Thanksgiving arrives every year with a heated debate over how to best cook that plump and juicy turkey. But the idea of a tofu turkey (also known as a “tofurkey”) has gone from a joke a couple years ago to a reality for many. While vegetarianism has been practiced for over a thousand years in some countries, it is a relatively new concept in the West. And so, with the question cropping up more and more often, should we eat meat?
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I just had to add a comment on the supposition that livestock eats food that could be put to better use being fed to humans.
Wrong.
First of all, livestock consume plants that we humans don't/can't eat: hay, straw, alfalfa, rye grass, etc. Though in some cases they are fed humans products, it's not enough to feed the world.
Also, food grown for human consumption needs to be grown on certain types of soil, which may not be readily available. The most suitable land has a temperate climate, rich humus, sufficient rainfall, is close to water, and has an abundance of natural "pest" control (ie: lady bugs, spiders, etc). Unfortunately, this land is usually occupied by plants and animals , so in order to make it profitable for human crops, the native species have to be evicted. Then, the earth has to be cleared, an infrastructure built, and finally crops will be planted and processed.
However, this poses a certain problem: huge ecosystem damage and animal mortality. Food chains are destroyed, and the environment is irreversibly compromised. Vegans say we can use the existing land originally used for livestock: but that is incorrect.
Livestock land does not = crop land. In most cases, it is very unsuitable. The soil is often hardened, churned up, filled with waste from the animals, and completely depleted of the natural, healthy microorganisms that usually reside in soil and make it productive for crops. It would take much time (and money ) to re-cultivate the land for crop production. No corporation would be willing to do this; instead they will clear more and more already fertile land, keeping the land originally used for livestock barren and untouched.
If the world went vegan, the supply plants will either remain constant, meaning the poor won't reap the benefits, or more land will be cleared, which harms our environment more and more.
- scarlet1979
May 31, 2009 3:33PM
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You don't seem to be disputing the fact that meat production requires a great deal more land than the production of vegetables and grains. That's good. It's a simple ecological principle that each step up the food chain normally requires several times the resources as the level below.
It's true that some of the land used for grazing animals would not be suitable for growing crops. Unfortunately, much of that same land is not suitable for grazing animals either! Sure, they can eat the vegetation that grows there, but in doing so they're doing serious damage to the environment . In some cases it may be trampling and compacting the land, promoting erosion, depositing manure where it will wash into streams, or over-consuming rare native plants.
The replacement of meat with vegetarian foods would certainly make more land available for growing crops, but it's not only about feeding more people. Fewer meat eaters would make more land available for all kinds of uses, whether you want homes, factories, parks, parking lots, or wilderness. Untouched land has a great deal of value. For instance, there's a little thing called "biodiversity."
- Paul108h October 27, 2009 7:29PM
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How much cattle kill Masais and how much is killed by the rich countries? Let's compare pollution and breeding-related problems between rich countries and Masai. Actually there's no comparison. Not so many decades ago in most towns and villages people gathered to kill a few pigs or cows or lambs and they used to get the most of them. Think about all different types of meat that a pork gives: tripe, ham, chops, face, muzzle, ears, feet, sirloin, ribs... And people didn't eat meat everyday, rather they learned how to preserve it so that it lasted for a whole year.
Now think about the meat industry in the United States, people eat meat everyday without any consideration, just because they can afford it. Meanwhile , rivers, aquifers, the air is being polluted, forests destroyed to grow food for animals , ... Is this the same situation as with Masai? Please, look for a better comparison because this one does not add up.
- joancarles
May 31, 2009 4:59PM
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Would You Care to Start the Meal with Stone Soup?
- From Reason Foundation
By Reason Foundation - Free Minds and Free Markets
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This argument isn't really useful
As the Reason Foundation admits, using the Masai people as an example is extreme. So is the example of eating Stone Soup. What is the evidence for millions of people starving if they didn't eat meat? Prior to the 20th Century, most people all over the world ate meat very infrequently and were much healthier than modern meat eaters. They didn't suffer from heart disease, diabetes, obesity, cancer, etc. Millions of vegetarians world-wide are living long, healthy, disease-free lives.
- Santa Cruz Mom
July 13, 2008 5:39PM
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Healthier in 1900?
1) While there are a group of diseases on the rise in the industrialized world, it is inaccurate to describe 19th century people as healthier.
2) Our ancestors did suffer from all of the listed diseases - there is a difference in rates of disease.
3) 100s of Millions of meat eaters are living long, healthy, disease-free lives.
4) There is a huge difference between eating meat infrequently (but as often as possible) and the position advocated by PETA.
- Adam Hammond
September 3, 2008 2:15PM
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Bollocks
In this thematic, to bring up an exampla such as you did with the Masai, is just wrong!
The question wether people should eat meat or not - especially when it is discussed on the internet - doesn't categorically include such societies as the massai.
Most people who are against eating meat, have a problem with the industrilisation of meat.
i wouldn't have a problem with you going in the woods with a knife and hunt yourself a deer, but, the grotesque is, that children for example don't even recognize that they eat "these cute little veal".
Get It?
- Yelneerg July 28, 2008 5:25PM
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Animal sacrifice
What is the huge sacrifice in NOT eating animals? To say that poor people should eat meat because their lives are bleak and there fore we all should eat animals as well is one of the most silly arguments I've ever heard/read before on this issue.
- Phat P
August 6, 2008 12:59AM
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Poor foundation.
Unfortunately, this comment mentions that a remote culture, which has relied through the centuries for survival on cattle blood and milk, must somehow be indicative of what we should do in Western Society. We have abundance and they can't be choosing what they are going to eat. Poor people can have a much better diet if it was based on wholesome plant foods, instead of meat. If meat is culturally a symbol of prosperity, that because of the herding culture we live in (see Will Tuttle's World Peace Diet). It also has a "macho" aura to it, but should we base our actions on that, too? Conclusion: meat is bad for health, bad for the environment, and bad for the animals. Period.
