Meat and Morality

[jsmith]

By the way - just exactly how much animal protein are people thinking of when we talk about "less meat"?

About a quarter of a regular meat-food serving? For example, a regular serving of 3 oz (roughly 85g) of protein provides nearly half to a third of daily protein (according to the usual estimates of 50-60g per day) - and that's without counting in other foods consumed at the same meal.

So a "lite" meat/fish meal would use only around 20g (3/4oz) of meat or cheese, or an egg, 1 cup of milk or half a cup of yogurt, or a 1/4 to 1/2 cup of nuts or legumes per serving - does that sound reasonable?

So what does this translate into?

I guess a Japanese menu of rice, 1/2c vegetables simmered in dashi, 1/2c green vegetables with a sesame dressing, miso soup made with dashi, a few more vegetables and a couple of strips of fried tofu would more than measure up. With a few tiny dried sardine fry scattered on the rice or a pack of fermented natto soybeans, there would easily be enough protein even for an adolescent.

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Just wanted to add that the less meat philosophy is good, but it doesn't apply to everyone. The above protein figures are for inactive people. Atheletes and people who weightlift are recommended to eat 0.5 to 1 gram of protein per pound of bodyweight per day. This is pretty much impossible to do without eating meat and dairy on a daily basis.

[markemorse]

OTOH I've seen lots of eg posts that imply being vegetarian is an inferior way of eating (...)

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FWIW, I've felt this as well...the attitude that eating without meat is inimical to truly appreciating/enjoying cooking and food, and specifically that a vegan approach to cooking and eating is some sort of hopeless endeavor from a taste/pleasure perspective.

[JimH]

No one wants to talk about "population control" but the fact of the matter is, all species, humanity included, will expand to the point that their environment can no longer sustain them. The population will crash, and the cycle will start again. How can we prevent the "crash"? Just economizing will not do it: that only increases the population number before the crash.

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You cannot prevent it. Even though we consider ourselves a "higher" form of life we are still part of the animal kingdom. All the same rules apply so when we reach a certain point in population, nature will take it's course.

[plk]

How is it that we can have discussions like this one without facing the real issue? What, exactly, is the goal we are striving to achieve? Are we trying to maximize the carrying capacity of the planet? Are we trying to maximize the global standard of living for those of use who already exist? Are we trying to maximize our personal standard of living?

I thought the point was more along the lines of that there is inherent value in preserving nature, not just because it provides us with resources to use. The pollutants created by factory farming, the effect of mining the oceans of sea life, etc. is no good for our world and everybody else besides us who lives here.

FWIW, I've felt this as well...the attitude that eating without meat is inimical to truly appreciating/enjoying cooking and food, and specifically that a vegan approach to cooking and eating is some sort of hopeless endeavor from a taste/pleasure perspective.

I agree and think it's a sad, not to mention inaccurate, attitude to claim that cutting yourself off from animal products means you're less interested in food.

[Chris Hennes]

How is it that we can have discussions like this one without facing the real issue? What, exactly, is the goal we are striving to achieve? Are we trying to maximize the carrying capacity of the planet? Are we trying to maximize the global standard of living for those of use who already exist? Are we trying to maximize our personal standard of living?

I thought the point was more along the lines of that there is inherent value in preserving nature, not just because it provides us with resources to use. The pollutants created by factory farming, the effect of mining the oceans of sea life, etc. is no good for our world and everybody else besides us who lives here.

I agree: I apologize for being inarticulate in my previous post. What I was getting at was that I think it is important in this discussion to make clear what each of us considers the goal to be. If my goals is not the same as yours, we are guaranteed to disagree about how to achieve that goal! I believe the question at hand is, what is the goal? does decreasing meat consumption get humanity closer to that goal? If the goal is to increase the quality of life of all living beings on Earth in the long term, then I believe decreasing my meat consumption is an ineffective, or at best marginally effective, method for achieving that goal. Insisting that the animals I eat are well treated, and choosing to have fewer children of my own, is, in my opinion, a more effective way of improving global well-being.

