by frog
George Monbiot has just taken a look at the global food crisis:
Never mind the economic crisis. Focus for a moment on a more urgent threat: the great food recession which is sweeping the world faster than the credit crunch.
You have probably seen the figures by now: the price of rice has risen by three-quarters in the past year, that of wheat by 130%. There are food crises in 37 countries. One hundred million people, according to the World Bank, could be pushed into deeper poverty by the high prices. But I bet you have missed the most telling statistic. At 2.1bn tonnes, last year’s global grain harvest broke all records. It beat the previous year’s by almost 5%. The crisis, in other words, has begun before world food supplies are hit by climate change. If hunger can strike now, what will happen if harvests decline?
There is plenty of food. It is just not reaching human stomachs. Of the 2.13bn tonnes likely to be consumed this year, only 1.01bn, according to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), will feed people.
Monbiot passes by the obvious issues around the impact of unsustainable biofuels on food supply, and goes on instead to discuss the implications of meat consumption and the ethical response needed from omnivores. (His answer isn’t vegetarianism.)
Published in Economy, Work, & Welfare | Environment & Resource Management | Health & Wellbeing | Society & Culture by frog on Wed, April 16th, 2008
Tags: food prices, food security, George Monbiot, omnivore, vegetarian
on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
Umm, sorry frog, but I think that your last sentence isn’t quite fair – his answer is to eat as little meat as possible, and while he rules out a vegan diet as being too difficult, a ‘normal’ vegetarian diet is definitely the best fit to everything he is saying. He recommends tilapia – a (vegan) freshwater fish, saying that “Until meat can be grown in flasks, this is about as close as we are likely to come to sustainable flesh-eating”.
Sustainable flesh-eating is just not reality. I would think that the greens could (and should) admit this.
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nik – I wasn’t taking a position either way, but thought it was an interesting article worthy of debate.
As for the debate itself, I am more than happy to state that vegetarianism is the more sustainable option in our current factory farming global system. I personally think that a categorical statement that “sustainable flesh-eating is just not a reality” is a step too far, as many indigenous cultures have managed quite well and sustainably with a meat eating ethic.
Our current state of potential overpopulation, our over-fishing, over-consumption of meat and our oil-fed factory farming system are all unsustainable, but this does not logically lead to the conclusion that all meat eating is unsustainable. The current paradigm, based on the unreal assumption that growth can continue unabated in a finite world lends false credence to your argument that meat eaters are deluded, but does not fit the bill logically.
We are all deluded if we think we can just keep on growing and consuming ad infinitum, but this does not make the case true that all meat eating is unsustainable, only a case for changing the way we do things, including factory farming of meat.
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Hi frog – I guess I was taking the word ‘reality’ to mean our current reality, in which case I think the categorical statement is fair enough. I do agree with your other points about growth and consumption though.
Not wanting to vilify meat-eaters, I might make the comparison between eating meat, and driving a car when cycling or walking are obviously ‘greener’ options. I guess it just surprises me that the second issue gets so much more coverage than the first – the point being, that in this country probably more of us are in a position to choose not to eat meat than we are in a position to choose not to drive a car….. Of course once we have electric cars and sustainable farming of meat, there ceases to be an issue.
I was going to include the word ‘ethical’ before farming, but figured you would ping me for fuzzy logic again
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A world population where eating meat regularly is sustainable (not just related to grain supply but even in terms methane emissions) would be pretty small, I recon. If the greens want to keep away from the meat eating debate by going for the radical depopulation angle then that’s a weird way to stay popular…?
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nik – No pinging required. I like the word ethical! And I totally agree that our current ‘reality’ is totally unsustainable. But we’ll learn that lesson either the easy way or the hard way.
As for going veggie being the easiest thing an individual can do to reduce their carbon footprint, you are absolutely spot on. There is nothing easier that anyone can do, starting today. Even a moderate reduction in meat can have a huge impact. Switching to pork for instance, can have a huge impact because pigs are one of the more efficient converters of plant to animal protein. (At least among the popular food choices)
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Tom, all of the best answers to the problems posed by sustainability are radical.
There are other benefits to them too, though. Stabilising or lowering world population means more resources per person, which means a higher sustainable quality of life. Not eating meat probably makes food costs cheaper overall, and might have incidental effects on the poverty level if widely adopted.
Vegetarianism and small families are probably two of the biggest Green decisions you can personally make, however.
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Oh goodie! Let’s have the population and the vegetarian debate in the same thread!
They are in fact both very important debates that we should be having in the wider public, preferably as civilly as we have managed here so far…
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Lets eat people!
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If god hadn’t intended us to eat people why did he make us out of meat.
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Maybe god’s a turnip?
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Well, you could try just eating vegetarians since being further down the food chain they are likely to be the healthier option.
But probably the most important point in Ari’s post is that these things are personal decisions – and I don’t know how a government can legislate for change in these areas – which means that public debate is absolutely vital for getting people informed and willing to make these decisions for themselves…
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Justing adding to the food crysis fun, but Kazakhstan just halted all grain exports
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/38cd4d58-0b15-11dd-8ccf-0000779fd2ac.html
ooh, I’m glad I live in a food exporting country, so relaxing.
