We have problems here on the farm. And when it comes time to remedy those problems, our land ethic guides us in the direction of biological and low input mechanical solutions. You could call us hippies, Luddites or just old-timey curmudgeons, and you wouldn’t be too far off. So when spring rolled around and we saw our bumper crop of creeping buttercup and stinging nettle choking out all other life in most of our pastures, we decided it was time to act.
Enter the hogs. Chulo (note the teardrop tattoo), Ned (as in Ned Nederlander… as in the Three Amigos), and Oscar (as in Meyer), make up our trio of buttercup destroying swine. If you’ve never been around pigs, and we fell into this category a mere two weeks ago, you may not know that their raison d’être is to dig up every bit of life from the top 12 inches of soil that they can get their grubby little snouts beneath. And when every bit of life in your pasture consists of buttercup, this can be an advantageous situation.
Our plan is to allow them to till small areas until all the soil is turned, then move them to the next patch of weeds so we can plant the upturned earth with more valuable crops, either hay for the goats or food for us. Nevermind the fact that they are meanwhile transforming soil and roots and bugs into bacon, in what might be considered the universe’s most brilliant alchemy known to man.
They have been with us but a fortnight now, and these tiny piglets have already plowed under nearly 500 square feet of weeds. We can only imagine in five months, when they each weigh over 200 pounds, the beautiful destruction that they will inflict, these little bacon flavored rototillers of ours.
Awesome! I need a pig!
EVERYONE needs a pig! 🙂
A swine in time saves nine.
After the adorable piglets do all that work for you, you’re going to reward them by murdering them. Really?
Hi Maureen,
Yes, really, we are going to murder them. That is a brutal word for a brutal act, but it’s the truth. We are raising our own food, and we don’t intend to deny or sugarcoat the morally difficult decisions that go along with that. In fact, that’s one of the main purposes of this blog: to discuss and analyze those decisions, and try to reconcile our place in the food web. Our reconciliation with the pigs is that we will try to provide them with the most joyous life possible. They will free range on lush pasture, have constant clean water and ample supply of grain and kitchen scraps, and they will be loved by us.
Since we are not willing to convert to a vegetarian diet (and don’t try to claim that that is without its own moral quandries), then something must die for us to eat. We are simply willing to get the blood on our own hands instead of paying someone else to do it so we can pretend that murder isn’t necessary. Just because a package of bacon came wrapped in plastic from the grocery store, doesn’t mean that someone didn’t have to murder a pig.
We encourage comments like yours and we hope that you’ll keep reading and being part of this ongoing discussion.
I commend your forthrightness, but how on earth are the two of you going to eat all three pigs? And do you plan to slaughter and butcher them yourselves?
“Anonymous” is wrong. I’m Terry Weldon, I said that.
Hey Terry,
Though we have no doubts that we could devour three whole pigs over the course of the year if put to the challenge, we’re actually planning on selling two to friends and just keeping one for ourselves. We’ll probably write about the economics of it all in the coming weeks.
Oh yeah, and we will slaughter and butcher the pig that we keep, but the law states that a permitted butcher has to do the killing and the cutting for any meat that will be sold…so we’ll have to bring somebody in for the other two.
Hi Katie and Mark,
You are living the life that as a young girl I thought I would be doing… the closest I got was living on the Otago Peninsula in New Zealand for six years in the 70’s. We rented a small cottage on a large estate and literally had the run of the place. We raised poultry of all types but no pigs, planted a huge vegetable garden, tended and reaped the benefit of a small orchard. Even though we lived within a 10 minute drive of the city of Dunedin it felt like we lived in the middle of the country and it was heaven. (All our city friends would come out to visit for ‘weekends in the country’).
… Then the owner died and the children sold the estate to a developer so it is now filled with houses and paved roads. That was the end of our rural paradise and a sad end to a beautiful place.
I so appreciate your pragmatic way of thinking… and living life. I can now live vicariously through your wonderful blog. Thanks for sharing.
Cathy
P.S. I wrote a different comment earlier and can’t see it… not sure where it went?
Hi Cathy,
What a wonderful childhood! It sounds like you did grow up in a little garden of eden. It’s too bad the footsteps of development came knocking on the door. We are also just 10 minutes from the nearest city center, Bellingham, and hoping that our little neck of the woods always stays rural and open. Thanks for following along and for writing that second comment (sorry the cybernet devoured the first).
– Mark and Katie
Pigs are sentient, truly aware and the 4th most intelligent creature on earth. They are more intelligent than your dog or cat. They are ‘insightful , curious, fastidious, inquisitive, social, companionable, compassionate, intelligent, and ingenious.’–from “Sentience in Farm Animals: Pigs.” If you really want to live consciously, please go to the above source so that you really know what you’re doing rather than staying in the Dark Ages. Just because it’s always been done that way, doesn’t mean it has to stay that way. You can be an instrument for change and be an example to others. These creatures deserve a reward for serving you rather than a cruel death sentence.
Hi Maureen,
First of all, we are fully aware of the intelligence of pigs. However, I disagree with your logic that an animal’s place on that list of intelligence should dictate whether we eat them or not. If a cow is at # 125, does that make it morally acceptable to kill them? What’s the cutoff line? There may be other arguments for not eating pigs, but we can’t subscribe to this one.
We think that buying feedlot meat, factory farmed eggs and dairy from large operations is truly the way to contribute to the suffering of animals. Even a purely vegan diet is no path out of the dark ages, if you take into account the displacement of wildlife that human agriculture has caused.
The crux of my argument is that we will all cause suffering and death (or at the very least, metabolic harm) if we continue to eat. We just want to be a part of the process so we can ensure a quality of life for our animals. Hopefully you’ll stay with us and see that we aren’t monsters; we simply want to be upfront and honest with the consequences of our hunger.
So. Awesome. Way to go you two!
I’ve decided to become a vintner. Actually, I’ve been a closet vintner for a while. As soon as I bottle my latest 14 gallon batch of black-berry wine next month I’m going to turn right around and get another batch going. I plan to barter the wine for more berries at the farmer’s market for the equivalent of $7 per bottle.
You guys care to trade pork for wine? I haven’t decided what berry to use for the next batch, so I’m open to suggestions.
Oh, and at the sake of sounding like a nag, come out for a day sail with me! Tell Wiley to watch the animals for a couple hours while we circumnavigate Burrows Island.
Hi Chris,
Nice! We remember sharing a bottle of that lovely elixir on your sailboat a few months ago. We’re absolutely open to that barter! And we really DO want to get out for a sail this summer! Katie will be traveling up to Alaska shortly for a month, so it may need to wait till August or so. Give us a shout next time you’re in the Bellingham area and we’ll have to BBQ again.
– Katie and Mark
I certainly was not saying that an animal’s level of intellect dictates whether they should be eaten. If you look back, you’ll see many other qualities listed that make them deserving of having a full life. We are in total agreement concerning factory farming, so there’s no need to go there. You two seem to be caring people who have become very good at intellectualizing away your feelings of kindness and compassion. As you state on your blog you’re ‘pretending’ to know what you’re doing, and that openness is appreciated. ‘ Pigs are gentle, intelligent creatures who deserve to live out their lives according to their natures, in peace and in freedom from fear and pain.’ From “Sentience in Farm Animals: Pigs.” You named the pigs, admitted they’re cute and will care for them. Can’t you just forego the bacon and let them live their natural lives rather than having to suffer the agony of being slaughtered? It would be a very noble thing to do. They worked for you, now reward them with a pardon from the death sentence. It’s only fair. In the end, I really believe you’ll be glad you did.
Here, around where I live, many pigs are being allowed to “live their natural lives”. Let me tell you, they are among the most destructive, prolific, and many times meanest creatures you might come across in the wild. For people that say “let the animals live their lives and not be eaten” I ask, “What do you think would happen if people were to totally stop eating meat and just let loose all the animals to roam as they will?” We would be overrun with animals. The animal population would run rampant. In the rural areas there aren’t really any predators to regulate the larger animals. You think hitting a deer with a car is bad, try hitting a cow.
I have enjoyed your blog and am wanting to start raising our own farm animals for food. We have the space, just not a lot of able bodies to help with the work of getting it started.