[plk]

I agree: I apologize for being inarticulate in my previous post. What I was getting at was that I think it is important in this discussion to make clear what each of us considers the goal to be. If my goals is not the same as yours, we are guaranteed to disagree about how to achieve that goal! I believe the question at hand is, what is the goal? does decreasing meat consumption get humanity closer to that goal? If the goal is to increase the quality of life of all living beings on Earth in the long term, then I believe decreasing my meat consumption is an ineffective, or at best marginally effective, method for achieving that goal. Insisting that the animals I eat are well treated, and choosing to have fewer children of my own, is, in my opinion, a more effective way of improving global well-being.

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Realistically, though, there's no need to choose one goal or one method of achieving it, and all these issues are not unconnected. Farm animals are part of the larger ecosystem as well. I sincerely doubt that we can improve the treatment of the average animal raised for slaughter without reducing the size of individual operations. I do not believe that honestly humane treatment can happen on the very large scale. So those are institutional-level changes that I think are necessary in order to improve the welfare of animals and the amount of waste that is produced. At the same time, if I wait for that to happen, I'll be waiting a long time. If I eat fewer animal products right now, I contribute less to a variety of problems. And if it's not just me, but a lot of people decreasing their consumption in something akin to a social movement, that effect is greater, especially as awareness is increased through things such as the above NY Times article.

Edited January 31, 2008 by plk (log)

[Chris Amirault]

I'm sure that some Society members have succeeded to determine appropriately moral relationships to meat. How they've done that, I do not know, but I do know that explaining it to me isn't going to help much. Here's why.

I'd like to stipulate that the majority of Society members, in which I count myself:

• 1. prefer cows, pigs, and chickens to lead happy lives;
  2. prefer people across the globe to eat adequately and nutritionally;
  3. prefer the planet to be cool and the environment healthy;
  4. are very familiar with anti-meat statistics, arguments, projections, and rhetoric;
  5. really enjoy their steak, ribs, or chicken satay.
  

There are lots of possible explanations for why individuals can sustain this seeming incongruity, including but not limited to commodity fetishism, denial, meat lobby marketing, false consciousness, the plastic wrap and styrofoam objectification of animal flesh, first world capitalism, the erasure of nature and animals from lived human experience, and McDonalds. However, arguments citing statistics or relying upon those explanations often ignore the fact that many of us have found ways to live relatively happily for decades with that incongruity.

Some could care less about that incongruity, of course. To the extent that I'm aware, I'm in that camp; purity of motive and action has always seemed suspicious to me. As a result, I'm not going to be moved to epiphany no matter how articulate Michael Pollan is (and I genuinely find him to be very moving indeed). In the grand scheme of things, I made my decisions about where to apply my sense of morality a long while ago, and the incongruity is one of many.

Others live with that incongruity by acknowledging their ambivalence and then mitigating their pleasure in a classic American practice, consumption with guilt. The entire contraption has an expiatory feel to it: sit down to the table, reference "Fast Food Nation" or Alice Waters's manifesto, feel bad for a few seconds, then dig into the chili (with chuck purchased thoughtfully from Whole Foods). I'd venture to guess that a lot more of us run through this exercise than we'd care to admit.

If a lot of folks fall into either of these camps, then delineating ever more arguments in support of stipulations 1-4 above would have no or precisely the opposite effect. "Forgive me please for I have sinned -- and pass the bacon 'round agin."

[Mallet]

[...]

I'd like to stipulate that the majority of Society members, in which I count myself:

1. prefer cows, pigs, and chickens to lead happy lives;

2. prefer people across the globe to eat adequately and nutritionally;

3. prefer the planet to be cool and the environment healthy;

4. are very familiar with anti-meat statistics, arguments, projections, and rhetoric;

5. really enjoy their steak, ribs, or chicken satay.

[...]

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I'd like to count myself in the group of Society members who subscribe to the above list. However, I don't really see the incongruity. How are any of the above statements necessarily inconsistent?

[annecros]

How is it that we can have discussions like this one without facing the real issue?

<snip>

No one wants to talk about "population control" but the fact of the matter is, all species, humanity included, will expand to the point that their environment can no longer sustain them. The population will crash, and the cycle will start again. How can we prevent the "crash"? Just economizing will not do it: that only increases the population number before the crash.