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No more wheat? And what food do we produce most of again? Atkins diet, anyone?
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Seems to me that eating the vegan fish tilapia is akin to eating sheep. Since sheep live on plants that humans can not consume, and are grazed on land that is unsuitable for food crop production, can someone explain to me why New Zealand sheep are unsustainable ?
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Well, I guess NZ sheep are up there somewhere near the tilapia, although probably closer to the pig. Maybe they even do better than pork in NZ(?) I am not sure how much of the land that is used to graze sheep is truly unsuitable for food crop production, but I suspect not more than 50% if not less?
Then if you leave out the ethical grounds for not eating meat (I admit not a very green thing to do but it simplifies things) then (oh, we also have to leave out the health benefits to not eating meat) we are left with the issue of sustainability. Apparently global consumption of meat is forecast to double by 2050 (http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-wellbeing/health-news/the-big-question-is-changing-our-diet-the-key-to-resolving-the-global-food-crisis-809566.html)
which is unsustainable growth by any measure. But I am digressing away from the NZ sheep
Can I suggest a utopian vision of the 10-20% of grazing land that is easily suitable being converted to growing food crops with the rest being available for regeneration to native habitat? We sacrifice a lot of land in this country to production of the holy roast.
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Mikaere – no one said ‘sheep’ were unsustainable. Otherwise nature would have eliminated them millennia ago. However, the way (less so), and the quantity (more so) that we farm them could be argued as unsustainable. There are many other, and perhaps more sustainable uses for the same land. Mind you, sheep numbers in this country have collapsed in recent years, so maybe their numbers aren’t so bad? Don’t know.
As for the vegan fish and categorical statements of Monbiot, I suspect he makes them to make headlines and create debate. His statement that all biofuels are evil certainly did, but we all know that biofuels are not created equal. Indeed, all meat sources and farming techniques are not created equal.
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1) Please take into account health problems that occur due to incorrect/malnutrition with a pure vegetarian consumption.
2) I think meat in general has a high energy value what nutrition is concerned. Most of this energy has to be replaced in a vegetarian diet. That means more fields for plantations.
I’m not in any way qualified to talk about this. Just by thinking a little about this I saw the two issues above and like to see somebody to come up with those numbers and put them into relation to meat consumption. My guess is that it’s not as clear cut as we’d like to have it. (See Biofuel! If you just look ath the high level model all’s fine but the detail shows that it’s actually worse than “normal” oil).
I think it’s a little too simple to say that if we all go vegetarian the worlds problems are going to go away. We’ll just (as always) create different problems. I’m definitely not pro-meat or against a vegetarian diet. I just want to see all issues covered first before we go propagating one or the other.
Personally I think the only real chance we have is to contain/diminish world population. I’m also convinced that this will happen in one of two ways:
1) We try and do it in a human-controlled way where we retain global controls for population control. (Hands up on who believes that will happen?!)
2) Widespread famine and food-war-deaths in the 3rd world.
The food-shortage events we have now are just a taste of what’s to come. And all those concerned with ethics should start thinking about what their arguments and protest boards should state when we protest against how the 1st world lets the 3rd world starve (even more than it does now).
Oh and….wasn’t it hunger that drove the French revolution?…
And for a taste of thing to come just look at Monsanto….
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Yes, I think it was specifically wheat that was the culprit then too…
)
I guess my response to your comments, Oliver, is that on a local personal scale vegetarianism is a positive choice I (and we all) can make. The health benefits of a balanced vegetarian diet far outweigh any nutritional problems. (provided you actually eat vegetables and not just processed food
On a world scale, looking at what is happening now, I would have to concur with your prediction number 2). And I don’t know that I have any choices that can do anything about that.
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Option 3) Pandemic
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@Nik:
About 50+ years ago the consumption of meat was usually limited to the Sunday roast. It was not affordable to have more than that. What we see in the food prices now might force the correction of food prices in the food industry in general. This would then look like what is happening at the stock exchanges every couple of years. In the end it might mean that meat prices would surge as fodder goes up. then we are again in a situation where the Sunday roast is the only thing affordable. Meat consumption will go down, vegetarianism will be economically forced and the environment might benefit.
This would even be ethically fair because the 3rd world probably doesn’t consume even a fraction of the meat in the 1st world. So it will be the main consumers having to change.
The problem with this is how spoilt as individuals we are. Nobody is prepared to share or give up freedoms/luxuries attained. The only times that happened in human history is when there were devastating wars. But after they ended it was straight back to the status-quo.
…
And hey, just as an idea on the side… your dog and your cat don’t need meat either! Make canned food (i.e. meats) a treat for your meat-eating petsand not the norm. (That was un-PC too wasn’t it?)
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Which meat, if any, is sustainable? I’d like the throw one more discussion point into the pot (so to speak). Is meat that you grow yourself, such as the home grown chickens I mentioned recently, sustainable?
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olivernz – the nutritional risks of a vegetarian diet are over-hyped and not significantly different from a meat based diet. The energy argument is also a myth.
