Jughead,

Please do yourself a favor. Read through the above article links and comments, as clearly you have not.

Additionally, before you decide to throw out BS statistics, I would recommend a little research. Approx. 90% +/- of the 60 billion is meat chickens. Turkeys and egg laying chickens make up approx. 7% +/-. If we consider pigs and cattle together into one category, adding it other misc., albeit, tasty animals, these “big animals” make up approx. 2%.

Even though Long John and I disagree on certain topics, I am sure we both agree that a little self-education is needed before throwing random stats out there and hoping others blindly agree. If that’s what you enjoy doing, I am sure you could apply for a position as a US politician.

And I also believe it naive to claim that if we didn’t have livestock to feed, the use of pesticides and GMO would just miraculously disappear, like Monsanto would just pack up his shit and leave the party.

I suppose the blue pill is probably vegan friendly.

Thanks – John

If people were plant-based, we’d need way way way lesser land and water. We just wouldn’t need pesticides or any gmo shit.
We’d almost get rid of 60-70 of CO2 and Methane emissions. We’d get rid of Shit filled rivers and polluted skies.

Long John,

I will watch that video later, no speakers here.

No, I do not have a problem killing an animal that was raised in an appreciable, harmonized way. Life sustains itself on other life. Whether that life be plant or animal, you and I both kill to survive. I view veganism an an extreme, as I view CAFOs and similar minded practices. A vegetarian can equally respect life as much as a vegan and sustain, in my opinion, a much more balanced lifestyle. Yes, arguably there exist Vegans who are seemingly healthful. However, to compare these few who are cognizant of their diet to everyone else is misleading. You can find plenty of people who eat animals or who are vegetarian that are healthful and radiant as well.

There are plenty of those that went vegan and returned because they were not healthy. There are plenty of omnivores that went vegan because they were not healthy as well. My argument is that I believe a person who pays attention to what they eat and educate themselves will come out healthier anyways. Research the athletes and Hollywood stars who went Vegan and turned back.

Vegan, the beginning and ending of veg etari an, has very little data regarding its long term impact on quality of life. Our history has defined us through generations that eating meat has allowed us to sustain, grow, and be healthy. You can not compare eating meat to slavery. This is a shock value statement, and not a legitimate argument. You cannot drop a statement that all who consume meat are ignorant.

Morally speaking, I am at peace that the animal which was raised for me was birthed in the first place, taken good care of, and locally raised on a pasture it was free to roam. I also sleep at night knowing that the vegetables I consume are raised in a similar way, along with the milk products I consume and the eggs I cook.

Here is an article to ponder. http://www.policymic.com/articles/7700/why-vegetarians-are-killing-the-environment-as-much-as-anyone-else

Honestly, the one unspeakable truth in all of this is not whether we as a society can sustain on vegetables or meat. This turns away from the concern that the part of the equation that is most harmful in our food chain, is us. We have as a society, chosen money over morality, to allow the pesticides and GMOs to take over our vegetables and the CAFOs to take over our meats. This is the part of the equation that is wrong.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ti-WcnqUwLM

Some more thoughts on this issue, as I, I expect differently to you am sprouting some wheat, in order to ferment and create bacteria that will break down, culture, the proteins in cashew nuts, in order to make cheese (a perfect source of B12).

This is an aside, but it occurs to me that we are in complete agreement concerning the importance of animals in the world. They play a vital part in contributing to the health of the earth of the planet which we share with them.

It all boils down to the same issue infact, the fundamental issue which inspired me in the first place to become vegan. While we both agree animals are important in the world, you feel comfortable killing and eating them. You feel that morally this is right. I’d rather live amongst them, enjoy them, but not eat them.

I know this might sound absurdly utopian, it reminds me of a cover I saw on one of those absurd ‘Watch House’ magazines, a fundamental Christian publication that used to exist, probably still does, in the UK. Where a family are sitting in bliss amongst lions and wild animals. An infantile conception of heaven I suppose.

Ok it’s naive to think we can still live amongst animals in a utopian way, we can’t be safe when we let them run wild. In London there was a recent case of a small baby being taken from its cot and mauled by an animal, which people suspect to have been a fox. The fact is the world of nature is ‘dog eat dog’ (the film Grizzly Man springs to mind). Nature is heartless, it acts without sentiment, driven by higher laws of genetic survival.

However, it simply isn’t necessary to eat meat, this is a fact, look at the athletes who are vegan, the Hollywood movie stars even, it’s a big list. They’re not dying, infact they look pretty damn good. So do I, since I quit meat, which is the cause of a lot of chronic illness.

It boils down to, do you feel comfortable inflicting pain upon another sentient creature. Well do you? I just feel with all the knowledge we as a race have accumulated untenable all of the arts, empathy we’ve created, I feel it’s an untenable position to take.

To paraphrase Dawkins, who does eat meat, he feels that it’s similar to the postion society took on slavery 150 years ago. It was just accepted that it was right, everyone did it. No one questioned it. But if you subject it to any scrutiny, morally it doesn’t stand up.

