Eating a lot of putrified animal particle board that parades as meat is the problem.

Hunting a wild boar once every two weeks in Tuscany is living.

Wolfing down Presto! burgers is suicide.

Let's separate the wheat from the chafe -- and please, PETA, don't taser me!

The ad says, "Meat is the #1 Cause of Global Warming," which some fool pointed out is not true ("Uh, he doesn't have any clothes on.."), so here they try to do damage control by rewording it to say "Eating Meat Is the No. 1 Consumer Cause of Global Warming" which unfortunately is even less true. Power generation, industrial processes, and just about every other source of CO2 is paid for by consumers.

The divisive stance they have taken is a dead end strategy. They refuse to simply acknowledge that eating less meat, and less environmentally destructive forms of it is an adequate goal. That is because their real agenda is animal rights. They have jumped on the global warming environment bandwagon to promote their cause. They insist that you become one of them. They have a clearly defined group of people, Vegans and Vegetarians. There does not appear to be any other group allowed. That is why I created the 50-percent Vegan group of which I am a  proud member. I also formally challenge Bruce to a carbon footprint pissing contest!

I'll work on a formal rebuttal if I have time. Gawd.


In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

However, I worry that the all-or-nothing approach of advocating vegetarianism will turn people off before they have a chance to turn down a hamburger.

Obviously I have my own angle on this, but with all serious respect to the broader effort, I don't want any of us to lose out on the chance to influence the diet of someone who says "I'll never be able to go vegetarian/vegan," when they can still make a positive impact by significantly reducing their animal product consumption.

Bernard Brown

Change the world one lunch at a time. Find out how at www.pbjcampaign.org

What your charts fail to account for is all the stages of production mentioned in the article. So where meat causes 18 percent of global warming (that includes parts of your transport and powerplants and other categories), all transport requires about 13 percent.

Considering the vast waste, ineffeciency, and pollution caused by the meat industry, you really do have to totally suspend reality to claim that you can eat meat and be an environmentalist.

But definitely, concern for animals (which should speak to environmentalists) is another great reason to be a vegan!

Check out www.Meat.org & www.GoVeg.com.

And remember -- energy production is an industry, yes, but its product (energy) goes to feed other industries, like (drum roll, please...) the meat industry. In fact, the meat industry uses about two-thirds of all the fossil fuels consumed by the US.

Lastly, I don't see how choosing vegetarian foods every time we eat is "extreme." They're available at almost every grocery store (tofu, vegetables, veggie burgers and dogs, faux chicken nuggets, even vegan BBQ ribs!) and most restaurants carry them. I've been vegan for nearly 10 years and have never had a problem finding great vegan food--whether I'm in Croatia or Kansas (and everywhere in between).

But then, its easy to cast something off as "extreme" if you've never tried it and just don't want to do it. The same goes for people who think switching to a Prius is extreme, or even more extreme, biking to work (gasp!). "I mean, I'm against global warming, but biking a mile to work? Now that's a bit extreme." Of course we know it's not, but that's because we've taken the step and see how simple it is. The same goes for just not eating meat. Give it a whirl. You might be surprised.

I eat mostly game meat that I kill and butcher myself. Most of the rest of my meat consumption comes from small, local farms and is processed and sold locally. I have a small flock of hens for eggs, and plan to expand the flock next year to include some birds for meat. All of this is done with humility. I don't preach to others, but I gladly share my sustenence and what knowledge I have gained with any and all who express interest. I also grow a great deal of the rest of my food, am working to increase my production, and buy the rest as locally and sustainably as is reasonably possible.

Although I constantly consider how I can live in a more thoughtful, sustainable manner, I am relatively content with my lifestyle. I don't need self-righteous vitriol from PETA and their followers to set me on a "truer" path. Perhaps you would do well to put away your broad brushes and paint a more realistic picture. Can you not see that by separating strictly vegan from everything else, you are simply isolating yourselves? I am finished acknowledging your insults now.

I have many friends who have tiny carbon footprints who raise chickens, care for them, eat their eggs, and eat the chickens usually as well. Those chickens get fed compost and peck around the yard all day. A PETA person finds even this to be gross which is their right but this is not comparable to factory farms and does nothing worth measuring to global warming.

PETA's attacks on Al Gore are disgraceful. It shows that their true motives have nothing to do with any broad view on environmentalism and instead lie in a very narrow ideological focus. People who are their friends are their enemies. PETA doesn't gain finances or members from attacking factory farms and corporations. Instead of leading a charge against the right people they'ld rather lie to expand their recruitment by one or to gullibles on the left.

I'm not going to stop supporting people on making good choices and eating less meat but I've had enough of PETA. I'll show my support of vegetarianism the way I show my support of everything else through civil discussion and personnal choices. That involves honesty and action based on honesty within the scope of the big picture, something PETA knows nothing about.

The Black Car Project Killing cars before they kill us!

(1) I agree it is morally or ethically questionable practice. This warrants discussion, but not on the Grist website, in my opinion.

(2) There is also a dispute regarding whether it is environmentally acceptable. Industrial farming... bad. Sustainable harvest of wild game or free-range beef... good. Michael Pollan recently pointed out on a WPR program that consuming limited amounts of beef raised on grass can be good for one's health, good for the farmers, and good for the environment.

#1 should be discussed elsewhere,

#2 should be discussed here... can it be done sustainably and to what extent? Whether there is enough for everyone on the planet to consume several pounds per week is another matter.

Do your homework and you'll see PETA has support from the right, the left, and everyone in between.    

One can become a vegetarian or vegan without fear of being "converted" to another religion.  Animal rights is a secular and nonsectarian campaign, comparable to women's rights or civil rights:  it applies to everyone, including atheists and agnostics.

I attended my first anti-vivisection protest in the spring of 1985, when anti-apartheid demonstrations were taking place on the UC San Diego campus.  I first got interested in promoting vegetarianism in mainstream society after reading John Robbins' Diet for a New America (1987).  Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, it makes veganism seem as reasonable and mainstream as recycling.  

