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Friday, May 15, 2009 The Cost of Pastured Meats By Monica @ 8:47 AM I woke to a nice post and picture in my google reader this AM. Robb Wolf reports on his recent acquisition of lamb meat: We went in with the Fragosso’s and each bought a whole grassfed lamb. I think we ended up with about 60lbs of meat and the price was about $3/lb. Damn cheap when you consider the quality of the food and the fact we are supporting local, sustainable food production. We are looking at doing a GF cow at some point but will need a larger freezer than what our refrigerator has. If you look around you can usually find a GF meat supplier nearby. This is strikingly cheap. I've never seen leg of lamb cheaper than $5 in any grocery store. Rack of lamb in the grocery store is obviously considerably more expensive. In the fall we'll be getting pastured pork from the farm where we get our amazing milk, Ebert Family Farm. This pork is $1.25 per pound with an added cost of $250 to butcher a hog. (See where a good portion of the cost comes in?) They usually finish the hogs at 250 lbs. which means the total cost per pound for the pork is around $2.25 per pound. I've never had pork that tastes quite as good, and when you consider the quality, that's damn cheap. Must be all the skim milk the pigs are getting. The hogs are also not confined in a building and thus, have more vitamin D in their flesh. Who said local pastured animals aren't competitive in price? All the consumer needs is a freezer. All the farmer needs is access to a local, USDA-approved slaughterhouse that butchers the type of animal in question, which is a mandatory requirement. This last one often proves to be the real problem. Read to find out more about how this inflates the price of your food and decreases your access to quality and choice in the supermarket. For more information on where to find meat from animals raised the old-fashioned way, on pasture, visit Eat Wild and/or your local Weston A Price chapter pages. Labels: Meat Inspection, Meat Myths E-mail Monica    PermaLink    2 Comments   Tuesday, March 24, 2009 More on Meat and Sustainability -- and a Challenge to Environmentalists By Monica @ 3:54 PM I've had several diligent people forward me this news story via email over the past few days. It's a popular summary of a new "study" that "proves" that red meat causes cancer. The particular claims with regard to this article have already been thoroughly rebutted elsewhere and I have it on Dr. Eades' own word that he is going to blog on this study as well. Update: he has. The first thing that occurred to me when I read this popular report was that lots of Americans get their "cancer causing" red meat served to them on a great big white bun with a load of other carbohydrates (soda, chips, fries) and inflammation-causing n-6 vegetable oils (chips, fries, salad dressings) on the side. Correlation is not causation. The authors of this study need to go back and take a good statistics course and learn how to control other dietary variables correctly. But now I get to my point. Interestingly, this "red meat causes cancer" article heavily mixes "dietary" science (not that the dietary science is even good) with "advocacy" science. In other words: not only is meat bad for us, it's bad for the environment. Here we go again. Articles such as these are why I recently blogged on this topic of meat and the environment here and here. Some people may not care, but I think it's important to evaluate these claims to see whether they are actually true. The idea that meat eating is unsustainable is appearing more and more in the popular press, and the message is getting shriller and shriller. Someone whom I can't remember once said, "Advocacy science is not science." I think there's a great deal of truth to that statement. When we become advocates of something, it can cloud our judgment and objectivity and create a confirmation bias. (This is also true for "paleo" dieters and meat eaters.) We should always be on the lookout for deviations from our assumptions -- unless, of course, they are the most basic of facts. Thankfully, I am not the only blogger who has recently picked up on this topic of meat and the environment. Here are some excerpts from an enlightening post by Robb Wolf entitled Meat, Global Warming and Markets: The Fish paper starts off with some dismissive language about the “over-hyped” benefits of fish oil…then changes tac(sic) completely and begins hand wringing about fish-stocks and sustainability. Oweee-kayyy. Tens of thousands of studies citing the benefits of n-3’s, synergy with what we know about our ancestral diet, the ONLY cited reason for the aparent(sic) health of the Inuit on their ancestral diet…and it’s all han(sic)-waved away, never explained…and the rest of the paper is focussed(sic) on the hot topic of global warming and sustainability! Keep this in mid as we look at a clinical intervention of the paleo diet in humans. In this paper a represnetitive(sic) paleolithic diet is compared to the the much vaunted mediteranian(sic) diet…in a sick population of folks WITH ischemic heart disease. It’s worth noting that the paleo-nay-sayers have whined for years: “there is no evidence! We need clinical studies!!” Well…here is a clinical trial showing compelling evidence for the superiority of a paleo diet over a medeteranian(sic) diet…and the main critiques of the paper focus on sustainability, not the validity of the science at hand. Here is a similar study with similar, non-science related critiques which focus instead on environmental issues and sustainability. Before I go on I want to come clean with what my political leanings are: Lover of free-markets, strongly identify with the Liberatarian(sic) party. This puts me squarely in a position to constantly piss-off and annoy left-leaning hippies and religious right-wingers alike. If you can piss nearly everyone off, you know you are onto something good. So, on the one hand I’me(sic) very happy to see the positive press these paleo clinical trials are getting. Right on the heels of that excitement and optimism is a sinking feeling when the discussion shifts to global warming, sustainability and the like. Why? Because it is shifting the argument just as the vegetarians are getting painted into a corner with no escape. The notion that our ancestral diet is the healthiest one, if right, will gain momentum and support. The only way to discredit this way of eating then is to throw up a boogey-man of fear and play on peoples guilt... Fast forward to today, we still have the hand-wringing Malthusiast’s who are convinced we are all on a collision course with disaster unless we bocome low-fat vegetarians and export this lifestyle to everyone else on the planet. Much todo is made that a more meat based diet is unsustainable…but then again, modern farming practices rely on non-renewable fossil fuels, and as such plant based diets are apparently unsustainable also! Somehow the study authors find that a lacto-ovo diet is superior to alternative approaches…I’d like to dig through that study and see what they are using for numbers, but it just does not sit well. Interestingly, no one looks at the picture when we are talking grassfeeding and a more paleo type diet. Perhpas(sic) counter intuitively, a meat, fruit and vegetables diet appears to kill FEWER animals than a vegetarian, grain based diet…this throwing the least harm notion on it’s head. Also, small scale grassfed meat production appears to not only be sustainable, but also highly profitable. Most of the energy production of meat is tied up in grain production. Shift to grassfed meat and you remove this expensive and dirty process from the equation while also increasing the health of meat consumers. Can we feed everyone like this? Will global warming kill us all? The best way to control ALL these problems is some kind of population control and ironically, the best population control is prosperity. Rich nations have fewer children. The counter salvo from the Malthusiasts is that rich nations require a lot of energy…true, but we are only seeing the beginning of green, sustainable energy, and the main driving force here is an open market. India and China are bypassing decades of development the US went through and are comparitively much cleaner than we were. Speaking of sustainability…the US is headed for a serious problem with health/healthcare and the answer being bantied about is state funded healthcare…whcih has been a stunning failure everywhere else it’s been instituted, but we seem bent on this path…because in the words of Sen. Mcgovern(sic) “We must do something”. My main point here is that we need to tackle these issues ONE AT A TIME. When the vegetarians start shifting arguments mid-stream