If only…
(Warning: Starts funny. But making sausage ain’t pretty, so this is not for the weak of stomach–but, of course, that’s the point)
Tag: vegetarian
Why Doesn’t Mark Bittman Just Come Right Out With It?
NYT writer Mark Bittman writes about food, and has long been troubled by the impact of our food choices on health, the environment, and the animals use in the food production system. He’s got the setup to the problem right, as here:
Nothing affects public health in the United States more than food. Gun violence kills tens of thousands of Americans a year. Heart disease, cancer, stroke and diabetes kill more than a million people a year — nearly half of all deaths — and diet is a root cause of many of those diseases.
And the root of that dangerous diet is our system of hyper-industrial agriculture, the kind that uses 10 times as much energy as it produces.
We must figure out a way to un-invent this food system. It’s been a major contributor to climate change, spawned the obesity crisis, poisoned countless volumes of land and water, wasted energy, tortured billions of animals… I could go on. The point is that “sustainability” is not only possible but essential: only by saving the earth can we save ourselves, and vice versa.
But given his diagnosis of the problem, I keep thinking he will eventually come right out and urge the world to go vegetarian (and he has written an excellent vegetarian cookbook). Yet for some reason he prefers to nibble his way toward that highly logical recommendation, without ever fully voicing it, which is a shame because there are few changes any human can make that match going meatless for beneficial impact on health, the environment, and animal welfare.
For example, after the setup above, Bittman goes on to write:
I believe that the two issues that will have the greatest reverberations in agriculture, health and the environment are reducing the consumption of sugar-laden beverages and improving the living conditions of livestock.
I have no problem with less sugar, which indeed would improve human health and reduce human impact on the environment. But just substitute “and dramatically reducing or eliminating the consumption of meat” for “and improving the living conditions of livestock” and his sentence (and argument) would make so much more sense.
I am all for attacking the mindblowing animal cruelty embedded in our food production system. But c’mon, Mark. Why not just flat out urge your audience to give up meat? I know it sounds radical, but everything you write about food simply screams for that conclusion.
Disgusting Meat Datapoint Of The Day
I don’t know if this is the start of a regular feature here, but it could be.
The Kansas City Star (in the heart of Big Beef-country) shows courage by digging deep into a processing technology, “mechanical tenderizing,” that is rarely labeled and makes it (even) more likely that you can get e-coli poisoning from industrial beef:
An estimate by the Center for Science in the Public Interest, an advocacy group, suggests that mechanically tenderized beef could have been the source of as many as 100 outbreaks of E. coli and other illnesses in the United States in recent years.
Those cases affected more than 3,100 people who ate contaminated meat at wedding receptions, churches, banquet facilities, restaurants, schools and in their own homes, the center said.
But that’s just one of the key findings from The Star’s investigation, which examined Big Beef’s processing methods and the hazards they can pose for human health.
The Star examined the largest beef packers including the big four— Tyson Foods of Arkansas, Cargill Meat Solutions of Wichita, National Beef of Kansas City and JBS USA Beef of Greeley, Colo. — as well as the network of feedlots, processing plants, animal drug companies and lobbyists who make up the behemoth known as Big Beef.
What The Star found is an increasingly concentrated industry that mass-produces beef at high speeds in mega-factories that dot the Midwest, where Kansas City serves as the “buckle” of the beef belt. It’s a factory food process churning out cheaper and some say tougher cuts of meat that can cause health problems. The Star’s other key findings:
• Large beef plants, based on volume alone, contribute disproportionately to the incidence of meat-borne pathogens.
• Big Beef and other processors are co-mingling ground beef from many different cattle, some from outside the United States, adding to the difficulty for health officials to track contaminated products to their source. The industry also has resisted labeling some products, including mechanically tenderized meat, to warn consumers and restaurants to cook it thoroughly.
• Big Beef is injecting millions of dollars of growth hormones and antibiotics into cattle, partly to fatten them quickly for market. But many experts believe that years of overuse and misuse of such drugs contributes to antibiotic-resistant pathogens in humans, meaning illnesses once treated with a regimen of antibiotics are much harder to control.
• Big Beef is using its political pull, public relations campaigns and the supportive science it sponsors to influence federal dietary guidelines and recast steaks and burgers as health foods people can eat every day. It even persuaded the American Heart Association to certify beef as “heart healthy.”
It’s a fascinating and devastating look into modern beef packing (I smell a Pulitzer), and opens with the painful story of Margaret Lamkin, an 87-year old woman who almost died, and lost her colon, after contracting a virulent pathogen from an Applebee’s steak (“Eating Good In the Neighborhood”!).
“You trust people, trust that nothing is going to happen,” Lamkin is quoted as saying. “But they (beef companies) are mass-producing this and shoveling it into us.”
