[Dialogue] Progressives vs the Environment

Thu Mar 15 03:43:11 EDT 2007

What about fish, lamb, goat and other fowls of the air???John
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Jim Rippey 
  To: Dialogue 
  Sent: Thursday, March 15, 2007 4:01 PM
  Subject: [Dialogue] Progressives vs the Environment

  Colleagues:
  I seldom eat chicken , beef or pork.   I wonder if I will now take the next step.  Bon Appetit.    Jim Rippey
   (I excerpted and truncated this article to meet Dialogue size limits.  Full article at:  http://www.alternet.org/envirohealth/49188/ 
  You Call Yourself a Progressive -- But You Still Eat Meat
  By Kathy Freston, AlterNet, 3/14/07
  http://www.alternet.org/story/49188/
  The report released this week by the world's leading climate scientists made no bones about it: Global warming is happening in a big way and it is very likely manmade. The U.N. report that came out soon after made a critical point: "The livestock sector emerges as one of the top two or three most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global." And yet, so many environmentalists continue to eat meat. Why?

  Being part of the solution can be a whole lot simpler -- and cheaper -- than going out and buying a new hybrid..  Factory farming pollutes our air and water, reduces the rainforests, and goes a long way to create global warming. Yet for some environmentalists, the idea of giving up those chicken nuggets is still hard ..

  So .. (about) my meat-eating friends.. 

  Some were worried about thriving, physically, on a vegetarian diet. 

  .. Half of all Americans die of heart disease or cancer and two-thirds of us are overweight. The American Dietetic Association says that vegetarians have "lower rates of death from ischemic heart disease .... lower blood cholesterol levels, lower blood pressure, and lower rates of hypertension, type 2 diabetes, and prostate and colon cancer." Vegetarians, on average, are about one-third as likely to be overweight as meat eaters.

  And I've just learned from the brilliant Dr. Andrew Weil that there is something called arachidonic acid, or AA, in animal flesh that causes inflammation. AA is a pro-inflammatory fatty acid. He explains that "heart disease and Alzheimer's -- among many other diseases -- begin as inflammatory processes. The same hormonal imbalance that increases inflammation increases cell proliferation and the risk of malignant transformation." ..  inflammation is key in so many of the diseases that plague us. So when you eat meat, you ingest AA ..  It doesn't matter if the chicken is free range or the beef is grass-fed because the fatty acid is ..  in the meat.

  As for having strength and energy on a vegetarian diet, some of the world's top athletes are vegetarian. A few examples: Carl Lewis (perhaps the greatest Olympian of all time), Robert Parish (one of the "50 Greatest Players in NBA History"), Desmond Howard (Heisman Trophy winner and Super Bowl MVP), Bill Pearl (professional bodybuilder and four-time Mr. Universe), Jack La Lanne (Mr. Fitness himself) and Chris Evert (tennis champion).. 

  One person pointed out that the rain forest is being cut down to grow soy, not meat. 

  Actually, much of the rain forest is being chopped down for grazing, but also ..  is being chopped down to grow soy -- but not for human consumption. Americans and Europeans can't raise all the feed domestically that is needed to sustain their meat addictions, so agribusiness has started cutting down the rain forest group..  the overwhelming majority of soy (or corn or wheat, for that matter) is used to feed animals in factory farms. In fact, Greenpeace recently unveiled a massive banner over an Amazon soy field that read, "KFC-Amazon Criminal," to accentuate .. (that)  companies like KFC are responsible for the destruction of the Amazon. It takes many pounds of soy or other plant foods to produce just one pound of animal ..

  Some wondered about humane, organic or kosher meat. 

  Sadly, most of the meat, egg and dairy companies that pretend to be eco- or animal-friendly.. are basically the same massive corporately owned factory farms but with a newly hired advertising consultant. In fact, labels like "Swine Welfare" and "UEP Certified" are simply the industry labels that attempt to hide the horrible abuse involved in these products' production. And even "organic" farms are industrializing in ways that shock the journalists who bother to investigate. Sadly, "kosher" means nothing when it comes to how animals are treated on farms, and the largest kosher slaughterhouse in North America was caught horribly abusing animals .. and defending the abuse as kosher. . 

  .. one has to wonder about environmentalists who insist on consuming products that we know to be resource-intensive and polluting (even if they're less resource intensive and polluting than some .. ) It'd be like driving an SUV that gets 15 mpg rather than 10 ... Eating meat -- any meat -- is the same thing: With so many healthy vegetarian options that are kinder and far more eco-friendly than even the "best" meat products, there's just no good justification for someone who claims to be an environmentalist -- or to oppose cruelty -- for doing it.

  Some worry about "preachy" or "judgmental" or "extreme" vegetarians. 