this is BS and it obscures the topic at hand. This is also the classic ploy of someone who is loosing an argument. My secondary point is that the “sustainability” issue is anything but clear and history has shown that markets and innovation trump doomsayers…no matter how badly they want the end-days to be at hand. Indeed. In my previous writings, I hadn't even gotten into the idea that cattle might create a carbon sink on pasture, because foraging on grass spurs its growth via activation of the intercalary meristem. I would not be surprised if the articles Robb links above mention this point. I didn’t bother to do a search on Cambridge Scientific Abstracts to find articles that supported my point when I wrote about environmental effects of meat here and here, and more distantly in the past, here. Why didn't I do this? First, I already have a firm grasp of ecology (I have a bachelor's, master's, and PhD degrees in biology with a heavy focus on courses in ecology). Thus, I can already deduce that the basic arguments from the vegan/environmentalist side do not add up. However, my arguments would have been more well-supported with evidence from quality peer-reviewed articles. (I stress the term quality since we all know there is a good deal of very bad science that has been nominally peer-reviewed.) So I have to thank Robb for providing these links to some apparently peer-reviewed sources in his post above. Though I haven't read them yet, I suspect they will provide a good start for more in-depth research. I may do a heavier literature search at some point with better supporting documentation for the exact energy inputs for vegan/industrial, vegan/nonindustrial, meat heavy/industrial, and meat heavy/nonindustrial diets. Someone really needs to do such research and that research, whatever the findings, needs to be honestly publicized. Unfortunately, the popular press has a tendency to skew the reporting toward their own biased position. People have heard the "meat is unsustainable" claim so frequently that I fear it is growing a life of its own. Regardless of the fact that it may be interesting to know how much energy is used to produce various types of foods, I don't understand why people are getting worked up about cattle and the potential effect of cattle on global warming. This is "science" that is conducted in a manner that is blinkered to evolutionary history, just like the dietary "science." It makes no sense, even if you think global warming is a significant long-term problem for humanity. What were pre-industrial levels of these supposed "greenhouse gases"? We know the answer for CO2, but methane is rarely discussed in global warming circles in this regard, though it is reputed to have a much more potent effect than CO2. Grass-fed cows may produce half the methane as grain-fed cows, but reasonable estimates are that there were, in pre-settlement days, anywhere from equal to twice the amount of bison biomass as the biomass in our current national cattle herd. Thus, I pose the following questions to all enviromentalists who believe meat is a problem for the environment: 1) Was there a “methane” problem prior to white settlement during the days when millions of majestic bison roamed the plains of the Americas? 2) If the bison herd was producing roughly equivalent amounts of methane thousands of years ago in comparison to the national cattle herd today, why are we worrying about it? This is a natural level if you consider humans to be "non-natural" and the source of the problem here. I have not yet heard or seen a logical rebuttal to these two basic questions. I'm open to reasonable arguments. Any takers? Labels: Bison, Buffalo, Global Warming, Grass-fed, Just Say No To Bad Science, Meat Myths, Modern Ignorance, Nutritional Guidelines, Pastured E-mail Monica    PermaLink    0 Comments   Monday, March 9, 2009 The Cow Tax and PeTA's Dishonesty By Monica @ 12:55 PM I've written previously on the EPA's grand scheme to tax farm animals because they emit "greenhouse gases." Even Fox News reported on this story awhile back. Both a PeTA spokesperson, and the owner of Nature's Harmony Farm in Georgia, were interviewed with regard to the "cow tax". I can't find a way to embed the video of the interview in this post, so be sure to click here and view the video yourself before reading further. OK, did you watch it? You may be surprised to hear me say that I don't disagree with most of the points that the PeTA spokesperson presents. (I wholly disagree with the philosophy that farmers need to "give back". Wouldn't it be easier to just not let them take taxpayer dollars in the first place?) There are a few minor errors, but mostly, he's correct that tens of billions of dollars are poured into factory farming yearly, and that we have a socialized factory farming system. Before I get on to my analysis of his statements, let me say that one thing I found very interesting was the PeTA spokesperson's use of certain terms to appeal to people on both sides of the political spectrum. Instead of sound reasoning, this is a trick more and more people are using to disarm their opponents, and it borders on ad hominem argumentation. The term "socialized" appeals to the conservatives. The term "factory farming" appeals to the liberals. If you use these code words, you can subconsciously get a variety of people on your side who might otherwise oppose you. Clever. The dishonesty isn't in what facts were presented. The dishonesty is in what facts that were conveniently left out. Sure, cows emit methane and alter the biodiversity of natural ecosystems, and feedlots contribute to water pollution. However, it's extremely deceptive or ignorant to argue that one is aiding the environment simply by avoiding meat, as I've described in detail before. Let's get to the criticisms. First, which factory farmers are subsidized? Let's have a look at the agricultural products that get subsidies, shall we? Let's see... it looks like roughly 15 billion of the 177 billion in farm subsidies go to livestock production, a whopping 8 percent or so. Where does the rest of the 92% of the subsidy money go? To all the other crops and the chief behemoths of the USDA food pyramid : corn and wheat. None of these crops and the carbon released from tilling the soil to produce them, nor the darling of the vegan movement -- soy -- gets a mention by PeTA. He knows that soy is about as equaly subsidized as all livestock, erodes the soil, and poisons the Gulf of Mexico. However, he'd rather not share that due to his ideological bias. The second delusion is in thinking that farming is (or was, even 50 years ago) sustainable long term without animals. I ask any vegan reading this to please supply me with an example of an ecosystem where nutrients aren't returned to the soil via primary through tertiary consumers. Without domestic animals, where would this fertilizer come from? Humans, presumably? I'm all for that, but the fact is that we're not doing it. We have divorced animal fertilizer from the farm and replaced it with nitrogen that is pulled from the air and turned into fertilizer using incredible amounts of fossil fuel. We violate those laws of nature by not returning the other nutrients to our food as well, and we cannot continue that process indefinitely. Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed. Do vegans care about soil fertility? Apparently not, or they would not suggest that healthy food can be grown without domestic animals, which they'd like to wipe from the face of the Earth. Remember, domestic animal extinction is PeTA's goal. Their goal is not just vegetarianism for everyone and the abolition of meat eating, and they are not particularly concerned about environmental quality or human health, either. While other vegans may be so deluded into thinking that agriculture is possible and sustainable without animals, PeTA is not. Their goal is ending any exploitation of animals whatsoever, including animals for any purpose in agriculture. Don't be fooled. Their goal isn't mere vegetarianism, it's veganism -- because if you want to make domestic animal species extinct that necessarily eliminates any source of non-meat animal products such as butter, milk, or eggs OR animal fertilizer. Vegans who are vegans for ideological reasons don't even eat honey because they believe they are exploiting the bees. (Obviously it goes without saying that this is a complete deviation from the evolutionary history of human foodways.) If you need some convincing that PeTA's goals are that radical, that they want to eliminate domesticated farm animals entirely and for any purpose whatsoever, here are some quotes of people from various organizations, most notably Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), with known alliances to PeTA: "We have no ethical obligation to preserve the different breeds of livestock produced through selective breeding. One generation and out. We have no problem with the extinction of domestic animals. They are creations of human selective breeding." Wayne Pacelle, Senior VP of Humane Society of the US, formerly of Friends of Animals and Fund for Animals, Animal People, May, 1993 "My goal is the abolition of all animal agriculture." JP Goodwin, employed at the Humane Society of the US, formerly at Coalition to Abolish the Fur Trade, as quoted on AR-Views, an animal rights Internet discussion group in 1996. "The theory of animal rights simply is not consistent with the theory of animal welfare... Animal rights means dramatic social changes for humans and non-humans alike; if our bourgeois values prevent us from accepting those changes, then we have no right to call ourselves advocates of animal rights." Gary Francione, The Animals' Voice, Vol. 4, No. 2 (undated), pp. 54-55. "...the animal rights movement is not concerned about species extinction. An elephant is no more or less important than a cow, just as a dolphin is no more important than a tuna...In fact, many animal rights advocates would argue that it is better for the chimpanzee to become extinct than to be exploited continually in laboratories, zoos and circuses." Barbara Biel, The Animals' Agenda, Vol 15 #3. "It's not about loving animals. It's about fighting injustice. My whole goal is for humans to have as little contact as possible with animals." Gary Yourofsky, founder of Animals Deserve Adequate Protection Today and Tomorrow (ADAPTT), now employed as PeTA's national lecturer "We are not especially 'interested in' animals. Neither of us had ever been inordinately fond of dogs, cats, or horses in the way that many people are. We didn't 'love' animals." Peter Singer, Animal Liberation: A New Ethic for Our Treatment of Animals, 2nd ed. "If that means going onto their farms, releasing their animals and burning the place to the ground, that's morally justifiable, in our opinion…There were always innocent people who got hurt somewhere along the way but it was important that those who oppressed one group of people be stopped, and we don't see the animal liberation struggle being substantially different from these [apartheid and slavery] other struggles.… A sustained campaign against a particular industry or a particular organization has the potential to be quite effective." Jerry Vlasak, in response to indictments of 11 ALF/ELF arsonists. AP, January 20, 2006. These true goals of PeTA align pretty well with such onerous schemes as the National Animal Identification System (NAIS) and the cow tax. NAIS won't really hurt factory farmers since they are the ones who have been pushing for this program for 20 years and are the only ones who will benefit. But if you can shut down family farming of animals through a cow tax or NAIS, and if you can create extinctions of certain animal breeds through NAIS, then you can eventually shut down factory farming of animals, too. The goal of the animal rights activists is the elimination of animal agriculture, not factory farms. That's why PeTA supports the cow tax, which will only possibly be afforded by those producing animals at a huge economy of scale. Don't be fooled. PeTA are a group of bald-faced liars with an obvious agenda. I've already discussed the cattle emissions issue in a previous post, so if you haven't read it, it bears mentioning. As for the issue of biodiversity, I think I'll leave that to an excellent comment from a man named MikeL in this Mark Sisson post on veganism: And finally, anyone who argues that farming soy and grains is more sustainable than, for example, huge herds of free-ranging cattle and bison, has completely forgotten—or never knew—that the prairies of the American midwest were once home to some of the richest plant diversity in the temperate latitudes. But it’s gone now, ripped away to feed our insatiable appetite for cheap and unhealthy carbohydrates. And the residues of that farming is drifting down the Mississippi, killing life at the delta. Think about that the next time you bite into a faux-meat soy burger. So my advice to vegans and vegs: dump the sanctimony and eat some meat. We’ll all be better off for it. Indeed. Labels: Bison, Buffalo, corn, Ethics, Global Warming, Grains, Heritage Varieties, Meat Myths, NAIS, Nutritional Guidelines, soy, Subsidies E-mail Monica    PermaLink    0 Comments   Sunday, March 8, 2009 Thoughts on the Environmental Effects of Carnivory and Veganism By Monica @ 5:24 PM The popular press is awash with stories these days of how meat contributes to global warming and how many people are turning to veganism to reduce their "carbon footprint". There is even a proposed EPA tax on emissions from farm animals. From Scientific American articles, change.org pieces, and statements like this from respected nutritionists: "The more rice, corn, potatoes, sweet potatoes, and beans you eat, the trimmer and healthier you will be – and with those same food choices you will help save the Planet Earth too", environmentalists, vegans, and animal rights activists are attacking any and all methods of raising animals -- whether for meat, dairy, or any other use -- as contributing to "climate change." But is it true? Before I deal with actual truth or falsehood of such statements, I'd like to state my position on "climate change" so that I can be as transparent as possible here. First, I do believe the globe is probably warming, and that it might be happening at least partly from human activities. I honestly don't know. However, I don't believe that this in any way justifies the political "solutions" being proposed to "climate change" (cap and trade, coercive laws, etc.). I haven't actually investigated the global warming issue seriously from a scientific standpoint and don't really have time to do so right now. I used to be a dyed in the wool member of the global warming camp and have gone back and forth on the issue over the past, but the fact is that wherever the truth lies, my knowing it would make very little difference in my day to day activities, and thus, it ranks pretty low on my list of self-education priorities. If that disqualifies me in your mind from commenting on the issue of carnivory vs. veganism as it relates to "climate change", so be it. I believe peoples' actual arguments, and whether they are logical or not, are the things that we should be dealing with. Now that we have that out of the way, let's consider the issue. First, let's be honest. Vegans and vegetarians raise a number of valid points when it comes to meat production. Some of these are actual problems and some may not be problems but the facts remain: feedlots often contribute to waterway pollution, cattle release methane, and that the way in which the animals are raised (indoors, confined, unsanitary conditions, fed antibiotics as a routine measure because of the immense crowding and wrong food which both foster illness) is, by and large, inhumane. I've blogged on each of these points before, including the absurdity and wastefulness of subsidizing this inefficient method of raising animals through the EQIP program. Further, it is absolutely true that as we increase in each level of the food chain from primary producer (plants, algae) to primary consumers eating primary producers, to secondary consumers (animals that eat primary consumers), to tertiary consumers (this last category are the top predators in any ecosystem and eat both primary and secondary consumers: wild cats, dogs, humans, eagles, etc. are examples) about 90% of the energy ingested as food is lost as heat and only 10% is converted to biomass. There are some variations in those numbers, but those are the basics: lots of energy lost as heat or waste products as you go up in the food chain/food web. This all makes perfect sense from the standpoint of physics and basic physiology/metabolism. It's so well-documented in the literature that I see no reason to provide references. No one disputes that most of the energy from the fuel in the internal combustion engine is lost as heat rather than converted into mechanical power. It's the same principle in living organisms. This is the reason that in any given ecosystem, there's an immense amount of biomass of primary producers and hardly any biomass, comparatively speaking, of tertiary consumers, i.e. top predators. This is also the basis for claiming that meat contributes to global warming. After all, if you are running grass or grain through an animal before that animal food gets to a human, lots of the energy is lost as heat or waste. Waste products of respiration are CO2 and water (or CO2 and ethanol or lactic acid if you're a fermenter). One of the waste products