Using the worst possible methods of ranching and comparing them to the best possible methods of veganism is not really fair.
Pasture animals are not tortured, return carbon to the soil and improve diversity, and can be slaughtered humanely - whereas in nature they die of starvation, or fearful, violent, rending predation.
Meanwhile some forms of veganism increase desertification, remove carbon from soil (and it ends up in the air), requires oil based fertilizer, oil fueled harvesting/transport (sometimes across oceans), and ends up displacing and killing millions of smaller forms of life. My beef at lunch kills one 2000th of a cow, my salad may have killed dozens of birds, mice and insects.
The question is not "Is it ethical?" but "can it be made ethical?" If one really wants to stop the torture and pollution, put your money into locally pastured meats. Because those ranchers don't care what vegans want. They care what their customers want. They will switch from CAFOs to Grassfed if they see a profit.
I think the problem is in part ignorance and also people not acting in accord with what they know.
Animal agriculture is the leading cause of species extinction, ocean dead zones, water pollution, and habitat destruction.
1/3 of the planet is desertified, with livestock as the leading driver. (United Nation)
As many as 40% (63 billion pounds) of fish caught globally every year are discarded.
Animal agriculture is responsible for up to 91% of Amazon destruction.
The leading causes of rainforest destruction are livestock and feedcrops.
Ten thousand years ago, 99% of biomass (i.e. zoomass) was wild animals. Today, humans and the animals that we raise as food make up 98% of the zoomass.
80% of antibiotic sold in the US are for livestock.
82% of starving children live in countries where food is fed to animals, and the animals are eaten by western countries.
1.5 acres can produce 37,000 pounds of plant-based food.
1.5 acres can produce 375 pounds of beef.
Cowspiracy (It's on Netflix and its director is Leonardo Dicaprio)
Wow, looks like you got your talking points from the UN. They are such noted experts that never embellish their statistics or sources of information. The attention grabbing headline here is how people with no scientific background, no statistical background, and no practical experience in the real world have the solutions for everybody's problems. Science is not decisions by conciseness or by feel good sentiments. It is based on hard facts that can be proved with empirical data. Sometimes that data can be interpreted differently, but is should always be based on the facts. Green Peace and Hippies with Agendas are not solid unbiased sources of information when evaluating these issues. Emotions need to be taken out of the picture and we need solid facts put into place. The biggest problem we are dealing with here is a lack of education when confronting each of these problems. Much of agriculture is being practiced with grossly outdated techniques. If you only get 375 lbs or beef from 1.5 acres of land, you are truly a shitty farmer. And if you can only produce 37,000 lbs of plant based food from 1.5 acres, you are again a really shitty farmer. Newer approaches are far more productive. The best approaches are integrated and involve plants/animals/fungus/bacteria/micro rhizomes and the plethora of other organisms working in concert. Take aquaculture for example. With modern techniques, plants, animals and other supporting bio fauna are grown in harmony with astonishing results. By the way, our depleted CO2 levels are actually responsible for much of our desertification. That's right, increased CO2 levels actually make plants much more tolerant of lower levels of moisture. The plants need less stomata for respiration and are therefore more tolerant of drier conditions. Funny how our little snowflake environmentalist-know-nothings are ignorant of how things really work.
Granted, I acknowledge that this little response is rambling, but I just wanted to point out that most of what is taken as religious-environmentalist-zeal is simply not so. Get a real education, something more than the shitty excuse you find for an education in most universities. Get some practical experience, learn what is real science, and understand that real science has nothing to do with feel good pole taking conciseness among "experts". Maybe you can do some actual good in this world instead of just virtue signalling.
The quality of life of an animal comes before CO2, period! Especially when its billions of them to try to feed an ever growing population. People eat TOO much eat in many developed countries. There is no balance and its not even needed. In many countries, like India for example, many families eat meat once a week and then enjoy amazing vegetarian food the rest of the week..
Then also they REALLY enjoy that meat WAY more than you would if you ate it every day.. And guess what, 600% less animals had to die!
