Vegetarianism and the Environment

[suziedemocrat]

I'm not saying we should all be vegetarians. I DO think maybe we should all think about cutting down on the amount of meat we eat. I also think more restaurants should offer more vegetarian dishes. I've been lacto-ovo veg since 1986, but my diet is still fairly bad. Recently I gave up soft-drinks and I think that did more for my health than giving up meat. Still, some people STILL think it's only a meal if it contains meat.

http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101020715/story.html
http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101020715/story2.html
http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101020715/story3.html
http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101020715/story4.html
http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101020715/story5.html

Should We All Be Vegetarians?
Would we be healthier? Would the planet? The risks and benefits of a meat-free life.
By RICHARD CORLISS
Posted Sunday, July 7, 2002; 10:31 a.m. EST

...

David Pimentel, a Cornell ecologist, argues that vegetarianism is much more environment-friendly than diets revolving around meat. "In terms of caloric content, the grain consumed by American livestock could feed 800 million people—and, if exported, would boost the U.S. trade balance by $80 billion a year." Grain-fed livestock consume 100,000 liters of water for every kilogram of food they produce, compared with 2,000 liters for soybeans. Animal protein also demands tremendous expenditures of fossil-fuel energy—eight times as much as for a comparable amount of plant protein. Put another way, says Pimentel, the average omnivore diet burns the equivalent of a gallon of gas per day—twice what it takes to produce a vegan diet. And the U.S. livestock population—cattle, chickens, turkeys, lambs, pigs and the rest—consumes five times as much grain as the U.S. human population. But then there are 7 billion of them; they outnumber us 25 to 1.

[roody]

1. I've been lacto-ovo for 32 years.

I like it. I barely eat eggs, but I eat too much ice cream.

[suziedemocrat]

3. Oh yeah....Breyers Natural Vanilla is my weakness!

[Reterr]

2. kr.eom

[Cleita]

4. I used to be vegetarian, but was told to eat meat on doctor's

orders. I still only eat 3 to 4 ounces of meat, chicken or fish a day. I don't use milk or eggs except to bake or in desserts.

My main objection to eating meat is how the animals are raised and processed. I believe if animal husbandry and slaughter was humane, it would be better for the environment and for the food product we find in our supermarkets.

It's the factory farming of animals, that is not only cruel, but pollutes the environment with the waste and waste products that produce pollution. Also, most people would do well to cut down their meat consumption however, as long as you have fast food outlets, like McDonald's et al pushing tons of beef and chicken on us a day, it going to be a hard lobby to fight.

Maybe it would be better to try to convince the same food outlets to sell vegetarian offerings like felafel and other plant food entries that can be served as fast food. Maybe then we can wean them away from so much meat in their offerings. I think they might find the profit margin better too.

[Kali]

5. ...

http://www.eatwild.com/

[suziedemocrat]

6. The article agrees with you - factory farming is worse than eating pasture fed animals.

The other reason for beef eating is, hold on, ethical—a matter of animal rights. The familiar argument for vegetarianism, articulated by Tom Regan, a philosophical founder of the modern animal-rights movement, is that it would save Babe the pig and Chicken Run's Ginger from execution. But what about Bugs Bunny and Mickey Mouse? asks Steven Davis, professor of animal science at Oregon State University, pointing to the number of field animals inadvertently killed during crop production and harvest. One study showed that simply mowing an alfalfa field caused a 50% reduction in the gray-tailed vole population. Mortality rates increase with each pass of the tractor to plow, plant and harvest. Rabbits, mice and pheasants, he says, are the indiscriminate "collateral damage" of row crops and the grain industry.

By contrast, grazing (not grain-fed) ruminants such as cattle produce food and require fewer entries into the fields with tractors and other equipment. Applying (and upending) Regan's least-harm theory, Davis proposes a ruminant-pasture model of food production, which would replace poultry and pork production with beef, lamb and dairy products. According to his calculations, such a model would result in the deaths of 300 million fewer animals annually (counting both field animals and cattle) than would a completely vegan model. When asked about Davis' arguments, Regan, however, still sees a distinction: "The real question is whether to support production systems whose very reason for existence is to kill animals. Meat eaters do. Ethical vegetarians do not."

[Debau2005]

13. A doctor told you?

How odd...for what ailment?

I have had nothing but increasing health since becoming a vegetarian a year ago this month. My thyroid levels have leveled off, my cholesterol is down, and so is my weight. I didn't become a vegetarian for health reasons, I did it for animal rights and humane treatment reasons. The health benefits were an added bonus.

I would not be able to follow this doctor's instructions, I can no longer eat anything that has a soul. To me it is no different then cannibalism.

"The time will come when men such as I will look upon the murder of animals as they now look on the murder of men."
Leonardo da Vinci, artist and scientist

[Mend]

16. I ask too, what ailment? I am a doctor of 30 years and I have never told anyone

to eat meat. My family is vegetarian now for three years and we have never felt better. We did it for humane reasons but are happy not to have the growth hormone, antibiotics, steroids, and diseases that pollute the animals.

[Cleita]

19. Check my post below yours, then check with a colleague who

is a nephrologist and he can inform you better than I can. Incidentally, the fact that you and your family are and will be lifelong vegetarians as long as you are able to, you will live longer and healthier than the McDonald's raised family. I'm not knocking you. I'm just saying that not all of us can aspire to this even when we have tried in the past. Also, since I live in a rural area, I'm able to get farm raised meat that is humanely slaughtered although it costs me more.

