Is Eating Meat Bad?: A Reaction

[Lauren Dirgo]

So I recently watched Hank's video I AM A BAD PERSON (catching up on the videos) where he talked about meat eating and asked whether we thought is was bad to eat meat, as well as what we thought about factory-grown meat.

 

I feel that I have to express what I think about this subject, so much so that I decided to make my first post here on the ning. Feel free to debate/ask questions/disagree. I recently received a degree in Sustainable Development, where I wrote many a paper on this subject (I'm not trying to sound pretentious or say I'm an absolute expert, but I do think I have a little more knowledge than some in this area, or at least my loan debt would make me believe so).

 

Is Eating Meat Bad?

 

I don't believe that eating meat is inherently "bad." I do believe that the industrial way in which the majority of American/Western world meat is grown is most definitely bad. There are ways of producing meat/raising animals that is not harmful, and in fact beneficial, to the environment, the animals, and humans. Local, humanely-raised, entirely grass-fed beef is going to produce very little greenhouse gases because the cows are eating what they have evolved to eat. When they are allowed to graze rotationally (moving the herd from section to section of a pasture over time), they act as the native bison would on the prairie. Grass-fed and pastured meat is going to be higher in vitamins and omega-3s, and is typically lower in fat. Less erosion of the soil will result in grass-fed over grain-fed beef as the low-intensity grazing promotes biodiversity in the pasture (rather than the monoculture of corn grown in plowed fields, which does not absorb rain as well as native habitat). Most importantly, well-managed pastures can actually be carbon sinks by not plowing the land and instead letting the carbon from the atmosphere work it's way back into the soil through the plants.

 

So if we can raise animals in a way in which they are living the way that they were meant to live (many of these small farmers will note that their animals actually seem happy), and that it is a environmentally, socially, and economically beneficial way to do so, does that still make eating meat bad? If we take the destructive manner in which we currently produce meat out of the equation and replace it with a beneficial one, does that make eating a bad thing to do? I think that eating meat can be a very personal decision, though I don't think that one should entirely give up meat because of the guilt one feels for the industrial model of food production. I think that when one has the choice to eat meat, they should buy it from their local farmers (at that higher and more fair price tag) that have raised the animals humanely and allowed them to eat what they would naturally eat. Otherwise, as Michael Pollan would say, eat mostly plants (of course, I could now go into the the ethics of plant eating, the similar industrial model of plant agriculture, etc., but I'll stop myself :)

 

Lab-Grown Meat?

 

For myself, lab meat sounds absolutely disgusting. Is sounds like a solution that is just asking for trouble (Mutant Meat, coming to a theater near you this summer). It is taking the industrial model of producing meat just another step further, out of the sun and air and into the closed lab. It sounds like an attempt at sterilization of nature, trying to take all the unknown variables out of growing food (exactly what our current mode of agriculture tries to do through monoculture and standardization). With the idea of factory meat we are trying to find a solution for our guilt for raising animals brutally for our own consumption, but rather than adding a positive (raising animals with love & care) it is trying to subtract a negative (our guilt for treating animals the way we do in meat production). 

 

In my mind, in order to live we must consume life. Be it plants, animals, or by-products of animals (milk, cheese, honey), we must digest and convert that life into energy for ourselves in order to live. We cannot consume plastic and expect to sustain ourselves. In that same vein of thought, the "more life" the things we are consuming have (I think of this as the happier or closer to its true nature it is allowed to be) the more life/energy we will gain. Lad-grown meat, in my opinion, does not have that spark of life that raising a real live animal would, and, I believe, where that gut reaction of "Gross!" comes from.

 

 

Anyways, I could go on but I'll stop myself. If you have read this far, congratulations. If you would like to read further here are some good articles/books:

 

A short Time article that goes into grass-fed beef and greenhouse gases.

 

A very good Mother Earth News article that goes more into depth into grass-fed beef.

 

The Omnivore's Dilemna by Michael Pollan, a staple-food for your brain if you want to learn about modern food production.

 

Anything by Joel Salatin. He is a very intelligent farmer that is a leader in the grass-fed farming movement. 