I agree that it is too simple to say that going veg will solve all problems, but meat production does account for 20% of worldwide emissions. A modest decrease in consumption, which all can do without risk and actually save money, would have a large impact. Likewise with deforestation. It represents 15-20% of global emissions. If we just stopped chopping down virgin forests we could cut global emissions significantly without altering our economies significantly or cleaning up our power plants.
Combine sensible policy (and reductions) in those areas with sensible economic signals about coal use and we could be well on the way to the cuts we need to ease the pressure on the global ecosystem.
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One more thing to bare in mind when talking vegetarianism. From a diet perspective not every human can sustain on a vegetarian diet. It is probably closer to a quarter of the global population that can do so on a regular basis (see “pale grey skin” in George Monbiot’s post). We will always have the need for some meat in our food chain. To find out more about what type of foods are good for you and what not I’d advise to go to somebody who practices TCM or similar who does nutritional consulting. it’s very interesting.
One of my main convictions is that if you try and eat what you feel is right (i.e. what your body tells you!) for you you automatically start eating more environmentally friendly. A lot of us eat lots of the wrong stuff without being satisfied. It’s like putting milk in your tank and wondering why your car doesn’t start. Go and eat at Mc*onalds and you’ll know what I mean. My wife always says “Eat food and not food-like products” (quote is from somwhere I don’t remember). Doing that I believe is environmentally friendly. if it is enough to make a big change I don’t know but its a good and healthy step. If you are now wondering whether you’re on the right track I think if you go to a market once a week you probably are.
@frog:
George Monbiot writes about the 2kg to 8kg ratio for chicken and beef. So there is better and worse meat. So let’s have somebody find out for NZ meats what the ratios are. And please also take free range and organic into account.
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Home grown chickens must be pretty sustainable, and they make good fertiliser, too. But the fact that mostly they are kept for egg production rather than meat is just another example of meat simply being much less efficient food production. Unless it has something to do with squeamishness about eating animals we know?
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Oliver – a very important point is that Monbiot is talking about veganism – not vegetarianism. There is a very big difference in terms of the ease of getting proper nutrition (in terms of commonly available foods that is).
B12, protein, and iron are the commonly mentioned problems – but B12 is only an issue if you don’t do eggs and dairy, and even then you just do marmite on toast to fix it. Protein is pretty much fine unless you are bodybuilding (although I admit it helps if you like tofu, but even bodybuilders use vegetable sources) and iron … well, I stopped believing anything they claim about more ‘easily adsorbed’ iron in meat once I found that they put mussels at the top of the table for ‘heme’ iron (fyi, mussels are molluscs, so no haemoglobin in them at all, they use copper instead)
In brief, I agree with you about eating good food – I just figure that there is a lot of it out there that doesn’t require meat production first!
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@Nik:
Sorry, I mis-read that it was veganism. That is even more problematic for most people (ability of living on such a diet and preparedness to do so) so I definitely doubt there’s any way this can grow into a common phenomena.
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I think that your “preparedness to do so” is the only thing problematic… honestly, processed food is what hurts your nutrition, far more so than cutting out animal products….
I’m not trying to convert you but I think that people’s inertia towards change leads to a lot of exaggeration about the real facts.
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Why is it that vegitarians and vegans often consider certain aquatic organisms such as fish and molluscs to not be meat?
Meat is the flesh of an animal and fish and molluscs are just as much animals as fowl, pigs, bovine and humans. and if its the case that vegitarians and vegans only have to worry about mammal sources of meat then why do vegans not consume eggs, which come from a animal that is not a mammel, further more if its just a mammel thing then why not reptiles? are insects a problem? i dont mean to criticise, just to inquire, but it seems terribly hypocritical to me.
Additionaly as frog pointed out its not the creature that is unsustainable, its the way it is raised, otherwise they would of been eliminated through the destruction of their environment and food source, like humans are doing currently, and yet latter frog asks if there are any sustainable meat sources? i assume its just a slip.
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Not sure where you get the information that you can’t do bodybuilding on a vegan diet. Check out this website
http://www.veganbodybuilding.com/.
Faux muscles are not my thing, but I personally can’t see any difference between these body builders and their flesh-eating counterparts. The Spartans ate litle or no meat and they were certainly no wimps. Carl Lewis, winner of several Olympic gold medals for the 100 metres was not normally a vegan, but switched to a vegan diet when training.
It is surprising how these superstitions that meat is necessary for strength and health still linger.
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lotta people going to die soon fwog
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I never said that molluscs weren’t meat! Just that if a nutritionist tells you that molluscs are a better source of iron than spinach, and they tell you that this is because molluscs are meat, this is incorrect. Mussels store iron to use in their super-sticky glue that attaches them to rocks, but it is not haemoglobin-type iron such as in red meat. They use haemocyanin instead, which contains copper.
well, it depends on the vegan/vegetarian. One philosophy behind veganism is that it is unethical for people to profit from the labour of animals, which results in some vegans not eating honey. This is consistent with that philosophy, but for the majority of vegetarians it is not an issue. Most vegetarians draw the line at some arbitrary level – this can be as high as above fish, between fish and seafood (and presumably insects), or perhaps most consistently, at refusing to eat anything that once had an anus. Most vegetarians will agree that this is arbitrary – but from a green point of view, it doesn’t really matter. There are a bunch of green arguments for not eating fish (as pretty much all fishing is unsustainable) and arguments against eating meat since vegetable production is greener and more efficient – these are not the same argument but it doesn’t really matter. Just because an issue is complicated doesn’t mean that you can’t sit down, think about it, and come to your own decision on what you choose to do. If that means eating farmed salmon but not orange roughy, or chicken but not red meat, or no meat at all – it is still a better decision for your having thought about it, surely?
