http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRA8bQg6 ... annel_page
This is a clip of an interview from author Lierre Kieth, a former vegetarian who ruined her health by not eating meat. In this clip she refutes the concept that if the Western world just stopped eating meat, that it would free up a surplus of grain that could be sent to other countries. She brings up a very interesting analogy of US aid being similiar to Wal-Marts monopoly, insofar that when they send tons and tons of grain to poor countries, it drives the local producers out of business.
The Vegetarian Myth
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Blue_turnip
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crazylegs32
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Lierre Keith must be a moron if she ruined her health in becoming a vegetarian. You'd have to be braindead if you can't balance your diet without meat.
And the only convincing argument that video made was against big business and capitalism. There's nothing that disputes the ethical, nutritional or environmental virtues of vegetarianism.
And the only convincing argument that video made was against big business and capitalism. There's nothing that disputes the ethical, nutritional or environmental virtues of vegetarianism.
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i have a friend who is a vegitarian and she used to be really fat, and it was because she would fill up on junk food and vegies instead of meat. Well two years down the road she has lost a shitload of weight because she has finally balanced her diet. She eats enough of everything, everything being vegatables, fruits, proteins, grains, carbs, fats. she gets everything she needs and she is incredibly healthy(one of the few at my school who has not gotten the flu)
And i think another important piece should be said, everyones body reacts differently to the same things. Lets say i turned vegatarian, well idk if anyone who posted on this thread, so lets take Matt Cross and Chris Dean, if either of them turned vegetarian and we ate the same diet, different things would happen. Perhaps two of us would lose weight while one of us held the same weight, perhaps one of us would become unhealthy and malnourished because of the new diet. And truely perhaps we would all become healthier. The point being that everyone has a different body, and the same variable, or variables can affect every person diferently.
And i think another important piece should be said, everyones body reacts differently to the same things. Lets say i turned vegatarian, well idk if anyone who posted on this thread, so lets take Matt Cross and Chris Dean, if either of them turned vegetarian and we ate the same diet, different things would happen. Perhaps two of us would lose weight while one of us held the same weight, perhaps one of us would become unhealthy and malnourished because of the new diet. And truely perhaps we would all become healthier. The point being that everyone has a different body, and the same variable, or variables can affect every person diferently.
Zachary Morgan
I can't help but comment on this topic because it's so misleading. Also my brother doesn't post here anymore and I only got 1 bag from Matt, that I don't even particularly like. Also I have to write an essay on a very similar question to this for my exam, so this kind of counts as study.
1. The statement in Dan's OP is perhaps accurate in Generalisedstan, but not in reality. The problem here is accepting simplified arguments as fact, and then attacking them. While it is true that there are people who make the argument being attacked, and they are wrong, it's also true that demand for meat has a direct impact on the food crisis that the world has seen in the last 3 years, which incidentally marks the first time since prior to the green revolution that the relative number of people facing food shortages went up.
The Asian food crisis is attribute basically universally to the rising demand for meat globally and the rising demand for biofuels. While it wasn't just the demand for meat, it would be false to say that it didn't have a significant contribution. What's even more telling is that the Asian food crisis occurred in countries that produce a lot of grain, but because of the growing demand for grain, caused by the growing demand for meat and biofuels, people in those countries couldn't afford to buy the locally grown products.
Talking about "freeing up grain" misses the point. The problem isn't the availability of food, the problem is that about a billion people in the world can't afford enough food. In many of these countries the food is available and exported to the people who can afford it. Increasing demand for meat increases demand for grains, and that increases the prices. Likewise falling demand for meat decreases demand for grain, and lowers food prices - as we saw occur this year as a result of the global financial crisis.
2. Most of the worlds poor live in cities. Cities aren't really changing environments that have become unlivable for people. Food is not grown in cities (in substantial amounts). Everybody who lives in a city (which is now the majority of people on this planet) relies on food distribution. To say that people who don't have enough food should move somewhere else is ridiculous. If they can't afford food, how do you expect them to be able to afford to move? Lots of people in most of these cities (although often not a majority) can easily afford enough food. It's obviously an issue of money - not local environments and not problems with distribution.
3. The evidence of our teeth, digestive system and closest relatives shows very clearly that meat is a very recent (in evolutionary terms) addition to our diets. While there is basically no doubt that the healthiest diet you can have includes a (relatively) small amount of meat, arguing from human history is largely irrelevant. We didn't evolve towards being able to process whatever is most ideal for our health, we evolved towards being able to best process our easiest available foods. Based on the evidence of our teeth, digestive system and closest relatives this was invertebrates and fruit.
