Reposted from Sustainable Agricultural Systems Ltd. (SAS)
(Don’t mind giving them the link and credit This article is not an advertisement. ~ctm)
January 23, 2019
I have previously covered the anti-animal agriculture narrative here and the plant-based and/or alternative protein agenda here.
But as the plant-based diet agenda is currently enjoying an uninterrupted public relations campaign facilitated by the obliging media; and given last week’s launch of the EAT-Lancet Commission’s report on healthy diets for sustainable food systems, I feel compelled to delve a little deeper into the matter.
Although I loathe mixing business and politics, livestock agriculture is becoming increasingly politicised. Regrettably, this forces one’s hand.
Why something so innocuous as personal dietary choice needs to be voiced so loudly is a strange phenomenon. However, there are some interesting facets of information that can be gleaned by analysing the EAT-Lancet Commission’s posturing and the alternative protein movement.
The anti-animal agriculture narrative and plant-based diet agenda combines political ideology and commercial interests. This “movement” is insidious, unsavoury, and cannot be ignored by those who value liberty and consumer choice.
Although most people cannot deprive themselves of high-quality nutrition for long-periods of time, the fact that some people are going to such great lengths to avoid the consumption of meat and dairy products is rather telling.
The nutritional argument against consuming animal source foods is non-existent. It is quite simply illogical that red meat or dairy products cause modern diseases (I have previously covered this subject here).
Dietary recommendations have been moulded by religious and other personal beliefs (such as the temperance movement), animal rights activists, and food companies since their inception. None of this is anything new. What is new, is the concept of promoting a “planetary health diet.”
Nutrition science is ambiguous enough without adding extra layers of complexity. What’s good for the planet and what’s good for human health are understandable concerns to have. But conjoining the two is imprudent, especially when innumerable falsehoods are bandied about regarding both.
By far and away, the biggest contemporary driver of the anti-animal agriculture narrative is the supposed environmental impact of livestock – and that is a good place to start a critique of the plant-based diet agenda.
Climate Change Cover Story
“The great enemy of truth is very often not the lie – deliberate, contrived and dishonest – but the myth – persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic. Too often we hold fast to the clichés of our forebears. We subject all facts to a prefabricated set of interpretations. We enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.” – John F. Kennedy
Central to the anti-animal agriculture narrative, is climate change. The accusation that cattle are a leading cause of anthropogenic climate change is perhaps the most absurd concept of the global warming theory.
Nevertheless, this is the charge being laid against livestock agriculture.
Analysing the anthropogenic climate change thesis is not the purpose of this post. But the promotion of this claim is pivotal to the anti-animal agriculture narrative.
It is important to remember, that there is no such thing as consensus in science. Science progresses by exploding dud theories of the past. Consequently, the debate around anthropogenic climate change will continue for some time yet.
That the climate is constantly changing does not appear to be in dispute. What causes the weather to do what, particularly in terms of historic records and future predictions, is the bone of contention.
In the video below, the oft berated Lord Christopher Monckton shares his thoughts on climate change and why it should be questioned.
Lord Monckton’s conclusions on what is really driving the fixation with anthropogenic climate change is important to note, if one wishes to fully understand the plant-based diet agenda.
In any event, even if the politically distorted and commercially valuable anthropogenic climate change claim is assumed to be true, and the correct course of action to “save” the world from impending doom is to reduce the minute concentration of a substance essential for all life on earth, targeting livestock agriculture is of little consequence.
According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), agriculture accounted for 9% of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions in 2016. Of this 9%, animal agriculture was responsible for 4%. Transportation and electricity generation were each responsible for 29% of emissions, industry 22%, and commercial/residential 12%.
However, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations (UN) claim that livestock agriculture is responsible for a sizeable 14.5% of global emissions. This figure is such because less developed countries are generally home to inefficient, unproductive livestock.
For example, in 2014/15, the average daily milk yield of indigenous cows in India was 2.54 kg. Whereas the average daily milk yield of an American cow is approximately 31 kg.
Therefore, one American cow produces as much milk as twelve Indian cows. As a result, the less developed countries contribute a greater portion of their greenhouse gases to the world total in the form of livestock emissions.
In fact, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimates that 70 – 80% of global livestock related greenhouse gas emissions stem from developing countries. The implication of this, is that third world countries are to blame for “causing anthropogenic climate change” – which is obviously ridiculous.
As a final blow to this livestock emissions nonsense, consider the following:
In 1909 the number of motor vehicles registered in the U.S. totalled 312,000. By 2015, this had increased to 263,610,219. Over this time period, the number of motor vehicles per person increased by a whopping 27,233%.
However, between 1909 and 2015, the number of cattle (beef + dairy) per person in the U.S. decreased by 58%.
The premise that cattle are a leading cause of anthropogenic climate change never really made sense. This argument is merely co-opted to further the anti-animal agriculture narrative.
Resource Depletion
After cattle are accused of causing global warming, the allegation soon follows that they are responsible for resource depletion and world hunger as well.
The sustainable management of natural resources is indeed a subject worthy of attention. Nevertheless, this topic area can quickly give rise to all kinds of perturbed knee-jerk reactions.
Calls to limit population growth or redistribute surplus food are the most common, yet ultimately misguided “solutions” to the resource question. Indisputably, there is still considerable room for resource efficiency improvements in livestock agriculture, and this is of course our company’s raison d’être.
However, the anti-meat posing as green activists, propagate many dubious resource use factoids to discredit livestock agriculture.
A 2017 study published by Global Food Security examined the claims concerning the “burden” livestock agriculture places on the human food supply. The report suggests the feed/food challenge is a much smaller threat to food security than often reported.
Furthermore, the report explains that livestock contribute directly to global food security, because animals produce more highly valuable nutrients for humans, such as proteins, than they consume.
The reports lead investigator, Anne Mottet PhD said: “As a Livestock Policy Officer working for the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, I have been asked many times by the press to report on the negative environmental impacts of livestock.”
“Doing so, I came to realize that people are continually exposed to incorrect information that is repeated without being challenged, in particular about livestock feed.”
The report determines that 86% of livestock feed is not suitable for human consumption. Dr Mottet said: “The media often reports how consumers’ choices can contribute to sustainable development, like through a vegetarian diet; however, erroneous information is provided regarding livestock feed requirements.”
The FAO estimates that 32% of the world’s cereal production is used for animal feed. It is worth noting, that one of the key pieces of technology to be employed by the SAS System is hydroponic feed production. This technology has the potential to reduce the quantity of grain consumed by cattle by as much as 40 – 50%.
Furthermore, it is often stated that there is so much food in the world, 2.1 billion people are overweight or obese, yet 815 million people go hungry. The naive utopian belief is that overweight people eat too much, and this food could otherwise feed those who are hungry.
This oversimplified statement is correct in that there is no global shortage of calories. There is, however, a shortage of nutrition.
As I covered in this piece here, carbohydrate foods keep people fed, but not nourished. In order to alleviate malnutrition, populations throughout the world need access to nutrient dense animal source foods.
People who wish to insinuate that animal source foods have a high carbon or resource footprint (compared to plant source foods), can only do so when privileging calories as the numeraire.
Vegetables and grains are nutrient poor, whereas animal source foods are nutrient rich. Comparing bioavailable minerals, essential fatty acids, and digestible protein would be a much more appropriate measure, but this would tip the scales in favour of animal source foods.
Less developed and developing countries struggle to produce adequate quantities of nutrition for various reasons. Chief among them is political corruption; civil unrest or war; inadequate property rights; resource mismanagement; poor infrastructure; inability to access finance; inefficient farming practices; and a shortage of farm management expertise.
There are very few technical reasons preventing people from enjoying healthy diets rich in nutrient dense animal source foods.
For example, last year a British agronomist in Kenya grew a trial plot of barley that yielded 11.84 tonnes/hectare. The UK average spring barley yield is approximately 7.5 tonnes/hectare. The agronomist said: “The only food crisis Kenya should have is where to export all the food it produces. Shows what is actually possible right now with the application of proper science and agronomy.”
Any suggestion that the consumption of animal source foods in developed countries has anything to do with world hunger or resource depletion, is complete and utter drivel. Dangerous political ideologies, brutal tyrants, and warlords are responsible for famine and resource mismanagement – not “livestock agriculture.”
Food Utopia or Food Dystopia?
“Much of the social history of the Western world, over the past three decades, has been a history of replacing what worked with what sounded good.” – Thomas Sowell
Given that the anthropogenic climate change and resource footprint accusations against livestock agriculture do not hold water, what’s really behind the plant-based diet agenda?
Well, the empirical evidence suggests it is the advancement of plant-based diets for all.
Indeed, the plant-based and alternative protein movement is about more than industry disruption. It’s an ideology, one hell-bent on replacing traditional food with a utopian “food” solution – it’s political as much as it is commercial.
The CEO of Impossible Foods, Patrick Brown, has announced that: “The whole mission of the company is to completely replace the use of animals as a food technology globally, by 2035. And that is unequivocally the most important mission in the world, full stop.”
The level of hubris emanating from alternative protein companies is remarkable. Removing the pinnacle of human grade nutrition from the food supply could only be considered the most important mission in the world in the minds of ideological elites.
But can the founders and CEOs of the alternative protein companies really be so ignorant as to believe their own hype? Or is the disinformation campaign being waged against livestock agriculture merely the pretext for the insertion of imitation animal food products into the food supply?
The UN also believes “tackling meat is the world’s most urgent problem.” Unsurprisingly then, the UN named Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat as the 2018 joint winners of the Champions of the Earth Award, in the Science and Innovation category.
It is interesting to note, that in the two great dystopian novels of the 20th century, Brave New World and Nineteen Eighty-Four, synthetic food is integral to the themes explored.
In Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell recounts Winston Smith’s interactions with food on several occasions.
When Winston is queuing in the canteen, food trays are pushed beneath the grille: “onto each was dumped swiftly the regulation lunch – a metal pannikin of pinkish-grey stew, a hunk of bread, a cube of cheese, a mug of milkless Victory Coffee, and one saccharine tablet.”