To your last point one could imagine that by meat ‘source’ frog meant the method of raising the animal….
And to address your first question last
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Sorry kiore – it doesn’t surprise me, but I was trying to think of counter arguments to my claim that protein wasn’t an issue. Thanks for the link!
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Well spotted sapient. I might be suffering from a split personality. Perhaps my insect eating side versus my vegetarian side. Who knows?
But really, it’s a n attempt to stir the debate about food and sustainability rather than whether or not vegetarianism is the solution.
If we all focussed the debate on overall food safety and sustainability rather than meat versus no meat, those with vegge tendencies would choose that option and those with omnivore tendencies might go the route I linked to – ‘compassionate carnivores’. I guess I just asked a rhetorical question and if you didn’t follow the link you would miss it.
And as for so-called vegetarians who eat fish/shellfish – there is no such thing. They are pescetarians, not vegetarians. They just want to belong to the club.
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Nik said: If that means eating farmed salmon but not orange roughy, or chicken but not red meat, or no meat at all – it is still a better decision for your having thought about it, surely?
Yes, it is about thinking about it. And, as an omnivore, to throw another issue into this, I am much happier to eat red meat than most chicken. I don’t have a problem ordering a steak when I’m out, but I do have a problem with ordering chicken that I have no idea how the chicken hsa ben farmed.
At least most beef farming practices respect the right of the cattle to have a reasonable life until they are slaughtered. Most chicken farming practices, by contrast, are obscene.
I know the likes of kiore1 will disagree with my personal views, and considers that we should not eat meat at all. I respect that opinion, and acknowledge that a vegetarian lifestyle is the most sustainable for our planet.
But I still like to eat meat from time to time. Respect for diversity of opinion is a very important part of what being Green is about.
Greens are not fundamentalists – we have varying views on some issues, but what we share is that we encourage everyone to do a little bit more than they are currently doing to ensure the survival of our species and the planet and its ecosystems upon which we are dependent.
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Toad – I agree completely. Frog’s backyard chickens would probably be tasty! Although fresh eggs trump chicken for me….
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Oh, toad, a question – would you order steak in the U.S.? You may not have read Pollan’s Omnivore’s Dilemma, but it paints a pretty grim picture of the life of a corn-fed steer….
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Interesting discussion. As someone who has ranged from lax pescetarian to strict vegan to wild meat eater (possum anyone?) over the past 25 or so years there are a couple of points I would make.
First I totally agree that thinking about what you eat is the first step – ethical, financial, environmental, health and spiritual issues are all relevant. If you take those into consideration, you are on the right trod.
Secondly, in the NZ context eating less meat has got to be better on all fronts and is something to be encouraged. Whether that means eating no meat is a harder question for some people.
Thirdly, eating home grown has many advantages, whether that’s summer strawberries, free range eggs or bunny meat.
Lastly, a discussion of global food security cannot avoid the question of land reform. There is growing evidence that the most productive (as opposed to most profitable) forms of farming are small scale, diverse cropping farms focussed on meeting local needs. However land ownership is increasingly centralised and farming is mostly devoted to large scale monocultures, focussed on commodity trading.
I am increasingly convinced that both food and energy security over the next few decades will depend on building more resilient systems, in particular decentralised production for local needs.
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nik said: Oh, toad, a question – would you order steak in the U.S.?
No, I would not.
Different farming practices in different countries – but as I spend the vast amount of my time in NZ, chicken and pork are the two meats I will avoid if eating out, because I am appalled by the way most chickens and pigs are farmed in NZ.
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Meanwhile back on the ranch…. The Greens should be concentrating on where pastoral meat farming is/is not appropriate. The Kiwi psyche is firmly sheep and beef oriented and that’s fine by me. What’s not appropriate is sheep farming highly erodable hill country (the ParaPara near Wanganui is a classic example) and over intensification leading to pollution. These are issues that will strike a chord with thinking voters. The “don’t eat meat-go vegan” message is sure to alienate all but the aliens.
Choose your battles
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samiam – agree completely with you on this one.
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Good point samiam – I think I said above that I don’t expect that this is something that government – and by extension a political party – can (should?) do much about, but that I think that discussion and debate in a forum like this is productive – people should think about these things.
In a wider context, consciousness raising is probably easier given specific examples like the one you mention.
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Toad
“toad Says:
April 16th, 2008 at 7:30 pm
nik said: Oh, toad, a question – would you order steak in the U.S.?
No, I would not.
Different farming practices in different countries – but as I spend the vast amount of my time in NZ, chicken and pork are the two meats I will avoid if eating out, because I am appalled by the way most chickens and pigs are farmed in NZ.”
You and me both Toad…good for you..now stop being so damn reasonable and give us one of your anti John Key tirades please, if I find myself agreeing with the Greens three times in one day I will have to seriously reconsidering my sanity.
