Are Meat-Eaters Ruining the Earth?

Kelly I think that you handled this situation beautifully. I have met and talked to several vegetarians who made that choice because they did not want to throw their economic support behind factory farms. Truly, I can’t argue with that. But sometimes people just plain are not aware that such a thing as responsible husbandry exists. It is such a great satisfaction for me to be able to talk to people like this, and explain that there ARE stewards of the land who strive to raise food as healthfully and as humanely as possible, from the soil up.

However, there are many people ( like your artist, I’ll wager) for whom it is all or nothing. They’ve just made the decision that eating meat in and of itself is the problem. Further, they aren’t particularly interested in hearing any real solutions to the problems of land erosion, inhumanely treated animals and unsafe food practices. I have to say, your intelligent and deliberate response to the artist is really a great example. I’m afraid that in your shoes, I would have just been provoked to anger.

Great job. And thanks!

This artist was very successful with his /her exhibition. Let me explain. A successful artist will invoke a response from his /her audience. This is what this artist did. I’m sure the artist was well aware of sustainable farming but chose not to show it for very specific reasons.

As an artist who has exhibited very controversial issues, I purposefully do not show all sides. Only the side I want to specifically portray. Sometimes it’s about specifics and not the totality of the issue at hand.

Kelly,

Thank you for speaking up!! So many wouldn’t have said a word, or questioned. Just walk by taking it for face value.

As an art major I can say the artist certainly got what he wanted; disscusion, thought provoking-ness (if that is a word), and reaction.

Thanks again, Kelly… you go girl! ; )
JenE

Kelly, I was just thinking about you yesterday and wondering how this effort was coming along. I’m glad you were able to get a thoughtful and well-supported contact into this artist. These points you make are so important because so many people truly believe all meat is unhealthy to consume and it’s so critical that we educate and make aware what’s really going on. Thanks for this post, I didn’t have time to read through all the great comments because we’re in the middle of our school day, but I’m going to come back later and thoroughly re-read the whole thing.

Also, many thanks for including my article about PETA in your list of resources, as I think it’s something that a lot of people who support efforts like PETA simply don’t think about – at all. They are so used to purchasing and eating vegan products, they don’t stop and ponder, where exactly does this “food” come from that I’m eating – and what is its real impact on our health and the earth?

Bravo to you, Kelly!

You absolutely did the right thing! I am so SICK of people being misinformed on this topic. In fact, I just read an article on the Huffington Post yesterday by Natalie Portman about how she became vegan for these very reasons. Ugh! So frustrating.

Thanks for your efforts to educate. We can all do something about this.

Good luck hearing back from him…I’ve found from experience- and I’m not trying to offend anyone-that most vegetarians have an almost cult-like passion to their lifestyle. I was a vegetarian for fifteen years (vegan for two) and I can tell you that it was only when I started to see the ugliness in my fanaticism, and in the friends that shared my beliefs, that I started to question my choices. Vegetarians are fully aware of the alternative to factory farming but they don’t care because it isn’t really about factory farming. They don’t want any alternatives but vegetarianism. A healthy, happy cow raised on pasture but slaughtered isn’t a better option (in their opinion) than a cow tortured in a cage and fed soy. It is still putting the needs of humans above the life of an animal. I bought into the whole ideology for years and even (almost) convinced myself it was more Christ-like to be vegetarian. Thank goodness I’m free of that dogma today…and healthier too! Kudos for trying to educate someone who was spreading a self-righteous and rigid theology. That’s what is, really. Vegetarianism can easily become an idol. Your letter was fair, honest and polite while also unapologetically truthful.

I am proud of you, Kelly! If we all could speak up (at least once in awhile) we really could make a difference! You up your fortitude!

Wow, Kelly, what an inspiration! It’s so good to hear from people who take a stand instead of taking the backseat. Bravo!

Some things I have read in the past (and sorry, I don’t remember where):
The rain forests are not cut down just to graze meat, but to grow GMO corn.
There are places that simple will not sustain grain and vegetable growth but will sustain (and do a very good job of it as well) of being grazing land for cows. I’m reading a book now on farmers and the environment and one article talks about the farmer turning an area into a mini wetlands that the cattle grazed on and some birds nested in. I think Gene Logsdon talks about this problem as well.

