are
omnivores"? for some highly qualified views on anatomy, as if you really need to.
Don't get me started on the environment...
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ronmichael Posted 9:47 pm
17 Sep 2007
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Pearl Posted 10:33 pm
17 Sep 2007
damage. Overgrazing, forest clearing, and other livestock production
activities are major factors in the decline of most African endangered
wildlife, including the gorilla. Between 1850 and 1980 Africa lost 60%
of its forest cover, perhaps mostly to promote livestock. African stock
raisers have killed millions of large herbivores as competitors, and because
they think that wildlife spreads livestock diseases. Historically, disease
epidemics introduced by cattle have repeatedly decimated Africa's wildlife,
causing severe ecological disruptions. Livestock protection rivals, and in
many areas exceeds, sport hunting and poaching as the main cause of
predator mortality, with similarly profound environmental consequences.
Stock raisers encouraging new growth burn many millions of acres
unnaturally each year. Overgrazing has caused gigantic dust storms and
accelerated hydraulic erosion, displacing much of the soil over vast areas.
Africa's infamous locust invasions, caused mostly by overgrazing, worsen
the devastation. (..) Livestock production has displaced many native tribal
cultures, and is, along with human overpopulation and unjust food
distribution, the major anthropogenic cause of relentless famine in Africa.
The continent's cattle, sheep, and goat population doubled between 1950
and 1987, and continues to increase at a high overall rate, despite sporadic
and massive livestock die-offs.
..'
http://www.wasteofthewest.com/Chapter6.html
There's a lot more at link. This is really essential reading.
On the other hand:
'In 1991, Dr. Sanchez accepted a position as the head of ICRAF in Nairobi,
Kenya. There, he quickly discovered that African agricultural production
lagged due to the extremely depleted nature of the soil. Dr. Sanchez' most
enduring contribution to ending world hunger has been his development of
the means to replenish crucial nutrients in exhausted soils, through the
development and promotion of agroforestry. This practice of planting trees
on farms, when combined with adding locally available rock phosphate to
the soil, has provided farmers in Africa with a way to fertilize their soils
inexpensively and naturally, without relying on costly chemical fertilizers.
The 150,000 small scale farmers who are utilizing Dr. Sanchez' methods
are experiencing greatly increased yields, in some cases 200% to 400%
above previous plantings. In response to this success, ICRAF plans to
help African farmers plant 5.5 billion more trees over the next decade,
the equivalent of another tropical rainforest. ICRAF's goal is to move 20
million people out of poverty and remove more that 100 million tons of
CO2 from the air with this project.
..'
http://www.worldfoodprize.org/2002Laureate/pressrelease.h ...
I can't not post the following here.
'The Independent Online Edition
Andrew Tyler: Don't follow the herd and give a cow for Christmas
These gifts are not a good thing. They serve only to increase, not diminish,
poverty
Published: 27 November 2006
We're about to enter the season of gut-busting excess, when the tills don't
stop ringing and our appetites for giving and receiving get well and truly
sated. Just in time, another gift idea has come along that is not about
self-indulgence but doing good in the world; or so it would seem.
Paying for farm animals to be gifted to impoverished communities in the
developing world, notably Africa, has moved from novelty to omnipresent
fashion. The aid agencies Oxfam and Christian Aid made the early running.
But this year about a dozen agencies are using your money to punt goats,
chickens, sheep, camels, donkeys, pigs and cows to the world's starving.
Prices vary : £70 will get you a cow from Help The Aged, whereas Send
A Cow demands £750 per animal. Farm Friends wants £30 for a goat,
while World Vision will settle for £91 for a whole herd.
The marketing strategy is resolutely upbeat. "Socks? A CD?," asks Farm
Friend, "The search for a genuinely memorable present is over."The cow
on Help the Aged's leaflet, meanwhile, is garbed in a Santa hat to
distinguish the agency's effort from the rest of the herd.
The message might bring comfort to the target audience, but such
schemes, sadly, are not a good thing. They serve only to increase not
diminish poverty. Why? Because farming animals is an inefficient,
expensive and environmentally destructive way of producing food.
All farmed animals require proper nourishment, large quantities of water,
shelter from extremes of weather and veterinary care. Such resources
are in critically short supply in much of Africa. In fact, the wide variation
in prices asked by the donor agencies testifies to this reality: arguments
have broken out between Send A Cow on the one hand and Christian
Aid and Oxfam on the other, as to the "quality" of the animal delivered
and whether the many supplementary costs are covered in the asking
price.
Sceptical readers might,at this point, accuse me of dressing up a concern
about animal welfare as a concern for the world's poor. Let's be clear that
there are major animal welfare issues involved in sending animals to, for
instance, the Horn of Africa where, earlier this year, up to 80 per cent of
cattle perished in a drought and many of the remainder were washed away
in the floods that followed. But this is not about cows taking precedence
over people.
The reality is that animal gift schemes are, in the words of the conservation
charity World Land Trust (WLT), "environmentally unsound and
economically disastrous". In a statement last week, WLT declared: "Now
that the grave consequences of introducing large numbers of goats and
other domestic animals into fragile, arid environments is well documented,
WLT considers it grossly irresponsible ... to continue with the schemes ...
as a means of raising quick money for charities over the Christmas season".
It is incontestable that desertification and further human impoverishment
will follow the introduction of goats into already degraded areas. But if
goats are environmentally disastrous, cows are extraordinarily burdensome
economically. A newly lactating animal requires up to 90 litres of water a
day, a lot of food and veterinary treatment to cover endemic problems
such as scours, mastitis and lameness.
But where do the vets come from? EU dairy farmers receive $2 a day per
cow to remain financially viable. For many years, British sheep farmers
have received more than 40 per cent of their income from the taxpayer.
If such feather-bedding is needed in the comparatively benign agricultural
environment of the West, how can we expect the poorest people on earth
to cope with their animal "gifts"? It is many times more efficient to use the
available agricultural resources - land, labour, water - to feed people direct,
rather than devoting those resources to fattening animals.
Some donor agencies try to confront the inherent inefficiencies of animal
farming by setting up "zero-grazing" regimes. In other words, the animals
get permanently banged up in sheds. But they still need water and food -
and, in such deprived environments, suffer high levels of economically
punishing disease, early infertility and premature death.
Ultimately, my objection is to the commercial forces that are seeking to
persuade people of the poor world that their best nutritional interests are
served by buying into modern, high-throughput farmed animal production
processes. With that comes an addiction to high capital input systems,
additional stresses on precious water supplies, environmental destruction,
a loss of control over the means of production, bad health, a nightmare
animal welfare scenario and more human poverty and malnourishment.