So what is "real science"? Your response perhaps, in which you denounce all points and sources presented above and counter with a couple finds of your own, namely that most people are "shitty farmers" and that plants will cope with increased CO2 levels? Also, are you really arguing that CO2 levels are are depleting? They're definitely not. If you're going to ramble and throw some fancy words in, at least get your story straight.
Real science in the case of climate research is not getting some practical experience and talking shit about experts by trusting your gut. It's amassing and analyzing fairly gathered empirical data, weighing their support for central hypotheses and thereby coming to conclusions as objectively as possible, which can then gain support and result in a scientific consensus.
Evidence such as this: https://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/
Okay, you sure provide no link to anything but my sources are very bad because you said so. This make no sense.
The numbers I provided are backed up by empirical fact for the most part but you chose not to address most of them.
More info here my friend :)
You Can't be A Vegetarian
So what have i been for 5 years then?
A social justice warrior?
Now that was funny, far from that bro. I love watching SJW compilation vids.
Elaborative delusional
read this guys article before jumping on this one and it's not woth reading he doesn't even know the difference between a vegan and a vegetarian lol
I don't differentiate. plus. the hypocrisy is so big that their lines/boundaries cross more times than you think. debate on eggs, milk etc.
so yeah. your cult has many heresies
Obviously not because you didn't know the difference till i told you. You wrote a post about a group of people who openly claim they eat animal by-products. Clearly proving you didn't even know what a vegetarian was to start with, lol.
I wrote this article in greek including the difference of vegan/vegetarian 5 years ago.
I just don't bother with cult semantics.
may God bless you, since common sense seems evasive these days people sit at home and write up statistics while the vegan community raise placards based on soo many inaccurate statistics, i grew up animal/plant farming tbh iv come to realize a lot of people take this animal rights thing toooooooooo far. Their grandparents lived longer, healthier and still practiced a lot of these so called "crude" agriculture that brought them to existence. vegans still visit the zoos and take pictures why don't they advocate for the animals being returned to the wild? its educative and entertaining and fun to pay to visit caged animals and throw peanuts at the elephants in captivity....hypocrites. @reebo
Vegans visit zoos and take pictures??? That's hilarious! hahaha... where did you find that info? I would love to read that article. I agree with you though, 58 billion animals, not including fish get killed each year because we humans like the flavour. I have no idea what all the fuss is about, it's just 58 billion.
Wake up will you, My Asian friend and his wife went vegan years ago and right next to me i saw them having the time of their life at the zoo back in 2014 on boxing day, humans and their selective ideology, i could bet while we all eat veges and drive off to work going about our other daily non environmental friendly routines we are doing the world a favor, i mean 50 billion + life on earth We haven't considered, but oh lets not eat meat and we mite save the animals who mite not even have a planet to live on pretty soon, i foresee fishes swimming past Jupiter, you all trying to creating space monkeys too? I mean who smokes up some good weed & stumbles upon these things tho? measures have always been put in place to stop the total wipeout of species but nooooo vegans don't see those they only see (UNCONFIRMED) statistics and go into rage & placard mode...There's a "Bigger PicTure", people (non vegan alike) are actually out there making moves to save our "PLANET" while others are tagging themselves by a lifestyle and eating habit, yipeee more veges!
Oh well if your vegan friend visited a zoo then that must mean all vegans go to the zoo. Sorry I didn't realise that fact, my bad, lol. As for the rest of your comment, try eating less meat and calm down a little it's forcing you to speak a load of nonsense!
Except that everywhere you say "animal agriculture", the correct term is "Grain agriculture to feed CAFO animals". That same soy and corn land, returned to pasture, would correct almost everything else you mention.
The way to make that happen is not to stop eating meat, that just makes you not a customer and so not a concern.
The functional, non-totalitarian way is for individuals to buy local, grass fed, humanely slaughtered animal foods. That's what will decrease the CAFOS, restore the soil, replenish desertified lands (which are now only kept in crops by oil based fertilizer and irrigation), end the need for antibiotics, reduce the dependance on 3rd world sources (although that might drive them even deeper into poverty), and produce healthier food for everyone.