Orwell then describes Winston eating the lunch: “He began swallowing spoonfuls of the stew, which, in among its general sloppiness, had cubes of spongy pinkish stuff which was probably a preparation of meat.”
Did the EAT-Lancet Commission take its cue from Nineteen Eighty-Four?
Similarly, in Brave New World, Aldous Huxley references “vitaminized beef-surrogate.” In these novels, food is linked to survival and it comes from the state, hence the state equals survival.
Alarmingly, the relationship between a nation’s protein food supply and political ideology is nothing new.
In 1929, Benito Mussolini ordered the formation of the Committee for the Study of Soya, and boldly announced a plan to require soy flour as a mandatory ingredient in the Italian staple polenta.
In the 1950s and 1960s, the Communist Party in the Soviet Union pushed soy protein and soy margarines as the solution to low-cost feeding of the masses.
Indeed, Stalin’s efforts to collectivize agriculture involved the liquidation of the kulaks as a class (landowning peasantry). These farmers were opposed to giving up their cattle and land to collectivization, and as such, represented a counterweight to Soviet power.
Furthermore, the Native American Indian were starved into submission when the settlers exterminated the main food source upon which they had relied for generations – the bison.
The best hope to control the Native Americans was to: “make them poor by the destruction of their stock, and then settle them on the lands allotted to them” – according to Major-General Phillip Sheridan, the man tasked with this objective.
Controlling the means of production and interfering with a country’s food supply appears to be a constant theme of totalitarianism. Undoubtedly (from an historical point of view at least), the consumption of nutrient dense animal source foods is associated with wealth, health, physical strength and intelligence. In combination, these attributes empower the individual and enable independence from the state.
It is not hard to deduce, that the end goal of this contemporary plant-based diet agenda, is not about treating animals with humanity, but treating humans like animals.
The Elite Diet Diktat
“I think that insofar as dictators become more and more scientific, more and more concerned with the technically perfect, perfectly running society, they will be more and more interested in the kind of techniques which I imagined and described from existing realities in Brave New World.” – Aldous Huxley, 1962
The plant-based diet rhetoric is sounding increasingly dictatorial. It is morphing from a teenage rebellion or bohemian novelty into an officially endorsed diet option.
Undoubtedly, some of the plant-based diet promoters will be simply well-intentioned but misguided people (and perhaps suffering from early onset SDS – Steak Deficiency Syndrome). Nevertheless, ignorance is no excuse when such damaging agendas are being peddled. As Thomas Sowell said: “Activism is a way for useless people to feel important, even if the consequences of their activism are counterproductive for those they claim to be helping and damaging to the fabric of society as a whole.”
It is all too easy to deride the conflicted puppets of the anti-meat posing as green crowd – such as Gunhild Stordalen, the founder of the EAT organization. Similarly, it is easy to single out the “Intellectual Yet Idiot” report contributors – such as Walter Willet (nutrition researcher) or Dr Marco Springmann (meat tax study). But of far greater importance, is establishing who the puppet-masters are.
It is important to acknowledge, that the anti-animal agriculture narrative; the plant-based diet agenda; calls for the introduction of a meat tax; and the anthropogenic climate change claim, are cut from the same cloth.
“Climate change is a convenient horse for elites to ride in the implementation of a new world order. Debating the science of climate change is beside the point. There are heated views on both sides; some science is settled, some not. Global elites treat the debate as settled to mask a larger project. For elites, a global problem once defined conjures a global solution. Climate change is the perfect platform for implementing a hidden agenda of world money and world taxation.” – James Rickards, The Road to Ruin
The plant-based diet rhetoric could be more correctly described as a propaganda bombardment. One where the end goal is to coerce the masses into accepting the elite diet diktat.
However, to really decipher the plant-based diet agenda and the bizarre EAT-Lancet report, an understanding of the Hegelian dialectic is a prerequisite.
In a July 2018 insight, Alasdair Macleod (Head of Research for Goldmoney), wrote the following in an article entitled “State or Individual?” As a preface, Macleod outlines that modern statism has its origins in Marxism.
“Marx was a student of Hegel and based his philosophical analysis on Hegelian dialectic. Hegel concluded we all take our cue from our social and cultural surroundings and circumstances, and that they in turn are set by historical events. This became the basis for Marx’s extreme philosophy of class structure, which, in common with that of Hegel, denied any role to the independence of human thought.”
“Marx’s philosophical stance was comprehensively set out in his book, A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, published in 1859. The fundamental principle behind Marxism is stated early in the preface, where he defines his deduction from the Hegelian dialectic: ‘It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but their social existence that determines their consciousness.’ In other words, social organisation takes precedence over the individual, and it therefore follows that the individual is subordinate to the social organisation.”
The following statement found on page 34 of the EAT-Lancet report confirms the analysis of Macleod’s writing: “However, the scale of change to the food system is unlikely to be successful if left to the individual or the whim of consumer choice.”
By understanding Marx’s philosophical stance and applying the Hegelian dialectic, it becomes rather obvious that the plant-based diet agenda promoted by the EAT-Lancet Commission contains at least a strand of political ideology.
Macleod summarised the Hegelian dialectic as follows: “Hegel, as did Marx, reasoned from a thesis, then a negation of the thesis, and then a negation of the negation. This was meant to be irrefutable proof of a surviving conclusion. But if the historical and ordinary facts and any assumptions are wrong at the outset, the whole thesis obviously fails.”
I find explaining the Hegelian dialectic in plain English to be somewhat difficult. But as a layman, I will attempt to use the dialectic in the context of the plant-based diet agenda.
Essentially, two extremes are required – one being the thesis (“livestock agriculture destroys the world”), and the other the anti-thesis (“the consumption of animal source foods must be phased out”).
However, the two are capable of reconciliation by combining them into a wider idea – a synthesis of opposites (“insert imitation animal food products made from plants into the food supply”).
Therefore, it can be deduced, that the advancement of the plant-based diet agenda will not take the form of a coup d’état. Instead, its implementation will advance subtly through various institutional and corporate channels, most likely via the alternative protein industry.
Food Financialisation
The lure of “disrupting” what remains of the unadulterated food supply (meat, dairy, fish, eggs) is an appealing proposition for start-up alternative protein companies and incumbent food industry giants.
The profitability of taking what should only be considered livestock feedstuffs, and processing this into human-consumable products, is an extremely lucrative business.
At the time of writing, a 415-gram box of “Nestle Shreddies Cereal” (96% whole grain wheat) can be purchased at the UK supermarket Sainsbury’s for £2.15 or £0.52/100g (a retail price per tonne of £5,200).
Currently, the spot UK milling wheat price is approximately £180/tonne.
A back of the envelope calculation indicates a mark-up of 2,788%. Although I am not familiar with the detailed economics of breakfast cereal processing, one can assume the margins will be at least several hundred percent – after packaging, transportation, and the processor’s margin is accounted for.
Whereas beef processing margins (after all costs), as an industry norm, are “in very low single digit percentages” – according to Tom Kirwan (CEO of ABP, a leading UK and Irish beef processor).
Given these indisputable facts, it is easy to see why Cargill and Tyson Foods (established animal protein processors) are keen to invest in alternative protein companies.
To them, a saleable product is a saleable product. If impressionable people are willing to buy their offerings, then a market will develop.
In late 2018, Nestle announced its plans to tap into the plant-based trend, having identified this as one of several fast growing “food tribes” (their wording). According to media reports, Nestle’s scientists are “experimenting with a liquid derived from walnuts and blueberries, with a purple hue. There’s also a blue latte featuring spirulina algae.”
Evidently, there is substantial corporate interest in the alternative protein concept.
Impossible Foods, the company receiving much of the alternative protein limelight, has attracted nearly $400 million in total funding. The company counts Google Ventures and Bill Gates among its investors.
Gates is not the only high-profile billionaire backing the alternative protein mania. Richard Branson is another notable example, he is an investor in Memphis Meats – a synthetic protein start-up.
Despite operating an airline (apparently among the worst airlines for pollution); and developing a space tourism venture, Branson wrote the following concerning his investment in Memphis Meats: “This could have a huge impact. Livestock is estimated to produce 18 per cent of all ‘man-made’ greenhouse gas emissions. This makes it a bigger contributor to global warming and environmental degradation than all forms of transportation.”
Sir Richard Branson’s actions perfectly demonstrate that the anthropogenic climate change story is worthy of the appellation “Saving the Planet Inc.”
Last year, New Crop Capital (private venture firm) launched a $100 million “New Protein Fund” to focus on investments in alternative protein companies.
The fund’s co-founder and chief investment officer (CIO), Chris Kerr, certainly believes there are fortunes to be made. “We will be rich, not matter what” he said in a pitch to a food manufacturing business, according Bloomberg Businessweek.
Reportedly, Kerr created New Crop Capital with funding from “wealthy backers who wish to remain anonymous.” The December 2018 article said that the fund has stakes in 33 vegan food companies.
Bloomberg summarised the discussion with the fund’s CIO, by stating: “To go truly global, in other words, vegan foods must be financialized and industrialized.”
Indeed, in this age of financialisation, it isn’t entirely surprising that the concept of an alternative protein industry has eventuated – anything seems possible.
Patrick Brown has said: “I love VCs and particularly the ones invested in us…. but it’s truly astonishing how little diligence they do in terms of the actual science that underlies some tech companies.”
“Sometimes……some of the VC firms we work with will ask me to take a look at a company. But it doesn’t really matter what I say because sometimes I’ll say, ‘If I were you I’d just flush my money down the toilet because it is faster and easier.’ But it doesn’t matter. They’ll do the deal.”
Patrick Brown’s observation confirms a recent comment made by financial journalist Edward Chancellor: “The market value of Elon Musk’s firm overtook BMW’s even though the profitable Bavarian luxury carmaker produced 30 times as many cars last year as the loss-making Tesla……With so much dumb money about, one of Silicon Valley’s new mantras is ‘spray and pray’.”