So this year, boycott the donate-an-animal schemes and instead support
projects that help people, animals and the environment. Animal Aid, for
example, will be seeking support for a scheme to plant 2,000 trees in
Kenya's Rift Valley province. They will bear oranges, avocados, mango,
pawpaw, kei apple and macadamia nuts. Such efforts won't erase the
blight of poverty in Africa, but neither will they add to it.
The writer is director of Animal Aid '
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wiscidea Posted 10:57 pm
17 Sep 2007
Perhaps I'm supposed to know this. I don't. Sorry. I'm having trouble keeping track of true environmentalists and anti-environmentalists.
Thank you for any help you can provide!
Another victim of Jean-Paul Marat's ghost and his virtual guillotine?
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kliffee Posted 11:28 pm
17 Sep 2007
The cruelty of it
My health
The environmental impact
Nevermind global warming, eating a tiny piece of meat takes wasteful amounts of water and grains which could be used to feed starving children.
Pointing this out does not me me or PETA self-righteous or holier-than-thou. It's just based on facts. No offense meant.
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kliffee Posted 11:32 pm
17 Sep 2007
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silvachelle Posted 12:07 am
18 Sep 2007
Regarding PETA's efficacy, only time will tell, but they were pretty much single-handedly responsible for wiping fur off the fashion radar for the better part of 2 decades. Yes, fur is making a comeback, proving it's just time that people need a reminder.
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laurfish Posted 1:01 am
18 Sep 2007
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bigfoothasaposse Posted 1:03 am
18 Sep 2007
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John Fish Kurmann Posted 1:15 am
18 Sep 2007
I didn't claim that <20-42% of 1.12 billion people is insignificant. What I wrote was:
India's out, since only a minority of its population even today is vegetarian, possibly less than 20%, though estimates vary, with 42% apparently being the highest.
Whether it's 20 or 40%, that's a minority. You wrote:
Considering how few people in our culture ever try the non-carnivorous life the number of extremely healthy long-term vegetarians in our own culture is most certainly good evidence that meat-eating is not generally necessary for health. I accept there may be some for whom this is not the case and your own experience may be a case in point, but I suspect that most who claim that meat-eating is necessary, unlike yourself, have never given it a try.
No, actually, that's not "good evidence that meat-eating is not generally necessary for health." It is good evidence how disinclined people are to stop eating animals, though.
I actually did pretty well on a vegan diet, else I wouldn't have stuck with it so long. I didn't stop because of any obvious health problems, though I did later come to discover that I'd develop some kind of metabolic problem (not yet diagnosed) while I was vegan.
I only brought up the ADA's statement because you wrote:
And healthy vegetarian diets require no more special "planning" than does healthy carnivory.
It was the ADA which asserted that veg*n diets have to be carefully planned. I, on the other hand, have pointed to specific nutritional needs that are difficult, perhaps impossible, to adequately meet on a veg*n diet--points which those who claim we can be healthy without eating animals have remained revealingly silent on.
How much longer do you think we will continue to have access to a wide range of foods imported from all over the world? You might want to look into the peaking of global petroleum production. Even if that proves to be a false alarm, how much longer can we afford to continue importing food from all over the world given the climate crisis, air and water pollution, impact on indigenous cultures in other countries of export-focused economic models, and so on?
The world is sacred, and I am part of it.
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Pearl Posted 1:29 am
18 Sep 2007
Lukewarm. As a species, for the planet, for other species, and for our health and humanity, we need to recognise that we are not a naturally carnivorous species. Period. The nutritional research confirms what we know about anatomy, physiology and biology. This isn't rocket science. We should be replanting, nurturing and tending forest, woodland and orchard, not razing trees to graze and feed animals for an unhealthy, cruel and unnatural diet. Go tofu-turkey. :)
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John Fish Kurmann Posted 1:39 am
18 Sep 2007
Your multiple citations only reinforce the challenges of being healthy on a veg*n diet, particularly the effort one most go through to ensure an adequate supply of essential long-chain Omega-3 fats.
Your evidence is weak because, for the most part, it compares veg*n diets to the Standard American Diet (or similar diets in other industrialized countries like the U.K.), no paragon of nutritional quality and healthful results.
Grassfed and pastured meats, dairy products and eggs are sources of long-chain Omega-3 essential fats. I rarely eat seafood myself since I live in the middle of the North American continental landmass.
Meat and dairy foods from grassfed ruminants (cattle, goats, sheep, bison) and eggs and meat from pastured chickens are also rich sources of another type of healthy fat that is difficult to get from vegetable sources, conjugated linoleic acid.
The world is sacred, and I am part of it.
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bmoninna Posted 1:43 am
18 Sep 2007
bmoninna - college student
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John Fish Kurmann Posted 1:48 am
18 Sep 2007
Nevermind global warming, eating a tiny piece of meat takes wasteful amounts of water and grains which could be used to feed starving children.
Ruminant animals such as bison, cattle, goats, and sheep need not be fed any grain at all to thrive; in fact, they're not evolved to eat large amounts of grain, which is why it's so wasteful. The great majority of the meat I eat is from solely grassfed bison and cattle. This is the wonderful thing about ruminants as a source of food: they can do just fine grazing pastureland that would be progressively destroyed by farming, eating forage people cannot digest. Once slaughtered, the meat of grassfed ruminants is very healthy.
The world is sacred, and I am part of it.
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spaceshaper Posted 2:13 am
18 Sep 2007
The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.
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Katarina Posted 2:27 am
18 Sep 2007
If you eat the average US chicken rather than free-ranging humanely grown chickens, I'd say you aren't much of an environmentalist. It's a matter of scale, and what pollution and damage the industry causes.
If you eat hogs, for crying out loud, be sure they aren't factory hogs, whose industry is a horrible polluter. (Besides pigs are intelligent animals on a par with dogs and cats.)
If you don't see any other movie this year, at least see An Inconvenient Truth.
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John Fish Kurmann Posted 2:29 am
18 Sep 2007
What do you consider "a large number of entirely healthy long-term vegetarians in the western culture"? Perhaps you just have a much lower bar for "large number" than I do.
Setting aside the numbers issue, those folks are self-selected, not random members of a population selected to eat a vegetarian diet over the long-term while their health is monitored and compared to people eating other diets. Those who try a vegetarian diet but don't do well on it self-select back to eating animals. We are not all biochemically identical, and I don't doubt that some folks do better than others on veg*n diets. As I've noted, I thought I did farely well on a vegan diet while I was eating that way.
The world is sacred, and I am part of it.
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rawabaa Posted 2:31 am
18 Sep 2007
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Katarina Posted 2:33 am
18 Sep 2007
If you eat the average US chicken rather than free-ranging humanely grown chickens, I'd say you aren't much of an environmentalist. It's a matter of scale, and what pollution and damage the industry causes.
If you eat hogs, for crying out loud, be sure they aren't factory hogs, whose industry is a horrible polluter. (Besides pigs are intelligent animals on a par with dogs and cats.)
