23 replies to this topic

[Skaz]

I've just been reading the intro to a book by Lierre Kieth called 'The Vegetarian Myth: Food, Justice and Sustainability'. I've been a vegetarian for 4 years but I no longer think it's actually sustainable. Decentralisation of food production, a return to polyculture and living in harmony with nature, rather than against it is the way to protect ourselves from catastrophe I think. I've been trying to wean myself back onto meat recently but it's proving difficult.

"...the first mistake is in assuming that factory farming—a practice that is barely fifty years old—is the only way to raise animals. Their calculations on energy used, calories consumed, humans unfed, are all based on the notion that animals eat grain.

     You can feed grain to animals, but it is not the diet for which they were designed. Grain didn’t exist until humans domesticated annual grasses, at most 12,000 years ago, while aurochs, the wild progenitors of the domestic cow, were around for two million years before that. For most of human history, browsers and grazers haven’t been in competition with humans. They ate what we couldn’t eat—cellulose—and turned it into what we could—protein and fat. Grain will dramatically increase the growth rate of beef cattle (there’s a reason for the expression “cornfed”) and the milk production of dairy cows. It will also kill them. The delicate bacterial balance of a cow’s rumen will go acid and turn septic. Chickens get fatty liver disease if fed grain exclusively, and they don’t need any grain to survive. Sheep and goats, also ruminants, should really never touch the stuff.

     This misunderstanding is born of ignorance, an ignorance that runs the length and breadth of the vegetarian myth, through the nature of agriculture and ending in the nature of life. We are urban industrialists, and we don’t know the origins of our food. This includes vegetarians, despite their claims to the truth. It included me, too, for twenty years. Anyone who ate meat was in denial; only I had faced the facts. Certainly, most people who consume factory-farmed meat have never asked what died and how it died. But frankly, neither have most vegetarians.

The truth is that agriculture is the most destructive thing humans have done to the planet, and more of the same won’t save us. The truth is that agriculture requires the wholesale destruction of entire ecosystems. The truth is also that life isn’t possible without death, that no matter what you eat, someone has to die to feed you.

I want a full accounting, an accounting that goes way beyond what’s dead on your plate. I’m asking about everything that died in the process, everything that was killed to get that food onto your plate. That’s the more radical question, and it’s the only question that will produce the truth. How many rivers were dammed and drained, how many prairies plowed and forests pulled down, how much topsoil turned to dust and blown into ghosts? I want to know about all the species—not just the individuals, but the entire species—the chinook, the bison, the grasshopper sparrows, the grey wolves. And I want more than just the number of dead and gone. I want them back."

My link

I'd be interested to hear opinions on this subject.

[Punk Rock Geek]

Skaz, on 05 October 2011 - 06:59 AM, said:

I've just been reading the intro to a book by Lierre Kieth called 'The Vegetarian Myth: Food, Justice and Sustainability'. I've been a vegetarian for 4 years but I no longer think it's actually sustainable. Decentralisation of food production, a return to polyculture and living in harmony with nature, rather than against it is the way to protect ourselves from catastrophe I think. I've been trying to wean myself back onto meat recently but it's proving difficult.

Sounds like this is outlining problems with capitalism and not with vegetarianism.  Of course a decentralized form of agriculture will be less damaging than one that is not, but I'm not sure why that is an argument for weaning yourself back onto meat.

[Skaz]

Punk Rock Geek, on 05 October 2011 - 01:00 PM, said:

Sounds like this is outlining problems with capitalism and not with vegetarianism.  Of course a decentralized form of agriculture will be less damaging than one that is not, but I'm not sure why that is an argument for weaning yourself back onto meat.

The argument is that being vegetarian or vegan does nothing to address the environmental issues of agriculture. It does avoid the animal suffering caused by factory farming but ignores the fact that meat doesn't have to be produced in this way. I mentioned weaning myself back onto meat because I feel it will be necessary to eat meat in order to survive in the near future as peak oil leads to food shortages. This is why I find self-sufficiency so important. Maybe I'll start raising some chickens soon.

[Punk Rock Geek]

Skaz, on 05 October 2011 - 03:45 PM, said:

The argument is that being vegetarian or vegan does nothing to address the environmental issues of agriculture. It does avoid the animal suffering caused by factory farming but ignores the fact that meat doesn't have to be produced in this way. I mentioned weaning myself back onto meat because I feel it will be necessary to eat meat in order to survive in the near future as peak oil leads to food shortages. This is why I find self-sufficiency so important. Maybe I'll start raising some chickens soon.

Meat doesn't have to be produced in this way, but free-range farms are just as problematic.  They take up more land in comparison to the amount of land it takes to produce crops.  I guess one could hunt all their own food, but one could also grow all their own crops.  At that point it would become an animal welfare issue, as you said.

I'm not opposed to eating eggs, provided the chickens aren't being exploited for them.  I just don't see why you are attempting to eat more meat now, when peak oil may or may not be over dramatacized.  It's like eating the other (dead) passengers before the rescue plane has a chance to arrive, no?  Why not hold off on eating meat until it becomes necessary for your survival, especially if you feel more comfortable being vegetarian at the moment?

[EatShitAndCry]

I'm in the process of becoming vegetarian. Don't buy this bs.

[Floyd]

Well, the part about animals being able to eat things people can't and being grown on land unsuitable for growing crops is true. Our cows eat nothing but grass, and whatever else grows that they can stomach. The land is rough and full of rocks, and has had most of it's nutrients farmed out of it in the 30s when it was cotton fields. All of that makes it completely unsuitable for growing crops. There is also insufficient water for most crops, and the overall land size really isn't big enough for any large-scale production. It is excellent pasture land for cows to graze on, though.

