I realise we have a few vegetarians here, but for those meat-eaters who are being guilt-tripped by the latest "don't you realise you're destroying the planet?" meme, I'd like to post this video to illustrate that consuming meat or animal products is not (in and of itself) ecologically problematic. To quote Ben Goldacre, "I think you'll find it's a bit more complicated than that".
This planet, and all the life-forms upon it, evolved together into a coherent whole. The cycle of predator and prey is one of the means by which nature optimizes the use of energy and materials. It's only when we "break" what nature is trying to do that things go horribly wrong. The bottom line is that meat factories are not just inefficient and unprofitable, they deliver a product that doesn't even taste nice. It's perfectly possible to have your steak and eat it too. As a bonus, the farmer makes more money, nature flourishes, and the cows are happy too - at least up to the point where they're turned into burgers.
Incidentally, there are many ways that a cow can die "of natural causes", and most of them are ghastly. Human predation is not the worst option - especially since part of the bargain is that we care for them prior to Burger Time. If you want to get philosophical about it, the farmer exchanges some of his life-hours for theirs.
Here's the video. The first minute or two sounds like a vegan pitch, but it gets better.
I am totally with vegans and their ethical stance as, along with other occupations, I have been a slaughterman (killing sheep in Shetland).
Even done humanely it is a ghastly business. Early on before I got serious I saw a ewe killed with just a knife, and that was something else entirely and the reason ritual religious slaughter - Kosher and Halal - should be banned. I guarantee you will NEVER see that on your TV!
However, like it or not, we ARE part of the circle of life and you cannot remove death from the equation; to grow crops you must kill billions of animals - not just the cute furry ones as rainforests are cleared to grow palm oil - but the teeny tiny ones the soil depends on killed by chemicals and ploughing. That's to say nothing of the misery inflicted on subsistence farmers and indigenous peoples cleared along with the trees.
A particularly egregious example is the avocado; the favorite of the chattering classes. Leaving aside the energy required to fly it halfway round the world etc it it is increasingly being seen as a less risky career choice by criminal gangs than drug production, even being referred to as 'Green Gold.'
So, before climbing on board the new vegan bandwagon clutching a Gregs special, it pays to dig a little deeper. As the Toad says, 'It's complicated.'
I've done entire posts (as a rebuttal to the vegan argument that vegans are kind to animals) about the killing of millions of small, uninteresting animals to grow vegetables, and the associated ecological destruction. Never has anybody bothered to mount a defense, which is a bit sad really. If people believe in this stuff with such conviction, they should at least be able to defend their position.
Interesting stuff about avocados! Where I am, they grow like weeds. I plant avocado pits just because I like the trees (the birds seem to like them too). I have to say though, if gangs are trading avocados instead of opiates, that's got to be a good thing, surely?
As regards the slaughtering and mistreatment of animals: my observation is that poverty inevitably follows when people disrespect Creation. My farm is in one of the more insalubrious corners of the planet, and I see farm animals being cruelly treated - or simply disregarded - all the time. If an animal is not treated well it doesn't grow or reproduce well. It becomes ornery. Its carcass is worth less than the food and effort that went into raising it. If it is killed by an unskilled amateur (with they often are) then the meat acquires a bad taste. So the "farmer" stays poor. That's just karma, IMO.
Good grief. Why can't people just realise that you don't have to kill and steal to grow stuff? I suppose people like that do the killing and stealing as a matter of routine or amusement. The avocados are just a sideline.
Having farmed for many years, I'd say arable and crop production is much, much worse in terms of cruelty to animals than is livestock farming. I used to hate doing field work, or field destruction would be a better way of describing it.
The one thing I am particularly happy about with my keto / low carb diet, is that we eat no grain at all. Our olive oil is all hand-picked as the machinery used to harvest olives normally, sucks in the birds.
>> I'd say arable and crop production is much, much worse in terms of cruelty to animals than is livestock farming.
I wrote a piece on exactly that theme in the NHS forum, but the vegans were having none of it. They don't kill cows, therefore their lifestyle is kinder to animals. QED.
I don't really care if individuals want to go vegan; I realise some people just don't like meat, or it disagrees with them in some way. But the politicians are latching onto it in a big way. I can't tell if they genuinely think it'll have some mitigating effect on climate change and environmental destruction (it won't - it'll make it worse), or whether they're just collecting brownie points for saying all the right things.