"If a woman is socialized to believe in her own oppression, that would not meet the condition of freedom."
Ayaan Hershi Ali
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ghostlly Posted 3:01 am
18 Sep 2007
It isn't healthy being a vegetarian. You don't get the complex proteins that you get from meat. You don't get the iorn either. My friend tried to be a vegetarian but had to quit because she started having health problems and was anemic all the time even with supplements. We are omnivores we eat both plants and animals. Humans have always been Omnivores. We are a part of the food chain. We are at the top. If we stop killing all animals the populations will get totally out of balance. What happened when they killed all the wolves? The other animals get overpopulated and man had to start hunting them. If we stop then who is going to keep the animals in balance? How long would it be before there were plauges and diseases? Who would feed all these animals if they weren't being raised for food? How long would cows and chickens last in the wild before some predator made a meal of them. Nature isn't always nice the big animals eat the little animals. Its called the food chain and there is a balance and if the balance is disrupted then all the animals suffer. Why do we want to put ourselves above every other animal? We are no different from animals. We are at the top of the food chain, not outside of it. Not eating meat isn't a solution, it wouldn't solve our problems. We would still have global warming. The solution is renewable energy sources and using our resources more wisely and population control. There are simply too many people. The earth can only support so many people. We will eventually run out of resources and space if the world's populations just keep growing.
Jamie
All Hail Bast!
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veganess Posted 3:03 am
18 Sep 2007
Hey Alex, get your facts straight before you go blasting PETA. I don't care what angle they're coming from on this one - they're RIGHT on.
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Squiji Posted 3:09 am
18 Sep 2007
I consider myself an environmentalist and I do eat meat, but I now only eat organic, locally-grown grass-fed beef, chicken, eggs. I can't find local dairy so I must get the organic brands the supermarket offers for now.
I believe that factory farming, INCLUDING plant crops such as corn, soybeans, and cotton, are among the very worst things we can be doing for our planet, our health, and our society. For me, the jury is still out on whether or not humans are meant to be omnivores, but I don't think the issue is so much whether you eat meat as what kind, and how much. I think it better to eat a home-grown and locally-purchased meal including meat than it is to eat a factory-processed and diesel-shipped vegan product. Plant a garden and learn how to cook.
For a thoughtful analysis which I found very moving, read Pollan's "The Omnivore's Dilemma."
Firelady
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veganess Posted 3:14 am
18 Sep 2007
Your blathering on about the poor plants is a thinly disguised mockery of a topic you clearly know nothing about.
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ghostlly Posted 3:16 am
18 Sep 2007
Lets take a look at what the Peta Extremist are doing.
Peta Kills Animals Click Here
Jamie
All Hail Bast!
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John Fish Kurmann Posted 3:21 am
18 Sep 2007
What's more important is not whether the animals are just organic but whether they're eating organic feed and out on pasture. The animal factories take one elegant solution--animal waste feeding crops that feed the animals while people eat some of the plants and some of the animals--and turn it into 2 huge problems: the loss of soil fertility in croplands and a massive, reeking waste disposal problem where the animals are confined.
The world is sacred, and I am part of it.
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lovinherbs Posted 3:23 am
18 Sep 2007
We have an organic garden, raise honeybees, eat wild game which my husband kills humanely and we process at home. We drive a hybrid, we recycle, we buy organically for the most part and try to support fair-trade, organic markets with our business. Within the next three years we plan to run our home on solar and wind power. We have come along way and have a long way to go. My Teacher may lead me to become a vegetarian. I am less and less of a meat eater, and certainly a more conscious one than ever before. But if that happens, I certainly would not try and make it a rule for anyone else.
This has all been a process and evolved over the years. I trust as we continue to grow in wisdom and grace, these changes will continue. When people ask, we share our reasons for our lifestyle. I believe all people have the right to believe, think, act and eat according to their own conscience and within the law of the land.
I admire, John Robbins. In his book, Diet for a New America, he educates the reader without passing judgment. He is kind and compassionate while educating and because of this, his books contributed much to the evolution of my thinking and acting.
I don't believe change comes from being harshly judgmental. Change comes from education and meeting peoples needs.
Many people do not have the means or leisure to think about their eating habits, the conditions in which their food was produced, or the impact of its production. Many people are just surviving on a daily basis; the elderly living in poverty, the disabled, those in war torn, or poor countries, those in one parent homes, working and not making an adequate income, exhausted and feeling good if they just have the money and energy to fix the kids a hamburger, macaroni and cheese. Often, anything they can eat that will sustain them is the norm. And here in America fresh organic produce and meat is prohibitively expensive for many.
If those of us who do have the means, intellect and wisdom, would put our energies into changing corporate greed and governmental corruption change would be better fostered. If we would put our energies into seeing that every laborer made a living wage, that every person lived in safe, secure neighborhoods, had clean water and health care, then people would have their needs met, giving them security which may lead them to thinking about where the food they're eating comes from and how its production impacts the land, water and air. If we would put our energies into seeing what we could do to better our own neighbors welfare, we could make real change.
As long as there's a market for products hastily produced, with the emphasis on quantity instead of humane quality, produced in humane working conditions; the trend toward mass production, at the lowest cost, with the highest profit, will continue.
Elitist, harsh, judgmental endeavors don't produce real change.. Compassion, kindness, education and meeting the needs of people bring change. I believe there is the danger of pride and egotism in the followers of PETA'S ideology; a "me against the world mentality" which produces discord in a world in which the majority of people desperately need their basic needs met and all of us need to stop judging each other and live according to the wisdom and light within us, promoting peace, harmony and education without condemnation. I think we need to stop putting the cart before the horse and start addressing the real problems.
Thanks for your consideration.
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John Fish Kurmann Posted 3:28 am
18 Sep 2007
The world is sacred, and I am part of it.
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ghostlly Posted 3:36 am
18 Sep 2007
Jamie
All Hail Bast!
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Squiji Posted 3:49 am
18 Sep 2007
Firelady
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Squiji Posted 3:55 am
18 Sep 2007
Your website looks interesting, I intend to read your essay.
Firelady
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wiscidea Posted 4:10 am
18 Sep 2007
Which is the greater moral issue of our time? Animal rights -- not just humane treatment of animals, but whether humans should eat or enslave them -- or the complete and irrreversible destruction of the entire biosphere?
Seems like environmentalists might want to set aside their differences regarding carnivory -- as long as animals are treated humanely and an effort is made to minimize harm to the biosphere -- for now and focus on creating a "big tent" including everyone worried about the state of the environment.
For example, how much more progress might be made if the environmental movement invited and really welcomed hunters to join their ranks? Or forged solid alliances with farmers trying to raise animals for meat and minimize harm to the environment?
