European Tribune - Community, Politics & Progress.

Who knew?

by Colman
Wed Sep 8th, 2010 at 07:31:33 AM EST

George Mobiot recants on his calls to stop eating meat to save the world in a review of Meat: A Benign Extravagance by Simon Fairlie:

In the Guardian in 2002 I discussed the sharp rise in the number of the world's livestock, and the connection between their consumption of grain and human malnutrition. After reviewing the figures, I concluded that veganism "is the only ethical response to what is arguably the world's most urgent social justice issue". I still believe that the diversion of ever wider tracts of arable land from feeding people to feeding livestock is iniquitous and grotesque. So does the book I'm about to discuss. I no longer believe that the only ethical response is to stop eating meat.
[…]
Overall, Fairlie estimates that farmed animals produce about 10% of the world's emissions: still too much, but a good deal less than transport. He also shows that many vegetable oils have a bigger footprint than animal fats, and reminds us that even vegan farming necessitates the large-scale killing or ecological exclusion of animals: in this case pests. On the other hand, he slaughters the claims made by some livestock farmers about the soil carbon they can lock away.
The meat-producing system Fairlie advocates differs sharply from the one now practised in the rich world: low energy, low waste, just, diverse, small-scale. But if we were to adopt it, we could eat meat, milk and eggs (albeit much less) with a clean conscience. By keeping out of the debate over how livestock should be kept, those of us who have advocated veganism have allowed the champions of cruel, destructive, famine-inducing meat farming to prevail. It's time we got stuck in.

Turns out that meat production isn't intrinsically a bad idea, but industrial feeding good grain to animals is - who could have guessed that? Extensive farming on appropriate land and using appropriate animals appropriately as waste recyclers doesn't have to be an environmental disaster.

Ethical concerns about eating animals in the first place are a completely different matter, and are pretty much religiously based anyway. Good luck on that argument.

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Who knew? | 33 comments (33 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

Re: Who knew? (4.00 / 2)

I'm still looking for a reasonably convenient source of organic meat that doesn't require me to drive significant distances. <sigh> The recession is making getting good ingredients significantly harder in supermarkets here.

by Colman (colman at eurotrib.com) on Wed Sep 8th, 2010 at 07:33:48 AM EST

Re: Who knew? (none / 1)

Move to Bremen. In my section of town, the organic markets are Tues & Fri on one end of Das Viertel, and Wed & Sat on the other end. Includes three different farms, the organic butcher, the bio-cheese wagon, and the bio-wine wagon.

Of course, my organic coop is about 50 m from the Wed/Sat market, open 6 days.

there are other bio-markets elsewhere, a bio supermarket around the corner, and at least three small bio-shops.

makes it easy here.

Skennah Kowa

by Crazy Horse on Wed Sep 8th, 2010 at 07:59:43 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Who knew? (4.00 / 3)

this is the area, along with alt/ energy, where germany shines, (bad blip for nukes yesterday aside, i know).

it always cracks me up when i see the name 'REFORMHAUS', lol.

reforming the house could be named better 'rebuilding the Temple'.

england has got a few years on italy, in this respect, but germany is way ahead of both.

the good news about italy is that there are a lot of organic grains/legumes/fruits/nuts veggies here, even if most are for export, (60% of euro bio food comes from italy, iirc). there are some bio foods creeping onto the co-op supermarket shelves, slowly but surely.

i have discovered a cranio-sacrally aware osteopath in the vicinity, woot!

germany has much more progressive policies on natural healing modalities, greater civic acceptance/penetration. italy is changing, v-e-r-y slowly. maybe there's a greater need in germany too, the bigger the front, the bigger the back...

Hopeful pessimist, hopeless optimist, it's a fine line

by melo (melometa4(at)gmail.com) on Wed Sep 8th, 2010 at 08:44:29 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Or move to Stevenson, WA. (none / 0)

We get our organic, grass-fed half of a beef each year in October. We get our organic half of a pig this month. We get our organic, free-range chicken eggs almost every week from 4 to 5 friends.