Oh my, I just don’t have the time I wish I did to address the absurdity of all the issues here, so I will attempt to scratch the surface. While i believe the intelligence of an animal does have bearing on his right to life in some way, what is far more important is his ability to experience fear, pain, suffering, joy, peace; all of which are certainly present and paramount to pigs and cows. I will not waste time on attempting to appeal to your sense of compassion, because apparently, that ship has sailed, regardless of your verbiage to the contrary. But let me just first ask, will you be eating your dog? I saw pics of a cute pup on your boat and assumed that somehow, the irony had escaped you. Many people in many countries eat dogs everyday, to them, they are just groceries. While we, as Americans, usually do not. Why? Well, because we’ve been conditioned to believe one is food and the other a family member. Of course, that’s silly, we know that factory farming has brainwashed us along with first world society to believe one is okay and the other is not, but any thinking human can see, there is no difference. Well maybe that’s not true, there are differences. Dogs are not nearly as smart and although they are extremely emotional, loyal, loving creatures, we now know pigs far exceed them in all those areas. So, if you were on my blog and I disclosed that I “purchased” 3 sweet puppies, gave them names, made them work for me while growing fat and plump and happy and then intended to butcher and eat them, you would probably think that was morally, ethically wrong. And if it were your job to convince me otherwise, what would you say to me to make me see there’s a better way? Or would you not feel compelled to say a word? After all, humans are the most important life on this planet, aren’t we? And our lives are far more valuable than any other, and we have to eat, so maybe you would feel this was perfectly acceptable..? Let me ask you this question, and I really hope that when you have a quiet, reflective moment, you will truly ponder it; When you wrote in an earlier post “Because my husband and I are not willing to be vegetarians…..”, Have you ever truly thought about what you’re saying? About what that really, really means? About what that says about you and your husband, at it’s deepest level? I wonder how much thought you gave that sentence. It speaks volumes. I hope you will deeply contemplate what that REALLY says. It is truly a mouthful. Now, I must address a comment you made to Maureen earlier and forgive me if I misunderstood, but you implied that eating a Vegan or Vegetarian diet, would somehow have a negative environmental effect and use land that would displace wildlife??? Did I get that right? Oh Ms Katie, that is so unbelievably false by such an enormous margin, that I’m not sure where to begin. The amount of land and water used to grow every single bit of fruit and vegetables that will feed a family of SIX for a LIFETIME, is not even 1/10 of the land, grain and water it takes to feed ONE COW for ONE YEAR! And that’s a conservative statistic. And not even mentioning the methane gas, animal waste and environmental pollutants pumped into our Earth, Air and Water by every single one of the billions upon billions of cattle and swine we breed and slaughter to feed our fat faces every year. A vegan diet uses such a nominal amount of sustainable earth to flourish in and of itself, but in comparison to the raising of a cow or a pig, is not even on the same map. The benefits to the planet as a whole are COUNTLESS! No antibiotics, steroids, hormones, methane, blood, waste, etc seeping into the soil and water, no millions of acres of grain being used to feed animals that we will slaughter, when that grain could LITERALLY FEED THE PLANET! The millions of starving humans all over the world that die every day because the grain that could have fed their children, were used to feed to livestock, because THATS where the money is. It seems so hard to believe that you could possibly be spinning this in the direction that you are somehow “globally aware” or “environmentally conscious” when you make statements showing how little you know on the subject. You seem to be an extremely fortunate human. A beautiful yacht, sailing around the world, with the man that you love.. It seems that with all that good fortune, you would feel some sort of gratitude and a sense of generosity of heart to give back. You have an opportunity to live an incredible life and save and nurture other lives as you go. You could offer sanctuary to a species of animal that endures such intense cruelty and horror in this world and live a life that touched those souls. Why would you choose to contribute to the horror, albeit, a slightly delayed horror, when compared to factory farming. Every Vegan I know was a meat eater first. We were raised that way, that’s what was on the table, we didn’t know any better and so it was what it was… We were taught words like beef, pork, steak, bacon, because the real words were far too hard to swallow. But it is 2014 and Thank Goodness, enlightenment for many of us has come. We now know we have been lied to over and over again by a multi billion dollar industry that thrives in our ignorance and the animals murder. It is time to evolve. I eat constantly. I am not hungry. I eat at restaurants several times a week. I am not underweight. I have given up nothing, except the idea that my life should aid in the murder of another. As for your statement that we are all hurting something, killing something or contributing to the cruelty or demise of something, well, first, no, not all of us and second, even if that were true, and the growing of my tomatoes was somehow harmful, that would in no way justify the purposeful and deliberate murder of an animal. Your rationalizations and attempts at intellectualizing your choices are fooling no one but yourself.
Mmmmmm….Wiley. He’s a bit bony, but…
The New York Times: Growing meat (it’s hard to use the word “raising” when applied to animals in factory farms) uses so many resources that it’s a challenge to enumerate them all. But consider: an estimated 30 percent of the earth’s ice-free land is directly or indirectly involved in livestock production, according to the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization, which also estimates that livestock production generates nearly a fifth of the world’s greenhouse gases — more than transportation.
To put the energy-using demand of meat production into easy-to-understand terms, Gidon Eshel, a geophysicist at the Bard Center, and Pamela A. Martin, an assistant professor of geophysics at the University of Chicago, calculated that if Americans were to reduce meat consumption by just 20 percent it would be as if we all switched from a standard sedan — a Camry, say — to the ultra-efficient Prius. Similarly, a study last year by the National Institute of Livestock and Grassland Science in Japan estimated that 2.2 pounds of beef is responsible for the equivalent amount of carbon dioxide emitted by the average European car every 155 miles, and burns enough energy to light a 100-watt bulb for nearly 20 days.
Grain, meat and even energy are roped together in a way that could have dire results. More meat means a corresponding increase in demand for feed, especially corn and soy, which some experts say will contribute to higher prices.
This will be inconvenient for citizens of wealthier nations, but it could have tragic consequences for those of poorer ones, especially if higher prices for feed divert production away from food crops. The demand for ethanol is already pushing up prices, and explains, in part, the 40 percent rise last year in the food price index calculated by the United Nations’ Food and Agricultural Organization.
Though some 800 million people on the planet now suffer from hunger or malnutrition, the majority of corn and soy grown in the world feeds cattle, pigs and chickens. This despite the inherent inefficiencies: about two to five times more grain is required to produce the same amount of calories through livestock as through direct grain consumption, according to Rosamond Naylor, an associate professor of economics at Stanford University. It is as much as 10 times more in the case of grain-fed beef in the United States.
The environmental impact of growing so much grain for animal feed is profound. Agriculture in the United States — much of which now serves the demand for meat — contributes to nearly three-quarters of all water-quality problems in the nation’s rivers and streams, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
Because the stomachs of cattle are meant to digest grass, not grain, cattle raised industrially thrive only in the sense that they gain weight quickly. This diet made it possible to remove cattle from their natural environment and encourage the efficiency of mass confinement and slaughter. But it causes enough health problems that administration of antibiotics is routine, so much so that it can result in antibiotic-resistant bacteria that threaten the usefulness of medicines that treat people.
Those grain-fed animals, in turn, are contributing to health problems among the world’s wealthier citizens — heart disease, some types of cancer, diabetes. The argument that meat provides useful protein makes sense, if the quantities are small. But the “you gotta eat meat” claim collapses at American levels. Even if the amount of meat we eat weren’t harmful, it’s way more than enough.
Americans are downing close to 200 pounds of meat, poultry and fish per capita per year (dairy and eggs are separate, and hardly insignificant), an increase of 50 pounds per person from 50 years ago. We each consume something like 110 grams of protein a day, about twice the federal government’s recommended allowance; of that, about 75 grams come from animal protein. (The recommended level is itself considered by many dietary experts to be higher than it needs to be.) It’s likely that most of us would do just fine on around 30 grams of protein a day, virtually all of it from plant sources.
World Watch July 2004 Is Meat Sustainable?
M E A T
Now, It’s Not Personal!
But like it or not, meat-eating is becoming a problem for everyone on the planet.
Ask people where they’d rank meat-eating as an issue of concern to the general public, and most might be surprised to hear you suggest that it’s an issue at all. Whether you eat meat or not (or how much) is a private matter, they might say. Maybe it has some implications for your heart, especially if you’re overweight. But it’s not one of the high-profile public issues you’d expect presidential candidates or senators to be debating—not up there with terrorism, the economy, the war, or “the environment.”
Even if you’re one of the few who recognize meateating as having significant environmental implications, those implications may seem relatively small. Yes, there have been those reports of tropical forest being cut down to accommodate cattle ranchers, and native grassland being destroyed by grazing. But at least until recently, few environmentalists have suggested that meat-eating belongs on the same scale of importance as the kinds of issues that have energized Amazon Watch, or Conservation International, or Greenpeace. Yet, as environmental science has advanced, it has become apparent that the human appetite for animal flesh is a driving force behind virtually every major category of environmental damage now threatening the human future—deforestation, erosion, fresh water scarcity, air and water pollution, climate change, biodiversity loss, social injustice, the destabilization of communities, and the spread of disease.
How did such a seemingly small matter of individual consumption move so rapidly from the margins of discussion about sustainability to the center? To begin with, per-capita meat consumption has more than doubled in the past half-century, even as global population has continued to increase. As a result, the overall demand for meat has increased five-fold. That, in turn, has put escalating pressure on the availability of water, land, feed, fertilizer, fuel, waste disposal capacity, and most of the other limited resources of the planet.
To provide an overview of just how central a challenge this once marginal issue has become, we decided to survey the relevance of meat-eating to each of the major categories of environmental impact that have conventionally been regarded as critical to the sustainability of civilization. A brief summary observation for each category is accompanied by quotes from a range of prominent observers, some of whom offer suggestions about how this difficult subject—not everyone who likes pork chops or ribs is going to switch to tofu without a fight—can be addressed.
