June 28 2015
WHY I AM A VEGETARIAN
It all started more than 40 years ago: 1972 I believe. I had bought a book by Lappé, I forget her first name, but remember the title: Diet for a small Planet. I still have it somewhere in my forgotten books corner. 1972 was sort of a landmark year, with oil shooting up in price, OPEC making its presence felt, and general concern that food would soon be in short supply. Lappé pointed out that a vegetarian diet would be more earth-friendly and so we almost overnight implemented it in our household.
People sort of raise their eyebrows when I tell them that I don’t eat meat, especially in rural Eastern Ontario, with lots of beef farms and still a few private slaughter houses. No meat? How do you survive?
We do consume eggs, bought just down the road on which we live, and milk, mostly converted into yogurt. So strictly speaking we are lacto-ovo-vegetarians. Now 43 years later, I am sure that this was the right decision, confirmed by many recent findings, including our generally excellent health.
Eating out is a bit of a problem, at times. We never go to a fast food outlet, but seek out buffet places and when in Toronto or Ottawa go to the Commençal or the Green Door.
Our decision to be vegetarian was initially made strictly for environmental concerns. In 1972 we figured that at least 8 pounds of grain was needed to bring one pound of meat to the table. Now there are many more reasons to go vegetarian.
Take water
In a world increasingly running out of potable water recent calculations indicate that producing 1 kg of animal protein requires about 100 times more water than producing 1 kg of grain protein. Although livestock directly uses only 1.3% of the total water used in agriculture, when the water required for forage and grain production is included, the water needs for livestock production dramatically increase. The extra hay and grain requires about 100 000 liters of water to produce the 100 kg of hay, and 5400 liters for the 4 kg of grain. On rangeland for forage production, more than 200 000 liters of water are needed to produce 1 kg of beef.
Or take grain and energy
To bring 1 kg of fresh beef to the dining room table requires about 13 kg of grain and 30 kg of hay. In contrast to beef, 1 kg of broiler can be produced with about 2.3 kg of grain. But then eating chicken has become a real health hazard.
At present, the US livestock population consumes more than 7 times as much grain as is used by the entire American population. The amount of grains fed to US livestock is enough to feed about 840 million people who follow a plant-based diet.
We all know that fossil fuel fuels Climate Change, recently affirmed by Pope Francis. Lots of fossil energy is expended in livestock production systems. For example, broiler chicken production is the most efficient, with an input of 4 calories of fossil energy for each 1 calorie of broiler protein produced. The broiler system is primarily dependent on grain. Turkey, also a grain-fed system, is next in efficiency, with a ratio of 10:1. Milk production, based on a mixture of two-thirds grain and one-third forage, is relatively efficient, with a ratio of 14:1. Both pork and egg production also depend on grain. Pork production has a ratio of 14:1, whereas egg production has a 39:1 ratio.
The 2 livestock systems – beef and lamb – depending most heavily on forage but also using significant amounts of grain, are very fossil fuel dependent. The beef system has a ratio of 40 energy fossil:1 food calorie, while the lamb has the highest, with a ratio of 57:1. If these animals were fed on only good-quality pasture, the energy inputs could be reduced by about half.
The average fossil energy input for all the animal protein production systems studied is 25 calories fossil energy input per 1 calorie of protein produced. This energy input is more than 11 times greater than that for grain protein production. In a sense we are eating mostly oil.
Soil erosion
More than 99.2% of US food is produced on land, while less than 0.8% comes from oceans and other aquatic ecosystems. The continued use and productivity of the land is a growing concern because of the rapid rate of soil erosion and degradation throughout the United States and the world. Each year about 90% of US cropland loses soil at a rate 13 times above the sustainable rate. About 60% of United States pastureland is being overgrazed and is subject to accelerated erosion.
The concern about high rates of soil erosion in the United States and the world is evident when it is understood that it takes approximately 500 years to replace 25 mm (1 in) of lost soil. Clearly, a farmer cannot wait for the replacement of 25 mm of soil. Commercial fertilizers can replace some nutrient loss resulting from soil erosion, but this requires large inputs of fossil energy.
Eating meat means killing a lot of animals, often in cruel and inhumane ways. That begs the question:
Do animals have rights? How ethical is using animals for human consumption?
Of course no post of mine comes without some biblical references. This is what I found in Job, which I think is the most up-to-date book in the Bible.
But ask the animals, and they will teach you; or the birds of the air and they will tell you; or ask the plants of the earth, and they will instruct you. … In his hands is the life of every living thing and the breath of every human being. Job 12: 7-10.