of the bacteria in ruminants is methane. Of course, we all know that CO2 and methane are the alleged "bad actors" of "climate change." The logic of the vegan argument is that if you bypass eating the ruminants (or any other animal, for that matter) you are more efficient at converting the calories of primary production (plants) into biomass and you avoid the energy "wastage" and extra CO2 and methane production. But there are just a few problems with this very simplistic line of argumentation. Let's address them. First, the assertion that humans evolved as vegetarians, or that their most recent common ancestor was vegetarian, has been blown out of the water. Personally, I think a good vegan diet with proper supplementation and avoidance of processed food is probably head and shoulders about even the standard American diet. But that's not the point. The point is, should people have the right to eat the diet they are designed evolutionarily to eat, the diet that is in their own best interest? Or should they eat a vegan diet to "save the planet", in the words of Dr. McDougall? It's a valid question. If you believe a vegan diet is optimal, that's fine for you, but there are serious issues with the scientific basis of such an argument from an evolutionary and nutritional standpoint. And certainly such a diet shouldn't be foisted on humans everywhere for political reasons if the point of morality is to teach us how to enjoy life to its fullest (as opposed to sacrificing for someone or something else, ultimately suffering or dying sooner than necessary). Let's take the issue of energy loss. Yes, it's true that lots of food energy is lost as heat when we eat animals. However, there are more subtle points to consider. How does the caloric intake differ between vegans and carnivores or even vegans and meat-heavy omnivores? If Good Calories, Bad Calories is any indication, those with carb-heavy (read: plant-heavy) diets are driven to ingest more calories. I've certainly found this to be true in my own experience. A meat-heavy diet, at least as far as my own personal experience, results in spontaneously reduced caloric intake of as much as 800 calories daily. That's something that is never accounted for in the "carbon footprint" calculations. And honestly, what quantity of greenhouse gases are produced by grain- and legume-fed vegetarians? Beans, beans, the musical fruit, the more you eat the more you toot. Seriously, eating high-carb plant foods causes the production of more intestinal gas. I'm not sure what the chemical composition of that gas is, but the presence of the gas is something everyone who has switched from a high carb to a low carb diet, or spends a lot of time around bean-eating vegetarians, can amply attest to. Moving on. Is most of the world's land arable and suitable for crop production? It is not. I've blogged about that before. In fact, this is considered a major problem of plant biotechnologists who develop breeding programs to develop crops for less than optimal conditions. Lots of the earth's land, however, is rangeland and quite suitable for animal production. Another problem is the simplistic assumption about modern-day vs. ancient production of CO2 and methane from cattle. Actually, I'm not even sure the vegan "climate change" activists or their followers want to consider this. There are currently about 100 million head of cattle in the United States. Most of our cattle are grain-fed for at least part of their lives and grain-fed cattle produce about twice as much methane as grass-fed cows. However, they are not grain-fed their entire lives. My best estimate is that at any given point, around 25 million head are being fed this way. Estimates of the number of bison present in pre-settlement times is also as high as 100 million head, with bison being about twice as big as cows. I'm sure many people find it difficult to believe that the American continent could foster twice as much ruminant biomass as it currently does, but the fact is that the Americans plains soil was extremely fertile before modern grain- and soy-based agriculture washed much of it into the ocean, with enormous amounts of primary production (much of it underground in the form of prairie grass). I'm not sure how many head of bison were turned over yearly to predation or hunting. Today, approximately 1/4 of the national herd of cattle makes its way into the food chain yearly. But assuming that grass-fed bison produce similar amounts of methane to grass-fed cows, and that there could have been twice as much bison biomass as current cattle biomass, that means there were probably very similar amounts of methane being produced all along and that this hasn't changed much historically. This pretty much blows away the argument that we should consider cattle per se a significant problem when it comes to global warming. Finally, let's consider the darling of the environmentalist/vegan movement: soy. Let's be fair -- soy is a nitrogen fixing plant, meaning it can pull useless nitrogen gas from the air and turn it to valuable, fertilizing ammonia with the aid of bacterial endosymbionts in the root tissue. Even Thomas Jefferson recognized the value of using legume crops such as vetch to restore fertility to depleted soil. Still, soy is a plant with a shallow root system that results in soil erosion when grown in monoculture. Soy is often shipped up from South America, grown on land where rainforests once grew. Then, if the pure soybeans aren't eaten, and they usually aren't, they are processed in an extruder. Here is a picture of a soy extruder: Hint: that puppy doesn't work on solar or wind power. Now let's consider the grain-based diet that the vegans want us to go on. Any crop grown in the US today post-1950s in the era of subsidy-powered commodity agriculture requires vast amounts of ammonia fertilizer input through the Haber process. Animals could provide a much more balanced source of fertilizer, and played an important role in agriculture besides meat production prior to the 1950s. Long-term, there is simply no way to completely amend soil without farm animals if we want optimal plant (and thus, human) nutrition. These are the very animals many vegan activists would like to see eliminated to solve "climate change". Even that is absurd. Let's consider the Haber process, shall we? It is responsible for 1/4 of the world's nitrogen fixation and works by burning nitrogen and hydrogen gas through four rounds of heating to between 300-550 degrees C, to produce NH3. Hint: the fuel for the Haber process does not come from solar or wind power. OK, vegan activists for climate change. Please tell me which of the two options you think uses more fossil fuel: 1) The Haber process and the fuel required to transport the products of the Haber process to the fields? Or 2) locally raised animals depositing their dung directly on the fields, with all the necessary nutrients (not just nitrogen), as they did 50 years ago and as they still do on many family farms in the United States? I hope I have demolished the idea that you have any idea how much carnivory vs. veganism truly contributes to "climate change" or "greenhouse gas" production without doing a lot more in-depth calculation in all of the areas mentioned above. Personally, I think my locally raised real bacon is a lot more environmentally friendly than the soy-based Smart Bacon grown with Haber-produced ammonia, shipped to the US, and then processed in an extruder which uses petroleum products. Here are the ingredients in Smart Bacon: Water, soy protein isolate, wheat gluten, soybean oil, textured soy protein concentrate, textured wheat gluten, less than 2% of: natural smoke flavor, natural flavor (from vegetable sources), grill flavor (from sunflower oil), carrageenan, evaporated cane juice, paprika oleoresin (for flavor & color), potassium chloride, sesame oil, spice extractives, fermented rice flour, tapioca dextrin, citric acid, salt. Look at the amount of processing involved. Many of the substances in bold are produced or extracted through an industrial process. How much fossil fuel is used to produce "environmentally friendly" products like Smart Bacon vs. real bacon? Want to bet? Having fallen prey to "meat is bad for the environment" arguments myself in the past, it disturbs me to see these arguments advance. More and more people are adopting the idea that they will "save the planet" through veganism, often at the expense of their own health. It's fine if their choices stop with them, but ten years ago "cap and trade" would been inconceivable to most people. Today it's being offered up as an actual political "solution", and not a voluntary one. If someone had told me five years ago that the EPA would even consider taxing emissions from farm animals, I'd have