‘Becca, I live out here in middle of GMO soybean and corn country. I do have have to walk more then a couple hundred feet in any direction to be in a field. I also live in the middle CAFO country. I would not eat the meat of one of these animals. We raise all of our own. Thank the good Lord! My point is, You are wrong and so all all vegetarians if they think soy or corn is less harmful. With the increase use of hybrid-GMO’s, they get quanity but not quality. The soybeans plants are infested with aphids and the corn plants have molds. This means that the plants are very sick. They are not getting good nutrition from the poorly maintained soil. Aerial spraying has increased 417% in the last ten years because the chemical companies use their products as a band-aid. THe aphids have become resistant to the pesticides. They used this summer two or more pesticides to douse the soybeans to try to slow the aphids. The corn is being sprayed with a pyraclostrobin fungicide that is acutely (deadly) toxic to all aquatic organisms, ducks, quail, and bees. Iowa (where I am at) loses 64% of their bees every year not from CAFO’s. Our creek is dead of all life not because of CAFO’s. My family has been sickened each summer but it is not CAFO’s. We live in a cancer cluster but it is not because of CAFO’s. It all goes back to the chemicals sprayed on the corn, soybeans, pastures, and hay fields. If you want to know more, you can check out my blog. Start with 9/11/09 entry. I would live rather live next door to a CAFO then the fields that I live by now. I do have to say one thing about my neighbors. They are good people. They just are not educated. The chemical companies, grocery stores, meat packing plants, Farm Bureau etc. keep a pretty good grip on the information that is fed to this part of the country.

I was a raw food vegan for 5 years. I was eating that way for health, not for moral reasons. I learned that I got healthier for awhile, probably due to the fact that I wasn’t eating processed Frankenfoods, but I started having serious deficiencies. I began the Weston Price paradigm recently and I have seen steady improvement. I live in ranch country and I buy pastured beef and free-range eggs from local sources. I have yet to find a local source for raw dairy. There was a CAFO near me that has recently closed. Most of the ranchers give their cows antibiotics. I was fortunate to find one who doesn’t medicate or feed is animals corn or some of that other stuff in cattle feed.

I just watched Food.Inc. and it amazes me what people eat and the affects that factory farms are having on our country. There is so much mis-information about healthy food. I have not bought food at a grocery store for a long time, thank goodness!

I think it’s a great letter and thanks for writing it. When I see that type of information now I grimace, because I remember being on that side and I also remember how staunchly sure the veggies are that they are right. It’s almost similar to extreme religious folks.

Hope you don’t mind my leaving yet another comment after hitting the length limit on that last one!

I wanted to say: Just yesterday I read a blogpost by a vegan environmentalist about how she’d finally found a great coffee shop that “even has vegan cream cheese!” but was disappointed that they use paper java jackets on their glass cups. I wondered if she’d ever thought about the resources used to convert soybeans into fake cream cheese and how that compares to the resources used to make a paper java jacket! Fake foods are really not the answer to anything.

But it is my personal compromise to send my son to preschool with some organic soy nuggets to be served to him instead of the school’s low-grade CAFO chicken nuggets breaded with GMO soy and HFCS. I do worry about processed soy, but of those two choices I think it’s the better one. For other lunches we send beans or other whole foods, but since the school has a total ban on nuts our choices are pretty limited.

One more thing about CAFOs vs. cornfields that I meant to say above: If there were no more CAFOs, Amy’s problems would be significantly diminished by the drop in demand for cheap corn and soy. Perhaps after many years of hard work, Iowa could be restored to health and become a land of diverse, sustainable farms that grow both plants and animals. I traveled all the way across Iowa for the first time last spring, and I was appalled; rather than the wholesome breadbasket I expected, it’s a wasteland, a forced-labor camp for corn! I can’t understand how people get into vegan diets to prevent the deaths of animals without ever thinking about the horrors inflicted on plants. Amy, I am praying for you and your family and neighbors and the bees.

About use of meat: The matter could be framed as yet another question of resource utilization & respect. Fact o’the matter as I understand it, is that (unlike some Paleolithic Eden) we consume meat as well as we do everything, to satiation, with no sense of how the animal is apportioned among the tribe. We live on such a large scale, the cycle of things is obscured. So, zooming out for the view, we see that much careful use was made of organ meat, muscle meat was often thrown to the dogs. In Nino Chochise’s autobiography, the old “shaman” (Dee-O-Det) regularly consumed “shaman soup” for which the recipes requires that the entire animal be thrown into the pot. His longevity & vitality were extraordinary. Boiling marrow-rich shank bones, or any bones, down into a gelatinous broth, is an incredible tonic for a great deal that we’ve forgotten. I do know it’s a fast cure for esophogeal problems, often common in the elderly. We’re so focused on the food (or is it entertainment?) that we’ve forgotten the primal materia medica, and the large role that a variety of animal & insect parts play in traditional herbalism. So which is the more pressing ethical issue? Eating animals? Or treating all resources with respect, since all are part of The Living Whole?