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I have often wondered the same thing Sapitent.
I began to think quite early on in life that like human beings, all animals were equal – in terms of their right to exist on this planet. I don’t think anyone has the right to deny them life. Least of all for unnecessary fodder.
I understand in prehistoric times we needed to eat meat as a matter of survival – then agriculture developed and was perfected allowing us to grow a wide variety of fresh and stored produce. Produce that can and does provide almost all our physical body requires (no less than meat – with health benefits).
Farming, killing and eating animals has served its purpose. Many argue and I agree, that it’s unethical to slaughter peaceful creatures, creatures that have as much right to be here as you. Farming and slaughtering animals as we now know is a massive contribution to environmental pollution (from intensive farming). Many studies suggest that excess consumption (today’s meat eating diet compared to the Sunday roast once a week) of meat is unhealthy and has been linked to cancer (though many things are these days).
I have read that the human intestine isn’t designed to digest meat so it rots before it digests. Does anyone know if that’s true?
It would be nice if every person respected all animals as equally having right to be here. Perhaps then we would treat each other a bit more compassionately than we do. Not only that a number of our major global crises would be seriously alleviated. The hinderance: humans are so, ‘human-centric’… so into themselves. It isn’t hard to be ethical it just takes more thoughtful care than most of us expend or are willing to give. I just wonder why everyone isn’t compelled to do the work? Surely we can collectively save the word? For our children? Right? Only time will tell…
Be interesting to see where we go though… Likely a return to small scale meat-works, and home-kills again and an increase in plant-based diets?
Parts of the already desperate global south are sure to starve. More food riots. More civil war will break out, in more countries… Probably.
On a lighter note. Does any body know if the government encourages people to return to the land, get in to small scale agriculture? Does any one know if there are grants or tax breaks or something? Any encouragement for organic farming?
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I think the point is being missed here, and yes I’m going to harp on about overpopulation again.
The main reason I see meat being the best thing to drop from human diet is because the meat we eat takes a lot of other resources to produce. If we cut out the meat from our diet we can produce more of the other food that we eat, and get more protien etc. than we get from meat produced on the same land area. The only reason I see this being totally necesary would be because there seems to be an understanding now that resources are getting scarce.
If the global population was 3.5 billion (as it was back in the 70′s) there would be no debate over whether taking meat off the diet is a good idea, as there would be plenty of food to go around. That’s what the green revolution was s’posed to have done. But humans being human, allowed the population to grow when food was plentifull, and now we are in the same situation again. If meat was taken off the diet globally, we might be able to feed everyone, but then the population would grow even more and then we would have to take something else off the diet so that eventually the only food being produced would be whatever gives the greatest nutritional value.
This won’t happen though because clean water will run out before it gets to that stage.
There is only 1 planet that we can rely on for sustaining the human race, and we have inhabited the whole lot of it.
Human civilisations have collapsed in the past from exactly the same things that are happening around the world now. The only difference is that now if there is a collapse, it will be on a global scale, because we are all interdependant.
If the greens want a slogan to chant, maybe they should look back at the policies they were pushing back when they were the Values Party.
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”decentralised production for local needs. Your onto something there Nandor. Ive heard this advocated in terms of biofuel by blair anderson (mildgreens), but not by the big players.
meanwhile what is wrong with meat eaters? a bit slow to figure out what being new age means?( lol)
Frog, instead of making no judgement either way on meat-eating, you should add it up (eg use Nandors criteria- ethical, financial, environmental, health and spiritual issues ) and JUST SAY NO to meat, in line with the evidience/base as you would with any ohter policy position.
apply some principles (as in conflict resolution) . Or just switch brain off and keep eating those poor animals when chick peas are use one eighth the land that beef production requires (and how much less water)
ive said it before on the frog-list: meat is violent. it is WRONG.
Voilence aint ‘appropriate in a civil society, frog. creates bad karma if u get my drift
But im concerned that due to pc-speak in this food/fuel production crisis, Nowhere is hempseed ever mentioned. Formerly a vital and normal part of human food – greul for example – and of course the hempseed lentil fritter
hey, and bio feul from the cellusoe of the same plant the seed came from!
AND DECENTRALISED PRODUCTION. EG MY BACK YARD.
silly illogical law (impinging on civil liberties big time) needing fixing right under your noses Green party? Nandor?
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beef farming practices in nz do not respect the right of the cattle to have a reasonable life until they are slaughtered.
apart from the fact that most male animals are slaughtered as infants or castrated if intended for meat, even those allowed to reach puberty intact for breeding purposes do not get to mate naturally with the females of the species (who are therefore likewise deprived).
apparently it’s more “efficient” to extract the sperm with a needle & syringe, then slaughter the bull & keep the sperm on ice for later artificial inseminations.
i don’t know if any commercial animal farming treats the animals humanely or as anything other than production line entities.
eating fish is even worse – haven’t you ever considered the way they die?
which would you prefer – stunned & then throat cut, or either netted or hooked through the cheek or tongue or gum or whatever, then dragged out of your normal atmosphere to slowly die thrashing about drying off in the heat with your lungs in searing pain as you suffocate?
sorry to be graphic, but nobody ever seems to consider this.
regarding opossum, i thought we weren’t supposed to eat them because they’re afflicted with tuburculosis or something?
