Just 'cause I love poking the hornet's nest, I thought I'd weigh in on this brouhaha about PETA, vegetarianism, and environmentalism. As I see it, there are three core questions:
1. Should citizens of conscience become vegetarians?
To me, the answer to this question is pretty obviously yes. I don't see how it can be seriously argued.
Depending on your inclinations, you can heed the health arguments, the moral arguments, or the environmental arguments (regardless whether you agree with the UN study that meat production is the No. 1 contributor to global warming, it is obviously a very large contributor, never mind CAFOs' horrid effects on land, air, and water). Taken together, these arguments strike me as dispositive. It is not possible to participate in industrial animal farming with clean hands.
Add to all this the fact that unlike giving up a car, moving closer to work, or retrofitting a home to be more energy efficient, giving up meat involves virtually no cost or inconvenience. Eating meat is entirely an aesthetic choice, based on taste and habit. Taste and habit are not convincing counterweights to the arguments against meat.
So yes, you should eat less meat; ideally you should eat none. You ought to be a vegetarian.
Two additional notes:
- Yeah, yeah, the equation is different if you eat only humanely raised animals purchased from local farmers, or if you hunt and kill your own meat. But about 0.001% of Americans do that, and there could never be enough of that kind of meat to match current consumption levels, so it's a distraction from the real argument. At least for me, the argument for vegetarianism is not categorical; it's contingent on the actual state of industrial livestock farming.
- I'm not a vegetarian, so I'm a big fat hypocrite. I eat meat -- not nearly as much as the average American, but some. I choose local and humane when I can, but lots of times it isn't an option. My personal eating habits give me considerable incentive to justify meat consumption. But I'd rather acknowledge my hypocrisy than use a bunch of bullsh*t arguments.
2. Is it true that you cannot be a meat-eating environmentalist?
This is a deeply silly question. The term "environmentalist" is socially contingent and highly contested. Environmentalism has no metaphysical essence. "You aren't an environmentalist" is moral judgment masquerading as an assertion of fact.
Every discussion I've ever witnessed about who is or isn't an environmentalist, or what does or doesn't count as environmentalism -- and believe me, at this point I've seen plenty -- contains vastly more heat than light. Feelings are hurt, umbrage is taken, but nothing is ever learned, no consensus is ever reached. It's a peacock show through which everyone parades their biases and preconceptions.
What makes an environmentalist? Is it enough to care about (write about, advocate for) environmental policy, or must you also engage in activism? Must you take action to green your own life? If so, how much? Drive less, or not at all? Turn off lights, or go off grid? Eat less meat, or go vegetarian?
I don't know, or much care. There are lots and lots of things decent human beings should do. Nobody's able to do them all. We all do a little; we should all do more. Those of us on more or less the same side gain very little by furiously judging each other's personal choices in a futile attempt to define the tribal boundaries of environmentalism.
3. Is PETA's latest campaign counterproductive?
It's important when thinking about this question to disentangle your own response to the campaign from the question of its overall efficacy. I'll freely admit it bugs the crap out of me. Proclaiming who is and isn't an environmentalist bugs me. Using Al Gore as a foil bugs me. Using global warming opportunistically, as a convenient wedge, bugs me. The whole thing is irksome.
However, the campaign isn't designed to secure my moral or aesthetic approval, or yours. It's designed to spread awareness of something you and I already know: that eating meat is environmentally destructive and exacerbates global warming. A sober, fair-minded, carefully argued campaign would not achieve that goal. It would sink without a ripple.
As I've argued before (in connection to another PETA campaign), it's extremely difficult to make yourself heard over the din of pop culture and 24-hour media. There aren't many people looking around for information on the destructiveness of their most intimate habits. Virtually the only way advocacy campaigns can gain any traction is by generating some controversy. Despite what you may think, that's not all PETA does, but they do it a lot and they do it well. That's why you know who they are. That's why we're having a debate about vegetarianism and environmentalism.
As annoying as it is, I count the campaign a success, because of the hundreds of advocacy campaigns going on right now, this is the one we noticed. That's what PETA set out to achieve, and they achieved it.
Ask Umbra’s video advice on grilling
A review of six non-dairy ice creams
Ask Umbra on meating your needs
Comments View as Flat
JMG Posted 3:49 pm
16 Sep 2007
Fairly said
I think that's a pretty good summary of things.
I have always loved this saying:
"When you're getting lots of flack, it often means you're over the target."
Save the world: Reduce greenhouse gas emissions 5% annually.
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caniscandida Posted 4:33 pm
16 Sep 2007
"deeply silly" -- yay!
This is excellent, DR, and I agree with everything you have written here. Especially Question 2.
Chickens are our cousins! So are other sensitive animals! Enough is enough! No more factory farms!
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MattPrescott Posted 5:16 pm
16 Sep 2007
Totally Agree....
Amen. Its worth pointing out that the "I only purchase locally-grown, "humane" meat" argument doesn't hold water. Those animals, like the ones on factory farms, still need to be fed crops to grow (and it takes about 16 lbs of crops to product 1 lb of meat). All of those crops require land to grow, many of them involve pesticides, they all require fossil fuels and water, etc. No matter if its a factory or family farm, the biological reality is that producing meat will always be an inefficient, resource-intensive process.
Plus, how many people who "only" eat meat from these "family farms" truly never eat meat otherwise? If you're at a friend's house and they serve meat, do you ask where it came from and refuse it if its not on your approved list of farms? If you're at a work potluck, do you ask each person to write the name of the farm their meat came from in front of the dish, and only eat the dishes made of meat from the smaller ones? I find this argument is used as a crutch to allow people to continue eating meat despite its major environmental, animal welfare and health problems.
As this author points out, going vegetarian is no inconvenience. sure, for the first few months or so you've got to try some new products to figure out which ones you like, and learn some new recipes....but for anyone who likes eating as much as I do, that's a GOOD thing.
the web site www.vegcooking.com is really helpful, and has thousands of free vegetarian recipes (for anyone interested).
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Jones Posted 8:39 pm
16 Sep 2007
2 out of 3 ain't bad...
the first 2 points were quite good, though I think number two needs to be talked about much more in the enviro community...
But number 3 I have a problem with, and it too deserves to be expanded upon. It's far from given that the loudest voice in a crowded room is the most effective. That's one advertising strategy, but only one, and a somewhat discredited one at that. All advertising carry multiple messages: not just the "facts" but about the reliability and status of the messenger. A product that attracts the most attention can easily be flash-in-the-pan. Meanwhile, many more successful products market themselves quietly, to a small set of "early adopters" who turn out to be much better representatives for a product than anything the 40something ad execs can come up with.
Of course, these arre products, and the marketing of environmental messages will be somewhat different. But some of the same principles will apply. I think that playing the moralising, nagging environmentalist (a 'narrative' many people are all too happy to buy into) risks doing more harm than good. In this case you have distaste for both message and messenger. We've all seen the cognitive contortions performed by those who simply can't believe that enviros can be right, or non-alarmist, about science, let alone economic policy. A good number of other, more "ordinary" folks keep enviros at arm's length, having no interest in identifying with people with such "extreme" values. And yes, for many people, vegetarianism is an extreme value. This campaign, in which we sacrifice one of our own, will serve only to reinforce the notion that enviros are extreme, and extremely unpleasant.
Personally, I'm an environmentalist because it just makes sense. Try telling that to most people. It's a message you have to explain to people, not scream at them. Enviros are an alarmist bunch, because we've attracted the type of people who are attracted by screaming. Effective communication isn't defined by how many people hear your message today, but by what people will retain of it one year from now. For a "movement of conscience", it's important to make people think rather than react; to make people feel comfortable with you and not threatened by an overbearing presence; and unltimately to identify with you. I just don't think screaming and moralising achieves that.
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TwinsFanatic Posted 9:45 pm
16 Sep 2007
Meat is the Number One Cause of Global Warming:
Can you be an environmentalist who clear-cuts the rainforest?
Environmentalist should mean something...
www.GoVeg.com/eco:
Would you ever open your refrigerator, pull out 16 plates of pasta and toss them in the trash, and then eat just one plate of food? How about leveling 55 square feet of rain forest for a single meal or dumping 2,500 gallons of water down the drain? Of course you wouldn't. But if you're eating chicken, fish, turkey, pork, or beef, that's what you're doing--wasting resources and destroying our environment.
Animals raised for food expend the vast majority of the calories that they are fed simply existing, just as we do. We feed more than 70 percent of the grains and cereals we grow to farmed animals, and almost all of those calories go into simply keeping the animals alive, not making them grow. Only a small fraction of the calories consumed by farmed animals are actually converted into the meat that people eat.
A major 2006 report by the United Nations summarized the devastation caused by the meat industry. Raising animals for food, the report said, is "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 ...."
Click on the link for more.
www.GoVeg.com/eco
Check out www.Meat.org & www.GoVeg.com.
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josullivan58 Posted 10:13 pm
16 Sep 2007
Some different answers
Question #1
The convenience or cost of going vegetarian is very subjective. In financial terms going veggie is one of the few things that will instantly save you money and help the environment, but food is an important part of culture. Think of the New York delis, the Texas barbecues, the New England clam shacks or the drive-through hamburger places that are ubiquitous in the US . Giving up something that makes us what we are as a people is a lot to ask. How many people would give up their thanksgiving turkey, easter ham or hot dogs at the ball park?
Question #2
I agree completely. There is too much tribalism and infighting. One of the things the right does very well is not infighting, not publicly at least. I also think that some on the left view the environmentalists as sacrificial lambs that they can offer to the republican noise machine to keep them off their own back. Infighting encourages this.
As long as the term environmentalist is not used to green-wash or cover up another agenda it should be used broadly. That being said PETA is first and foremost an animal-rights group. PETA shares many of the same goals as environmentalist groups, however PETA has acted against environmentalists if they violated PETA's position on animal-rights.
Question #3
PETA is good at getting itself heard, but more substantive results are harder to come by. For example a large majority of people in the US and Europe now considers wearing fur unacceptable. That has resulted in a temporary drop in fur sales, but sales increased over 30% in the past 5 years
http://news.scotsman.com/topics.cfm?tid=604&id=175461 ...
Largely because of PETA, many food companies and restaurants use more humanely raised meat, and clothing companies use more humanely raised leather, but PETA has not caused much of a dent in the consumption of these animals. One of the reasons why PETA was successful was because these where relatively small sacrifices. Getting a large part of the public to become vegetarians will be much harder, if its possible at all.
Why PETA's recent campaign against environmental groups is bad:
Infighting of any kind wastes time and resources.
Public infighting further damages the public image of environmentalists.
The things PETA is saying are reinforcing the right's stereotype of environmentalists as holier-than-thou and hypocritical and environmentalists as not smart enough or too emotional to understand the issue.
The way PETA is behaving reinforces the right's stereotype of environmentalists being fringe radicals who are hostile and want to force everyone else to live their extremist lifestyles.
It gives ammunition to the republican noise machine to set a negative public image of environmentalists that many in the general public accept.
Its these images that have influenced people to join the attacks on environmentalists, or decide not to work with or support environmentalist groups.
It increases infighting with groups that should be environmentalists natural allies.
Reinforcing these negative images makes it harder to create the broad coalition necessary to fight climate change.
Why is PETA doing this, to get environmentalists themselves to go vegetarian? Some motivated environmentalists will do it, but that will have little effect.
Do they want the environmental groups do push the message? This seems to be the case.
Why, because environmentalist groups have been more successful than PETA ? (yes they have been).
Because environmentalists groups have a broader base of public support? (yes they do).
To capitalize on Al Gore's success increasing awareness about climate change without having to develop an effective campaign themselves? (this seems pretty likely, PETA is opportunistic).
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justlou Posted 10:27 pm
16 Sep 2007
Meat Costs not Factored into Price
Many of us who eat meat would be consuming less if the price reflected the true costs of production. If all the externalities, carbon costs, better environmental practices, higher input prices, better prices for the farmers, higher wages and benefits for meat packers, etc. were factored in the cost of meat, the prices would be significantly higher and we would be consuming less.
Higher prices will stimulate more "environmentalism" as the realities of accomodating 9 billion people on earth come to fruition.
It is sad, I might add, that environmentalists -- those that strive to give voice to our home -- would be the subjects of so much scorn and derision. Only an alien culture promolgated by the likes of Rush Limbaugh could make such enemies. Sad that so many authoritarian followers of this alien mindset take up the charge.
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wackatalpidae Posted 10:59 pm
16 Sep 2007
WAR!
TRUE ENVINRONMENTALISTS OPPOSE ALL WAR!
JUST TRY TO TELL ME I AM WRONG.
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odograph Posted 11:00 pm
16 Sep 2007
environmentalist
The word itself has a simple meaning ... motivated to protect the environment. As opposed to the unmotivated.
Or the "industrialist" ;-)
It's just a standard ploy in human group dynamics to fight with a label. Either you put a label upon someone ("liberal" worked for a few years) or try to take it away from them ("patriot" more recently).
So some of the people motivated to protect the environment want to use the label to advance their particular environmental focus. That's human, but it should also be easy to see right through it.
People can be motivated to "help the environment" and be "helping" even when they are not perfect in ... perfect in everyone's eyes at once? What a trick.
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MattPrescott Posted 11:20 pm
16 Sep 2007
The semantics are killing me.
It doesn't matter how one personally defines "environmentalist" (or think others should define) it. It doesn't matter that PETA is an animal rights group. It doesn't matter if someone likes PETA or hates it. Nor does it matter if one thinks PETA is effective at getting the message out. The fact is:
Neither the messenger nor the tactics used to convey the message have anything to do with the validity of the message itself.
Using these side-issues to divert attention from this accurate and valid message is just wrong. As environmentalists and progressives, we should be more open-minded to the fact that we may not all be perfect and could stand to change some simple things about how we personally live to make the world a better, kinder and more environmentally-healthy place to live.
If you don't like rainforest destruction, go vegetarian.
If you don't like wasting energy, go vegetarian.
If you are concerned about global poverty, go vegetarian.
If you are concerned about your health, go vegetarian.
If you are concerned about ocean and river pollution, go vegetarian.
If you are concerned about land degradation, go vegetarian.
If you are concerned about animals, go vegetarian.
If you are concerned about wasting water, go vegetarian.
If you are concerned with the state of the world and want to take a simple step that will make it better in many regards...go vegetarian.