Sort of funny -- in a dark way -- that the ignorant individuals of the far right coalesce into an intelligent political machine while the intelligent and compassionate individuals of the left coalesce into a loose stack of bricks.
Another victim of Jean-Paul Marat's ghost and his virtual guillotine?
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smanion Posted 4:21 am
18 Sep 2007
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dreboyd Posted 4:47 am
18 Sep 2007
How very disappointing it was to read this article. I thought that Grist was radical- meaning they go to the root of an issue and share the truth. This article isn't the truth, it's denial. It's the easy way out to point at others such as PETA and find fault in them, but when you point your finger, remember there are three pointing right back at you!
So, Alex, if you're at all intelligent, look at the facts. All of your petty arguments and statements are coming from a place of resistance to have the humility necessary to admit that you're wrong in this matter. Your chicken salad causes much more harm than using a paper napkin. And if you're an environmentalist, you would carry your own cloth napkin.
May I suggest you watch Meet Your Meat. PETA isn't making this stuff up. And their money comes from people who care and donate. And Pamela Anderson gives them her time.
I think you owe an apology to all of the compassionate people out there who are trying really hard each day to bring peace to the world through what they eat. Use your energy to pick up trash, not write it.
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iabmc Posted 5:38 am
18 Sep 2007
emotionally and graphically driven.
not not for most people.
It may not be "right" for me to eat fruit out of season. I'm a human. I get to / have to make that choice. I'm not 100%. Sometimes I live in a more planet honoring way than other times. But I will never be as holy as PETA, nor do I wish to be.
Nancy
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gmunger Posted 6:14 am
18 Sep 2007
I eat mostly game meat that I kill and butcher myself. Most of the rest of my meat consumption comes from small, local farms and is processed and sold locally. I have a small flock of hens for eggs, and plan to expand the flock next year to include some birds for meat. All of this is done with humility. I don't preach to others, but I gladly share my sustenence and what knowledge I have gained with any and all who express interest. I also grow a great deal of the rest of my food, am working to increase my production, and buy the rest as locally and sustainably as is reasonably possible.
Although I constantly consider how I can live in a more thoughtful, sustainable manner, I am relatively content with my lifestyle. I don't need self-righteous vitriol from PETA and their followers to set me on a "truer" path. Perhaps you would do well to put away your broad brushes and paint a more realistic picture. Can you not see that by separating strictly vegan from everything else, you are simply isolating yourselves? I am finished acknowledging your insults now.
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wiscidea Posted 6:34 am
18 Sep 2007
(1) I agree it is morally or ethically questionable practice. This warrants discussion, but not on the Grist website, in my opinion.
(2) There is also a dispute regarding whether it is environmentally acceptable. Industrial farming... bad. Sustainable harvest of wild game or free-range beef... good. Michael Pollan recently pointed out on a WPR program that consuming limited amounts of beef raised on grass can be good for one's health, good for the farmers, and good for the environment.
#1 should be discussed elsewhere,
#2 should be discussed here... can it be done sustainably and to what extent? Whether there is enough for everyone on the planet to consume several pounds per week is another matter.
Another victim of Jean-Paul Marat's ghost and his virtual guillotine?
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earthfreak Posted 6:42 am
18 Sep 2007
I got bored reading all the comments, but yours is the type I find most interesting anyway....
I'm a vegetarian, and I think that's the best choice for a LOT of people in terms of treading lightly on the earth.
Environmentally, I think I could totally justify eating game meat, and locally raised meat, regularly but not frequently, with no factory farmed meat. I don't eat meat cause I also believe in animal rights and simply couldn't kill an animal myself.
I have the utmost respect for people like you.
At the same time, I think these arguments, what about game meat, what about land that can't support crops? what about keeping your own chickens? are mostly a distraction.
My honest answer is, sure, go for it. I can totally see keeping chickens that work for both eggs and meat (which is SO not the norm these days) and eating one of them every week or so, which is really different from the factory-farmed-meat-at-every-meal lifestyle that most americans practice.
I believe that it IS true that our current system of meat production is a (the?) major contributor to global warming. To change this we'll need to change both the way we produce meat, and the level at which we consume it. If a bunch of people go veg, that will help, if the rest switch to locally, sustainably produced meats, that will take care of the rest, hopefully.
it's stupid to EVER say that you can't be an enviromentalist if you do this or that. there are tons of different angles, and some people don't drive at all and eat roadkill. They're certainly having much less envrionmental impact than I am.
At the same time, most of the people I know, who live lives basically like mine, eat meat for which they have no clue about the source at least weekly, and more likely daily. that IS a problem.
I do tons of things I wouldn't do if I was a totally "pure" environmentalist
I drive,
I use paper napkins (when I forget the cloth one)
I use paper cups (when I forget my reusable)
I live in a house alone
I have an old, inefficient fridge
I eat chocolate and bananas, things imported great distances.
and tons more. I'm aware, and I make choices every day. For me being a vegetarian is easier than making those choices on a daily basis.
So, it's sad that we can't just talk about this like sane people. Of course you can be an environmentalist and eat meat, but if you eat like an average american, your diet could use some scrutiny. If everyone who eats meat regularly now started hunting for it instead of supporting factory farms, that would be totally unsustainable.
I just read a book called "goatwalking" - partly about how a nomadic lifestyle with goats, living off milk and forage and really really occasional goat meat, is one of the only self-sustaining ones availalbe to us. I totally believe this, but I also know that the vast majority of people in the US are never gonna try it, and if they did, it would become unsustainable.
When peta encourages folks to go veg for the environment, they're not talking to freegans who eat roadkill, and probably not to folks who live of sustainable "harvested" game - but that's not most people, so I don't think it's THAT bad a thing.
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gmunger Posted 7:04 am
18 Sep 2007
A couple quick points:
I believe that it IS true that our current system of meat production is a (the?) major contributor to global warming. To change this we'll need to change both the way we produce meat, and the level at which we consume it.
Substitute the word meat for most anything else that is "produced" in the western world and the truth of your statement remains. This is what I believe we must address. Beef factories, chemical factories, whatever.
For me being a vegetarian is easier than making those choices on a daily basis.
I hear you friend. I ate vegetarian for a time myself, for the same reason. Now that I am more in control of my options, I have made other choices. Conscious choices.
most of the people I know, who live lives basically like mine, eat meat for which they have no clue about the source at least weekly, and more likely daily. that IS a problem.
Indeed. It is perhaps the only thing imaginable upon which myself and Ted Nugent agree. Conscious choices.
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caniscandida Posted 7:06 am
18 Sep 2007
GMUnger, you write that what you do by way of procuring meat and eggs is "done with humility." OK, that is possible; e.g., hunters among some Native American peoples consider their killing of an animal to be the gracious gift of the animal, for which they do not forget to give it their sincere thanks.
