UN urges global move to meat and dairy-free diet
 

This is exciting. It might be the most "legitimate" endorsement veganism has ever received (still waiting on Oprah).

I know what you're thinking and I've heard it before: the entire population isn't going to go vegan all of a sudden. Well - if that's your excuse for doing nothing then have a good sleep tonight. For those of you who are in a position to do so (and if you're using a computer to post to TFP, that might be a sign you are in a socio-economic class capable of making the necessary changes) it's time to stop making excuses. Even some changes now, with a mind towards more later, is something.

I am being blunt because there's a lot of anger in me this year. We keep hearing of environmental disasters every year hoping someone will clean it up, and inevitably it does... but to what end? Where is this all heading? I've drawn my line in the sand and sometimes I feel like a kook for doing so, but a UN endorsement of this lifestyle is reassuring.

Sorry man but I will never give up eating meat. I don't eat it with every meal every day, but I do eat meat several times a weak. I like it, it is part of a balanced diet, and I'm going to continue to eat it.

The sentiment's admirable, but the thinking's a little late, even for the UN. Raising & slaughtering won't go away, in spite of the UN, & in other cases because of it. Pass me that rib-eye.

I am a carnivore. I am an obligate carnivore. I am a human being, a highly evolved superpredator that's spent the past 5.-odd million years evolving to get up here.

I like meat. I like the way it tastes, the energy it gives me, and yes, I am a killer ape: hunting is -fun-. OTOH, I also slaughter my own chickens, and my family raises our own beef cattle. I know where my food comes from; I've washed its' blood out of my jeans and hair.

On the other hand, I will flap my wings and migrate south for Winter before I trust anything coming out that crowd of meddling, micro-managing, freedom-destroying Statist control-freaks at the UN. If the UN wants to recommend veganism, fine: UN delegates and scientists who push this can go first. No animal products of any kind: let's start with all those nice leather-covered chairs in the UN hall. I'd like one for my office.

A further question: if livestock production is such a huge problem, why did not the enormous herds of ruminants (bison, deer, antelope, etc) roaming the pre-Columbian Americas not cause this problem? Likewise the equally impressive herds of large animals which inhabited Africa until the 1890s?

I am as evolved as you are and I am a vegan. Take from that what you will.

There are so many reasons!

1. The herds you speak of would roam after grazing, and all their shit would be dispersed over a wide area, giving the ecosystem a chance to break it down.

2. They were eating the grass which they evolved to digest, not corn which leads to digestive problems and eventually resistant strains of bacteria like the e.coli.

3. Call me lazy but I'm not even going to bother checking whether the herds you mention were anywhere near as big as the factory farm populations used to feed the earth's humans.

4. The herds you mention (and again maybe I'm lazy on the fact checking) never developed the technology or opposable thumbs needed to clear cut swaths of rainforest in order to obtain grazing land.

I'm encouraged by this.

My own situation is that I have the desire for vegetarianism and veganism, but I have a weak will. I'll admit it.

Meat tastes good, and animal products have played a huge role in our development as humans. But I'll also admit that animal products are no longer a requirement thanks to research, knowledge, and technologies developed over the past few decades.

With the exception of those with some kind of disorder or extreme genetic disposition, humans are not obligate carnivores; they're omnivores fully capable of thriving as herbivores.

Humans aren't highly evolved superpredators; they're highly evolved supergeneralists. The inability or unwillingness to adopt a more vegetarian-based diet is a strike against this generalist precondition, which renders one more susceptible to environmental pressures where meat or animal products may be difficult or impossible to come by.

By the end of the year I'll at least be a weekday vegetarian (weekend meat eater) consuming organic locally-sourced meat only if not on an entirely vegan diet. The only thing standing in my way is the cost and good enough local sources. There's really just no good excuses left for those of us with working brains.

I don't really care to debate this with you but it could be argued that true carnivores are not only capable of capturing and killing prey through their strength, speed and bare hands but could also eat it without the aid of fire and knives. Their intestines are also much shorter than ours to allow for the much quicker passing of meat through the body...etc.

I'd assume it's because the current factory farm system of meat production - much more factory than actual farm - didn't exist then.

It's nice to see Aberkok and BG beat me to the punch.