People like Saladin and Savory are already making this happen, but the religion of veganism just condemns them and ignores the good they are doing. Because feelings. And famous actors.
Except it takes more grain to feed the animal we eat than if we ate the grain we fed the animal and that most of the amazon deforestation has happen because of the grain agriculture needed to feed the animal we eat.
This has nothing to do between you and me. Saladin and Savory have been rebutted for obvious reasons.
Source: FAO
Since the only thing I said about grain is to stop using it, I don't know what you are talking about. You might not be considering the benefits of a diverse pasture land.
Saladin and Savory are still producing verifiable results so I guess someone needs to step up the rebutting. They better hurry because thousands of other folks are duplicating the results on their own lands.
It take some land for grazing but the land is already taken to the point we have to deforest large part of tropical forest.
If that were true, that would be a good point.
Good news! It is true! :D
Sad news, it's true!
sir you are absoluely right :)
@teamsteem thank you!
The way you can tell if something is humane is by asking if you would like it to happen to yourself. No sentient being wants to die unless they're terminally and or mentally ill. Other than that, there no such thing as ethical slaughter. If you think not then you're kidding or lying to yourself, both of which are extremely foolish.
Veganism isn't about being perfect, it's about doing the best you can to avoid cruelty and exploitation. With regards to the displacement and killing of animals accidentally as side effect of agriculture, please stop with the FUD: http://www.theflamingvegan.com/view-post/Vegan-Mythbusting-1-Are-wild-animals-killed-when-grain-is-harvested-for-vegans
Also, beef requires more plant matter to produce then the return in caloric value one gets back from the dead flesh. This makes it an inefficient means of energy transfer. Think about this, everyone in the world could be fed if the feed we used for farm animals was directed toward other humans. We currently have enough resources to feed 10 billion people this very moment but, instead we use it feeding the enslaved, abused, raped, tortured and eventually murdered animals.
We are destroying the future as the livestock industry is the largest contributor of green house gasses, one of the biggest pollution problems we are facing and the greatest waste of water to date. One pound of beef requires 600 gallon of water and in the south western USA, there is a shortage and this will increase in the coming years.
I'm not going to mention the health benefits of being vegan in this post but, i can tell you it's a huge plus. If you do your research you'll find this out yourself. It's selfish to think your taste-buds matter more than the lives of our fellow earthling. As Bill Gates and now many are saying, "Plant based diets are the future!".
Yes, I agree. I would rather die quickly from a gunshot to the head than starve nearly to death, then be pulled down by a wolf and torn open to be eaten while I die suffering great pain. Thank you for making my point.
As for health, without processed supplementation and distance foods, western veganism is not healthy. Try to live off what grows in 30 miles of any US city. Natural full health can only be achieved with meat and leafy vegetables.
For you to imply that starvation and or death by predatory carnivores would only be the outcome of livestock if everyone became vegan/vegetarian at the same time. This assumption would be incorrect:
Farmers markets, which provide fresh, sustainable and locally produced produce are growing rapidly across North America. https://www.greenbeltfresh.ca/news/farmers%E2%80%99-markets-open-2017
According to science. Plant based diets are the way to health, wellness and even reversing hereditary and or environmental conduced pathology. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_China_Study
The China study debunks itself. That's old and false propaganda. I can do a better job of defending vegetarianism than it did.
Debunk this @baerdric
Other studies show that increased grain consumption is the major factor in some of those same studies. They count a burger and fries as meat, when the meat is only 1/10th of the food eaten.
what studies were they @baerdric?
Okay how about these:
http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/89/5/1627S.full
https://www.quora.com/What-peer-reviewed-evidence-is-there-that-a-vegan-diet-is-healthy
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3662288/
https://authoritynutrition.com/vegan-diet-studies/
I'm not here to refute veganism. It does take transported, processed, and fertilized food to sustain, but that's not the point. The point is that eating meat is not the world destroying murder of otherwise immortal animals who are more valuable than humans.