Deforestation was the first major type of environmental damage caused by the rise of civilization. Large swaths of forest were cleared for agriculture, which included domestication of both edible plants and animals. Farm animals take much more land than crops do to produce a given amount of food energy, but that didn’t really matter over the 10 thousand years or so when there was always more land to be found or seized. In 1990, however, the World Hunger Program at Brown University calculated that recent world harvests, if equitably distributed with no diversion of grain to feeding livestock, could provide a vegetarian diet to 6 billion people, whereas a meat-rich diet like that of people in the wealthier nations could support only 2.6 billion. In other words, with a present population over 6 billion, that would mean we are already into deficit consumption of land, with the deficit being made up by hauling more fish from the oceans, which are in turn being rapidly fished out. In the near term, the only way to feed all the world’s people, if we continue to eat meat at the same rate or if the population continues to grow as projected, is to clear more forest. From now on, the question of whether we get our protein from animals or plants has direct implications for how much more of the world’s remaining forest we have to raze.
In Central America, 40 percent of all the rainforests have been cleared or burned down in the last 40 years, mostly for cattle pasture to feed the export market—often for U.S. beef burgers…. Meat is too expensive for the poor in these beef-exporting countries, yet in some cases cattle have ousted highly productive traditional agriculture.
—John Revington in World Rainforest Report
The Center for International Forestry Research reports that rapid growth in the sales of Brazilian beef has led to accelerated destruction of the Amazon rainforest. “In a nutshell, cattle ranchers are making mincemeat out of Brazil’s Amazon rainforests,” says the Center’s director-general, David Kaimowitz.
—Environmental News Service
Grassland destruction followed, as herds of domesticated animals were expanded and the environments on which wild animals such as bison and antelope had thrived were trampled and replanted with monoculture grass for large-scale cattle grazing. In a review of Richard Manning’s 1995 book Grassland: The History, Biology, Politics, and Promise of the American Prairie, Pulitzer Prize-winning writer James Risser observes: “Many experience anguish at the wreckage of clear-cut mixed-tree forest, destined to be replaced by a single-species tree farm. Few realize, says Manning, that a waving field of golden wheat is the same thing— a crop monoculture inhabiting what once was a rich and diverse but now ‘clear-cut’ grassland.”
Grassland covers more land area than any other ecosystem in North America; no other system has suffered such a massive loss of life.
—Richard Manning in Grassland
Another solution [to grassland depletion in Africa] would be a shift from cattle grazing toward game ranching. Antelopes, unlike cattle, are adapted to semi-arid lands. They do not need to trek daily to waterholes and so cause less trampling and soil compaction…. Antelope dung comes in the form of small, dry pellets, which retain their nitrogen and efficiently fertilize the soil. Cows, in contrast, produce large, flat, wet droppings, which heat up and quickly lose much of their nitrogen (in the form of ammonia) to the atmosphere…. An experimental game ranch in Kenya has been a great economic success while simultaneously restoring the range.
—Paul R. Ehrlich, Anne H. Ehrlich, and Gretchen C. Daily in The Stork & The Plow
Fresh water, like land, seemed inexhaustible for most of the first 10 millennia of civilization. So, it didn’t seem to matter how much a cow drank. But a few years ago, water experts calculated that we humans are now taking half the available fresh water on the planet—leaving the other half to be divided among a million or more species. Since we depend on many of those species for our own survival (they provide all the food we eat and oxygen we breathe, among other services), that hogging of water poses a dilemma. If we break it down, species by species, we find that the heaviest water use is by the animals we raise for meat. One of the easiest ways to reduce demand for water is to reduce the amount of meat we eat.
The standard diet of a person in the United States requires 4,200 gallons of water per day (for animals’ drinking water, irrigation of crops, processing, washing, cooking, etc.). A person on a vegan diet requires only 300 gallons a day.
—Richard H. Schwartz in Judaism and Vegetarianism
A report from the International Water Management Institute, noting that 840 million of the world’s people remain undernourished, recommends finding ways to produce more food using less water. The report notes that it takes 550 liters of water to produce enough flour for one loaf of bread in developing countries…but up to 7,000 liters of water to produce 100 grams of beef.
—UN Commission on Sustainable Development, “Water—More Nutrition Per Drop,” 2004
Let’s say you take a shower every day…and your showers average seven minutes…and the flow rate through your shower head is 2 gallons per minute…. You would use, at that rate, [5,110] gallons of water to shower every day for a year. When you compare that figure, [5,110] gallons of water, to the amount the Water Education Foundation calculates is used in the production of every pound of California beef (2,464 gallons),you realize something extraordinary. In California today, you may save more water by not eating a pound of beef than you would by not showering for six entire months.
—John Robbins in The Food Revolution: How Your Diet Can Help Save Your Life and the World
Waste disposal, like water supply, seemed to have no practical limitations. There were always new places to dump, and for centuries most of what was dumped either conveniently decomposed or disappeared from sight. Just as you didn’t worry about how much water a cow drank, you didn’t worry about how much it excreted. But today, the waste from our gargantuan factory farms overwhelms the absorptive capacity of the planet. Rivers carrying livestock waste are dumping so much excess nitrogen into bays and gulfs that large areas of the marine world are dying (see Environmental Intelligence, “Ocean Dead Zones Multiplying,” p. 10). The easiest way to reduce the amount of excrement flowing down the Mississippi and killing the Gulf of Mexico is to eat less meat, thereby reducing the size of the herds upstream in Iowa or Missouri.
Giant livestock farms, which can house hundreds of thousands of pigs, chickens, or cows, produce vast amounts of waste. In fact, in the United States, these “factory farms” generate more than 130 times the amount of waste that people do.
—Natural Resources Defense Council
According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, livestock waste has polluted more than 27,000 miles of rivers and contaminated groundwater in dozens of states.
—Natural Resources Defense Council
Nutrients in animal waste cause algal blooms, which use up oxygen in the water, contributing to a “dead zone” in the Gulf of Mexico where there’s not enough oxygen to support aquatic life. The dead zone stretched over 7,700 square miles during the summer of 1999.
—Natural Resources Defense Council
Energy consumption, until very recently, may have seemed to most of us to be an issue for refrigerators, but not for the meat and milk inside. But as we give more attention to life-cycle analysis of the things we buy, it becomes apparent that the journey that steak made to get to your refrigerator consumed staggering amounts of energy along the way. We can begin the cycle with growing the grain to feed the cattle, which requires a heavy input of petroleum- based agricultural chemicals. There’s the fuel required to transport the cattle to slaughter, and thence to market. Today, much of the world’s meat is hauled thousands of miles. And then, after being refrigerated, it has to be cooked.
It takes the equivalent of a gallon of gasoline to produce a pound of grain-fed beef in the United States. Some of the energy was used in the feedlot, or in transportation and cold storage, but most of it went to fertilizing the feed grain used to grow the modern steer or cow…. To provide the yearly average beef consumption of an American family of four requires over 260 gallons of fossil fuel.
—“Meat Equals War,” web-site of Earth Save, Humboldt, California
It takes, on average, 28 calories of fossil fuel energy to produce 1 calorie of meat protein for human consumption, [whereas] it takes only 3.3 calories of fossil- fuel energy to produce 1 calorie of protein from grain for human consumption.
—David Pimentel, Cornell University
The transition of world agriculture from food grain to feed grain represents a new form of human evil, with consequences possibly far greater and longer lasting than any past wrongdoing inflicted by men against their fellow human beings. Today, more than 70 percent of the grain produced in the United States is fed to livestock, much of it to cattle.
—Jeremy Rifkin, Los Angeles Times, 27 May 2002
Feeding grain to animals is highly inefficient, and an absurd use of resources.
—Vaclav Smil, University of Manitoba
Global warming is driven by energy consumption, to the extent that the principal energy sources are carbon-rich fuels that, when burned, emit carbon dioxide or other planet-blanketing gases. As noted above, the production and delivery of meat helps drive up the use of such fuels. But livestock also emit global-warming gases directly, as a by- product of digestion. Cattle send a significant amount of methane, a potent global-warming gas, into the air. The environmental group Earth Save recommends a major reduction in the world’s cattle population, which currently numbers about 1.3 billion.
One ton of methane, the chief agricultural greenhouse gas, has the global warming potential of 23 tons of carbon dioxide. A dairy cow produces about 75 kilograms of methane a year, equivalent to over 1.5 [metric] tons of carbon dioxide. The cow, of course, is only doing what comes naturally. But people are inclined to forget, it seems, that farming is an industry. We cleared the land, sowed the pasture, bred the stock, and so on. It’s a human business, not a natural one. We’re pretty good at it, which is why atmospheric concentrations of methane increased by 150 percent over the past 250 years, while carbon dioxide concentrations increased by 30 percent.
—Pete Hodgson, New Zealand Minister for Energy, Science, and Fisheries
There is a strong link between human diet and methane emissions from livestock…. As beef consumption rises or falls, the number of livestock will, in general, also rise or fall, as will the related methane emissions. Latin America has the highest regional emissions per capita, due primarily to large cattle populations in the beefexporting countries (notably Brazil and Argentina).
—United Nations Environment Programme, Unit on Climate Change
Belching, flatulent livestock emit 16 percent of the world’s annual production of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas.