Being able to take advantage of meat requires the ability to make tools and have fire. Humans divided from the ancestor of our closest living relative - chimpanzees - about 6 million years ago. The archaeological evidence suggests at best we started using fire less than a million years ago. While it may be true that 99.9% of "humans" ate meat, human referring to Homo sapians, that would only really be the last 200,000 years, which is when we've already evolved our teeth and digestive system. In fact since we split from our ancestor with chimpanzees our teeth have evolved to be less useful for eating meat. We have no reason to suppose that early humans ate a lot of meat (unless you count invertebrates) and a lot of converging evidence to say that we hardly ate any meat until we started domesticating animals, which was only 10,000 years ago.
The evidence of "tribal" societies that don't have domesticated animals such as indigenous Australians, tribes in Papua New Guinea, the Amazon and Africa also show a relatively low meat intake compared with societies with domesticated animals.
This makes sense too. Insects and fruit are relatively safe to eat and plentiful. Vertebrates, especially mammals and birds are much harder to catch, can be dangerous and have to be eaten immediately or they attract bacteria and pose a serious health risk. Mammals, birds and fish are also the most common sources of parasites in humans, which don't really pose a serious risk in our societies, but definitely do in any society without a sustainable food supply. Hence until recently meat was never a staple diet in human societies, and it became a staple diet when we developed the technology (domestication, food storage techniques etc.) to be able to eat it regularly without risk.
This point isn't an argument for being a vegetarian, it's just an argument that you shouldn't base what you eat on our evolutionary history. We are very clearly omnivores and the most accurate statement would be that we evolved to eat whatever food was most easily available and that provided us with the energy and nutrients that we needed. We should have no doubt that when presented with the opportunity to eat cooked red meat, our ancestors did, just that that was not very often.
4. Sorry for being rather pedantic, but a vegetarian diet is clearly healthier than a carnivorous diet (for humans). Obviously the best diet is an omnivorous diet. The standard "food pyramid" really is the most healthy diet you can have. Our bodies are pretty clever, and they can pretty well construct everything we need from plant products, but they can also skip steps out and do it a lot quicker if the nutrients they're getting are closer to what they need. Obviously meat is closer to the end product our bodies are trying to make than plants. The healthiest diet you can have is one that mainly consists of various plant material and with a smaller amount of meat. If you cut out the meat, you can still be much healthier than the average person (which doesn't really set the bar very high), and if you eat too much meat you'll be less healthy than most vegetarians. The difference between a person who eats a healthy diet with meat and one who eats a healthy diet without meat is so tiny that I think you'd be foolish to make a decision about whether or not to eat meat based on this issue. Smoking, alcohol, genetics and how much you exercise will all have a much bigger effect on your health than whether or not you eat meat (assuming you have a healthy balanced diet).
So yeah, there are good and bad reasons for being a vegetarian, and good and bad reasons for eating meat. All of these issues are complicated - far more complicated than I've made out in this post - there are hundreds of scientific studies into these issues. Ultimately though, science can't tell you whether you should eat meat or not, it's a value judgement. I am basically a vegetarian (I eat a little meat, not because it's good for me, but because I'm not strong willed enough, and often because of the context of the meat) because of the specific issues of the food crisis that I outlined earlier (even though the crisis could be seen as over, that's really only because middle class and rich people had less money so bought less meat - it's almost certainly temporary and when the economy picks up will become a serious issue again), and because demand for meat is driving demand for land to use for farming that meat and for farming crops to feed the meat. Demand for land is driving deforestation. Deforestation is driving biodiversity loss and green house gas emissions. Global warming particularly concerns me because the places worst hit are (already) the poorest regions who have contributed the least amount to the problem. I find this situation a very clear case of injustice and I'm trying my best not to contribute to it, even though I recognise how little impact one person has and that my efforts are largely symbolic and really only make me feel better about myself. If doing something makes you feel bad, why would you do it?
I don't tell other people to become vegetarians, even though I think they should, because it's obviously a value judgement. There's no objective answer, it depends on what kind of things you care most about, and indeed it's reasonable to argue that ultimately a meat eater and myself are motivated by the same thing, which is self-fulfilment. We just feel good about different things.
1. The statement in Dan's OP is perhaps accurate in Generalisedstan, but not in reality. The problem here is accepting simplified arguments as fact, and then attacking them. While it is true that there are people who make the argument being attacked, and they are wrong, it's also true that demand for meat has a direct impact on the food crisis that the world has seen in the last 3 years, which incidentally marks the first time since prior to the green revolution that the relative number of people facing food shortages went up.
