Opinion: "The End of Meat Is Here" - NY Times

[editor]

Here's an interesting piece that deserves a more considered response than the usual tag-team, shouting-over trolling that happens here.

The End of Meat Is Here

If you care about the working poor, about racial justice, and about climate change, you have to stop eating animals.

The combination of meat shortages and President Trump’s decision to order slaughterhouses open despite the protestations of endangered workers has inspired many Americans to consider just how essential meat is.
Is it more essential than the lives of the working poor who labor to produce it? It seems so. An astonishing six out of 10 counties that the White House itself identified as coronavirus hot spots are home to the very slaughterhouses the president ordered open.
In Sioux Falls, S.D., the Smithfield pork plant, which produces some 5 percent of the country’s pork, is one of the largest hot spots in the nation. A Tyson plant in Perry, Iowa, had 730 cases of the coronavirus — nearly 60 percent of its employees. At another Tyson plant, in Waterloo, Iowa, there were 1,031 reported cases among about 2,800 workers.

Sick workers mean plant shutdowns, which has led to a backlog of animals. Some farmers are injecting pregnant sows to cause abortions. Others are forced to euthanize their animals, often by gassing or shooting them. It’s gotten bad enough that Senator Chuck Grassley, an Iowa Republican, has asked the Trump administration to provide mental health resources to hog farmers.

Animal agriculture is now recognized as a leading cause of global warming. According to The Economist, a quarter of Americans between the ages of 25 and 34 say they are vegetarians or vegans, which is perhaps one reason sales of plant-based “meats” have skyrocketed, with Impossible and Beyond Burgers available everywhere from Whole Foods to White Castle.

We cannot protect our environment while continuing to eat meat regularly. This is not a refutable perspective, but a banal truism. Whether they become Whoppers or boutique grass-fed steaks, cows produce an enormous amount of greenhouse gas. If cows were a country, they would be the third-largest greenhouse gas emitter in the world.
According to the research director of Project Drawdown — a nonprofit organization dedicated to modeling solutions to address climate change — eating a plant-based diet is “the most important contribution every individual can make to reversing global warming.”

Americans overwhelmingly accept the science of climate change. A majority of both Republicans and Democrats say that the United States should have remained in the Paris climate accord. We don’t need new information, and we don’t need new values. We only need to walk through the open door.
We cannot claim to care about the humane treatment of animals while continuing to eat meat regularly. The farming system we rely on is woven through with misery. Modern chickens have been so genetically modified that their very bodies have become prisons of pain even if we open their cages. Turkeys are bred to be so obese that they are incapable of reproducing without artificial insemination. Mother cows have their calves ripped from them before weaning, resulting in acute distress we can hear in their wails and empirically measure through the cortisol in their bodies.
No label or certification can avoid these kinds of cruelty. We don’t need any animal rights activist waving a finger at us. We don’t need to be convinced of anything we don’t already know. We need to listen to ourselves.

Don’t we need animal protein? No.
We can live longer, healthier lives without it. Most American adults eat roughly twice the recommended intake of protein — including vegetarians, who consume 70 percent more than they need. People who eat diets high in animal protein are more likely to die of heart disease, diabetes and kidney failure. Of course, meat, like cake, can be part of a healthy diet. But no sound nutritionist would recommend eating cake too often.
If we let the factory-farm system collapse, won’t farmers suffer? No.
The corporations that speak in their name while exploiting them will. There are fewer American farmers today than there were during the Civil War, despite America’s population being nearly 11 times greater. This is not an accident, but a business model. The ultimate dream of the animal-agriculture industrial complex is for “farms” to be fully automated. Transitioning toward plant-based foods and sustainable farming practices would create many more jobs than it would end.
Don’t take my word for it. Ask a farmer if he or she would be happy to see the end of factory farming.

Opinion | The End of Meat Is Here (Published 2020)

If you care about the working poor, about racial justice, and about climate change, you have to stop eating animals.

www.nytimes.com

Oh, and seeing as the diet of the author seems to be of critical importance to some people, I looked it up. He's neither a vegan or a fully veggie.

 

[co-op]

Here's an interesting piece that deserves a more considered response than the usual tag-team, shouting-over trolling that happens here.

Amen to this.

 

[B.I.G]

A regular flier that also regularly eats meat, would be better off giving up the former rather than the latter, if reducing their contribution to climate change is their motivation.