—Brian Halweil and Danielle Nierenberg in State of the World 2004
Fight Global Warming With Your Knife and Fork
—Article by Elysa Hammond in Sustainablebusiness.com
Food productivity of farmland, as noted above, is gradually falling behind population growth. When Paul Ehrlich warned three decades ago that “hundreds of millions” of people would starve, he turned out to have overstated the case—for now. (Only tens of millions starved.) The green revolution, an infusion of fertilizers and mass-production techniques, increased crop yields and bought us time. That, combined with more complete utilization of arable land through intensified irrigation and fertilization, enabled us to more or less keep pace with population growth for another generation. A little additional gain—but only a little—may come from genetic engineering. Short of stabilizing population (which will take another halfcentury), only one major option remains: to cut back sharply on meat consumption, because conversion of grazing land to food crops will increase the amount of food produced. (Some argue that grazing can use land that is useless for crops, and in these areas live- stock may continue to have a role, but large areas of arable land are now given to cattle to roam and ruin.)
Let’s say we have 20,000 kcal [kilocalories] of corn. Assume that we feed it to cattle (as we do with about 70 percent of the grain produced in the U.S.)…. The cow will produce about 2,000 kcal of usable energy from that 20,000 kcal of corn (assuming 10 percent efficiency; the efficiency is actually somewhat higher than that, but 10 percent is easy to work with and illustrates the point reasonably). That 2,000 kcal of beef would support one person for a day, assuming a 2,000 kcal per day diet, which is common in the U.S. If instead people ate the 20,000 kcal of corn directly, instead of passing it through the cow, we would be able to support more people for that given unit of land being farmed; not necessarily 10 times more, because people are not as efficient as cattle at using corn energy, but considerably more than the one that could be supported if the corn were passed through the cow first!
[So], we could support more people on Earth for a given area of land farmed if we ate lower on the food chain—if we ate primary producers instead of eating herbivores (corn instead of beef). Or, we could support the same number of people as at present, but with less land degradation because we wouldn’t need to have so much land in production….
—Patricia Muir, Oregon State University
While 56 million acres of U.S. land are producing hay for livestock, only 4 million acres are producing vegetables for human consumption.
—U.S. Department of Commerce, Census of Agriculture
Communicable Disease doesn’t travel from one place to another all by itself; it has to hitchhike—whether in dirty water, the infected blood of rats or insects, or contaminated meat. Globalization has vastly increased the mobility of all of these media, and one consequence is that outbreaks which in past centuries might have been contained within a single village or country until they died out are now quickly spread around the globe. When a case of mad cow disease was detected in the United States in 2004, it was discovered that parts of that single cow had been distributed to about a dozen different states. The problem of containing outbreaks in a system of global distribution is exacerbated by the use of mass-production facilities that rely on antibiotics rather than more costly cleaning of facilities to fend off infection and disease. As antibiotic resistance increases worldwide, the movement of diseases becomes increasingly unimpeded. Some of the most dangerous outbreaks result from the growing illegal trade in bush meat, in which diseases harbored by forest primates, such as HIV—which in the past might have remained sequestered in remote jungles—are now brought into an unregulated global marketplace.
A report by the U.S. Department of Agriculture esti- mates that 89 percent of U.S. beef ground into patties contains traces of the deadly E. coli strain.
—Reuters News Service
Animal waste contains disease-causing pathogens, such as Salmonella, E. coli, Cryptosporidium, and fecal coliform, which can be 10 to 100 times more concentrated than in human waste. More than 40 diseases can be transferred to humans through manure.
—Natural Resources Defense Council
According to the World Health Organization, more than 85 human deaths have resulted from at least 95 cases of ebola reported in the Congo’s remote Cuvette-Ouest region. The tip-off to a possible outbreak came when gorillas in the region began dying. Tests of their bodies confirmed the cause of death…. Officials suspect the human outbreak stems from villagers eating infected primates including chimps, monkeys, and gorillas…. When primates are butchered and handled for bushmeat, humans come into contact with contaminated blood. People also get the disease when they eat the infected meat.
—Ebola Outbreak Linked to Bushmeat, http://www.janegoodall.net
It is believed that a sub-species of chimpanzee in west-central Africa may be the original source of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, and that the transmission of the virus, a simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV), to humans was the result of blood exposures from the handling of chimpanzees killed by hunters.
—Jane Goodall, from a lecture at Harvard Medical School, 2002
Lifestyle disease, especially heart disease, might not have been regarded as an “environmental” problem a generation ago. But it’s now clear that the vast majority of public health problems are environmental, rather than genetic, in nature. Moreover, most preventable diseases result from complex relationships between humans and the environment, rather than from single causes. Heart disease is linked to obesity resulting both from excessive consumption of sugar and fat (especially meat fat) and from lack of exercise facilitated by car-oriented urban design. The environmental problems of suburban sprawl, air pollution, fossil-fuel consumption, and poor land-use policies are also all factors in heart disease.
The irony of the food production system is that millions of wealthy consumers in developed countries are dying from diseases of affluence—heart attacks, strokes, diabetes, and cancer—brought on by gorging on fatty grain-fed beef and other meats, while the poor in the Third World are dying of diseases of poverty brought on by being denied access to land to grow food grain for their families.
—Jeremy Rifkin, Los Angeles Times
Who says meat is high in saturated fat? This politically correct nutrition campaign is just another example of the diet dictocrats trying to run our lives.
—Sam Abramson, CEO, Springfield Meats
Meat contributes an extraordinarily significant percentage of the saturated fat in the American diet.
—Marion Nestle, chair of the Department of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health, New York University
Not only is mortality from coronary heart disease lower in vegetarians than in nonvegetarians, but vegetarian diets have also been successful in arresting coronary heart disease. Scientific data suggest positive relationships between a vegetarian diet and reduced risk for…obesity, coronary artery disease, hypertension, diabetes mellitus, and some types of cancer.
—American Dietetic Association
He is a heavy eater of beef. Me thinks it doth harm to his wit.
—William Shakespeare in Twelfth Night
The average age (longevity) of a meat eater is 63. I am on the verge of 85 and still work as hard as ever. I have lived quite long enough and am trying to die; but I simply cannot do it. A single beef-steak would finish me; but I cannot bring myself to swallow it. I am oppressed with a dread of living forever. That is the only disadvantage of vegetarianism.
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
Biodiversity loss and threat of extinction:
Above and beyond the destruction of forests and grasslands for cattle ranching, and the creation of oceanic dead zones by manure-laden runoff, the growing traffic in bush-meat is decimating the remaining populations of gorillas, chimpanzees, and other primates that are being killed for their meat. (A photo we received but declined to print in this issue shows a severed gorilla’s head sitting in a food basket next to a bunch of bananas). As the planet becomes more crowded, poor populations are increasingly venturing into wildlife reserves looking for meat—and not always just for their own subsistence. In these areas, it’s not enough just to say “eat less meat.” Here, the long-term solution will depend on stemming the building of logging roads (which facilitate more rapid invasion by hunters) and stronger protections against poaching and black-marketeering of bushmeat. It will also require more equitable distribution of the world’s limited food output, and of the income with which to buy it.
The real trouble has come in the last 10 years or so, as the big multinational companies, particularly European companies, are opening up the [central African] forest with their roads. Hunters from the towns can use the logging trucks to go along the roads…. They shoot everything from elephants down to gorillas, chimpanzees, bonobos, monkeys, birds—everything. They smoke it, they load it on the trucks and take it into the cities, where it’s not to feed starving people—it’s where people will pay more for bushmeat than for domesticated meat…. The pygmy hunters who’ve lived in harmony with the forest world for hundreds of years are now being given guns and ammunition and paid to shoot for the logging camps. And that’s absolutely not sustainable.”
—Jane Goodall in Benefits Beyond Boundaries, a film by Television Trust for the Environment shown on BBC in 2003
The animals have gone, the forest is silent, and when the logging camps finally move, what is left for the indigenous people? Nothing.
—Jane Goodall in Benefits Beyond Boundaries
Albert Einstein, who was better known for his physics and math than for his interest in the living world, once said:
“Nothing will benefit human health and increase chances of survival of life on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet.” We don’t think he was just talking about nutrition. Notice that in this article we haven’t said much at all about the role of meat in nutrition, even though there’s a lot more to talk about than heart disease. Nor have we gone into the ethics of vegetarianism, or of animal rights. The purpose of those omissions is not to brush off those concerns, but to point out that on ecological and economic grounds alone, meat-eating is now a looming problem for humankind. You don’t have to have any conscience at all to know that the age of heavy meat-eating will soon be over as surely as will the age of oil—and that
You make many great points about the perils and inefficiencies of large scale meat production, most of which don’t apply to our situation of backyard pastured livestock. We agree with 95% of your arguments, and we have read the same books and articles. You also toss in a few thinly veiled personal attacks, which is always a great way to convince someone to change their beliefs.