  ..  Although I certainly don't like radical in-your-face messages, the truth is that, sometimes, it's the only thing that seems to wrench us out of our slumber. I know it worked with me when I saw one of the slaughterhouse videos -- definitely not pleasant, but it got my attention.

  The very nature of progressive movements throughout history is to tell others to stop doing something harmful or degrading (e.g., using humans as slaves, sexually harassing women, forcing children to work in sweatshops, harming the environment, etc). Yes, the abolitionists, suffragists, feminists, and civil rights activists were called extreme ..  some vegetarians are called extreme. But maybe it's just because vegetarianism is not yet a cultural norm. Old habits -- and appetites -- die hard ..  I'm a southern gal ..  I didn't want to give up the joys of Sunday barbecue or chicken wings with my friends ..  I get it; I understand.

  But still, if we are to continue evolving -- physically, emotionally, and spiritually -- we really do have to look at how our dinner choices affect not only the environment but, even more importantly, the well-being (or intense suffering) of other creatures ..

  A few people asked about meat in the developing world, or meat for Eskimos or Inuit. 

  If you are an Eskimo, or you're living in sub-Saharan Africa and you're reading this blog, I'm not going to begrudge you your pound of flesh; it would be silly of me to do so. But if you're reading this in a developed country where almost all animals are eating animal feed rather than grazing, are factory-farmed rather than living with families or hunted, and you have abundant vegetarian options all around you, talk of people who have limited food options doesn't apply to you.

  Some people worried that it's hard to be a vegetarian. 

  Being vegetarian isn't exactly the supreme sacrifice -- surfing around the food pics on any vegetarian cooking site will show you that. Vegetarian and vegan food is everywhere (even Burger King has a veggie burger!). Most, if not all, major grocery stores carry soy milk, mock meats ("chicken" nuggets, BBQ "ribs," burgers, soy "sausage," etc.), vegan cheeses, and soy ice cream.. Many restaurants have veggie options a-plenty (especially Thai, Indian, Ethiopian, Mexican and other ethnic restaurants, which are my favorite anyway). Sure, some vegetarians may prefer not to eat food that was cooked on the same grill as meat, but I'm not concerned about that (it does not cause more animals to suffer or more environmental harm). You can find great vegetarian recipes at www.VegCooking.com.

  I'd also like to address the top five most common things that I hear from meat eaters regarding their meat consumption:

  Number five: "Humans have always eaten animals -- it's natural." 

  First, our evolution in human morality is marked almost entirely by our attempt to move beyond the "might makes right" law of the jungle. It may indeed be "natural" for the powerful to dominate the weak, but that doesn't mean we should support it.

  Second, human bodies don't require meat to be healthy -- quite the opposite. Animal flesh contains cholesterol and saturated fat, which are hard on our bodies. We may have had a need to eat meat thousands of years ago, in times of scarcity as hunter-gatherers, but we don't need to now, and we'll be better off if we don't. Check out this essay by Dr. Milton Mills for more information on the issue of whether the human physiology is designed for meat consumption.

  Most critically, the people who say this generally use it to justify buying the same old meat that comes from giant, wholly unnatural factory farms where animals are crammed into filthy sheds or cages and not allowed to do anything natural to them -- at all, ever (breathe fresh air, bask in the sun, raise their young, dust-bathe, form social orders, etc.). Chickens in the egg industry have half their beaks cut off, piglets in the pork industry have their tails cut off, etc. (Please take 10 minutes to watch the video at a href="http://www.meat.org">www.Meat.org.) This is how 99 percent of chickens and turkeys, 95 percent of pigs and eggs, and most cow flesh and dairy products end up on our plates.

  ..  At the end of the day, for me, we don't need to eat meat, we'll be better off without it, and it causes animals to suffer.

  Number four: "Animals are not equal to humans, so we should not be so concerned about them." 

  .. Princeton professor Peter Singer ..  gets it precisely right .. "[W]hen nonvegetarians say that 'human problems come first,' I cannot help wondering what exactly it is that they are doing for human beings that compels them to continue to support the wasteful, ruthless exploitation of farm animals." ..  Fine, don't spend any time at all on animal issues, but please don't pay other people to abuse animals, which is what you are doing when you buy chicken, pork or other animal products..  eat as though the planet depended on it, since it just might.

  Number three: "There have been many brilliant meat eaters, like Picasso and Mozart, so they could not have been wrong." 

  I highly doubt that anyone is going to suggest that vegetarians Steve Jobs, Leonardo da Vinci, Pythagoras, Albert Einstein, Leo Tolstoy or Mohandas Gandhi were especially brilliant because they were vegetarians..  (More in full article)

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