Unfortunately, far too many people thoughtlessly feel entitled to meat and other products of animal orign. There is nothing humble about that.
Needless to say, that is the attitude of a majority of the human race. And that is why any denunciation of people having that attitude is likely to be dismissed as "shrill" and "in need of humility." And, therefore, that is why I consider the wisest course for us supporters of animal rights to follow is to give quiet witness to the sufferings of animals, and, quietly, to point out that the attitude of anthropocentric entitlement is a form of injustice.
Chickens are our cousins! So are fish! So are other sentient animals! Let us learn to be kind.
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smanion Posted 7:16 am
18 Sep 2007
And why do people insist on calling PETA a liberal group? PETA is definitely a right wing extremist organization. Look at the facts.
PETA relies heavily on rhetorical devices and appeals to emotion, rather than information and logic, to promote its agenda and electrify its members. ("Stop Bambi Butchers!" is a current campaign.) PETA has a strict, highly structured dogma. There is no room within this dogma for individual thought. PETA believes the tenets of its creed to be established, incontrovertible fact, not opinion. PETA members are expected to be religiously zealous in their belief. PETA members believe it is a betrayal to question their leaders. Good PETA members believe as they are told to believe and behave as they are told to behave.
PETA not only dismisses the thoughts of others as invalid but believes that those who espouse differing philosophies have no right to hold those views; only PETA's beliefs are morally acceptable, all others are immoral and unethical. PETA eschews diplomacy as weakness. PETA allows no room for dialog with those who have differing beliefs. PETA viciously vilifies all who disagree with its dogma or fail to live up to its standards.
PETA believes that the inherent holy riotousness of its position endows it with extraordinary rights that supersede the rights of others and exempts it from normal ethical and legal constraints. PETA views all who dispute its positions as enemies. PETA uses heavy handed, even violent, tactics against its perceived foes.
PETA has more in common with the rabid pro-lifers and other rightist vigilante groups than with, say, the ACLU.
Liberal group? I don't think so.
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selftitled10 Posted 7:19 am
18 Sep 2007
I am disappointed by this article because it is gives readers the impression that eating meat does not take it's toll on the environment.
Clearly meat production uses much more resources than if one were to eat plant-based foods. Even if eating meat isn't the #1 cause of global warming, it is still up there on the list. Even so, it creates a great deal of environmental damage. It takes more feed from our crops to feed and over hormone-induced cow than to actually feed ourselves.
Although I may not applaud Peta for some of their practices, they do make a difference. I first started researching being a vegetarian through Peta and you don't see me parading down the streets naked in protest or killing dogs and cats. It would be very rare to find someone who uses Peta merely as a resource to be acting the same way.
I also have a problem with people and judging others. Just because Matt Prescott works for Peta doesn't mean he has the same radical ideas as the company portrays. This is the same with environmentalist like ourselves, many just see us as hippies who have radical ideas but in reality we tend to be the more educated and less ignorant.
I believe one can be an environmentalist and eat meat, but most of us don't kill our own food. I believe that those environmentalists who understand that the meat industry has a great impact (environmentally and ethically) are being ignorant and are just making excuses. "just because it tastes good" isn't really a good enough reason for me, sorry. Some can call me a hypocrite for not being vegan, but I know I will change that matter within the year. After being a vegetarian for 4 year I am actually repulsed by the smell of meat. I believe eating meat is a learned behavior and that is why the US is so attached to the idea.
By no means do I go around telling people to become vegetarian either. I fully respect others' choices and I just try and make people more aware of the damage meat can have on them and the world.
May I ask you, which is more important to you... Your values and beliefs or a bloody piece of meat?
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wiscidea Posted 7:32 am
18 Sep 2007
Why is he considered a "corporate green"?
And why should I hate him?
I never met the man.
I never heard of him.
SE was not interested in answering my question.
Maybe someone else can.
Another victim of Jean-Paul Marat's ghost and his virtual guillotine?
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greenjenni Posted 9:06 am
18 Sep 2007
I'm a 13-year vegetarian and all my research indicates that going veg is the most important thing I can do as an environmentalist. I don't preach my lifestyle, but I am open about it and willing to answer questions.
That said, I do believe that we need to go easier on carnivores. If we expect all meat-eaters to give up meat we are being unrealistic and making them defensive, which is why we have so many justifying the stretch that meat eating is good for the environment. They don't want to be the bad guys and feel unable to give up meat - we're just forcing them into a corner and they're gonna fight back.
I'm working on getting people to try a "meatless Mondays" kind of thing. If we could get everyone on board, this would have a tremendous environmental impact (similar to having everyone change one lightbulb to compact fluorescent)-- and it should be do-able for even hardcore carnies. If many go beyond that - all the better!
I suspect that at least a few carnivores will convert after trying meatlessness for a time, but we're never going to convince everyone. I'd rather aim for the possible than feel righteous as the world goes down in flames.
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uolirod Posted 11:54 am
18 Sep 2007
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Steve Erickson Posted 12:34 pm
18 Sep 2007
That said, there is a wide range of possible systems for providing animal products. Factory farms and hunter-gatherer bands are not the only options.
Reading this and the other related blogs has impressed one thing on me: How easily people get distracted. For those who believe in not killing animals, this is not a subject amenable to rational discussion - it is a matter of faith. Environmental concerns are peripheral.
However, for those of us who do not subscribe to this belief, I think we should be focusing on what sort of systems we want to produce our food - including animals.
And now for the humor:
I once met a woman who worked at PETA's Washington, DC office. She got fired for wearing a wool sweater to work one day.
Steve E.
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adamdgomez Posted 1:13 pm
18 Sep 2007
A meat-eating environmentalist is akin to a rainforest clearing company lauding its efforts to improve the environment by switching their company cars from Hummers to Hondas. Certainly a step in the right direction, but really missing the big picture.
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Pearl Posted 8:28 pm
18 Sep 2007
"Your multiple citations only reinforce the challenges of being healthy
on a veg*n diet, particularly the effort one most go through to ensure
an adequate supply of essential long-chain Omega-3 fats. "
Eating a variety of plant foods is not a particular effort or challenge.
"Your evidence is weak because, for the most part, it compares veg*n
diets to the Standard American Diet (or similar diets in other industrialized
countries like the U.K.), no paragon of nutritional quality and healthful results.
"world literature" .. the chinese' diet .. vegans compared to vegetarians,
fish eaters and meat eaters (inc. very clear clinical research) .. a group
in N.America (S-D Adventists) who adhere to basic health principles..
Your attempted rebuttal is weak, and it fails, John. Accept the truth.
"Grassfed and pastured meats, dairy products and eggs are sources of
long-chain Omega-3 essential fats. I rarely eat seafood myself since I
live in the middle of the North American continental landmass."
Again I point out to you that the chinese farmed in a traditional manner.
