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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Should We Eat Meat?
It's not sustainable
Eating meat is not sustainable. Until we are able to actually do something about overpopulation (ever hear a US politician mention this concept?!) we need to do everything we can to slow global warming. Meat eaters= gross polluters.
I'd like to see a world where those who have a small carbon footprint are rewarded.
In the end we will all be rewarded -if- we are able to come to terms with the reality that there are far too many of us, and we are killing ourselves (and many other species) by overpopulating, over-polluting and over-consuming.
- HoleiRollei July 24, 2008 9:01AM
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Sustainable? Really?
Well, let's just think about this one for a moment. Where do most people get their veggies? Well, most people buy them. Either in the grocery store or at a farmer's market. How did those veggies get there?
Okay, but they probably didn't travel that far, right? Perhaps. Perhaps not. Depends on where you bought them. Store bought means they could come from as far away as South America. Bananas certainly don't come from Ohio. Local buying is better, but that's still a carbon footprint. Several of my friends and I "go in" on a cow and a pig. We know where it's raised, we know who raised it, and guess what? It traveled just as far to reach us as the veggies some people I know (who don't grow their own) buy. As an added bonus, it raises money for rural kids to go to college. Do veggies do that?
Considering that over-population is a result of poverty, you would think that anytime you raise a person up to a level where they are self-sustaining, it's better for the earth. Now if only we could do this in places where poverty is the biggest issue facing the region.
So, even in-season, veggies have a carbon footprint. A huge one when they're shipped from other countries.
Now, what's a vegetarian to do when he lives in Vermont and it's January? How is he to get the nutrition he needs to survive? Where is his small carbon footprint? It has morphed into a huge carbon footprint. That's where it went.
You're also not considering the human impact. I don't know about you, but I DO have a huge problem with the treatment of fruit and veggie pickers as being second-class citizens. Or more likely, they're treated as second-class because they are not citizens. Whilst most are documented workers - as in, they're here specifically for the purpose of picking those veggies you so love to tout as being better than meat - the fact remains that they are looked down upon in our great society, and are paid minimal wages for work that you wouldn't be able to take for so little pay. Or do I have this wrong and you're okay with spending 10 hours in a field, bent over, picking cucumbers in 92 degree (F) heat for little more than minimum wage? I wouldn't do it.
In an ideal world, people would grow their own vegetables and eat what is locally available to them. THAT is what is sustainable.
- SocialistBetty
December 25, 2008 9:54PM
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I agree on what is sustainable
It's not just the population but where you live. Since the world has constantly changing seasons we have a warm one when veggies and fruit can be grown and a cold one when they can't. A lot of places in the world don't have conditions to grow their own. With the population of the world their is not enough room to grow enough to provide for all the worlds people without more deforestation in a effort to do so. This would indanger more species of wildlife than are already in trouble. Even animals like the New Calidonian Giant Gecko eat fruit in the season it is plentiful while eating rodents and such when it is not around.
While it has been proven most pigs can become wild and take on the look and traits of true wild ones they would be competing for our crops with us. Man would be killing them one way or another. Other animals that we have basically created would ruin our ecosystems should they be set free never to be eatin' only later to wipe out entire wild species that never had to contend with them before. To fight for the dignified treatment of animals is truely noble. To outlaw their consumption would either ultimately mean their genocide or the natural world as we know it.
While I eat very little meat myself it leaves me with one question. Do animal rights activists grasp the logic of conservation?
- Mcdowelli76
May 29, 2009 11:42PM
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Eating meat is not sustainable?
"Eating meat is not sustainable"? What does that mean?
"Meat eaters= gross polluters." LOL thats that funniest thing i've ever heard on the internet .
What won't we be able to sustain? Eating meat? Meat is a HUGE part of our global economy . PERIOD. It's not going away any time soon. I'd expect to hear this kind of "unsustainable" crap about oil and pollution, but not meat eating.
Are we overpopulating? Well, if you mean there are more people on this earth than ever before, you're right! But thats like being surprised when you put bacteria in a warm, moist, sugary space and getting all worked up because the bacteria are multiplying - you're just stating the obvious.
So if we are indeed "overpopulating" (which is relative in it's own right)... why don't you... sterilize yourself, or better yet, don't have kids .
Carbon footprint? You realize that carbon is an essential gas? Its up there with water and oxygen. Funny, you will rant about how we should all eat vegetables, but in the same breath you want to REDUCE THE GAS THAT VEGETABLES BREATH. Thats like saying "man, I really need to plant more tomatoes in my garden" while you light bags of tomato seeds on fire.
Carbon Dioxide also increases PRIOR to climate warming. Correlation does not constitute Causation! GORES " global warming " theories have been proven wrong over and over again, so why is it now just politicians and fake wannabe "liberals" who are proposing carbon footprint tracking and taxation? Because they are a bunch of power hungry, petty thieves. With good hearts in the wrong place.
Oh, and back to your original claim - That meat eaters somehow are "gross polluters", first of all, thats hypocritical, because i'll bet you drive a car, and those veggies you eat? Well those fields are most likely tilled by TRACTORS, and oh, they probably slaughter pigs + cows in the next field. And what about all the oil burned shipping these veggies? You're a Hypocrite.
I'm not assuming that you are proposing a government plan, but I am assuming that you wouldn't be opposed to a plan which restricts meat consumption and/or awards those who eat/produce veggies. If this is the case, you are advocating the THEFT of my hard earned money to feed your own cause, which is immoral and unacceptable.
This claim that meat eating causes pollution is UNFOUNDED and a testament to show how far people are willing to let the government go when it comes to restricting our basic freedoms. Show some class, dude.
- aone
July 29, 2009 5:49PM
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