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odograph Posted 11:23 pm
16 Sep 2007
Strange Question:
So ethanol policy is raising beef prices, and probably doing more to reduce consumption than the PETA campaign.
Is it doing enough of that back-end "good work" to make up for poorly thought out ethanol policy?
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ebaerren Posted 11:27 pm
16 Sep 2007
I would offer the following additional thoughts
A. You don't need to give money to CAFOs to eat meat. Lots of us live very close to actual, real farms run as a second business by the owners (some of us live very close by to a couple of CSAs, where the chickens are actually free range and the cattle that give milk are allowed to freely roam a pasture).
B. Two weeks ago, I made a pound of burgers out of a thing of ground venison. I currently also have a big thing of frozen backstrap in my freezer waiting for the right moment. Here in Michigan, where there are no natural deer predators left, human hunting fills that ecological niche.
This makes the role of human hunting a very necessary and important one, since we're now the top predator. The results of no hunting are evident along the sides of roads and highways, in our auto insurance bills, in the amount of money that has to go to farmers to replace what is lost in crop damage, and in the spread of communicable diseases among the herd. You might not like that predation is necessary, but that's just the way things are.
C. I understand they're clearing rainforests in Brazil to grow soybeans for ethanol production. If any of those soybeans are processed into tofu, then vegans are killing rainforests and baby jaguars. For shame (disclaimer ... I have no idea where the soybeans for tofu comes from, and since I eat next to no tofu I couldn't care less, but if you want to lecture people on what to eat you better know where your tracks lead).
So, a citizen of conscience might not give money for meat raised in CAFOs; but there are alternatives, and it's better to be a smart citizen of conscience who thinks things through rather than one who issues blanket proclamations about what we should and shouldn't be doing.
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odograph Posted 11:29 pm
16 Sep 2007
Straight-Up
BTW Matt, I am much more comfortable with that kind of straight-up argument, because I don't see it as such a ploy.
Probably the biggest catch in it is the "health" line. There a lot depends on the individual. And let's face it, eating more (low mercury) fish would probably be good for most people.
That builds in a certain "tension" between individual good and social good.
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askantik Posted 11:30 pm
16 Sep 2007
Well...
I agree with most of the article... thought I confide that Matt Prescott hit it right on the head.
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Jones Posted 11:46 pm
16 Sep 2007
principle vs practise
I'd say that one thing we have ample evidence of is this:
If you want someone to go vegetarian, don't tell them to go vegetarian.
This statement may offend your a priori reasoning, but can you really say there's no truth in it? No amount of being right can make up for the fact that you're not effective.
Pardon me for being uncomfortable with moral clarity. But isn't it more useful, both philosophically and practically, to ask yourself why seemingly intelligent, intellectually honest people like David Roberts are willing to admit hypocrisy on this issue? Why people like me--at the very least, more engaged and better informed than most--actually find it easier to give up a car (and a home in the suburbs) than to give up meat?
Of course it may be that ultimately I'm a selfish prick who's not willing to go very far for my convictions. I'm reluctantly open to that possibility, and the fact that I've not been completely honest with myself in this respect. But I'm not sure that an explanation this simple would do justice my situation, and those of the millions of other omnivores on this planet, some of whom are like me, others not... the truth is more complicated, and more wonderful than all that. Am I selfish? it's fine for you to say "yes". But it'd only be interesting if you said why.
In the end, if you cared about all the things in Matt's list, you might consider ending your life, and take several others with you. Now, I know that's not fair to Matt's argument: I know that there's a fundamental difference between the two propositions. What I want to know is where the distinction lies
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odograph Posted 11:52 pm
16 Sep 2007
eat less meat
Is eat less meat (or less beef) too wishy-washy a message for vegetarians?
Or is that a good, practical, path to vegetarianism?
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caniscandida Posted 11:52 pm
16 Sep 2007
transparency in the meat industry
And not only should we feel encouraged to make the personal option for vegetarianism. We should also work to make every aspect of the meat industry transparent: glass walls in the slaughterhouses. That would have a powerful anti-meat effect, first on consumers, then quickly enough on producers.
Chickens are our cousins! So are other sensitive animals! Enough is enough! No more factory farms!
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Karen Lee Orr Posted 12:14 am
17 Sep 2007
Re: Strange Question
Tom Philpott's column, Hog Furtures, addresses ethanol and meat prices.
Excerpt:
When corn prices spiked last fall, things looked dire for industrial meat processors.
These enormous companies thrive by confining (or contracting with farmers to confine) livestock into tightly packed quarters and stuffing them with corn. Pricier corn -- in this case, pushed up by the government-backed surge in ethanol production -- seemed to translate to lower profits for the industrial meat giants. On cue, Big Meat executives like Tyson's Richard Bond complained bitterly about the end of cheap corn.
I, for one, looked forward to a slowdown in one of the globe's most environmentally destructive industries. (As the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization pointed out last fall, feedlot meat production spews more greenhouse gases even than automobile use.)
If nothing else useful came out of the ethanol boom, I thought to myself, at least industrial meat would take a hard hit. But a funny thing has happened on the way to my industrial-meat schadenfreude: the meat titans are shaking off higher corn prices and thriving. And now I'm the one complaining bitterly.
Full article:
Hog Futures
How the meat industry thrives, even as costs rise
http://grist.org/comments/food/2007/09/13/index.html
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Janet E Posted 1:01 am
17 Sep 2007
Alternatives...
I understand all the reasons why eating meat is bad for the environment. But I also think getting most of this country to stop eating meat (or to eat less meat) will never happen, unless we increase the prices, which will also never happen. It seems that the practical campaign would be to push for policies that will reduce the environmental impact of the meat industry in whatever way we can. Can someone explain what some of these alternatives might be-- I know there is research on how to decrease methane production in cows for example-- and what the status is (if any) on promoting these as policies?
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wackatalpidae Posted 1:17 am
17 Sep 2007
back to basics
it is never enough
it is never enough until your heart stops beating
back to the three rs
reduce
reuse
recycle
no more purity
purity kills
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odograph Posted 1:23 am
17 Sep 2007
recipies for seduction
The most seductive thing for me, an omnivore, is really good vegetarian food. I'll drive (oops!) for instance, to the Buddhist vegetarian restaurant up in Roland Heights. For that matter, I've enjoyed the lunch served at the Temple over in Hacienda Heights.
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ac5p Posted 1:36 am
17 Sep 2007
externality camp
I guess I'm in the camp that says if we price the externalities into the meat (we should price the externalities into everything) the prices will go up, the consumption down, or somehow the industry will clean itself up. That I can do more than clamor for laws that make my food more expensive is clear - I can reduce my intake of meat in the meantime and tell people why. Is any meat better than any other for the environment? It used to be that people ate meat sparingly because it was expensive, now I feel people eat it for every meal almost.
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Biodiversivist Posted 2:14 am
17 Sep 2007
It's all relative folks
The difference between a vegan or vegetarian or anyone else is how much of their diet consists of animal products, meat, dairy or eggs. Avoid beef, and ocean fish. It's all a matter of degree, vegan, vegetarian, semi-vegetarian, lacto-pseudo-semi-ovo-vegetarian...
Veganism and vegetarianism are just options among many. Obviously, most people find it to be an unpalatable option. Vegetarianism has been promoted for decades. I was a vegetarian for several years while in college decades ago. Like many others, I gave it up as being both futile and a pain in the ass (a sacrifice I didn't want to bother with any longer).
If it were so simple, we would all be vegetarians by default, because people tend to do what brings them the most pleasure. Food is pleasure. Vegetarian diets are less pleasurable. If that were not so, we would all be vegetarians by now and the poor of the world would not be eating more and more meat now that they can afford it.
Placing ourselves on pedestals just drives yet another wedge between those who identify themselves as environmentalists and the rest of the world. The problem with words like vegan and vegetarian is that they create a clearly defined boundary between groups of people. The words are devisive.
"If you don't like rainforest destruction, go vegetarian."
Better yet support an effective conservation organization and never buy tropical lumber. Only 10% of the beef consumed in America in 2002 was imported. 90% came from Australia and Canada. Only 1% came from South America. Becoming a vegetarian will have no measurable impact.
"If you don't like wasting energy, go vegetarian."
Better yet, invest in a Prius instead of a bigger home and find ways to use less energy in general, curly bulbs are a painless way to do that.
"If you are concerned about global poverty, go vegetarian.""
Better yet, get rid of your pets. U.S. consumers spend more than $11 billion a year on cat and dog food last year. Give to an international women's reproductive rights organization. According to the FAO report, the livestock sector creates livelihoods for one billion of the world's poor.
"If you are concerned about your health, go vegetarian.""
Better yet, eat less and exercise more. A little meat in your diet is actually good for you. An excess of meat, or eggs or cheese or anything for that matter is not.
"If you are concerned about ocean and river pollution, go vegetarian.""
Better yet, have fewer children, support a women's reproductive rights organization and get rid of your pet cats and dogs. They are the main cause of urban coliform bacteria in urban lakes and streams. Cat feces when flushed down toilets also spreads toxoplasmosis to marine mammals. Moderation in meat consumption is also fine of course.
"If you are concerned about land degradation, go vegetarian."
You can also simply eat less beef, have fewer children, support women's reproductive rights...
"If you are concerned about animals, go vegetarian."
Not concerned about prolonging the life of domesticated animals. All animals die. Humane treatment of them while they are alive is worthwhile.
"If you are concerned about wasting water, go vegetarian."
Growing crops and processing them into food takes energy and water, be it bread, pasta, or meat. Some processes are less efficient than others. Cattle process plants into protein. So do chickens. Eating less meat, especially beef is a good idea. Going vegetarian is unnecessary.
"If you are concerned with the state of the world and want to take a simple step that will make it better in many regards...go vegetarian."
Your doing so will make no meaningful difference in world poverty or the extinction event. The world is becoming less vegetarian every minute of everyday. Promoting this as a serious answer is naive.
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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CaptClevariant Posted 2:26 am
17 Sep 2007
Vegetarianism
Just curious - where does the concept of "lacto-ovo" vegetarianism fit into the hierarchy of environmental purity? I could readily stop eating the small amount of meat I consume, but I would have a hard time giving up eggs, milk, cheese, etc.
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gmunger Posted 3:03 am
17 Sep 2007
thanks bio-d
Thanks for the perspective.
The problem isn't meat, per se. It's the word industry in meat industry.
Eating meat from pastured livestock is healthful (in moderation) and environmentally benign (when done properly). Who says sustainably-scaled, pastured livestock is not possible? Why not?
Also, as Jon Rynn pointed out in the original PETA post, the largest (only?) source of greenhouse gasses is fossil fuels. Locally raised, slaughtered, and marketed meat; raised on pasture; has a much, much lower fossil carbon footprint. As I have posted several times previously, so far without refutation, if no fossil fuels are used in raising an animal for slaughter, then no carbon is added to the system. Methane produced during animals' metabolism of forage; forage which requires no fossil fuel inputs; is NOT adding carbon to the system. It is simply cycling extant carbon. Our ancestors raised livestock prior to the advent of fossil fuels. So too can we.
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gmunger Posted 3:18 am
17 Sep 2007
reframe the question
If DR had asked, "should citizens of conscience eschew industrial agriculture?", I would be willing to agree wholeheartedly.
As BioD alluded to, the vegetarian imperative makes a black-and-white issue of it. Which, of course, makes for easier theatre when you've got a few unused chicken suits kicking around.... Reality, if we recall, encompasses the full spectrum. And it puts a premium on thoughtful consideration of all the colors.
Weren't we all just deriding the binary mindset on another post? So are there two kinds of people...vegetarians and those with no conscience?
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amc89 Posted 3:35 am
17 Sep 2007
Don't be so closed minded about vetetarian cooking
Good post David. Thank you for eating less meat than average and I hope you continue to reduce your consumption.
"Who says sustainably-scaled, pastured livestock is not possible?"
I think it is possible, to some degree. But it's not realistic the expect that this type of small-scale agriculture can feed billions of meat eaters, hence we need to reduce demand, which is what many environmental and animal advocacy groups are calling for. To think that demand can stay static and we can meet this demand through only grass-fed beef is fantasy.
I take issue with Biodiversist's statement that "vegetarian diets are less pleasurable." I think that's a stereotype that we need to move away from. Sounds like you were vegetarian a long time ago before many of the popular vegetarian products, companies and restaurants were born.
Many vegetarian restaurants have become much more sophisticated in recent years as the number of vegetarians have increased. Take Millenium in San Francisco for example. There are also loads of fantastic vegetarian restaurants in New York City, London, Washington DC, Portland, and other major cities, each one with a different approach and style. I've even read cooking articles in which omni-vorous chefs praise the virtues of tofu. I can honestly say that I've never missed meat in my almost 9 years of being vegetarian and 5 years of being vegan. I experiment with different foods, cookbooks and try to find new restaurants. I would guess that I find as much pleasure in my diet as the average meat eater, maybe more so.
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wiscidea Posted 4:52 am
17 Sep 2007
Why...
Why do environmentalists assume everyone on the planet will want to adopt the same unhealthy dietary and other bad habits of the average American as soon as they can afford to do so?
I've noticed that people comment that the world cannot support 6 billion carnivores, the world can't accomodate everyone driving enormous SUVs, the world is too small for everyone to live in a McMansion, et cetera.
Carnivory:
Europeans are as affluent as Americans, but do not insist on eating enormous quantities of meat.
The six billion people on the planet include 376 million Buddhists and 900 million Hindus. The majority of them are not supposed to be eating meat. So there's over a billion people you don't have to freak out about... and their numbers are growing.
I'm an American addicted to meat, but I never consume more than 2 or 3 burgers worth of meat -- beef, chicken, turkey, or fish, no others -- each week. My spouse consumes even less. So not all Americans are interested in consuming vast piles of meat.
SUVS:
Believe it or not, not everyone actually wants a large SUV. I have a small one. It is not always the most convenient vehicle to drive. I have enough trouble parallel parking a small car. And I don't appreciate the lower gas mileage. I drive the SUV when it suits my purposes and I might replace it with a car in a few years if I can find a decent one with AWD. Surely I'm not the only human being on the planet not interested in a large SUV as soon as it is affordable, and perhaps not even interested in clinging to my small SUV.
McMansions:
Is there any evidence that people across the globe immediately and continuously move "up" to a larger house as soon as they can afford it? I'm happy with my 1100-1200 sf home. Am I the only person on the planet not interested in more space for my stuff. There are better things to spend money on.