The Asian food crisis is attribute basically universally to the rising demand for meat globally and the rising demand for biofuels. While it wasn't just the demand for meat, it would be false to say that it didn't have a significant contribution. What's even more telling is that the Asian food crisis occurred in countries that produce a lot of grain, but because of the growing demand for grain, caused by the growing demand for meat and biofuels, people in those countries couldn't afford to buy the locally grown products.
Talking about "freeing up grain" misses the point. The problem isn't the availability of food, the problem is that about a billion people in the world can't afford enough food. In many of these countries the food is available and exported to the people who can afford it. Increasing demand for meat increases demand for grains, and that increases the prices. Likewise falling demand for meat decreases demand for grain, and lowers food prices - as we saw occur this year as a result of the global financial crisis.
2. Most of the worlds poor live in cities. Cities aren't really changing environments that have become unlivable for people. Food is not grown in cities (in substantial amounts). Everybody who lives in a city (which is now the majority of people on this planet) relies on food distribution. To say that people who don't have enough food should move somewhere else is ridiculous. If they can't afford food, how do you expect them to be able to afford to move? Lots of people in most of these cities (although often not a majority) can easily afford enough food. It's obviously an issue of money - not local environments and not problems with distribution.
3. The evidence of our teeth, digestive system and closest relatives shows very clearly that meat is a very recent (in evolutionary terms) addition to our diets. While there is basically no doubt that the healthiest diet you can have includes a (relatively) small amount of meat, arguing from human history is largely irrelevant. We didn't evolve towards being able to process whatever is most ideal for our health, we evolved towards being able to best process our easiest available foods. Based on the evidence of our teeth, digestive system and closest relatives this was invertebrates and fruit.
Being able to take advantage of meat requires the ability to make tools and have fire. Humans divided from the ancestor of our closest living relative - chimpanzees - about 6 million years ago. The archaeological evidence suggests at best we started using fire less than a million years ago. While it may be true that 99.9% of "humans" ate meat, human referring to Homo sapians, that would only really be the last 200,000 years, which is when we've already evolved our teeth and digestive system. In fact since we split from our ancestor with chimpanzees our teeth have evolved to be less useful for eating meat. We have no reason to suppose that early humans ate a lot of meat (unless you count invertebrates) and a lot of converging evidence to say that we hardly ate any meat until we started domesticating animals, which was only 10,000 years ago.
The evidence of "tribal" societies that don't have domesticated animals such as indigenous Australians, tribes in Papua New Guinea, the Amazon and Africa also show a relatively low meat intake compared with societies with domesticated animals.
This makes sense too. Insects and fruit are relatively safe to eat and plentiful. Vertebrates, especially mammals and birds are much harder to catch, can be dangerous and have to be eaten immediately or they attract bacteria and pose a serious health risk. Mammals, birds and fish are also the most common sources of parasites in humans, which don't really pose a serious risk in our societies, but definitely do in any society without a sustainable food supply. Hence until recently meat was never a staple diet in human societies, and it became a staple diet when we developed the technology (domestication, food storage techniques etc.) to be able to eat it regularly without risk.
This point isn't an argument for being a vegetarian, it's just an argument that you shouldn't base what you eat on our evolutionary history. We are very clearly omnivores and the most accurate statement would be that we evolved to eat whatever food was most easily available and that provided us with the energy and nutrients that we needed. We should have no doubt that when presented with the opportunity to eat cooked red meat, our ancestors did, just that that was not very often.
4. Sorry for being rather pedantic, but a vegetarian diet is clearly healthier than a carnivorous diet (for humans). Obviously the best diet is an omnivorous diet. The standard "food pyramid" really is the most healthy diet you can have. Our bodies are pretty clever, and they can pretty well construct everything we need from plant products, but they can also skip steps out and do it a lot quicker if the nutrients they're getting are closer to what they need. Obviously meat is closer to the end product our bodies are trying to make than plants. The healthiest diet you can have is one that mainly consists of various plant material and with a smaller amount of meat. If you cut out the meat, you can still be much healthier than the average person (which doesn't really set the bar very high), and if you eat too much meat you'll be less healthy than most vegetarians. The difference between a person who eats a healthy diet with meat and one who eats a healthy diet without meat is so tiny that I think you'd be foolish to make a decision about whether or not to eat meat based on this issue. Smoking, alcohol, genetics and how much you exercise will all have a much bigger effect on your health than whether or not you eat meat (assuming you have a healthy balanced diet).