laughed in your face. In light of that, ask yourself whether any of the following is truly an exaggeration: How long before our animal protein is rationed for the sake of "saving the planet"? How long after that before vegans, animal rights activists, and environmentalists seriously push to limit or forbid raising livestock in the name of protecting the environment? And how long after that before we're all forced to be vegan? In my practical experience, many of the followers of the vegan movement who do so for environmental reasons are, for whatever reason, unable to understand or investigate the science behind the claims for their action. They are simply woefully ignorant. They aren't actually evil people. But the originators of such claims (PETA and others), those who can understand science and who either knowingly start or perpetuate lies for their own ideological ends at the expense of the truth, are hopelessly corrupt. These lies need to be exposed. More than the simple truth is at stake. For some of us, our very sustenance depends on it. HT for soy extruder picture: Cheeseslave Labels: Bison, Buffalo, Ethics, Global Warming, Government Idiocy, Grass-fed, Individual Rights, Meat Myths, Pastured, Subsidies E-mail Monica    PermaLink    4 Comments   Wednesday, February 4, 2009 Fat Head" and Fast Food Myths By Monica @ 10:00 AM The new documentary "Fat Head" is out. I haven't seen the film yet, but it looks quite interesting: Comedian (and former health writer) Tom Naughton replies to the blame-McDonald's crowd by losing weight on a fat-laden fast-food diet while demonstrating that nearly everything we've been told about obesity and healthy eating is wrong. Along with some delicious parody of Super Size Me Naughton serves up plenty of no-bologna facts that will stun most viewers, such as: The obesity "epidemic" has been wildly exaggerated by the CDC. People the government classifies as "overweight" have longer lifespans than people classified as "normal weight." Having low cholesterol is unhealthy. Lowfat diets can lead to depression and type II diabetes. Saturated fat doesn't cause heart disease -- but sugars, starches and processed vegetable oils do. Michael Eades, MD, also has an extensive interview with Naughton. Here are some excerpts: Q: What inspired you to make a film challenging Super Size Me? ...I thought Super Size Me was very well done and very amusing, but at the same time a couple of things about it really bugged me. One was the overall premise, that it’s McDonald’s fault people are getting fatter. That’s ridiculous. Ronald McDonald can’t force you to eat anything, and most people eat at McDonald’s once in awhile, not everyday. But what really bugged me was when I realized Spurlock’s math didn’t add up. I spent a good part of my adult life as a serial dieter, so I have a pretty good idea what the calorie counts are at McDonald’s. When Spurlock’s nutritionist told him he was consuming 5000 calories per day, alarm bells went off in my head. There’s no way you can consume that many calories at McDonald’s if you’re following his supposed rules. Q: So in your opinion, Super Size Me is essentially dishonest. A: Yes, it’s dishonest. Long before I saw it, I heard people talk about how Super Size Me shows what would happen if you just ate three meals per day at McDonald’s. But that’s not what it shows. It shows what would happen if you decided to stuff yourself like crazy so you could gain weight and make a movie about it. You could stuff yourself at a vegan restaurant and gain just as much weight, if that was your goal. Q: You did exactly the opposite: you ate nothing but fast food for a month and lost weight. How did you manage that? A: I did it by intentionally ignoring the standard-issue nutrition advice. My doctor of course warned me that if I was going to live on fast food, I should eat as many salads and grilled chicken breasts as I could so I wouldn’t consume too much fat. But I knew better. I ate a lot of fat, because fat is what keeps you feeling full and satisfied. But I did limit my carbohydrates to about 100 per day, because that’s the real key to losing weight, at least for me. I appreciate Naughton's stance on individual rights. He's exactly right. No one is forcing anyone to eat at fast food restaurants, and it's really none of the government's (or anyone else's) business whether McDonald's wants to sell me an entire bucket of french fries for fifty cents: This summer when I was on the road for 6 weeks, I ate at McDonald's several times. It usually wasn't my first choice because I consider it a pretty expensive place to eat. My diet was uber-low carb at the time, so I opted for pre-packaged hard boiled eggs, cheeses, and meats at the grocery store most of the time, which I would store in my small cooler in my car. (It's pretty easy to find a grocery store when traveling on road trips.) Yet despite eating and McDonald's about 1o-15 times during the course of that six weeks, I lost several pounds. Just yesterday, my fiance and I went to McDonald's for a quick lunch and I ordered two double cheeseburgers. I probably got some minimal amount of high fructose corn syrup from the ketchup and who knows what in the processed cheese but I otherwise did very well for less than $2.50. I pulled off the buns and threw them away. I also could have avoided the cheese by ordering a different burger or even asking them to withhold the cheese. That was my choice, and it's really not anyone else's business. Anyone could make a similar or better choice and come away with a relatively healthy meal. Some of us could make even better choices at McDonald's if political pressure of the McGovern dietary committee hadn't influenced them, and farm subsidies hadn't made it cheaper to start using vegetable oils for their French fries. I'd enjoy some fries at McDonald's if they'd return to frying them in beef tallow. Personally, I think the least offending items to health at McDonald's are the burgers. Naughton shows in Fat Head that if you eat a lot of fat, even at fast food restaurants, your lipid profile will improve and you might even lose weight. That certainly mirrors my own experience. Just call me Fat Girl! Fat Head appears to be a great expose of the government's role in perpetuating the nutritional myths that were displayed in SuperSize Me, too: Check out the rest of the clips from the film at Fat Head the Movie. You can order Fat Head here. Labels: Conventional Wisdom, Individual Rights, Meat Myths, Modern Ignorance, Nutritional Guidelines, Why the USDA is Not Your Friend E-mail Monica    PermaLink    7 Comments   Saturday, January 31, 2009 "People Should Not Be Allowed to Eat Eggs" By Monica @ 11:39 AM Sounds ridiculous, doesn't it? It's not a huge step from a government saying "eggs are unwise" to "eggs should be banned." Yet this is the absurd reality of part of the British government's socialized healthcare program to fight what it views as unhealthy behaviors, according to an article by Paul Hsieh entitled "Universal Healthcare and the Waistline Police." Get a load of this: Other countries with universal healthcare are already restricting individual freedoms in the name of controlling health costs. For example, the British government has banned some television ads for eggs on the grounds that they were promoting an unhealthy lifestyle. (my emphasis in italics added) Believe it or not, even more terrible ideas have been proposed in the United States. What is worse is that the egg advice makes no sense whatsoever in the context of evolution or even in the context of good science. Many people now recognize that as far as diet is concerned, the government has made a good many wrong answers into almost inflexible dogma. Once public policy becomes set, reversing it becomes incredibly difficult. I worry very much about an increasing nanny state with respect to our food. When the animal rights activists and environmentalists team up with nutritionists who have fallen down the "fat is evil" rabbit-hole, it's pretty clear that next they'll be coming after our steak. Even if this particular view was scientific it would be politically wrong from the standpoint of the proper purpose of government which is the protection of individual rights -- as Dr. Hsieh's article makes completely clear. But far too often, the proposed "public health" policies would actually be -- and have turned out to be -- a complete disaster to public health. Here is a good example. We don't need any more such wrongheaded ideas made into nutritional dogma through government policy that take literally decades to overturn, with millions of needless early deaths as the result. Dr. Hsieh's article defending our right to eat as we choose, without advice or force from a government nanny, did not sit well with some members