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one thing I know for sure – most Westerners would eat a lot less meat if they had to kill it and clean it themselves.
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too true, & as for those who are quite happy to raise & then slaughter & eat an animal – well at least they aren’t hypocrites, but still.
only i have a couple of problems – is reducing meat really going to lead to more sustainability or simply a bigger population? as someone else pointed out, humans, like other species, reproduce up to the limits of their environment to support them. perhaps all we’d accomplish is to eliminate additional species. in the future will there be any life-forms left apart from humans & their commercial crops (including some micro-organisms)?
other problem is getting enough protein (relative to carbohydrate of course).
humans should eat one third to one half the protein as they do carbohydrate (by mass). most vegan foods have protein between one sixth and one third the amount of carbohydrate.
exceptions are soy – which i consider a questionable food, as per: http://www.soyonlineservice.co.nz
and nuts, which i doubt many people can eat in large enough quantities while avoiding alimentary problems.
i was very excited about quinoa after stephenr suggested it & my initial reading suggested it would be perfect as the sole source of protein & carbohydrate, but later reading suggested it’s not as high in protein as is often claimed…
at first glance (in wikipedia) hemp seed seems even more promising
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I have to take to task the notion that pastoral farming, as practiced by my family on a typical Kiwi farm, is cruel. Bollocks! It’s time you vegos spent some time on a farm to realise the stock are happy chappies and the farmers do care. No they don’t die peacefully in their sleep, i’ll grant you, but they do live happy.
You won’t, however, find me defending the cage poultry or stalled pig industries, they suck!
If becoming weed eaters is your campaign, you might as well give up now, no one will vote for you.
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I think thats a bit of a half statement there Nandor.
Most Westerners would eat alot less of ANY food if they had to grow it themselves too.
It’s funny that humans seem to be the only species that are seen as cruel when they kill other animals for food. What about how sharks kill seals, or the way a cat plays with a bird before finally killing it?
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Can someone explain to me why it’s a better idea to change our eating habits rather than our breeding habits?
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Because god sez “thou shalt breed”
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I think he forgot to mention when to stop.
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Why stop at The Rapture when “we’s all goin’ up to Heaven” of course, except for those filthy Unbelievers.
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Interesting similar debate happening in the UK, as typified by this Independent story, The Big Question: Is changing our diet the key to resolving the global food crisis?
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Samiam and DougT – what do you suggest ‘we’ as a society should do to discourage ‘breeding’? Leaving aside the fact that our population would be decreasing if we didn’t have immigration, what would you do if people here actually wanted 8 children families? Tax parents for each child? Put 13 year old girls at school on mandatory contraceptives? Or more effectively, vasectomies all round at the age of 15 and all population replacement by immigration or adopting children from Africa and Asia?
The overpopulation issue is very real, but not that simple….
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How about something radical like education?
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Sure – I guess my point is that in this country that education is pretty well available to everyone, as evidenced by our current birth rates. Even people I know who actually want to ‘breed’, are quite happy to stop after 2 children. Sure there are exceptions, but few enough to make it a big problem in this country.
Solving world overpopulation through education on the otherhand – well, we are a couple of generations down the track, but who are we educating? And who are ‘we’ to educate ‘them’? Maybe this is why it isn’t working?
I guess I would rather lecture you about the benefits of not eating meat because I figure there is a greater chance of it making a difference
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What I’m trying to point out is that becoming vegetarians just shifts the problem of an unsustainable population back maybe a few years.
Developing countries are being educated about family planning, but they are also being encouraged to adopt our standard of living too, which creates more strain on the environment.
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And I may have sounded silly but, unfortunately, religious dogma is a major problem. If the pope had included overpopulation as one of the new deadly sins and declared no more than 2 kids the sacred duty of all good catholics….
Religions are guilty of trying to take over the world via reproduction.
DougT is bang on with education.
Too much charity is wrapped in religious wrapping paper instead of education.
Who are we to educate ‘them’? Have you read Jarred Diamond’s book Collapse? As he points out, we (modern society) have the wonderful advantage of hindsight as to the factors leading to the demise of past societies (who didn’t have hindsight).
It is our duty to educate ‘them’ and to take action ourselves.
Animal meat isn’t the problem, human meat is in the form of overpopulation.
Breed less is the new crusade/jihad
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Look, I am glad you guys feel strongly about this. But I don’t think it is enough to say ‘education’ and leave it at that. Who is doing the educating? At the moment, the people with the most influence where it matters (thankfully not in this country) are Bush and the Pope – what chance do you and I have to do anything?
We can vote in this country, we can vote for abortion rights and the education of our own children (that is meant metaphorically in my case) but I am not about to head off to Africa with a backpack full of condoms on a personal crusade!
So HOW do you propose to get education where it counts?
Oh, yes, I have read collapse – you did note the point about the Rwandan genocide being directly attributable to one of the highest (the highest?) population densities on earth?
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Obviously having people cut back on or stop eating meat is going to address a number of issues. But last time I looked there were quite a few issues, all connected in one way or another. Population and food, both issues that need addressing and both influence the other severely. Cut back on meat consumption and encourage people to have less of their own children and make adoption easier. I’d adopt instead, happily for the common good.