So yeah, there are good and bad reasons for being a vegetarian, and good and bad reasons for eating meat. All of these issues are complicated - far more complicated than I've made out in this post - there are hundreds of scientific studies into these issues. Ultimately though, science can't tell you whether you should eat meat or not, it's a value judgement. I am basically a vegetarian (I eat a little meat, not because it's good for me, but because I'm not strong willed enough, and often because of the context of the meat) because of the specific issues of the food crisis that I outlined earlier (even though the crisis could be seen as over, that's really only because middle class and rich people had less money so bought less meat - it's almost certainly temporary and when the economy picks up will become a serious issue again), and because demand for meat is driving demand for land to use for farming that meat and for farming crops to feed the meat. Demand for land is driving deforestation. Deforestation is driving biodiversity loss and green house gas emissions. Global warming particularly concerns me because the places worst hit are (already) the poorest regions who have contributed the least amount to the problem. I find this situation a very clear case of injustice and I'm trying my best not to contribute to it, even though I recognise how little impact one person has and that my efforts are largely symbolic and really only make me feel better about myself. If doing something makes you feel bad, why would you do it?
I don't tell other people to become vegetarians, even though I think they should, because it's obviously a value judgement. There's no objective answer, it depends on what kind of things you care most about, and indeed it's reasonable to argue that ultimately a meat eater and myself are motivated by the same thing, which is self-fulfilment. We just feel good about different things.
That's a bogus claim. Sure, we're omnivores and meat has been a part of our diets at least since we domesticated animals, but evolutionary evidence points to us primarily eating non-animal products throughout history. Plus, we have the option of making moral choices about what we eat. (Slavery has also been a part of 99.9% of human history, but that doesn't make it right.)BainbridgeShred wrote:For 99.9% of human history meat has been the main staple of the human diet.
But my point is that you can be perfectly healthy without much trouble by being vegetarian. Look at the elite footbag players that are vegetarian. Most namely, myself. Honorable mentions include Genzu and Vasek. (Ok ok, so in his book, VK said he sometimes eats fish. Bite me.)
Also it's a more economical use of land and resources. One of the largest reasons that meat and dairy are so inexpensive is because each year we pay billions of our tax dollars to subsidize agribusiness. Your video even supports this. The price of grain is artificially low and is fed to animals in AFOs (Animal Feeding Operations), where virtually all of the meat in America comes from. Meat and dairy at the supermarket are the price they are because we've already paid for it with our tax dollars.
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crazylegs32
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And this is how every conversation on vegetarianism/veganism always ends. It becomes undeniable that satisfying the huge demand for meat and dairy requires leaps of intellect in order to justify. It's an unnecessary evil, and not one required for our health.
Yet the response is always: Durr but I like eating meat, I can't imagine giving that one up!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/0 ... 73652.html
http://diggingthroughthedirt.blogspot.c ... gator.html
http://www.petatv.com/tvpopup/video.asp ... &Player=wm
How can you justify eating eggs or pork or veal after watching these videos? These are the industry standard. Again, this is unnecessary. It takes over 2000 sentient beings' lives to support a single American's typical diet. Sure, you can take a caveman approach to things and say that we all gotta look out for number one, but that doesn't hold up in modern society. You're capable of moral choices. I wouldn't fault someone without a choice in what they can afford, but for most of us there's no excuse.
Yet the response is always: Durr but I like eating meat, I can't imagine giving that one up!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/0 ... 73652.html
http://diggingthroughthedirt.blogspot.c ... gator.html
http://www.petatv.com/tvpopup/video.asp ... &Player=wm
How can you justify eating eggs or pork or veal after watching these videos? These are the industry standard. Again, this is unnecessary. It takes over 2000 sentient beings' lives to support a single American's typical diet. Sure, you can take a caveman approach to things and say that we all gotta look out for number one, but that doesn't hold up in modern society. You're capable of moral choices. I wouldn't fault someone without a choice in what they can afford, but for most of us there's no excuse.
Well I eat locally grown free range eggs, and indeed have been to the farm where the eggs are produced, so I feel moderately justified in eating them.
I don't find the argument Chris made particularly strong, although it's a complex issue.
