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| A cause of a future pandemic? |
The lefties who want to rule our lives are now using COVID-19 as a reason why meat should no longer be eaten.
This is the headline and subheadline of a New York Times op-ed by Jonathan Safran Foer: "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."
It is a slick piece. For example, he writes:
Sick workers mean plant shutdowns, which has led to a backlog of animals.No, it is not sick workers that caused the shutdowns but government-ordered shutdowns.
And this:
Is [meat] 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.But no one is forcing anyone to work at slaughterhouses. The only people doing any coercing are the government officials ordering lockdowns. And getting infected with the coronavirus is far from dying from the virus. It is a terribly misleading commentary without the full presentation of facts to not complete the story. Since it now appears to be clear that the virus is most deadly to the elderly and those with severe health issues, the simple solution is to keep those in these categories away from the slaughterhouses.
The backlogs we are experiencing are not a reason to close slaughterhouses or to give up meat. It is a reason to get government off the backs of slaughterhouses.
Foer then goes on to tie eating meet with, you guessed it, climate change:
One of the unexpected side effects of these months of sheltering in place is that it’s hard not to think about the things that are essential to who we are.
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.Foer concludes:
We cannot protect against pandemics while continuing to eat meat regularly. Much attention has been paid to wet markets, but factory farms, specifically poultry farms, are a more important breeding ground for pandemics.Notice here he mentions all meat must not be eaten but then only features poultry in the next sentence as a potential pandemic virus breeding ground. Slick, very slick.
It is hard not to think that Foer is so concerned about things in his theoretical constructs that could damage life, that he wants to destroy all of life and its choices now.
No meat, no driving. Stop working at "slave" jobs, save the planet, save the cows, eat bread and water.
I mean, he knows what he wants to end and is not afraid to say so:
Meat is embedded in our culture and personal histories in ways that matter too much, from the Thanksgiving turkey to the ballpark hot dog. Meat comes with uniquely wonderful smells and tastes, with satisfactions that can almost feel like home itself.This is what he wants to end.
-RW
Say, pass me a steamin' heap of that Soylent Green, won't ya?
ReplyDeleteThe lefties of course won't allow a lot of farms to operate like Joel Salatin's. During the Obama years there was so much in raids of people doing alternative to industrial agriculture food production.
ReplyDeleteJoel Salatin was just on Joe Rogan. Great stuff- worth a listen.
DeleteJoel, in addition to being a fine farmer, operates an abattoir where he butchers his own cows for sale, or will butcher yours for your consumption.
DeleteThese kind of people always forget the same state that can prevent eating meat or drinking big gulps is the same state that can tell you can't eat tofu and kale.
ReplyDeleteI disagree with the state controlling what we eat.
ReplyDeleteHowever, two other thoughts:
1) if the world were vegan, COVID-19 would not exist (overblown as it is).
2) anyone who eats meat and yet does not kill and prepare the meat they eat is a food coward. I do not care if you disagree - you are.
I don't eat meat anymore (largely) because I am not prepared to kill the meat I eat.
Ridiculous:
Delete(1) We don't know where Covid-19 came from; Much evidence supports that it came from a lab in Wuhan, China.
(2) Why can't we eat meat and simultaneously be too busy to hunt, or too squeamish (distinct from cowardly) to butcher an animal? Should we likewise be barred from eating plants unless we shovel fertilizer onto a garden? Can we eat corn unless we shuck our own cobs? Can I wear silk unless I harvest the silk worms myself?
We live in a highly evolved economy where most people do not have the time or the wherewithal to slaughter their own meat. Does calling them cowards satisfy some need on your part to feel superior those of us who prefer take advantage of the division of labor available in an industrial society?
DeleteHave you heard of the division of labor? We don't hunt and kill our meat anymore because we have progressed into allowing professionals to do that work. Same reason I am not a fire coward cause I don't rub two sticks together for heat
DeleteThe end of "meet" is here too, I fear.
ReplyDelete(credit Elaine Afton, my smart and lovely wife).
And it is NOT "meet and right", either
DeleteFarming of crops is detrimental to the health of soils and causes greenhouse gas emissions.
ReplyDeleteFarming consumes huge resources and is less sustainable than raising livestock on grasslands.
Nearly all crops, other than orchard crops (nuts and some fruit), require intensive farming practices. Intensive farming means fields are diced up and laid bare without any plant life for extended periods of time. Plowing causes CO2 and methane release into the atmosphere. Erosion of plowed fields releases nitrogen into the downstream flow of water that eventually ends up in lakes and oceans. In contrast, because green plants absorb carbon from the atmosphere when they breath, permanent pasture and rangeland grasses are carbon sinks that resist erosion. Ruminants have been producing methane gas long before man existed. The quantity of methane produced from livestock and wild animals today is probably less than it was a million years ago from wild animals.
Livestock have a symbiotic relationship with soils and plants which when properly managed prevents desertification.
Wildlife thrives when domestic livestock are used to manage pastures and rangelands.
What if there were no cattle or wild livestock? If livestock did not eat most of the grass, after the grass matured it would die back lodged in a heap and the dead grass on the bottom of the pile would rot in an anaerobic condition creating methane gas. Seasonally that might be less than the same amount of methane gas livestock belch up. But when cattle graze the grass it starts growing back instead of rotting down which kills new shoots that are trying to grow and replace the dead plant material. Growing grasses absorb carbon from the atmosphere.
Corn requires 180 times more water per acre than a Beef Magazine’s theoretical water for grass-fed cattle. Vegetable production requires 389 times more water per acres than grass-fed cattle require.
http://extensionpublications.unl.edu/assets/pdf/g1850.pdf
https://www.beefmagazine.com/blog/grass-fed-beef-really-healthier
Most of you have probably seen this TED Talk by Alan Savory How to green the world's deserts and reverse climate change. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpTHi7O66pI
Most of the farmed crops are detrimental to the health of those who eat them.
Grass-fed meat does not cause chronic disease.
Grass-fed meat will sustain a healthy life when eaten exclusive of all other foods.
No other food offers all of the advantages of eating the meat of a grass-fed animal.
https://ro.uow.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1053&context=hbspapers
The green leaf are usually nutrient dense, have properly balanced EFAs, and are low glycemic sources for 100% of the nutrient requirements of man. Grass-fed meat with all the nutrients that come from green plants is easier humans to digest than the plants, all of nutrients in meats are readily available to man. Man can live on grass-fed meat exclusively and still exhibit optimal physical and mental health.
https://biblelife.org/stefansson1.htm
Vegetarians with their diets of grain, nuts, and fruit are often deficient in Omega-3.
Vitamin B12, primarily found in animal foods, is critical for the health of the brain and nervous system.
Often vegetarians have a Creatine deficiency that adversely impacts their muscle and brain function.A Vitamin D3 deficiency can cause depression and other diseases. Vitamin D3 is only found in animal foods or absorbed into the body by exposure to the sun.
Carnosine is found only in animal tissues. It reduces damage caused by elevated blood glucose and is thought to be a natural anti-aging nutrient.
https://www.texasgrassfedbeef.com/grass-fed-meat-education/insane-war-grass-fed-beef
Holy Cow!! (pun unintended, I swear) There's a month's worth of references in that brilliant comment.
DeleteI've always remarked on those giant herds of Buffalo that once blackened the plains. They didn't fart back then? So why not Global Warming then?
I also love the stunned disbelief of interviewers when Jordan Peterson describes how his all meat diet saved his life (and his daughter's).