Interesting that we have at least three farmers in this forum!
One of the biggest arguments for the planetary type diets these days, is that they keep saying the global population is expected to reach 10bn people soon, and we need to be able to support them (which they say we can't do with a meat diet).
I don't think the answer is a change in diet... At the end of the day, the planet can't sustain exponential population growth like this, we need to discourage it...
The problems in agriculture 100% stem from this idea that we need to feed far too many people as efficiently as possible.
Nature keeps trying to reign it in, but we keep intervening now. It used to look like a flu epidemic, but we created a vaccine, as we seem to do for every epidemic now...
Yup. But nature always wins in the end. Every time we slap nature down, she comes up with a different trick - and eventually she'll win with something really, really unpleasant. If we keep escalating, she'll have no choice except to go nuclear on us.
The sad think is we think this proves nature is mean and nasty. It doesn't. She doesn't make moral choices. Ultimately nature is just an embodiment of hard physical laws, so when humans set up nature as an enemy, they're basically railing against the unfairness of thermodynamics and conservation of mass, which is not a smart thing to do.
The tricky thing with the population growth is that birth rates in most communities is actually falling. At current trends there won’t be enough young to support the older population in the future. So not something we can easily fix (but nature will surely find a way!!)
Mercy. I can see the potential for this kind of farming, and I can also see how it will likely become more and more prevalent in coming generations. But changing the status quo takes time, and a lot of it will be by attrition- old farmers like us dying off. When standard farming practices are all you have done all your life, you're not apt to change, particularly when all your assets are sunk into the ridiculously expensive equipment needed for this. The farm ground down here along the river has been flooded most of the year, so we have little crop this time, and we had drought the year before. Weather patterns are getting just too hairy; I really don't know what our rather short future holds right now.
It distresses me more and more every year to see the farm land soaked with chemicals twice every season. Change has to come eventually. Up to maybe just 5 years ago or so, there would be all kinds of rabbits in the soybean fields that the combine would flush out on the way through, and hawks and/or eagles waiting. Not anymore- too many chemicals? There are very few rabbits out there now, though I can't say the same for coyotes! Their dens will give you a huge jolt. As for killing the soil, that's a given. I'd read someone's opinion back in the 80's or 90's that the soil has been depleted since the 40's, thus all the chemical fertilizers as well as all the herbicides and pesticides. All that rushing into the Gulf.
The pressure for change is out there, and it will get stronger as we go along. And in a way, I am pleased that the vegan crowd is exerting pressure from their end; some good will come from this, though it won't be due to fake meat! It does look like ranching like this guy does would require 10-12 hour days, right up there with dairy farming, but if the returns are that good, that's motivation.
There's a recent news story about Kraft/Heinz and their financial troubles that are being blamed on consumers ditching the processed foods. Consumer demand may start something here. LCHF is apparently having an impact.
It's a pity the vegans can't ally with the land-regeneration types because we are (in some ways) on the same page. Unfortunately they simply don't understand how animals fit into the picture - not just the animals that are deliberately raised for meat, but also those that move in of their own accord (earthworms, bugs, burrowing critters). They all contribute to the soil health in one way or another.
These guys absolutely do put the hours in. But they're selling a premium product at a higher price, and their general operating costs are vastly reduced. The main cost of conversion is the cost of lots and lots of high-quality electric fencing, but as you saw that can be run out (with a bit of practice) using a vehicle. There are people in the US and elsewhere doing this on much smaller acreages, and making a very good living.
I'd not heard about Kraft. I guess their profit margins are so small that even a modest drop in customer demand can cause them a lot of grief. It's going to get interesting!
1) Thank whoever, I live virtually surrounded by avocado trees! no imports around here!
2) A front-page headline yesterday in national spanish paper (El Pais) was that we need to change our diet to less meat to save the planet ... er? Didn't actually read it but someone's obviously issued a new "report"....
3) We don't have locally produced meat (except goat) so I buy from supermarket and it's a major part of my diet so not going to stop (it's supposedly "bio" but we all know too much about labels for that to mean much....)