For example, half the water consumed in the U.S. goes to irrigate land growing feed and fodder for livestock?  Huge amounts of water are also used to wash away their excrement.  U.S. livestock produce twenty times as much excrement as does the entire human population; creating sewage which is ten to several hundred times more concentrated than raw domestic sewage.  

Animal wastes cause ten times more water pollution than does the U.S. human population; the meat industry causes three times as much harmful organic water pollution than the rest of the nation's industries combined.  Meat producers are the number one industrial polluters in our nation, contributing to half the water pollution in the United States.

Joanna Macy, author of Despair and Personal Power in the Nuclear Age, depicts the advantages of America moving towards a vegan diet in her foreword to Diet for a New America:

"The effects on our physical health are immediate.  The incidence of cancer and heart attack, the nation's biggest killers, drops precipitously.  So do many other diseases now demonstrably and causally linked to consumption of animal proteins and fats, such as osteoporosis...

"The social, ecological, and economic consequences, as we Americans turn away from animal food products, are equally remarkable.  We find that the grain we previously fed to fatten livestock can now feed five times the U.S. population; so we have become able to alleviate malnutrition and hunger on a worldwide scale...

"The great forests of the world, that we had been decimating for grazing purposes, begin to grow again.  Oxygen-producing trees are no longer sacrificed for cholesterol-producing steaks.

"The water crisis eases.  As we stop raising and grinding up cattle for hamburgers, we discover that ranching and farm factories had been the major drain on our water resources.  The amount now available for irrigation and hydroelectric power doubles.  

"Meanwhile, the change in diet frees over 90% of the fossil fuel previously used to produce food.  With this liberation of water energy and fossil fuel energy, our reliance on oil imports declines, as does the rationale for building nuclear power plants..."

Joanna Macy goes on to admit, "This scenario is wildly, absurdly utopian.  It is also clearly the way we are meant to live, built to live."  What could possibly make it a reality?  "It is this very book!"  

Like Bruce Friedrich, Paul McCartney also says, "If anyone wants to save the planet, all they have to do is just stop eating meat.  That's the single most important thing you could do.  It's staggering when you think about it.  Vegetarianism takes care of so many things in one shot:  ecology, famine, cruelty.  Let's do it!  Linda was right.  Going veggie is the single best idea for the new century."

When I first read Diet for a New America, I thought it could have the same kind of impact on mainstream American society that Frances Moore Lappe's Diet for a Small Planet had in the '70s.

The number of animals killed for food in the United States is 70 times larger than the number of animals killed in laboratories, 30 times larger than the number killed by hunters and trappers, and 500 times larger than the number of animals killed in pounds.  

If Americans reduced their meat consumption by just 10 percent, it would release enough grain and soybeans to feed over 60 million people.

In writing his expose on the meat industry, John Robbins has been compared to Rachel Carson, Ralph Nader and other whistleblowers.  In Diet for a New America, he demonstrates how all the various causes that concern the Left: healthcare, a sustainable energy policy, hunger, malnutrition, etc. are all taken care of in one fell swoop by a vegan diet.  I had the opportunity to meet John Robbins in September 1988.  It was one of the most inspirational moments of my life!

He was heir to the Baskin-Robbins fortune.  He renounced it at a young age.  He traveled to India, opened a yoga ashram in Canada, etc.  He spoke of Gandhi and nonviolence.  His son Ocean Robbins founded Youth for Environmental Sanity (YES!) and is also dedicated to promoting veganism.  I asked John if he would try and get the American Left to support animal rights.  He told me that he had sent a copy of his book to Mother Jones, a left-liberal periodical published in San Francisco.

Many on the Left are beginning to take a stand in favor of animal rights.  Joanna Macy spoke at the San Francisco Green Festival, in November 2005.  In his 1990 updated and revised edition of Animal Liberation, Australian philosopher Peter Singer writes that many of the political parties leaning towards the "Green" end of the political spectrum in Europe were beginning to oppose animal experimentation.

John Robbins elaborated further on the economic waste of raising animals for food in May All Be Fed, which my brother gave me for Christmas in 1992.  Oxfam, the international charity, reports that in Mexico, 80 percent of the children in rural areas are undernourished, yet the livestock are fed more grain than the human population eats!  

Meat consumption in Taiwan increased 600 percent between 1950 and 1990.  In 1950, Taiwan was a grain exporter; in 1990 the nation imported, mostly for feed, 74 percent of the grain it used.  Twenty-five years ago, Syria was a barley exporter.  But in the intervening years, livestock have consumed increasing amounts of the country's grain.  Now, despite a phenomenal 1000 percent increase in the land area devoted to producing barley, Syria must import the cereal.

John Robbins spoke before the United Nations in 1994, where he received a standing ovation.

The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) now encourages vegetarianism, the banning of fur, and the eventual end to all animal research, not just "cruel" animal research.  The Humane Society now supports vegetarianism.

With allies in both political parties and across the ideological spectrum, the animal rights movement has been able to score some great successes, regardless of which party controls the White House or Capitol Hill.

In the mid-1990s, Vegetarian Times reported that the animal rights movement is now a permanent part of the American political landscape.  In a 1995 issue of Harmony: Voices for a Just Future, a "consistent ethic" periodical on the religious Left, Catholic civil rights actiivists Bernard and Rose Mae Broussard of Starthrowers wrote that wars in the human kingdom will never cease until we end our war on the animal kingdom.

I had the opportunity to hear John Robbins speak at a Unitarian church here in Oakland several years ago.  The church was PACKED!  John writes in The Food Revolution (2001):

"The revolution sweeping our relationship to our food and our world, I believe, is part of an historical imperative.  This is what happens when the human spirit is activated.  One hundred and fifty years ago, slavery was legal in the United States.  One hundred years ago, women could not vote in most states.  Eighty years ago, there were no laws in the United States against any form of child abuse.  Fifty years ago, we had no Civil Rights Act, no Clean Air or Clean Water legislation, no Endangered Species Act.  

"Today, millions of people are refusing to buy clothes and shoes made in sweatshops and are seeking to live healthier and more Earth-friendly lifestyles.  In the last fifteen years alone, as people in the United States have realized how cruelly veal calves are treated, veal consumption has dropped 62 percent."