[Punk Rock Geek]

Floyd, on 05 October 2011 - 06:15 PM, said:

Well, the part about animals being able to eat things people can't and being grown on land unsuitable for growing crops is true. Our cows eat nothing but grass, and whatever else grows that they can stomach. The land is rough and full of rocks, and has had most of it's nutrients farmed out of it in the 30s when it was cotton fields. All of that makes it completely unsuitable for growing crops. There is also insufficient water for most crops, and the overall land size really isn't big enough for any large-scale production. It is excellent pasture land for cows to graze on, though.

Even if true, I feel that you're ignoring the economics of it.  If the relative market demand of free-range meat products increases (over say, vegetarian, or even factory farmed alternatives), there will need to be a relatively larger amount of land used. (Which often also means the destruction of forests and eco-systems) That your land could not grow crops on it is incidental.  Firms generally care about satisfying market demand and such considerations of "maybe someone else could use my land for something else" do not factor into their evaluation of opportunity costs.

[Crusty Rat]

Ah, the "ex-vegan"... I tried to read it on the site but gave up because I didn't want to waste my time. It just seemed to be a load of rambings about her childhood. Could you tell me what the point was please?

[Skaz]

Crusty Rat, on 21 November 2011 - 08:34 AM, said:

Ah, the "ex-vegan"... I tried to read it on the site but gave up because I didn't want to waste my time. It just seemed to be a load of rambings about her childhood. Could you tell me what the point was please?

If you can't be bothered to read it then don't bother commenting on it!

[Crusty Rat]

I gave it a go but I figured "Oh wa wa wa I was a sensitive child" wasn't the reason you were so convinced meat was the way to go. I just wanted to know what was.

[Crusty Rat]

If you've got a problem with grains I don't see why you don't just eat less grains... I note that the section you quoted discusses what animals would naturally eat, not what they are fed on the farms where your meat is sourced from (wherever that may be).

"Decentralisation of food production, a return to polyculture and living in harmony with nature, rather than against it is the way to protect ourselves from catastrophe I think." - this is how I feel, but I don't see where meat factors into that.

It also fails to address many issues e.g. deforestation for grazing land, gases released through respiration and digestion, pesticide-heavy GM crops being imported for feed, waste production, environmental damage caused when silos of faeces overflow etc. etc.

[Skaz]

Crusty Rat, on 22 November 2011 - 05:45 PM, said:

It also fails to address many issues e.g. deforestation for grazing land,

The solution is to graze animals locally in fields rather than cutting down forests. Or eat woodland chickens, since this is the habitat they originate from.

Crusty Rat, on 22 November 2011 - 05:45 PM, said:

gases released through respiration and digestion,

For the issue of global warming, I suggest this book.

Crusty Rat, on 22 November 2011 - 05:45 PM, said:

pesticide-heavy GM crops being imported for feed,

As the article says; this isn't necessary for meat production and is more of a problem with capitalism.

Crusty Rat, on 22 November 2011 - 05:45 PM, said:

waste production, environmental damage caused when silos of faeces overflow etc. etc.

If farms are multi-trophic polycultures, faeces becomes a valuable commodity rather than waste.

[SertraOD]

I think veganism is promoted because we don't have enough land to raise enough free-range meat to feed the world. A mostly raw vegan diet supplemented with bee pollen, royal jelly, fermented foods, etc works best for me. If I ate meat I'd eat it raw with the blood drawn out.

[USA Emigre]

Some of those points are hard to deny, and I'll admit, even as a six year vegetarian, I hadn't even considered them before.  I just kind of assumed that what I was doing (or not doing) was helping the environment as well as the cute furry animals.  But for a lot of people, there are no other alternatives.  A subway worker living in the heart of New York city can't exactly have their own sustainable farm.  Whether they choose to eat meat or not, most of their food will come from corporate food conglomerates.  So if they want to stop hurting the environment through what they eat, they can, a) Move Stop eating.  But there's not enough room on the planet for a) to be the solution for every person on it.  So I guess we're all screwed.  But I think being vegetarian, even if it does not solve the problem outright, at least goes a long way towards alleviating it.  Even if it's not sustainable, it's definately less unsustainable than the grossly inefficient meat industry.  I think it's the better alternative, and that's why I'm sticking to it

[USA Emigre]

USA Emigre, on 11 January 2012 - 11:27 PM, said:

...Move Stop eating....

Hurm.  Apparently [B][parenthesis] makes an emoticon...

[MattFestle]

i went vegetarian about 4 years ago. im pretty happy. and i'll stay this way.

[Punk Rock Geek]

Layne, on 09 March 2012 - 01:56 AM, said:

Once you finish reading this book please realize that there is absolutely no evident proof, or foot notes to support a lot of her claims. Lierre Keith had her spine problem long before she went vegan and the fact that she uses it to discredit veganism is a joke. Read this 30 page essay on localvore movements. It's brilliant. While you're at it read Peter Young's critique of her book. And before someone gets pissed about her being pied realize how hypocritical she is. Moments before this she was speaking about how we do not need law enforcement and how the police serve no purpose in anarchist circles, guess what happened the moment she got pied? She called the cops.

http://www.criticala...HAM-pp-8-32.pdf

http://www.animallib...d-at-book-fair/

Thanks for this.  Will read.