Firstly against the argument; there are plenty of meat available that is farmed in a much more humane and environmentally friendly manner. There are certainly many problems with factory farming, and in many Western countries (such as Australia) most meat isn't factory farmed. Animal cruelty is also a problem for some people, but again, lots of farms don't do that, and indeed if you read through Chris' links, the second link (about cruelty to veal) was in fact a report of a breach of the law that led to the farm being shut down. Citing illegal behaviour does not demonstrate much, and obviously it's not an example of something that is "industry standard."
It's much better to try and get as much information as you can and make specific decisions. If you care about animal cruelty (and personally I basically don't), then you should investigate where your meat comes from and the specific details of its treatment. In my opinion the "animal rights movement" is largely a consequence of people becoming disconnected with their food chain. If killing animals is a problem for you, I hope you recognise that burning fossil fuels and using anything metal, paper or plastic kills far more animals than eating meat - just in a less direct manner.
However to add to this, food labelling and food information is complex and unreliable. You can't necessarily trust labels, so you probably need to check things out more. If you don't buy food directly from the source, or really trust the source, it's fairly likely that some of the food you're buying isn't what it says it is. Merely buying eggs marked "free range" for example, probably means about 1 in 3 to 1 in 5 are actually caged eggs (on average).
The other issue, at least for me, which really starts to make things complex, is carbon emissions. Global warming is already having a significant impact on the world and it's going to cause catastrophic damage to the environment and to people, especially in the developing world. I think the most moral choice we can make regarding our food right now is choosing the food with the lowest whole lifetime carbon emissions, regardless of whether it's meat or not. In many cases vegetarian options are better for the environment than meat, but it's very dependent on where the food came from to get to you, how it was packaged, how you're going to store it, how you cook it and how you get it from the shop. Probably all the food at your local shops haven't had detailed carbon emission analysis done, and it can be quite complicated. However at my supermarket my estimates tell me that there are some vegetarian products that have a much higher carbon footprint than some of the meat. For example a packet of corn chips probably has far higher emissions than a steak (at my local shop, because the corn chips are grown and packaged interstate using a lot of different products and using coal and fossil fuels as the main energy, while the steak is grown, slaughtered and packaged locally with less products, less packaging and in my state all our electricity is hydro).
Even if you do decide to eat meat, but the lowest carbon meat, it's not at all clear which meat that is. A recent study that New Scientist reported on (last year) found that battery hen chickens and eggs have less CO2 emissions than barn and free range equivalents when measured in terms of CO2 per weight. With the growing demand for meat, high intensity (ie. factory) farms could actually be a more environmentally friendly option. There isn't any really conclusive data on this, and it's still very dependent on each specific farm (and the histories of those farms).
So really I don't think you can make too many generalised rules. It's much better to decide on the specific nature of your food and where it comes from.
I don't find the argument Chris made particularly strong, although it's a complex issue.
Firstly against the argument; there are plenty of meat available that is farmed in a much more humane and environmentally friendly manner. There are certainly many problems with factory farming, and in many Western countries (such as Australia) most meat isn't factory farmed. Animal cruelty is also a problem for some people, but again, lots of farms don't do that, and indeed if you read through Chris' links, the second link (about cruelty to veal) was in fact a report of a breach of the law that led to the farm being shut down. Citing illegal behaviour does not demonstrate much, and obviously it's not an example of something that is "industry standard."
It's much better to try and get as much information as you can and make specific decisions. If you care about animal cruelty (and personally I basically don't), then you should investigate where your meat comes from and the specific details of its treatment. In my opinion the "animal rights movement" is largely a consequence of people becoming disconnected with their food chain. If killing animals is a problem for you, I hope you recognise that burning fossil fuels and using anything metal, paper or plastic kills far more animals than eating meat - just in a less direct manner.
However to add to this, food labelling and food information is complex and unreliable. You can't necessarily trust labels, so you probably need to check things out more. If you don't buy food directly from the source, or really trust the source, it's fairly likely that some of the food you're buying isn't what it says it is. Merely buying eggs marked "free range" for example, probably means about 1 in 3 to 1 in 5 are actually caged eggs (on average).
The other issue, at least for me, which really starts to make things complex, is carbon emissions. Global warming is already having a significant impact on the world and it's going to cause catastrophic damage to the environment and to people, especially in the developing world. I think the most moral choice we can make regarding our food right now is choosing the food with the lowest whole lifetime carbon emissions, regardless of whether it's meat or not. In many cases vegetarian options are better for the environment than meat, but it's very dependent on where the food came from to get to you, how it was packaged, how you're going to store it, how you cook it and how you get it from the shop. Probably all the food at your local shops haven't had detailed carbon emission analysis done, and it can be quite complicated. However at my supermarket my estimates tell me that there are some vegetarian products that have a much higher carbon footprint than some of the meat. For example a packet of corn chips probably has far higher emissions than a steak (at my local shop, because the corn chips are grown and packaged interstate using a lot of different products and using coal and fossil fuels as the main energy, while the steak is grown, slaughtered and packaged locally with less products, less packaging and in my state all our electricity is hydro).
