Good post, Bruce. Deciding when and which produce to buy can be a complicated choice. But one very simple thing all of us can do to move society toward a more sustainable path is go vegan. America's factory farms are one of the nation's great ethical and environmental shames. As Matthew Scully, a former speechwriter for President Bush (!), described the case:
"Corporate farmers hardly speak anymore of 'raising' animals, with the modicum of personal care that word implies. Animals are 'grown' now, like so many crops. Barns somewhere along the way became 'intensive confinement facilities' and the inhabitants mere 'production units.'
The result is a world in which billions of birds, cows, pigs, and other creatures are locked away, enduring miseries they do not deserve, for our convenience and pleasure. We belittle the activists with their radical agenda, scarcely noticing the radical cruelty they seek to redress."
Though it may seem unrealistic, the truth is a vegan diet is very healthy and practical, provided you're willing to do a little bit of research.
Bruce
· 1 year ago
Ashish, thanks for the reply!
Although I am not a vegan, I think you make a compelling point about choosing the humane option when eating. But eating local meat can be just as humane. It is not the killing of animals that is offensive per se, it is the inhumane way in which they are treated that creates problems.
Consider the local farmer who does not own a slaughterhouse but raises chickens on his/her farm, treats them with respect, and provides them with enough space and a proper diet - would you buy meat from them? At my local Farmers' Market, many farmers sell meat raised from their farms, and I wouldn't consider it unethical to buy it.
So I think that, while choosing vegan is an option, it is not the only one. Vegans can still create a lot of carbon waste by buying vegetables from thousands of miles away instead of buying them at home.
I am guilty of buying meat (and most everything else) from the supermarket, like most. But I am learning, and my buying habits are changing every week.
Daniel
· 1 year ago
Also, you could become a hunter like me. Perhaps I will blog about hunters being a greener group than most, and indicate the need for us to have a much better idea about where our food comes from, not to mention spend a little time out doors.
Ashish
· 1 year ago
Your point about vegans potentially contributing a lot of carbon waste is fair, but I would wager that even a vegan who isn't particularly interested in the origin of his or her food has a lower carbon impact than a meat-eater who researches the relevant data on vegetables and fruits. Exhibit A:
"Researchers at the University of Chicago compared the global warming impact of meat eaters with that of vegetarians and found that the average American diet – including all food processing steps – results in the annual production of an extra 1.5 tons of CO2-equivalent (in the form of all greenhouse gases) compared to a no-meat diet. Researchers Gidon Eshel and Pamela Martin concluded that dietary changes could make more difference than trading in a standard sedan for a more efficient hybrid car, which reduces annual CO2 emissions by roughly one ton a year."
As the article indirectly points out, many of the environmental problems associated with meat wouldn't really go away even if the animals were raised in a more humane fashion.
At the level of the individual, buying humanely-raised meat would certainly be an improvement from buying meat from factory farms. But what we should be concerned about when we talk about sustainable development, as I understand it, is the choices we would like society to make. And while humanely raised meat will always be an option for countercultural types--and let's face it, anyone who gives much thought to these matters is going against the prevailing indifference of contemporary American culture--it cannot work for 300 million Americans. For one thing, where is the land to support enough livestock to feed so many people? For another thing, where are the farmers? If meat remains the order of the day, we have reached a point of no return; the factory farm will be our only option.
Hunting has the same problem. It can be practiced conscientiously by a few, but it cannot be relied on to provide for a large swathe of the population. (And then there's the question of why you should kill an animal at all when you get all the nutrition you need from non-animal products.)
Sammy
· 1 year ago
In North Carolina and Virginia, local food production also marginally lowers health care costs by giving farmers an alternative to growing tobacco ... even if all the tobacco production is moving to Brazil anyway.
weight loss diets
· 11 months ago
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willierutledge
· 2 months ago
People will continue eating even if all food is not organic. In fact, if we would produce only organic food we wouldn't be able to sustain more than 5 billion people on this earth. I enjoy cooking and eating and I don't really care where my food comes from as long as it's good. That's how I gained a lot of extra weight but I was lucky to find HCG weight loss center and they helped me get back in shape.
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"Corporate farmers hardly speak anymore of 'raising' animals, with the modicum of personal care that word implies. Animals are 'grown' now, like so many crops. Barns somewhere along the way became 'intensive confinement facilities' and the inhabitants mere 'production units.'
The result is a world in which billions of birds, cows, pigs, and other creatures are locked away, enduring miseries they do not deserve, for our convenience and pleasure. We belittle the activists with their radical agenda, scarcely noticing the radical cruelty they seek to redress."
http://www.amconmag.com/2005_05_23/cover.html
And this, too, comes with a hefty cost to the environment:
http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory....
Though it may seem unrealistic, the truth is a vegan diet is very healthy and practical, provided you're willing to do a little bit of research.
Although I am not a vegan, I think you make a compelling point about choosing the humane option when eating. But eating local meat can be just as humane. It is not the killing of animals that is offensive per se, it is the inhumane way in which they are treated that creates problems.
Consider the local farmer who does not own a slaughterhouse but raises chickens on his/her farm, treats them with respect, and provides them with enough space and a proper diet - would you buy meat from them? At my local Farmers' Market, many farmers sell meat raised from their farms, and I wouldn't consider it unethical to buy it.
So I think that, while choosing vegan is an option, it is not the only one. Vegans can still create a lot of carbon waste by buying vegetables from thousands of miles away instead of buying them at home.
I am guilty of buying meat (and most everything else) from the supermarket, like most. But I am learning, and my buying habits are changing every week.
"Researchers at the University of Chicago compared the global warming impact of meat eaters with that of vegetarians and found that the average American diet – including all food processing steps – results in the annual production of an extra 1.5 tons of CO2-equivalent (in the form of all greenhouse gases) compared to a no-meat diet. Researchers Gidon Eshel and Pamela Martin concluded that dietary changes could make more difference than trading in a standard sedan for a more efficient hybrid car, which reduces annual CO2 emissions by roughly one ton a year."
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0220/p03s01-ussc....
As the article indirectly points out, many of the environmental problems associated with meat wouldn't really go away even if the animals were raised in a more humane fashion.
At the level of the individual, buying humanely-raised meat would certainly be an improvement from buying meat from factory farms. But what we should be concerned about when we talk about sustainable development, as I understand it, is the choices we would like society to make. And while humanely raised meat will always be an option for countercultural types--and let's face it, anyone who gives much thought to these matters is going against the prevailing indifference of contemporary American culture--it cannot work for 300 million Americans. For one thing, where is the land to support enough livestock to feed so many people? For another thing, where are the farmers? If meat remains the order of the day, we have reached a point of no return; the factory farm will be our only option.
Hunting has the same problem. It can be practiced conscientiously by a few, but it cannot be relied on to provide for a large swathe of the population. (And then there's the question of why you should kill an animal at all when you get all the nutrition you need from non-animal products.)