Many companies today exist only because of financialisation. As Roy Sebag, Founder of Goldmoney recently said: “We live in an age where liquidity masquerades as solvency.”
However, the situation the global economy and financial system finds itself in today is unprecedented. Many alternative protein companies who think they have a future could end up as ephemeral as dot-com companies – the similarities are striking.
Food Supply Control
It is important to distinguish between plant-based and synthetic protein (lab-meat) alternative protein companies. Synthetic protein companies have not yet commercialised the manufacture of “lab-meat.”
But if (and it is a big if), the process of manufacturing synthetic protein proves to be technologically and economically feasible, this would potentially put the means of “meat” production under the control of a small group of intellectual property-owning companies.
However, a more credible outcome, is that the promise of synthetic protein is simply used to cajole unwitting omnivores towards a utopian “meat” future. When they get there, they will instead find a plant-based food solution.
Covertly, I suspect the alternative protein promoters know that the commercial production synthetic protein is impractical.
By following the money, it is plain to see that the alternative protein movement is primarily focussed on plant-based companies. Imitation plant-based products (such as the Impossible Burger) can be manufactured now, using readily available agro-commodities such as soya, wheat, peas, oilseeds etc.
Therefore, the only real barrier preventing alternative protein products from entering the mainstream food supply, is consumer preference.
Alternative protein company executives know that most food consumers will only buy their imitation products if they can be made cheaper and more appealing than the real McCoy.
Josh Tetrick, founder and CEO of JUST, Inc. (an alternative protein company with a 2017 valuation of $1.1 billion) has said: “If my Dad can go to Walmart and buy cheap cod for $2.99 or [cell-based] Bluefin tuna for $2.49, then he might pick the tuna. If you can figure out how to get the cost down and the quality is better, it doesn’t matter if they [consumers] care about animal welfare, if they understand anything about the GFI, or if they believe in the science of climate change, or if they are a Trump voter….that’s when the switch [from conventionally produced meat to cell-based meat] will occur.”
Price is one of two elements central to the success of any food product.
The second element, taste, is outlined by Patrick Brown (he really is the gift that keeps on giving) in a response he gave during a 2009 interview (see interview here).
As a preface, Brown was explaining that the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the UN published a study looking at the environmental impact of animal farming, “and the bottom line is that it is the most destructive and fastest growing environmental problem.” Here’s what he said about his plan to “eliminate animal farming on planet Earth”:
“The gist of my strategy is to rigorously calculate the costs of repairing and mitigating all the environmental damage and make the case that if we don’t pay as we go for this, we are just dumping this huge burden on our children. Paying these costs will drive up the price of a Big Mac and consumption will go down a lot. The other thing is to come up with yummy, nutritious, affordable mass-marketable alternatives, so that people who are totally addicted to animal foods will find alternatives that are inherently attractive to eat, so much so that McDonald’s will market them, too. I want to recruit the world’s most creative chefs – here’s a REAL creative challenge!”
Firstly, this statement is a clear indictment of the alternative protein agenda, including the meat tax conspiracy.
Anyway, as the ultra-processed food industry has demonstrated, the blandest ingredients can be made palatable through chemical trickery. Supposedly, Impossible Foods has mastered this technique also. If a concoction of grain and oilseeds can deliver a meat-eating sensory experience, perhaps unsuspecting omnivores will buy alternative protein products?
Alas, it is the average Joe who will determine their level of entrapment to the elite diet diktat. Aldous Huxley very nearly surmised this exact predicament several decades ago:
“There will be, in the next generation or so, a pharmacological method of making people love their servitude, and producing dictatorship without tears, so to speak, producing a kind of painless concentration camp for entire societies, so that people will in fact have their liberties taken away from them, but will rather enjoy it, because they will be distracted from any desire to rebel by propaganda or brainwashing, or brainwashing enhanced by pharmacological methods. And this seems to be the final revolution.” – Aldous Huxley, 1962.
Corporate & Academic Collusion
In the 2009 interview, Patrick Brown also alluded to “driving up the price of a Big Mac.” I wonder how he intends to do that?
“A new study (useful things these studies eh?) from researchers at the Oxford Martin School has found that a health tax on red and processed meat could prevent more than 220,000 deaths and save over US$40 billion in healthcare costs every year.”
The report was led by none other than Dr Marco Springmann – a vegan activist.
And which journal published the report?
Well, that would be the Public Library of Science (PLoS) – “a nonprofit Open Access publisher, innovator and advocacy organization with a mission to advance progress in science and medicine by leading a transformation in research communication.”
And who co-founded this journal?
None other than CEO and founder of Impossible Foods – Patrick Brown.
In that expository 2009 interview, Brown said: “I want to LITERALLY overthrow the scientific publishing establishment……that is what I want to do. PLoS is just part of a longer range plan. The idea is to completely change the way the whole system works for scientific communication.”
Evidently, “part of a longer range plan” means publishing studies conducive to his commercial interests.
And lastly, does the Oxford Martin School really think that taxing meat could “prevent” more than 220,000 deaths every year?
To quote the inimitable Dr Malcolm Kendrick: “The chances of getting out of life alive are zero. Indeed, to the best of my knowledge, no-one has managed it yet.”
(Note: Dr Malcolm Kendrick’s exceptional 2014 book, Doctoring Data, is a must read if you have even the slightest interest in your own health).
Governments & Meat Tax
Indisputably, there is a vociferous mob who would willingly support a plant-based diet for all. Indeed, after announcing the meat tax study, Dr Marco Springmann made sure he used the one-sided mainstream media soapbox to full effect: “For the average consumer……the takeaway message is, change your diet and write to your politicians to implement better regulations.”
However, politicians in office are not yet displaying much fervour for taxing meat. They must surely know that pushing up food prices is a sure way of instigating a revolution? (case in point, the Arab Spring).
A British Minister of State (Claire Perry) has said: “I don’t think we should be in the business of prescribing to people how they should run their diets……Who would I be to sit there advising people in the country coming home after a hard day of work to not have steak and chips?”
The idea of taxing red meat doesn’t seem to be getting much traction in Australia either.
The Australian Minister for Agriculture (David Littleproud) said: “The idea of taxing red meat by Oxford University shows just how irrelevant these institutions are becoming……You have to question who commissioned this report.”
“I don’t tell people what they should eat. People can make up their own minds and government should stay out of their lives.”
Of course, plant-based protein companies are bound to lobby for a meat tax, and by colluding with biased academic researchers, they will strive to compile a body of “evidence.” (There isn’t a shred of discernible evidence to validate the red meat pseudo-science or the climate change claims).
Although I suspect calls for banning this and taxing that will increase as the Western world undergoes continued social, moral, and economic turmoil; it would take a brave, desperate or despotic politician to tax something as primal as meat.
It is imperative that the protein food market remains free. Free from overzealous regulations, penal taxes, and corporate dictation.
If this holds true, and people are free to eat a diet of their choosing, then alternative protein companies will have to compete against real animal source foods. This is the free market, that is how business is supposed to work.
But if food companies use corporate cronyism to influence policy makers, then the free market element will be lost, along with consumer choice.
Open Farm Pinprick
“Kill weeds when they are small – this rule applies to any problem you encounter in life.” – Matthew Naylor, Farmers Weekly columnist
Currently, the anti-animal agriculture narrative is doing damage to the livestock sector. Even if it does not result in people deliberately removing animal source foods from their diets, this propaganda bombardment plants the seed of doubt in the minds of the majority who do eat meat and dairy products.
To date, the livestock industry has been slow to dissect the anti-animal agriculture narrative and formulate a solid rebuttal. The response has been to ignore this dietary fad; pass the buck onto certain production systems; or advocate a “balanced diet.”
All these reactions miss the bigger picture. Understanding who is promoting this movement; who is profiting from the attempt to shift dietary patterns; and why this disturbing agenda is being pursued, ought to be the livestock industry’s focus.
History shows that complacency in such matters is unwise. The infamous Ancel Keys almost single-handedly instigated one of the greatest health deceptions of the 20th century.
But the contemporary assault on livestock agriculture and animal source foods could have far greater consequences.
The consumption of nutrient dense food is a fundamental pillar of a thriving civilization. No sensible person would wish to see real nutrition removed from the food supply. However, as this critique has sought to highlight, the anti-animal agriculture narrative and plant-based diet agenda harbours wider political and commercial schemes.
Nevertheless, dispelling the anti-animal agriculture narrative and exposing the fraudulent plant-based diet agenda is not an insurmountable challenge. All the actual scientific evidence, history, and logic is firmly on the side of livestock agriculture – as well as the vast majority of food consumers.
However, thinking the complicit media and ivory tower academics will embrace impartiality on this issue is ingenuous. The anthropogenic climate change claim and “red meat causes [insert non-communicable disease of your choice]” is entrenched dogma in the eyes of the media and many academic institutions.
Alas, many schools are also adept at spreading propaganda. I vividly remember being taken from the classroom to watch Al Gore’s 2006 “documentary” – An Inconvenient Truth (I don’t recall being taken to watch any other “educational” films).
Instead, the process of rebutting the anti-animal agriculture narrative and exposing the plant-based diet agenda must go direct to the people – as Dr Frank Mitloehner (University of California, Davis) summarises in the short clip below.
The whole point of our company’s proposed Open Farm agri-tourism venture is to provide a transparent platform for people to experience modern and sustainable livestock agriculture. I have briefly outlined this concept here.
Engaging with the very people agriculturalists seek to nourish is going to be a crucial aspect of 21st century food production – the state of public health and individual liberty just might depend on it.
Declaration of Interest!
Any damning assessment of the alternative protein movement, especially by a livestock agriculturalist, could easily be construed as typical luddite behaviour.
Therefore, when analysing this subject, I am mindful of the following quotation in more ways than one.