PETA represents the future:  the environmental movement should link with the animal rights movement.

Really, I am not against the message. My meat consumption is drastically reduced from what it was. However I can't seem to find the same products that Matt Prescott finds for vegan eating. Most make me want to gag, quite literally.

My problem is what I see as an ethical issue with the conveyors of the message. How can PETA say they are for the rights of all animals when they regularly euthanize them on an annual basis. That to me is the problem with this whole campaign. I see it as them telling me not to eat the animals so they can euthanize them later. Maybe that is their weekend night out. Maybe when they adopt out 80% of the animals they take in instead of killing them it will sit better.

http://www.petakillsanimals.com/petaKillsAnimals.cfm

My wife works at a facility with 7% of PETA's budget and they are able to provide homes for 1500 dogs and cats every year. Not one is euthanized. They have a full time veternarian on staff as well as numerous vet techs. They also have a full hospital on the facility including intensive care units. Most of the animals are considered feral or dangerous and would be euthanized immediately by the local Animal Control Department. They wouldn't even try to adopt them out. And yet, they have homes here. Not one is euthanized.

I think it would be wise for most environmental groups to remain separate from animal rights activist groups. Although some of their goals overlap, as is typical for all environmental issues, they have different priorities. Giving domesticated animals long lives is very low on my list of problems to tackle and I have shown with simple math and sources that there are easier ways to lower ones carbon footprint without the need to treat meat as yet another religious taboo, not that it would matter even if giving up meat were easier for all, which it obviously isn't. People are not going to swear off meat, so, time to come up with a more realistic game plan.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

What does that have to do with the issue?  How much wild boar have you hunted this year?

None.

That's the problem.

Get rid of "meat" if you mean the processed, quartered, stalled veal and caged, poop-ridden birds that pass for food.

But don't tell me that in open land, hunting in the wild, with plenty of space, that tracking a beast, and taking it...then roasting...isn't the best bite you'll ever have.

This statement assumes humans are a naturally carnivorous or omnivorous species--an assumption that must first be questioned.

My scientific training is in Physics and Applied Mathematics (the square root of 69 is 8 something!). I admit I only hold Bachelor's degrees from UC San Diego.

Here is what my research on the subject tells me:

John Robbins, in his Pulitzer Prize nominated, Diet for a New America (1987), writes that the populations consuming the highest levels of animal products--the Eskimos, Laplanders, Greenlanders and Russian Kurgi tribes--also have life expectancies averaging about 30 years.

Nor can such a short lifespan be attributed to harsh climate. The Russian Caucasians and Yucatan Indians, for example, live mostly on vegetarian foods and have life expectancies of 90 to 100 years.

The populations with the longest lifespans include the Vilacambans of Ecuador, the Abhikasians of the former USSR, and the Hunzas of Pakistan. The most remarkable feature of all these people is that they live almost entirely on plant foods. The Hunzas, for example, eat a diet that is 98.5 percent plant food.

Terrestrial vertebrates are classified as either carnivores, omnivores, herbivores, or frugivores.

Human beings differ completely from the naturally carnivorous species such as wolves or tigers. Carnivores have a very short digestive tract--thrice the length of their bodies--to rapidly consume and excrete decaying flesh. Their urine is highly acidic and they possess hydrochloric stomach acid strong enough to dissolve muscle tissues and bones.

Because they are night hunters who sleep during the day, carnivores don't sweat. They perspire through their tongue. Their jaws can only move up and down and their teeth are long and pointed, in order to cut through tendons and bones.

The carnivores are quadrupeds with keen eyesight and sense of smell. They possess not only the necessary speed to overtake their prey but also have sharp retractable claws which enable them to pull their victims to the ground and hold them fast.

The anatomy of natural omnivores, such as the bear or raccoon, is almost identical to that of the carnivores, except they possess a set of molars to chew the plant foods that they eat.

Herbivorous creatures such as sheep and cattle have a digestive tract 30 times the length of their bodies; they have several stomachs, which allows them to break down cellulose--something humans are unable to do. This is why we can't graze or live on grass. The urine and saliva of the herbivores are alkaline, and their saliva contains ptyalin for the predigestion of starches.

The frugivores (gorillas, chimpanzees and other primates) have intestinal tracts twelve times the length of the body, clawless hands and alkaline urine and saliva. Their diet is mostly vegetarian, occasionally supplemented with carrion, insects, etc.

Flesh-eating animals lap water with their tongue, whereas vegetarian animals imbibe liquids by a suction process.  Humans imbibe liquids through a suction process.  Human urine and saliva are alkaline, and human saliva contains ptyalin for the predigestion of starches.

Humans are classified as primates and are thus fugivores possessing a set of completely herbivorous teeth. Proponents of the theory that humans should be classified as omnivores note that human beings do, in fact, possess a modified form of canine teeth. However, these so-called "canine teeth" are much more prominent in animals that traditionally never eat flesh, such as apes, camels, and the male musk deer.

It must also be noted that the shape, length and hardness of these so-called "canine teeth" can hardly be compared to those of true carnivorous animals. A principle factor in determining the hardness of teeth is the phosphate of magnesia content.

Human teeth usually contain 1.5 percent phosphate of magnesia, whereas the teeth of carnivores are composed of nearly 5 percent phosphate of magnesia. It is for this reason they are able to break through the bones of their prey, and reach the nutritious marrow.

Linneaus, who introduced binomial nomenclature (naming plants and animals according to their physical structure) wrote: "Man's structure, external and internal, compared with that of other animals, shows that fruit and succulent vegetables constitute his natural food."

Dr. F. A. Pouchet, wrote: "It has been truly said that Man is frugivorous. All the details of his intestinal canal and above all else his dentition, prove it in the most decided manner."

One of the most famous anatomists, Baron Cuvier, wrote:

"The natural food of man, judging from his structure, appears to consist principally of the fruits, roots, and other succulent parts of vegetables. His hands afford him every facility for gathering them; his short but moderately strong jaws on the other hand, and his canines being equal only in length to the other teeth, together with his tuberculated molars on the others, would scarcely permit him either to masticate herbage, or to devour flesh, were these condiments not previously prepared by cooking."