The UN is off-base here. Nothing wrong with people choosing to be vegan or vegetarian, but it's simply not in our genes. Rather than focus on extremes, the UN should be working to drastically reduce global consumption of meat and dairy. It'd be a lot more successful. A lot of people could be convinced to put less focus on meat, but telling people they shouldn't do something at all is a quick way to be ignored. Limiting meat eating to weekends, like Manic_Skafe has done, is perfectly reasonable if it became embedded into our culture.

We're not carnivores, but we are omnivores. Meat is a natural and essential part of our diet. It's also not naturally a very large part of our diet, but it has its place. Telling people to avoid meat altogether will be about as successful as promoting abstinence education: some people will comply and most will ignore.

I'm a happy, healthy vegetarian.

I would gladly go vegan were I living in a community where it were supported and encouraged.

BUT... in general I find the vegan lifestyle extreme. (I'm not about to give up angora wool). I am also skeptical of the general population's ability to maintain a balanced and healthy vegan diet.

Taking antibiotics and using electricity and indoor plumbing aren't in our genes either, but I think there are few who would give these up.

This is a public relations/awareness issue. I agree that the tack should be more about reducing one's dependency on animal products of all kinds.

About 2% of the American population would prove otherwise. "Natural," maybe, but essential? I don't think it is.

We are omnivores, which means that plant matter and animal products are a part of our diet. We're designed to digest both, but this doesn't mean we require meat. A requirement of meat makes a species an "obligate carnivore." Cats, for example, fit into this description. Even dogs are considered omnivores. Consider bears as well.

There are many carnivores that have diets consisting of 50% or more that is meat intake. Animals like this require meat. Humans do not.

Many cultures look at meat as a "condiment" or "supplement." These same cultures tend to have far fewer problems with obesity, heart disease, and certain cancers. Yes, there is a correlation: they eat less/little (or no) meat (and often little/no animal products in general), which means they eat more plants --- this kind of balance tends to ward against these health problems.

I never understood this sort of statement. Unless you have some sort of advanced knowledge of nutrition, you are basically saying that a vegan isn't possible.

Nice quotation from Kurt Elling. I had the privilege of accompanying him back in 2005 and he is a fantastic musician, and has managed the herculean task of being a jazz vocalist I can tolerate (yes I am name dropping).

That's basically my point. I'm not saying we require meat, just that humans are naturally going to want some meat. Reducing is a much more reasonable goal than restricting. I'd be happy to see most people eating meat only twice a week, and I think that's something that is a reasonable goal. The difference between electricity, etc being unnatural is that those are adding something to our lives. It's a lot harder to avoid something that is natural than to do something that is not natural.
Nutritionally, of course it's possible. In terms of global culture, yes, I'm saying veganism isn't possible.Nothing wrong with that, and very cool :) He's one of my favorites.

Well despite my fiery rhetoric, I am down with anyone who is trying to reduce - it's not quite an all or nothing proposal from my point of view, but this word "natural" you keep using...

As humans, we have the power to decide what is natural. It's a construct. How is it natural to love our pets and in the same day opt into a diet which kills other animals we don't know personally? How is it natural to decide we want to grow edible plants in order to feed something else that we then eat?

Yes, let's eat less meat. Veganism is not something I could do. I'm not a fan of extremes. However, I do try to eat less meat for both health and environmental reasons (as well as practical ones).

I figure all of the people who keep harping on their need for meat will (eventually) do me (and the planet) the favor of removing themselves from the planet at some point, given that cardiovascular disease kills someone in the United States every 38 seconds (from data taken in 2006, according to the American Heart Association).

As individuals yes. There's a difference between the will of the individual and the will of the entire global population. I don't see individuals being vegan as proof that the entire global population could be vegan.

---------- Post added at 02:50 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:46 PM ----------

That will happen to some extent, but it'll be balanced out by the less intelligent vegans who don't realize the importance of watching their nutritional intake. Which fits well with my entire point: The greatest success will be found in the middle ground. Eat meat, but much less of it.

Actually, this is no different than any other discussion of diets. Diets don't generally work in the long term when they're based on restricting food. Diets based on moderation, however, are much more successful. Eat (almost) all the same things you enjoy now, but change the frequency and portion. We need to take the same approach with meat, not proclamations that the world should be vegan.

Oh, and finally, since natural selection was brought up, the things that we think are most beneficial are not necessarily what nature will see as beneficial. It could be argued, for example, that higher intelligence is slowly being rejected by nature as less intelligent people procreate far more. The fact that so many people have a hostile attitude toward vegetarianism (I don't, but I don't think restrictive extremes are the way to go) demonstrates that we do have a certain innate interest in eating meat, even if we don't need to eat nearly as much as we currently do.