Our attempt at trying to find a path to improve the way humans produce meat and raise livestock, both ethically and ecologically, has obviously struck a nerve, so we promise to flesh out these ideas in future posts. We appreciate your passion for our food system and our planet.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=639094899494760 I thought this little video was brilliant and profound, says so much about the human race. In response to your comment, please make no mistake, my initial motivation to become vegan had very little, if anything, to do with ecology, environment, personal health or starving children. It was 100% motivated by the realization that my choices were causing excruciating suffering and death and that there could be no food, taste or pleasure, that could ever make that okay. I am absolutely thrilled that as a residual effect, the environment, the hungry and the Earth are also benefitting from my vegan diet, but that certainly was not my reasoning. I also think I should mention that if there were “thinly veiled, personal attacks”, they too, were residual effects of my passion. I tried desperately to veil my intense disgust and anger and attempted to appeal to your sense of fact, rather than your heart, because for whatever reason, you seem to be devoid of the ability to look into the faces of your pigs, and see the importance of their life. I had an intense experience once, where i was called in to assist with a rescue. A local rural man had to kill his pig for food. They were very poor, hungry, uneducated, the food stamps had run out and they could not afford to hire someone to do the killing. He tried to kill the pig in several ways, I will not describe here, but he failed. As a final attempt, he doused the pig with gasoline and set him on fire. When he did, the fire burned the rope the pig was tethered to and the pig took off running. The pig ran for almost a mile before he found a creek, and was able to put out the remaining flames. He wandered off a few more feet and collapsed. And screamed. And screamed. He was found and about an hour later, I was on scene awaiting the vet, along with 3 other volunteers. By then his screams turned to whimpers that sounded as much like a baby as my own child. We wrapped him in cold, wet blankets and poured ice water on the blanket, praying the vet and the pain meds would be there soon. I instinctively rolled him onto my lap and cradled him and the sounds escaping him changed. He looked up at me and he sighed with breathy whimpers and every ounce of him said “Thank You”. The only vet that could be found on a Saturday arrived, with no pain meds. She roughly ripped off the blanket, glanced him over, pulled off a piece of charred skin and said, “anyone want bacon” and laughed. I will spare you the next few minutes, because I could not control myself, but i left by police escort that day. The point is, one of the things she said before i was removed from the scene was “Give me a break, this is NOTHING compared to butchering them, it takes them 20 minutes to die, now that’s some screaming.” I wonder if you will be there to hear your pigs screaming the day they die. I wonder if you will look in their eyes. You have all the power to either be the cause of their murder, or their protective arms, and I’m just not sure how the choice is not obvious.
Congrats on your piglets! We have pigs here & they are, by far, my favorite animal on the farm. I wish you lots of luck! Thanks for stopping by & linking up with us for the From the Farm Blog Hop! Your submission was an easy favorite for me this week! 🙂 And your photos are wonderful – I can almost taste the bacon!
Thanks Krystyna! Watch out for the lurking vegans though…. 😉
Gina just shared all that solid info supporting the problems with meat consumption and then poured her heart out. I politely tried to appeal to your conscience, and you flippantly refer to us as lurking vegans? Perhaps your conscience is dead. I don’t think you have anything to worry about as far as anyone lurking. Most compassionate people, vegan or not, will find nothing of value in your self-righteous blog!
Maureen,
Again as I stated below, we were certainly not meaning to offend. See that little smiley face after the comment? It was meant as a lighthearted joke. There are folks in this comment circle with very strong, passionate opinions. We value that. But IF you looked at the commenter, Krystyna’s, recent post (making your own pork lard) you might have had some strong words for her as well. We are certainly not being self-righteous in any way, shape or form. Again we encourage discussion and debate but would love to leave out the name calling and attacks. Thanks so much.
If your conscience is dead already, may I suggest serving it alongside fava beans and a nice Chianti? Let me know how it is because we’re planning to add pigs to our little backyard farm in the spring, so my conscience is probably dying as we speak. When it’s all dead we’ll probably add lambs, too. I look forward to exploring more of your blog 🙂
Katie, this is your comment: “We encourage comments like yours and we hope that you’ll keep reading and being part of this ongoing discussion.” Perhaps you meant to say, “we encourage people who agree with us to be part of this ongoing discussion”. In all the information I offered and my personal account, my questions and points raised, your only response was “Beware of the lurking vegans”. How very brilliant. I see you really have thought this through. Your arguement is so solidly backed up by your response. And Maureen Shull, I thank you. Sadly, it seems you are the only one who REALLY read the words and you clearly are one of those who did not need to hear them, because you already get it. Lurk on my sister. How unfortunate that money can buy yachts, but not compassion, empathy, open mindedness, grace, class or conscience.
Gina,
This ceased to be a discussion a while back…it’s mostly been you making assumptions about our lack of compassion, our bloodlust, and our vast wealth, and then flooding us with cut and paste factoids that don’t apply to what we’re doing in our back yard.
Notice the smiley face after the “lurking vegans” comment. We often write with humor and, although this is a passionate important subject, we were making a lighthearted comment that wasn’t meant to reflect on our lack of “open-mindedness, grace, class or conscience”. We certainly didn’t mean to offend. We are sorry you disagree with our choices, but we do value your comments. We just politely ask that you perhaps refrain from personal attacks? Thanks so much.
Lurking vegans? Is this not a forum where you encourage open opinion and insight? Apparently not despite your claim to the contrary. Giving you my two cents concerning a vegetarian lifestyle or reasons not to slaughter these beautiful animals would be a waste of my time. Miss Evers has stated it all so eloquently. But I am curious about you two. You clearly state you have no idea what you’re doing. You’re flippant attitude is what gets under my skin most. I can’t imagine which of you two is going to attempt putting a bullet between the eyes of a frightened 225 pound animal while the other waits to flip him over and slit his throat. I can only imagine the fear you smug rookies will incite in this poor creature. Don’t play with an innocent life. You’re not children and this isn’t pretend time.
Hi Rich,
Our comment was certainly not meant to be flippant or disregarding of the obvious passionate comments we’ve received on this subject. If you’ve read any of our blog, and perhaps you haven’t, you would notice that we use humor liberally and write with a tongue in cheek fashion quite regularly. (Notice the smiley face after the comment) It was certainly not meant to offend.
Unlike you all, we have not chosen to be vegetarians in our life. But, with that choice, we try to make the best, most humane and sustainable choices in our meat consumption possible. We hunt our own wild game and buy local beef and pork that has been raised sustainably. Raising our own meat in the backyard is just one step closer and more sustainable in our minds. You all do not agree, that is obvious. But, at some point we will all have to agree to disagree on this point.
Most importantly, the slaughter of our animals is most definitely not something we take lightly. Taking the life of any animal is a difficult and emotional process. We are hunters, we know from experience. That day will be difficult beyond belief. We don’t deny that. We talk about it all the time. But as I stated before, we choose to be meat eaters and taking a life is a vital role in that process. It’s ugly, but true. The general public is spared this traumatic segment in our food system. If more people supported backyard movements such as ours, I’m sure there would be many more vegans in this world. Perhaps that’s something we can all agree on?
If you believe for a moment that’s true, you need to re-read my comments. Really read them. Cut and pastes aside.
Gina,
If you really think about it, our beliefs are very similar. Most people don’t choose to make the connection that an animal must die to provide that burger or steak or bacon. A living, breathing, intelligent animal. The vast majority of the American public sees only meat as that – meat, nicely wrapped in plastic. We’re trying, to the best of our ability, to hold ourselves accountable for that meat we want to put on our table. Perhaps more people should be put to this test and really understand what their decision to eat meat means – REALLY means.
We’ve made the decision to be meat eaters. This we most definitely disagree on, but I believe we have more common ground that you may realize.
Thanks for sharing this! Swine Time was chosen as a favorite in our From the Farm blog hop!
Dawn –
Thanks so much – this has certainly been a popular, passion-invoking post!
OK I can’t stand these self righteous vegetarians/vegans who have decided to attack you, Mark and Katie. They are just like born again Christians… Be careful not to mention that you choose to be a meat eater or an atheist (personal choice) or they will gush with fury and vitriol!
And we have been witness to that. All I can say to Maureen, Gina and Rich – your self righteous verbal diatribes are ridiculous, mean and spiteful. Do you go around all the food blogs and spout this nonsense? Give it up. Really.
Cathy N, I see you’re offended. That’s just guilt. I get it. And it’s absurdly ignorant to compare people fighting for the voiceless to be compared to people preaching their religions. The difference is that religion is a personal choice and your beliefs are your business and effect only you. I couldn’t possibly care less, because it’s not harmful to the innocent. Veganism has nothing to do with the individual promoting it, but with those tortured and murdered for lack of it. Somebody has to stand up for them. They don’t speak or vote and what’s being done to them is horrifying. This is NOT like trying to convert someone to some man made religion, for which I have no time. I am ALL for personal choices, as long as no other soul is harmed. Eating meat is NOT a personal choice. It’s a choice made for billions of innocent lives that never got a vote.
Thank you for your insights Gina, (although I do think it unnecessary for you to call me ignorant). And please know that my eating meat IS a personal choice and I love it.
I do agree that there are some butcher facilities in many countries that do not practise humane methods. As Mark and Katie mentioned earlier it is their small family farm operation with excellent conditions for the animals they raise that provides a role model for others.