As pointed out below, it requires a freezer, of course. We keep our old (well insulated, heavy duty) freezer in the garage, so it barely has to run the compressor in the Winter.

Funny thing is, to me it tastes like meat 'in the old days'; to my kids it tastes "gamey".

Only problem is that our beef provider is ancient. As healthy as he is, he cannot live forever. I'm beginning to work on succession.

paul spencer

by paul spencer (spencerinthegorge AT yahoo DOT com) on Wed Sep 8th, 2010 at 12:30:31 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Or move to Stevenson, WA. (none / 0)

Dairy is another problem. I am quite lactose tolerant and consume between 1 and 2 liters of 1% milk per day, especially when taking vitamins and supplements morning and night. We also use butter instead of any of the alternatives and I use about a half teaspoon of whipping cream in my coffee, which is sweetened with a tsp of honey and then topped up with three packets of artificial sweetners to make it taste sweet. My wife drinks about a liter of artificially sweetened cola per day.

My biggest health concern is about BPA in the containers both of my milk and of her soft drink containers. Also, sometimes there is a bitter taste to the milk which I suspect derives from process control problems in the bottling process involving too much heat that likely produces unhealthy byproducts. The commercially available milk likely also contains BST, bovine somatotrophin hormone, given to boost milk production, and possibly other hormones and contaminants present in the milk of dairy cows.

What I would like is a local dairy that bottles its products in glass. The last one of those shut down in Southern California about three years ago and there are none that I am aware of that distribute locally in Arkansas. I could likely keep chickens. I have the room -- so long as the neighbors don't complain. I live just inside the city limits and there are formal restrictions.

We had a cow for several years when I was a child and it was my job to milk her twice a day. The problem is that this results in six to eight gallons of milk per day and I would not want to go into the dairy products business. A 100kg to 200kg bovine would be about right, but I would really need a couple more acres which would cost me $8-10 thousand/acre - at present, and would require clearing of overgrown second growth forest. Fortunately, in a crisis, I am sure I could learn to do without dairy if I had to.

As the Dutch said while fighting the Spanish: "It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."

by ARGeezer (ARGeezer a in a circle eurotrib daught com) on Wed Sep 8th, 2010 at 01:24:25 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Indeed. We buy allegedly organic (none / 0)

milk from a Wisconsin co-op called Organic Valley. It's 'ultra-pasteurized', so there's still that problem, plus I really know nothing about them except their claims. Tastes good, though.

We buy organic butter from Costco - their Kirkland brand - again without knowing much about the product. But Costco is an interesting story when it comes to such things. Their olive oil is as good as any available out here, and they claim that it's essentially organic, too. If any of our Italian friends know anything about their source, I'd like to know.

Story from 1972 - Mirta and I lived in an original homestead 'house' on a dairy farm. The milk was definitely organic and old-style. The farmer told us that the tanker truck driver threw in a 5-gallon bucket of formaldehyde every so many gallons of milk collected. In any case we bought raw milk directly, and it was the best of our experience.

paul spencer

by paul spencer (spencerinthegorge AT yahoo DOT com) on Wed Sep 8th, 2010 at 07:24:15 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Indeed. We buy allegedly organic (none / 0)

Sadly, the nearest Costco is two and a half hours away in Springfield, Mo.

As the Dutch said while fighting the Spanish: "It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."

by ARGeezer (ARGeezer a in a circle eurotrib daught com) on Wed Sep 8th, 2010 at 07:43:45 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Who knew? (none / 0)

No locavore-type associations within reasonable distance? (Yeah, I know it's all the harder the larger the city.)

The other requirement is a fair-sized deep-freeze. The parcels we order (beef or lamb) contain 7 or 8 kgs.

by afew (afew(a in a circle)eurotrib_dot_com) on Wed Sep 8th, 2010 at 07:59:57 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Who knew? (none / 0)

veganism is not for everyone, we are made to be omnivores.
meat itself is not bad per se, it's the phenomenal amounts consumed, and the terrible conditions factory farming imposes on the livestock and the ecosystem, which translates into toxic meat.

unless you are a master gardener like fukuoka, you're going to need to build your soil to grow crops, and i can't see anything but positives in small-to-medium scale animal husbandry, with its varieties of manure to enrich the compost pile.

even if you're a vegan and raise animals, i bet you can get a whole lot of lentils in trade for a rabbit or duck.

win/win!