of the public -- particularly this commenter in the Ithaca Journal: Health care column off mark Where did the doctor who derided the nanny state go to medical school, and does he see patients ("Waistline police may come with universal health care," Jan. 12)? A doctor's training emphasizes the first responsibility is to do no harm. Paul Hsieh blasts medical and societal activism to promote health, instead leaving people to make choices based on free will rather than common sense and proven facts. A nanny state would totally outlaw tobacco, a known killer for 50 years. I have more sympathy for the opium growers in Afghanistan with limited choices than for tobacco growers and Philip Morris in America, who could have stopped killing us in the 1950's. Raising prices cuts down smoking, and taxing junk pop will cut down on obesity. Rampant capitalism may stop this, despite near universal advice from nutritionists, epidemiologists, and sensible doctors, who know the relation between obesity and heart disease, diabetes, hypertension and the excess morbidity and mortality. Steps taken by doctors and an enlightened society should outweigh freewill and company profits. I'm not a bean counter, but I'll bet the health costs for obesity, COPD, diabetes and other self-inflicted pathology costs more than the taxes on company profits of pop makers and tobacco companies pay our governments. He stated that if one were only harming oneself, it is OK. No serious, chronic illness ever affects only the patient. It impacts family, friends and the health costs. Get real, doctor. Accept controls, either self-imposed or enforced. Jud Kilgore Ithaca (my emphasis in italics added) This comment sends chills down my spine. First, there's little evidence that in the context of a nutrient dense diet that smoking poses any serious health hazard at all. This is discussed here with regard to the Masai warriors and in Weston A Price's work Nutrition and Physical Degeneration on his chapter discussing the Gaelics in the Outer Hebrides. Their houses were absolutely filled with smoke loaded with dioxins. I do some medical needs assessment on COPD so I happen to know a bit about the disease. Only about 15%-20% of smokers get COPD, and I don't have any hard evidence yet, but I strongly suspect that onset of the disease is probably multifactorial and linked to nutritional status. I believe that's why we see COPD rates continuing to rise with poorer and poorer vitamin D status, although smoking rates have been declining for decades. I think a strong case could be made that smoking is actually not problematic in the context of a nutrient dense diet -- the very nutrients that do-gooders like Jud Kilgore likely want to eliminate from our diet in the name of "public health" and "the common good." The acceptance of the idea of forced control of others for "their own good" and the second-handed and blind acceptance of the advice of "doctors and an enlightened society" should strike fear into the heart of any individual who thinks even remotely independently. It is downright Orwellian. There is always more to learn, and that one major problem with public policy. Public policy is based on consensus. Science is not done by consensus! Diana Hsieh, PhD candidate in philosophy, stated in a section of a personal email (reproduced with her permission): What I find so interesting about it -- and I've seen this elsewhere -- is the open defense of the nanny state. Defenders of universal health care don't seem deny his central claim -- that universal health care would create a nanny state on steroids. Instead, they argue that such a nanny state is necessary and proper. That's a sad indicator of our cultural decline -- but at least the choice between freedom and statism is more clear than ever. In short, I'm optimistic that freedom to choose the food we like, as well our freedom to choose healthcare, will prevail over statism. However, I hope that such comments as Jud Kilgore's make it abundantly clear that a veritable army of arrogant and ignorant "do-gooders" -- definitely increasing in their numbers in the past 50 or so years -- could wreak absolute havoc on not only freedom, but the health of the American people if they are allowed to force their views on everyone else through law. And far too often their views are not thoughtful or objective but average fodder for non-thinkers, also known as "conventional wisdom," "proven facts," and "common sense." Given our societal trends, I definitely don't think freedom is going to prevail by sitting back on our fannies and hoping for the best. Everyone concerned about their health and the future of food should ask themselves a critical question: "If you think it's good that the government is banning trans fats and taxing sugary drinks, do you accept the premise that it's also appropriate for them to take your hamburger, raw milk, and fois gras away in the name of "public health"?" Do you really trust self-appointed government dictators to make such decisions for you, or to make such decisions objectively? I certainly don't. On that note, what are you doing to up your game with regard to making sure you remain free to eat what you want? Labels: Government Idiocy, Individual Rights, Meat Myths, Modern Ignorance, Nutritional Guidelines E-mail Monica    PermaLink    2 Comments   Wednesday, December 31, 2008 The Problem with the Popular Face of "Food Activism" By Monica @ 9:47 AM There's been an enormous buzz in the blogosphere about Michael Pollan, who is a food journalist at UC Berkeley and has done a lot of first-hand research about the food supply. It would not be a mistake to say that he is one of the foremost, if not the foremost popular author writing about food today. He's the author of In Defense of Food, The Botany of Desire, and The Omnivore's Dilemma. Stephan of Whole Health Source recently wrote: I heard an interview of Michael Pollan yesterday on Talk of the Nation. He made some important points about nutrition that bear repeating. He's fond of saying "don't eat anything your grandmother wouldn't recognize as food". That doesn't mean your grandmother specifically, but anyone's grandmother, whether she was Japanese, American or African. The point is that commercial food processing has taken us away from the foods, and traditional food preparation methods, on which our bodies evolved to thrive. At this point, we don't know enough about health to design a healthy synthetic diet. Diet and health are too complex for reductionism at our current level of understanding. For that reason, any departure from natural foods and traditional food processing techniques is suspect. I agree. The recent discovery of vitamin K2 is evidence that we should resist the simplistic reductionism of nutritionists focusing only on calories and macronutrients. And while I disagree with Pollan on various matters, he has done some good first-hand research on the food supply and has made this information very accessible to the public. For that he should be applauded. Real food is increasingly under government and government-sponsored industry attack in our society. Pollan also wrote a very long piece in the New York Times entitled Farmer in Chief in which he exhorted the future president to consider the health, ethical and environmental issues surrounding government farm and nutrition policies. It's definitely worth a read and it got a great deal of attention in the farming, nutrition, and whole foods blogosphere. I don't agree with everything in that article by a long shot, but I'm going to save my (very long) critique for a future post. So what's the problem? First, Pollan has a strong focus on our botanical heritage, but I believe Pollan's proclivities toward plants when it comes to human nutrition are less rooted in science than they are in emotion and our rich neolithic food culture. Pollan is a long-time gardener and has had interests in botany his entire life. As someone who has also personally been more interested in the botanical side of things and used to teach botany, I can attest to the fact that this can create a certain bias in a person's mind. I'm not sure that's intended but it does come out in his writing. In the context of personal food choices and education about the rich co-evolutionary history of plants and humans, this isn't an issue. In fact, much of Pollan's writing on ethnobotany is delightful. But Pollan is the popular face of food activism. And when it comes to "food activism" and government policies with regard to food, this has become a huge problem. Since Pollan is so highly regarded and has such public appeal and charisma, people have been repeating his "eat mostly plant schtick" like it's going out of style. This dogma has most definitely overshadowed Pollan's defense of real foods. I see