It would be interesting to see a survey of people from different countries: what sort of lifestyle -- diet, transportation, housing, et cetera -- would they adopt given sufficient means? Does anyone have numbers for this?
Another victim of Jean-Paul Marat's ghost and his virtual guillotine?
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gmunger Posted 5:11 am
17 Sep 2007
billions and billions misserved
I suspect we have far more to agree upon than not. As I said, this is not an issue that can be soundbited. The problems and solutions are complex. Hence my perturbment at being told I simply cannot simmultaneously eat meat and care for the planet.
I agree that burgerdom as we know it is not sustainable. But I don't agree we need to abolish meat eating. Similarly, I don't think human population growth is sustainable, but I don't agree with forced sterilization.
As for the economics of sustainable agriculture within the larger context of our unsustainable society.....it's also a fantasy to think we can maintain most of our current land use practices given the impending twin calamaties of climate change and peak oil. But that doesn't mean we should chastise folks for driving a Prius vs. riding a bicycle. I'm simply suggesting that sustainable livestock production is possible. I don't know precisely at what scale it is possible, but I think most folks haven't bothered to envision it.
It does seem likely that if meat were priced according to its true costs it would be more expensive. And therein lies your demand reduction. But it won't happen by donning chicken suits and calling names.
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Glenn Hurowitz Posted 5:16 am
17 Sep 2007
Beef is the problem, not tofu
Um, the problem with beef is that cows have to eat a hell of a lot of soybeans to give you the same nutritional value that comes from eating tofu directly, about 16 times as much land, and up to 100 times more water and electricity.
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Biodiversivist Posted 5:26 am
17 Sep 2007
wiscidea
Look at China. The FAO report says meat consumption is expected to double world wide. People have to do something with their disposable income.
amc89,
That argument is at least a couple of decades old (that is how long I've been hearing it). The statistical anecdotal evidence is the fact that very few people are vegetarian, and many who try it eventually abandon it. I eat very little meat but a sandwich with lettuce, onions, tomatoes, mayo missing that 0.05 think piece of ham just isn't the same, this is especially so with a BLT. Now I'm hungry.
gmunger,
The FAO report agrees with you on carbon intensity. They say that the fossil fuel impact in the cattle industry is small compared to the problem of land use change caused by livestock (deforestation and usurping grasslands). Raising and eating beef in a sustainable manner on existing natural grassland would be a pretty carbon neutral exercise. Of course, there is more at stake than just carbon neutrality.
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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SusanElizabeth Posted 6:32 am
17 Sep 2007
A good column
David Roberts nailed this one. The hypocrisy has been farcical.
To recap: The U.N. identifies livestock as a major cause of global warming, much more than automobiles. Sierra Club points to climate change as the crisis of our time. Carl Pope says that the Club doesn't even tell people not to drive SUVS, let alone forsake meat. The Club doesn't want to ruffle feathers. Instead, says Pope, the Club will work with SUV manufacturers.
(Let's hope this turns out better than Pope's recent alliance with gun manufacturers. Sierra founder Muir called hunting "the murder business." Now, Sierra encourages its members -especially women and children, the demographic targeted by gun makers for future sales -- to shoot wildlife.)
Planet Earth organizers served hamburgers at concerts. Al Gore ignored meat altogether in his documentary. Gore prefers not to divulge his personal eating habits. The corporate greens call PETA an "opportunist."
Last week's patently condescending and arrogant piece by Alex Roth embodies why corporate greens are losing the game. They've become bean counting inauthentics, greenwashing left and right.
Global warming is real. I just wish so-called environmental leaders were.
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wiscidea Posted 6:47 am
17 Sep 2007
Fake Greens and Real Greens?
SE wrote:
"Last week's patently condescending and arrogant piece by Alex Roth embodies why corporate greens are losing the game. They've become bean counting inauthentics, greenwashing left and right."
Please present a precise definition of "corporate green".
Please present a precise definition of "non-corporate green".
Thank You.
Another victim of Jean-Paul Marat's ghost and his virtual guillotine?
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SusanElizabeth Posted 7:32 am
17 Sep 2007
Definitions on Demand
I would, if this were a game show. The answer would be fairly redundant. Thank you kindly.
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Steve Erickson Posted 7:38 am
17 Sep 2007
Future farming systems?
Lets see, Its acceptable and standard for discussions in enviro circles about enviro problems to posit future conditions, systems, technologies, etc. that will end or avoid the existing problems. For example, conservation reserve networks, community based conservation, adequate enforcement of environmental laws, replacing long-lived bioaccumualtive toxic substances with more benign substances, increased transport fuel efficiency, effective mass transit, better human settlement patterns, etc.
However, this forward looking thinking just doesn't seem to happen in regards to human use of other animals, including for food. I presume that this is because some people regard eating meat as a moral issue, since it inevitably involves killing animals or at least eating those that die in less human deliberated fashion (i.e. road kills, scavenged carcasses). The extreme end of this philosophical strain rejects any human "exploitation" of animals, though I've never heard any of these people complain about the work bees and other invertebrates do for humans, wihtout which we'd all be dead.
How about if we approach this issue (animals in farming systems) the same way we approach these other "problems?" What do we want the farming systems of the future to be like? Will they be industrialized production of Soylent Green (so much more efficient than feeding the algae to animals)? Will the surviviors of the collapse revert to traditional hunter/gatherer lifestyles? Will we live in structures made of geneticaly engineered materials that are alive and also provide food?
If none of these seem attractive to you, then what is your vision? Mine has animals integrated into the system for power, nutrient cycling, and provision of goods, including food. I simply don't see how a farming system can be sustainable without animals. If anyone knows of any farming system that is, please share your information. Please, no "how to grow more vegetables in a square foot than you can imagine." These extremely intensive systems all require importation of vast amounts of organic matter (usually including animal manure) from off-site.
Or can't people on this thread envision a farming system different than the existing system? That's a challenge.
Steve E.
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wiscidea Posted 7:50 am
17 Sep 2007
Please permit me to rephrase my question.
What makes Alex Roth -- financial analyst, attorney, and environmentalist in Washington, D.C. -- a "corporate green"?
I've never heard of him before.
Another victim of Jean-Paul Marat's ghost and his virtual guillotine?
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wiscidea Posted 7:57 am
17 Sep 2007
Need Bios ASAP
HELP!
Perhaps Grist could add a list of key players in the environmental and anti-environmental movements to their website.
I'm having a heck of time trying to figure out who I'm supposed to like, who I'm supposed to hate (which appparently includes me), and exactly why.
Another victim of Jean-Paul Marat's ghost and his virtual guillotine?
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spaceshaper Posted 10:52 am
17 Sep 2007
The pain! The pain!
Can't stop eating that meat. Won't stop eating that meat. If you make me give up my meat I'll scream and scream until I'm SICK! I'll give up my BURGER when you pry it from my cold dead FINGERS! It's part of my NATURE! It's part of my CULTURE! It's part of my IDENTITY! Daddy please say I can keep eating my meat. Daddy please! Daddy please! Daddy please please please I NEED it!
The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.
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EcoReason Posted 11:52 am
17 Sep 2007
Surfing the Web
Contributes to global warming. If you write on blogs and spend all day with your electronic contraption on, you are destroying the planet.
Turn off. Please.
KC
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John Fish Kurmann Posted 12:55 pm
17 Sep 2007
"Taste" and "habit"
David Roberts:
I've commented fairly extensively in the blog for Alex Roth's original article regarding the moral and health arguments so I won't repeat those here. I do want to address this statement or yours, though:
You're going to have to produce some evidence to support this statement. Since it's well-established that humans are an omnivorous species and animal-eating has been found to be nearly universal among human cultures, how can you make this statement unequivocally? Have you considered the possibility that we have an innate nutritional wisdom, and that our tastes are indicators of that wisdom (with the caveat that evolution could not have prepared us for some of the novel conditions found in industrialized societies, such as the easy availability of large quantities of sugars and fats in processed foods)?
No, eating meat is a matter of taste, habit, culture--and nutrition. It's also the way of the world.
The world is sacred, and I am part of it.
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annie talks Posted 1:10 pm
17 Sep 2007
Focusing on the positive
Why do we see vegetarianism in such negative terms? Most of the discussion is around what is given up (meat) rather than what is gained (clean, healthy, living food). I think a lot of meat eating may be out of sheer ignorance of the alternatives and lack of convenience compared to meat-based fast foods. We need to do a better job selling a plant-based regime.
Also, let's try a riff on the catholic "no meat on fridays" rule and try to persuade people to eat meat sparingly, maybe on special occasions. And confine their choices to humanely raised, local livestock that is safer to eat and more delicious.
We need a little more heaven and a little less hell (or more carrot, less stick) in selling this change to the masses. Of course, we may have to set aside arguing amongst ourselves for a bit in order to do this.
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John Fish Kurmann Posted 1:35 pm
17 Sep 2007
Re "Why..."
wiscidea, you asked:
I can't speak for environmentalists--I don't even think of myself as one (I'm a community activist)--but I'd say the reason they assume everyone on the planet will adopt Americans' bad habits is that this is what we typically see when countries industrialize. Not that everyone in industrializing countries adopts these bad habits, but that's been the general trend. I think that's because people see nothing better to strive for, though, not because of human nature. If we're to become sustainable, we'll have to give them something better to strive for: community, real security and belonging, and a world getting healthier from generation to generation rather than every living system of the planet in decline, and the rate of decline accelerating (thanks to Paul Hawken for the idea I just paraphrased).
Regarding Hindus, Buddhists, and vegetarianism:
Many people mistakenly imagine India to be a country of vegetarians. According to Wikipedia, there are approximately 200 million vegetarians in India, including both Hindus and Buddhists. That's apparently a higher concentration than in any other country of the world, but it's still less than 20% of India's total estimated population of 1.12 billion people. Some estimates of the prevalence of vegetarianism in India are higher, however, the highest being 42%. Whether the correct figure is 20%, 42%, or something in between, it's still evidence that, despite the centuries of ubiquitous Hindu, Jain and Buddhist beliefs regarding the moral superiority of veg*n diets, most people--and possibly an overwhelming majority--in that part of the world don't find them persuasive enough to live by.
Also, again according to Wikipedia, "Buddhism in general does not prohibit meat eating, while Mahayana Buddhism encourages vegetarianism as beneficial for developing compassion."
The world is sacred, and I am part of it.
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Pangolin Posted 6:41 pm
17 Sep 2007
Does King CONG fund PETA?
Does the Coal, Oil, and Natural Gas lobby fund PETA? If not they should. Because PETA is making the honest enviros look like idiots and that is nothing but good news for the coal lobby.
In my little N. California city there are three "natural foods" markets as well as thrice weekly farmers markets. That's counting Trader Joe's in that pack. All three markets could be safely tucked into the floor space of the meat departments of our local Costco and Winco.
Is that clear enough for you?
In one of the most bicycle friendly, Prius driving, woo-woo towns in California the total vegetarian inclined retail space is smaller than the meat departments in the two largest markets. I should also add that one of those natural foods operations has an attatched butchers.
In fact the one market in the area that was attempting to be meat free, a natural foods co-op, is under risk of financial failure.
So getting on our web-based high horse and pronouncing that meat eating is the #1 cause of climate change is just stupidity. It's also patently NOT true. Every gram of carbon in meat has it's source as atmospheric gas. It originated in the atmosphere before it became beef or even manure.
Before industrial humans took over North America the ground shook with buffalo and the skies teemed with waterfowl in numbers our cattle and poultry production systems have not matched since. The natural processes that produced all of that meat also sequestered massive tonnages of carbon in peat bogs, prairie soils, swamps and woodlands. Areas that have since been drained and cleared for crop raising releasing the stored carbon.
Every gram of coal, oil or natural gas burned is added to the atmosphere from fossil stores. It represents millions of years of natural carbon sequestration that we are releasing in hundreds of years. This is the largest forcing factor in climate change.
I will believe that burning fossil carbon causes climate change. I will believe that plowing fossil soils and draining peat bogs causes climate change. I just cannot buy that eating meat causes climate change.
Put the Carbon Back
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spaceshaper Posted 8:12 pm
17 Sep 2007
Hmm.
"I will believe that burning fossil carbon causes climate change. I will believe that plowing fossil soils and draining peat bogs causes climate change. I just cannot buy that eating meat causes climate change."
Faith-based environmentalism?
The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.
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ritadona Posted 11:37 pm
17 Sep 2007
The Predominant Culture
I was a vegetarian for about ten years before finally going vegan a few months ago, actually, and I have to say that since I no longer consume animal products (or do my very best not to do so) in any form, I've become keenly aware of how in-your-face the culture around animal products is. It's almost like solving a puzzle on a daily basis to figure out how "not" to consume animals in some way, shape, or form. And I don't believe it has always been this way. I think that it wasn't until around the time of WWII that Americans even began to consider that meat could be something more than just a luxury item. I think what changed everything was the introduction of leftover ammonium nitrate from the war that got thrown on fields to increase crop yields...
I think it's hard to examine the culture when you're immersed in it. I mean, how can you argue with the constant message of "eat meat now and lots of it! your american! it's your birthright!" until you step outside of it for a while and look at it for what it is. Just "a way". Not "THE way".
I think I would challenge all animal product-eaters to just stop eating anything animal for a month. No strings attached. You can go back to eating animals if you want afterwards, but step outside for a moment and look in, if you will. Read. Think. Ask yourself what exactly you have that is so tied up in the continuance of this habit that you could absolutely not stop it or at least reduce it drastically.
Just take a look at who is shouting at you from the other side, the meat-eating side. Do THEY have your best interests at heart?
Maybe PETA's way of going about things is polarizing, but the message from the other side is pretty in-your-face, as well. Like I said, try not eating anything animal for a month, and you'll see how other people treat you, how the meat-eating culture almost says that not eating meat is un-American. Why? And why does no one seem to question THAT message?
I don't know if we can make any real progress with regard to climate change unless we can honestly examine some of our deeply held beliefs about our consumption HABITS. If PETA's polarizing ways get us to do that, then more power to them.
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Tom Philpott Posted 12:00 am
18 Sep 2007
Ritadona,
You write:
"It's almost like solving a puzzle on a daily basis to figure out how 'not' to consume animals in some way, shape, or form."
To complicate matters even more, essentially all organically grown vegetable crops in the US are fertilized with animal manure.