Even if you do decide to eat meat, but the lowest carbon meat, it's not at all clear which meat that is. A recent study that New Scientist reported on (last year) found that battery hen chickens and eggs have less CO2 emissions than barn and free range equivalents when measured in terms of CO2 per weight. With the growing demand for meat, high intensity (ie. factory) farms could actually be a more environmentally friendly option. There isn't any really conclusive data on this, and it's still very dependent on each specific farm (and the histories of those farms).
So really I don't think you can make too many generalised rules. It's much better to decide on the specific nature of your food and where it comes from.
Well your mother is the 'industry standard' for dairy cows! And I wasn't going for a strong argument, more like emotional appeal. Up late after the bar, watching horrifying videos and cruising modified... a good time for righteous indignation. The zealotry is really the best part of having a diet short on animal products 
That and yummy recipes from the veganomicon.
But the grinding up of male chicks on the day after they're born IS standard practice. It's either that or being put in plastic bags to suffocate and then thrown out. It's not exactly the killing of animals that I have a beef with, it's the treating of creatures like machines that doesn't sit well with me. Just because they aren't as intelligent as people doesn't make their suffering invalid. Actually I don't have a problem with hunting wild animals, but farmed meat, fish and dairy is a different story. I could go on about how unnatural the lives they lead are but I don't wanna.
That and yummy recipes from the veganomicon.But the grinding up of male chicks on the day after they're born IS standard practice. It's either that or being put in plastic bags to suffocate and then thrown out. It's not exactly the killing of animals that I have a beef with, it's the treating of creatures like machines that doesn't sit well with me. Just because they aren't as intelligent as people doesn't make their suffering invalid. Actually I don't have a problem with hunting wild animals, but farmed meat, fish and dairy is a different story. I could go on about how unnatural the lives they lead are but I don't wanna.
But what is a "natural" life? Why is "natural" better than "unnatural?"
Most of the animals we eat - chickens, beef, lamb, and pork have been artificially selectively bred for literally thousands of years. They only exist because we eat them. Is it better to exist and then die, or to never live at all? They are essentially genetically modified by humans. Are they natural? If they are, what do we mean by "natural?"
One of my subjects at university this year was almost dedicated to answering these questions. I'm not sure they have answers.
Most of the animals we eat - chickens, beef, lamb, and pork have been artificially selectively bred for literally thousands of years. They only exist because we eat them. Is it better to exist and then die, or to never live at all? They are essentially genetically modified by humans. Are they natural? If they are, what do we mean by "natural?"
One of my subjects at university this year was almost dedicated to answering these questions. I'm not sure they have answers.
Here is a good anecdote.
I know a local apricot farmer. Every year in the weeks before their crops are ripe enough for birds to eat, the farmers in the region start putting out huge amounts of breadcrumbs. Birds, especially sparrows, come from everywhere to eat the breadcrumbs. Then, at about the time the apricots are ripe enough for the birds to eat, the farmers add some poison to breadcrumbs and end up with truckloads of dead birds. They also don't have any problems with animals eating their fruit. Now these are small farms mainly serving boutique markets. Death of animals is a part of all biological systems, "natural" or otherwise.
I know a local apricot farmer. Every year in the weeks before their crops are ripe enough for birds to eat, the farmers in the region start putting out huge amounts of breadcrumbs. Birds, especially sparrows, come from everywhere to eat the breadcrumbs. Then, at about the time the apricots are ripe enough for the birds to eat, the farmers add some poison to breadcrumbs and end up with truckloads of dead birds. They also don't have any problems with animals eating their fruit. Now these are small farms mainly serving boutique markets. Death of animals is a part of all biological systems, "natural" or otherwise.
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max
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Hey would do vegetarians think about the prospect of eating artificial meat? Link: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/scie ... first.html
I'm guessing Jeremy would want to know what are the Carbon emission impacts of the creation process
but what about you others? Would you be willing to try?
I'm guessing Jeremy would want to know what are the Carbon emission impacts of the creation process
but what about you others? Would you be willing to try?Maxime Boucoiran
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