this arrogance and presumption a lot on the web, with many commenters in various internet venues claiming that people are fat and sick because they are eating too much meat. "Eat mostly plants. A little meat. Not too much. What is so hard to understand about that?" they preach. A lot of people read Pollan and end up not defending food, but attacking meat. This attitude wouldn't worry me too terribly except that there's an enormous politically motivated tendency toward vegetarianism in our society already -- with a strong basis in modern environmentalism, Malthusian ideas propagated by both environmentalists and biotech corporations, and grain-based nutritional dogma. It's pretty clear that most people without extraneous health issues need animal products in their diet as a source of EPA, DHA, vitamin B12, and fat soluble vitamins A, D, and K2 -- and who knows what else since nutrition science is definitely on the low end of the learning curve. But despite that Pollan too resists nutritional reductionism; despite Pollan's focus on our corn-based system of agriculture and the problems with HFCS and hydrogenated vegetable oils; despite Pollan's endorsement of Good Calories, Bad Calories, as "A vitally important book, destined to change the way we think about food" -- those aren't the messages that the public and the media are disseminating from Pollan's writing. The message that they are disseminating is that meat is bad. I'm not so sure this is entirely Pollan's fault rather than an effect that is combined with the result of decades of government propaganda. But even in his Farmer in Chief article, he suggests that the president and his family have a meatless day once per week. There's also little criticism of wheat being subsidized. Below are two prime examples of how the media pick up on and then selectively disseminate some of Pollan's ideas. First, this editorial in the New York Times by Nicholas Kristoff, in which he lauds Pollan's larger ideas about food and agriculture, but winds up with this little gem: We face an obesity crisis and a budget crisis, and we subsidize bacon? The implication is that obesity is caused by eating bacon. Bzzzzt. And another implication is that most of the ag money we are spending is to subsize meat. Bzzzzt. The first absurdity has been adequately dealt with elsewhere, but I feel compelled to point out that meat is not directly subsidized. The USDA's EQIP program that Kristoff criticizes, capped at $450,000 per feedlot, is to clean up manure pollution from feedlots. While it is not a valid government spending project, why doesn't Kristof point the gun at the grain and soy subsidies that are responsible for feeding animals this way -- and dumping cheap HFCS, corn oil, and soy on the market to boot? No, it's meat that takes the blame for obesity and government spending, even though meat doesn't make people fat and it is not directly subsidized. The amount of money spent on EQIP is miniscule in comparison to commodity crop subsidies, but does Kristoff criticize subsidized wheat? Of course not, because that's not where Pollan's focus is. We've all known for decades that wheat doesn't make people fat, right? And what is to criticize in corn and soy? Only the HFCS, the feeding of corn to cattle, and hydrogenated oils, Pollan's main focus in all of his writing. Here's the second media piece in the Boston Globe, which specifically discusses Pollan and speculates on what Obama's agricultural policies might look like. Here's an excerpt: Obama is the most healthy eater to enter the White House in a long time, unlike George H.W. Bush who castigated broccoli as he craved pork rinds.. Guess Derrick Z. Jackson didn't see this piece, where Michelle Obama proclaims, "We're bacon eaters." Good for her and her family... and for HW Bush. Don't expect the media to pick up on stuff like that, though. Do you see what I mean about how the media picks up on what they want to pick up on? "Plants good, meat bad." It's arrogant and ignorant. How much does Derrick Z. Jackson, the author of that article dissing pork rinds, actually know about dietary fat? Apparently, not much. Wait -- it gets better. Not too far down in the article, there's this little gem: Obama purchased peaches, pears, apples and nectarines from farmers markets on the campaign trail. Well, wonderful. It's a good thing Obama doesn't have Type II diabetes caused by a steady diet of commodity wheat, because all that modern fruit, bred for sugar and not even available 150 years ago, wouldn't help his insulin problem much. He'd be better off with the pork rinds in that case. These are just two examples of how the media get it so totally wrong with regard to nutrition, picking up on some of Pollan's ideas and selectively disseminating them, while the general public laps up this fodder like the non-thinkers they are. I couldn't say it better than Keith Norris of Theory to Practice: The frightening thing here, from my prospective, is the fact that there is so much of this that Kristof gets right — only to then tumble down the “fat is evil” rabbit hole. I can easily see a “fat tax” imposed, in the very near future, on suspect foodstuffs that the “informed government” will use as a carrot/stick (depending upon your point of view, I suppose) to wean us from the plethora of “unhealthy” foods. This tax would then be used, I’m guessing, to help support/promote the more “healthy” grain-based alternatives. ... No matter how in-vogue (and fun, I’ll have to admit) it may be, however, to bash on the government, it is really the actions of the collective citizenry that will turn the tides here. Unfortunately, I don’t have much confidence in the “collective citizenry” on this issue. For the vast majority at least, it seems as if health, fitness and diet (and independent research in these areas of concern) is just not worth their time. We are living collectively (and “paying” via ever-increasing health care premiums) with the ramifications of such apathy now. One thing I’ve never suffered well is willful ignorance; being forced to financially support the ramifications of another’s willful ignorance is enough to push me over the edge. Indeed. Keith and I are not the only ones to pick up on some of the perhaps unintended political effects of Pollan's writings. The Weston A Price Foundation released an excellent open letter to Michael Pollan two years ago, encouraging him to pursue a more objective approach to human diet. Here's an excerpt: What's so disappointing about your conclusions is the fact that after revealing the dark side of the industrial food system, and blasting the vegetarian argument out of the water, you end up dishing up the food industry's tired old anti-saturated fat, plant-based-diet propaganda. What you've done is present your health-conscious yuppie readers with the prudent diet dressed up in designer clothes and introduced your foodie readers to food Puritanism in a silk gown. She looks lovely and slim, she's popular with all the right people, but the shocking secret that emerges on the honeymoon is her frigidity; the girl in green turns out to be barren, unable to provide us with the thing we most desire—a healthy productive life. In retrospect, your inadequate prescription is not surprising because you actually show your hand right at the beginning of The Omnivore's Dilemma, where you tell us that foie gras and triple crème cheese are "demonstrably toxic substances" and that bread and pasta are "two of the most wholesome and uncontroversial foods known to man." You describe yourself as an investigative journalist, so we are justified in asking: have you found any science proving that foie gras and triple crème cheese are "demonstrably toxic?" These delicious traditional foods are not demonstrably toxic to the French, so why would they be toxic for us? And have you interviewed even one person among the millions suffering from carb addiction or celiac disease, or stood in the bread aisle and read the labels on what passes today for bread, the stuff made from plants that we are supposed to eat six to eleven servings of every day? Because you are such a persuasive writer, people believe you when you say that saturated fat is bad, that lean meat is healthier than fatty meat, and that vegetarians are healthier than meat eaters. You repeat these ideologies, these "shared but unexamined assumptions" as you call them, without examining them at all, passing on to your readers many of the malicious dietary falsehoods put together by the industry you claim to dissect. Your endorsement of the McGovern Committee recommendations—at least of its original recommendations to cut back on meat and dairy products—is truly perplexing given that a quick search of the internet reveals the former senator's marriage to corporate