Victual Reality
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Tai Haku Posted 12:12 am
18 Sep 2007
Shades of grey
the real issue I have with this whole Brouhaha is the lack of middle ground people are showing. I'm currently trying to eat less meat (for environmental-only grounds; I have no issue with the humaneness of culture of what meat I do eat) but am unwilling at this time to go, if you'll pardon the pun, cold turkey.
It seems to me however many of the environmental issues raised could usefully be addressed by taking a hack at producing a US farm bill that assisted ethical and environmentally sound food production. Corn and Soy aren't environmentally sound industrial products as currently grown by most farmers whether they go into fuel, tofu, beef steers or chickens. I have a hard time believing farmers who produce pastured products using the sort of skill sets people like Joel Salatin are pioneering are environmentally damaging (I suspect these few examples are environmentally positive) so why not support them and reform the food system rather than setting up 2 absolutes of veganism and everyone else? I accept veganism may be the best option but most people aren't going to accept it so why not accept the shades of grey in global diet and work to make the grey green?
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Pearl Posted 1:12 am
18 Sep 2007
Re: "Taste" and "habit"
John FK: "it's well-established that humans are an omnivorous species".
Nutritional research confirms what is plainly evident from anatomy, biology
and physiology - humans are frugivores and are -not- naturally carnivorous.
"Have you considered the possibility that we have an innate nutritional
wisdom, and that our tastes are indicators of that wisdom ... sugars and fats"...
'The big problem we have before us in the meat industry is to how to reduce
the levels of fat in meat without leaving it dry and tasteless when we eat it.
Fat contributes a lot of taste to meat, particularly those flavours that allow us
to recognize one species from another. Without it, we may end up with just
a bland, general meaty taste. '
http://www.aps.uoguelph.ca/~swatland/ch2_4.htm
'Measuring Brain Activity In People Eating Chocolate Offers New Clues
About How The Body Becomes Addicted
CHICAGO --- Using positron emission tomography scans to measure
brain activity in people eating chocolate, a team of U.S. and Canadian
neuroscientists believe they have identified areas of the brain that may
underlie addiction and eating disorders.
Dana Small, assistant professor of neurology at Northwestern University
Medical School, and colleagues found that individuals' ratings of the
pleasantness of eating chocolate were associated with increased blood
flow in areas of the brain, particularly in the orbital frontal cortex and
midbrain, that are also activated by addictive drugs such as cocaine.
..
According to Small, a primary reinforcer is a stimulus that an individual
doesn't have to learn to like but, rather, is enjoyed from birth. Addictive
drugs can be viewed as primary reinforcers. Fat and sweet also are
primary reinforcers, and chocolate is chock full of fat and sweet, Small
said.
..
Small explained that studying the brain's response to eating a highly
rewarding food such as chocolate provides an effective "in-health" model
of addiction. "
..'
www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/08/010829082943.htm
....
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wiscidea Posted 1:33 am
18 Sep 2007
middle ground
Tai Haku wrote:
"...the real issue I have with this whole Brouhaha is the lack of middle ground people are showing..."
There is apparently not room in the environmental movement for middle ground. Notice the hostility toward those who are trying to consume less meat or even trying to consume sustainable agricultural products. A drastic reduction in carnivory is not enough. There are clear parallels for other possibly environmentally destructive behavior.
It is like the situation in the Middle East. Extremists at each end of the political spectrum reject those unwilling to embrace their full political agenda. The moderates give up and leave the debate or the region. The extremists continue to fight. A viable peace is never reached. No one will win this conflict.
Another victim of Jean-Paul Marat's ghost and his virtual guillotine?
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Survival Posted 1:48 am
18 Sep 2007
extreme and radical
The term "middle ground" is just as subjective as "extreme" or "radical".
Is industrial civilization neutral? Is it "extreme" in comparison to healthy, functioning ecosystems?
If so, how can you complain about a lack of middle ground when the context of the argument is not a middle ground in itself.
This type of argument is useless and only delays the change that is crucially needed, and makes excuses to continue destructive behavior.
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John Fish Kurmann Posted 2:07 am
18 Sep 2007
Re "Taste" and "habit"
Pearl, you wrote:
Huh. You say we're frugivores, yet I can't think of a single frugivorous culture. Can you?
Even the Vegetarian Resource Group recognizes that we're an omnivorous species. Their conclusion: "Humans are classic examples of omnivores in all relevant anatomical traits."
Lots more about the evidence we're omnivores can be found here.
Why do you think we're so attracted to sweet tastes and fatty textures? Do you think it's an accident? No, with something as important as food, it surely must be for a good reason.
The world is sacred, and I am part of it.
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albertli Posted 4:33 am
18 Sep 2007
environmentalists = vegetarians
wouldn't it be extremely hypocritical of so-called "environmentalists" who tout to no end the harmful effects of CAFO operations yet, come the end of the day, enjoy a nice heaping slab of beef when as you say, only 0.001% of americans eat meat grown environmentally responsibly? i'm sure there are more than 0.001% of us in the US who claim to be environmentalists. practice what you preach, please.
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John Fish Kurmann Posted 4:46 am
18 Sep 2007
Re: "environmentalists = vegetarians"
albertli, you wrote:
I do. Who are you to assume any of us does not?
The world is sacred, and I am part of it.
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Sam Wells Posted 5:34 am
18 Sep 2007
A true environmentalist ...
A true environmentalist doesn't demand that people not eat any kind of meat or become a vegan. Peta is not an environmental organization. A bunch of those vegetables, milk products, grains, and fruits of which you speak actually come from industrial farms, even if labeled "organic." Many come from Argentina, Australia, China, and places like that. I think most of the angst is about eating beef and pork, which is usually bulked up in CAFO operations but in reality, you can eat both without the CAFO.
I fail to see the logic, since no matter how much you wave your arms, some people will love to eat wild salmon, natural grass-fed beef, acorn-fed pigs, wild game, and all kinds of wonders that the Lord made possible. If that disgusts you, just move over and get out of the way. It has nothing to do with being an "environmentalist." In fact some of the true successes here in Texas was to save former ranchland by getting rid of invasive species to allow more deer, turkey, doves, and quail - which are eaten with great relish, sometimes fifty or a hundred bucks a plate (try Hudson's west of Austin, Texas). Only the excess animals over the "carrying capacity" of the land are culled.
That is true environmentalism. You work to manage the land so it is sustainable, to prevent pollution or clean up old spills, to get rid of invasive species, and to protect the land so it is sustainable. At times, this might involve prescribed burns, a practice known to help bring back endangered species. Sometimes it involves shooting wild pigs that are ruining the ranch and crops. You don't leave the feral pig there to die, if you kill it there is a moral obligation to eat it. Think about it.
I see a bunch of urban white folks here who don't know a thing about food, other than what comes from the corner store. How disappointing.
sammie
Onward through the fog
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ritadona Posted 6:00 am
18 Sep 2007
Poop a Loop
Tom,
"To complicate matters even more, essentially all organically grown vegetable crops in the US are fertilized with animal manure."
I wouldn't have any problem with using animal manure as fertilizer if it weren't for the fact that so many animals go through our current system that manure gets dumped in excess of what the land can handle, and this "load" becomes as much of a problem as synthetic chemical fertilizers--they become a pollutant.
One interesting thing that I read recently, though, and it might have come from Diet For a Small Planet, was that the United States currently imports around 80-90% of our fertilizers, making our dependence on foreign fertilizers just about as bad as our dependence on foreign oil.
I haven't verified that information, but if it's true, it's an interesting little kink in the current agricultural system--and even, perhaps, a question of national security...
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gmunger Posted 6:12 am
18 Sep 2007
I heard you the first time
I find it interesting that those of us who resist towing the PETA line are considered shrill and in need of humility. It strikes me that the opposite is more true.
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
Oy!
There are two very different reasons for not consuming meat that are being discussed here and vegetarians have a tendency to latch on to which ever is most convenient at the time.
(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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Sam Wells Posted 6:51 am
18 Sep 2007
Thanks, GMunger
By the same token, I do not make fun of - or insult - people who want to go with the "clean foods" path. Hey, more power to ya! But have you ever had farm-fresh eggs instead of the schlock from the chain stores? Ever roast or stew a chicken that had been eating grasshoppers and bugs in your backyard? Ever had wild catfish caught from the farm pond? How about pork sausage make the old Polish style? All that stuff has honest taste and it hasn't been doused with God knows what in terms of chemicals.
I foresee that environmentalists are going to get conflicted about aquaculture and even free-range animals. That's more because people tend to shout, be vindictive, and if you don't see it their way, you are a "denier." In terms of logic, debate, and rhetoric, as usual it is the person who sounds the most shrill that is the worst offender. It's not a freaking religion, it's called eating, man!
Onward through the fog
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caniscandida Posted 7:29 am
18 Sep 2007
oops
My response go GMUnger's recent comment here, "I heard you first time," was incorrectly posted by that useless secretary of mine in the "PETA's dogma" thread.
Chickens are our cousins! So are fish! So are other sentient animals! Let us learn to be kind.
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Jones Posted 9:42 am
18 Sep 2007
Thanks Wiscidea
#2 [whether meat is environmentally acceptable] should be discussed here... can it be done sustainably and to what extent?
is an excellent point. A website like this should be about sharing ideas, and not touting one's actions or judging another's.
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Jones Posted 9:52 am
18 Sep 2007
and further to the point...
on doing my own research, I've found to my delight that eating local, pasture-raised red meat is remarkably easy to do here in the UK. I'm still looking out for the carbon figures, but I'm now reasonably confident that my one or two beef/lamb/venison meals per week isn't what's responsible for the world's being such a bad place.
Maybe that's a more useful piece of information than all the moral vitriol. I wouldn't normally say this, but maybe what Gristers should be concentrating on is making the US (and Canada and Mexico) more British.
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trock Posted 11:09 am
18 Sep 2007
which meats are worse
I got it that some people think we should stop eating meat.
If you had to choose which ones are the worst, which would they be? Beef 2.4 times worse than chicken, pork 1.8 times worse than turkey, what are the numbers?
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Tai Haku Posted 12:53 pm
18 Sep 2007
Yep
"wouldn't normally say this, but maybe what Gristers should be concentrating on is making the US (and Canada and Mexico) more British."
or french or italian. As usual big agriculture is the issue here, funded by the US taxpayer courtesy of their elected representatives.
The Ethicurian is an excellent source on this as, as has already been pointed out, is Michael Pollan
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Pearl Posted 10:25 pm
18 Sep 2007
Re "Taste" and "habit"
John FK:
"Huh. You say we're frugivores, "
'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."
..
"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 ...
"yet I can't think of a single frugivorous culture. Can you?"
'Although writing in 1923, Dr. Kellogg's words confirm a recent
statement by the American Dietetic Association, that, "most of
mankind for most of human history has lived on vegetarian or
near vegetarian diets."
"The human race in general has never really adopted flesh as a
staple food," explains Dr. Kellogg. "The Anglo-Saxons and a few
savage tribes are about the only flesh-eating people. The people
of other nations use meat only as a luxury or an emergency diet.
...............'
http://www.all-creatures.org/murti/tsnhod-14.html
"Even the Vegetarian Resource Group recognizes that we're an
omnivorous species. Their conclusion: "Humans are classic examples
of omnivores in all relevant anatomical traits."
A very poor article indeed. And your author continues:
"For that reason, the best arguments in support of a meat-free diet
remain ecological, ethical, and health concerns."
health concerns???
Why would a 'naturally carnivorous omnivore' have health concerns?
"Lots more about the evidence we're omnivores can be found here."
Such as?
"Why do you think we're so attracted to sweet tastes and fatty textures?
Do you think it's an accident? No, with something as important as food,
it surely must be for a good reason."
Sweet represents sugar, which is fuel/energy, as is fat. Of course.
Permalink
aliza Posted 12:36 am
19 Sep 2007
vegetarianism is not feasible everywhere
I agree with most of the arguments in this post, but I want to point out that saying that there is no inconvenience or cost for giving up meat is NOT true all over the world...while people in many developing countries do consume LESS meat for a variety of reasons, in a variety of regions, meat--not factory farmed, but raised on family farms or hunted-- is one of the few sources of a variety of macro and micronutrients in what are often poor and un-varied diets. While more and more countries do have access to the abundance we do, that is not reflective a healthy, sustainable, global policy.
Permalink
Jones Posted 12:59 am
19 Sep 2007
carnivore, omnivore, vegivore...
"Throughout the spring, summer, and autumn, the chipmunk's diet is supplemented with insects, earthworms, flowers, berries, cherry and plum pits, mushrooms, and occasionally eggs or flesh of dead animals. Rare instances of chipmunks preying on birds or small mammals have been observed."
"Snowshoe hares occasionally scavenge meat from the carcasses of other animals. Most small herbivores, including mice, voles, and rabbits, will eat meat occasionally if it is available--good sources of protein are rare in plant foods, so most herbivores eat meat when they can." Hinterland Who's Who
The thing that best defines us as a species is not in our teeth, but our intelligence and social habits. The animal we're closest to is a chimp, a species that co-operates to hunt. The species with the best-developed organizational and cooperative abilities are predators like lions and wolves.
It's been speculated that early hunter-gatherers occupied an ecological niche similar to that of a brown or black bear--80% vegetarian, not above scavenging, and with the ability to hunt when needed, and a nearly irresistable desire to hunt when particularly tender, helpless morsels--deer fawns and moose calves--are available. In the natural world too, interspecies relationships aren't pretty.
Indeed, it's also been speculated that our species could not have differentiated without hunting. Our brains grew incredibly rapidly in a short period of time. The increased availability of protein brought about by primitive hunting techniques allowed for bigger brains, which were selected because they allowed for better hunting techniques.
Permalink
Pearl Posted 10:00 pm
19 Sep 2007
Re: carnivore, omnivore, vegivore...
Jones wrote:
<<"Throughout the spring, summer, and autumn, the chipmunk's diet is
supplemented with insects, earthworms, flowers, berries, cherry and
plum pits, mushrooms, and occasionally eggs or flesh of dead animals.
Rare instances of chipmunks preying on birds or small mammals have
been observed."
"Snowshoe hares occasionally scavenge meat from the carcasses of
other animals. Most small herbivores, including mice, voles, and rabbits,
will eat meat occasionally if it is available--good sources of protein are
rare in plant foods, so most herbivores eat meat when they can."
Hinterland Who's Who>>
"Studies of frugivorous communities elsewhere suggest that dietary
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.