 

[wayward bob]

i'd like a piggery out back, like they have in st fagans. basically a closed system of feeding household scraps (& poo if required!) and then eking out that meat until you've grown another one. that and a couple of chickens. and a share in a cow.

we have a millennia-long entwined history with domesticated animals, and a whole world of cultural culinary traditions that are what simply wiped out? i don't see that as progress.

i deeply mistrust manufactured meat/dairy substitutes. surely the one thing that's becoming clear is that a processed diet is a poorer one in pretty much every respect. let alone propping up the corporations involved. my vegan kid eats a significantly poorer diet than i do, but reckons it's all good cos she takes supplements.

strikes me that the more recent vegan trends in the uk are leaning towards these mock, "dirty" and processed foods - fake burger with fake cheese and a fake shake, made to taste as shitty as the shitty originals. vs a really good daal and chapatis, for e.g.

prudent meat/dairy consumption, compassionate rearing & slaughter plus growing/eating local seems to be a preferable compromise.

(ps i have rarely read and never posted on a vegan thread on here before & i imagine it's likely i won't again after the verbal pasting i may be inviting )

 

[CNT36]

Opinion: "This will end well"

 

[Saul Goodman]

My opinion is he's talking bollocks.

 

[CNT36]

i'd like a piggery out back, like they have in st fagans. basically a closed system of feeding household scraps (& poo if required!) and then eking out that meat until you've grown another one. that and a couple of chickens. and a share in a cow.

we have a millennia-long entwined history with domesticated animals, and a whole world of cultural culinary traditions that are what simply wiped out? i don't see that as progress.

i deeply mistrust manufactured meat/dairy substitutes. surely the one thing that's becoming clear is that a processed diet is a poorer one in pretty much every respect. let alone propping up the corporations involved. my vegan kid eats a significantly poorer diet than i do, but reckons it's all good cos she takes supplements.

strikes me that the more recent vegan trends in the uk are leaning towards these mock, "dirty" and processed foods - fake burger with fake cheese and a fake shake, made to taste as shitty as the shitty originals. vs a really good daal and chapatis, for e.g.

prudent meat/dairy consumption, compassionate rearing & slaughter plus growing/eating local seems to be a preferable compromise.

(ps i have rarely read and never posted on a vegan thread on here before & i imagine it's likely i won't again after the verbal pasting i may be inviting )

There's a world of difference between a few pigs and a shared cow and what the OP is talking about.

 

[nogojones]

strikes me that the more recent vegan trends in the uk are leaning towards these mock, "dirty" and processed foods - fake burger with fake cheese and a fake shake, made to taste as shitty as the shitty originals. vs a really good daal and chapatis, for e.g.

I don't think this is just a vegan thing. Generally our diets are leaning towards the processed and "dirty".

One of the better things about the lockdown I've noticed is people cooking for themselves more and having a slightly better diet, though I guess it's easier if you don't have to work a full time job, balance childcare and commute for a couple of hours every day

 

[nogojones]

Opinion: "This will end well"

 

[CNT36]

View attachment 214157

Plenty of room in yours now you've dug out that ancient meme.

 

[Saul Goodman]

Would anyone like a small wager?
I'll bet £100 that the end of meat isn't here, and I'll give you 2:1 odds.

 

[SpookyFrank]

Factory farming of animals is indefensible on every possible level and can only survive so much longer.

The quality of the arguments made in defence of it mostly just serve to illustrate that even the most committed shoveller-away of animal parts knows this as well as anyone.

 

[editor]

My opinion is he's talking bollocks.

Thanks. And now you've shown you've no interest in engaging - and bearing in mind how the other threads have gone and your contributions - you're off this thread.

 

[B.I.G]

Thanks. And now you've shown you've no interest in engaging - and bearing in mind how the other threads have gone - you're off this thread.

Ridiculous.

 

[editor]

A regular flier that also regularly eats meat, would be better off giving up the former rather than the latter, if reducing their contribution to climate change is their motivation.

So you didn't read the article then. But thanks for your valuable insight.

 

[B.I.G]

So you didn't read the article then. But thanks for your valuable insight.

I did read the article but thanks for your assertion that I haven’t, as well as your valuable over the top modding.

 

[editor]

we have a millennia-long entwined history with domesticated animals, and a whole world of cultural culinary traditions that are what simply wiped out? i don't see that as progress.

'Tradition' is rarely a good excuse to keep on doing something regardless of other things it impacts on.
And humans haven't 'traditionally' factory farmed animals, either.