4) On a lighter note - what do Indian/Nepalese etc restaurants use for "lamb"? We don't seem to be able to buy anything with chunks like they have so what is it? (tastes nice so do I really want to know?)
2) It's everywhere. It's just one of those things now that newspapers print when they can't think of anything else to fill the space. I imagine they've all got a set piece that they can cut'n'paste when the need arises.
3/4) I always assumed it's goat meat. Goat is very lean and, um, meaty. At least it is where I live (as long as you don't buy from the people who can't be bothered to feed their goats).
Hola cheritorrox, yes indeed, in return for dizzying heat, we do have a wealth of avocados!
We get 'happy chicken' from the bigger supermarkets in Andalucia, e.g. Carrefour, Hipercor, but otherwise can't find it. I bet on the coast there is much more choice. The Indian 'lamb' - interesting question though not sure I would want to be enlightened!
All the supermarkets have jumped on the wagon with bio this and bio that ... no idea if they need "certificates" to prove it!
Think comments above are probably right and it's goat which is fine by me (as you imply, not sure want to know any other suggestions!)
Not really managing the cool bit but still managing some walking - just more stops for water or a beer as the bottle I carry is soon only fit for tipping over head (or making tea!). I even stick ice in the beer!
I agree that the relationship between people and their food is the fundamental problem. Mass production of any food type is going to cause problems to the environment- whether that’s loss of wildlife / water shortages / deforestation / etc. I think that the fast food epidemic in the west has largely fuelled a crazy demand for red meat that our global agricultural system has responded to in a way that simply isn’t sustainable. The ‘eat less meat’ mantra isn’t aimed at people who choose ethical / locally sourced meat and eat all parts of the animal etc. It’s more about chicken nuggets/ burgers etc etc etc that people feel they need to eat every single day. It’s not a moral judgement on whether it’s right or wrong to eat meat. Looking at our global agricultural system, there are so many unsustainable practices going on (deforestation/ loss of soils / loss of aquifers/ loss of insect populations etc etc) carrying on as we are right now seems insane- something has to drive change.
It's just dawned on me, when they do talk about cutting back on red meat though, they always say to eat fewer steaks! It's never really to stop going to the kebab shop on a Friday...
I have recently read a book call 'Wilding' about the Knepp Estate in south England - which was basically wrecked by intensive agriculture and has since been restored, with subsequent return of biodiveristy. Its an interesting read, especially thinking about where agriculture needs to go in future - not the Knepp model as we still need to feed the planet - but somewhere in between perhaps. It was especially interesting to read how intensive cereal production ruined their land.
As far as eating goes - I personally eat everything. My meat preferences are with deer/rabbit/pigeons culled from farms/woodland by people I know who are kind enough to share, roadkill (accidental pheasants!), and a weakness for pigmeat in all forms. Meat eating isn't inherently ecologically problematic, I totally agree, but growing global demand - and the way in which huge agri-business corporations currently choose to meet that demand - certainly is.
I can appreciate the search for better and kinder ways to provide our nutrition and I don’t think big food/farming have any good answers (those that are of benefits to the land, animal welfare) because increasing their bottom line is their only objective.
I would like to think that the public will increasingly demand more detail and rigour about where their food is coming from (including its carbon footprint to get it from source to plate), how it is produced (land management, sustainability, animal welfare), and how this process is monitored and validated).
I would happily eat less red meat and by doing so I want to know that key things are is in place when I choose to eat part of an animal that has had to make the ultimate sacrifice:
1. It lives in natural surroundings it whole life (fields with access to ready, food (grass if ruminants), shelter from harsh climate.
It is slaughtered humanely. Not 6 months in a feedlot.
I am very concerned that this is not being adhered to and we as members of society that want the highest standards of care for these animals need to demand this and furthermore take action to make sure it happens. This includes raising our outrage with authorities when for example live animals are trucked across Europe in very poor conditions - including in searing summer temperatures- this nonsense must be stopped.
2. Animals that live on farms that use organic land husbandry methods, where the animal (if ruminant) is grass fed, where the animal is slaughtered as close to the farm as possible, and most importantly in a humane way.
I think we could work a lot more with our farmers and our shopping chains to make headway with this.
Just glad it’s being discussed and hopefully we can make life a lot better for our animals, farms and environment.
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