A few months ago I read a wonderful article in E magazine by Jim Motavalli entitled "The Meat of the Matter" at http://www.emagazine.com/view/?4264&src=QSAVS4. I already knew a little about the damage raising cattle has caused to the earth, but this article reinforced what I already believed and made me think even more about my buying habits. I rarely eat red meat and in my house we started to cut out dairy products, but after finding out that "The methane that cattle and their manure produce had a global warming effect equal to that of 33 million automobiles," it wasn't hard for my house and eating habits to become cattle free.
The article talks about how nearly every aspect of the huge international meat trade has an environmental or health consequence. I had no idea that grazing occupies 26 percent of our water free land surface and that is all land that could go to feeding ourselves not the animals we eat! If you really want to rethink eating meat just keep this in mind, in Brazil alone, 60 to 70 percent of rainforest destruction is caused by clearing for animal pasture, which basically means that we are eliminating a major source of oxygen just to feed our hunger for milkshakes and hamburgers. Man are we smart!
At the same time I was saying goodbye to my beloved cheese, I also made the decision to stop buying fish and many other seafood products that are caught by nets and/or large corporations. I simply can't justify taking such massive amounts of living organisms out of the ocean, which depends on large amounts of fish and sea life to survive, in order to again, feed my appetite. But if you are cool with taking food away from whales, dolphins, and other sea mammals, than of course by all means continue supporting the huge fishing trade that is killing itself every day due to greed.
Ask yourself this, when a person in the United States goes into any grocery store what do they see? Aisles of options. For every one food item, there is generally at least three options to choose from, and yet with all of these options we are given why do we continue to make the most destructive choices? Human beings are not going to die if they can't eat their beef or pork, and as much as we need calcium, not digesting dairy products has proven to not harm people in any way. I just can't seem to rack my brain around the fact that we would rather kill our planet, which means killing our species, instead of changing our eating habits.
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I agree with a lot of what you're saying. It's so hard as a consumer to figure out where your food is coming from. There needs to be way better labeling and regulation. It's so easy to feel so helpless, too, like you're actions aren't going to make a difference, but to change anything each person has to decide to take a stance for what they believe in.
ReplyDeleteIt takes more food to raise a cow than the actual meat you get from it! Have you read Skinny Bitch? This was the book that turned the corner for me, to becoming vegetarian. It covers everything from what goes into the food we farm/butcher to eat, to the politics of what lobbyists push for food we put in our schools. Way too much to list here, but a good and quick read. The authors are quite mouthy too, haha. The section on animal cruelty did it for me.
I look forward to hearing more of what you have to say! Happy Earth Day...