P.S. I love reading your responses. It’s like watching a train wreck… Many explosions going on and on with flying debris hitting everything in its path. 🙂 Really.
Goodness – it takes a lot of courage to write a blog. Anyone who knows you two would never doubt your compassion. Let the negativity flow past you and embrace the joy you both radiate.
Thanks Deb and Cathy,
It’s great to get some validation that we aren’t monsters after all…we were starting to doubt ourselves a little bit. These debates are fun though, it gets us all thinking about the actions we take.
My, my. It seems I must denounce you and your dog for your ethical breeches and your insult to Gaia and the universe in general. But I won’t cuz I’d love some bacon.
🙂
Hey y’all! I just started reading your blog and I know you spoke to my husband recently. We just acquired our own farm here in PA. 45 acres of complete bliss!!!
I just have to say that people who are passionately vegetarian/vegan always seem to have such ridiculous ideas about the creatures on our planet. I’m sorry, but you’re all bananas! Pigs are smart and beautiful and interesting and all of the other attributes that people have listed, but they’re also food! That’s their whole purpose of their existence. I am absolutely against the idea of industrial ag and factory farming and that is why people like you and I are doing what we’re doing.
I would give these pigs and all the other creatures the happiest life possible, which you’re already doing, and then eat them with thanks and gratitude. They will be all the more delicious from their happiness while alive!
Bon appetit! Btw, you may want to look into curing your own hams. It’s not difficult and ham is delicious!
Hi Becky,
Yes, it was great to connect with your husband and I loved looking through the photos of your place. I can just envision the potential that you have in front of you. What a magical place. Thanks for your thoughts on the piggie debate. It’s certainly been an interesting discussion and we feel even more passionate about what path we’re going down. We will certainly look into the ham curing options. Mmmmmm…..
Becky, pigs are not meant to be food. Look at the great work they’re doing for Katie & Mark. Man is not even physically created to be a carnivore. But, I guess this will be chalked up to be just another ridiculous idea from all the fanatical vegan/vegetarians. And Katie & Mark, it seems name calling is perfectly OK if it’s from someone who agrees with you. Cathy calling Gina’s eloquent and passionate response a “train wreck” sure “validates” your path? And according to Becky, we’re all ‘bananas’ because we value all living things? Ridicule prevails and you’re even more passionate about your path? We are passionate because this is a matter of life and death, and unfortunately this discussion is not an interesting, intellectual debate full of smiley faces.
Dear Becky, You have blown my mind! I read the words you wrote:
“I just have to say that people who are passionately vegetarian/vegan always seem to have such ridiculous ideas about the creatures on our planet. I’m sorry, but you’re all bananas! Pigs are smart and beautiful and interesting and all of the other attributes that people have listed, but they’re also food! That’s their whole purpose of their existence.”
What? Says who? Says the extremely powerful, multi-billion dollar industry that NEEDS for you to believe this! You have been utterly brainwashed to believe some animals are not animals at all, but walking, thinking, feeling, food. Becky, why is it do you think we are inundated with million/billion dollar ad campaigns like “Pork, it’s the other white meat”, “Beef, it’s what’s for dinner” and “Milk, it does a body good”? And when was the last time you saw an ad for broccoli? There is no mass scale cash in broccoli. The meat industry works very hard to make you look at certain animals as food and its amazing how well it has worked. Speckled between those ads/commercials for meat are countless, relentless ads for drugs, to treat a myriad of diseases. These industries (factory farming/pharmaceutical) are the two most powerful industries on the planet and NEED for you to see pigs, cows, chickens and dairy as food; they work together. For one could not flourish without the other.
But here’s the craziest part: You (and billions like you) have actually been made to think that if someone does not eat the flesh of animals, THEY are extreme, crazy and “bananas”, but if you do, then YOU are the sane, rational, normal ones. The raising, murdering and chopping up of these animals to put into your mouth, in no way seems “extreme” or “bananas” to you. People who DON’T do that are whackos! Well there is a reason for that. It’s called
COGNITIVE DISSONANCE (see also:brainwashing, Stockholm syndrome, cult mentality)
When an individual holds an ingrained or brainwashed belief that is deeply rooted, the brain develops an inability to accept or process information to the contrary. A total dismisses of presented evidence, logic or alternative idea. The brain becomes incapable of accepting the new information. This is a human defense mechanism that exists because the information or opposing idea causes extreme discomfort. It is so important for the brain to protect the core belief; they will rationalize, ignore and adamantly deny any fact or feeling that does not corroborate that core belief.
CHANGE YOUR SPECS! YOU HAVE BEEN TWISTED! IT WAS DONE TO US ALL!
Now Katie and Mark, I asked in an earlier post how you might feel if you came across a similar blog, in where all else was the same (names, pics, worker animals, countdown to slaughter, etc) but instead of pigs, it were puppies/dogs. I know that seemed like sarcasm and you responded in kind, by saying your dog seemed a little bony, but mmmm. Well all sarcasm aside, my only real point was that I believe you would probably feel these people were a little unstable, sort of twisted or confused and probably not the most feeling, compassionate of folks. Why? I know you are aware of the many countries that eat dogs as a normal part of their diet. Yet, you have not been conditioned to eat dogs. Instead, you keep one as a pet and if I tried to slit his throat and eat him, I would guess you’d feel protective or angry. Please try to understand, there is NOT a core difference. A dog does not feel differently about his life because he was born in China, instead of the USA. And a pig does not feel differently about his life because he was born here. There is NO difference, except in what we’ve been conditioned to believe.
I think maybe you have the impression that I was raised on some tree hugging, love fest, hippie farm where we prayed to the flowers, worshipped animals and made friends with the bugs. I ate meat for many years and some of the people I love most in the world, still do and probably will for all their life. But I learned, I read, I grew, I thought and I began to understand that we were fundamentally lied to. That these were beings who’s lives existed for their own purpose, just like mine, and that there is no living, breathing creature on Earth that exists solely for man. It’s just not true. It’s 2014 and the time for enlightenment is long overdue. I wrote to you because, well, I’m not really sure why. I guess because I feel like there is a part of you, a tiny, tiny part that knows. You have all the power and control over these lives. They look to you for food and as their human. They feel a bond to you and your husband and I hope more than you can imagine, that some sort of protective or maternal instinct will kick in before it’s too late, and you will look in their faces and make another choice.
One thing everyone here seems to agree upon is that factory farming is horrible for humans, animals and the environment. I am grateful for that. While there is no debate that raising and slaughtering your own animals is a far better choice than the former, it is simply the lesser of two unnecessary, avoidable evils. There is a third choice.
In it’s simplest form, what it boils down to, is that there are 3 kinds of people in the world. Those who walk down the sidewalk and refuse to change their gait if a bug is in their path, those who take an extra step to insure they squash the bug, and those who take an extra step to insure they don’t.
Maureen: I Thank You for your kindness. We are far outnumbered here, but all we can do is try to shine a light on what someone may have not considered. It won’t always work. But we should always try. As for the name calling, please let it slide right off you. They are defensive, rightfully so, so lashing out is normal. I really have one goal and that is to maybe make one person who reads just one little thing I wrote, feel a little differently. You never know. Someone, somewhere, said something to me once, and my mind and my life and my conscience changed forever. A girl can hope.
To the lady that keeps insisting eating animals is a “personal choice”. I’m gonna need for you to get a dictionary. A personal choice ONLY AFFECTS YOU! If I liked to punch babies in the face, that would not be a personal choice.
To the girl who posted her pic with the goat. I’m not sure why, but that pic was chilling to me. The goat seemed to love and trust you and feel genuine affection for you. But there is crazy in your eyes, and that baby who looks to you for comfort and food and companionship and who so obviously TRUSTS you, will watch as you slit his throat. Man, that’s gonna taste sweet!
You’re sick, self-righteous and hypocritically cruel. You self-proclaimed compassion seems to extend only to animals and those who agree with you. You started all the nastiness here, with your vitriol and verbal shock and awe, attacking these people personally with all the horrors of industrial butchering when it so obviously does not apply. They seem to be genuinely concerned and committed to making change while you resort to emotional terrorism when not getting your way…..your superior sense of enlightenment exists only in your mind, my friend. Tolerance isn’t tolerance when applied only to those who agree with us…
I have absolutely nothing against people eating dogs, I’m not sure where you got the idea to the contrary…in our travels in Central and South America, I’m sure we did eat some dog along the way.
Also, your imagination is running a bit wild on the whole slitting of the goat’s throat thing. We haven’t called you crazy yet, but if you continue to make stuff up like that, it will soon be warranted.
p.s. “Self righteous” and “cognitive dissonance” are hilarious words for you to be throwing around.
What exactly is hilarious about ‘cognitive dissonance’ and ‘self righteous?’ Seems like a way to avoid addressing all the powerful points she made. Come on, let’s be fair.
Nevermind, don’t worry about it.