Hopeful pessimist, hopeless optimist, it's a fine line

by melo (melometa4(at)gmail.com) on Wed Sep 8th, 2010 at 08:52:25 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Who knew? (none / 1)

Please say that we developed as omnivores. It makes my head hurt less.

by Colman (colman at eurotrib.com) on Wed Sep 8th, 2010 at 09:07:55 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Who knew? (none / 0)

haha, ok.

at least i didn't say 'designed'!

the ratio of 'canine' human teeth to the others, is pretty self-explanatory...

plus the length of our gut.

Hopeful pessimist, hopeless optimist, it's a fine line

by melo (melometa4(at)gmail.com) on Wed Sep 8th, 2010 at 12:35:12 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Who knew? (4.00 / 2)

And the fact that our eyes are located on the same side of the head - that's the predator configuration (for maximum depth perception). Eyes on either side of the head is the prey configuration (for maximum directional coverage). Not only are we evolved to eat meat - we're evolved to kill stuff more often than run away from stuff.

- Jake

Our way of life is a lot more negotiable than the laws of nature.

by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Wed Sep 8th, 2010 at 01:37:05 PM EST
[ Parent ]

I had a brief vision (4.00 / 3)

of you with both eyes on the same side of your head... like a flounder. Or a Picasso.

I suppose you mean, "on the front of our heads".

by eurogreen on Thu Sep 9th, 2010 at 06:48:45 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: I had a brief vision (none / 1)

"Ce qui vient au monde pour ne rien troubler ne mérite ni égards ni patience." René Char

by Melanchthon on Thu Sep 9th, 2010 at 07:13:51 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Absolutely. (4.00 / 2)

The thing about being an omnivore, biologically, is that we can eat pretty well anything. And be reasonably healthy on an extraordinary range of different diets. A characteristic we share with pigs and rats.

So, veganism is not for everyone, as you say Melo... nor is pure carnivorism, though both are valid and potentially healthy human diets. Historically and pre-historically, a base of vegetable/cereal with occasional meat is probably the norm for the great majority of human groups : whether gatherer/hunter or small farmers.

In terms of bang for your buck, not all animals are equal. Pigs are more equal than others (as Orwell noted). Poultry are even better. I'm talking about the ratio of conversion of fodder into meat. Small farmers know this intuitively.

Beef is pretty lousy, except for the fact (assertion?) that there are large areas which are only good for grazing... however, in Europe at least, most of the cattle get most of their food from specially-grown crops, not from grass or hay.

I must look up the numbers for sheep meat.

by eurogreen on Thu Sep 9th, 2010 at 06:47:00 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Who knew? (none / 1)

Hmmm, I am extremely well served for organic supplies (selection of butchers within striking range, ditto farmer's markets) but London is weird like that.

How is it in the Republic once you get away from Dublin? Are there still the sort of markets where you can find decent local suppliers in the smaller towns or was all that sort of thing hoovered up by the Celtic Tiger before it sicked up a massive hairball and then buggered off with all the money?

Regards
Luke

-- #include witty_sig.h

by silburnl on Wed Sep 8th, 2010 at 10:07:36 AM EST
[ Parent ]

I've recently relocated (none / 0)

from a hippy-dream farmhouse in the country, to a flat in town, much sounder ecologically of course...

and I'm missing the food sources. In my case, a couple of producers' co-ops where I used to buy all my fruit, veg, dairy and meat (only a minority are organic... but given a choice between locally-produced and organic, I will choose on price!)