To be honest I don’t really care if you’re killing animals, eating them, and you’re not destroying the world which I have to share with you. Fine, go ahead, I don’t agree with it, but then I don’t agree with the majority of people on this planet who put their faith in God, and any number of infantile, pathetic beliefs.

But for me, I feel much better without it, and there’s no way I’m going back.

I’ll leave you with this conversation between Dawkins and Singer, on the morality of eating meat.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xxdMUuZXUY

And finally a ranting American vegan activist. Perhaps you’ve seen this, I don’t know, but you should watch it as this man is responsible for converting huge numbers of people to veganism.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=es6U00LMmC4

See what you think.

Two more sites of interest:

http://www.realfooduniversity.com/paleoprimal-lifestyle-sustainable-meat-production/

http://www.explorebeef.org/environment.aspx

I rather favor the thought of mixing it up, allowing sheep to graze with beef cattle, and then perhaps have the chickens and turkeys follow up after. It seems more fluid.

Doing this sort of management requires time, but because it is done in this way, I would imagine that it takes care of using the land effectively, fertilizing it appropriately, and taking care of the potential problems of the land with this sort of rotational grazing, using the birds to provide pest control and nitrogen enriched poop.

Thanks,

John

Add in that there is substantial amount of land used to raise feed for livestock. This was once good land to grow great vegetables – side note, puslane is something you should look into, btw.

Now this land is stripped of nutrients. Plant grass, rotate cattle onto this land to rebuild it. Once enough of the good kind of bullshit has rebuilt the land, rotate vegetables back into it.

Also, not all land is suitable for growing vegetables. But livestock, yep. Perhaps some innovative ways to raise different livestock, like a yak/beef combo where the yak is hearty, a little smaller, can forage for edible food easier as it will eat more variety than the common cow, and can survive worse conditions. Great for mountainous regions. I think the U.K. has a few of these…

I guess what is debatable in our back and forth, and maybe we are arguing over very little, is the amount of meat that should be eaten. I believe we can produce more, naturally than what you believe. But we don’t get to test this out until we can stop the misuse of our earth.

What I think we both agree on, and maybe the real point of where we are getting to, is that our current model sucks in so many ways, and the further we go, the worse it will get. It is not changing the minds of those whose eyes are open, like you or I, it is changing the minds of the blind.

As the article in Science Daily says, “People aren’t going to stop eating meat, but I am always hopeful that as people learn more, they do change their behavior. If they are informed that they do have choices to help build a more sustainable and equitable world, they can make better choices.”

Does this mean cut back on meat, or does this mean raise it right? Maybe the former, certainly the latter.

Most statistics are taken from grain feed beef, btw. The youtube video, horrible, I have seen plenty others. This is unethical, inhumane, and wrong. It makes me sad that we treat our animals this way – they suffer the moment they are born until their death, and hopefully it is quick. The same could be said for our mother earth and the overuse of agrochemicals, gmo, fertilizers, and such to raise our vegetables. I believe we can take the necessary steps to have our vegetables and eat our meat too. We can do this humanely, providing quality of life to both the animals and our mother earth.

But one thing is for sure, being a Vegan is not solving the problem either. Opening more eyes and voting with the almighty buck (or quid) helps.

Once again, one source that seems to throw statistics and numbers around for their own edification seems rather frustrating.

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100023540/lord-sterns-dodgy-dossier-exposed/

http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/2010/01/lord-sterns-spokesperson-responds.html

I think at least I wouldn’t hang my hat on numbers and statistics all the time.

The concern I see out there is how to wade through all the politics, lies, rhetoric, and money studies to actually find truth…

I will respond a few times, to keep each shorter, and so I can reference each point above easier…

As far as your first article goes, I’d take it with a pinch of salt, The Daily Mail is the blight of this country, loathed by anyone with a glimmer of enlightenment http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eBT6OSr1TI

Yes I think much I’m reading collaborates that the problem is in the vast quantity of meat produced, and how it’s farmed. Unfortunately most of it isn’t farmed in the quaint, old fashioned way, which is harmless to the environment. With a demand so great, how else can such a demand be satisfied? Yes a good article in the New York times, similar to the one I sent you in the Guardian.

Long John,

Valid point. I have not done a good job at looking through the data you have provided and commenting on that. I will try to look through all the links above. This being said, I would not hang my hat on Lord Stern, however. Let me get you a little more data, if you would like, regarding his viewpoint. This one starts to give you a little of what I have been reading: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1223671/Giving-meat-save-planet-daftest-idea-Ive-heard.html

In the interim, here is an article, written oddly enough by a vegetarian, that goes through a few things.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/31/opinion/31niman.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2&sq=the%20carnivore%92s%20dilemma&st=cse&scp=1&

And another thing to consider is that blindly saying that land raising vegetables produces more than land producing meat is not wholly accurate from what my research has indicated. And certainly not necessarily comparable when ti comes to nutrients. Here is a neat article while I view all your links.

http://www.honestmeat.com/honest_meat/2012/09/ramblings-on-mark-bittman-and-meat-vs-produce.html

BTW, not hostile, just passionate.

Another site that is good for no CAFOs, google query “the meatrix”. If you come back around to eating meat, it will never be CAFO again…