The poet Shelley, in his essay, "A Vindication of a Natural Diet", wrote:

"Comparative anatomy teaches us that man resembles the frugivorous animals in everything, the carnivorous in nothing...It is only by softening and disguising dead flesh by culinary preparation that it is rendered susceptible of mastication or digestion, and that the sight of its bloody juices and raw horror does not excite loathing and disgust...

"Man resembles no carnivorous animal. There is no exception, unless man be one, to the rule of herbivorous animals having cellulated colons. The orang-outang is the most anthropomorphic (man-like) of the ape tribe, all of whom are strictly frugivorous.

"There is no other species of animals which live on different foods in which this analogy exists...The structure of the human frame then, is that of one fitted to a pure vegetable diet in every essential particular."

Professor William Lawrence wrote:

"The teeth of man have not the slightest resemblance to those of the carnivorous animals, excepting that their enamel is confined to the external surface. He possesses, indeed, teeth called canine; but they do not exceed the level of others, and are obviously unsuited to the purposes which the corresponding teeth execute in carnivorous animals.

"Thus we find, whether we consider the teeth and jaws, or the immediate instruments of digestion, that the human structure closely resembles that of the apes, all of whom, in their natural state, are completely herbivorous (frugivorous)."

Professor Charles Bell wrote:

"It is, I think, not going too far to say that every fact connected with the human organisation goes to prove that man was originally formed a frugivorous animal. This opinion is derived principally from the formation of his teeth and digestive organs, as well as from the character of his skin and the general structure of his limbs."

Professor Richard Owen wrote:

"The apes and monkeys, whom man nearly resembles in his dentition, derive their staple food from fruits, grain, the kernel of nuts, and other forms in which the most sapid and nutritious tissues of the vegetable kingdom are elaborated; and the close resemblance between the quadrumanous and the human dentition shows that man was, from the beginning, adapted to eat the fruit of the tree of the garden."

"Man, by nature, was never made to be a carnivorous animal," wrote John Ray, FRS, "nor is he armed for prey or rapine, with jagged and pointed teeth, and claws to rend and tear; but with gentle hands to gather fruit and vegetables, and with teeth to chew and eat them."

According to Dr. Spenser Thompson, "Comparative anatomy and structure of modern man indicate fresh fruit and vegetables as the main food of man."

In The Natural Diet of Man, Dr. John Harvey Kellogg observes:

"Man is neither a hunter nor a killer. Carnivorous animals are provided with teeth and claws with which to seize, rend, and devour their prey. Man possesses no such instruments of destruction and is less qualified for hunting than is a horse or a buffalo.

"When a man goes hunting, he must take a dog along to find the game for him, and must carry a gun with which to kill his victim after it has been found. Nature has not equipped him for hunting."

According to Dr. Kellogg,

"The statement that man is omnivorous is made without an atom of scientific support...As a matter of fact, man is not naturally omnivorous, but belongs, as long ago pointed out by Cuvier, to the frugivorous class of animals along with the chimpanzee and other anthropoids.

"The hog is a truly omnivorous animal. Although he thrives best upon a diet of grass or clover, tender shoots, seeds, and succulent roots, he will eat animal flesh, raw or cooked, with avidity when hungry, and he does not hesitate to regale himself upon carrion, after his taste has been cultivated in this direction.

"Man is not omnivorous. He cannot subsist upon grass or raw grain. Taking his food from the hand of Nature, without the aid of cookery, he must confine his dietary to fruits, nuts, soft grains, tender shoots, and succulent roots...

"It is true he can acquire an appetite for meat, especially when cooked, but practically all animals can do the same. Hunters sometimes teach their horses to eat broiled venison and cows have been taught to eat fish with avidity. Du Chaillu found in the Island of Magero...that sheep and goats were fed daily on fish both raw and cooked."

Dr. Kellogg insists, however, that "cookery is no part of Nature's biologic scheme, and hence the fact that man is able to eat and digest cooked meat is no more evidence that he is carnivorous or omnivorous that the fact that he can eat and digest cooked corn is evidence that he is to be classified with graminivourous animals, like the horse, which are eaters of raw grains.

"The bill of fare which wise Nature provides for man in forest and meadow, orchard and garden, a rich and varied menu, comprises more than 600 edible fruits, 100 cereals, 200 nuts, and 300 vegetables--roots, stems, buds, leaves and flowers.... Fruits and nuts, many vegetables--young shoots, succulent roots, and fresh green leaves....are furnished by Nature ready for man's use."

Dr. Kellogg further notes that "the human liver is incapable of converting uric acid into urea," and this is "an unanswerable argument against the use of flesh foods as part of the dietary of man. Uric acid is a highly active tissue poison...The livers of dogs, lions, and other carnivorous animals detoxicate uric acid by converting it into urea, a substance which is much less toxic, and which is much more easily eliminated by the kidneys.

"Flesh foods are not the best nourishment for human beings and were not the food of our primitive ancestors," observes Dr. Kellogg. "There is nothing necessary or desirable for human nutrition to be found in meats or flesh foods which is not found in and derived from vegetable products."

Zoologist Desmond Morris makes a case for vegetarianism in his 1967 book, The Naked Ape:

"It could be argued that, since our primate ancestors had to make do without a major meat component in their diets we should be able to do the same. We were driven to become flesh eaters only by environmental circumstances, and now that we have the environment under control, with elaborately cultivated crops at our disposal, we might be expected to return to our ancient feeding patterns."

In The Human Story, edited by Marie-Louise Makris (1985), we read:

"...recent studies of their teeth reveal that the Australopithecines did not eat meat as a regular part of their diet, and were mainly peaceful vegetarians, rather like chimps or gorillas. The popular image of the murderous ape is now as extinct as the Australopithecines themselves."

Dr. Gordon Latto notes that carnivorous and omnivorous animals can only move their jaws up and down, and that omnivores "have a blunt tooth, a sharp tooth, a blunt tooth, a sharp tooth--showing that they were destined to deal both with flesh foods from the animal kingdom and foods from the vegetable kingdom...