<<The thing that best defines us as a species is not in our teeth, but our <br> intelligence and social habits. The animal we're closest to is a chimp, a
species that co-operates to hunt. >>
'Kortlandt states that predation by chimpanzees on vertebrates is
undoubtedly a rather rare phenomenon among rainforest-dwelling
populations of chimpanzees. Kortlandt lists the reasons given below
in his evidence.
# the absence (or virtual absence) of animal matter in the digestive
systems of hundreds of hunted, dissected or otherwise investigated cases
# the rarity of parasites indicating carnivorous habits
# rarity of pertinent field observations
# the responses when he placed live as well as dead potential prey animals
along the chimpanzee paths at Beni (in the poorer environments of the
savanna landscape however, predation on vertebrates appears to be much
more common)
Kortlandt concludes this section on primate diets by saying that the wealth
of flora and insect fauna in the rain-forest provides both chimpanzees and
orang-utans with a dietary spectrum that seems wide enough to meet their
nutritional requirements, without hunting and killing of vertebrates being
necessary. It is in the poorer nutritional environments, where plant sources
may be scarce or of low quality where carnivorous behaviour arises. Even
then he says that the meat obtained are minimal and perhaps insufficient to
meet basic needs. Finally he adds "The same conclusion applies, of course,
to hominids . . . it is strange that most palaeoanthropologists have never
been willing to accept the elementary facts on this matter that have emerged
from both nutritional science and primate research."
..'
http://venus.nildram.co.uk/veganmc/polemics.htm
<<The species with the best-developed organizational and cooperative <br> abilities are predators like lions and wolves.>>
'Medical News Today
Main Category: Biology/Biochemistry News
Article Date: 20 Feb 2006 - 0:00am (UK)
Humans Evolved To Be Peaceful, Cooperative And Social Animals,
Not Predators
..
Sussman and Hart provide evidence that many of our modern human
traits, including those of cooperation and socialization, developed as
a result of being a prey species and the early human's ability to out-
smart the predators. These traits did not result from trying to hunt for
prey or kill our competitors, says Sussman.
"One of the main defenses against predators by animals without
physical defenses is living in groups," says Sussman. "In fact, all
diurnal primates (those active during the day) live in permanent
social groups. Most ecologists agree that predation pressure is one
of the major adaptive reasons for this group-living. In this way there
are more eyes and ears to locate the predators and more individuals
to mob them if attacked or to confuse them by scattering. There are
a number of reasons that living in groups is beneficial for animals
that otherwise would be very prone to being preyed upon."
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=38 ...
<<It's been speculated that early hunter-gatherers occupied an ecological <br> niche similar to that of a brown or black bear--80% vegetarian, not
above scavenging, and with the ability to hunt when needed, and a nearly
irresistable desire to hunt when particularly tender, helpless morsels--
deer fawns and moose calves--are available. In the natural world too,
interspecies relationships aren't pretty.>>
'Anthropologically speaking, humans were high consumers of calcium
until the onset of the Agricultural Age, 10,000 years ago. Current calcium
intake is one-quarter to one-third that of our evolutionary diet and, if we
are genetically identical to the Late Paleolithic Homo sapiens, we may
be consuming a calcium-deficient diet our bodies cannot adjust to by
physiologic mechanisms.
The anthropological approach says, with the exception of a few small
changes related to genetic blood diseases, that humans are basically
identical biologically and medically to the hunter-gatherers of the late
Paleolithic Era.17 During this period, calcium content of the diet was
much higher than it is currently. Depending on the ratio of animal to
plant foods, calcium intake could have exceeded 2000 mg per day.17
Calcium was largely derived from wild plants, which had a very high
calcium content; animal protein played a small role, and the use of
dairy products did not come into play until the Agricultural Age
10,000 years ago. Compared to the current intake of approximately
500 mg per day for women age 20 and over in the United States,18
hunter-gatherers had a significantly higher calcium intake and apparently
much stronger bones. As late as 12,000 years ago, Stone Age hunters
had an average of 17-percent more bone density (as measured by
humeral cortical thickness). Bone density also appeared to be stable
over time with an apparent absence of osteoporosis.17
High levels of calcium excretion via renal losses are seen with both high
salt and high protein diets, in each case at levels common in the United
States.10,11
..
The only hunter-gatherers that seemed to fall prey to bone loss were the
aboriginal Inuit (Eskimos). Although their physical activity level was high,
their osteoporosis incidence exceeded even present-day levels in the
United States. The Inuit diet was high in phosphorus and protein and
low in calcium.20
..'
http://www.thorne.com/altmedrev/fulltext/calcium4-2.html
<<Indeed, it's also been speculated that our species could not have <br> differentiated without hunting. Our brains grew incredibly rapidly in
a short period of time.>>
' There is a popular notion that anthropology can offer useful insights
for forming the basis of a dietary philosophy. Anthropology is a science
which is only just starting to mature, previously having been little more
that a systematic, but lose, body of "say-so" information which
attempted to explain our species history and origins. With advances in
dating methods, including DNA analysis and more fossil finds, the
science is now embarking on its integration with biology. Previously,
anthropology was a pseudo-scientific marriage of traditional views
attempting to link the findings of robust sciences, such as geology,
palaeontology and archaeology. However, even though anthropologists
like Richard Leakey are aware that their 'science' is often "based on
unspoken assumptions" (The Making of Mankind, p. 82, R. Leakey),
they show that they will persist in making them.
Anthropologies 'Man The Hunter' concept is still used as a reason for
justifying the consumption of animal flesh as food. This has even
extended as far as suggesting that animal foods have enabled or caused
human brain enlargement. Allegedly this is because of the greater
availability of certain kinds of fats and the sharing behaviour associated
with eating raw animal food. The reality is that through natural selection,
the environmental factors our species have been exposed to selected
for greater brain development, long before raw animal flesh became a
significant part of our ancient ancestors diet. The elephant has also
developed a larger brain than the human brain, on a diet primarily
consisting of fermented foliage and fruits. It is my hypothesis that it is
eating fruits and perhaps blossoms, that has, if anything, contributed
the most in allowing humans to develop relatively larger brains than
other species. The ability of humans to develop normal brains with a
dietary absence of animal products is also noted.
..
Given a plentiful supply of fruits the mother does not have to risk
expending much of her effort obtaining difficult to get foods like raw
animal flesh, insects, nuts and roots. Furthermore, fruits contain
abundant supplies of sugars which the brain solely uses for energy.
The mother who's genes better dispose her for an easy life on fruits
would have an advantage of those who do not, and similarly, the fruit
species which is the best food for mother and child nutrition, would
tend to be selected for. There is now little doubt amongst distinguished
biologists that fruit has been the most significant dietary constituent
in the evolution of humans.
..
What are the essential biochemical properties of human metabolism
which distinguish us from our non-human primate relatives? One, at
least, is our uniquely low protein requirement as described by Olav
T. Oftedal who says:
"Human milk has the lowest protein concentration (about 7% of energy)
of any primate milk that has been studied. In general, it appears that
primates produce small daily amounts of a relatively dilute milk
(Oftedal 1984). Thus the protein and energy demands of lactation are
probably low for primates by comparison to the demands experienced
by many other mammals." The nutritional consequences of foraging in
primates: the relationship of nutrient intakes to nutrient requirements,
p.161 Philosophical Transactions: Biological Sciences vol 334,
159-295, No. 1270
One might imagine that given our comparatively 'low protein' milk, we
would not be able to grow very fast. In fact, as the image on the right
shows, human infants show very rapid growth, especially of the brain,
during the first year of life. Human infants are born a full year earlier
than they would be projected to, based on comparisons with other
animals. This is because of the large size their brains reach. A human
infant grows at the rate of 9 kg/year at birth, falling to 3.5 kg/year a
year later. Thereafter its growth rate is about half that of a chimpanzees
at 2 kg/year vs. about 4.5 kg/year. Humans are relatively half as bulky
as the other great apes, thus allowing nutrients to be directed at brain
development and the diet to be less demanding. The advantages of
such an undemanding metabolism are clear. Humans delay their growth
because they 'catch up' later, during puberty as seen on the graph.
Even so, the growth rate never reaches that of a newborn infant who
grows best by only eating breast milk.
...
According to Exequiel M. Patiño and Juan T. Borda 'Primate milks
contain on the average 13% solids, of which 6.5% is lactose, 3.8% lipids,
2.4% proteins, and 0.2% ash. Lactose is the largest component of the
solids, and protein is a lesser one'. They also say that 'milks of humans
and Old World monkeys have the highest percentages of sugar (an
average of 6.9%)' and when comparing human and non human primate
milks, they have similar proportions of solids, but human milks has
more sugar and fat whereas the non human primate milks have much
more protein. They continue 'In fact, human milk has the lowest
concentration of proteins (1.0%) of all the species of primates.' Patiño
and Borda present their research in order to allow other primatologists
to construct artificial milks as a substitute for the real thing for captive
primates. It is to be expected that these will have similar disasterous
consequences as the feeding of artificial bovine, and other false milks,
has had on human infants.
Patiño and Borda also present a table which compares primate milks.
This table is shown below and identifies the distinctive lower protein
requirements of humans. [see link]
Undoubtedly these gross metabolic differences between humans and
other mammals must have system wide implications for our metabolism.
They allow us to feed heavily on fruits, and may restrict other species
from choosing them. Never the less, many nutritional authorities
suggest that adult humans need nearly double (12% of calorific value)
their breast milk levels of protein, although it is accepted that infant
protein requirements for growth are triple those of adults. The use of
calorific values might also confuse the issue since human milk is highly
dilute (1% protein), and clearly eating foods that might be 25 times this
concentration, such as meat, are massive excesses if constantly ingested.
Certainly the body might manage to deal with this excess without
suffering immediate problems, but this is not proof of any beneficial
adaptation. It also needs to be pointed out that berries, such as
raspberries, may yield up to 21% of their calorific value from protein,
but are not regarded as 'good sources' of protein by nutritional authorites.
There are millions of fruits available to wild animals, and blanked
generalisations about the qualities of certain food groups, need to be
examined carefully, due to some misconceptions arising from the limited
commercial fruits which we experience in the domestic state.
The weaning of a fruigivorous primate would clearly demand the supply
of a food with nutritional characteristics similar to those of the mothers
milk. We must realise that supportive breast feeding may continue for
up to 9 or 10 years in some 'primitive' peoples, and this is more likely
to be representative of our evolutionary history than the 6 month limit
often found in modern cultures. This premature weaning should strike
any aware naturalist as being a disasterous activity, inflicting untold
damage. However, what we do know of the consequences is that it
reduces the IQ and disease resistance of the child, and that the substitute
of unnatural substances, like wheat and dairy products, is pathogenic.
Finally we need to compare some food group compositions with human
milk in order to establish if any statistical similarity exists. This would
demonstrate that modern humans have inherited their ancient fruigivorous
metabolism. This data is examined below in the final sections of the article.
....'
http://tinyurl.com/dahps
<<The increased availability of protein brought about by primitive hunting <br> techniques allowed for bigger brains, which were selected because they
allowed for better hunting techniques.>>
'It has long been held that big game hunting is THE key development in
human evolutionary history, facilitating the appearance of patterns in
reproduction, social organization, and life history fundamental to the
modern human condition. Though this view has been challenged strongly
in recent years, it persists as the conventional wisdom, largely for lack of
a plausible alternative. Recent research on women's time allocation and
food sharing among tropical hunter-gatherers now provides the basis for
such an alternative.
The problem with big game hunting
The appeal of big game hunting as an important evolutionary force lies
in the common assumption that hunting and related paternal provisioning
are essential to child rearing among human foragers: mother is seen as
unable to bear, feed and raise children on her own; hence relies on
husband/father for critical nutritional support, especially in the form of
meat. This makes dating the first appearance of this pattern the
fundamental problem in human origins research. The common association
between stone tools and the bones of large animals at sites of Pleistocene
age suggests to many that it may be quite old, possibly originating with
Homo erectus nearly two million years ago (e.g. Gowlett 1993).
Despite its widespread acceptance, there are good reasons to be skeptical
about the underlying assumption. Most important is the observation that
big game hunting is actually a poor way to support a family. Among the
Tanzanian Hadza, for example, men armed with bows and poisoned
arrows operating in a game-rich habitat acquire large animal prey only
about once every thirty hunter-days, not nearly often enough to feed
their children effectively. They could do better as provisioners by taking
small game or plant foods, yet choose not to, which suggests that big
game hunting serves some other purpose unrelated to offspring
survivorship (Hawkes et al. 1991). Whatever it is, reliable support for
children must come from elsewhere.
The importance of women's foraging and food sharing
Recent research on Hadza time allocation and foraging returns shows
that at least among these low latitude foragers, women's gathering is
the source (Hawkes et al. 1997). The most difficult time of the year
for the Hadza is the dry season, when foods younger children can
procure for themselves are unavailable. Mothers respond by
provisioning youngsters with foods they themselves can procure
daily and at relatively high rates, but that their children cannot, largely
because of handling requirements. Tubers, which require substantial
upper body strength and endurance to collect and the ability to control
fire in processing, are a good example.
Provisioning of this sort has at least two important implications: 1) it
allows the Hadza to operate in times and places where they otherwise
could not if, as among other primates, weaned offspring were
responsible for feeding themselves; 2) it lets another adult assist in the
process allowing mother to turn her attention to the next pregnancy
that much sooner. Quantitative data on time allocation, foraging returns,
and changes in children's nutritional status indicate that, among the
Hadza, that other adult is typically grandmother. Senior Hadza women
forage long hours every day, enjoy high returns for effort, and provision
their grandchildren effectively, especially when their daughters are
nursing new infants (Hawkes et al. 1989, 1997). Their support is crucial
to both daughters' fecundity and grandchildren's survivorship, with
important implications for grandmothers' own fitness.
...
http://www.cast.uark.edu/local/icaes/conferences/wburg/po ...
Permalink
Pearl Posted 10:12 pm
19 Sep 2007
link
That first link's dead, sorry. The page can be found here:
http://web.archive.org/web/20031206180418/http://venus.ni ...
Permalink
Pearl Posted 11:08 pm
19 Sep 2007
Re: vegetarianism is not feasible everywhere
aliza wrote:
<< I agree with most of the arguments in this post, >>
Sweet.