agriculture, a system that would much rather we consumed plants, especially processed plants, than animal foods. ... The omnivore's dilemma is not in fact a dilemma at all, but a construct of false nutritional doctrine. We need investigative journalists like you to help us clear away the misinformation. Please accept our invitation to a meal. I hope Pollan is getting the message and will start disseminating it. I'm still skeptical but somewhat hopeful that he will, since he's now read Good Calories, Bad Calories. His food activist followers, many of whom want to cram grains, vegetables and fruits down all our throats and deprive us all of meat through shifted subsidies, coercive laws, and government nutritional edicts, could certainly stand to hear it from him. Labels: Conventional Wisdom, Grains, Meat Myths, Modern Ignorance, Nutritional Guidelines, Subsidies E-mail Monica    PermaLink    11 Comments   Monday, December 8, 2008 Diet for an UNhealthy Planet By Monica @ 3:45 PM One often hears in environmentalist circles that meat eating will destroy the planet, that the earth doesn’t have enough carrying capacity to provide meat for everyone, and that a “diet for a healthy planet” includes only plant products or at most, limited animal products. Indeed, this is a strong basis for many people to adopt veganism. But is it true? Not only are these statements annoying for those of us who eat animal products, they’re scientifically baseless. This little post will give you some intellectual ammunition to deal with these assertions. Until roughly 50-60 years ago, animals were the basis of a healthy farm with fertile soils. While I don’t agree with some of these political solutions proposed to our current agricultural problems, here is a portion of an excellent article that explains in greater detail why the meat myths in the first paragraph are untrue. Let’s look at some other facts as well. The tiny country of New Zealand provides enough grass fed lamb to feed itself and much of the rest of the western world that eats lamb. 70% of its land is devoted to farming. Lamb from Australia and New Zealand runs around $5-6 per pound. (By the way, New Zealand is free of farming subsidies and the farmers there are much better off for it!) As far as the United States goes, you can get a whole side of grass fed beef for about $5.00 per pound, in bulk directly from the producer, with a range of everything from hamburger to prime steaks. That’s a very good price considering grocery store prices. Even grass-fed meat in the grocery store is affordable. I can get grass fed buffalo roasts in Costco for $5 per pound. Isn't it funny how this grassfed system is economically sustainable all on its own with no subsidies when massive amounts of money are poured into the feedlot system yearly? This money is in the form of grain subsidies, government loans for farmers using grain as collateral, and pollution control money for feedlots under the USDA's EQIP program. Marvelous, isn't it? Provide research money to increase commodity crop production, subsidy money for grain feed, government loans because farmers produced too much of this feed, spurred by the subsidies and the government research, and finally, provide government money to clean up the pollution that these cheap, concentrated grain feeding systems cause (known as Confined Animal Feeding Operations, or CAFOs). Most of the criticisms of eating meat are criticisms of the modern feedlot system, not meat eating as it was for thousands of years of human evolutionary history. Some of these arguments are valid objections to the US's feedlot system, which is certainly an absurd waste of taxpayer dollars. But these facts are not a case against meat eating. Even food journalist Michael Pollan is disappointingly deluded on this point and somehow thinks meat would become more expensive if it were all grassfed. What is the basis for this assertion? Grassfed meat is affordable when it is bought directly from the producer. I suspect Pollan's conclusion is not rationally but emotionally based, because he thinks it is a health and environmental problem that some of us are eating so much as 8 oz. steak per day. He wants meat to be more expensive, so he then asserts it would become so. From where I stand, I see no basis for this statement. The fact that most cattle and hogs in the United States are grainfed in feedlots is not evidence that that system is efficient or economically viable on its own. It is a system spurred by massive government intervention. Consider that all kinds of marginal grassland could be used to feed livestock, in the United States and elsewhere. There is a great deal of land in this country not suited to growing traditional crops, but it would be wonderful as rangeland and would yield its fruit as fatted animals. We can thus dismiss the environmentalist myths that meat would become more expensive under a grass-fed or free market system. But what about those other Malthusians (biotechnology companies) claiming that without their special technology, there will not be enough food to go around, and only they can solve world hunger problems? It's absurd. There is an enormous amount of land in the United States that could yet be converted to food production. Millions of backyards in America could theoretically be used to grow a vegetable garden and feed the inhabitants for an entire year. Now, surely not everyone wants their lawn turned into a garden, but the fact remains that this has been done twice in the nation's history with so-called "Victory Gardens" planted in millions of American backyards in both World Wars to increase food production. According to Michael Pollan, 40% of America's produce by the end of WW II was produced by home gardens. It would actually be profitable to rent one's yard to someone who wants to garden it, and a good profit could be made off of such gardening. This would decrease prices for store produce due to decreased demand, thus spurring even greater production efficiency for larger growing operations. From my own personal experience I know that a 7500 sq. ft. garden can probably yield around $2000 in produce in one summer. If we had a rational immigration policy that did not prevent Mexicans from working here, such free market options could become a greater reality. I'm just thinking off the top of my head here, but imagine a system in which a Mexican family were hired as part of a community cooperative agreement to garden and sell produce from a set number of backyards, with the landowners getting some portion of the profit from the produce. (But then, if we had never had farm subsidies, so many Mexican farmers wouldn't have been pushed out of their jobs and across the American border in the first place.) It is a complete myth -- whether propagated by environmentalists or CEO's -- that we somehow don’t have enough land to produce enough food for everyone on the planet, and that we must either decrease meat consumption or massively increase grain production through more research. I'm not against biotechnology (breeding hybrids of all kinds of plants has been wildly successful), but the myths propagated by both of these groups are absurd. If the commodity crop subsidies were eliminated, at least two things would happen. Farming in the United States would mostly return to pastured livestock which eat a more diverse diet, and subsidized grains would not be dumped on the US or world market. As a result, poorer foreign nations would also see a return to more natural systems of farming and reduce their reliance on the west. Some biotechnological research would probably divert away from grain production to other crops. The proposed EPA taxes on animal farming are designed to move Americans toward a grain-based diet that is supposedly healthier for the planet. This type of diet is not healthier for humans or the planet. It is ecologically and economically unsustainable, not to mention unhealthy. The government should not force people toward a grain-based diet that promotes chronic dental disease, obesity, heart disease, diabetes, cancer, and Alzheimer's disease, particularly when advocting a universal healthcare system that would require more taxpayer money and more advocacy of more grain-based nutritional nonsense that will make Americans even sicker. A grain-based monocultural agricultural system not only promotes chronic illness, it creates soil erosion and depletion of nutrients, which results in a large hypoxic "dead zone" in the Gulf of Mexico, making commercial fishing there impossible. This system could not survive under a laissez-faire capitalist system with a proper application of property rights. It is UNsustainable and UNhealthy. Labels: Conventional Wisdom, Meat Myths, Modern Ignorance E-mail Monica    PermaLink    0 Comments