Hello Ken
Keith,
Your make many points that give me reason for pause. However, I can
wait for someone else to do something about the problems that exist
or I can do something myself - done!
Quite right! Did you see Darryl's sig? "It's your planet. If you
won't look after it, who will?"
The majority of U.S. citizens will continue to eat meat and larger
quantities than responsible and probably of the cheapest factory
farmed variety.
While it lasts. Too much fossil-fuels, for one thing, among many.
I think that the animals not being raised for my personal
consumption will benefit everyone more than were I to eat meat
because of the benefit that it might hold for fertilization.
The meat you eat would only have benefitted the soil if it came from
outside the factory farm / meat industry system, and you'd have to
make sure of it. That kind of market demand and pressure is most
important in creating and sustaining the necessary alternatives to
the factory farm nightmare. In the US, grass-fed beef and dairy have
come a long way in the last five years, and so have pastured pork and
poultry. You can even see it in the way attitudes have changed here
on the list and in what people have said about it over the years.
Though the overall proportion is minor, it's kept pace with the
rapidly rising demand and supply of organic food in general.
Along with active and informed opposition to factory farming,
industrialised farming and the food industry, that might be more
effective than just condemning meat and meat-eaters. "Meat is bad" vs
"Do you know where that meat you're eating comes from?" That
particular meat.
Hopefully, I can offset the over consuption and thoughtless
consumption of one other person. And we all know that we can't
change anyone else.
I know what you mean, but the PR industry wouldn't agree with that,
to cite an unfortunate example ($30 billion a year in the US, rather
a lot of it spent on behalf of the food industry). You can change
people, people change all the time. There are many ways of doing it.
Perhaps the most important one is changing yourself, which I think
you're implying.
I have always thought of this as my contribution to the environment
- hopefully just one of many.
You should fine-tune the meat one Ken, IMHO. Better target selection,
take better aim.
A point of interest, though, I don't know of any animal aside from
humans that consume the milk of another animal, though, I'm sure
there probably is at least one. Can someone name one? However, the
concept of consuming the lactic fluids from a bovine seems rather
bizarre. Those which are intended for its offspring as all milk is.
I'm pretty sure that I can do without bovine hormones and antibodies.
Which particular cow did it come from? What did it eat?
Drinking bovine milk goes back a very long way, in many traditional
societies. The health effects have been filtered through very long
and broad experience over hundreds of generations, and the vast
majority have long since adapted to what negative health effects
there were.
When properly produced, dairy products are valuable food. They're an
important part of sustainable agriculture, without them farming is
less sustainable.
Check out milk and dairy products at Sally Fallon's website:
http://www.westonaprice.org/
Also:
"Why Grassfed is Best!", by New York Times bestselling author Jo
Robinson, explores the many benefits of grassfed meat, eggs, and
dairy products. This is the website for the book, with much of
interest on the nutritional benefits of grass, environmental
benefits, new research.
http://eatwild.com/index.html
A Campaign for Real Milk -- "What's needed today is a return to
humane, non-toxic, pasture-based dairying and small-scale traditional
processing." Also in French and German.
http://www.realmilk.com/why.html
http://journeytoforever.org/farm_pasture.html
Pasture for small farmers: Journey to Forever
Best wishes
Keith
Take care,
Ken
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