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Taboo. Too many social issues and implications. China's one child policy has resulted in a net population growth of "only" 12,000,000 per year - roughly the population of NYC. The birth rate still outstrips the death rate.

I think Bittman is also indulging himself in a bit of navel gazing here. Buried as the last paragraph of his piece is this:

In fact, Americans are already buying more environmentally friendly products, choosing more sustainably produced meat, eggs and dairy. The number of farmers’ markets has more than doubled in the last 10 years or so, and it has escaped no one’s notice that the organic food market is growing fast. These all represent products that are more expensive but of higher quality.

If those trends continue, meat may become a treat rather than a routine. It won’t be uncommon, but just as surely as the S.U.V. will yield to the hybrid, the half-pound-a-day meat era will end.

Up at the top of the piece he is quoting global, rather than US, meat consumption statistics. So I went and found the UN's FAO report, "Livestocks Long Shadow" and read it. Table 2.4 on page 13 of 56, "Livestock and total dietary protein supply in 1980 and 2002," the geographic breakdown of growth in grams per person of livestock based dietary protein makes it abundantly clear that the population of developing Asia (China, India, Southeast Asia) has experienced a 130% increase per capita. Latin America and the Caribbean are the closest second increasing consumption by 30%. Industrialized countries (Europe and North America) have increased consumption by 10%.

So what if every citizen of the United States of America decreased meat consumption by 20%? Hardly a blip on the radar.

I think our ecological hubris may be getting out of hand. Other than possibly taking a leadership position, and hope that others will follow, I'm not sure we can effectively impact the global climate trends one way or another.

In the meantime, right at our back door, Hatians are subsisting on dirt, literally.

[Chris Amirault]

[...]

I'd like to stipulate that the majority of Society members, in which I count myself:

1. prefer cows, pigs, and chickens to lead happy lives;

2. prefer people across the globe to eat adequately and nutritionally;

3. prefer the planet to be cool and the environment healthy;

4. are very familiar with anti-meat statistics, arguments, projections, and rhetoric;

5. really enjoy their steak, ribs, or chicken satay.

[...]

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I'd like to count myself in the group of Society members who subscribe to the above list. However, I don't really see the incongruity. How are any of the above statements necessarily inconsistent?

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My apologies for being unclear; I used "enjoy" in two senses there, both "find pleasurable" and "eat regularly." Thus I believe that most folks here would prefer to treat animals, people, and the earth with care, understand the issues, and yet do not fundamentally change their relationships to eating and cooking as a result of those beliefs and knowledge.

[JMT]

As was stated earlier in this topic it is hard to know how these values of the contribution to the greenhouse effect was calculated. If you just calculate the amount of carbon dioxide that a living being emits through breathing then meat is very bad if you believe that carbon dioxide has a strong effect on the temperature of the earth and that the current temperature is the best possible temperature. You should also include the methane that certain animals emit to quite a degree which is a much more potent greenhouse gas.

Of course the situation is actually much more complex. The CO2 that a living being breathes out was formerly some sort of carbohydrate in a plant and this carbohydrate was formed through photosynthesis, absorbing CO2. Since the cow needs to be fed the CO2 that the cow emits through breathing will more or less be reabsorbed in new feed for the cow. This is the CO2 cycle. Even if the cow was not there to eat the grass it would at least partially form CO2 through the reaction with O2 in the atmosphere.

If we look to methane then yes livestock produce quite a bit of methane, this methane is a potent greenhouse gas that is eventually oxidised to water and CO2. However getting rid of livestock would also greatly reduce the need of agricultural land and might lead to less wetlands being drained etc, and wetlands release roughly twice the amount of methane that livestock do.

The imbalance between the methane emitted and the methane removed from the atmospher could probably be completely countered by reducing the emissions from the energy sector.

I have taken most of my data about methane from the following source.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methane

All in all I don't think one should stop eating meat over greenhouse gas concerns. Every group is trying to connect their agenda to whatever is "hot" atm, so vegetarian movements etc will naturally try to cash in on the latest global warming trend. Just the way copyright and trademark lobyists tried to connect their agendas to the fight against terrorism a few years ago.