No doubt, smeth. There was a great case study in my nutrition textbook about a otherwise-very-healthy vegan who didn't watch his B12 intake, and ended up in the hospital in a coma as a result. The doctors were puzzled by his condition, given his overall health, until his GP remembered that his patient was a vegan. A couple B12 shots later and the guy was good to go.

Fuck that, I'm eating steak.

Well smeth, I think you'd find a lot more people would be willing to cease their consumption of meat if they were forced to meet the realities of doing so. The factory farm system isn't pretty and it really doesn't matter how much you cut back when even the moderate consumption of antibiotics, pesticides, hormones, steroids, etc. is far from within the interests of being in good health.

A healthy vegan lifestyle is difficult to maintain but probably wouldn't be any more so than consuming meat if the resources, options and levels of access were the same.

I find it amazing that so many are so blind to what the REAL PROBLEM IS here.:confused: The problem is not in anyone's diet, the REAL PROBLEM IS THE GROSS OVERPOPULATION OF THE PLANET! That is what is out of balance, and reducing population is the only long term sustainable (to us a popular buzzword) solution. Changing the world population into herd of rice and bean eaters will do nothing other than postpone the inevitable day of reckoning. And what about the increase in methane emissions from the human cattle?
As usual, those from the crowded, overpopulated, polluted, (because of overpopulation) poverty stricken, (because of overpopulation) crime-ridden, (because of overpopulation) urban areas will want to force a solution to THEIR PROBLEM onto the rural areas whose only real problems are caused by urban offal.

There is a lot of anger in me (and others, I'm sure) that American family farmers should be asked to change their diet because someplace like Indonesia is already populated to three times what their own ecosystem can sustain, and is unable to deal with that.:mad: Continued overpopulation will eventually push all or most of the world into anarchy, and although some cheer its approach, in anarchy nothing is sustainable.

Lindy

Our love for meat is not unlike our love for sweets. As something we used to have much less ability to obtain, we've grown to enjoy it quite a bit more than, say, lettuce. Just like with sweets, we need to keep ourselves in check now that we have the technology to create an overabundence of food, but just like sweets we need to recognize that we're not going to eliminate it from our global diet (again, individuals yes, global civilization no).

We're all mostly on the same side here: I'm all for a serious social discussion about reducing our meat consumption, I just think focusing on extremes like veganism hurts the cause rather than helps it.

---------- Post added at 03:37 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:30 PM ----------

Lindy, unfortunately your issue is no different than the one we're discussing. There's a reason I initially drew a parallel with abstinance. Things like eating and sex are so hard-coded into our behaviour, there's very little we can truly do to avoid it.

---------- Post added at 03:40 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:37 PM ----------

Manic: there's a real and unfortunate problem with human perception that we tend not to comprehend things that aren't directly in front of us. Most people are well aware, to some extent, of the disgusting nature of the current food industry. They still eat at McDonald's.

If you think you need meat more than once every week or so, you're being a big baby. I've cut back my meat consumption over the past year to only eating about 100 grams (about a daily allowance of protein) a week. I've never felt better in my life and, honestly, I don't miss it at all. Tonight I'm having barbecued chicken from a farm just north of San Jose (organic feed, free-range, shipped locally, of course). Next week I'll be having Alaskan salmon, and the week after that will be homemade pork tacos. Otherwise, I'm not eating anything with parents. I enjoy eggs, nuts, legumes, vegetables, fruits, and a bit of dairy (I love cheese). I'm not missing a single nutrient from my diet, I'm full and satisfied after meals and snacks.

BTW, if you love steak, you must love ammonia, bovine urine, feces, and puss, and of course e. coli and bovine spongiform. Bon apetite!

As far as sustainability is concerned, it's my understanding that it's the American food and energy consumption in particular that's a major problem. Indonesia is a blip on the radar compared to the U.S. Indonesia's problem is self-sustainability, not overall impact on global sustainability.

The thing about the U.S. to keep in mind is that they're blessed with a disproportionately large land mass with a high proportion of it arable land. Despite this, Americans place far more pressure on the ecosystem than any other people in the world, and in many cases they do so more than several nations combined.