“The mind likes a strange idea as little as the body likes a strange protein and resists it with similar energy. It would not perhaps be too fanciful to say that a new idea is the most quickly acting antigen known to science. If we watch ourselves honestly we shall often find that we have begun to argue against a new idea even before it has been completely stated.” – Wilfred Trotter, surgeon and sociologist
Notwithstanding Trotter’s valid observation, suggesting that this critique is lamenting the demise of an “antiquated and inefficient” industry would be misguided. Our start-up agribusiness is intently focussed on innovation in dairy and beef production. Indeed, developing a super-efficient agricultural production system fit for the 21st century is our ultimate endeavour.
Without question, livestock agriculture is going to have to increase its innovation commitments in order to continue dominating its very own market segment.
But there is disruption, and then there is foolishness. Thinking that people can thrive on a diet devoid of animal source foods, or one laden with imitation “meat” products, is madness.
Edward Talbot
About
Sustainable Agricultural Systems Ltd. (SAS) We are a New Zealand farming family who in 2010 moved to the UK to investigate new agricultural opportunities. Since then, we have researched and designed the SAS System.
I have no issue with vegetarians and vegans until you get the extreme lunatics that cross the point they talk about using laws and force to mandate things. We don’t make them eat particular things and I expect the same rights and consideration back. If they can convince people to do a change of diet voluntarily then good luck to them it is a freedom we have.
+1000
Vegetarians and particularly vegans have always been self-righteous, moralistic zealots who think their personal choices somehow give them a right to tell everyone else what to do.
This is now becoming the modus operandi of the left with “save the planet” being the ultimate moral argument from which to preach and dictate to others. They seem oblivious to the monumental self-parody.
True. What amuses me is that they kill baby peas, yet remain sanctimonious.
They kill to stay alive, as all do.
Wasnt’t Adolf Hitler a vegetarian? Look what he did for the mankind.
Ah yes, Adolph, the first globalist in modern history. They couldn’t achieve it through force, so now they are trying via economics. Leftists try to blame his actions on nationalism, but nationalism is not a problem. The problem is the desire to take over OTHER people’s nations, aka, globalism.
Very interesting that leftists seem hell-bent on “fixing” things that aren’t even broken. I found this article chilling, especially when you pair it with a number of other anti-nature agendas being rammed down our throats; “toxic masculinity” and “transgenderism.”
Because lacking the concentrated, easily-absorbed essential nutrients from animal sources, a couple of things happen, particularly with the consumption of non-fermented soy: Infertility, feminization of boys and men, precocious puberty in girls, low thyroid making both sexes fat and lethargic while ravenous for ever-more cheap empty carbohydrates, etc. Oh, and grain-based diets and overconsumption of sugars is mostly why the “Western diseases” keep so many dependent on the pharma industry to stay alive. Why, who wouldn’t want THAT?
Somebody out there seems to want a world of easily-led, cheap to feed, docile and declining population that isn’t allowed to make personal choices. Seems Huxley saw it coming.
“particularly with the consumption of non-fermented soy: ”
Even many/most Vegans and vegetarians (Or meat eaters) do not know that fermented foods are not only much higher in bio-available nutrients than unfermented foods, they also contain vital K2. K2 is found in meat, but is much higher in food fermented by Bacillus Subtilis like Natto, the Japanese super food. Fermentation of foods is vital in any discussion about peak nutrition. We were built eat fermented foods and thrive.
To make matters much, much worse, there has been a massive mistake made with recommendation by GP’s to take vitamin D3. If taken, it mobilises calcium but does nothing to make sure the calcium is deposited in bones, instead calcium is deposited everywhere including arteries. On the other hand, it is K2 that orchestrates where calcium should and shouldn’t go or removal thereof.
How to stop cavities, recover brain and heart health with vitamin K2 – OraWellness – Kiran Krishnan
“How to stop cavities, recover brain and heart health with vitamin K2 – OraWellness – Kiran Krishnan”
I knew a vegan like you are talking about. She was kind of an undernourished cross between Maria Muldaur and Joan Baez, without the musical talent.
I was pre-med working in the same lab as she, myself an undergrad, she a 5th-year grad student, not even close to starting to write up her thesis.
People made fun of her. When I say people, I don’t mean me, I mean her doctoral advisor and her co-grad students. First off, she spouted her health-centered diet, but was very sickly. Second, she somehow lost her specimens in the compartment of the Revco, and scraped them off the walls Third she ran experiments, and instead of running her own control regimen, used control data published in another institution.
The good news is, she didn’t convince anyone else in our lab that her veganism was worth following.
There are problems with vegans forcing their plant only diet restrictions on cats and dogs. Dogs get sick and the cats die.
The irony of a vegan having a pet aside you are correct and even most vegans agree when they look at the science
https://www.theplantway.com/can-cats-be-vegan/
Don’t paint us all with one brush. I’ve been a veggie for 10+ years and I would never feel comfortable forcing others to do it. That is an individual choice. I’ve ran into the types you describe and want nothing to do with their agenda. They are less than half the veggies I’ve met.
I tried vegan once for a month but didn’t feel good. A few years later after reading up I tried veggie (lacto/ovo) plus B12, EPA/DHA. Felt great and I’ve been on it ever since.
If anyone is thinking of trying a veggie diet make sure you get B12 (methylcobalamin form) and long chain EPA/DHA (purified fish oil). I get most of my protein from whey, hemp seed and egg whites. Any soy I eat has to be fermented (tempeh, miso, nato).
Many of them cringe that you might celebrate a special occasion with the consumption of a steak at a fancy restaurant, but they are perfectly fine with ending the life of a newly born infant after it has taken its first breaths outside the womb.
I think they’re taking a cue from Jonathan Swift’s Modest Proposal. Think Planned Parenthood’s selling of baby parts.
“We don’t make them eat particular things and I expect the same rights and consideration back …”.
====================================
That’s the harm principle viz. “The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others” (On Liberty, J S Mill) and ‘harm to others’ in economics is a negative externality.
The naturally totalitarian personalities amongst us are constantly concocting negative consequences to restrict and control the choices of others and with CC™ they think they have discovered the ultimate catch-all negative ‘externality’.
Full disclosure. I eat meat. I’m firmly in the camp of vegetables are what food eats and If God wanted us to be vegetarians, he would have made broccoli a lot more fun to hunt!
However, I laugh at vegan/vegetarians all the time as they attempt to create recipes that taste like real meat. Apparently american hamburger is like the vegan recipe gold standard. Why do vegetarians want to do this? Why are you trying to get to hamburger? (there’s a simple solution at the butcher counter) You’re happy to eat vegetables why don’t you want them to taste like broccoli?
I challenge anyone to smell bacon frying (or even walk past a McDonald’s) without salivating at the sizzling meat. And I have never, in going on 60 years, not even once, seen or heard of ANYONE, EVER, salivating at the smell of broccoli. 😉 This tells me a certain something about evolution . . . that, and the fact that I don’t have my horse’s cecum.
cecum; well played; you made me look it up
And there’s another hypothesis that rain washes nutrients down from the mountains and animals climb up and re-deposit. I’ve also seen some experiments where they’ve used livestock to regenerate arid areas. Droppings and stirrings.
Its not just this issue. After COP24 there has been an explosion of twitter people pushing this as well as radical reductions in flying, using shaming to push academics and laypeople from flying.
I think that there was something put together there as a marketing push across many interest areas as a means to push the radicalization of carbon policy.
Around 1500 private planes flew into Davos for the annual talkfest of business leaders, politicians, rockstars and other A-listers. And they have the gall to tell us to reduce flying?
The demonization of meat is yet another effort by the self-appointed to keep the little people down, put them in their place, tell them what to do. Well, they can go and get stuffed.
“It is quite simply illogical that red meat or dairy products cause modern diseases…”
This is not quite right in the details. Milk allergy and kidney stones (from red meat) are established consequences of the consumption of these foods for some people. There are many other allergic reactions to various foods as well.
I am intolerant to milk, that makes sense mammals are only suppose to consume milk as babies, only and idiot would thing other wise, and yes some groups of humans have overcome that, I might belong to that group but that one group trait I did not inherited. I can eat beef no problems, gluten and beans sorry not a chance. I am not alone on that, it not meat and cream that cause heart disease it salad oils and excessive carbohydrate that are the killer not only heart disease but diabetes also. In one blog a rancher made a very direct post, “we feed grain to cattle to fatten them up, why would we think the same would not be true for humans.” Very good question!
An interesting article on researcher’s speculation on milk consumption. Unfortunately it is based on models, but interesting none the less.
“Milk Drinking Started Around 7,500 Years Ago In Central Europe”
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/08/090827202513.htm
So our ancestors didn’t eat meat or drink milk historically they were vegetarians and vegans and this modern eating is causing all the allergic reactions. It is pretty well known there has to be somethign else at play except you missed the memo 🙂
Drinking milk didn’t start until after cows were domesticated, a relatively recent event from an evolutionary standpoint.
Hominids have been eating meat since they got big enough to drive scavengers away from a carcass.
And the first guy who came up with the hypothesis, “Maybe if I kill that antelope, it might be edible, let me devise a tool to take it down,” and then he killed it and ate it, and it was good, and he and his family became stronger and faster people, eating meat and vegetables, than his co-tribal brothers who were solely vegans, and so they became chieftains, and lived happy lives.
We modern humans forgot that our forebears were vegans, because, who wants to be a 97-pound wimp?
I really doubt that our forebears were vegans, as Jane Goodall and other researchers have noted, chimps, bonobos and the like are rather omnivorous, and one would presume our ancestors were like out close relatives.
MarkW,
My mother (and mothers everywhere) would beg to differ with the “Cows and Milk Drinking” hypothesis.
As a guy I’ve tried many times over the decades to get those “Cargo Planes” to land again as they most assuredly did when I was an infant. The fun now is in the trying.
“So our ancestors didn’t eat meat…”
Ldb perhaps you could explain why we humans are perfectly adapted for persistence hunting and are able to run most animals to exhaustion over long distances and then kill them when they’re exhausted. Humans are not herbivores. We eat herbivores. That’s why I like my steak rare.