Here's the real difference. If I want to eat meat, I eat meat. If you don't want to eat meat, you try to stop everyone else from eating meat or call them murderers.
So be a vegan, I don't care. As I said, and everyone seems to ignore, I was a vegetarian for 35 years. Probably more than most of the commenters on this thread. What you don't know is that I worked in co-ops, started a large sprout business, have always grown my own organic fruits and vegetables, and raised my child vegetarian.
Then I learned better.
So do what you want. Just don't call me ignorant, unconscious, a murderer, selfish, or all the other things people have called me on this thread. Or, at least, don't expect me to take those labels from people who can only see one side. My use of locally produced, grass fed, humanely slaughtered meat is not unethical. It reduces cruelty, improves diversity, and heals the land.
I noticed you said you were vegetarian, however, consuming dairy & eggs is still pretty horrific. Sorry for going there but cows are continually raped in order to keep producing milk and their calves are dragged away from them - it's pretty distressing to watch. Once they no longer produce milk it's off to the slaughter house. Chickens aren't treated much better - have you ever seen a conveyer belt of thousands of male baby chicks being dropped into a grinder because they serve no purpose?
It saddens me deeply.
Obviously you don't even know that vegetarianism is. Goodbye.
Since we were just bringing up point and facts, you didn't have to make this personal. Now, since you did here goes.
You say you're not here to refute veganism yet you bring up many arguments to do exactly that. Veganism is about bringing rights to animal which ones that are agriculturally produced, don't have. They should be equal or it makes one a bigoted carnist spiciest.
No one said you can't or your not allowed to eat meat. We merely bring up valid reason as why people shouldn't. If i pay a hitman to kill someone and they get caught and rat on the contractor, guess who else is going to jail? That right so the shoe fits. A spade is a spade and will be call so as logic dictates.
We know you don't care. You were vegetarian and turned your back which makes it quite obvious. It's like saying, "I was a pastor for 55 year but then I needed to kill people because i learned better!" Good job! No one cares what you did. I didn't bring up my personal life to try to prove to people that i was a good person before, so i don't see why there was a need to defend oneself except for the fact that someone got butthurt from the other's truthful comments.
Lastly you tell us we to do what we want but, only you can tell us what not to do? Can you please make up your mind? People are going to say exactly what they think and what they think is quite accurate. Exploiting and murdering anything that doesn't want to die is unethical, unless you think it's okay for someone to kill you right now or soon. What do you say? Yeah i thought so! Wait, it can be done by lethal injection because it's less cruel! YAY! So, do everyone a favour and please can you stop with the superiority complex and the attempt to justify your cognitive dissonance already? You state that you've learned after attempting to refute and then ignoring fact and cites that were provided, I would call that de-education but that's my opinion which I am actually 100% entitled too on blockchain social media.
Thank you!
Really? I've been called a murderer for three days and now it's going to get personal? LOL...
Implying that starvation or death of livestock by predatory carnivores would only hold true if everyone went vegan/vegetarian almost all at the same time. This premise however would not hold true as per the video in the previously reply
@baerdric Western Veganism isn't healthy? What is western Veganism? Why is it not healthy and where are you getting yet another made up fact from? If a plant based diet isn't healthy does that mean you only eat dead animal to get your nutrients?
there are certainly better forms of farming out there, free range etc that greatly reduce the suffering of animals. However, killing is still a sort of suffering that's inescapable
notwithstanding, the 'worst possible form of ranching' is unfortunately the most economically competitive and therefore, by far the most ubiquitous, so it's not an unfair cross sectional point of comparison
Now if we can grow steaks in labs (we're very close) and completely circumvent the moral issue of animal suffering, I'd have no issue whatsoever
@trafalgar freerange? Oh you mean letting 5% of your livestock outside for 2 hours a day whilst the rest hold each other up because they have no room to do anything else. Google freerange and look at the images, it shall explain why animal activists get charged with terrorism if found taking the picture. Tell me then what is greatly reduced?