Holy Shit! And that is all……
‘They look to you for food and as their human . They feel a bond to you and your husband and I hope more than you can imagine, that some sort of protective or maternal instinct will kick in before it’s too late, and you will look in their faces and make another choice.’ Maybe you don’t care to respond to some of the research that Gina has shared, and that’s OK, but please consider the above statement. This is basically all I was saying from the beginning. If you would ever like to read about some health benefits of a non-meat diet I would suggest you read PREVENT AND REVERSE HEART DISEASE by Caldwell Esselstyn, MD of the Cleveland Clinic. It’s based on a 20 year study of the subject. I wish you and the adorable piglets well.
“bacon-flavored rototillers”! Ahahaha! That was brilliant. Really enjoying this blog so far. 🙂
man, just because we disagree doesn’t mean we have to live with the differences , like adults and responsible for our own choices. who is right and who is wrong isn’t the point. the point is that our choices are our own.
I was interested in all of the info being supplied until the choice was made to save a pig over feeding a starving family at which point I had to question mental stability and priorities of the person giving the info. So cold-hearted! Those poor children!
Oops. Old post. Shoulda left well enough alone. Sincere apologies.
I have read so many articles or reviews regarding the blogger lovers but this piece of
writing is truly a fastidious paragraph, keep it up.
You’re so interesting! I do not suppose I’ve read something like that before.
So good to discover another person with a few original thoughts on this issue.
Seriously.. thanks for starting this up. This site is one thing
that’s needed on the internet, someone with a
bit of originality! adreamoftrains content hosting
Hello there, I found your blog by the use of Google at the same time as looking
for a comparable subject, your website came up, it
appears good. I have bookmarked it in my google bookmarks.
Hello there, just became alert to your weblog through Google, and
located that it is really informative. I am gonna watch out for brussels.
I will appreciate in the event you proceed this in future.
Lots of folks will probably be benefited out of your writing.
Cheers!
Love this watch and the price on AMAZON is unbeatable!!!
This page definitely has all of the information and facts I needed concerning
this subject and didn’t know who to ask.
Great post. I was checking continuously this blog and I’m impressed!
Very useful info specially the last part 🙂 I care for such info a lot.
I was looking for this certain info for a long time. Thank you and best
of luck.
Thanks for another informative website.
The place else may just I am getting that type of
information written in such an ideal method? I’ve a venture that I am simply now running on, and I’ve been on the glance
out for such info. 31muvXS cheap flights
Thanks very interesting blog! cheap flights 2CSYEon
I like the valuable info you provide to your
articles. I’ll bookmark your weblog and take a look at once more right here frequently.
I am somewhat certain I’ll be told plenty of new stuff
right right here! Best of luck for the following! 34pIoq5 cheap flights
This text is invaluable. Where can I find out more?
Heya just wanted to give you a brief heads up and let you know a few
of the images aren’t loading correctly. I’m not sure
why but I think its a linking issue. I’ve tried it in two
different web browsers and both show the same outcome.
Thank you, I have recently been searching for info approximately
this topic for a long time and yours is the best I have discovered till now.
However, what about the bottom line? Are you sure
in regards to the supply?
Fine way of telling, and pleasant paragraph to obtain data about my presentation topic, which i am
going to present in academy.
Have you ever considered about adding a little bit more
than just your articles? I mean, what you say is fundamental and all.
However just imagine if you added some great pictures or videos to give your posts more, “pop”!
Your content is excellent but with pics and videos, this website could definitely
be one of the very best in its field. Great blog!
For the reason that the admin of this site is working, no hesitation very soon it will be
famous, due to its quality contents.
At this time I am ready to do my breakfast, afterward having my
breakfast coming again to read more news.
Bless you-thank you-Care to clarify some things?
Needed to write you a tiny word to help thank you the moment again for your personal nice basics you’ve provided in this case. This has been certainly tremendously open-handed with you to grant easily all a few people would’ve offered for sale as an electronic book to generate some dough for themselves, notably now that you might well have done it if you ever wanted. These strategies additionally worked as a fantastic way to fully grasp other people online have similar passion just like mine to grasp way more with regard to this condition. I am sure there are numerous more enjoyable instances in the future for individuals who view your site.
Needed to post you this bit of remark just to give many thanks over again with your splendid pointers you have documented at this time. It is certainly generous of people like you to make without restraint what a number of us could possibly have advertised as an e-book to get some cash for themselves, most notably considering that you could have tried it if you desired. Those guidelines as well served like a fantastic way to fully grasp that other people online have a similar dreams similar to my personal own to understand more with regards to this condition. I am sure there are lots of more enjoyable moments up front for individuals that check out your blog.
Great blog here! Also your web site loads up fast!
What web host are you using? Can I get your affiliate link to your host?
I wish my website loaded up as fast as yours lol
I have been surfing online greater than 3 hours today,
yet I never found any interesting article like yours.
It’s beautiful worth sufficient for me. Personally, if all web owners and bloggers made excellent content material as you probably
did, the web might be much more helpful than ever
before.
Hola! I’ve been reading your blog for a while now and finally got the bravery
to go ahead and give you a shout out from Atascocita Tx!
Just wanted to say keep up the good work!
We stumbled over here different website and thought I may as
well check things out. I like what I see so now i am following you.
Look forward to exploring your web page for a second time.
Hey there! This is kind of off topic but I need some help from an established blog.
Is it very difficult to set up your own blog? I’m not very
techincal but I can figure things out pretty fast. I’m thinking about making my own but I’m
not sure where to begin. Do you have any ideas or suggestions?
Many thanks
I have read so many articles regarding the blogger lovers except this article is in fact
a fastidious post, keep it up.
Wow, superb blog layout! How long have you been blogging for?
you made blogging look easy. The overall look of your website is excellent,
let alone the content!
I’m curious to find out what blog system you’re utilizing?
I’m experiencing some minor security issues with
my latest blog and I would like to find something more
safe. Do you have any suggestions?
Great web site you’ve got here.. It’s difficult to find quality writing like yours nowadays.
I truly appreciate people like you! Take care!!
I am sure this article has touched all the internet visitors,
its really really pleasant article on building up new webpage.
Very rapidly this web page will be famous amid all blogging viewers,
due to it’s good content
Hi colleagues, nice post and fastidious urging commented here, I am genuinely enjoying by these.
Great post! We are linking to this particularly great article on our site.
Keep up the great writing.
Unquestionably believe that which you said. Your favorite reason seemed to be on the web the easiest thing to be aware of.
I say to you, I definitely get irked while other people think about issues that they
just don’t realize about. You controlled to hit the nail upon the
top and defined out the entire thing without having side-effects , people could take a signal.
Will likely be back to get more. Thanks
Fantastic website you have here but I was wanting
to know if you knew of any discussion boards that cover the same topics discussed in this article?
I’d really love to be a part of online community where I can get feed-back from
other knowledgeable individuals that share the same interest.
If you have any recommendations, please let me know. Kudos!
I simply could not go away your web site prior to suggesting that
I extremely enjoyed the standard information a person supply for your guests?
Is going to be back often to check out new posts
Howdy just wanted to give you a quick heads up.
The text in your content seem to be running off the screen in Firefox.
I’m not sure if this is a format issue or something to do with browser compatibility but I thought I’d
post to let you know. The design and style look great though!
Hope you get the issue solved soon. Kudos
The other day, while I was at work, my sister stole my apple ipad and
tested to see if it can survive a thirty foot drop,
just so she can be a youtube sensation. My iPad is now destroyed
and she has 83 views. I know this is totally off topic but
I had to share it with someone!
Write more, thats all I have to say. Literally,
it seems as though you relied on the video to make your point.
You clearly know what youre talking about, why throw away your intelligence on just
posting videos to your blog when you could be giving us something enlightening to read?
Awesome blog! Do you have any hints for aspiring writers?
I’m planning to start my own website soon but I’m a little
lost on everything. Would you propose starting with a free platform like WordPress or go for a paid option? There are so many options out there that
I’m completely overwhelmed .. Any recommendations?
Thanks a lot!
Hello, just wanted to mention, I liked this article. It was helpful.
Keep on posting!
This is very interesting, You’re an excessively
skilled blogger. I’ve joined your rss feed and look forward
to in quest of more of your wonderful post. Also, I have shared your site in my social networks
Hello there! I know this is kinda off topic but I was wondering if you knew where I could get a captcha plugin for
my comment form? I’m using the same blog platform as yours and
I’m having problems finding one? Thanks a lot!
Amazing! Its genuinely awesome post, I have got much clear idea concerning from this paragraph.
Hi! I know this is somewhat off topic but I was wondering if you knew where I could find a captcha plugin for my comment form?
I’m using the same blog platform as yours and I’m having trouble finding one?
Thanks a lot!
My programmer is trying to convince me to move to .net from PHP.
I have always disliked the idea because of the costs. But he’s
tryiong none the less. I’ve been using WordPress on a variety of
websites for about a year and am nervous about switching to another platform.
I have heard excellent things about blogengine.net.
Is there a way I can import all my wordpress posts into
it? Any help would be really appreciated!
Article writing is also a fun, if you be acquainted with then you can write
if not it is complicated to write.
Hello to every single one, it’s genuinely a pleasant for me to pay
a visit this website, it consists of important Information.