You obviously missed the smile perhaps I need to put /sarcasm for you because it went right over your head
Vegans are still trying to lie their way out of what was written by Weston A Price and his work investigating the health or diet of primitive tribes still around in the 1930s.
I personally changed my diet for a ketogenic style diet to alleviate several problems with my health that had been becoming worse over the last couple of years. In just a week of changing my carbohydrates from within the standard range accepted to a level of roughly 20-50g maximum of carbs a day most of the symptoms disappeared, my energy started returning etc.
Diets and dietary intake will vary for everyone so a one size fits all propagandising from a self-important group only seems to push a corrupt narrative. Much similar to the climate change one really.
“CAUSE.”
If you are one of the “some” people, it is genetics that is the cause. (I originally typed “your” genetics there, but dietary problems are also frequently the simple lack of the appropriate commensal organisms in your system.) The inability to correctly process a dietary intake is the disease, not the dietary intake.
Soylent Green.
I believe that the breeding of large animals such as cows, sheep, goats and pigs was ultimately responsible for the levels of technology and wealth that we enjoy today. Anything that turns grass into delicious protein, fat and even calcium for bones is a true miracle.
I don’t care if some people choose not to eat meat or dairy products. I’m not going to tell them they’re wrong. If they try to tell me what I should or should not eat, I’ll tell them that, and a great deal more if they don’t stop.
Breeding animals is disturbing and gross. I think a human should only do their own personal breeding. We have to breed or inseminate (rape) these animals so we can create more bodies to kill and eat. Beyond that – they typically have pretty disturbing lives in the large scale factory farms, devoid of any basic pleasure that living creatures enjoy – space to move around, fresh air. Often loaded onto open air tractor trailers and driven on highways across states to be “processed” as many commenters have called it. If you can torture and play god with these animals, or pay someone to do it for you, then good for you. Way to go. I will continue to pray for the sweet creatures we share our planet with and I will not torture them, enslave them, rape them, steal their babies, or kill them. But have at it! Enjoy your disgusting mother’s milk from another species. Cook it well, make sure you kill off the diseases the can be found on DEAD BODIES! ewwww
You are COMPLETELY divorced from nature and the world. You seem to think the natural world is accurately described in a Disney animation, where animals cavort and play in lovely meadows with plenty of food and no enemies. I’m not going to waste my time trying to lift your ignorance. Perhaps one day you will watch a video of crocodiles eating a zebra alive, or deer dying of starvation. THAT is what nature has given them. Every animal ends up being eaten by other animals, and quite often while still alive.
And if you think females in the wild give their consent to be impregnated, then you are, indeed, poorly educated.
Wait wait. Did I misunderstand that last bit? Yes they consent.
Any field zoologist has seen that females– in the wild and also in minimally-restrictive domestic circumstances– absolutely seek mating.
You have not seen my Walking Horse mare in heat following, peeing at and pushing against the individual of her choice (=smell my hormones I’m ready). You have not spent hours amounting to years observing animals in the wild wherein females choose their favorite or perhaps favorites and mate with enthusiasm multiple times.
Rape is seldom an issue in the non-human world but yes it does occur. In the wild I recall are pintail mallards who will swoop down on any female regardless of her species or appropriate hormonal status. Yes there are some others. Not common.
Pintails and mallards are closely related, taxonomically, but different ducks.
Wanderer…
Imagine an organism in an undisturbed ecosystem..go ahead and pick one. Now imagine its life … and its death.
I pick a caribou. Most of its time is spent grazing and wandering to the next eating spot. It’s life is to be constantly on the alert for predators which are constantly on the alert for caribou. It might be one of the lucky ones that survive freezing or starving to death in winter, or it might not.
If it is, then it might survive to become the victim of an infection and will receive no medical care or intervention. Perhaps it will just become weaker as it ages but either way it will become prey. Wolves are not fussy about how a caribou is slaughtered. Prey is eaten alive until it isn’t alive anymore.
This is the way of all nature. Pretty much everything (except farmed animals) is eaten alive until it is dead. So dear Wanderer… what organism do you choose?
In other words, you have no idea what you are talking about and want to force your phobias onto everyone else.
Zig Zag Wanderer, I follow you, having been where you are before you got there.
I have friends that are plants. I learned from a man who was second cousin to the wife of one of Semyon Kirlian’s most-loved students, that plants are sentient beings. I saw photographs that were smuggled out of the Soviet Union that proved plants were higher-order lifeforms who experienced pain when they were injured.
Later I read in Scientific American that plants released defensive biochemicals when they were under attack. Self-protective actions prove sentience.
As a result of this enlightenment, I entered a secret ashram, I can’t say what it is, except for those who want to enter the path of holy righteous sustainability, let’s just say it is within 25 radial miles of Esalen. That’s all I can say. You don’t have to first attend Esalen, but it gives you a head start, because there is a direct dirt trail to the ashram.
To find this temple of truth, you’re going to have to cross a lot of poison oak covered territory, happy I Ching. (Many people call this itching.)
Well, complete the ashram pathway to nirvana course, and you can live on cosmic rays and dark energy, and never have to kill another innocent plant in your life to survive.
The realities of food production, processing and transportation are obviously unknown to people who think like Mr/Ms Zig Zag Wanderer 2. It doesn’t matter if you eat only veggies, getting food to your mouth also includes the death of countless insects, rodents, mammals, birds, etc. Causing death to other living creatures is a product of you being at the top of the food chain. Even if you grow 100% of your food in your back yard to avoid transportation death (such as that sweet raccoon that tries to cross the road in front of the semi hauling cauliflower to your local store) you will still have a negative impact on other life, such as the death of an earthworm when you till soil or the slug you kill because you’re tired of them eating the tomatoes you were going to can for winter. I tell people I raise sheep because they taste good! And I’m so thankful God created sheep for me to enjoy and nourish my body. And it takes a unique lack of curiosity, honesty and individualism to buy into the insemination = “rape”.
Madness is were we are at almost across the board,to the most part it the fault of the left and the elites. The left are a proven murderous force, after all the did murder 200,000,000 people in the twenty century and are unapologetic about it and are trying to continue on, after all we only have to look at Virginia governor on that case he has no problem murder a child already bore(of course it has to be done humanely as if you can murder humanely) add in he a Doctor. The elites are only interested in feather their pocks no mater what the cost to the undesirable which is most of us. Add in that a vegetarian diet is actually harmful to the planet, simple it requires far more energy and land to pull it, add in that such a diet is detrimental to the health of the human race is a bonus to the elite and the left.
After cattle are accused of causing global warming
=============
Falsely accused. Cattle contribute no net GHG. Rather they convert grasses that humans cannot eat into proteins and carbohydrates that humans can eat. The grass was produced from GHG in the atmosphere. Any GHG released by cattle while converting grass to protein and carbohydrates is converted by bacteria and eventually ends up as grass to feed the cattle, completing the loop.
Cattle is a closed loop, fully sustainable food production system that releases no net ghg. Cattle produce high quality food for humans from low quality feed stocks that humans cannot eat. They recycle GHG in coordination with bacteria and plants.
Ironically, the Green mantra supports the concept of the closed loop carbon cycle when you discuss human population levels in countries such as China and their direct GHG emissions.
https://www.skepticalscience.com/breathing-co2-carbon-dioxide-intermediate.htm
Of course these guys have zero integrity and spin the argument the other way when it’s suits their totalitarian cause.
Correct Ferdberple!
Unmentioned, is the simple fact that livestock tend to be grown on land unsuitable for raising crops or on lands left fallow.
Planting a land improving crop, e.g. alfalfa, rye, etc. while land is rotated into their fallow years is a key construct of sustainability.
Livestock roaming and consuming plant material returns to the soil mulch, humus and nutrients.
In less arable areas, livestock is raised simply because the land is not suitable for food crops.
As Ferd points out, livestock consume low quality coarse plants and through their complex digestive systems draw nutrients out that is converted to high nutrition meat.
Far too many activists proposing strict vegetative diets are oblivious to effort and conditions necessary to raise the tender vegetation, of which they are so fond. It doesn’t help that most also ignore the incomplete nutrition profiles most plant diets provide.
Meaning, it is all right with them that they and their families often are not consuming healthy diets. Their anti-meat bias dooms the less wealthy to unhealthy nutrition profiles.
Improved nutrition profiles are why many people are taller and healthier than their ancestors were a couple of hundred years ago. i.e. unless their ancestors were royalty or wealthy.
This is an excellent article and yet another warning about the corruption, greed and lust for power and control that is out there is the world.
Yes, that is what I wanted to comment too! Brilliant work and compilation – thanks a lot! I have noticed the huge markup on plant-based food a long time ago but never thought about this in numbers! Amazing that companies get so easily away with this but when chicken wings are sold for $2, people call it rip-off!
Corporations are hoping to jump on the green movement and climate change agenda, and they want to take over the biological role that animals have performed for thousands of years, efficiently converting grass and other plants into digestible protein. Corporations are thinking “We want to do that job now! Dispense with the animals!” Their new profit frontier.
Corporations as usual are jumping on the bandwagon because they see a huge profit potential. They want to replace the job that animals have been doing for millenia, of converting grass and other plants into human digestible protein. Not because they can do it better, but because of profit. Just make the fake meat cheap and good tasting, don’t worry about health and nutrition. And there are no government regulations! Another health disaster in the making. Years in the future, people will realize that this fake meat is a bad thing, just like oleo-margarine, trans fats, diet soda, processed junk food and all the other market driven food industry inventions.
Ironically, producing manufactured industrial food this way will probably emit just as much if not more greenhouse gasses as the old way.
Just don’t eat it like all the other shit they produce that you’ve spoken of. Doesn’t take a genius to figure out.
Just look at this evil incarnate. Meat means murder. I only eat the mushrooms to maintain my moral compass.
What will be done about the almost 200 million cattle in India? They are worshiped not eaten, kill a cow and you would be in serious trouble.
So what is bestn, to save the Planet, or to make us be in better health. Or both.