"Carnivorous mammals and omnivorous mammals cannot perspire except at the extremity of the limbs and the tip of the nose; man perspires all over the body. Finally, our instincts; the carnivorous mammal (which first of all has claws and canine teeth) is capable of tearing flesh asunder, whereas man only partakes of flesh foods after they have been camouflaged by cooking and by condiments.

"Man instinctively is not carnivorous," explains Dr. Latto. "...he takes the flesh food after somebody else has killed it, and after it has been cooked and camouflaged with certain condiments. Whereas to pick an apple off a tree or eat some grain or a carrot is a natural thing to do; people enjoy doing it; they don't feel disturbed by it. But to see these animals being slaughtered does affect people; it offends them. Even the toughest of people are affected by the sights in the slaughterhouse.

"I remember taking some medical students into a slaughterhouse. They were about as hardened people as you could meet. After seeing the animals slaughtered that day in the slaughterhouse, not one of them could eat the meat that evening."

Author R.H. Weldon writes in No Animal Food:

"The gorge of a cat, for instance, will rise at the smell of a mouse or a piece of raw flesh, but not at the aroma of fruit. If a man can take delight in pouncing upon a bird, tear its still living body apart with his teeth, sucking the warm blood, one might infer that Nature had provided him with a carnivorous instinct, but the very thought of doing such a thing makes him shudder. On the other hand, a bunch of luscious grapes makes his mouth water, and even in the absence of hunger, he will eat fruit to gratify taste."

As far back as 1961, the Journal of the American Medical Association reported that: "A vegetarian diet can prevent 97% of our coronary occlusions."

More recently, Wiiliam S. Collens and Gerald B. Dobkens concluded:

"Examination of the dental structure of modern man reveals that he possesses all the features of a strictly herbivorous animal. While designed to subsist on vegetarian foods, he has perverted his dietary habits to accept food of the carnivore. It is postulated that man cannot handle carnivorous foods like the carnivore. Herein may lie the basis for the high incidence of arteriosclerotic disease."

Keith Akers in A Vegetarian Sourcebook (1983), responds to the argument that killing animals for food is natural:

"The main problem with this argument is that it does not justify the practice of meat-eating or animal husbandry as we know it today; it justifies hunting. The distinction between hunting and animal husbandry probably seems rather fine to the man in the street, or even to your typical rule-utilitarian moral philosopher. The distinction, however, is obvious to an ecologist. If one defends killing on the grounds that it occurs in nature, then one is defending the practice as it occurs in nature.

"When one species of animal preys on another in nature, it only preys on a very small proportion of the total species population. Obviously, the predator species relies on its prey for its continued survival. Therefore, to wipe the prey species out through overhunting would be fatal. In practice, members of such predator species rely on such strategies as territoriality to restrict overhunting and to insure the continued existence of its food supply.

"Moreover, only the weakest members of the prey species are the predator's victims: the feeble, the sick, the lame, or the young accidentally separated from the fold. The life of the typical zebra is usually placid, even in lion country; this kind of violence is the exception in nature, not the rule.

"As it exists in the wild, hunting is the preying upon isolated members of an animal herd. Animal husbandry is the nearly complete annihilation of an animal herd. In nature, this kind of slaughter does not exist. The philosopher is free to argue that there is no moral difference between hunting and slaughter, but he cannot invoke nature as a defense of this idea.

"Why are hunters, not butchers, most frequently taken to task by the larger community for their killing of animals? Hunters usually react to such criticism by replying that if hunting is wrong, then meat-hunting must be wrong as well. The hunter is certainly right on one point--the larger community is hypocritical to object to hunting when it consumes the flesh of domesticated animals. If any form of meat-eating is justified, it would be meat from a hunted animal."

Finally, even if humans really are omnivores as some claim (and this claim is subject to dispute: I would refer these people to the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, www.pcrm.org, which advocates a vegan diet, an end to vivisection, etc., for the latest on whether humans are frugivorous or omnivorous), my friend Mareechi Duvvuuri (another Hindu-American!) who once studied sports medicine, pointed out that the diet of natural omnivores is mostly (up to 85 percent) plant food.

Without passing a value judgement on human behavior appropriate for the 21st century, I would like to remind everyone about the following news item...

http://www.reuters.com/article/scienceNews/idUSN224482932 ...

From the story...

"Bertolani saw an adolescent female chimp use a spear to stab a bush baby as it slept in a tree hollow, pull it out and eat it."

and

"Pruetz thought it was a fluke when Bertolani saw the adolescent female hunt and kill the bush baby, a tiny nocturnal primate.

But then she saw almost the same thing. "I saw the behavior over the course of 19 days almost daily," she said."

and

"The chimps choose a branch, strip it of leaves and twigs, trim it down to a stable size and then chew the ends to a point. Then they use it to stab into holes where bush babies might be sleeping."

It is apparent that apes -- including humans and our closest relatives -- are evolutionarily adapted to consume meat when it can be easily obtained. It is especially interesting that only the females hunt.

One can argue that it is currently unethical or immoral for humans to eat meat NOW, but it is silly to say it is not natural. One cannot deny the reality of our evolutionary history.

I do wonder whether PETA will be sending literature to the chimps in question, hoping to persuade them that it might be better to settle down and grow tofu. Might be more benign -- morally and environmentally -- than stabbing bush monkeys and eating them. Or perhaps PETA will send a crew out into the jungle to round up the evil beasts and kill them... SAVE THE BUSH MONKEYS! Now we know why they are stocking up on Humvees.

There are other examples of apes hunting other animals. They recognize concentrated protein when they see it.

Dr. Milton Mills, in his essay on human physiology, "A Comparative Anatomy of Eating," explains that animals who eat meat have approximately 19 physical characteristics that humans do not have. Humans have to kill the bacteria in meat by cooking it before they can consume it--this means that humans are the only species that has to cook meat so eating it won't be fatal. Eating even cooked meat is hazardous to our health in the long term, though, because our bodies aren't designed to digest it. The consumption of cooked meat contributes to heart disease, cancer, and many other health problems.

http://www.earthsave.ca/articles/health/comparative.html

I read a book on the history of food (name/author lost to me now) where the author points out that food prejudices are so strong that people often starve when denied what they were brought up to consider "proper" food, even though sufficient edible other food is available.  That's how hard it is to change someone's view of "proper" food.