<<but I want to point out that saying that there is no inconvenience or cost for giving up meat is NOT true all over the world...while people in many developing countries do consume LESS meat for a variety of reasons, in a variety of regions, meat--not factory farmed, but raised on family farms or hunted-- is one of the few sources of a variety of macro and micronutrients in what are often poor and un-varied diets. While more and more countries do have access to the abundance we do, that is not reflective a healthy, sustainable, global policy.>>
From Technological Trajectories and the Human Environment. 1997. Pp. 56-73. Washington, DC: National Academy Press. "How Much Land Can Ten Billion People Spare for Nature?"..
'By eating different species of crops and a more or less vegetarian diet people can change the number that a plot can feed. And large numbers of people do change their diets. The calories and protein available from present cropland could provide a vegetarian diet to ten billion people. A diet requiring food and feed totaling 6,000 calories daily for ten billion people, however, would overwhelm the capability of present agriculture on present cropland. The global totals of sun, CO2, fertilizer, and even water could produce far more food than what ten billion people need.
..'
http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=4767&page ...
Livestock now use 30 percent of the earth's entire land surface, mostly permanent pasture but also including 33 percent of the global arable land used to producing feed for livestock, the report notes.
...'
http://www.fao.org/newsroom/en/news/2006/1000448/index.ht ...
'As stocks run out and harvests fail, the world faces its worst crisis for 30 years
By Geoffrey Lean
Published: 03 September 2006
Food supplies are shrinking alarmingly around the globe, plunging the world into its greatest crisis for more than 30 years. New figures show that this year's harvest will fail to produce enough to feed everyone on Earth, for the sixth time in the past seven years. Humanity has so far managed by eating its way through stockpiles built up in better times - but these have now fallen below the danger level.
Food prices have already started to rise as a result, and threaten to soar out of reach of many of the 4.2 billion people who live in the world's most vulnerable countries. And the new "green" drive to get cars to run on biofuels threatens to make food even scarcer and more expensive.
The UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), which produce the world's two main forecasts of the global crop production, both estimate that this year's grain harvest will fall for the second successive year.
...
Brown expects the food crisis to get much worse as more and more land becomes exhausted, soil erodes, water becomes scarcer, and global warming cuts harvests.
..'
http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article1325467. ...
'October 2006
..
More than 852 million people -- about 13 percent of the world population -- do not have enough food each day to sustain a healthy life, according to the Rome-based Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).
Of this, about 815 million people live in developing countries, 28 million in "transition" countries of the former Eastern Europe and ex-Soviet republics, and about nine million in the industrialised world.
"It is a shame on humanity that in a world that is richer than ever before, six million children due of malnutrition and related illnesses before they reach the age of five," Ziegler said.
The study, which goes before the current 61st session of the General Assembly, points out that the majority of the hungry live in Asia and Africa, while about 80 percent live in rural areas and depend on agriculture and pastoralism to survive.
"They are hungry because they do not have enough work, or access to productive resources like land and water sufficient to feed their families," it says.
...'
http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=35166
C.a) The Expropriation of Land.
...
Some of this land has been acquired through expropriation. This is as true in the third world today as it was centuries ago in the over-industrialized nations. Large numbers of poor people have been imprisoned, made homeless, killed, or have starved as a result of big landowners expropriating land for pasture. The same sort of expropriation has occurred, although not on the same scale, to provide grains for livestock Animals in the over-industrialized world.
..
The over-industrialized world cannot grow enough feed for its livestock and have to import huge quantities of fodder from third world countries, "Because of the large amounts of grain required to produce beef, the geographic location of cattle herds can be misleading. Most industrial countries do not have sufficient agricultural land to support their meat consumption. Beef production is particularly land-intensive, because one calorie of meat production requires 3 calories of grain inputs for pork and 10 calories for beef. Land requirements can be up to 50 times higher than for protein production from grain. As a result, a great deal of the feed consumed in industrialized countries is not produced on the home farm, but purchased from developing countries. For example, Western Europe imports more than 40%, or 21 million tons per year, of its feed grains from the Third World.";"Feeding the meat-eating (world) class takes nearly 40% of the world's grain, grown on [one-third] of the world's cropland."; "There has been a fundamental shift in world agriculture this century from food grains to feed grains, and cattle now compete with people for food. A third of the world's fish catch and more than a third of the world's total grain output is fed to livestock."61 Huge numbers of third world peoples are starving because the crops grown in their country are exported to fatten Animals in the over-industrialized nations, "More people are hungry now than ever before. Many states where hunger is prevalent are net exporters of food." Even during times of famine, grains continue to be exported from third world countries to the over-industrialized world, "In addition, about two-thirds of the total domestic grain crop goes to feed-lots. The agribusiness production of grains for foreign exchange-earning exports to the industrialized region is one among several factors in the displacement of the rural poor in the Third world onto marginal, ecologically sensitive land. The magnitude of the food value involved in this trade is significant: the [800+] million people suffering starvation could find relief from this condition if they had the cash to buy the grains exported to industrial country feedlots. In that sense, the present level of meat consumption in the wealthy industrialized countries is directly related to starvation in the poor countries of the world."
......'
http://www.geocities.com/carbonomics/MCsppub/11sp12/11sp1 ...
Permalink
John Fish Kurmann Posted 6:14 am
20 Sep 2007
Re: "Taste" and "habit"
Pearl:
We could go back and forth trading quotes from others regarding whether or not we are anatomically omnivores or frugivores, and I have a feeling neither of us will be persuaded. So let's turn from words to the world.
If, as you claim, we're anatomically frugivores (for those who don't know, a frugivore is an animal that primarily or, in some cases, solely eats fruits), where are the frugivorous human cultures? Why, instead, is omnivory almost universal? Are we omnivores all just too stupid to eat what we're evolved to eat?
If we're frugivores, why do so many people crave the taste, smell, and texture of meat? Why is this craving so powerful that a rapidly growing industry has arisen to elaborately process plant foods into imitations of meats and other animal foods, including soy "milk," soy "ice creams," and soy and nut "cheeses"? Why is there a long tradition among vegetarian Buddhists of going to great lengths to imitate the taste and texture of animal foods?
I don't think this is all by accident.
Omnivores aren't automatically exempt from health concerns. I haven't argued that it's impossible to be unhealthy on an omnivorous diet. I have questioned if it's possible for the majority of people to be healthy over the long-term on a veg*n diet.
The world is sacred, and I am part of it.
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Karen Lee Orr Posted 7:23 am
20 Sep 2007
Information on Vegan and Vegetarian Diets
The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine is a good information source for vegan and vegetarian diets:
http://www.pcrm.org/health/veginfo/
Also see The China Study by T. Colin Campbell and Thomas M. Campbell, II:
http://www.thechinastudy.com/about.html
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Pearl Posted 8:27 am
20 Sep 2007
Re: "Taste" and "habit"
John, please do yourself a favour and have a look here: http:www.iol.ie/~creature/BiologicalAdaptations.htm , and here: http://www.all-creatures.org/murti/tsnhod-14.html .
What people 'crave', is the fat - a primary reinforcer as already discussed, and we find the sorts of foods we ate growing up familiar and comforting, hence the provision of plant-based alternatives to flesh and milk products.
Health concerns due to carnivory is definitely not indicative of a naturally omnivorous species. Think about it, ok.
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Pearl Posted 8:29 am
20 Sep 2007
corrected link..
Again:
http/:www.iol.ie~creature/BiologicalAdaptations.htm
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Pearl Posted 8:34 am
20 Sep 2007
third time...
http://www.iol.ie~creature/BiologicalAdaptations.htm
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spaceshaper Posted 11:10 am
20 Sep 2007
Pity.
How sad that the general level of discussion on this thread has largely failed to live up to the directness and clarity of David's original post. By golly he actually addressed head-on not only the simple basic facts of this emotion-strewn area but also and more importantly the gap between ideals and practice that all of us face, every single last one us, in one way or another when we think about our personal responsibility to do the right thing for this our single irreplaceable world.
Thank you David for trying to raise the bar on the vegironmental debate.
The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.
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Greta Posted 11:13 am
20 Sep 2007
Coping with meat-centricity
Ritadona's story is mine exactly. Vegetarian for 10+ years, Vegan for a few months now; dismayed by the degree of meat-centricity.
I have actually become quite exhausted and depressed at the task of shopping. I have had to get reading glasses to examine every label more closely. Things that I would not have expected to have dairy do so. Milk in granola bars! Are you frickin' kidding me! And, from a so-called healthy-choice manufacturer, no less.
It just seems that nothing is without milk, milk protein, or butter.
While I have always tried to avoid processed foods as much as possible, gotta have those quick meals for short lunch break at work. Amy's foods are pretty good, but boy is it hard to work into the budget.
www.NoPunProductions.com ~ AmericaTheGreen.org
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John Fish Kurmann Posted 2:29 pm
20 Sep 2007
Re: "Taste" and "habit"
Pearl:
As noted in other posts, I was a vegetarian and then a vegan for more than 10 years, most of them as a vegan. I've read Diet for a Small Planet, Diet for a New America, lots of issues of Vegetarian Times and a heck of a lot of other stuff propounding the veg*n viewpoint--and I gave it quite a lot of thought over the years. And that thought leads to conclusions like this one: It's nonsensical in my opinion to argue that we are a frugivorous species when you haven't been able to produce a single example of a frugivorous culture and the vast majority of the world's people are omnivores.
You also never really addressed my point about the difficulty in having enough long-chain Omega-3 fats when eating a veg*n diet. It's not enough to eat a range of plant foods if you can't efficiently convert the alpha-linolenic acid type of Omega-3s found in plants to the types needed for good health--and some percentage of the population isn't able to do so.
I accept that no evidence I produce is going to change your mind because you're convinced humans shouldn't eat other animals. That's fine, I don't need to convince you otherwise, and I'm not particularly worried that you're going to win a lot of converts to fruitarianism.
The world is sacred, and I am part of it.
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mrLee Posted 7:53 pm
20 Sep 2007
vegetarian?
I am a vegetarian at present along with my wife, we have 3 kids (15, 9 &7). The arguments such as "we must be omnivores by nature because we all really, really love meat" I find without merit. All children are taught over time to find meat palatable, I can attest to this from personal experience. The eldest was given various meats to taste as he grew (we weren't veg at that time), he now likes beef in all forms......the 2 younger ones were raised during a time when we cut back on "red meat", as a result they have a palate only interested in chicken nugget type foods (as far as meat goes!) They like tufu nuggets just as much as the processed chik ones. Interestingly, they detest the smell/odor/ and appearance of any form of beef, cooked or not. After over 2 years "back to veg", (I was one years ago), I find cooked meat odor akin to the smell of a smelly locker room.....I'm not talking the spices and/or condiments either. Also, if we are so omnivorous by nature as some claim, why has no one questioned the fact that we are unlike all the other carnivores/omnivores of the world in that we must cook/bake/broil/marinate/bbq/season our meat just to make it palatable? If you enjoy it so much, pull up a chair and take a big bite out of a nice big slab of beef, still raw and bloody! Oh but I can't do that, you say, it's not safe! All sort of nasties in there, must be cooked! But I thought it was GOOD for you. I can walk up to a plant bearing fruit/nuts/vegetables and have a bite with no problem. By the same token why can't you just walk over to a pig or other creature and
have at it, so to speak. Oh, finding it hard to do it in with your bare hands? OK, we'll kill it for you and you can have it nice and fresh, raw, and still warm! Problem? Why that's the way every other meat eating creature on this planet would eat it, and I thought it was in your nature to eat meat!!! Interesting.......
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Pearl Posted 7:57 pm
20 Sep 2007
Denial - The Longest River
John, you have been given adequate answers, with abundant evidence, on every issue that you say you haven't. Is there any point in repeating it yet again for you? As you've so blithely dismissed and ignored what you have been shown, probably not.
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Pandu Posted 9:28 pm
20 Sep 2007
Dick Cheney
A few years ago, when people thought cars were the big vice harming the environment, Dick Cheney said energy conservation was a personal virtue.
Now that the public is finally hearing that eating meat is the big vice, Grist says being a vegetarian is a personal virtue.
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John Fish Kurmann Posted 11:46 pm
20 Sep 2007
Why is it...
...that veg*ns imagine we shouldn't eat meat because we usually don't kill animals with our bare hands and eat them raw? We use our minds and our culture-building capacity--innate, evolved characteristics of our species--to invent tools for hunting, farming, and fishing as well as to cook meat. Are you folks prepared to stop doing everything that we are only able to do because of our minds? If so, what in heck are you doing using a computer? Do you drive a car? Live in a house? Fly in airplanes? Wear clothes?
It's really bizarre to suggest that using our minds to eat meat is "unnatural" unless you're prepared to say that everything we can only do because of our minds is "unnatural."
The world is sacred, and I am part of it.
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wiscidea Posted 12:06 am
21 Sep 2007
Not Natural?
There appears to be a subset of environmentalists who are quick to play the "Not Natural" card whenever it is convenient. How can something not be natural?! Where in the universe would it come from?! Either it is real or it is not real. Everything is natural. It is really rather pointless to use this -- something is "not natural" -- to support an argument. Those who do, feel free to explain how you decide whether something is natural or not natural. Please send an email if you are to shy to post it here.
Another victim of Jean-Paul Marat's ghost and his virtual guillotine?
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wiscidea Posted 12:15 am
21 Sep 2007
Directly Answering Dave's Question 2
I posted this in a different thread...
http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2007/9/17/16200/7809/#54 ...
...but those who feel consuming meat is not compatible with preserving our environment are apparently not interested in attempting to respond. Is it because they no they are wrong? Is it because consuming meat IS compatible with preserving the environment? The real issue is a need for moderation?
Here are six examples -- sort of -- of carnivory not harming, but actually helping, preserve our biosphere. I tried to shorten the remarks so someone might actually read them, but failed. I'll just cut and paste...
(1) I'm sure there is an expert out there who can tell us all about sustainable agriculture. I'll leave it to them to tell us about raising animals on a farm and using the waste to nourish other crops.
(2) We could restore portions of the Great Plains -- discussed elsewhere -- to tallgrass or shortgrass prairie and stock it with bison. Folks, including large businesses, could pay for the opportunity to harvest bison in a sustainable manner and process and sell the meat to those who wish to eat it. This would be GOOD FOR THE ENVIRONMENT. It would help pay for restoration of an endangered ecosystem. Other animals would benefit. It would provide people with a means of earning a living off of the land without growing monocultures of crops where it really isn't appropriate -- arid regions with relatively thin soil.