In a way, anything we eat has parents. Your remark about steak, will, is a little bit much.

I included links to support my insinuations. There are dangers to meat beyond it being inefficient as food in a heavily industrialized system that's required to feed so many people. Ammonia in meat is a real problem. Quality standards are a huge problem. Bovine spongaform is deadly and we don't know at all if it's in the American beef system. These are real dangers.

will your problem is with preparation, not meat itself

Does it sit right with you Smeth, that these problems in meat can be solved with correct preparation? As in: "well this is sickly meat but if I prepare it correctly it won't harm me?" And you'll just go on with your day?

..

aberkok, I don't mean cooking preparation, I mean actual farming instead of industrial production of food. Our problem is that we've bypassed nature's controls, not that we eat meat in the first place.

QFMFT! My cows eat, shit, sleep, live and die in the outdoors. They eat grass, shrubs, corn and some silage with extra gluten for when things get a little lean in the winter. The meat is more tender, more flavorful, less yellow-fatty, and with better grain and muscle-tone than anything I've ever seen in a store or in any American restaurant where the steak cost less than $65.00. And guess what? work the numbers, and I only pay $4.00/lb for everything from hamburger to Prime Rib and aged Brisket.

Factory farming? A smelly, invasive, noisome and toxic process that produces low-quality meat that tastes like cardboard with no texture worth mentioning. Humans evolved to eat meat. What comes out of a modern factory farm would make a Neandertal retch, cause an iron-age Celt to question our sanity, and if it squeaked through into Nelson's Royal Navy would have killed every weevil and rat in the whole bloody Fleet.

They're linked via mass production. Mass produced meat would seem to be dangerous by its very nature. It's not just the US that worries about mad cow, it's all industrialized beef production in the world. While grass fed beef is available, it's incredibly expensive and thus off limits to most people. Shoot, I only have it maybe a few times a year and I spend way too much money on food.

You mean like this guy?


Yeah, I guess he is kinda pale...but I don't think his diet has anything to do with it.


[Yes, I'm risking feeding a troll; but I'm feeding it a vegan diet. :thumbsup:]

Mm, Baraka. Here's my favorite example of a successful vegan athlete, ultramarathoner Scott Jurek:
Ultramarathoner Jurek Takes Diet to the Extreme - NYTimes.com

http://www.badwater.com/2005web/images/story11_1.jpg

That's a good point, snowy. Vegan is an entire subclass of marathoner.

Here's another famous vegan athlete, bodybuilder Robert Cheeke doing a 210-lb. dumbbell bench press warm-up:

Plus one, Dun.:thumbsup:
I suspect that most tfp folks have never been anywhere close to actual beef on the hoof. I grew up with range fed beef and lamb, and a barnyard full of chickens and geese. I agree that factory farming sucks, and that includes factory farmed grain and produce, which is the only large scale alternative.

How nice it would be if some of the people on here would spend some time on a family farm instead of getting their information about meat from the veganazis.:shakehead:

Lindy
on the road in Indiana

Wow, presume much?

It would be nice if America (and Canada, really) was actually fed for the most part by family farms instead of being left to choose from a majority of products from factory farms paid for in large part by government subsidies.

I'd be willing to accept that there are more problems coming from the Meat and Dairy Loebbels Lobby than from the "veganazis."

Yeah, seriously presumptive. I'm fortunate enough to live near a few butcher shops (that's right, actual butcher shops) that only serve locally sourced, grass fed and truly organic meat so I'm fully aware of how good it can be when you step outside of the world of factory farmed meat. Sadly, factory farmed meat represents most of what's available to most of us and thusly the aforementioned issues concerning the consumption of meat hold true.

Good thing I've got a George Foreman grill and buy cube steak, right?

Something tells me that meat alone isn't killing America's fatties.

...

Really interesting article on the evolution of human brain development and the consumption of meat

Here's the thing...

If North America were to switch entirely to family farm and were to ditch the use of factory farms and feed lots you would see a great reduction in the amount of meat consumed. First there would be fewer animals being raised and second, demand would cause the price to go up.

I think that's a great idea.

Exactly, and I think that's a much more reasonable and achievable goal than telling people to ditch meat from their diet entirely.

This podcast showed up in Google Reader for me today and pertains to this subject...

CBC Ideas - Have Your Meat and Eat It Too - Part One
CBC Ideas - Have Your Meat and Eat It Too - Part Two