The 5% Project

I know people have a tendency to see PETA as a iron-fisted vegan-Nazi organization, but this just isn't so. If you met a PETA employee on the street can I almost guarantee that they'd have a very similar method of approach to mine. (Note: I said PETA employee-- not member)

Linnaeus, who introduced binomial nomenclature (naming plants and animals according to their physical structure) wrote:

"Man's structure, external and internal, compared with that of other animals shows that fruit and succulent vegetables constitute his natural food."

The myth that humans are naturally a predator species remains popular.   "The beast of prey is the highest form of active life," wrote Oswald Spengler in 1931.  

"It represents a mode of living which requires the extreme degree of the necessity of fighting, conquering, annihilating, and self-assertion.  The human race ranks highly because it belongs to the class of beasts of prey. Therefore we find in man the tactics of life proper to a bold, cunning beast of prey.  He lives engaged in aggression, killing, and annihilation.  He wants to be master in as much as he exists."

The fact that predators exist in the wild does not imply man must automatically imitate them. Cannibalism and rape also occur in nature.  Robert Louis Stevenson, in his book In the South Seas, noted that there was virtually no difference between the "civilized" Europeans and the "savages" of the Cannibal Islands:  

"We consume the carcasses of creatures with like appetites, passions, and organs as our own. We feed on babes, though not our own, and fill the slaughterhouses daily with screams of pain and fear."

Although humans are capable of adapting to flesh-eating in order to survive, the optimal diet of man is vegetarian, if not vegan.  Studies indicate flesh-eaters have less endurance than do vegetarians, while vegetarians have two to three times more stamina and recover five times more quickly from exhaustion.  

Most kinds of cancer, as well as heart disease, osteoporosis, kidney disease, diabetes, multiple sclerosis, hemorrhoids, diverticulosis, arthritis, gallstones and gallbladder disease are all preventable and treatable on a vegetarian diet.

The ill effects of alcohol and nicotine are well-documented.  The Federal Bureau of Investigation, for example, reports that some 60 to 75 percent of all violent crime is alcohol-related.  Might there be a similar relationship between diet and aggression?

In a letter to a friend on the subject of vegetarianism, Albert Einstein wrote, "besides agreeing with your aims for aesthetic and moral reasons, it is my view that a vegetarian manner of living by its purely physical effect on the human temperament would most beneficially influence the lot of mankind."

U Nu, the former Prime Minister of Burma, made a similar observation: "World peace, or any other kind of peace, depends greatly on the attitude of the mind.   Vegetarianism can bring about the right mental attitude for peace...it holds forth a better way of life, which, if practiced universally, can lead to a better, more just, and more peaceful community of nations."

According to Count Leo Tolstoy, "A vegetarian diet is the acid test of humanitarianism."

"Who loves this terrible thing called war?" asked Isadora Duncan.   "Probably the meat-eaters, having killed, feel the need to kill...The butcher with his bloody apron incites bloodshed, murder.  Why not? From cutting the throat of a young calf to cutting the throats of our brothers and sisters is but a step.   While we ourselves are living graves of murdered animals, how can we expect any ideal conditions on the earth?"

"I personally believe," wrote Isaac Bashevis Singer, "that as long as human beings will go on shedding the blood of animals, there will never be any peace.   There is only one little step from killing animals to creating gas chambers a' la Hitler and concentration camps a' la Stalin--all such deeds are done in the name of 'social justice.'  There will be no justice as long as man will stand with a knife or with a gun and destroy those who are weaker than he is."

Dr. Louis Berman writes:

"Acts of selfishness must be defended, disguised, rationalized and restructured to make them acceptable, even to oneself.  In Passions and Constraints, van der Haag points out that before a people can be made to treat an enemy with cruelty, it is common to deny that the enemy is even human--the enemy must first be redefined as subhuman, bestial, scum."

According to author John Robbins:  "The way we treat animals is indicative of the way we treat our fellow humans.   One Soviet study, published in  Ogonyok, found that over 87% of a group of violent criminals has, as children, burned, hanged, or stabbed domestic animals.  In our own country, a major study by Dr. Stephen Kellert of Yale University found that children who abuse animals have a much higher likelihood of becoming violent criminals."

A 1997 study by the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (MSPCA) similarly reported that children convicted of animal abuse are five times more likely to commit violence against other humans than are their peers, and four times more likely to be involved in acts against property.

The bottom line:  Is it ethical to do to other animals what we would never do to other human beings?

Does anyone honestly believe that it's an easier "sell" to convince people to go out and hunt wild boar rather than eat more vegan foods? Is it really easier to "eat local" than to simply choose the bean burrito over the beef? Contrary to what a previous poster said, eating local is NOT more important than eating lower on the food chain. That locally grown pork that you bought had to be fed for several hundred days on food that had to be trucked from somewhere--and it was trucked many, many times, instead of just the one time it would be shipped if fed directly to a person.

Another interesting thing to consider is how much harm to the environment is caused by treatment for heart disease, strokes, diabetes, and the cancers that are conclusively linked to a meat-based diet. Sure, vegans get sick, too, but meat-eaters are more likely to get sick from chronic diseases that require years and years of treatment and all the resources and pollution that entails.

My point is that if this discussion were about the damage coal is doing to our environment, your statement amounts to:
"Coal is not the problem.  There's nothing wrong with barbequeing over hot coals."  

I don't think you'd make that statement about coal.  I'm certainly not against hunting in a sustainable way (or at least not on environmental grounds).  But that's not what PETA's current campaign is about, and it's not what the above article was about.  

Citing hunting as the reason behind your statement "Eating meat is not the problem." serves to distract from the real issue - that eating meat as it is currently practiced is a large part of the problem.

"But don't tell me that in open land, hunting in the wild, with plenty of space, that tracking a beast, and taking it...then roasting...isn't the best bite you'll ever have."

Perhaps for you.  Something I've found is that after being a vegitarian for a few years, meat starts to taste kind of gross.