(3) There is grass-fed beef. Mutton as well? It is not the same as the stuff from the feed lots. Some people prefer it and some don't. But a market for it encourages ranchers to leave areas relatively untouched by plows, pesticides, and herbicides. Other animals benefit from the existence of open pastures, especially rather endangered grassland bird. Intact sod reduces runoff and silting of streams and lakes. This would be GOOD FOR THE ENVIRONMENT. There are people who will, if not able to earn a living from their land, sell it to a developer. I would rather see cattle on the land than exurban sprawl.
(4) There is a growing interest in using goats to clear brush from natural areas and along roads. In a nutshell, the goats prefer most of the invasive woody Eurasian plants over the native understory plants. If a herder moves them often enough, it is possible to susbtantially reduce invasives while protectiing desirable flora. This improves habitat for many endangered species, helps native forests regenerate, reduces threat of wildfire, does not rely on herbicides for controlling brush. This would be GOOD FOR THE ENVIRONMENT. It just so happens the the best variety of goat for this purpose is apparently a Spanish-Boer hybrid normally raised for meat. So, another environmentally soud -- even beneficial -- source of meat.
(5) Hunting. Simple. We've eliminated predators. Herbivores are out of control, damaging ecosystems. Others have tried to point this out SEVERAL times. Hunting can serve as an additional source of meat.
(6) The are a number of people living around my home who are interested in trout fishing. And they are working with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, several local non-profits, a national non-profit, and farmers to restore and protect cold-water streams in southwest Wisconsin. They donate hundred of hours of time to clear brush, open channels, install LUNKERSs, sow native seed, et cetera. Businesses also contribute equipment, materials, and time. Were it not for the interest in fishing -- an consuming the fish -- these people would probably not help restore and protect natural areas. Many endangered fish, insects, amphibians, reptile, mammals, and birds benefit indirectly from the interest in harvesting trout from local streams. Also helps environment by encouraging people to stay at home rather than travel to remote areas tro fish and helps local economy.
I'm sure there are many other ideas out there, if someone would let people discuss this issue. One source of animal protein alone will not replace factory farming. But what about several sources combined? And what if we collectively rreduce our appetite a bit? I'd like to see a serious discussion of sustainable omnivory.
Would any vegetarians or vegans like to post detailed essays showing how any of the six examples I present harm the environment?
Another victim of Jean-Paul Marat's ghost and his virtual guillotine?
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wiscidea Posted 12:23 am
21 Sep 2007
Directly Answering Dave's Question 3
PETA if free to express their views. I'm free to say they are counter productive. It is difficult to recruit people to actively protect and restore natural habitat. If PETA's campaign makes it more difficult for environmental organizations to work with farmers, find practical means of restoring habitat like the tallgrass prairie, employ new tools (like goats) for restoring natural areas, discourage hunters from helping restore and protect relatively natural (whatever that means) areas, or discourage fisherman and farmers from helping clean up and protect streams, then PETA is pulling the plug on a lot of very important activity essential to protecting the biosphere. The result is net negative.
Another victim of Jean-Paul Marat's ghost and his virtual guillotine?
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wiscidea Posted 12:27 am
21 Sep 2007
typo
"know", not "no"
Geez, I look even more like an idiot than I usually do. Sorry.
Another victim of Jean-Paul Marat's ghost and his virtual guillotine?
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Pearl Posted 12:54 am
21 Sep 2007
Not Natural
'Those foods and influences to which a species is biologically adapted are those deemed "natural" to its disposition as derived by the sum total of their biological heritage from millions of years of evolution. Cumulative adaptations in each species over eons of time determines their natural dietary needs. For instance: The koala bear of Australia is adapted to eating a variety of gum leaves. The giraffe's long neck allows it to feed on the foliage of trees. The lion's fangs and claws allow it to kill and render animals for food. The eagle's keen eyesight and powerful claws make it a formidable predator of ground rodents and small game. Carnivores have become adapted to eating other animals. Non-carnivorous animals have adapted to eating vegetable matter as food. Dietary adaptations more than anything else determine the features and characteristics of all creatures.
Humans Are Not an Exception
It is a basic premise of Natural Hygiene that humans, like all other creatures in nature are provided with all the materials and conditions required to maintain health. Species throughout nature intuitively restrict themselves to a limited variety of foods to which they are specifically adapted. We must conclude that humans are also intended to partake only of those foods to which we are physiologically adapted in order to live healthfully. Humans should be studied as a member of the whole biological community, and compared anatomically and physiologically with other species to ascertain our true dietary requirements. When considering the character of human anatomy and physiology relative to our natural diet we must do so within the context of nature, rather than in the artificial environment of modern life. In this way, we consider our natural foods as those that are consonant with our physiological faculties, rather than those that we have "acquired a taste for".
Determining Our Natural Diet is Not a Matter of Belief.
Tradition and popularity are the poorest ways to determine a proper diet. Recent changes in our external environment do not alter our biological adaptations, our internal makeup, or our natural needs in order to establish optimum well being. Biological adaptations have been spurred on by stress over eons of time and by the need to adapt. They are slow to develop requiring extremely long periods of time to evolve. Our highly industrialized environment involves more social adaptations or accommodations, and not physical or anatomical changes. By living according to our natural adaptations we can actually withstand the stress of modern life far better than if we transgress our biological needs.
The only authority you should rely on when it comes to determining what foods are best to eat is the human body. It is anatomy and physiology that decrees whether food is "acceptable" or "harmful". Determining our natural diet is not a matter of belief: its basis lies in scientific fact regarding our biological, biochemical, anatomical, and physiological features.
........
http://www.iol.ie/~creature/BiologicalAdaptations.htm
In simple terms a child should understand.. imagine a jigsaw puzzle representing natural biodiversity. Color the human pieces red. Now throw away the most of the images of wildlife - herbivores, predators, and any others you might feel like getting rid of, and force in pictures of domestic bovines, pigs, sheep, goats, chickens and other domestic fowl instead. See the forest? You need to get rid of more of that to feed all of the 'livestock'. See the picture now? Lovin' it? Ok, most of the pictures of marine life have fallen on the floor, but feel free to trample underfoot and lose forever. Oops, looks like some pieces are now crumbling to dust, but that sky looks really dark elsewhere... mind it doesn't all blow away... or do you even care..
"Isn't man an amazing animal? He kills wildlife by the millions to protect his domestic animals and their feed. Then he kills domestic animals by the billions and eats them. This in turn kills man by the millions, because eating all those animals leads to degenerative - and fatal - health conditions like heart disease, kidney disease, and cancer. So then man tortures and kills millions more animals to look for cures for these diseases. Elsewhere, millions of other human beings are being killed by hunger and malnutrition because food they could eat is being used to fatten domestic animals. Meanwhile, some people are dying of sad laughter at the absurdity of man, who kills so easily and so violently, and once a year sends out cards praying for "Peace on Earth."
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mrLee Posted 1:11 am
21 Sep 2007
Well said
Well said, Pearl. I must confess,however,that my motivation to "go veg" was more for personal health reasons than the environment....There's just a lot of benefits that go with the lifestyle, and other than a little extra "foraging" for foods I don't see much of a downside. Most of our friends are meat eaters and we all get along fine (really!). It's just easier to air things out in this forum- we probably all can agree on that! I personally feel and look healthier, and as I age, that is a better testimonial than all the preaching I can muster.
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caniscandida Posted 2:22 am
21 Sep 2007
"good for the environment"
Your six suggestions are fine, WiscIdea, intention-wise at least. The restoration and preservation of native original ecosystems would likely allow for the healthy, happy lives of countless living creatures. Nevertheless, there are a couple of objections.
First, let us not simply say that such projects are "good for the environment" and be done with it. We must never take the killing of animals for granted, as if it were a normal, obvious, routine, morally neutral activity. We must never assume we are entitled to exploit and kill animals, for any reason that suits us. What we may be pleased to call "good for the environment" has a very limited goodness, a painfully limited goodness, if certain members of that same precious environment's community of living creatures have necessarily had their lives wrenched from them against their will.
Some more specific comments:
- On sustainable agriculture: Ideally, that would be a situation like what Pandu apparently maintains. He has a cow whom he milks, and the cow can move around pretty much as she likes; he does not forcibly keep her pregnant (but in that case I am uncertain how she is impregnated, and how often); he does not separate her from her calf (but in that case it is not clear how he and the calf share the cow's milk); also, he will not slaughter her, but will allow her to die a natural death.
- On goats, and other livestock within a sustainable agricultural system: If they are allowed freedom of movement, freedom to socialize, and access to a natural diet, for their entire lives, then they are much more fortunate than the countless farm animals who are forced to live lives of pain, misery and terror.
- On slaughtering: Slaughtering should always be understood to be what it is, a very sad episode, never able to be accommodated in an ideal happy state. Farmers should never treat slaughtering as just another job in their routine. The act of slaughtering should be quick. Very serious, careful attention must be given, so that the animal to be slaughtered may not suffer fear or stress beforehand, and that it be slaughtered with as little pain as possible.
- On slaughtering cattle and pigs: My understanding is that it is a USDA requirement that if the flesh of cattle and pigs is to be put up for sale, then the animals must be taken to licensed slaughterhouses. Given that the operation of those slaughterhouses is totally unsatisfactory, and there seems to be nothing in the works by way of reform -- and the first necessary reform would be "installing glass walls," i.e. making the operation completely visible and open to public scrutiny -- , then that sinks your grass-fed beef idea. There is no way that a supporter of animal welfare can condone it. And it is hard to see how environmentalists could condone it either, at least those with a strong environmentalist sense that what they desire is the good of the entire community of living creatures.
- On hunting: This is possibly the least objectionable form of the taking of an animal's life for some human benefit, after self-defense. The animal to be killed has lived a wild and free life. If it dies as the result of a single gunshot, immediately, then we could hardly imagine for it a more comfortable death. Unfortunately, hunters are not always so neat and efficient, and their haste and sloppiness have caused much suffering. They must take great pains to do their best. Also, they must never forget that they are the drivers of a sad and solemn event. Michael Pollan, whom I generally admire, seems to have forgotten that, when he killed his wild pig. Regarding white-tailed deer, thinning their herds will be beneficial to many living creatures, in the first place the surviving deer themselves. The does should be the preferred targets, not the bucks. But in that case, great care should be taken that the targeted doe not have an attendant fawn.
- On fishing: Very few people seem to realize, or care, that fish are as capable of suffering as any other vertebrate. And no one anywhere seems to practise anything like a "humane" way of putting fish to death. (Actually, dropping dynamite into the water, as some fishermen in the seas of Southeast Asia are said to do, might provide a quick and fairly painless death to many individual fish; but that practice also brings attendant woes onto many other living creatures in the vicinity.) A trout, when it bites on and tries to swallow the hook, is typically "played with" for some time, during which it feels pain and stressful frustration. The trout is most certainly NOT playing. When it is at last reeled in, the fisherman has the option (and in many streams this is legally required) of unhooking it and returning it to the water; but it will have suffered injuries to its mouth and throat, and these may be debilitating. If it is kept by the fisherman, it is put to rest in an environment in which it cannot breathe, and its ability to move is limited and futile. After a few minutes it dies of asphyxiation. Surely most people would agree that the experience of being immobilized and, at the same time, suffocated is one of the least pleasant and most frightening that we can imagine. Therefore, it is hard to see how supporters of animal welfare could condone this kind of sport fishing.
Far be it from me to follow the example of Matt Prescott, and declare that anyone who does not take these considerations very seriously cannot be an environmentalist. Nevertheless, the environmentalism of such a person is of a weak and ill-formed sort, with little or no appreciation of environmentalism's fundamental concern for the life and well-being of the entire community of Earth's living creatures.Chickens are our cousins! So are fish! So are other sentient animals! Let us learn to be kind.
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John former Marine Posted 2:31 am
21 Sep 2007
Forget Grass-Fed Beef - Go for Bison!
Ok, if we can all agree that meat is both necessary for human health and reduces global warming, we just have to figure out how to raise enough meat once we run out of fossil fuels. Currently, most of the corn and soy grown in this country is fed to livestock. This requires huge petroleum inputs. I don't think it's very productive to suggest people eat less meat...we just have to find ways of producting massive quantities of grass-fed meat to feed our growing population.
I read a post a little while back that suggested that we reopen the Great Plains and reintroduce herds of wild bison, which could be harvested in a sustainable manner. I think this is a great idea, easily accomplished, and a much better alternative to asking people to eat less or no meat. First we have to figure out how many bison we'd need:
Assuming it will take about 10 years to put my plan into action, we'll need enough meat to feed 350 million Americans. If each of us need 200 pounds of bison meat each for good nutrition, that comes to 70,000,000,000 pounds per year. I think bison are pretty big so we can probably get like 1000 pounds of meat from each of them. That means we'd only need to harvest 70 million bison each year. Now before Manifest Destiny it was estimated that there were between 50 and 100 million bison on the plains. Obviously if we eat 70 million a year, we'll run out too quickly. What we can do is get our great scientists to genetically engineer will grasses, forbs, and legumes. If we get these plants to produce the same hormones and antibiotics that are currently given to factory-farmed cows, they'll probably grow much faster and larger. So...we'll get like 3,000 pounds of meat from our hormone-stuffed mega-bison rather than 1000 lbs from a normal bison. That means we'll only need about 20 million per year. That's still too large a number since bison only have one young each per year. If we can genetically engineer the bison themselves to be even bigger, say the size of wooly mammoths, and to each have say...3 offspring each year, I think this thing could actually work and would be totally sustainable.
How to make it happen is the hard part. Sure, PETA says we could just stop eating meat. That takes a lot of effort. What I'm proposing, re-opening the Great Plains, would only require the government to displace maybe 100 million Americans and move them all to California or New York. They'll be happy to be out of Minnesota anyways. So we take the land using eminent domain, bulldoze the houses and cities, take down all the fences, plant the plains with genetically-engineered grasses, reintroduce our mammoth-sized bison and voila!...enough meat to satisfy any environmentalist.
This same type of project could be done over and over again all over the world. The steppes of Russia, Siberia, Africa. Meat for everybody. This would all be much more obviously easy to accomplish than not eating factory-farmed meat. So PETA...get out of my face!
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C4nier Posted 3:33 am
21 Sep 2007
Why change our ways?
When we could all just enjoy rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic?