 

[Saul Goodman]

 

[SpookyFrank]

i'd like a piggery out back, like they have in st fagans. basically a closed system of feeding household scraps (& poo if required!) and then eking out that meat until you've grown another one. that and a couple of chickens. and a share in a cow.

we have a millennia-long entwined history with domesticated animals, and a whole world of cultural culinary traditions that are what simply wiped out? i don't see that as progress.

i deeply mistrust manufactured meat/dairy substitutes. surely the one thing that's becoming clear is that a processed diet is a poorer one in pretty much every respect. let alone propping up the corporations involved. my vegan kid eats a significantly poorer diet than i do, but reckons it's all good cos she takes supplements.

strikes me that the more recent vegan trends in the uk are leaning towards these mock, "dirty" and processed foods - fake burger with fake cheese and a fake shake, made to taste as shitty as the shitty originals. vs a really good daal and chapatis, for e.g.

prudent meat/dairy consumption, compassionate rearing & slaughter plus growing/eating local seems to be a preferable compromise.

(ps i have rarely read and never posted on a vegan thread on here before & i imagine it's likely i won't again after the verbal pasting i may be inviting )

There is no 'closed system' as far as raising animals is concerned, because of the laws of thermodynamics.

And you can avoid meat without swtiching to meat-analogues so your distate for those is not relevant.

Compassionate farming, which is a value judgement never applied by the farmees, is not compatible with current levels of meat consumption. If you're in favour of better animal welfare you're by default also in favour of less meat consumption. If you want to keep eating lots of meat but you want happier meat, then you're basically just expecting other people to eschew meat altogether to make space for your luxury, guilt-free cow bits.

 

[Jeff Robinson]

At any rate, humane slaughterhouses don't exist.

 

[cupid_stunt]

At any rate, humane slaughterhouses don't exist.

I read that as human slaughterhouses.

 

[SpookyFrank]

At any rate, humane slaughterhouses don't exist.

More humane slaughterhouses do exist, and represent a genuine improvement in both animal welfare and disease control.

I don't think you need to go down the 'slaughtering animals is inherently wrong' road to get to a compelling case against animal agriculture tbh.

 

[Edie]

Essentially agree with wayward bob and SpookyFrank

Factory farming has to go and soon as. We all need to eat a lot less meat, reared to much much higher standards. I’m convinced it’s better for the planet, human health, and of course the animals.

However me and my kids eat supermarket meat. I’m not proud of this, but I’m also clearly not willing or able to change to sourcing ethical meat. Right now.

 

[Edie]

And generally, sourcing and buying expensive high quality ingredients and having the time and energy to cook them is a privileged position.

 

[ddraig]

tick

 

[wayward bob]

If you want to keep eating lots of meat but you want happier meat, then you're basically just expecting other people to eschew meat altogether to make space for your luxury, guilt-free cow bits.

i don't want to eat the cow i want to eat the pig. say one between 4 for a year. is that excessive?

 

[Larry Noppius]

{...}

I'm not seeing any scientific references for the claims made - how surprising! That which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence. Also, you really should try not to reference pseudo-scientific propaganda films as support for your claims, such as that "The Game Changers" film - it really doesn't make your argument look good:

The Game Changers is a documentary that was recently released on Netflix and it explores the benefits of a plant-based diet. This documentary did not attempt to portray a neutral standpoint that explored scientific research from both sides of the plant-based vs meat consumption argument. Rather, it lacked context and misrepresented several studies (including a study done by our laboratory) and completely omitted any counter-research.

The Game Changers documentary utilizes striking imagery and (skewed or poorly conducted) scientific research to alter your thinking and persuade you toward a plant-based approach. The trailer featured celebrities who were the epitome of strength and fitness and promised to explain how you’ve been lied to when it comes to vegetarianism, veganism, and fitness. Unfortunately, while the intent of the movie was to dispel myths about health and athleticism on a plant-based diet, it was heavily biased and riddled with scientific errors.

 

[Spymaster]

I don't think there's ever been a huge amount of support around here for intensive farming of animals anyway but the article is just weird. He gives it that title but goes nowhere near supporting it.

 

[Edie]

i don't want to eat the cow i want to eat the pig. say one between 4 for a year. is that excessive?

Four pigs sounds a lot?

 

[wayward bob]

Four pigs sounds a lot?

no, one pig, family of 4