[Cleita]

18. That's because you are basically young and/or healthy. I too

had good health because of my vegetarian diet, but when you get older, your diet requirements change. In my case it was a form of anemia that requires meat protein and iron in spite of supplements. My husband too had to start eating meat when he went on dialysis from end stage renal disease. It was the only way he could get sufficient protein to counteract the protein removed by the dialysis process. Even the Dalai Lama, a Buddhist, eats meat, although most of his monks are vegetarians, because of a medical condition although don't ask me what it is because the article I read about him (in a spiritual publication) didn't elaborate probably out of respect for his privacy.

Part of mother nature's kingdom are carnivores so it's hard to be black and white on this issue. This is why I feel that humane treatment and killing of our food animals will do more good than pushing everyone on a plant diet. Some people, like my son-in-law, will not give up meat, however, he has had to cut down his consumption for health reasons as should everyone. I believe it's all a matter of balance. Humane farming of food animals will of course make animal products more expensive and therefore even the most rabid flesh eater will have to cut down and eat grains instead.

I believe it will force the fast food outfits to look into vegetartian options to offer on their menus like falafel and other vegetarian fast foods, tortilla wraps, bean burritos and such. Incidentally, I know what you mean about not being able to eat animal products. I usually have to eat mine in a different form like meatballs or chicken nuggets, animal flesh that doesn't look like the animal with no bones in it. I only eat my eggs and milk mixed in something like pancakes or custard. Since my animal products consumption is very low, just enough to keep me healthy, I still enjoy the benefits of vegetarianism, like normal blood pressure and low cholesterol. I am sixty seven years old.

[truedelphi]

21. I agree with everything that you are saying

Our ability to eat certain things can change over time

I used to be a veggie purist - with soy and tofu products as most of my protein.

but then my body would not tolerate Soy. Meanwhile i was too anemic to not think about finding the fastest easiest way of getting iron into my system.

So I got back into eating meat. But not anywhere near the "norm" that my family of origin practiced when I was growing up.

[DrRang]

7. Do we only let critters survive if we can eat/use them?

[Mend]

17. some animals have been termed "weedy"....evolution has

brought them the ability to reproduce in great numbers so that their species survive in spite of great losses. Examples are mosquitoes, rats, and mice. I think this concept is interesting.

[Cleita]

20. Don't forget rabbits and other prolifically breeding animals.

However, in my area coyotes, hawks and eagles take pretty quick care of the surplus.

[skipos]

8. I've been a vegetarian for 15 years or so, and

I never have any digestive problems whatsoever. It does make eating out a pain in the ass sometimes.

[RC]

9. To put it another way

There are too many people vying for the resources of this planet. We need to scale back our population.
However, It may already too late as Mother Nature is gearing up with a fever to rid itself of the pest which is us.

[rman]

15. Not necessarily

It may seem that way if you omit the fact that a few people aggregate much more resources than the rest of us.

Ultimately resources (and labor) translate to wealth - and half of all the wealth is in the hands of a couple of hundred individuals.

[BrklynLiberal]

10. Vegetarian Is the New Prius, Kathy Freston, Huffinton Post 2/7/07

<snip>
Last month, the United Nations published a report on livestock and the environment with a stunning conclusion: "The livestock sector emerges as one of the top two or three most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global." It turns out that raising animals for food is a primary cause of land degradation, air pollution, water shortage, water pollution, loss of biodiversity, and not least of all, global warming.

That's right, global warming. You've probably heard the story: Emissions of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide are changing our climate, and scientists warn of more extreme weather, coastal flooding, spreading disease, and mass extinctions. It seems that when you step outside and wonder what happened to winter, you might want to think about what you had for dinner last night. The U.N. report says almost a fifth of global warming emissions come from livestock (i.e., those chickens Hoover was talking about, plus pigs, cattle, and others) -- that's more emissions than from all of the world's transportation combined.

For a decade now, the image of Leonardo DiCaprio cruising in his hybrid Toyota Prius has defined the gold standard for environmentalism. These gas-sipping vehicles became a veritable symbol of the consumers' power to strike a blow against global warming. Just think: a car that could cut your vehicle emissions in half -- in a country responsible for 25% of the world's total greenhouse gas emissions. Federal fuel economy standards languished in Congress, and average vehicle mileage dropped to its lowest level in decades, but the Prius showed people that another way is possible. Toyota could not import the cars fast enough to meet demand.

Last year researchers at the University of Chicago took the Prius down a peg when they turned their attention to another gas guzzling consumer purchase. They noted that feeding animals for meat, dairy, and egg production requires growing some ten times as much crops as we'd need if we just ate pasta primavera, faux chicken nuggets, and other plant foods. On top of that, we have to transport the animals to slaughterhouses, slaughter them, refrigerate their carcasses, and distribute their flesh all across the country. Producing a calorie of meat protein means burning more than ten times as much fossil fuels -- and spewing more than ten times as much heat-trapping carbon dioxide -- as does a calorie of plant protein. The researchers found that, when it's all added up, the average American does more to reduce global warming emissions by going vegetarian than by switching to a Prius.
<snip>
more....
http://www.alternet.org/envirohealth/47668/

[Kali]

11. all the activities highlighted in red occur with plant based food production

moderation and a bit of effort to eat local can make a tremendous difference with out sacrificing the pleasure and nutrition of eating meat.

[NMMNG]

12. As of March I'll be vegetarian for 2 years and I have no intention of going back

:thumbsup:

[rman]

14. In order to not support the high-intensity meat production

that is environmentally unfriendly and produces meat that isn't very healthy,

it would suffice to eat healthier meat - and to eat less of it.

After all it's not meat as such but meat with growth hormones and antibiotics in it that's bad for your health.

[Emillereid]

22. Grain is not healthy for cattle or humans. Get rid of corn and wheat monoculture

in the praires, allow it to turn back into grasslands and let the cattle and buffalo roam.

Americans are basically corn on two legs as it is.