Well that's the contention of some former and practicing, vegetarians and vegans in the Atlantic Monthly. Eating Animals - The Atlantic
I'd always assumed that eating meat was bad for the environment, all that petroleum, those huge stinky feedlots, those sickly gross cows with poop smeared over their backsides. Reading the thoughts of Ms. Niman I had to admit she had some points that jived with what I'd seen in developing countries where there are no chemicals used on animals or plants.
Animals become a necessary part of a sustainable farm providing the fertilizer to nourish the plants and grazing where crops cannot grow. Domestic animals eat parts of plants that humans can't. If we are going to practice sustainable agriculture to feed the world we are going to have to incorporate animals into a more holistic agriculture.
Ms. Niman goes on to quote authoritative sources warning that women of childbearing age, pregnant women, and young children should eat meat. My thought is whatever. I do remember though when people around where I live started to have kids with horrid deficiencies because they were feeding them that sugar laced soy milk with the catchy name and great advertising that they sell at every Whole Foods Market.
Mr. Cerulli in a pre release of his new book takes a brutally honest look at his own motivations on going the meatless route.
Vegetarianism—and, soon thereafter, veganism—became more than a mere diet. Though secular, it became a way of life, a statement of values and identity, a coat of arms for the struggle to right all that was wrong with the world. It started out being about food, but soon the beliefs themselves began to sustain me. I felt sure that everyone should be vegetarian.
My zealous certainty should have set off warning bells, but it didn’t. I hadn’t yet figured out that religious fundamentalism isn’t the only dangerous kind.
The Mindful Carnivore by Tovar Cerulli
Ouch! People love to ridicule vegetarians, probably because sometimes they seem to take themselves a little too seriously. I've even heard it suggested that eating meat is causing climate change and will bring about the destruction of the world in five years. Would you like to kill everyone in the world or skip that juicy hamburger? Hmm.. hard choice that, two out of three vegetarians opt for destruction of the world, or perhaps they learn to eat everything in moderation and get plenty of exercise.
I eat meat that grew wild and natural not twenty miles from my home. Probably a smaller carbon foot print than a 10 oz chunk of tempe processed in Boulder of soybeans grown in Indiana from fertilizer manufactured in Texas. But I don't often compare foot prints, better to look at the tracks from where I've been and looking forward to step carefully, might step in daddy cow poop.
Every post needs a photo.
Scene in my garage 12/5/11 save the planet