These shops were conveniently located on my commute into town. I'm now orphaned, but will be checking out local consumers' co-operatives in Lyon.

by eurogreen on Thu Sep 9th, 2010 at 06:30:09 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Who knew? (none / 1)

European Tribune - Who knew?

Turns out that meat production isn't intrinsically a bad idea, but industrial feeding good grain to animals is

A good question is of course if what amount of meat/person one can eat from appropriately raised animals without long transports. If one lives in Mongolia, the answer is a lot, but I do not live in Mongolia.

I suspect for the average city-dwelling westerner the change in amount would require eating enough new greens and grains to make it look almost like turning vegetarian.

A vote for PES is a vote for EPP! A vote for EPP is a vote for PES! Support the coalition, vote EPP-PES in 2009!

by A swedish kind of death on Wed Sep 8th, 2010 at 10:50:44 AM EST

Re: Who knew? (none / 0)

What do you mean by long?

by Colman (colman at eurotrib.com) on Wed Sep 8th, 2010 at 12:18:33 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Who knew? (none / 0)

A swedish kind of death:

I suspect for the average city-dwelling westerner the change in amount would require eating enough new greens and grains to make it look almost like turning vegetarian.

yup, like in many chinese dishes, the meat is almost token amounts, or in moroccan cuisine, stewed tajin of veggies together with a big old marrowbone.

Hopeful pessimist, hopeless optimist, it's a fine line

by melo (melometa4(at)gmail.com) on Wed Sep 8th, 2010 at 12:39:03 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Who knew? (4.00 / 2)

Depends on what sort of meat you're talking about.

If it's salted, dried and/or smoked on-site, it will keep for long enough to be transported by ship, which is not terribly energy-intensive. Good sausage or properly smoked and dried ham (not the kind of watery crap we get in Scandinavia) will easily stay both tasty and healthy for a month or two without refrigeration, as long as it is kept dry. Add vacuum-packing and a sterile processing environment, and you could easily push unrefrigerated lifetime into the range you need for intercontinental transportation.

And as long as it's produced on the same continent, there's the option of running an electric rail line out there and refrigerating it for transport using sustainable electricity production. Trivial? No. Cheap? No. But at this point in time, nothing about creating a sustainable industrial society is going to be easy and cheap - the window of opportunity for easy closed a decade ago, and the window of opportunity for cheap closed a decade before that, at least.

- Jake

Our way of life is a lot more negotiable than the laws of nature.

by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Wed Sep 8th, 2010 at 01:45:46 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Who knew? (none / 0)

Good point. But if we do not limit ourselves based on distance to production that just means that we can divide the different foodstuffs on more persons.

And with a reasonably fair division (sustainable meat production on the planet/capita), I guess the resulting diet would have much less meat then average consumption in the western world.

A vote for PES is a vote for EPP! A vote for EPP is a vote for PES! Support the coalition, vote EPP-PES in 2009!

by A swedish kind of death on Thu Sep 9th, 2010 at 11:26:06 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Who knew? (4.00 / 3)

One thing which is almost never mentioned is that there is plenty of secondary land which is unsuitable for farming, but which works well for grazing. All land is not fungible.

Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.

by Starvid (arvid.hallen at gmail.com) on Wed Sep 8th, 2010 at 11:48:35 AM EST

Re: Who knew? (none / 1)

Tasty Vegan Food? Cupcakes Show It Can Be Done - NYTimes.com

Many people equate a vegan diet with deprivation, thinking that recipes prepared without eggs, butter, meat or other animal products are certain to be tasteless and boring.
But the reputation of vegan eating got a much-needed public-relations lift this summer from an unlikely place -- the Food Network's popular new show "Cupcake Wars."
The program, which each week features four of the country's top bakers facing off in three elimination challenges, recently pitted a 22-year-old vegan chef, Chloe Coscarelli, against three bakers of traditional high-end cupcakes.
The judges were skeptical at first. "I was surprised at the bravery and boldness to parade four different flavors of vegan cupcakes in front of the judges when everyone else was clearly going to be working with butter and eggs," said one judge, Candace Nelson, the owner of Sprinkles Cupcakes in Beverly Hills, Calif. "I thought it was possibly working at a disadvantage."