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Pearl Posted 9:16 pm
18 Sep 2007
authority, tells me I can eat meat and the time will come when there will be
those who try and tell us we must abstain."
'The letters of Paul give clear evidence of a controversy over vegetarianism.
Paul believes that it is not necessary to be a vegetarian in order to be a Christian.
"As for the one who is weak in faith, welcome him, but not for disputes over
opinions. One believes he may eat anything, while the weak man eats only
vegetables," says Paul (Romans 14:1-2). Paul counsels patience between the
meat-eaters and the vegetarians. But there is nothing wrong with eating meat as
such - "Eat whatever is sold in the meat market without raising any question
on the ground of conscience" (I Corinthians 10:25).
Paul won this battle in the early church; while many Christians were vegetarian,
most churches taught that it was not necessary to be vegetarian. However,
some early Christians, such as the Jewish Christians, rejected Paul; they were
vegetarian and thought that vegetarianism should be required of all Christians.
It is these Jewish Christians who were in conflict with Paul over the vegetarian
issue.
..'
http://www.compassionatespirit.com/was_jesus_a_vegetarian ...
John 19
8 Pilate also had an inscription written and put on the cross. It read,
"Jesus the Nazorean, the King of the Jews."
http://www.nccbuscc.org/nab/bible/john/john19.htm
"The Nasaraeans - they were jews by nationality - originally from Gileaditis
(where the early followers of Yeshu-Maria fled after the martyrdom of James
the Lord's brother), Bashanitis and the Transjordon . . . They acknowledged
Moses and believed that he had received laws - not this law, however, but
some other. And so, they were jews who kept all the Jewish observances,
but they would not offer sacrifice or eat meat. They considered it unlawful to
eat meat or make sacrifices with it. They claim that these Books are fictions,
and that none of these customs were instituted by the fathers. This was the
difference between the Nasaraeans and the others. (Epiphanius, Panarion 1:18)
..
Nasaraeans, meaning, "rebels," who forbid all flesh-eating, and do not eat living
things at all. They have the holy names of patriarchs which are in the Pentateuch,
up through Moses and Joshua the son of Nun, and they believe in them-(2) I
mean Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and the earliest ones, and Moses himself, and
Aaron, and Joshua. But they hold that the scriptures of the Pentateuch were not
written by Moses, and maintain that they have others. (Epiphanius, Panarion 1:19)
..'
http://essenes.net/sz17.htm
ESSENE CHRISTIANITY VERSUS PAULIANITY
http://www.essene.org/Yahowshua_or_Paul.htm
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spaceshaper Posted 9:33 pm
18 Sep 2007
Yeah right. Which members of his regular family is he thinking of trucking to the slaughterhouse next week: just the maiden aunts and retarded cousins, or is Junior going to be on the dinner menu if he takes out one more fence post with the tractor?
The whole meat culture is so riddled with hypocrisy it's almost beyond belief. "They eat dogs in China? How dreadful! Pass me another meat ball". I can and do understand the carnivory habit being so ingrained that I'd continue to eat flesh in spite of understanding intellectually how bad an idea it is, but I have a hard time accepting the intense need to continually justify that habit to my environmentalist peers. It just seems so childish. "Those nasty Peta people were so mean to me. I'd better have a ham sandwich to cheer myself up".
I myself continue to drive the four miles to my office every day though it would often make perfect sense for me to bike, but I won't brag about my driving habit on Grist or pretend it's anything other than a failure to match my ideals with my practice. I'll admit it took me years of denial and self-justification before I even traded my SUV for a little Yaris. I see volumes of a similar level of denial and self-justification in these threads. Come on guys. Quit trying to pretend. Eat the bullflesh if you feel you have to to but spare us the bullshit. It's time to acknowledge that defending carnivory from an environmental perspective makes about as much sense as.. as.. well it makes no sense at all. Right now I can't think of anything as dumb.
The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.
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m3498 Posted 5:54 am
19 Sep 2007
Engagement works much better than some chicken riding around in a wasteful, polluting, car.
Attacking Al Gore does nothing but bring smiles to the faces of all the conservative/right wingers out there. SO WHAT if he isn't saying what you want him to say?!?! He is trying to slow global warming and is doing a much better job of getting the message across to ordinary Americans that PETA can hope for with its current campaign.
The Environmentalism/Green/Progressive Movement is about doing things BETTER to improve our society AND the environment. It isn't about cutting out what one enjoys...
Unfortunately, what PETA is advocating is the end goal, not [how to do] all the steps to get to it.
Matt Prescott missed most of the point of this article and most of his detractors, because it isn't whether eating meat is a major contributor to global warming, it is the way PETA is going about this campaign that needs improvement.
Mike.
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hikerreese Posted 8:56 am
20 Sep 2007
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iprefertherain Posted 4:14 pm
20 Sep 2007
<cm>I wish it would be honest and include all facts as well as drop the viewpoint that some animals are worth sympathizing for while others are not.</cm>
Prescott and PETA never argue that some animals deserve sympathy over others. Nor do they claim this campaign will end ALL animal suffering. Please show me where he makes either of those statements.
This campaign's message is about vegetarianim and veganism. Its just one campaign though. Their whole group focuses on reducing animal cruelty though, so your accusation is baseless.
You have a point that vegetable-industries also use animal labor and if that can be stopped it should. PETA would probably be the first to agree. That does not make eating meat ethical though, and that is the point of this campaign.
As long as there are slaughterhouses, there will be battlefields. -Leo Tolstoy
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caniscandida Posted 5:50 pm
20 Sep 2007
On the other hand, in the interview that someone referred us to a couple of days ago, Ingrid Kirkland spoke of a "buckshot" or "scattershot" approach, or something like that, in the way PETA plans campaigns. It seems that they try to include as many different kinds of animals, and as many different kinds of suffering and exploitation, as they can; but obviously, their coverage will never be complete.
And I suspect certain spokespersons have a certain amount of latitude within which to express the emphases that most interest them. Perhaps Matt Prescott is an example, and we are wrong to assume that he represents PETA 100%.
As for "lower" animals, I do not know enough about PETA to have any clear idea what their attitudes may be. Peter Singer and Jim Mason believe that the cephalopod mollusks that we eat (octopus and squids) deserve consideration, but probably not bivalves (clams, mussels, oysters); crustaceans do (lobsters, crabs, crayfish, shrimp), but I do not remember if they have much to say about insects, who are superficially similar. On the other hand, my understanding is that PETA discourages our consumption of honey, and our use of silk. I shall look into that.
Spaceshaper,
I usually shrink from criticizing farmers; but as you suggest, it is hard to avoid accusing some at least, who loudly claim to "take good care" of their animals, of hypocrisy.