I have the feeling that if a political party began directly telling people what kind of diet to follow (the government already has a prescribed “eat some much of this food per day” scheme) and especially if it was a meatless one – the public would react badly. I think in the context of environmentalism and just treatment of animals it would be something that a party could promote in subtle ways such as an option to help conserve the environment. The idea will come around again and again and eventually those who opposed at first it will say it was their good idea.
who wouldn’t want to be on the cusp of a wave
or a dreamer?
The meat industry isn’t subsidized is it?
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Ok I was a bit vague on the “education” retort, but I think it’s not so much educating people about birth control, as the implications of having large families.
The thing that sparked my interest into overpopulation was when I saw this little clip of Jane Goodall
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6JLvIxdbjQ
It’s interesting to hear Jane say that she does push the issue of overpopulation, and even when I wrote an email about the subject to the Green Party members, Jeanette Fitzsimons mentioned in her reply that the Green Party does take population growth seriously too.
Unfortunately I think it is too hard an issue for people in developed countries like NZ to understand, and I think the Greens do realise this, which is why we never seem to hear the population issue from them in public.
We have seen enough of the schoolyard antics that carry on in parliament to realise that if the Greens did bring up the overpopulation issue as I asked them to do, the other parties (and the media too) would very quickly take the whole issue out of context and maybe cause votes to be lost (remember the fart tax?). I for one would totally respect the Greens for getting the issue out again, as they did about environmental issues before they became the carrot that Labor and even National now use to get votes.
I truely believe there is no way to prevent billions of people from suffering from the problems that overpopulation is causing. Some things may help delay it a bit, but that will just allow more people to suffer later. And I strongly believe that billions of people will die in the near future. Whether it’s from a pandemic or war over resources is the only question. Whether we in NZ see it directly is really dependant on how soon overpopulated countries react when the problem gets too far out of hand, and how our government reacts also.
What I am not so sure of is whether the human race will learn from what will most likely happen.
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“..Thirdly, eating home grown has many advantages, whether that’s summer strawberries, free range eggs or bunny meat..”
do you kill your own ‘bunnie-meat’ nandor..?
and um..!..why..?
and is that a clean sweep now..?
all the green mps are practising carnivores..?
i am actually gob-smacked nandor..
that you have reverted/devolved..
and are eating flesh again..
um..!..why were you vegan..?
was it a brief fashion statement..?
or just peer-group pressure at that time..?
it obviously wasn’t some spiritual evolving that found you repulsed by the thought of killing sentient beings..
just so you can eat their flesh..?
eh..?
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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you’d be popping up to jeanettes then..?
for some of her home-reared/home-killed (organic of course!)
calf flesh..
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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“..and if its the case that vegitarians and vegans only have to worry about mammal sources of meat then why do vegans not consume eggs, which come from a animal that is not a mammel, further more if its just a mammel thing then why not reptiles? are insects a problem? i dont mean to criticise, just to inquire, but it seems terribly hypocritical to me…”
do you know the meaning of the word sapient..?..sapient..?
were you being ironic..?
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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frog..
“..compassionate carnivores’..”
who are you trying to kid..?..
apart from yourself..?
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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seems you direct your greatest venom at those who are closest to you. maybe it’d be more constructive for you to congratulate them for the efforts they have made, & go after the 2kg/week gluttons!
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“Bollocks! It’s time you vegos spent some time on a farm to realise the stock are happy chappies and the farmers do care”
Bollocks is certainly the operative word (pun intended). If I was a cow I would be happier chappie being able to keep mine, not having them removed without anaesthetic (yes it is legal, check out the codes of welfare at http://www.maf.govt.nz if you don’t believe me). I would also be very unhappy having my horns painfully removed. If I was a female, having my tail removed would not make me happy, as it could lead to long term “phantom limb” pain. Having my tits pulled so hard that I get mastitis would also not make me happy. Being tranported long distances in overcrowded cattle trucks is not conducive to happiness, and who is so naive as to think that the final trip to the slaughterhouse is a pleasant and pain free one. According to the ACC, slaughterhouse workes have the highest rate fo accidents in the country. If that is the way the management treat their HUMANS, then how do you think the animals are treated.
And yes, I did spend some time on a farm, and was appalled at the brutality I witnessed.
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Would certainly agree with andrew there.
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Kiore we were talking meat here,not dairy. My family are (sheep &) beef farmers, no de-horning, no de-tailing (of cattle), no tit pulling. They do have a nice life.
I agree the dairy industry has a lot to answer for.
Same old issue though, the Greens get all anti meat and wonder why nobody will vote for them.
The Greens are perceived as anti-everything in some ways, which is a shame as we should be the ones with the answers, not just the problems.
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Beef cattle are also dehorned, castrated, and transported to the slaughterhouse. It is possible to keep animals in humane conditions, but not at the volume of meat and milk that New Zealand and overseas consumers demand.
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Fine kiore, you win, we practice ritual satanic abuse on our stock. All farmers should be run off the land.
Keep up the good work and the Greens will miss out completely this election.