Perhaps we should take advantage of all the meat in the form of humans , and instead of wasting it via the crementorian, lets use the “Solient Green”solution. Recycling is all the rage. Hi.
Waste not, want not.
MJE
An alternative is generating heat energy from crematoria… which is already a thing…
You have to put quite a lot of heat energy in to burn a body. Sounds like Climate Scientology to me…
how do you suppose they figure out the calorie content of ANY food? they burn it and figure out how much extra heat was produced. you can’t easily burn very wet green wood either but once it dries, watch out.
The body is 98% water even if you drain it of all easily displaced fluid it is going to be something like 50% . So you don’t ever reach a break even point it is a bit like trying to burn wet wood.
So basically a body has negative caloric value.
I suspect the confusion comes from an article that is written something like this
https://www.treehugger.com/renewable-energy/crematorium-generate-clean-energy.html
The article was written by a dimwitt at no point are they actually generating energy from burning corpses they just have to have the furnaces running anyhow so they are using energy not used to burn the body and using it.
The guardian actually managed to at least get that right for a change
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2011/apr/25/cremation-excess-heat-research
It is the excess heat they are using not the the energy of burning the body
So no people they aren’t burning bodies to make heat 🙂
It’s relatively easy to turn animal fats into fuel, and this is a possibility, but in actuality, the recycled human body is more valuable when harvested for its parts.
Doesn’t it bother you that cremation puts a lot of CO2 into the air, when it could be sequestered in buried, sealed caskets for thousands of years? I have been waiting for demands to stop cremations. How many tons of atmospheric CO2 does India, alone, produce in a year from this practice.
Since people are mostly water, we don’t generate much energy when burned. That’s why modern crematorium run on natural gas.
You would have to wait until the bodies dried out….keep them in a stackoria ?
Otherwise you need more energy to burn them than you produce.
Egyptian workers building railways in the 19thC did burn mummies to keep warm [but mummies weren’t used as fuel for steam trains…Mark Twain was responsible for that ].
Your proposal might have more merit if the human population through much of the world continues its junk food fueled march towards extreme obesity. Perhaps people might start emulating lithium batteries and burst into flame of their own accord [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spontaneous_human_combustion].
Composting. Bury ’em for 6 months in a mixture of wood chips and manure, which “heats” and promotes bacterial decomposition. Nothin’ left but the bones, grind ’em up for your roses.
This is really a “thing.”
The problem is the better health leads to deaths by other causes increasing which is always amusing to watch people try to understand. It seems to get lost that eventually you must die of something.
Exactly right. If you don’t have antibiotics then you can die from an accidental scratch. Plus, when people died 80 years ago, they would not necessarily have been diagnosed for the cause, which means that incidence of disease is confounded with better diagnosis.
Haven’t you heard? The latest BS-buzzword from the WHO and other nannystaters is “premature death.” How can anyone determine it’s “premature?” You can ace your physical and step in front of a bus tomorrow. No one can predict the time and cause of death of any individual, and death is still always one to a customer. But-but-but! they could have lived LONGER, they say, if not for the bus, the bacon, the smokes or the tsunami that got ’em. Or something . . .
But it sounds good to the innumerate and scientifically illiterate.
That is attribution statistics or attribution models and again and I repeat it isn’t science it is marketing. You can talk about using a science approach and any other fancy science sounding catch words you like but it isn’t science. It fails to be science because it has far to many loopholes in it.
There are only two fields that use attribution models or statistics and they are medicine and climate science and both instances it is used in the absence of real science by parties who wish to market a product or idea.
There are arguments against meat on the grounds of cruelty to animals. When working in telecomms I had the dubious privelege of surveying a chicken factory for a phone system. That decided me to stop buying chicken.
Not all meat eating involves cruelty. I’d have no problem with taking a rifle out and shooting a deer for the table. The difficulty is in establishing whether the animal was treated cruelly, though. Dairy farming can in some cases be cruel, for example if milk cows spend their lives in cages.
To conflate meat eating with the infamous climate scam makes no sense though.
“Therefore, one American cow produces as much milk as twelve Indian cows”… well there’s a whole raft of unaddressed differences between India and the US there…
for example the US use of milk production increasing hormones like BST (banned in the EU), the intensive nature of US agriculture, with cows being entirely housed inside (and where and how does their feed come from?) – there are a handful at most of such dairies in the UK, for example… the difference in the breeds: a US dairy cow would fare badly in the heat of India…
And Us meat consumption is at a level much, much higher than the rest of the world… including that here in the UK.
Does excessive meat consumption cause illness? Hmmm… all Americans are not slim are they?
You don’t get fat eating meat, it is protein, you get fat eating Junk processed food.
Primarily the carbohydrates. Protein actually triggers the full feeling, whereas you can eat an entire packet of crisps an not feel satisfied; bloated, yes, but still needing something.
Yep, another reason to like big government, its diet is killer.
I actually lost a lot of weight after I gave up vegetarianism.
One of the differences is that the Indian subsistence farmer needs essential amino acids to biologically improve the quality of his vegetable protein.
Do the greens want Indians to stop producing such amino acids and so die out?
If they were to do so Indian birth rates would fall and the survivors would not grow into healthy adults.
So, why are cows useful in India?
‘First, it is part of a composite farming system in most situation s, with interaction s between crop and livestock production systems. Second, there is gainful employment of surplus family labour, all the more important for eastern India, where there is a high rate of rural unemployment. Third, along with earning income from sale of milk, family nutrition is an important reason for the small producer to rear milch animals.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/320414181_Economics_of_Dairy_Farming_in_India
The problem is the dogma that animal protein is intrinsically bad.
In India and elsewhere, it is an absolute economic and community good.
Saying anything else just puts the anti cow dogma into disrepute.
Griff, as usual you’re so full of ‘it your eyes are brown. Have you ever actually seen a dairy farm?
“Does excessive meat consumption cause illness? Hmmm… all Americans are not slim are they?”
They would be better off if they ate more meat and less processed foods and high fructose corn syrup – the latter is in everything.
Griff, perhaps you actually noticed the mention of Ancel Keys? Your notions of a proper diet are based on his models, which were reinforced with what amounts to fraud. Suppressing his own long term study that disproved his pet theory says quite a lot about the person. He should be in the same reputation position as Sir Cyril Burt.
The EU bans many things that are not harmful and are in fact beneficial.
The fact that BST is banned in the EU is just virtue signalling.
Actually Hong Kong has the highest meat consumption and the longest life’s recorded. Higher meat consumption seems to equal better health. In the is, meat consumption is at a record low historically.
Charles, you’re only wrong about one thing here. The nutritional argument FOR consuming animal source foods is non-existent. We know almost nothing about nutrition in 2019, but we do know that vegans are neither less nor more healthy than people who eat meat/dairy, and we also know that the “protein myth” is widespread. There is no nutritional argument here either way. I am a long-time reader and supporter of Wattsupwiththat.com, don’t believe the AGW narrative, and have been vegan for 35 years. It’s clearly better for animal welfare – you can’t tell me cows are better off in feedlots and slaughterhouses than if they hadn’t been born at all, and the same for other farmed animals. You can’t tell me industrial fishing is better for marine ecosystems. You can’t tell me topsoils and riparian habitats are better off as grazing land than as something else. Disease-levels of e-coli and other bacteria and the vast quantity of antibiotics sold can be found in the meat-driven food chain. There are many political forces you haven’t bothered to mention, like gag laws and “American” beef being raised in South America, misinformation, and much more. It’s far more complex than you have outlined.
It’s true that a belief in not eating animals comes as a “package” with the mistaken belief that man is causing global warming. But your argument FOR eating animals is no less ridiculous. Your belief that people need to eat a certain (high) level of protein was disproved decades ago by evidence that low-protein diets are no less healthy. This is one of the few highly biased articles that makes WUWT look less rigorous.
While I accept your points my own point is that a fine steak is bloody lovely!
Particularly with a fine pepper sauce.
Where do you get your vitamin B12 from?
Synthetically produced via the miracle of modern science.
The problem with that being? Modern science also provides all of the artificial aids that keep so many of us alive well past our natural use by date, and it’s not like it’s vegans eating the trillions of vitamin supplements in the world.
Synthetic vitamins are not processed well by the body. Almost all of them are removed from the body quickly in the urine. I used to take vitamin supplements, lots of them. But I started to feel sick on my stomach every time I took one. This caused me to research. Which showed me that almost all of those vitamins I was taking left my body. I didn’t feel any better taking the vitamins, only worse.
Ever since I stopped taking vitamins, I decided to focus on a balanced diet. I also try to avoid soda or anything with high fructose corn syrup. That can be challenge. I limit my sodas to at most two a week (one of them must be a Mountain Dew or Dr Pepper with cane sugar), my beer and wine to at most one per day, and I avoid anything fried. And I feel pretty good. My weight is dropping slowly but assuredly. I have concluded that the best diet is a mixed one, with no extremes any way.
Straight from the vegan society
https://www.vegansociety.com/resources/nutrition-and-health/nutrients/vitamin-b12/what-every-vegan-should-know-about-vitamin-b12
So supplements in one form or other
Wow , a non moralistic vegan.
Thanks for a sensible and argument point of view, David.
Yeah unfortunately there are more of the other type around, if they were all like David they wouldn’t have the bad rep.
Then why is every vegan I know sickly?
No, seriously. I know a few, mostly millennials but also a few older folks, including one in their 60’s. All of them are skinny to the point of concern, and get sick 2 or 3 times as often as everyone else.
~¿~
They also seem to be grouchy. link OTOH, maybe I just have that effect on the vegans in my life because they are also left wing politically.
It’s funny because I have mostly been a conservative (right wing) voter and found that I am healthier on a plant diet. That is more than likely just because I take more notice of what I eat than previously, mind you. I don’t think a “vegan” diet is healthier, but it *can* be healthy if you think about it. Most vegans I know actually seem to be a bit overweight!