Do you know this video, titled "Meet Your Meat," which starts playing as soon as you go to this PETA site?:
http://meat.org/
It may very well be the most powerful, heart-wrenching and difficult-to-endure videos that I have ever seen. It is Dante's Inferno, only the souls of the damned are here guiltless chickens, turkeys, cattle and pigs. Now and again a human being enters, to club an injured turkey, cut the beak of a chicken, slam a young pig on a concrete floor, yank out a piglet's front teeth, or slit the throat of a suspended, still living cow. What strikes me as incredible, bewilderingly so, is how these farmers or meat-industry workers can so coolly and indifferently pass in the midst of spectacular suffering, misery and terror.
What has happened to their heart? Is it still there?
Chickens are our cousins! So are fish! So are other sentient animals! Let us learn to be kind.
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erika Posted 9:47 pm
20 Sep 2007
There is so much guilt that goes a long with eating meat, but i have never liked putting that guilt on others.
Though, i have tried the preaching method for all age groups and types of meat eaters, i have found the most effective way to get it through peoples head is NOT preaching. People just kind of ask when I'm ordering - and then instead of preaching to the other person about why they should not have ordered what they did i say you know its ok to eat meat once in a while - IF EVERYBODY DECREASED THE AMOUNT OF MEAT THEY EAT we would not have need for the terrible methods we use today! Now i aggree that meat eating is like ciggarette smoking you don't know how good it feels, and easy, to not be a smoker until it is completely out of your system. BUT YOU WILL NOT get someone to quit eating meat on the spot. Nor would i want to. It has to be a concious decision on their part. People don't like to be pushed, they like to make their own decisions. The more laid back i am when i am spouting off all the different arguements of why people go either way, what methods are most efficient/ earthwise, and the more i play devils advocate - THE MORE PEOPLE SIDE WITH VEGETARIANS. Over the years i have converted a few people (even my mother gradually) and made many more concious of the arguments of both sides and aware of the importance their decisions on what they consume hold. To me that is more effective and yield better results for the earth in the long run.
Everything in moderation people. No need to get fiesty.
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erika Posted 9:50 pm
20 Sep 2007
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erika Posted 9:50 pm
20 Sep 2007
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dragonwoman Posted 4:26 am
21 Sep 2007
Yep, if being an environmentalist means I have to be a vegetarian I'm turning in my badge.
I hunt and grow my own veggies and when I don't have either I support local organic producers.
I am 100% against factory farming and big agri-business.
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erika Posted 3:50 pm
21 Sep 2007
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Pandu Posted 4:05 am
22 Sep 2007
I wanted to respond to your points above...
1. To my understanding an environmentalist who chooses to eat meat is an idea that cannot be a reality in the modern world. Still, if people imagine themselves as such, why should they be allowed to eat meat in peace? They do not get their meat peacefully. If someone wants to scavenge roadkill then I will not bother them, although I wouldn't advise it.
As long as Grist maintains their position that eating meat is a minor issue related to environmentalism, I can't take the magazine seriously. If they can't get this right, then they're doing more harm than good, and I don't want to be a part of it. I'll wait a while to see if they can 'get it,' and if not then I will have to find somewhere else to invest my time. I know leaving sounds lame, especially after so many years, but I'm very disappointed with Grist over this.
Our dog and cats get vegan dog food and vegan cat food, supplemented with a variety of our leftovers, and the cats catch rodents. They very rarely catch birds, and if I recall correctly, the birds predominantly found on the ground around here are an aggressive invasive species. The makers of the vegan cat food recommend giving some meat to the cats, and our cats catch what they need and seem quite healthy. They are definitely not `obligate carnivores.' They really need very little meat.
The thing about the parrot is that he's really not a farm animal. We should not have him, except that someone captured him as a baby in Brazil to sell in the USA. He was neglected for almost 20 years and then given to us. We trained him, and after seeing the results the guy who gave him to us did a burglary to steal the bird back. We sued, and won; but they guy had the bird again for two years while we were in court, and in that time the bird became unmanageable again. He's still difficult to have around, screaming too much and being too aggressive and dangerous with his beak. He also is very jealous, apparently thinking that he should be married to my wife instead of me. Of course he's beautiful and cool and often a lot of fun, but he belongs in a Brazilian rainforest, not on a small farm in Pennsylvania.
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Biodiversivist Posted 4:27 am
22 Sep 2007
The comments of Gristmill users reflect the opinions of those individuals only, and do not necessarily reflect the viewpoints of Grist, its staff, its board members, their psychotherapists, or their aestheticians. Got it?
Not to mention, nobody thinks industrial agriculture, the livestock side of it in particular, is a minor issue.
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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ddslover Posted 4:59 am
22 Sep 2007
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caniscandida Posted 8:45 am
22 Sep 2007
<<
He also is very jealous, apparently thinking that he should be married to my wife instead of me.
>>
This presumably does NOT mean, "The parrot thinks he should not be married to me, he should be married to my wife instead," which "instead of me" might imply. Rather, it presumably DOES mean, "The parrot thinks that I should not be married to my wife, HE should be married to her."
It heartens me to see, if we read between your lines, that you plainly have some affection for this exotic creature. Too bad, though, about his vexed story, first in Brazil, later here.
Parrots can be -- usually are, maybe -- difficult and demanding pets, potentially dangerous too, as you point out; and so I would not want one. The late, celebrated African gray parrot Alex seems to have been exceptional. And yet that strong emotional bond that Alex formed with his person -- a woman, perhaps not coincidentally -- , which he impressively gave witness to in his final words, looks similar to what you say is going on between your macaw and your wife.
Thank you for your reassuring words about what your dog and cats eat. I shall ask Little Dog's vet about vegan food for dogs and cats.
I entirely agree with you, that the whole story of the meat that the great majority of meat-eaters eat is not at all "peaceful." But does it follow from that, that the right thing to do is not to allow them to eat "in peace"? Obviously, we need to maintain our witness, regarding why meat-eating is most of the time morally objectionable. It would be a very good thing, for example, if we can induce more meat-eaters to expose themselves to such informative sources as the video "Meet Your Meat," at the PETA site meat.org, to which a few of us have referred. But a tactic of aggressive, non-stop hectoring and badgering is not appropriate at this stage of our society's moral evolution.
Therefore, I strongly urge you, again, not to turn your back on Grist. You got through all the bitterness stirred up by Jason Scorse's posts last year, urging environmentalists to embrace animal welfare, so you can hang on now. Think of it this way: Grist needs you.
On the other hand, the Gristmill discussion of vegetarianism would be much better off, were we to hear the last of such sloppy, insultingly bad logic as this, most recently from DDSLover: "Human beings are naturally omnivorous; our evolutionary history suggests it, and our dentition reflects it; THEREFORE it is ethically justifiable for us to eat meat." John Fish Kurmann puts this in a still stronger form: "Being naturally omnivorous, human beings have always normally eaten meat; the numbers of vegetarians have always been very low, and there are no strictly vegetarian societies, because human beings do not naturally do well [?] on vegetarian diets; THEREFORE, not only is it ethically justifiable for us to eat meat, it is ethically indefensible for vegetarians to urge meat-eaters to stop eating meat."