Lastly, I don't see how choosing vegetarian foods every time we eat is "extreme."

vegan--vegetarian--omnivore--carnivore.

Point to the extremes.

But then, its easy to cast something off as "extreme" if you've never tried it and just don't want to do it.

Actually, Matt, if you pay attention, you will find lots and lots of people who have given the vegan or vegetarian lifestyle a shot and found it wanting. In fact, some of your biggest detractors are ex-vegans and vegetarians.

I will wager that there are more people in America who have tried it and dropped it than there are people who are presently still vegan or vegetarian. I will wager that most people who try it drop it, suggesting that many who are presently vegan or vegetarian will drop it in the future. I'm one, John Kurman is another. When it comes to debating religion or veganism, there is nothing more formidable than a fallen angel. Personally, I don't usually waste my time debating creationists, pro-lifers or vegans. Their arguments are emotional, not rational, and are therefore immune to rational refutation, i.e. it's pointless.

The same goes for people who think switching to a Prius is extreme, or even more extreme, biking to work (gasp!). "I mean, I'm against global warming, but biking a mile to work? Now that's a bit extreme." Of course we know it's not, but that's because we've taken the step and see how simple it is. The same goes for just not eating meat. Give it a whirl. You might be surprised.

But if you find it wanting, don't lose any sleep over it. Your above argument could not have made my point better. You are telling people that they don't have to give up their car. That would be extreme. They can buy a Prius, or bike to work, but when it comes to diet, it's meat free or nothing--"just not eating [less] meat." That's because your main agenda is animal rights, not environmentalism and to further your cause, you are quite willing to drive wedges with a divisive message; You must become a veg--n.

Judging by the high percentage of negative reactions elicited here on the Grist blog (an island of thoughtful environmentalists) by your message, I can just imagine what its impact must be on your average American. They are laughing up their sleeves at us enviro-fruitballs.

Your Gore bashing campaign supports my contention that environmentalists and animal-rights activists should keep a respectful distance.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

I think the point with all this pro-veggie advocacy is not to give domestic animals long lives, but that we want to prevent so many domestic animal being born, raised and slaughtered in the first place.  If demand for meat goes down, then the breeding of these animals will go down, which will have a positive effect on the environment.  

As to hunting, I don't think it's as benign as some make it out to be. First of all, I hardly think there's enough wild boar out there to meet the current demand for meat.  I'm sure it takes a fair amount of carbon emmissions to produce guns, ammunition and hunting gadgets. And I've noticed that hunters always seem to be driving big trucks and SUVs, so unless a hunter is going into his or her backyard and killing an animal with bare hands, I wouldn't exactly call hunting for your food a "carbon neutral" activity, as some have claimed here.  One more point, it seems to be hunting interests that lobby the most, along with ranchers, for "predator control" here in North America, to protect their elk, deer and moose. So I'd hate to think what would happen to biodiversity if humans turned solely to wild animals for their protein needs.

And remember -- energy production is an industry, yes, but its product (energy) goes to feed other industries, like (drum roll, please...) the meat industry. In fact, the meat industry uses about two-thirds of all the fossil fuels consumed by the US.

Half of everything you say turns out to be false, drum roll, please....

Give us the link that verifies what you just said.

 

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

Some car free advocates I know are having similar problems and are thinking of toning down their messages.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

As someone who hunts for most of his meat, and as an environmentalist(?), I'll answer some of your points.

The gist of your arguments amount to putting words in mouths that never uttered them. No one that I have seen on this site has suggested that North America's wild game resources could begin to substitute for domestic livestock, nor is anyone suggesting that humans turn "solely to wild animals for their protein needs". Stop speaking for me, you're getting it wrong. And show me where anyone has claimed that hunting is a "carbon neutral" activity. Tofu farts are not a carbon neutral activity either. What's your point, other than to put words in people's mouths? Please provide accurate citations and cease with the hyperbole.

Now, do hunters require tools to harvest their food resource? Yes. Do vegetarians? Yes. Do many hunters use far more resources than is necessary? Yes. Do I like it? No. Am I personally making more of an effort to reduce the carbon footprint of my hunting activities? Yes. As fuel prices continue to increase, economics will increasingly dictate this.

Hunting wild game is not for everyone. But the resource exists, and in many places hunters help maintain more ecologically viable populations of wild ungulates. And in the process, they provide themselves, their families, and often others with a healthy protein source. I happen to think that providing your own food is a virtue, be it venison or potatoes.

One thing that bothers me are all these E. Coli scares from ... you guessed it, vegetables.  It used to be famous for meat products to be recalled, but what now, spinach, lettuce, scallions?  I'm getting where I don't trust that leafy stuff unless it is grown in my backyard.  /sam

Onward through the fog

I've managed to go weeks without craving  or eating meat, but when I pass by a restaurant and can smell the aroma from the grill I have a strong desire to go in and get a nice juicy grilled piece of animal flesh... it overrides pretty much all concern aboput animal welfare. I think it is genetically programmed instinct and so deeply rooted that it is a challenge to resist. Our culture has found ways to cope with other aggressive behavior -- well, most cultures --  but eating meat is different.

My theory -- perhaps presented before -- is that primitive humans were drawn to charred carcasses following intense grass or forest fires. The animals were essentially surfaced sterilized and a safe source of protein for our ancestors. Thus, there is nothing unnatural about being physiologically adapted to craving and consuming cooked meat.

By the way, Michael Pollan has pointed out that there is at least one enzyme in our gut that is there only to digest meat.

Again... you can argue whether it is appropriate for us to eat meat NOW... and you can argue whether it is environmentally sound. But enough of the "it is not natural" stuff.

I guess you vegans are just genetically superior... for now. We'll see who survives following the collapse of civil society.

Has anyone looked at how tofu is made? You can't just grab a handful of soybeans off the plant and pop them in your mouth. They have to be processed in some way... fermented or roasted.

I would say humans are not really "designed" to eat soybeans and we should put a stop to the consumption of such an unnatural product. Energy has to be expended to make soybeans edible.