It’s going to be ending of mine day, however before ending I am reading this wonderful paragraph to increase my know-how.
Very good info. Lucky me I discovered your site by chance (stumbleupon).
I have saved it for later!
Great post however I was wanting to know if you could write a
litte more on this topic? I’d be very thankful if you could elaborate a little bit more.
Kudos!
I am actually thankful to the owner of this site who
has shared this fantastic post at here.
Today, while I was at work, my cousin stole my iPad and tested to see if it can survive a 25
foot drop, just so she can be a youtube sensation. My apple ipad is now destroyed and she has 83 views.
I know this is completely off topic but I had to share it with someone!
Hello, the whole thing is going well here and ofcourse every
one is sharing information, that’s truly good, keep
up writing.
Hi! Do you use Twitter? I’d like to follow you if that would be okay.
I’m definitely enjoying your blog and look forward to
new posts.
Thank you for another wonderful article. Where else may just anybody get that kind of info in such an ideal means of writing?
I’ve a presentation subsequent week, and I’m at the look for such info.
That is really fascinating, You are an excessively professional blogger.
I’ve joined your feed and look forward to in the hunt for more of your wonderful post.
Additionally, I have shared your website in my social networks
Saved as a favorite, I like your site!
I enjoy what you guys are up too. This type of clever work and exposure!
Keep up the superb works guys I’ve included you guys to blogroll.
I will immediately grab your rss feed as I can’t in finding your email subscription hyperlink or newsletter service.
Do you’ve any? Kindly let me understand so that I may subscribe.
Thanks.
I visited many web sites except the audio feature for audio songs current at this web page is actually marvelous.
I will immediately take hold of your rss feed as I can not to
find your email subscription hyperlink or e-newsletter service.
Do you have any? Please let me know so that I may just subscribe.
Thanks.
If some one wants to be updated with most up-to-date technologies
after that he must be pay a quick visit this web site and be up to date everyday.
Oh my goodness! Impressive article dude! Thank you, However I am
encountering troubles with your RSS. I don’t know why I cannot
join it. Is there anyone else having identical RSS problems?
Anyone who knows the answer will you kindly respond?
Thanks!!
I was suggested this website by way of my cousin. I’m now
not positive whether or not this post is written by means of him as no one else recognise such precise about my problem.
You’re wonderful! Thank you!
Howdy! This blog post couldn’t be written much better!
Looking at this article reminds me of my previous roommate!
He continually kept talking about this. I am going to forward this information to him.
Pretty sure he will have a very good read. Thank you for sharing!
Excellent beat ! I would like to apprentice while you amend your site, how can i subscribe for a blog site?
The account aided me a applicable deal. I have been a little bit acquainted of this your broadcast provided shiny transparent concept
If you are going for most excellent contents like me, only go to see this web site daily as it provides feature contents, thanks
It’s a pity you don’t have a donate button! I’d certainly
donate to this outstanding blog! I suppose for now i’ll settle for bookmarking and
adding your RSS feed to my Google account. I look forward to fresh updates and will
share this blog with my Facebook group. Chat soon!
Does your website have a contact page? I’m having trouble
locating it but, I’d like to send you an e-mail. I’ve got some ideas for
your blog you might be interested in hearing. Either way, great website and I look
forward to seeing it develop over time.
Every weekend i used to go to see this web site, as i want enjoyment, for the reason that
this this web site conations in fact pleasant funny information too.
Hmm it seems like your site ate my first comment
(it was extremely long) so I guess I’ll just sum it up what I had written and say, I’m thoroughly enjoying your blog.
I too am an aspiring blog writer but I’m still new to the whole thing.
Do you have any tips for inexperienced blog writers? I’d genuinely appreciate it.
Hi friends, pleasant post and good arguments commented here, I
am actually enjoying by these.
Pretty section of content. I just stumbled upon your web site and
in accession capital to assert that I acquire actually enjoyed account your blog posts.
Anyway I will be subscribing to your feeds and even I achievement you access consistently rapidly.
Hello there! I could have sworn I’ve been to your blog before
but after going through a few of the posts I realized it’s new to me.
Anyhow, I’m certainly happy I stumbled upon it and I’ll be book-marking it and checking back frequently!
Why visitors still use to read news papers when in this technological globe all is available on net?
Keep this going please, great job!
I truly love your site.. Very nice colors & theme. Did you build this website yourself?
Please reply back as I’m planning to create my own personal site and want to learn where you got this from or exactly what the theme is called.
Many thanks!
Hi there, I read your new stuff like every week.
Your writing style is awesome, keep doing what you’re doing!
Hi there, I would like to subscribe for this webpage to get newest updates, therefore where can i do it please assist.
What’s up Dear, are you really visiting this web site on a regular basis, if so
after that you will absolutely obtain pleasant experience.
Yes! Finally something about crédits gratuits badoo.
Wow, this paragraph is pleasant, my sister is analyzing such things, so I am going
to convey her.
Its like you read my mind! You appear to know a lot about this, like you wrote the book in it or something.
I think that you could do with some pics to drive the message home a bit, but instead of that, this is excellent blog.
A fantastic read. I will certainly be back.
Hi there outstanding website! Does running a blog such as this take a large amount of work?
I have no understanding of coding but I had been hoping to start my own blog in the near future.
Anyhow, should you have any suggestions or techniques for
new blog owners please share. I understand this is off topic but I simply needed to ask.
Kudos!
You actually make it seem so easy with your presentation but I find
this matter to be really something which I think I would never understand.
It seems too complicated and extremely broad for me. I’m looking forward
for your next post, I will try to get the hang of it!
Wow, amazing blog layout! How long have you been blogging for?
you made blogging look easy. The overall look of your website is wonderful,
let alone the content!
Heya i’m for the first time here. I found this board and I find It truly useful & it helped me out a
lot. I hope to give something back and aid others like you helped
me.
Hey I am so thrilled I found your blog, I really found you by accident, while I was searching on Bing for something else, Anyways I am here now and would just like to
say kudos for a incredible post and a all round exciting blog
(I also love the theme/design), I don’t have time to
go through it all at the moment but I have book-marked it and also added your RSS feeds,
so when I have time I will be back to read much more, Please do keep
up the excellent job.
Hi there, I do think your web site could be
having web browser compatibility problems. Whenever I take a look
at your web site in Safari, it looks fine however, if opening in IE, it’s got some
overlapping issues. I just wanted to give you a quick heads up!
Apart from that, great site!
magnificent points altogether, you simply gained a new reader.
What would you suggest about your publish that you just made a few days
ago? Any certain?
My spouse and I stumbled over here coming from a different web address and
thought I might check things out. I like what I see so now i’m following you.
Look forward to looking at your web page yet again.
Hi just wanted to give you a brief heads up and let you know a few
of the pictures aren’t loading properly. I’m not sure why but I think its a
linking issue. I’ve tried it in two different web browsers
and both show the same results.
Hi there Dear, are you truly visiting this website regularly, if so afterward you will definitely take
pleasant know-how.
Today, I went to the beachfront with my kids. I found a sea shell and gave it to
my 4 year old daughter and said “You can hear the ocean if you put this to your ear.” She put the shell to her
ear and screamed. There was a hermit crab inside and it pinched her ear.
She never wants to go back! LoL I know this is completely off topic
but I had to tell someone!
Do you have a spam problem on this website; I also am a blogger, and I was curious about
your situation; many of us have developed some nice methods and we are looking to trade methods with others, why
not shoot me an email if interested.
Awesome issues here. I’m very satisfied to see your post.
Thank you a lot and I’m looking ahead to contact you.
Will you please drop me a e-mail?
Hi there! Would you mind if I share your blog with my facebook group?
There’s a lot of people that I think would
really appreciate your content. Please let
me know. Cheers
Pretty! This has been an extremely wonderful article.
Thank you for supplying these details.
Hey I know this is off topic but I was wondering if you knew
of any widgets I could add to my blog that automatically tweet my newest twitter updates.
I’ve been looking for a plug-in like this for quite
some time and was hoping maybe you would have some
experience with something like this. Please let me know
if you run into anything. I truly enjoy reading your blog and I look forward to your new updates.
Can Audible Function?
To begin with, you receive a complimentary audiobook and take out a free trial of Audible.
This really is among even an Audible originals or the classics.
At the end of your trial, you can buy a monthly subscription of
Audible. You have to sign up to your membership.
Monthly, Audible awards you with a single credit. It is possible to take advantage of
this credit to buy Audible audio books in different categories like technology, fashion, love,
social media, ads, etc..
If you would like to buy more books, you can buy more Audible
credits or pay-per sound book.
Interestingly, a member can download just a couple of six
Audible Originals in the first Friday of each month. They don’t charge any credits.
These Audible Originals can be kept by you eternally.
You have Audible audio books in your library even in the event
you cancel your subscription.
You can listen to Audible books anyplace using apps on your phone, Windows
or Mac computer or Alexa apparatus.|
With over 300,000 titles to its title, Audible is the world’s biggest
seller and manufacturer of audiobooks. https://www.atoallinks.com/2020/is-audible-actually-worth-it-a-brutally-authentic-audible-overview/