On dentition, our stalwart ally Pearl has already provided an abundance of pro-vegetarian material, but unfortunately not always in a coherent fashion. As I said before, the discussion of "human nature," restricted to such physiological matters as dentition and digestion, is an irrelevant digression. But one needs to be able to say something, if only because there are apparently lots of people who continue to believe the subject is relevant.
Visitors to NYC, who went to the American Museum of Natural History here and passed through the vertebrate paleontology collection on the fourth floor, may remember an interesting exhibit in the Carnivores alcove in the Hall of Mammals. One highly distinctive character of ancestral Carnivores was the development of carnassial teeth, sharp-edged teeth in the back of the jaws, where herbivores, as well as us Primates, have molars, adapted for shearing meat. In the exhibit, skulls of a typical cat (a mountain lion, I think), a dog (a wolf), a bear and a Giant Panda are lined up. The cat shows the primitive condition, with impressive carnassials. The slightly more omnivorous dog shows some development in the direction of molar-shaped teeth; the much more omnivorous bear shows more of the same development; and the completely herbivorous, bamboo-eating panda has gone furthest, with a dentition that has evolved convergently to resemble that of a typical herbivore.
And, of these four, guess which one looks most like the dentition of human beings!
Chickens are our cousins! So are fish! So are other sentient animals! Let us learn to be kind.
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Karen Lee Orr Posted 9:12 am
22 Sep 2007
See the Los Angeles Times story and PETA ad here: http://tinyurl.com/2yt4l5
You can also see the ad at the PETA website: http://www.peta.org/feat/alicia_psa/index.asp.
The page includes testimonial from Alicia about her love of animals and the health benefits of her vegan diet.
I learned about this from Dawnwatch, an animal advocacy media watch that looks at animal issues in the media and facilitates one-click responses to the relevant media outlets. You can learn more about it, and sign up for alerts at http://www.DawnWatch.com.
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hikerreese Posted 10:31 am
22 Sep 2007
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caniscandida Posted 12:29 pm
22 Sep 2007
That said, Alicia Silverstone is one of my favorite people, for starring in "Clueless," the most brilliant romantic comedy ever inspired by a Jane Austen novel ("Bride and Prejudice" is a close second). And so it is good to know that she is vegan, and an ally of PETA.
On the other hand, those few seconds of discreet nudity-by-the-pool were hardly an occasion of gross immorality and the wicked destruction of family values, were they. If that is all it takes to scandalize Texas, then that only confirms my suspicion that there is something profoundly unAmerican about that place.
As for Dawn of DawnWatch, she is wonderful, and does a great service to all who want to keep up with animal-welfare issues as affected by the media.
Chickens are our cousins! So are fish! So are other sentient animals! Let us learn to be kind.
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ridgerunner Posted 9:22 pm
22 Sep 2007
Fact: From an environmental point of view, "modern animal agriculture" is a complete and total HORROR SHOW. To start off with, its over consuming our precious topsoil, energy, and fresh water natural resources, while at the same time polluting our air, waterways and ocean shores. And not just a little, but a LOT. Under the American Midwest, the Ogallala Aquifer, the largest underground body of fresh water in the world, is being pumped dry at an alarming (unregulated) rate in order to grow grain to feed livestock. Once its gone, its gone. Animals are no longer raised by farmers with care on farms; they are manufactured by global multi-national corporations in steel and concrete factories by employees using the miracles of modern chemistry and biochemistry (pesticides, herbicides, anti-biotics, hormones and GMOs). The care that the Great American Farmer once had for their animals is gone - corporate profit is now the bottom line, and intensive factory farming is the reality of the day (and are subsidized directly and indirectly by the government to the tune of more than 20 billion dollars per year). The laws that regulate human waste do not apply to animal agriculture. The manure "lagoons" surrounding the feedlots and pig factories (where hundreds of thousands of animals are kept in close confinement), are festering breeding grounds for new strains of antibiotic resistant super bugs, which go completely untreated and occasionally escape into the ground, air and water killing everything in their path. More than half of all antibiotics used in the U.S. are given to perfectly healthy animals to prevent any sickness from spreading like wildfire while living in a completely un-natural, toxic and unhealthy factory environment. The "Feed" that is fed to these is animals includes the fecal waste and ground up bodies and blood of other animals. Only recently has the government made illegal the practice of feeding cows to cows. (But an exception is made for veal calves - they are still fed the blood from their own kind.) The conditions in "modern" slaughterhouses since Reagan deregulated them back in the '80s is, well... I won't go there, but lets just say its really, really awful. (If you want to know the truth on this subject, read "Slaughterhouse" by Gail Eisnitz of the Humane Farming Association if you are strong of heart.)
So what is an Environmentalist to do to stop this madness and help out mother nature? Well, you can perform a real, tangible and meaningful positive action for the environment, three times a day, by choosing to eat lower on the food chain. This simple choice that each of us can make is a conspicuous positive affirmation that is visible to all those around us with whom we share our meals each and every day (can you say children?) Maybe by simply setting a good example, we can inspire others to think twice about how their food choices really do affect the state of the world.
More recently, in 2001 I became vegan when I was awakened to the wider implications of both the benefits of a whole foods plant based diet and the extensive detriments of any significant amount of animal foods (what do you mean milk is not nature's most perfect food?) I owe this second awakening of mine in a large part to watching Ingrid Newkirk getting grilled on a cable news show one night about PeTa's Mayor Guliani's Milk Mustache "Got Prostate Cancer" ad that was the controversy of that moment. Yes, they may be abrasive (and bark a lot), but I can say from personal experience that their bark, does in fact, wake up many who are a bit too sleepy...
If you really care about the health of the environment (and your own body), every one of you really must read: "Food Revolution" by John Robbins. It should be required reading in schools everywhere. Also, it is apparent from the responses above that many of you are completely unaware of the science connecting animal protein (not just saturated fat), to cancer. Please get educated on the science, read: "The China Study", by T. Colin Campbell - its all about the results from the largest epidemiological study ever conducted in the history of the world. Bottom line: there is a strong direct correlation between consumption of animal protein and cancer (and heart disease, and autoimmune diseases, etc.) The evidence is also borne out in animal studies. The science is clear.
I've learned from many years as a veggie that others do not respond to forceful lectures, but are frequently curious and ask questions that lead to meaningful and fruitful discussions. The environmental angle of vegetarianism is very persuasive (and the health and animal welfare benefits just add icing to the cake).
May All Beings be Happy!
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