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if it’s the truth it should be said, if not by a party during an election campaign then at least on a site like this among people like us.
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I guess the idea is to discuss practical solutions in the real world rather than ideal solutions in utopia. Stop all meat production in NZ? I don’t think so! Optimise meat production on a sustainable basis should be the Green aim.
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I don’t see any difference between Kiori1′s ideology and that of a any other religious fanatic bent on proving that their way of life is the only way anyone should live.
Take a look in the mirror and smile Kiori1, and you will see the canine teeth just behind the incisors in your mouth. They are there because you like every other human are an omnivore.
Whatever life choices you or any other vegitarian or vegan have made to cause you to not want to eat meat does not make you any more human than any other human on this planet. The fact that you so arogantly and ignorantly blurt out your high allmighty animal loving ideology, as if the human race is the only species that eats meat, or that can cause pain to another animal, shows how narrow your vision is.
I have no doubt that not eating meat would make feeding the overpopulated world easier to do. But all it would do is allow more humans to suffer when we finally run out of resources.
Forcing people to stop eating meat is a stupid idea, because it is treating the symtoms of overpopulation rather than curing it.
The BEST idea is to build a f@$%ing time machine like i said before. It’s far more achievable, and a hell of alot more realistic than vegetarianism.
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And by the way Kiori1.
When I was a teenager I used to milk the family cow every morning by hand, and she still used to get mastitis every now and then.
And I didn’t pull her tits any harder than the calf sucked on them either.
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Oh dear. Sorry guys, but I’m not sure that you getting all worked up like this is helpful. I don’t think anyone mentioned “forcing people to stop eating meat”? A big part of being a green is making personal decisions that are based on careful consideration of our own lives and our own environments. I think it is fair to say that not eating meat is a rational decision based on the word we are currently living in – I do not suggest that it will solve overpopulation, nor will it put an end to all cruelty towards animals. But as andrew said, these are things that can and should be discussed amongst those of us who are willing to listen and think about the issues. I suspect that most people who have stopped eating meat for one reason or another are quite the opposite of the utopian save-the-world sort of person, but seeing the big issues out there doesn’t mean that we are able to do a lot about them. I only get one vote, like all of you…. and it doesn’t go very far.
Still, there are some choices I can make, and not eating animals is a good one
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is that true? do fully vegetarian animals have no sharp teeth at all? i’ve never checked a horses mouth… or a mouse’s or rabbit’s
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DougT, I would say that we are NOT slaves to evolution as you seem to be implying i.e. the canine teeth. We are not the only species that eats meat, but we are the only species that is aware of the consequences of the way that we get our meat – intensive factory farming for example, which is able to cause a lot of pain and suffering for animals which is something some people do not like (kiore) and something other people don’t give a damn about.
Don’t know where you got ‘forcing people not to eat meat’, but like nik says, it’s your choice.
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Ok, I was a bit over the top by using the word “forcing”, but i think we are slaves to evolution when we still breed like our existance depends on it.
We are also probably the only species that is aware of the implications of unchecked population growth of a species on the environment, but most people still refuse to accept that our own overpopulation is causing the problems that all species on this planet are facing.
As I said before, not eating meat in the context of the original post is just delaying the inevitable.
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…but certainly an option for those who currently…exist.
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Becoming a vegetarian is an option, and I’m not saying it isn’t theoreticly a great way to increase the amount of food available worldwide.
But the way I see it (in the context of world wide food supply), it’s the same as going to the back of the bus when it’s about to drive off a cliff.
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Going vegetarian may be only a short term solution as eventually, unless we make other changes as well, human population will just increase again. However, in an emergency, short term solutions are necessary in order to give us enough breathing space to plan a long term solution.
Environmental pressure is a function both of number of humans and their impact. Lets get rid of all the surplus cows and the land required to keep them in production, and get to a stage where everyones impact is more or less the same. Then we can start looking at initiatives to cut population, if necessary. It seems advocates of population control are often rich people consuming far more than their fair share of resources who point the finger at large families in the poor countries, who actually have very little impact.
One of the better ways of controling populatio is education and improvements in basic lliving conditions, especially of women in the poorer countries. Once they have some control over their own reproduction most poorer women choose not to churn out a child a year until they are totally knackered. Similarly, if their future is moresecure they won’t feel they need lots of children to look after them in old age.
Maybe we will need to get to the stage of forced sterilisation but we are certainly nowhere near that stage yet.
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One more angle to add to this debate. From the International Herald Tribune
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if only someone could develop a pill which would cause the body to convert a certain quantity of its own fat into protein – half the western world could skip meals for a month
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this is a photo-essay of families around the world..
..and what they eat in a week..
http://whoar.co.nz/2008/what-we-eat-around-the-world-each-weekthis-is-a-must-look/
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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and yes…!..grow meat in a lab..!
it’ll be methadone for the flesh-addicts..
and no animals need suffer..
what’s not to like about it..?
(apart from how gross it sounds..
but hey..carnivores/flesh-addicts..
(yes..!..you ‘green’(?) mp’s..i’m looking at you..!)
..by their very nature/lifestyle..engage in far more gross acts..)
eh..?
phil(whoar.co.nz)
phil(whoar.co
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