I feel terrible for Lamkin and no one should have to endure what she did (and wouldn’t if the Congress and regulators did their jobs instead of buckraking from beef industry lobbyists). But if we have learned anything about Big Meat it is that you should not trust it, or trust that nothing bad is going to happen.
I would also note that it is not Big Meat that is shoveling their product into Americans. Lamkin and others are doing that all by themselves.
Red Meat Mortality
I know it must seem obvious already, but it’s hard to resist posting research that details the impact of red meat consumption on mortality. I always tell my kids that beef is killing the planet. But no one seems to care that much. What people do respond to is research which shows that beef is killing them, so here’s a study report that I’ve had sitting around since March:
Eating red meat is associated with a sharply increased risk of death from cancer and heart disease, according to a new study, and the more of it you eat, the greater the risk.
The analysis, published online Monday in Archives of Internal Medicine, used data from two studies that involved 121,342 men and women who filled out questionnaires about health and diet from 1980 through 2006. There were 23,926 deaths in the group, including 5,910 from cardiovascular disease and 9,464 from cancer.
People who ate more red meat were less physically active and more likely to smoke and had a higher body mass index, researchers found. Still, after controlling for those and other variables, they found that each daily increase of three ounces of red meat was associated with a 12 percent greater risk of dying over all, including a 16 percent greater risk of cardiovascular death and a 10 percent greater risk of cancer death.
The increased risks linked to processed meat, like bacon, were even greater: 20 percent over all, 21 percent for cardiovascular disease and 16 percent for cancer.
Of course, you can earn all about the ways in which red meat will shorten your life in the excellent documentary “Forks Over Knives.”
And you can watch CNN’s Sanjay Gupta (with an assist from Bill Clinton) make the case here.
The Story Of Bill And Lou, Meat Eating, And The Future Of Humanity
This is very well said. From Dr. Lori Marino, of the Kimmela Center For Animal Advocacy, in a compelling deconstruction (via the sad story of two oxen called Bill and Lou) of the belief that meat-eating is in any way sustainable:
The reason the planet and all of its inhabitants are in such a desperate state is because our species has continued to exploit everyone and everything without compassion. Killing other animals reinforces that insensitivity and the very attitudes that have led to global destruction. We are currently facing the sixth mass extinction event, human overpopulation and starvation, and devastating planetary destruction from rampant ecological exploitation and climate change. The same insensitivity that leads to lack of concern for Bill and Lou as individuals has led us to the brink of global devastation. They are intimately related and anyone who claims otherwise is being disingenuous. Every individual currently in factory farms is Bill and Lou and factory farms are not only engines of unspeakable suffering for the luxury wants of our species but are contributing substantially to global warming.
Check out the Kimmela Center’s Facebook page here. And blog here.
Rapper Vegetarians?
It’s sounds like something that should go on a list of George Carlin oxymorons, like “jumbo shrimp” and “military intelligence.”
So we must be approaching some sort of cultural paradigm shift when there are headlines like:
GZA convinces Method Man and Redman to go vegetarian
According to the story, here’s how GZA did it:
“I used to tease Meth all the time about him eating steaks, use to tell him he was ‘Eatin’ a pig p**sy T-bone’. He hated that s**t, but he just recently came up to me and said both he and Redman are vegetarians now.”
And they aren’t the only ones who have taken heed of GZA’s diet advice – his tourmate Killer Mike has also started consuming more greens instead of just gorging on meat.
Killer Mike says, “He convinced me to be eating some veggies (sic), so that’s cool.”
Yes, very cool. And apparently GZA is no one-time apostle of vegetarianism:
In a 2010 interview on Eater, GZA also revealed that he had shared videos about the health impacts of consuming a typical meat-heavy Western diet to band members and family to encourage them to make the switch to a plant-based diet.
Maybe we are in the cusp of some new genres of music, Vegan Rap and Vegan Rock. Oh wait….
And, of course, we gotta work some George Carlin in:
Talking Turkey
We’re not having a turkey (or any meat) at our Thanksgiving table this year. And that was a pretty non-controversial decision in my family.
But if you are trying to talk your family into a vegetarian Thanksgiving, or are taking heat for leaving the turkey out, then I’ve got some useful numbers for you about Thanksgiving turkey consumption:
Amidst groans about being more stuffed than the bird itself, Americans will toss a whopping $282 million worth of uneaten turkey into the trash this Thanksgiving, contributing to the $165 billion in uneaten food Americans waste every year. Along with trashing uneaten turkey, they’ll be wasting the resources necessary for its production — meaning 105 billion gallons of water (enough to supply New York City for over 100 days) and greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to 800,000 car trips from New York to San Francisco. That’s enough turkey to provide each American household that is food insecure with more than 11 additional servings (17.9 million American households suffer from food insecurity).
Nationwide, consumers will purchase around 736 million pounds of turkey this Thanksgiving, of which about 581 million pounds will be actual meat. The USDA reports that 35 percent of perfectly good turkey meat in the U.S. does not get eaten after it is purchased by consumers (and that’s not including bones). This compares with only 15 percent for chicken. Why the disparity? “Possibly because turkey is more often eaten during holidays when consumers may tend to discard relatively more uneaten food than on other days,” the USDA writes.
