Sustainable butcher shop article omits important factors
The article on sustainable meat leaves out critical information. While “sustainably raised” meat is better than factory farmed meat, it is hardly a “win-win-win.” Beef is the worst product for the environment, sustainably raised or not, because cows produce so much methane. The article also declines to mention where the animals are slaughtered. Industrial slaughtering causes terrible suffering for both animals and workers. People must be able to consider all of the implications of meat production before deciding how much (if any) to consume.
— Katie Cantrell, 2009 UC Berkeley alumna
__________
The realities of “sustainable meat” and environmental responsibility
Regarding Mary Susman’s article about the opening of a new butchery in Berkeley outlining the supposed benefits of buying and eating meat from local “sustainable ranches” to promote environmental responsibility and stewardship, I am compelled to respond to these claims with facts about the real impacts of meat production and consumption on the environmental and moral fabric of our planet.
The article quotes one of the store owners, who states that “It’s really irresponsible to eat meat that’s raised in a way that’s not responsible for the environment” and while I can appreciate their sentiments to be ecologically conscious, the fact remains that raising animals for meat production is responsible for more greenhouse gases, freshwater pollution, topsoil depletion, deforestation and habitat loss than all other human activities. Indeed, according to a 2006 United Nation’s report, “Livestock’s Long Shadow” raising animals for food contributes nearly 18% of all human induced greenhouse gas emissions. In addition to this ecological devastation, even when raised under so called “humane” conditions these animals are subjected to unconscionable pain and suffering, despite the labels which suggest otherwise.
Eliminating animal-products from your diet would be an integral and powerful step towards fostering ethical, sustainable and responsible relationships with animals, both human and non-human alike, and our beautiful planet.
— Mansheel Singh, Berkeley resident and animal rights advocate
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Check this out…
http://www.criticalanimalstudies.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/2-JCAS-Vol-VIII-Issue-I-and-II-2010-Essay-GREEN-EGGS-AND-HAM-pp-8-32.pdf
“Green” Eggs
and Ham? The Myth of Sustainable Meat and the Danger of the Local
Abstract
In the New York Times bestseller, The
Omnivores Dilemma, Michael Pollan popularizes the idea of a ―local‖ based
diet, which he justifies, in part, in terms of environmental sustainability. In
fact, many locavores argue that a local based diet is more environmentally
sustainable than a vegan or vegetarian diet and concludes that if vegans and
vegetarians truly care about the environment they should instead eat
sustainably raised local meat. However locavores are incorrect in their
analysis of the sustainability of a local based diet and in its applicability
for large scale adaptation. Instead locavores engage in the construction of ―a
literary pastoral,‖ a desire to return to a nonexistent past, which falsely
romanticizes the ideals of a local based lifestyle. They therefore gloss over
the issues of sexism, racism, speciesism, homophobia and anti-immigration
sentiments which an emphasis only on the local, as opposed to the global, can
entail. In this manner the locavorism movement has come to echo many of the
same claims that the ―Buy American‖ movement did before it. The conclusion is
that a local based diet, while raising many helpful and valid points, needs to
be re-understood and rearticulated.
If you are interested in learning more about the ethics of
meat and environmental sustainability, I highly recommend you read “The Ethics
of What We Eat: Why Our Food Choices Matter” by Jim Mason and renowned Princeton
philosopher Peter Singer. On the issue
of ethics and animals Singer writes,
“…despite obvious differences between human and nonhuman
animals, we share a capacity to suffer, and this means that they, like us, have
interests. If we ignore or discount their
interests simply on the grounds that they are not members of our species, the
logic of our position is similar to that of the most blatant racists or
sexists-those who think that to be white, or male, is to be inherently superior
in moral status, irrespective of other characteristics or qualities.
The usual reply to this parallel between speciesism and
racism or sexism is to acknowledge that it is a mistake to think that whites
are superior to other races, or that males or superior to women, but then to
argue that humans really are superior to nonhuman animals in their capacity to
reason and the extent of their self-awareness, while claiming that these are
morally relevant characteristics.
However, some humans- infants, and those with severe intellectual
disabilities- have less ability to reason and less self-awareness than some
nonhuman animals. So we cannot justifiably
use these criteria to draw a distinction between all humans on the one hand and
all nonhuman animals on the other…
…if, within our own species, we don’t regard differences in
intelligence, reasoning ability, or self-awareness as grounds for permitting us
to exploit the being with lower capacities for our own ends, how can we point
to the same characteristics to justify exploiting members of other
species? Our willingness to exploit
nonhuman animals is not something that is based on sound moral
distinctions. It is a sign of “speciesism,”
a prejudice that survives because it is convenient for the dominant group, in
this case not whites or males, but humans.