I drive by fields almost every day populated by grazing cows destined for slaughter. They appear to be happy and whatever joy they get in life, the frolicking young ones bring a smile. All of our lives meet the same end, but I think there are unanswered ethical questions about whether something or someone if better off to live or not. Given a chance, I would choose life.
Hi David I am vegetarian for 30+ years at times vegan, and aspire to be vegan again. What are you thoughts on animals that are killed by farming for vegetables etc and the knock on effect on their predators?
Does the ethical argument only apply to bigger livestock animals?,
” The nutritional argument FOR consuming animal source foods is non-existent.”
[citation needed]
Seriously. Our ancestors evolved to eat meat with some plant material, which is why we have meat-eating teeth and a meat-eating gut, not plant-eating teeth and a plant-eating gut. It’s likely the reason those ancestors were able to spread right across the planet, because there are almost always other animals to eat, even when there are few, if any, plants.
“Your belief that people need to eat a certain (high) level of protein was disproved decades ago by evidence that low-protein diets are no less healthy.”
Whereas a quick web search finds claims of a ton of potential problems from a low-protein diet.
And we were also told for decades that fat is bad and we should all eat lots of carbs. Which resulted in the current obesity and diabetes epidemic. So I see no reason to believe any diet fad without some thorough scientific backing.
BTW, the vegans I’ve known were also the most sickly-looking people I’ve ever known. It’s clearly possible to survive pretty well on a vegan diet, because some people do; but none of those I’ve met have done so.
In any case, this is pointless. We’re a decade or two away from cheap vat-grown meat, so why does anyone want to waste their time arguing about meat-farming today? It’s going away, and it’s going away because it’s going to be replaced by something better, not because of internet arguments.
I’ve been vegan for 20 years, I’m in perfect health without consuming a single animal based food, clear headed and energized. Try telling millions of healthy vegans around the world that people can’t thrive on a plant based diet 🙂
The problem is that people are different. Some people can apparently do well on only plants however that (as has been discussed in detail by Chris Masterjohn and others) is likely due to inborn differences in how some people recycle nutrients. Some people recycle nutrient very efficiently and others don’t, so if you do, then you may do much better as a vegan than someone who doesn’t. Some people, as exemplified by those who have had long-standing severe diseases resolved by the carnivore diet (see meatheals.com), clearly do better with little or no plant products. The problem with the healthy “plant-based” people is they assume everyone is just like them, however that does not appear to be the case. Also, the so called “blue zone” people almost all eat some animal products which likely provide critical nutrients for many people. They also have access to fairly little animal products in the first place. There is a big nutritional difference in mostly plants vs only plants.
“see meatheals.com”. Thanks for this. I should eat what I’ve been wanting to eat? Nice.
Try telling me why I SHOULD eat a plant-based diet.
WHY does everyone suddenly think THEY should dictate everyone else’s choices? Just WTF?
This is a strange historical moment we’re living in. Just do your own thing, PLEASE and leave others to do theirs.
+110%… again,they’re going to fix something that isn’t broken
people need to do their own food thing & stop trying to force it on others.
Being forced to do something that is perceived as stupid & unneeded only reinforces resistance & causes more animosity. I been down both sides of that road 50+ years ago & the anger that always results is not worth the hard feelings. This is what is wrong with the world today,way to many people want to be the know-it-all-know-nothing dictator.
How do vegans get around eating pharmaceuticals to supplement what is missing: B12, etc. Do they also eat burgers that need who knows what to simulate the beef flavor? One vegan mother I know who fed her two infants almond ‘milk’ has her two children receiving constant medical care. One of them at 4yrs doesnt speak. Now this may be of some other cause, but Occam’s Razor and all that…
Also, is it correct that soya simulates estrogen? Maybe not harmful to girls but boys? Maybe this is a myth?
Estrogen is also found in the biologically active form when ingested by humans (17 – beta – oestradiol) in beef muscle & fat (liver too). Dairy has estrogen, & although some in the non-biologically humanly active form (17 – beta-estradiol) apparently most is in the form of bio-active oestrogen sulphate.
Soy phyto-estrogen are not the only widely consumed food with estrogenic aspects.Vegetable estrogen is in the lignin, lactones & iso-flavones. Of course we also synthesize estrogen internally.
Our liver deals with maintaining estrone & estradiol estrogen levels (e: liver cell mucro-somes process it via glucuronid-ation for excretion). Yet poly-phenols, flavonoids & estrogen inhibit this liver dynamic (glucronid-ation).
There is a human enzyme cascade (beta-glucuronid-ase & sulfat-ase) can free up the estrogebn again; up-regulation (stimulation) of beta-glucuconid-ase is increased by estradiol, estriol, estrone & stilbestrol (but not by 17-beta-estradiol, beta-sitosterol, di-ethy-stilbestrol or coumestrol. When bloggers decry soy as estero-genic agent fattening humans like soy fed does cattle they do not allow for any difference in enzyme dynamics.
Plant derived vitamin K is partially anti-esterogenic, so this also modulates the dynamic. Thus it is uninformed to declare plant estrogen is definitely a problem.
Before the soy-boy there was a common conception that eating fresh killed meat’s liver made men better warriors/hunters. We know meat liver has estrogen in the active form for humans.
Extra estrogen holds back the volume a heart tries to pump as a stroke when the heart rate (speed) goes up; for example running to prey/fight. It (estrogen) reduces the amount of nerve inhibitor GABA & thus estrogen increases sensitivity to sensory nerves & increases motor nerve activity.
In addition estrogen fosters release of fat stores (lipo-lysis). This keeps “fat” (free fatty acids) circulating for potential “burning” & shifts from (free fatty acids inhibit glucose “burning”/oxidation) relying on limited muscle glucose stores. Of course in sedentary populations with excessive foid consumption this estrogen dynamic (increases free fatty acids; obese actually have increased free fatty acid circulation) contributes to insulin resistance.
There are estrogen receptors in every (as I understand it) human organ. At sites of inflammation estrogen is released (via enzyme beta-glucuronid-ase, mentioned above) & local estrogen instigates clumping of platelets.
Estrogen also causes cells (mast cells) to release molecules that are involved with inflammation response; like histamine & seratonin (the aggregating platelets release their seratonin, which instigate vaso-constriction). And then too, that inflammation site estrogen induces the synthesis of prosta-glandin (not related to prostate) ; thus that estrogen boosts the level of COX enzymes & COX molecules (humanly painful).
In the same context a side effect of anti-biotics is increasing liver glucuronid-ation of estrogen , thereby decreasing blood levels of estrogen; this in time reduces the excitatory impact of estrogen. In contrast, food related dys-biosis (endo-toxin taken in from gut bacteria) & food “poisoning” episodes block this licet enzyme function (glucuronid-ation) & excitaory estrogen levels arise (ie: we feel lousy all over).
Diets are non-linearly quantifiable. For examplr: insufficient protein intake causes our fat cells to make more estrogen; yet the specific amino acids glycine & taurine are anti-estrogenic. When we are younger estrogen increases human growth hormone & at night estrogen, as well as, human growth hormone levels go up; yet as we age there is less human growth hormone & then there is more likelihood nightime high estrogen can contribute to vaso-constriction if we hyper-ventilate during sleep (common).
Dear Pbf,
it’s good [for you] that you are managing on a vegan diet.
However your diet is still responsible for the deaths of thousands of animals….all the caterpillars, weevils and locusts that must be killed to produce your food at anywhere near the level of productivity needed to make it profitable to produce.
The soya fields of Brazil are a delight to see. The source of tofu, tempeh, soy “milk” etc and not a tree to be seen to the horizon.
Ah, but I only eat organically/bio-dynamically produced food.
In that case your food is filled with natural pesticides which still lead to the deaths of thousands of animals.
What ethically is the difference between killing a grasshopper or a cow?
Both are god’s creatures, both like to chew on grass, one is a little bigger than the other but otherwise…
While the case has been confused by a plethora of related arguments, and also no doubt by various financial interests, the true platform for veganism is simply an ethical stance regarding our relationship with other animals. The terrible treatment of so many animals in our food system (as well as other human systems) should be of concern to most of us. The nutritional argument is pretty settled – people can be healthy on a largely plant-based diet with substantially less meat and dairy than is the case currently in many nations. The reality is that the heavily meat and dairy dominated foodscape of Western nations especially is more due to those same economic interests than any nutritional requirement. Really, reducing meat and dairy in our diets in favour of more plant foods would do much to improve both human and farmed animal welfare. It just isn’t that tricky a concept.
Agreed. Ref the ethics, halal is an obscenity.
I disagree with all that’s been said about meat being a culprit. I eat a whole plant based diet. I’ve been eating this way for 5 months. I have eleviated arthritis pain. Better digestive health. Lost weight to a healthy weight and feel better with more energy than I’ve had in years. You and all these companies are in bed with the meat industry. Wise up America, by 2050 there won’t be sustainable food sources to feed this country’s population, if we continue eating as we currently do. Diseases such as diabetes and heart disease will continue to be rampant. Obesity will continue to plague our planet. Again…..wake up America!!!!
I’m happy for your success, however many people who go carnivore experience the same improvements. People are different.
“Diseases such as diabetes and heart disease will continue to be rampant. Obesity will continue to plague our planet.”
Those are due to the high-carb diet governments have pushed for the last few decades, and nothing to do with meat intake (more precisely, they’re due to a REDUCTION in meat intake pushed by governments as part of their high-carb fad).
Given what a disaster that fad was, why should we believe whatever new fad governments might be pushing? They have a proven record of pushing fads that destroy the health of tens, maybe hundreds, of millions of people; no sane person should be listening to anything they say.
You are ignoring that many people don’t share your concerns about animal welfare to the level you do, they think the current standards are fine. It becomes a self righteous moralistic stance much like any religion because you feel self guilted.
PETA is an example of how to get a backlash and it is pretty well hated by large sections .. do a search of “PETA hated” if you want a small sampling of why.
My favourite is
https://www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/2018-12-05/peta-compares-anti-animal-language-to-hate-speech
Yep anti animal hate speech perhaps it should be a crime.