by Fran (fran at eurotrib dot com) on Wed Sep 8th, 2010 at 02:05:51 PM EST

Re: Who knew? (none / 0)

Look, if you're going to be vegan, why do you need these things?

by afew (afew(a in a circle)eurotrib_dot_com) on Wed Sep 8th, 2010 at 04:20:02 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Who knew? (none / 0)

I don't understand your question, why shouldn't vegans eat any desserts or sweets? As far as I know, the main criteria is to eat no animal products.

by Fran (fran at eurotrib dot com) on Thu Sep 9th, 2010 at 01:50:30 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Who knew? (none / 1)

Because obviously you won't fit into your homespun sackcloth robes if you eat stuff like that.

by Colman (colman at eurotrib.com) on Thu Sep 9th, 2010 at 07:08:07 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Who knew? (4.00 / 4)

Ethical concerns about eating animals in the first place are a completely different matter, and are pretty much religiously based anyway. Good luck on that argument.

My arse. [it is chicken.]

Personally, I'm a non-practising vegetarian. (In religious matters, not that it's relevant, I'm an atheist Anglican.)

As a fairly-strict vegetarian during 20 years, my motivations were 90% ethical. If you want to classify ethics as religion, that's your problem, but it's a huge blunder in my view.

My first instinct is to categorize my ethical base as "humanist", but that would be rather comical, in the context. In fact I was heavily influenced by Peter Singer's modern utilitarianism. It's all about maximising wellbeing and minimising suffering, and who are we to draw distinctions about whose suffering doesn't matter?

In fact, everyone draws their own distinctions, on a scale that runs from cannibalism through horses, dogs, cats, cows, etc, all the way down to snails and oysters. I drew the line at warm-blooded animals (mammals and birds), declaring them to be my kin, and the rest to be not worth worrying about. So I happily ate fish, mussels, etc. The only real borderline case being frogs.

by eurogreen on Thu Sep 9th, 2010 at 06:04:15 AM EST

Re: Who knew? (none / 0)

Say "irrational superstition". I was, of course, and naturally, being a bit snide. You'll get used to it.

I don't eat horses or dog. For no good reason - especially horse - except that I'm quite fond of some of them and don't eat their brethren on that basis.

I've never seen any especially rational ethical basis for vegetarianism that isn't a justification for a starting position of vegetarianism.

by Colman (colman at eurotrib.com) on Thu Sep 9th, 2010 at 06:38:18 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Well.. I dare you to read (none / 1)

http://www.ecobooks.com/books/animalib.htm

Animal Liberation, by Peter Singer. The starting position is not vegetarianism, but a rejection of the absolute distinction between human and non-human.

Singer is not the slightest bit sentimental, he is terrifyingly rigorous.

(Snide is not a probem... I speak snide.)

by eurogreen on Thu Sep 9th, 2010 at 07:00:16 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Well.. I dare you to read (none / 0)

I'll stick it on my wishlist (no Kindle version? <sigh>), but this doesn't engender confidence:

"This book is about the tyranny of human over nonhuman animals. This tyranny has caused and today is still causing an amount of pain and suffering that can only be compared with that which resulted from the centuries of tyranny by white humans over black humans. The struggle against this tyranny is a struggle as important as any of the moral and social issues that have been fought in recent years."

by Colman (colman at eurotrib.com) on Thu Sep 9th, 2010 at 07:07:20 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Yeah. The problem with Singer's book (none / 0)

is that he has given a rigorous philosophical foundation for all the sentimentalists in the world, so you're likely to find him quoted by all sorts of people whom I would have no truck with.

by eurogreen on Thu Sep 9th, 2010 at 09:47:39 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Well.. I dare you to read (none / 0)

And I don't assume any absolute distinction between human and non-human, apart from the obvious biological facts.

by Colman (colman at eurotrib.com) on Thu Sep 9th, 2010 at 07:10:02 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Who knew? | 33 comments (33 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

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