If we wish to maintain the view that no conscious human
beings, including those with profound, permanent intellectual disabilities, can
be used in ways harmful to them solely as a means to another’s end, then we are
going to have to extend the boundaries of this principle beyond our own species
to other animals who are conscious and able to be harmed. Otherwise we are drawing a moral circle around
our own species, even when the members of our own species protected by that
moral boundary are not superior in any morally relevant characteristics to many
nonhuman animals who fall outside the moral circle. If we fail to expand this circle, we will be unable
to defend ourselves against racists, and sexists who want to draw the boundaries
more closely around themselves.”
[If we ignore or discount their interests simply on the grounds that they are not members of our species, the logic of our position is similar to that of the most blatant racists or sexists-those who think that to be white, or male, is to be inherently superior in moral status, irrespective of other characteristics or qualities.]
What a bunch of complete and total crap. The only reason anyone would play the race card in discussing food is because he/she/it lacks the ability to make a rational argument based on fact and logic.
Leave it to Berkeleyites to try to out-preach each other on sustainable food.
Wow, so producing food for human consumption is one of the worst things for the environment? Who would have thought. And guess what: growing plants for food is just as bad! The main cause of deforestation? Fields being cleared out to grow crops. So, I have a proposal for the vegan crowd: reduce overpopulation of the Earth by killing yourself.
Peter
Singer, Professor of Philosophy and Bioethics at Princeton notes that since
animals raised for meat production “use much of the nutritional value of their food
to move, keep warm, and form bone and other inedible parts of their bodies, the
entire operation is an inefficient way of feeding humans. It places greater demands on the environment
in terms of land, energy, and water than other forms of farming. It would be more efficient to use the cropland
to grow food for humans to eat. Cattle
in feedlots eat mostly grains- in the US, corn, but in other countries it may
be wheat or another grain….it is “a protein factory in reverse” meaning that
you start out with a large amount of protein, channel it through cattle, and
end up with a much smaller amount…it takes about 13 pounds of grain to produce
one pound of beef and an acre of land devoted to cereals can produce five times
as much protein as an acre devoted to meat production…”
He
also notes as an example that “the Amazon rainforest is being cleared at an
annual rate of 25,000 square kilometers, or 6 million acres, to graze cattle
and grow soybeans to feed animals. That
translates to another 11 acres felled every minute…The global increase in meat
production is causing forests in other countries to be cleared to grow grains
and soybeans for feeding animals. Thus
our own meat consumption contributes indirectly to deforestation abroad, with a
consequent loss of biodiversity. We
could be eating products from animals raised in the US, fed on Brazilian
soybeans there were grown on land cleared from rainforest. Also, when we buy meat, eggs, and milk there
were produced using land that might otherwise have grown crops for export additional
land might have been cleared abroad as a consequence. Even if we eat meat produced in the US from
animals fed soybeans grown in the US, the export of those soybeans could have
met the demand that was instead met by soybeans grown on the cleared rainforest
land.” From “The
Ethics of What We Eat: Why Our Food Choices Matter”
You idiot. Over 90% of the corn and soy grown as a result of deforestation is grown to feed LIVESTOCK, not to feed vegans. A meat-based diet requires way more plants, water, and resources, because you’re feeding it through the animals first instead of eating the plants directly. It’s called eating higher on the food chain, or common sense…
Read this shit: http://breakingnews.ewg.org/meateatersguide/at-a-glance-brochure/
Word up to the vegan kooks. It’s a free country, and if you don’t want to eat meat, fine. However, don’t preach to the rest of us. Your refusal to eat meat doesn’t make you more moral or enlightened than the rest of us. It’s merely a fashion statement.
I’m convinced that non meat eaters develop the incessant urge to bloviate their no meat BS to others. Personally, I’m headed to In n’ Out for a double double animal style.
Personally, you can suck it.
It doesn’t make us more enlightened. But when your right to eat as much meat as you want infringes on other peoples rights to eat fruits and vegetables at an affordable price because all the subsidies are going to grow corn and soy to feed animals to raise for meat, thats a problem. Or, when your ‘right’ to eat as much meat and dairy as you want means that you’re contributing to the biggest sources of water pollution, climate change pollution and deforestation that affects everyone, that’s a problem.