Meat's not Green (natural, packaging, environmental, chemicals)

[mg420]

Meat's Not Green: This Earth Day, Go Vegetarian to Save the Planet | Britannica Blog

[tcrackly]

I'm really tired of this vegetarian mandate drivel. I would like to see how they propose to feed the population of northern hemisphere tier without a massive carbon footprint of petroleum based freight, pesticides, packaging, and chemicals.

[TKramar]

If your meat's green, there's something wrong with it--and you probably shouldn't eat it. Not on a boat, not with a goat. I do not like green eggs or ham.

[TexasHorseLady]

Well, she lost me with the first mention of the word "PETA". Given that the founder and head of PETA has proudly acknowledged, in print, that truth is a tiny part of their "recipe" for anything they say, with shock value being a whopping 80%, and given my personal experiences trying to get anything out of them other than, "But we say so, that IS our documentation! And how much do you want to donate?", anyone who puts any credence in them has lost credibility with me from the get-go.

What I really, really, REALLY wish is that folks who want to be vegetarian would be so, and that they would have the confidence in their decisions to leave it at that and not have to try to get everyone else to jump on their bandwagon in order to shore up their belief that they're doing the right thing. It's not one whit different than proselytizing for a particular brand of religion, in my book - the impulse in the person doing the proselytizing is the same.

Just think: if we all become vegetarian, we will have to run the wildlife off the arable land so that we can feed everyone. We'll have to deforest more than we already are in order to grow the crops necessary to provide nutrition for everyone (and for a lot of us, myself included, a vegetarian diet, even a carefully balanced one, is NOT healthy, so I guess we'll just be out of luck).

Please. Food should not be political. Food should be nourishing, it should be delightful, it should be one of life's pleasures, not a stick with which to bludgeon people over the head with due to personal control issues.

Is factory farming a blight on the planet? Yes. Does it follow that eating meat is? Nope, it doesn't - there are humane ways to raise animals for meat (heck, mine get back rubs and beer!) and humane ways to slaughter them (if for no other reason than that a frightened animal taints the flavor of the meat, if you didn't care about the animal itself). Don't throw out the baby with the bathwater just because factory farming is a problem.

[mg420]

"If a person can survive and be perfectly healthy in our current age while living on a meat-free diet, then vegetarianism no longer becomes a personal choice – it becomes a matter of human responsibility, for himself and for those inhabiting his planet."

“There is no such thing as a meat-eating environmentalist.” « The Progressive Prophet

[d_Random]

Originally Posted by tcrackly

I'm really tired of this vegetarian mandate drivel. I would like to see how they propose to feed the population of northern hemisphere tier without a massive carbon footprint of petroleum based freight, pesticides, packaging, and chemicals.

[arctichomesteader]

Originally Posted by mg420

Meat's Not Green: This Earth Day, Go Vegetarian to Save the Planet | Britannica Blog

I do believe my wild game is quite "green."

[TKramar]

Again, if we didn't farm them, then their populations would die off fairly quickly, since there's not enough land left for them to graze on naturally. The farmer not only provides food, but shelter and protection from predators.

[mg420]

Originally Posted by arctichomesteader

I do believe my wild game is quite "green."

hunting is a different issue (but no less cruel & unnecessary imo). this article is speaking to the issue of factory farming from which the overwhelming majority of meat comes.

[mg420]

Originally Posted by TKramar

Again, if we didn't farm them, then their populations would die off fairly quickly, since there's not enough land left for them to graze on naturally. The farmer not only provides food, but shelter and protection from predators.

do you really think that farmers are doing animals a favor by raising them for slaughter?

Farm Sanctuary | Watkins Glen, NY