A while ago one of my dear friends loaned me two books on Animal Rights: “Do Animals have Rights,” by Alison Hills, an easy read which gave a measured approach, and “The Case for Animal Rights,” by Tom Regan, a hard slog and much more radical. In it he refutes the still current view that the animals we eat, hunt, and experiment on are, in the words of René Descartes, “thoughtless brutes.” But the author’s opinion is that animals are sophisticated mental creatures which have beliefs and desires, memories and expectations, and feel pleasure and pain and experience emotions, and like us, animals have a basic moral right to be treated in ways that show respect for their independent value.
Is he right?
Years ago, while on my way to Bancroft for business, I noticed a freshly killed bird on the side on the road and its partner standing next to it as in mourning.
We all know that chickens are kept in cages and cows in confined conditions, not unlike people in faraway countries, packed in favelas, in shantytowns, and other make-shift slums. A few years ago a fire in Dhaka, Bangladesh’s capital, killed hundreds of people because they could not escape their packed places. We condemn it where it concerns people. Should we also agitate against the same situations for animals?
There is a curious passage in Genesis 2, where God named the first couple Adam and Eve. Later that same human pair were given the right to name animals. It seems to me that this signifies that we have a certain power over animals, which is plain in later biblical episodes.
At first, in the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve apparently were vegetarians, eating only from the plants and trees. Later, with Noah, this changed. Abraham provided (Genesis 18:7) the Lord with meat from a calf, tender and good. The same happened when the Prodigal Son re-appeared. Jesus ate fish. Also the Bible is full of animals being slaughtered for ceremonial purposes.
More reasons to quit eating meat of any kind
Simply for health reasons we should quit eating chicken and meat. Statistics show that more than half of all chickens are contaminated while meat has also become a health hazard. Both types of animals are raised in crowded quarters where antibiotics are needed in large quantities to contain diseases. This over-use of drugs are causing human resistance to infections, creating the distinct possibility that soon a simple infection may lead to death as was the case prior to penicillin.
Those who work in chicken barns have hideous jobs: picking up and binning the birds that drop dead every day, catching chickens for slaughter in a flurry of shit and feathers, then scraping out the warehouses before the next batch arrives. The dust such operations raise from a mixture of chicken dander, mites, bacteria, fungal spores, mycotoxins, endotoxins, veterinary medicines, pesticides, ammonia and hydrogen-sulphide is hazardous to health, and helps explain why 15% of poultry workers suffer from chronic bronchitis.
Awhile ago we were in an Iowa farming community where an animal lot was a mile or so from the built-up area. When the wind came from that direction a terrible smell hang over the town, due to hundreds of cattle crowded in a small space.
As an aware Christian I believe that we should welcome the days when chickens revert back to their natural pecking order and contended cows roam the vast expanse of prairies where they belong.
Yes, animals have rights
But back to my original question: Do animals have rights? Yes, they do. Do chickens and other incarcerated animals have rights? Yes, they do. Just as the people in Bangladesh and elsewhere have the right to be housed decently, and live comfortably, so, if my Bible is true, animals too have the right to exercise their freedom of movement. Job’s words thousands of years ago are still relevant today. What we have lost is the wisdom animals can teach us. We no longer have the ability to understand what the birds are trying to tell us. We no longer know how plants can enlighten us. We are paying lip service to the knowledge that in God’s hands are the life of every living being – animal, birds, plants – and the breath of every human being. It is exactly our ignorance of “the wider world out there” that has led to the mechanization of animal production.
However, our first duty is to see that people everywhere in the world live in humane conditions, as God has named them and they are made in His image. As long as this is not the case, we cannot demand that animals have priority over humans.
That’s why we are vegetarian
My wife and I try to minimize our carbon footprint. I was fortunate to be able to build an energy-efficient house with passive solar heating, due to large Southern exposed windows, and very well insulated. We also grow as much of our own food as possible, so that means that basically we always eat our own potatoes, our own beets, beans, onions, cabbages, leeks, kale, rhubarb. Want some rhubarb?
Eating from our own soil is good for the body because “soil we are and to soil we shall return.” The closer we are to what we eat the healthier we will be. Home-grown food means clean intestines; it also promotes good minds and spirits. Home-grown food means being close to the Creator. Good health comes from avoiding commercial foods: “eat plants” as much as possible and we do so in abundance. Mike Pollan, a California professor in food sciences says: “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” He contends that most of what Americans now buy in supermarkets, fast food stores, and restaurants is not in fact food, and that a practical tip is to eat only those things that people of his grandmother’s generation would have recognized as food. We adhere to that, perhaps not as many potatoes as my grandparents ate, and less fatty stuff, but then they worked physically a lot harder than we.
Statistics indicate that by and large vegetarians live longer, live better and significantly reduce their carbon foot print.
Isn’t that something we all should strive for?