And unless we take action to prove the USDA wrong, we’ll be throwing away about 204 million pounds of that meat and about 1 million tons of CO2 with it. Per pound, the resources needed to produce that turkey are equivalent to driving your car 11 miles and taking a 130-minute shower (at four gallons/minute).* And that’s to say nothing of the vast amounts of antibiotics used to produce turkey meat, leading to antibiotic resistance, which you can read more about here.
And that doesn’t even take into account what the turkeys actually go through to get to a table.
So instead of eating a turkey, how about adopting one?
Butterball Abuse
Is it even possible to take an undercover camera into a meat production facility and NOT find abuse? Apparently not.
Apologies to all of you out there who are starting to lick your lips over the idea of a big, fat, gravy-doused turkey on your table next week. But Mercy For Animals has got another undercover investigation that should give you pause:
In October of 2012, an MFA investigator documented a pattern of shocking abuse and neglect at numerous Butterball turkey operations in North Carolina, including:
- workers kicking and stomping on birds, dragging them by their fragile wings and necks, and maliciously throwing turkeys onto the ground or on top of other birds;
- birds suffering from serious untreated illnesses and injuries, including open sores, infections, and broken bones; and
- workers grabbing birds by their wings or necks and violently slamming them into tiny transport crates with no regard for their welfare.
Worse, these are exactly the same sorts of things that Mercy For Animals found at a Butterball plant last year (an investigation which led to criminal animal abuse charges against plant workers). So I guess humanely producing a Thanksgiving turkey is not really in our culture despite how much we revere Thanksgiving and turkeys.
Here’s what Mercy For Animals says about what it did with its footage, and why the practices shown are so cruel:
Following the investigation, MFA immediately went to law enforcement with extensive video footage and a detailed legal complaint outlining the culture of cruelty at Butterball. Law enforcement is investigating.
Unfortunately, the lives of turkeys in Butterball’s factory farms are short, brutal, and filled with fear, violence, and constant suffering. While wild turkeys are sleek, agile, and able to fly, Butterball’s turkeys have been selectively bred to grow so large, so quickly, that many of them suffer from painful bone defects, hip joint lesions, crippling foot and leg deformities, and fatal heart attacks.
Even though domestic turkeys have been genetically manipulated for enormous growth, these birds still retain their gentle, inquisitive, and social natures. Oregon State University poultry scientist Dr. Tom Savage says that turkeys are “smart animals with personality and character, and keen awareness of their surroundings.”
In fact, animal behaviorists, veterinarians, and scientists agree that turkeys are sensitive and intelligent animals with their own unique personalities, much like the dogs and cats we all know and love.
As the world’s largest producer of turkey meat, Butterball is responsible for 20 percent of the 252 million turkeys raised and killed for food each year in the United States, and 30 percent of the 46 million turkeys who are killed for Thanksgiving.
Even if you want to eat a cruelty-free turkey for Thanksgiving, there are only a handful of farms left in America that raise turkeys which live normal turkey lives and haven’t been genetically modified in painful ways.
Anyhow, for all these reasons, we’re going for a turkey-free Thanksgiving this year, even though there will be some meat-eaters around our table (one of the perks of doing the cooking!). And if you want to give it a shot, here’s a bunch of good recipe ideas.
Nightly Reader: November 1, 2012
1) If Only: I’m always wary of stories that turn on the phrase “according to a recent study.” But when the study suggests that vegetarians and vegans live an average of eight years longer than the meat-eating general population, I am happy to propagate it without too much scrutiny. Plus, of course, you have these folks. Even meat-eaters who don’t care about animal suffering or the environment can get behind living longer.
2) Beluga Basics: A(nother) deep dive into the arguments, politics, and economics of the Georgia Aquarium’s proposed import of 18 wild Russian belugas. I don’t expect it, but it will be an amazing reversal if NOAA denies the permit.
3) A Man And A Walrus: Former Marineland trainer Phil Demers tells the story of his relationship with Smooshi, and how concern for her well-being drove him to speak out against the conditions she lives in.
BONUS VIDEO: Here’s Smooshi in action.
Seeing Is Important: Nicky’s Story
Sometimes natural disasters kill. And sometimes, very rarely, they save.
This is a moving and well-produced story about a pig, a flood, and her escape from a factory farm. So the humans are the aggressors–the deus ex machina–and nature–the deluge–is the engine of salvation. It’s an ironic role reversal which punctures our preferred narrative of human courage and generosity in the face of overwhelming power.
[WARNING: Images of absolutely horrific inhumanity. Do not watch if you prefer to keep deluding yourself that factory-farmed bacon and pork is in any way okay to consume].
The Earthist Chronicles 