For sure one can stop eating meat for other reasons like not liking how the animals are treated, meat is "murder", meat is expensive or a lot of proteins are lost in the conversion of plant material to meat, etc. I used to be a vegetarian for 6 years for those reasons but finally felt I just didn't care enough to keep me away from all the great food I was missing out on.

[Mallet]

[...]

I'd like to stipulate that the majority of Society members, in which I count myself:

1. prefer cows, pigs, and chickens to lead happy lives;

2. prefer people across the globe to eat adequately and nutritionally;

3. prefer the planet to be cool and the environment healthy;

4. are very familiar with anti-meat statistics, arguments, projections, and rhetoric;

5. really enjoy their steak, ribs, or chicken satay.

[...]

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[...] How are any of the above statements necessarily inconsistent?

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My apologies for being unclear; I used "enjoy" in two senses there, both "find pleasurable" and "eat regularly." Thus I believe that most folks here would prefer to treat animals, people, and the earth with care, understand the issues, and yet do not fundamentally change their relationships to eating and cooking as a result of those beliefs and knowledge.

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Thanks for clarifying this, Chris. In that case, take me off the list I'm not as suspicious about purity of motive or action, though. I think we should strive to be fully conscious of the consequences of our actions and be constantly checking whether our habits match up to our ideals. Obviously they can't always and there's no sense in guilt for guilt's sake, but I'm satisfied that I'm doing best I can (or at least, steadily moving towards that goal) and that I have fundamentally changed my relationship to eating and cooking as a result of this awareness. I really am confused by true ambivalence, and I always have the nagging thought that ambivalence simply comes from ignorance (not in a pejorative sense, just a lack of information or awareness sense).

[Terrasanct]

Like many other people, I think about what I eat in many terms--financial cost, environmental cost, how far the food has to travel, and what it will do to/for my health. But it gets to a point when too much information and too many decisions can become paralyzing. I'm reminded of the scene in Moscow on the Hudson where the Russian guy is in the supermarket trying to buy some coffee. He's used to having just once choice, but with so many choices, he's overwhelmed. I know the feeling.

I eat a lot less meat than I did as a child, but that may be because I grew up on a farm and there was always meat in the freezer. I'd come home from school and have a porterhouse steak as an afterschool snack. My system probably wouldn't handle 24 ounces of red meat like it used to, but then, I don't try. Steak is something I have at a restaurant, when I don't want curry or the duck. And it's more like 6 or 7 ounces now. So yeah, I've cut way back on red meat.

The only problem is--what do you replace it with? I've done the Atkins thing, and I know I lose weight and feel much better on a diet high in protein. The only reason I'm not doing it now is laziness and because I'm busy. But when I eat only a little protein and more rice or pasta, I feel it, and not in a good way. I don't want to eat soy, since I'm at a time in my life when soy might be a bad idea. Every action has consequences. Sometimes you just want to EAT something and not have to think about it. Like my husband. He's never been aware of the countless decisions involved in making a seemingly simple dinner. But then, he has me to do it for him. He'd eat fast food every night if I weren't here.

Hey, maybe that's a good answer--cut out the fast food, and our consumption of everything will diminish. For those who currently eat fast food more than once a week, cut down to once a week or less. That would probably do more to solve the problem than anything else.

By the time we get this stuff figured out and convince the average American to eat more consciously, some other country will take over being the over-consumer. If it hasn't already happened, that is.

[JMT]

What is wrong with soy? I used to eat tofu all the time as a vegetarian.

Puy lentils are very tasty as well. These don't replace meat tastewise but they are good sources of protein, milk, cottage cheese and yoghurt are good sources of protein as well.

A good replacement for red meat ( meaning cows, bulls etc I suppose ) is wild meat. In the countryside here in sweden a large part of the meat eaten is moose, roedeer ( those little ones are verywhere ) etc. Raindeer is great too, these are going freerange all year round.

You could do the same thing to replace chicken etc, wild birds taste great.

Naturally you kill these animals as well but they grow up as a natural part of the regular ecosystem.