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Red Meat vs Chicken: An Argument Against The False Distinction
by Kathy Freston

Nicholas Kristof’s column on Wednesday discusses the recent work by animal activists on behalf of chickens and pigs, and the degree to which “animal rights are now firmly on the mainstream ethical agenda” in the United States, as they have been for some years in Europe. I am delighted to see from Mr. Kristof yet another thoughtful essay about a moral issue that is, until recently, not widely discussed, and even more pleased that in discussing the cruelties of modern intensive farms, he is focusing on birds.

You see, people often tell me that they’ve given up eating red meat out of concern for animals, the environment, or their health (or all three). Of course all efforts to make the world a kinder and less polluted place should be applauded. But here’s the thing: cutting out red meat while still eating chicken doesn’t address the whole problem.

Here’s why: Both choices – beef and chicken – badly damage the environment, so choosing one or the other is sort of like the difference between driving a huge SUV and a Hummer. That’s also why I’m a little baffled when some environmental organizations say that cutting out beef is advisable, but eating other meats is “relatively” ok. It’s really not.

On the issue of global warming, all animal agriculture is a nightmare, relative to producing grains and beans. In a 400 page report from the United Nation’s Food and Agricultural Organization, Livestock’s Long Shadow, scientists conclude that the business of raising animals for food is responsible for about 18 percent of all warming–in fact meat causes about 40 percent more warming than all cars, trucks, and planes combined.

That is in part because turning animals into meat requires many stages of (energy intensive and polluting) production (i.e., transporting feed, animals, and meat; running feed mills, factory farms, and slaughterhouses; refrigerating carcasses during transport and in grocery stores–chickens are at least as energy consumptive as cattle for all these stages), compared to plant foods.

Environmental Defense calculated that if every American skipped one meal of chicken per week and substituted vegetarian foods instead, the carbon dioxide savings would be the same as taking more than half a million cars off of U.S. roads. Imagine if we dropped all meat from our diets altogether.

And it’s not just global warming, of course: In a story about chicken waste pollution, the New York Times reported in November that “[a]lthough the dairy and hog industry in states near the bay produce more pounds of manure, poultry waste has more than twice the concentration of pollutants per pound.” I assume that’s in part because poultry are given a lot more drugs than pigs and cattle–because they’re kept in even worse conditions and thus require more drugs.

When you have the attorney general of a state like Oklahoma battling poultry producers over the industry “wreak[ing] havoc in the 1-million-acre Illinois River watershed, turning it into a murky, sludgy mess,” it seems pretty clear (to me) that environmentalists might want to think again about putting that product into even a “relatively” favorable category.

So it makes more sense to cut down on meat altogether, in favor of a more plant based diet, rather than trying to sort out which meats are relatively better or worse. And we can do so in stages.

For example, after looking at the health and environmental problems associated with chicken, beef, and pork, New York Times food writer Mark Bittman (in his superb new book Food Matters) suggests eating exclusively plant-based foods until 6 p.m., and then eating whatever you want for dinner. I know people who have tried this sort of plan, and they find–quickly–that they’re eating more and more vegetarian food, even during the times when they eat whatever they want. Writes Bittman, “By reducing the amount of meat we eat, we can grow and kill fewer animals. That means less environmental damage, including climate change; fewer antibiotics in the water and food supplies; fewer pesticides and herbicides; reduced cruelty; and so on. It also means better health for you.”

Similarly, the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Health leads the “Meatless Mondays” campaign, which is supported by 28 other public health schools. Their goal is to cut Americans’ meat-consumption, in order to lessen our risk for heart disease, cancer, diabetes, obesity, and so on. And of course, they rightly impugn all meat, not just “red” meat.

Although he vigorously advocates vegetarianism, the much adored Buddhist monk and Zen master, Thich Nhat Hanh, writes in his latest book that “[i]f you’re not able to entirely stop eating meat, you can still decide to make an effort to cut back. By cutting meat out of your diet ten or even five days a month, you will already be performing a miracle–a miracle that will help solve the problem of hunger in the developing world and dramatically reduce greenhouse gases.”

These suggestions from Bittman, Johns Hopkins, and Thich Nhat Hanh strike me as much better half-measure alternatives to picking between various meats.

For those who want to do well by the environment, have more robust health, and consider the welfare of animals, the solution is not to just give up eating red meat, but rather lean away from eating animal products – chicken included – altogether.

A few things to remember:

* for animals the poultry industry is much worse than the beef or pork industries;
* for your health, it’s a toss up at best;
* and for the environment, the poultry industry may not be quite as bad on global warming, but it’s still bad, and it appears to be even worse in categories like water and air pollution.

For people who want help cutting back on meat or transitioning toward a vegetarian diet, please check out my previous post, “One Bite at a Time: A Beginners Guide to Conscious Eating.”