JoSullivan58's posts never cease to amaze me. About meat he states in this discussion, "Giving up something that makes us what we are as a people is a lot to ask." Wow, I don't know where you are from, but I don't exactly think of meat as defining us. Well, I guess that we do have a bit of a reputation on the global scene for being obese, slovenly, enjoying Texas sized steaks and not listening to any freaking liberal sissys about how we choose to consume!
But let's just look at this assertion. If we can't ask people to give up anything so that humanity, biodiversity and more importantly, the Earth as we know it may continue, well, I don't think we're going to get anywhere. You don't make changes by willing them. You make them by acting.
This may mean getting rid of our car culture, something that arguably defines us more than anything. It may also mean building a slightly smaller house, forgoing unnecessary globe trotting via airplane, and possibly consuming less on the average. All of these things define us a society. If we really wanted to get serious we could have a revolution and turn all these things around. But if you aren't willing to take those measures, don't write off the impact of reducing consumption in those areas. Apparently JoSullivan58 isn't willing to give up delis, barbecues, clams or hamburgers, even if he may be killing us all every so slowly (and himself quickly)in doing so.
Of course it's people like this who reminisce the days of slavery, segregated society, sewage filled waterways, indiscriminate DDT spraying, and ubiquitous lead paint. But thank god someone had the courage to stand up against these practices to and fight for them to be ended. It wasn't simple and it did require a paradigm shift, but I think most of us would agree that we are better off individually and as a society as a result.
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John former Marine Posted 5:38 am
21 Sep 2007
Cut them some slack!
C4nier's post is totally uncalled for. Asking people to choose and change is not a real option here. What C4nier hasn't pointed out is that most people are incapable of changing their behaviors. For instance, most people who are born Catholic remain Catholic. Or me, for example: I was born left-handed. Even though I know this makes me evil, I've never been able to change. I've tried, believe me, but I've just accepted that I'm sinister.
Other people, like JoSullivan58, are old. Old fogies have an even harder time changing. I'm guessing that Jo is either 58 years old or was born in 1958, both of which are beyond the threshold of being capable of making lifestyle changes. I think, like JoSullivan58 that this is the best of all possible worlds. Once we accept that, we can get back to cultivating our garden here on planet earth.
To get back to the real world here, assuming that most of us are incapable of change and so need to eat meat, we need to find alternatives to our present methods of meat production. I've been reading articles lately that primates in Africa are becoming endangered because of people hunting for bush meat. Well...like my bison plan, we can sustainably raise gorillas for bush meat in Africa. All we need to do is genetically engineer them so that they're about the size of King Kong. We bring up the population, selectively harvest them, and can all enjoy as much gorilla meat as we want, despite Africa's growing human population.
So...to get to the point, you all need to get real. Offer some viable options here. Asking people to eat less meat just makes no sense. Most of them couldn't change their habits if they wanted to.
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caniscandida Posted 5:54 am
21 Sep 2007
King Kong
Ha! Don't think you are the first to think along those lines, JfM. The animal-rights advocates Peter Singer and Jim Mason suggest, perhaps facetiously, that if giving people plenty of meat to eat were a major ethical concern, then we should support a return to commercial whaling, because the death of a single whale would be as effective in feeding a certain number of people as the deaths of very many smaller animals.
By the way, I am an example of a dinosaur who is learning and changing all the time. Why, I sometimes scarcely feel that I am the same person in the evening that I was that morning. So, never cease hoping for good new possibilities in people.
Chickens are our cousins! So are fish! So are other sentient animals! Let us learn to be kind.
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John Fish Kurmann Posted 4:42 pm
21 Sep 2007
Re: "good for the environment"
wiscidea:
What's the basis for your apparent assumption that killing to eat is immoral? To argue that it is means you have to be prepared to condemn the entire evolved community of life as we know it because killing to eat is intrinsic to the food web.
Any religion or belief system that requires rejecting the basic way of the world is of no interest to me. If the gods thought killing was immoral, the world wouldn't be the way that it is.
The world is sacred, and I am part of it.
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John Fish Kurmann Posted 4:47 pm
21 Sep 2007
Whoops...
My last post was addressed to caniscandida, not wiscidea. Sorry about that.
The world is sacred, and I am part of it.
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John Fish Kurmann Posted 4:56 pm
21 Sep 2007
Re: "Not Natural"
Pearl:
You haven't provided any evidence by posting the philosophical musings of a Natural Hygiene proponent. If we were truly frugivores as you argue, you wouldn't have to try to convince us to stop eating animals on a regular basis; in fact, you'd be hard-pressed to force us to eat animals on a regular basis.
The destruction you cite as resulting from meat-production is not intrinsic to the eating of animals. Yes, a great deal of harm has been done to provide meat, but that doesn't mean it has to be so. In fact, we need farms that integrate animals and plants in a continual nutrient loop or else we'll lose soil fertility over time. Healthy ecosystems are diverse ecosystems that include both animals and plants, and we need to duplicate this kind of resilient health in our food systems.
The world is sacred, and I am part of it.
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caniscandida Posted 7:50 pm
21 Sep 2007
killing to eat, morality and religion
John Fish Kurmann,
I do not believe that killing animals to eat, or eating animals that have been killed by someone else, is necessarily immoral. They can be, though. That depends on the moral maturity of the moral agent. And most of us in this regard are not very mature.
What is much more important to emphasize at this stage of our society's moral development is that killing animals for food, and eating them, are never morally neutral acts. In my long message to WiscIdea above, from yesterday afternoon, I touched on that point a few times. We prove ourselves to be morally immature and self-indulgent, when we presume that we are simply entitled to the meat that is set before us, and that there is no need to take any account of the life and death of the animal from which the meat came.
Do we actually deserve to be blamed, for that immaturity and that presumption? No, most of us do not deserve to be blamed, not individually and personally at least. That is because the moral obtuseness in question is common to our entire society, indeed to most societies; and the individual's responsibility for the moral failure of his or her entire society is extremely small.
As I wrote on another occasion, supporters of animal rights and opponents of abortion, who might otherwise seem to have little in common, are similar at least in this regard: both are surprised that more people do not quickly appreciate the clarity and rightness of their moral vision, and are not ready to condemn the horrors that they deplore. Both groups must be prepared to be patient, and to be content with giving quiet witness to the activities that they find repugnant, until society evolves in a morally more satisfactory way.
On religion and the "way of the world": Sure, all religions that have a hope of persisting must begin with an anthropology that is founded in natural realities. But these realities are of many different kinds, intellectual, aesthetic and moral as well as physical. And any religion that will not try to console us for the great disappointment that attends this mortal existence of ours, is utterly without value.
What matters most is that we still have the freedom to choose, in at least a few areas of radical importance. If you choose to cultivate a connexion of some sort with the owl who catches, kills and eats a mouse, such that you too feel you ought to eat an animal, fine, you have a natural kinship with the owl, and one can readily see how the fiction of that connexion could be inspiring.
But, you know, you have an even closer natural kinship with the mouse, who fed on plant matter and lived in constant fear of becoming a predator's prey, until what it feared came to pass; and yet you have chosen not to cultivate a connexion with the mouse. Why? Not so inspiring? Or, not so inspiring to someone who had already made the convenient choice to be a predator and a carnivore? So the "basic way of the world" turns out to be the way only of the owl? And the way of the mouse is non-existent, a falsehood, an illusion?
We loose our precious freedom to choose, when we fail to observe what options we really have.
Chickens are our cousins! So are fish! So are other sentient animals! Let us learn to be kind.
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spaceshaper Posted 12:43 am
22 Sep 2007
"natural diets" and ethical choices
I'm inclined to the notion that the only diet for humans that can be deemed "natural" is one that we could enjoy without much more in the way of tools (rocks and sticks) or transmitted cultural learning than is available to our fellow primates. Nuts, berries, roots, honey, grubs, insects and small fish would probably make the cut: grains, many legumes and most animal vertebrates would not. Certainly nothing that could only be eaten when cooked. Carrots, in whatever form they might exist absent human selective cultivation, but not potatoes. A trout, "tickled" from a stream-bank, but not tuna. If such a diet sounds insufficient and unreliable, well it probably is. No wonder we figured out a variety of "unnatural" ways to feed ourselves. If we had not we certainly could never have risen to the exalted heights of world domination our species enjoys today.
The point however has already been made that "natural" is not really relevant to this discussion of how we make choices in our food habits and I concur with that analysis. Environmentalism is, a priori, an ethical worldview. Simultaneously we have as a species achieved such a level of abundance in available food sources that our diet is capable of being subject to ethical decisions also. Non-carnivory is just such an ethical choice which is today, thankfully, pretty widely available (certainly, I would think, to any Grist reader equipped with such niceties as a computer and internet access) and for most of us, not so hard to follow without sacrifice of physical well-being or gustatory pleasure. That this has not always been the case I will cheerfully concede.
It would seem to me pretty self-evident that such a dietary choice meshes well with the ethics of environmentalism. I have yet to see a post which has offered reasonable evidence contrary to this perfectly straightforward conclusion, other than the contribution that animal feces can make to soil health in sustainable agriculture, and there seems to be more than one knowledgeable opinion about even this lone perhaps-defensible assertion. In any case it does not seem automatic that we should therefore eat the animals that help us out in this way.
Moreover Peta seems well within its terms of reference to point out the obvious ethical connection between non-carnivory and environmentalism. I continue to be astounded by the vehemence of those environmentalists, both carnivore and non, who deny such a reasonable congruence. As one who for years has been an exemplar of the polite, let's not offend anyone technique for explaining the reasons for my dietary preferences to carnivorous friends and acquaintances I personally much appreciate the directness of Peta's approach, and now that the issue has become more critical and urgent I hope to take courage from their lead and become more in-your-face and self-righteous than I have been for the last quarter century. It's about time.
The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.
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gmunger Posted 2:13 am
22 Sep 2007
canis
Thanks, as usual, for your thoughtful comments. Though I sometimes find your ideas intellectually challenging, and I don't always agree with your premise, I usually come away feeling more enlightened. You (and others) have also frequently motivated me to challenge my own viewpoints, which can never be unhealthy. And there is always a spirit of respect and goodwill in our exchanges.
I believe this is what we call dialogue, which has largely been missing from the recent conversations on veg-ism. You lead by example, which is the only true leadership. It is this kind of reasoned, reasonable dialogue which attracted me to this community. Of late, I have been questioning whether my time is worth spending here anymore. Hopefully the former model will continue to prevail.
Good show.
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josullivan58 Posted 4:25 am
22 Sep 2007
I am amazing!
"JoSullivan58's posts never cease to amaze me." Of course they do because my posts are the best ones ;)
My issue with PETA is how effective their climate change campaign will be. I think that they will not help and will hurt attempts to reduce global warming. PETA is very good at getting attention but screws it up because much of that attention is negative. Animal-rights activists have had only small successes. A small group of people buy into their message and the public has a whole has made only cosmetic changes. There is no reason to think that this will change.
Climate change will be reduced only by major changes in society. PETA's campaign is hurting the environmental groups attempts to do this.
As for the specific claims of the benefits of vegetarian/vegan diets, there are many benefits, and I personally eat little meat. Too often however the benefits are overstated. Many of the animal-rights activists oppose eating meat for moral reasons, not for scientific reasons or environmental reasons. Trying to explain your choice not to eat meat using science and conservation is too often disingenuous.
A more realistic goal would be to try to persuade the public to eat less meat, not demand that people stop eating all animal products.
I'm sorry if some people don't like me saying this. It does not mean, as C4nier writes, that I am a mass murderer ("JoSullivan58 isn't willing to give up delis, barbecues, clams or hamburgers, even if he may be killing us all") or want slavery or segregation ("it's people like this who reminisce the days of slavery, segregated society...") or want unrestrained pollution, pesticide use, or unsafe products ("...sewage filled waterways, indiscriminate DDT spraying, and ubiquitous lead paint).
I am hesitant to add this, but what does the C in C4nier stand for, crackpot?
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C4nier Posted 4:50 am
22 Sep 2007
we all need a little perspective
We like to think of ourselves as humans of being rationale beings capable of understanding so many things in the way of the world. Yet, we often overlook the fact that internalizing new information may take years, generations, or even centuries. Two hundred years after the Origin of Species was printed, how much of the population believes in Evolution? I've seen recent polls saying that much more than half of the American population does not believe in Evolution. However, many of you reading this post will think of it as an indisputable truth, an unstoppable process of nature. I bring this up because I just read a quote from the Origin of Species,
"The mind cannot possibly grasp the full meaning of the term of a hundred million years; it cannot add up and perceive the full effects of many slight variations, accumulated during an almost infinite number of generations."
Darwin was talking about Evolution here, but I think that this quote holds true for Climate Change as well. We want to be able to see the direct cause and effect of our actions. If I drive my car, or eat a hamburger and don't see the direct effect of Arctic Ice melting then when I hear the news blip much later about phenomenal losses of ice it is harder for me to think, I caused that. The natural reaction is that others caused that and my actions can't possibly matter much. But all of us caused that ice to melt and all of us should take responsibility. The people who don't take responsibility and don't change their ways (or at least TRY and that is the major point) are living in a bubble of denial. But worse they are polluting and warming our air, our water and our planet. They are living far beyond their means and in so doing acting recklessly. But to take away their right to do so would be damaging to our immutable cultural traditions - such having a hotdog, eating clams, etc - which are based on freedom of choice. Our rights were assured in the Constitution were drafted before it was known that you could kill someone or irrevocably harm them through your actions without ever coming into direct contact with that person. Think of all the premature deaths from air pollution. It is estimated that 30,100 people die from air pollution every year. (http://www.net.org/air/death.vtml) There is no ability to point the finger at an individual citizen and say you caused one of these deaths. And that is generally why we choose to do nothing about it. On the other hand, between 30 and 40,000 people die in car crashes each year. You can go to jail for vehicular manslaughter and we don't allow driving while drunk. Each death is real yet we choose to act to prevent automobile accidents much more.
As a society we are delinquent. It's made even worse by the American notion of needing to keep of with the Jones. No one wants to give up what we see our neighbors enjoying. Well, I think that it's all time we try hard to start conceptualizing like Darwin, because if we don't it won't be a matter of voluntarily retiring our over consumptive traditions. They won't be an option when China starts to consume like we do and the Earth suffers from over 1 billion environmental refugees. I can't even begin to imagine the suffering.
It's time for people to stop hiding behind Peta and look in the mirror. Either change your ways or perfect the excuses you'll tell your grandchildren when they ask why you didn't act - even though you knew better.
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