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A friend of mine is a vegetarian... and it has nothing to do with food sustainability. She just loves animals and says she won't eat anything with a face. My wife asked her one time why she won't eat scallops (for instance). They have neither a face nor a brain. She didn't really have a answer to that... frankly I think she just likes to be a martyr.
I'll never be vegetarian or anything like that, but I do kinda admire her sticking to her beliefs. I have no problem with vegetarians so long as they're not preachy about it. What I can't wrap my mind around are people who love animals and claim they could never kill one... but eat meat.
Is it somehow more moral to pay some Mexican in a processing plant to do the killing for you?? It's a view that I can't really respect.
Personally I think that if you eat meat, then you are plenty willing to kill critters. Hunting and cutting up your own critters is a good way to understand what you're doing when you eat meat. I find it a far more *honest* practice than maintaining a false moral purity by paying someone less fortunate to do your killing.
While I understand what you're getting at, how far do you (general "you") want to take this? Is it "moral" to live in a house who paid some lowly workers to build so you didn't have to? Are you wearing sweat-shop clothes, or did you sew your own out of sweat-shop fabric? Did you garden your own vegetables or pay some lowly laborer to farm them so you could go to the grocery store?
I have slaughtered animals and I hated it. So I pay someone to do this. I also pay a maid because I have arthritis. I hope that's not immoral....
This is an imperfect "fallen" world and we are all stuck doing some things we'd rather not.
I am a member of the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association (MOFGA) and I grow fruits and veggies using organic methods (not 'certified' due to the cost). Organic farming requires a high manual labor component, with lower yields of produce that [often] do not have as pleasing an appearance. The price of organic produce is significantly higher than that of 'factory farmed' produce because of the amount of labor involved and the lower yield. It's like attempting to build cars by hand and expecting the price to be competitive with those coming off an assembly line.
While 'organic' farming may be 'sustainable' on a small scale, it cannot compete with 'factory farms' using modern methods, fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides. It's cute that you think it is competitive, but it isn't true. In order to do away with 'factory farming' you would also need to do away with a significant percentage of the population...hmmmmm...where to start?...Oh, I know...
Organic farming is sustained mostly by suckers who have more money than brains, and/or who have drunk the kool-aide of fear-mongering against Monsanto (and others) and paranoia against GMOs.
I have read that it takes a while to set up since there is a dependency on the right biology in the soil.
I am concerned about sustainability. If we can get back to taking care of soil then there may be no need for monoculture and montsanto and chemicals in farming, it may be those chemicals are doing us harm anyway.
Anyone out there have a good experience in growing organic?
Cities: The majority of the people are living in cities in which farming is non-existent so products have to be brought inside to feed the masses. A good way to remedy this would be for each state to grow numerous crops in which it can survive the climate as well as livestock farming. The USA can trade within itself and not have to import from South America, Caribbean, Mexico, etc. Bring back local and family farming.
Food Waste; Oh baby how much food goes to WASTE!! This is a major problem that needs to be fixed. Food portion needs to be created more accurately.
Vegans more healthy? I wonder what Caesar's legions or the first pioneers here would say about that? They were scared to death of the much bigger, stronger & healthier Germans & Indians they encountered. Caesar documents that fear explicitly in his "Gallic Wars" history. Those two groups, BTW, rarely ate anything other than meat.
You think Native Americans 'rarely ate anything other than meat'? That is colossally wrong. You've obviously never heard of the Three Sisters (and anyone who hasn't has no business pretending to have any idea at all as to this topic): beans, squash, maize. Originating in Mesoamerica, this triad eventually worked its way up into the woodlands east of the Mississippi. Together, these goods comprised the vast majority of the calories of pre-Columbian peoples. Maize was the dominant staple, with beans and squash individually being more important than meat. Meat was only a supplement, and hunting was practiced as much for training for battle and as a status competition between men as it was for any dietary reasons. Outside of the Arctic, only in places like the Great Plains and the abundant fisheries of the Pacific Northwest did meat come anywhere close to supplying a majority of calories. But even in those places it is beyond ludicrous to assert that the local peoples rarely ate anything other than meat.
If you're concerned about food availability, I dont get it? 1/3 of USA citizens are obese. Seems like there's plenty of cheap food available. If your concern about land use, why dont we stop turning corn into gasoline(a completely wasteful enterprise). Or why dont we start fat shaming. Or change laws to make it more difficult for fat people to have access to food.
The people I know who are vegan or vegetarian, are convinced the switch has had positive impacts on their health. A woman I work with has a chronic disease that she swears cutting out meat and dairy as well as processed anything, has transformed her health. I don’t think most everyday people change their diets for altruistic reasons/save the earth reasons. Most either think it’s wrong to eat animals but most are for health reasons in my experiences.
I've said it before, and several times prior; too many people is the problem. The answer to many of the worlds issues is too many people and little to go around. The proper thing is to let people die to decent numbers but everybody would rather work around the truth of the matter with duct tape and zip tie solutions and wanting to cure every disease and have everybody live to be 300 years old. Less people means more of everything else- which can actually be in smaller quantities than it is now. If half the USAs population just vanished, those left would have far more than they'ed need. Everything else would reflect accordingly from food, to jobs, housing, populations of other animals. Less people means less is being consumed and people can prosper. A farm could be an actual farm and not have bookshelves of chickens and file cabinets of cows. Of course there's also the animals who's population vastly out number ours, but for stupid moral reasons you can't eat them. Food is food if it's edible, not too many animals are inedible, tchnically.
I've said it before, and several times prior; too many people is the problem. The answer to many of the worlds issues is too many people and little to go around. The proper thing is to let people die to decent numbers but everybody would rather work around the truth of the matter with duct tape and zip tie solutions and wanting to cure every disease and have everybody live to be 300 years old. Less people means more of everything else- which can actually be in smaller quantities than it is now. If half the USAs population just vanished, those left would have far more than they'ed need. Everything else would reflect accordingly from food, to jobs, housing, populations of other animals. Less people means less is being consumed and people can prosper. A farm could be an actual farm and not have bookshelves of chickens and file cabinets of cows. Of course there's also the animals who's population vastly out number ours, but for stupid moral reasons you can't eat them. Food is food if it's edible, not too many animals are inedible, tchnically.
I don't believe too many people is a problem. The only barrier to our population is resource management which is what we are dealing with.
Energy from the sun is more than enough to keep everyone alive and doing well, we just have to ensure we take into account the millions of years of field study provided to us by biology on earth, it seems like we are ignoring the information nature has provided through millions of years of evolution when it comes to sustainability. It's there for us to study and understand and use!
Ever seen goats graze on what would be a basically unusable patch of earth, THAT is an efficient use of land. Many different animals can do the same thing. Those animals gain weight off that otherwise useless land, then humans eat them.............that is efficiency.
I don't believe too many people is a problem. The only barrier to our population is resource management which is what we are dealing with.
Why do we need so many people?
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