There are already some substitute meats that are probably already better than the stakes in a lab are going to be for a long time ;)
When we can grow steaks in labs, all the vegans will need to go adopt cows and start cow sanctuaries because why the hell would cows have survived the evolutionary culling if they weren't so damn delicious?
BTW I really like your idea here:
So basically like when someone rich enough to fly around in a private jet giving speeches on how desperately people like I need to stop driving a car big enough to fit groceries in, pays some third-world native to plant trees? You should call them "Vegan Credits" and start an exchange immediately.
Killing is killing. No matter how you do it.
All life is killing. Even herbivores like deer, horses and cows will kill and eat birds, rabbits and mice. Most vertebrates depend upon, or are willing to eat other animals.
It's part of nature.
Even plants will eat animals if they get a chance. In fact, they could not live if animals didn't die on them, rot down into their roots, and return the phosphorous they need to grow and can't get elsewhere.
Killing and dying is not the worst thing. Disrupting the cycle of a biosphere by refusing to kill or die is the worst thing.
...and when you eat fruit, you are promoting life, not taking it :) Become a REAL human: a better human! Humans need not kill, and that is what makes the human species amazing.
@ Finally the heavens have opened up. If you don't want to harm plants because of their feelings then help the plant and eat its fruit!
Sorry, I don't get it. If I refuse to eat a cow which was, supposedly, killed for my benefit, how am I disrupting the cycle of a biosphere?
We removed millions of herd animals off the land, killed their predators, monocropped their land destroying the biome, and ground the grain into flour to replace our natural food sources. And you only see the last 10 days of the disruption? One hamburger more or less makes that all just fine?
We are the apex predator. We displace wolves and sharks. We need to do their job. Those herd animals should be back on their fields. The only non-totalitarian way to get them there is to buy and eat pastured meats.
"We are the apex predator. We displace wolves and sharks. We need to do their job" - Wow. There's doing their job and there's going too far. I think we've done the latter.
Well, we have certainly done their job wrong. Allan Savory's methods are more like this, where wolves changed the habits of prey and caused an ecological recovery.
We are not the apex predator. We are disruptor.
That's the whole point - being with the nature or against the nature. Killing millions of stock animals for food is against the nature.
We are pretending to be better than the nature. We are not!
We are pretending to know and play our role. We are presumptuous. We are vane.
The original sin of the (western) civilization is constant fight against the nature.
Nature doesn't care about us. Give or take several hundred thousand years we will be history. The nature will still be here.
Even if we destroy this planet from human point of view sooner or later the nature will fix itself.
We humans are not the solution. We are the problem!
That's only been true in the last 10000 years or so (grain agriculture). Just because we are doing it wrong doesn't mean there is no right way to do it. Learn and grow, it's the human way.
@baerdric wild animals kill for survival, humans kill for pleasure. Big difference. Humans are opportunistic omnivores. We ate other animals as a survival mechanism. Today we have a choice not to and enjoy the multiple benefits that come with a compassionate plant based lifestyle.
I highly advise you visit a slaughter house to witness first hand who is disrupting what.
Which humans kill for pleasure? Less than 1%. Most kill for food. I suggest you visit some developing nations to learn what humans really do outside of the corporate brainwashing of the Megafarms who want you to eat food that is cheaper to make, more profitable to sell, easier to store and transport, causes diseases they can treat but not cure, and domesticates the populace with estrogeniods.
@baerdric even Vegans will eat animals if there were no plants! But thankfully we don't need to, we live in a world in which we can grow our own food like myself with just water in over 85 pots. Or one can buy from the supermarket. As for animals needing to die in order forplants to grow on that soil...This spring as I was driving from Vegas to LA, we had had so much rain that I'm pretty sure I sure grass growing all over the dessert...in between the other plants that is. I was shocked to be honest, and I still dont know how it's possible. I mean it was green grass and a lot of it!
Learn about the phosphorus cycle and get back to me.
