'It's not the cow, it's the how': why a long-time vegetarian became beef's biggest champion

[hunter]

Nicolette Hahn Niman was an environmental lawyer who became a cattle rancher, and didn’t eat meat for 33 years. For both the ecosystem and human health, she argues, it’s how animals are farmed that matters

After refusing to eat meat for 33 years, Nicolette Hahn Niman bit tentatively into a beefburger two years ago. She had become a vegetarian because she was concerned about animal welfare and the environmental cost of meat. Unlike most vegetarians, she had experience of the dire conditions on factory farms during her career as an environmental lawyer campaigning against pollution caused by industrial meat production in the US. Then she married a farmer.

Hahn Niman’s journey from vegetarian activist to cattle rancher to writing a book called Defending Beef may be driven by love, but it is also informed by a lawyerly desire to stick up for small farmers besieged by the growing ethical and environmental clamour against meat. The burger turned out to be an unexpectedly delicious brief pleasure, but it was the 18 years working on the ranch alongside the man who grilled it – and raised the cow – her husband, Bill Niman, that inspired her.

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https://www.theguardian.com/food/2021/aug/30/its-not-the-cow-its-the-how-why-a-long-time-vegetarian-became-beefs-biggest-champion

Even if we quit factory farm meat and dairy products we might still enjoy the occasional cheeseburger.

I don't think cheap factory farm meat and dairy products are a basic human right. These factory farms damage the natural environment and their treatment of animals is unethical. If a beef burger ends up costing twice as much as the veggie burger at your favorite fast food place that's a good thing.

[multigraincracker]

1. Factory farms are all in-put vs out-put. Milking

the last penny out of those cows. Find a local butcher and local farmer. You may even save money if you take out the middle man.

[hunter]

2. Another troubling aspect of factory farm meat and dairy products...

... is the industry's abuse of immigrant labor. Laborers are treated as in-put vs. out-put as well. When their productivity declines they are disposed of and replaced with fresh workers.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

3. Humans evolved as omnivores. Meaning we ate meat, fruit, and vegetables.

Non meat eaters simply don't get it. You don't have to eat lots of meat or dairy, but you really do need some of them.

Personally, I have zero patience for vegetarians, and don't get me started on vegans.

[hunter]

4. Unfortunately there are now near 8 billion humans on this earth.

I'm mostly vegetarian to reduce the size of my environmental footprint.

We can't all have steak for dinner and bacon for breakfast every day.

But maybe I'm a hypocrite as well since my wife and I have a few dogs.

I don't expect our dogs to be vegetarians.

I don't know exactly where the meat in their dog food comes from but I'm guessing they've eaten a lot of "retired" laying hens.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

5. No we don't all have to have steak for dinner or bacon for breakfast every day.

But we really do need to understand we should be eating some meat. And dairy, if our ancestors evolved to digest dairy.

Don't know about dogs, but cats are what are called obligate carnivores. Meaning they absolutely, totally, 100% must have meat. Occasionally some well intended vegetarian/vegan will put their cat on a vegetarian/vegan diet to horrific results. Cats really, really do need meat. What you choose as a human to eat is one thing. We can more or less get along on a vegetarian/vegan diet. Our cats cannot. No, really, they cannot. Give them what they need.

[muriel_volestrangler]

6. But humans aren't obligate carnivores, so your earlier claim was wrong

ie "you really do need some of them". I eat meat myself, but there no reason to "have no patience with vegetarians". It's quite possible to have a healthy vegan diet. Them just being vegan is no excuse for you to be intolerant of them. If they're helping by using less resources, then that's a good thing, not something you should feel entitled to "have patience" about.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

7. I know very young children must have some animal protein or they simply don't thrive.

Periodically you read a story about parents feeding young children on a vegan diet and the kids do very poorly. I've also seen more than one story about someone who followed a vegetarian diet for years and would up with nutritional issues.

The problem with so many vegetarians and vegans is that they absolutely insist that's the ONLY way all of us should eat. Sort of the same thing with the anti-gluten activists, and the anti-dairy extremists.

Perhaps we are not actual obligate omnivores, but it seems to me that we are pretty close to that.

Oh, and we evolved to our fully human form eating cooked foods of many kinds, so we really do need to cook a lot of our food.

[muriel_volestrangler]

8. All amino acids are available from plant protein, if you get the right mixture of sources

Possibly the one thing vegetarians and vegans have to watch out for is vitamin B12, for which their best sources are fortified products, such as breakfast cereals, soy milk or yeast extract (eg Marmite).