Graeme,
Have you ever actually toured a traditional dairy farm? I worked on one and only saw excellent treatment of the animals. In fact helping treat sick animals was part of my job and there are cows there that would have died without human intervention. If I was cow or chicken, I would gladly trade milk and eggs for protection against predators and access to veterinary care. Please stop assuming that all or even most animals are mistreated. It’s especially disrespectful to the farming community who for the most part love and respect the animals. At least I and everyone I worked with did.
Superchunk, the problem isn’t so much small scale traditional farming, it’s more the intensive operations so common now. If you are in the US you know a lot of dairy is now done in large indoor systems. That said though, even traditional dairy has some shortcomings such as killing male calves (around 200-400,000 each year here in Australia, out of a herd of just 1.75 million head), culling unproductive cows (around 70-80,000 per year here), and a variety of on-farm practices. Whether that’s OK or not depends on your own point of view, of course. It is a bit more nuanced than that as it isn’t just welfare that vegans/advocates are referring to.
I only have one thing to say
Termites.
This is a well written piece and touches on a subject the advocates of World Authority would like to keep quiet.
The change in attitude to diet will be made, not by commercials, or scientific facts, it will be driven into children by predominantly left leaning teachers, who seem to fall in line for these schemes designed to advance totalitarianism via propaganda.
When Tony Blair declared in his 1998 speech to the Labour movement, his prime instrument of change was three pronged…
Education, Education and Education.
Those who imagined he was talking about increasing the population’s level of knowledge, missed what he was saying entirely.
He was making it clear, to change the world you have to get your views into the children.
The education systems have duly rallied to his call. We now have some of the least knowledgeable people coming out of state schools. What they do know, however, is all there is to know, about how to stop open debate and how to advance the ideology pushed into them during their school and university years.
No platforming, settled science, heckling, load hailing, victimisation, vilification, etc, these are what they know about. Leave no minority group untapped, is the mantra. They know how to stop anyone that does not conform with their indoctrinated, preferred paradigm.
Tony Blair represents the totalitarian movement, worldwide. He is supported by huge wealth. If we are to return our world to a sensible state of healthy, honest debate without the rancour, it is people like him we must look to, study and defeat. Science must get its methods and message back into Education, that is where the real battle ground is.
We should listen to Aristotle, “If you give me a child to the age of seven, I will give you the adult”.
NB I have removed the gender reference, in case anyone is sensitive….
It’s been a double puzzle to me for a long time. Firstly why if you don’t want to eat animal protein would you convert vegetable/legume/grain protein into something closely resembling meat.
Second just how much more environmentally friendly is growing a soybean using modern agricultural methods, chemically and heat treat it and then convert it into something that looks edible than it is letting an animal/bird convert inedible vegetable material into protein? Particularly when animals are raised on land unsuitable for any sort of arable agriculture.
Firstly, I guess because many people who choose to drop animal products still prefer to enjoy foods that approximate the ones they left behind. After all, burgers, pies, sausages, and so on aren’t how meat comes from the animal either. We make foods that tickle our palates or that are convenient to cook/eat, so why would vegan foods be any different? It’s all still food. I suspect many vegans would be happy to continue eating meat if it didn’t harm/exploit animals to produce it!
Secondly, it might be true that environmentally speaking it’s better to produce foods through grazed animals under regenerative methods on marginal lands, however it is by no means necessary to produce fake meats from soy and the like. A helluva lot of meat and dairy is produced from intensive CAFO type systems which require a lot of soy. The majority of soy in the world is fed to animals (it’s a great protein), so it’s probably true that in the West (and now China) the worst excesses of environmental harm from grain/cereal monocultures is due to animal farming. The more likely future paths are whole food plant based diets but also grown meat from systems that do not require the actual animal. With the right motivation, there are many ways to exclude the majority of animal farming from our food system.
I think it’s a bit hypocritical for people that have decided not to eat meat, to then convert everything they eat into something that looks like meat. eg fake hamburgers. And then the out-and-out carping about how delicious it tastes. Methinks he/she doth protest too much.
Soy is NOT “such a great protein.” It heavily skews the Omega-3/Omega 6 balance heavily to the Omega 6 side in any animal that eats much of it, including humans. Omega 6 loading is strongly associated with systemic inflammation, and much heart disease research lays arterial occlusion at the feet of PUFA (polyunsaturated vegetable) oils being substituted for butter and lard during and after WWII. These are things that do not exist in nature and may be doing our health great harm.
Those omnivores who’ve really done their reading try to find 100% grass-fed beef, pastured pork, and truly free-range chicken for this reason. BTW, I pay $14.99 a pound for hamburger and worth it every bite!
Goldrider,
Did you mean partially-hydrogenated vegetable oils?
How could polyunsaturated vegetable oils not exist in nature? They are extracted from natural plants.
Climate is attracting activists of all colors.
https://tambonthongchai.com/2018/12/16/beef-and-climate-change/
If David Siegel and a few others on here want to be part of the latest trendy fad, veganism, good luck to them. But to pretend that “the nutritional argument FOR consuming animal source foods is non-existent”, just isn’t correct. And the science is firmly backed by the history of our species and by common sense.
I get tired of reading that the latest silly trendy idea (Antivax, Anti GMO, Ruinable Energy, some women sporting male genitalia – and all the rest – is supported by science.) No, No, No & No.
Just be assured that when the plebs can only afford to eat some disgusting artificial chemical concoction, the big money elite behind this will be still tucking into a nice rare Wagu beef steak washed down with an expensive Burgundy, just as Mao Zedong gorged himself on Wuhan fish and on brown-braised pork whilst the ‘proletariat and peasants’ starved.
Disclaimer – I’ve been a veggie (and a smoker!) for about 50 years, and my health at 68 is excellent.
I never preach, it’s purely a personal taste thing.
Many other veggies are an embarrassment with their attitude!
If they try to get rid of meat, I’m with the carnivores on the barricades!
Animals which taste good (and are owned), will never go extinct. It’s a living! 🙂
I’m fairly sure that the most damaging health factor is the “Nocebo” effect, (opposite of placebo).
People are constantly bombarded with “scientific” health scares.
It would be truly amazing if this did not have a considerable negative effect on general health.
Ban all health scares!
I like your take on the matter. A few of the veggies who weighed in had that smug thing going on, especially the fellow who denigrated human need for protein.
Your approach, Mr. Walker, tells me we could live as neighbors.
As another 50 year “vegetarian” I agree it should be personal, rather than preached & imposed. I grew up on meat; ate organ meats, bone broths, butter, whole milk, eggs, added back in (our collected) chicken fat & mostly the vegetables being root tubers (potatoes, carots, turnips) with a bit of bread.
My paternal male line all died before teaching the age 60. So I decided on a vegetarian diet (with dairy intake) & I have definitely outlived them. At some point(s), for harmony at family reunions, I would sometimes eat fish; so I guess am not certifiably vegetarian.
I do supplement vitamin B12, for peace of mind about getting enough. Contrary to any suggestion about this being ineffective tactic due to poor absorption a lab test showed B12
my levels were fine.
The plural of anecdotes is not data. Duh!
Anecdotally, I just lost 15 pounds; by adding (a bit) of grain(s) back into my diet. The other aspect was cutting total calories & longer regular walking excursions.
This is a decent accounting of the political and “follow the money “ side of the frenzy. What all of the anti-meat folks are ignorant of or deliberately ignore is that most agricultural land is doing what it is best suited for. The western grass lands need grass and undulates for its ecological health. Cattle replace the bison we exterminated from this balanced ecosystem. Turning over prairie to grow grains is unsustainable. It requires fertilizer (from ammonia derived from fossil fuels) and massive amounts of water. We are currently tapping the Ogalala aquifer way faster than its refill rate. Modern farmers are an educated and aware bunch. They produce what can be marketed in such a way that the farm will continue to sustain them and itself be sustained. Let’s not invite governments to make this into another Post Office, government run mess.
This paragraph:
‘The best hope to control the Native Americans was to: “make them poor by the destruction of their stock, and then settle them on the lands allotted to them” – according to Major-General Phillip Sheridan, the man tasked with this objective.’
Reminds me of the current illegal, in international law (check amongst other books: ‘The Great Tibetan Stonewall of China: The Status of Tibet in International Law and International Policy on Tibet ‘), of the occupation of the 3 countries of Tibet (U-Tsang, Amdo & Kham; what you see on the maps as TAR is only U-Tsang) by the neighbouring Han Chinese Communist Party who after killing or causing death of approximately 1.2million+ Tibetans & 6,000 monasteries from the intitial invasion into Chamdo in Oct-50. CCP are now resettling nomads into concentration camps ‘allowed to them’, in the continued destruction of the Tibetan culture, yet the World can’t do anything but ‘virtue signalling’ complaining, whilst CCP say it’s an internal matter. This is happening now, the torture camps carry on the extermination of a distinct race of Tibetans who culture is actually close to Indian in their belief systems not China; yet India & USA, Britain etc stupidly let this happen; no oil to fight over so destruction continues.
IMO this will progress further as China expand, the building on disputed islands is the second step very similar to the [snip], China is buying land or exchange for debt all over the world, what do we do? – be warned.
Go to an ordinary restaurant and vegetarians get upset if there is no vegetarian optin,.
Go to a vegetarian restaurant and they never offer a meat option.
Ditto for vegans.
If we get rid of livestock farming the grasslands will either be ploughed up, releasing vast quantities of CO2 as a result of cultivation, or will be allowed to go ‘wild’ with subsequent reversion to forest.
There would be an increase in the number of herbivores who produce methane as a product of their digestive system. There were an estimated 50 to 60 million bison/buffalo on the American prairies.
How will you deal with the Inuit, Maasai and Mongolian herders who rely on an animal based diet?
Sarcastic mode: ON
Methane is an easy to solve problem.
Just feed more DDT in our tanks and let the chemtrails take care of termites, the biggest and totally useless to humanity methane producers of the animal world.
Free bonus, DDT is the only known means against malaria propagating mosquitoes.