Not really sure it has any significance, 91% of the Amazon has been chopped down for animal agriculture because people like have decided they like a flavour! My childs existence has been put at risk because of ignorant people like yourself who don't educate themselves! We are as individuals responsible. No government forces meat down the necks of humans. Each and every person is responsible for their actions. Only problem is, my family has to live with the consequences of your need to murder. Then when we say anything we're labeled as a cult or whackos. We are somehow the nutters for wanting to save the earth! Can you understand where I'm coming from? Eating meat is not needed and there is no such way of humane killing. To kill is to kill end of story. That's the issue though with the majority of all you sheep. You search for excuses and ways to get around things. Open your eyes, accept that your local farmer fantasy shall never be a reality! They don't kill 58 billion animals for fun, they do it for profit! There isnt even enough space for 58 billion animals to be grazing in the fields. It's only you that would somehow feel better if you could say, ah me, I only buy local grass fed beef that the farmer has massaged daily and put humanely to rest. It's a fantasy because you would like to be a nice person but fact is, you participate in mass destruction. Again we are responsible, me and you! Please wake up.
I understand what you are saying. I understood long ago. You're just wrong.
Here's the thing. I am well educated on both sides of the issue, you barely understand one side and get most of that wrong.
You dont need to be educated, but still I'm happy for you. Start by sending facts. Links to organisations that are not sponsored by the meat industry. And please calculate the current demand of 58 billion. Not your fantasy of my local farmer. Where are you putting 58 billion animals. Also explain why it's fine to murder 58 billion animals. I'm deeply interested to understand how you think because for me it's mind boggling how you view the opposite when 92% of just the amazon has gone. Im not mentioning usa. I'm haven't even mentioned the top 12 causes of death in the USA. So explain, maybe write your own post and I'll vote it up for your time and effort.
I totally agree with you!
BTW, I was vegetarian for 30 years before I learned better.
I support. Better to improve the lives of those animals that live on farms. Anyway, no one will be able to translate all people into vegetarianism.
Western vegetarianism requires supplementation for good health. You can see in these comments that the recommendation is for highly processed, expensive and non-local products. That's not as ethical as carnivorism, which almost all vertebrate animals either depend upon or will partake in.
You do realise that farmed animals are supplemented? Meat eaters take supplements along with growth hormones and antibiotics with their meat. Omnivores automatically assume their diet doesn't need to be supplemented without doing any blood tests. However no diet is healthy without proper planning and a lot of omnivores are lacking in vitamins, minerals and antioxidants only found in plants.
I probably realised that 30 years before you did. Clearly you haven't read my comments. Come back when you have.
I have asked myself this question many times. I think it is probably not ethical to eat meat. This is why I have been mostly vegetarian last few years. But some friends keep telling me that plants can also feel fear of some sort, so I'm no longer sure... Maybe it is not possible to go through life without inflicting harm on something???
:(
All we can do is minimize the pain. Shooting a cow in the head after a decent life is much better than they get in the wild. After that it's just food. Better food than soy loaf or processed grains.
But that doesn't mean we should try to avoid inflicting unnecessary harm.
That's the gist of it. Though I'd say it encourages one to appreciate the sacrifices a little bit more.
But the leather from dead animals can be reused for nice bags ;-)
some other truly point of view fertilizer from animals
gives the soil nutrition to flourish naturely far better
than Monsanto poisen !
thanx for this post :)
You might want read this
You Can't Be Vegetarian
Billions of mice (sentient life) every year are poisoned for mass agriculture purposes.
We do have lab grown meat now. I am all for it.
I get the idea that artificial meat doesn't kill an animal. But putting more of our food production into the hands of Industrial Chemical companies like Monsanto doesn't seem to be the best idea.
The problem is that people think if we don't eat meat, animals won't die. Yay! Instant immortality!
lol. exactly. emotional arguments.
Eat only fruits, berries and melons for a healthy lymphatic system! You will feel wonderful once your kidneys are actually draining. You have no ideas... Clean your system and enjoy your a healing body!
No
@baerdric u have explained it so nicely .. eating beef is human what is so inhuman about it .animals are made to be slaughtered for meat and afterall they are of the bigest sources of meat although...
I wanted to reply to this, but baerdic wrote an excellent reply which I agree with. Well done!