Not everyone can run numbers, not everyone can build a spreadsheet, but there is still a thing called common sense as you just demonstrated with your remark doubting meat could really account for 3/4 of our energy consumption. If 18% of the world's GHG comes from livestock production, how can 75% or our energy be devoted to it?

I sit here looking around at my world. I see a computer, house, a furnace, stove, fridge, cars out my window, a city skyline, and on and on. It is all sucking up energy derived from fossil fuels. I open my fridge. I see about two pounds of meat. It would easily fit in a shoe box. Could 3/4 of the energy consumed by the United States of America really be dedicated to that shoe box in people's refrigerators? No, and I'm not running any numbers to back that one up ; )

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

Mikkel Hindhede used the argument to help persuade Denmark to adopt a lacto-vegetarian diet when Denmark was blockaded by the Allies as a result of World War I. "If Central Europe had adopted a similar diet," he said, alluding to the disastrous German agricultural policies which emphasized meat production, "I doubt that anyone would have starved."

In her 1971 bestseller, Diet for a Small Planet, author Frances Moore Lappe pointed out that it takes 16 pounds of grain to produce one pound of beef. Most of the arable land in this country is used to grow feed for animals, not people. Mathematics professor Dr. Richard Schwartz, author of Judaism and Vegetarianism, writes about the "insanity" of animal agriculture.

Keith Akers discusses the futility of trying to place the rest of the world on a meat-centered diet in A Vegetarian Sourcebook (1983):

"Much of the land considered potentially arable in South America has low-quality soils and is very difficult to get to. Moreover, any expansion would almost certainly be at the expense of the already rapidly depleting forest areas. The same is true of Africa, where nonforested areas are already experiencing severe competition between grazing and cultivation. In Asia, the Far East, the Near East and Northern Africa, most of the potentially arable land is already under cultivation. So bringing additional land under cultivation is terribly difficult.

"The fact is, most of the easily available land has already been cultivated, and much of the uncultivated remainder could only be brought into cultivation by clearing forest areas, which should be protected. The best land is already taken; why would people cultivate the worst land first?

"Moreover, crop yields in the United States and other Western countries are much higher than in the Soviet Union, Asia and Africa. The `Green Revolution,' high-yielding crop varieties, and advanced agricultural techniques require a great deal of supporting technology and natural resources which only an industrialized society can provide, or even afford: tractors, irrigation, fertilizers, etc.

"Suppose even these difficulties were overcome. Suppose all this additional land were brought into production, and the technology and fertilizers were provided to bring crop yields up to western standards. Such an agricultural system would hardly survive more than a few years.

"Energy consumption would skyrocket, more than tripling in the less developed countries. Irrigated land presently comprises only 15% of the world's total cropland; but of the new land at least 50% would have to be irrigated. So the demand for water supplies, already overwhelming in much of the world, would increase dramatically.

"Nor can fish provide any help here. There are signs that the fishing industry (which is quite energy-intensive) has already overfished the oceans in several areas. And fish could never play a major role in the world's diet anyway: the entire global fish catch of the world, if divided among all the world's inhabitants, would amount to only a few ounces of fish per person per week.

"In the long run, we are all going to be vegetarians. Doubtless through further exploitation of the environment, we can prolong the period in our history in which we think it is necessary to kill animals for food. But the ecological limitations of this procedure will soon make manifest to all that a vegetarian economy is both necessary and desirable.

"Only a small minority of the world's citizens will ever be able to consume meat at current American levels: the resources to support a more intensive livestock agriculture simply don't exist"

In his book Consuming Passions, Australian philosopher Peter Singer similarly writes:

"The case for vegetarianism is at its strongest when we see it as a moral protest against our use of animals as mere things, to be exploited for our convenience in whatever way makes them most cheaply available to us. Only the tiniest fraction of the tens of billions of farm animals slaughtered for food each year-the figure for the United States alone is nine billion-were treated during their lives in ways that respected their interests. Questions about the wrongness of killing in itself are not relevant to the moral issue of eating meat or eggs from factory-farmed animals, as most people in developed countries do.

"Even when animals are roaming freely over large areas, as sheep and cattle do in Australia, operations like hot-iron branding, castration, and dehorning are carried out without any regard for the animals' capacity to suffer. The same is true of handling and transport prior to slaughter. In the light of these facts, the issue to focus on is not whether there are some circumstances in which it could be right to eat meat, but on what we can do to avoid contributing to this immense amount of animal suffering.

"The answer is to boycott all meat and eggs produced by large-scale commercial methods of animal production, and encourage others to do the same. Consideration for the interests of animals alone is enough justification for this response, but the case is further strengthened by the environmental problems that the meat industry causes...

"Environmentalists are increasingly recognizing that the choice of what we eat is an environmental issue. Animals raised in sheds or on feedlots eat grains or soybeans...To convert eight or nine kilos of grain protein into a single kilo of animal protein wastes land, energy, and water. On a crowded planet with a growing human population, that is a luxury that we are becoming increasingly unable to afford.

"Intensive animal production is a heavy user of fossil fuels and a major source of pollution of both air and water. It releases large quantities of methane and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. We are risking unpredictable changes to the climate of our planet...for the sake of more hamburgers. A diet heavy in animal products, catered to by intensive animal production, is a disaster for animals, the environment, and the health of those who eat it."

"Some car free advocates I know are having similar problems and are thinking of toning down their messages."

I'm a car free advocate and I think that it is not comparable to advocating vegan diets. I am pro-transportation in almost every other way, I just view (correctly) that a personal car can never be sustainable unless we made perhaps, solar powered go-carts. That being said I am pro-public transport I am even pro limited use vehicles for hauling things related to building and work. A vegan comparison would be someone who was pro walking only and morally argued that only people who walk everywhere are good people. I can safely say that my carfree message is not extreme and is what I believe to be the only real way we can be a sustainable society. I am also only interested in getting our transportation down to a sustainable level and have no invested interests on how that could occur. I think that reducing personal vehicles larger than a bike is critically needed on the discussion table and is only not there because of the auto industry muscle. It will never be available equitably to everyone on the planet and be sustainable. Tell me how and I'll listen.

The Black Car Project Killing cars before they kill us!