- mgalli
August 7, 2008 4:51PM
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meat base diets are for the wealthy countries
"It’s easy for those of us lucky enough to live in rich Western countries blessed with fertile soil and temperate climates to insist on a plant-based diet. But for millions of people worldwide, a non-meat diet is a starvation diet. "
Reason has this backwards. Only wealthy countries and people are capable of having diets based primarily on meat and poor countries typically have diets based primarily on plants. Meat is far less efficient to produce than vegetables (it takes roughly 10 pounds of vegetables to produce one pound of beef) and studies have shown that meat based diets lead to chronic diseases that plant based diets avoid.
Meat costs far more resources to produce than vegetables and is unnecessary for a healthy diet. If we want to feed poor people then a diet built around vegetables, not meat, is the solution.
- reckoner
August 14, 2008 2:12PM
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Easy to be veg
"It’s easy for those of us lucky enough to live in rich Western countries blessed with fertile soil and temperate climates to insist on a plant-based diet."
You're right. It's incredibly easy to be a vegetarian or vegan in places like the US.
- ElaineVigneault
September 7, 2008 9:54AM
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Masai and Plants
The Reason Foundation said, "It’s easy for those of us lucky enough to live in rich Western countries blessed with fertile soil and temperate climates to insist on a plant-based diet. But for millions of people worldwide, a non-meat diet is a starvation diet."
This isn't an accurate statement. For millions of people worldwide, a non-meat diet is not a starvation diet. The Masai people of East Africa have become increasingly dependent on food produced in other areas such as maize meal, rice, potatoes, and cabbage. Furthermore, the Masai who live near crop farmers cultivate produce as their main source of sustenance. If the Masai people were to continue eating a diet that consisted only of animal-products they would probably perish.
The Reason Foundation said, "Even for the poor in America, meat is a powerful totem of wealth and good living. People on a limited food budget will trade a smaller number of total calories in exchange for a morsel of meat once they get above starvation levels."
I don't see the relevance of this sociological fact.
The Reason Foundation said, "To be an absolutist against meat eating is fairly uncomplicated for relatively wealthy Americans who make up, say PETA’s membership. But it asks a huge sacrifice of millions, perhaps billions, of people whose lives are already harder, bleaker, and (too often) shorter than our own."
I'd like to dismiss this whole "argument" as a specious piece of rhetoric (which it is), but I think your final conclusion is wrong.
Given that some of the Masai people have moved toward produce cultivation rather than animal husbandry, this undercuts your claim that it is asking a "huge sacrifice" for them. The only "huge sacrifice" that ought to be inferred from this article is that the existence of the Masai people would be harder and bleaker if they did not begin to cultivate produce.
- Tadius September 9, 2008 10:53AM
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I support the eating of meat, but this argument is absurd.
Arguing that vegetarianisms is a privilege of the wealthy, and that if people stop eating meat, the nebulous poor people of the world will be materially damaged is simply counter factual.
It is an unarguable economic reality that beef and chicken farming increases the price of grain. If we reduced or stopped the farming of beef and chicken then more land would dedicated to producing grain to feed people, instead of grain to feed animals. If this were the case, world grain prices would fall, and the poor and hungry would have more food and more money.
So, whatever else vegetarianisms does or does not do, it does not hurt poor people.
Please do not take the name "reason" in the name of your organization and then go off and say things which are demonstrably false.
Now, I'm going to make myself a ham sandwich.
- Matthew Ackerman September 19, 2008 12:07PM
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Murder
So... I think we can all agree that murders wrong right?
Murder refers to killing a human... Humans are animals ... But, killing an animal is okay? doesnt make sence does it??
Think of it like this; you wouldn't like to live in a cage or a digusting factory farm your whole life and then, when you finally think your getting set free, you go to a place where you get your throat slit open, limbs broken and body mutilated. It just isn't fair.
I actually do believe that eating meat is natural and i think its fine to do so in a humane way, but that just doesn't happen anymore. People just don't care, they want to make money and don't care who gets hurt (or killed) in the process, including animals.
So to all the meat eaters out there, I could honestly care less what you eat if you really believe in it, but watch a few videos or go visit a slaughter house where your meat comes from and then see if you can even stand the sight of it, because I know I cant!
- ajroxyoursox
July 11, 2009 9:45PM
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Enlighten yourself
Isn't man amazing?
He kills wildlife by the millions in order to protect his domestic animals and their feed.
He kills domestic animals by the billions and eats them.
This in turn kills man by the millions, because eating all those animals leads to degenerative--and fatal-- health conditions like heart disease,kidney disease, and cancer .
So then man tortures and kills millions more animals to look for cures for these diseases.
Elsewhere, millions of other human beings are being killed by hunger and malnutrition because food they could eat is being used to fatten domestic animals.
Meanwhile, some people are dying of sad laughter at the absurdity of man, who kills so easily and so violently, and once a year sends out cards praying for "PEACE ON EARTH"
The meat industry spends hundreds of millions of dollars lying to the public about their product. No amount of false propaganda can sanitize meat.
The facts are absolutely clear: Eating meat is bad
for human health, catastrophic for the environment , and a living nightmare for animals
- dms61757
August 6, 2009 4:15PM
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Thank you dms61757!
You made a succinct and meaningful argument that I will ask permission to use in the future.
Having read this entire thread, and as a ethical vegan, I have heard all the aformentioned arguments and they are true but not quite as sanquine as your straight-forward approach. Plaudits and please continue with this approach.
I am and environmental attorney and thank you for sharing your thoughts
- glo6110
August 12, 2009 11:33AM
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