 

Real Food by Nina Plank. Used to sell this book at a farmer's market I worked at, near where Nina Plank used to have a farm. It's a great book. She writes about eating traditional, whole foods, rather than processed industrial foods. It may or may not be for everyone but I love it and love the philosophy behind it.

 

The Ethics of What We Eat by Peter Singer. A very thought provoking book about, well, the ethics of what we eat.

 

What do you think? Do you think I'm totally off base, or do you agree? Do you think I'm trying to justify a degree I can't get a job in by ranting online about it?

(Maybe.) 

 

[Madisun Purtell]

Hallelujah Hallelujah!

[Rowan Glenny]

Okay, heres my response. I myself am a vegetarian, and have been from a very young age. The thing is with free range meat, it takes up more space than factory farming. If the world wishes to eat purely free range meat, then it will have to eat less meat altogether because one field that has a factory farm (arguably) can house more cows than a free range farm. And if we eat lots of meat the demand will go up, meaning that the farmers will have to go to more extreme methods of farming to produce the amount of meat needed.

On the note of labratory meat, we already have vegetarian meat (I can't remember what real meat tastes like, but fake meat is pretty good). Vegetarian meat or fake meat provides all the protein you get from meat and more because it is made from vegetables 

[Lauren Dirgo]

This statement is not taking into account the space that feed (growing corn & soy) takes up. As stated in page 3 of the Mother Earth News article, the farmer they interviewed "can finish about two steers per acre. That is almost precisely the acreage it takes to grow the grain to finish those same steers in a feedlot. This whole system makes economic sense, acre by acre. More than half of our total grain crop goes to feed livestock, so it follows that we can convert half of the 150 million acres used to grow corn and soy  to permanent pasture and lose not one ounce of meat production. At the same time, we can produce healthier meat and shift the massive federal subsidies for corn and soybean production to a better use."

 

Also, is eating less meat than we do currently neccessarily a bad thing? If we have to treat animals the way we currently do in order to provide vast quantities of cheap meat to the masses, shouldn't we be questioning that practice? If meat were to become something that we ate less do to higher up front costs (rather than hiding the costs to the environment and our own health) we might take if less for granted and give it the respect and gratitude it deserves.

[Laura]

I'm a vegetarian too, but I don't think eating meat is a bad thing; it's a natural thing. However, I'm against animal's suffering, and the way they're treated in slaughter houses-it's sick. Asides from that, I think that in terms of environment, meat production is harder on the planet that vegetable and grain productions but I'm not 100% sure about that one. 

My point is, I don't think eating meat is wrong, or actually, is meant to be wrong but due to the current way of meat production, it's consumption rate and therefore it's consecuences on the planet, then yes, I think it's a bad thing.

[Contradiction]

If I could find free-range, grass-fed, local, not-ridiculously-expensive meat, I might go back to eating it. I don't think that meat consumption is something that humans are under obligation to rid themselves from. Things kill and eat other things; it's the circle of life. No big deal. It's the meat industry with which I have problems.

[John Doe]

Am I bad for not caring at all about how much a cow suffers until it's put down ? To me, life has no value in itself. Killing a living being means nothing to me. The only reason why I believe murder should not be tolerated among humans, is because I'm selfish and I don't want anyone to stab me in the back. Meaning that if I were invulnerable, I'd prolly kill all the people I don't like and not care. But as for the animal kingdom, which by essence can't fight me back, I don't care. I really don't. Just hand me the meat and let me enjoy my 75 years on the face of this earth eating rumsteak, bifsteak and bacon haha!

[Decepticon]

[Latch33570]

yeah its bad but they taste good and we evolved to eat them tasty criters. I am glad I don t have to kill my own. I killed some rabits before and they screamed. I felt bad. I thought what if aliens { nutty person that believes they are real} came down and wanted to eat us? what justification could we give to disuade them. After that killing rabits and chickens wasn t the same. They still taste the same though. We can grow invetro meat but it doesnt taste the same so they report. I would like to try it dried ground up into a flour and made into various textures like pasta or mixed in bread or in soup. i would try that. thats probably the way astronauts will go. We can even go with in vetro plant cells too.