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It was a magical moment when Jonathan Safran Foer decided to find out the truth about meat.

The author had just become a father a few minutes earlier, and now he was watching his son suckling at his wife’s breast. The newborn’s instinct to immediately recognize the correct food source filled him with an unfamiliar sense of reverence. Jonathan Safran Foer was a man with a new responsibility, and he was determined to do everything within his power to make sure that this child would eat the right kind of food in the future.

Foer spent three years researching the subject. He knew that he would discover a different reality than the one portrayed by the animals in the picture books he would look at with his son on the sofa. But the scope of the horror that reality had in store for him was unexpected. He decided that he would raise his child without meat.

Here are five examples, five of the hundreds Foer unearthed during his research:

▪ Industrial-scale poultry farmers inject birds with “broths” and salty solutions, so that they look plump in the store and their meat is more flavorful.
▪ Hog farmers cut off the teeth of piglets and rip out their testicles — without anesthesia.
▪ In tuna fishing, 145 other species — fish, birds and mammals — are also caught in the nets, where they die and are subsequently tossed back into the ocean.
▪ Factory farming accounts for between 18 and 51 percent — depending on the study — of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. The biggest offenders are cows, which release methane during digestion. Methane is 23 times as harmful to the climate as CO2.
▪ Some factory farms are so big that they produce more excrement every day than some major cities.

The Search for a Better Life

“As a father, I was confronted with realities that, as a writer, I couldn’t keep to myself,” says Foer today. The 33-year-old author wrote a book about the horrors of factory farming, which triggered passionate debates about food and nutrition in the United States. His son is now four years old and has a brother, and the rights to “Eating Animals” have been sold in 16 countries. The German-language version, “Tiere Essen,” appears in bookstores in Germany on August 19.

Foer shocked hundreds of thousands of people with his book, and for a time the author received angry emails on a daily basis, from people calling him a jerk and complaining that they couldn’t eat meat anymore after having read his book.

It’s the author’s first non-fiction book. Foer, who has published two novels, one about Jewish identity (“Everything Is Illuminated”) and one about the 9/11 attacks (“Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close”), is considered an exceptionally talented young writer in the United States. In “Eating Animals,” he brings together anecdotes, facts, news coverage and correspondence. He describes breaking into a chicken farm, offers accounts of organic farmers and writes about how his inquiries to major meat producers went unanswered. It is an unsettling and moving document — the account of a man’s search for a better life.

Before long, Foer was thinking about more than just his son. He was thinking about the entire world.

RSPCA chief executive Heather Neil said sheep meat exports were worth 20 per cent more to the economy than sheep sent overseas for slaughter, and keeping sheep in Australia prevented “unnecessary suffering and cruelty”.

Meat and Livestock Australia figures indicate that between January 2009 and May 2010, roughly 79 per cent or about 860,000 of Australia’s one million live exported sheep were shipped from Fremantle.

The figures indicate 80,316 live cattle were exported from Fremantle in the same period, second only to the 121,236 cattle exported from Darwin.

Fremantle candidates had differing views on whether live animal export should be banned.

“I’m certainly against cruelty to animals in any form, but I don’t know all the details about it (live export), I don’t know if I’d say to ban it,” Democratic Labor Party candidate Keith McEncroe said.

“I have taken a very clear position on this issue. I believe that we should transition from the live sheep export industry to the chilled meat export trade,” ALP candidate Melissa Parke said.

“There is a freight line going straight to Rob’s Jetty, where sheep can be slaughtered and frozen carcasses exported. Live export is cruel,” Socialist Alliance candidate Sanna Andrew said.

“The Greens are committed to working toward the abolition of the live sheep trade, we do not support this trade,” Greens candidate Kate Davis said.

“I think where we can, we should export processed rather than live animals, but I understand there will always be demand for live animals for various reasons,” Liberal candidate Matt Taylor said.

“I would be in favour of livestock exportation provided it can be done in a humane, safe and accountable manner (but) suitable infrastructure measures seem either ineffective or not being adhered to,” Family First Candidate Larry Parsons said.

By Paul Vallely

Photographers, like poets, understand the power of suggestion. Which is why they get low on the ground and point the camera upwards towards the cow, so its muzzle becomes huge and an enormous head dwarfs its spindly body. “Mad cow”, it tells us, without the need for anyone to use the words. That’s what you’ll be like, it says, if you eat beef from a cloned bullock.

Cows on the Drumduan farm near Nairn in Scotland that was the source of cloned beef. Photograph: David Cheskin/PA

The most recent of this meat to enter the human food chain was from a cow named, weirdly enough, Parable. Greek scholars will recognise this as the rhetorical term for a short tale that illustrates a universal moral truth. The trick is to disentangle the science from the superstition and discern what that truth might be.

The scientific consensus seems pretty clear that meat or milk from cloned cows, or their offspring, will be no different from that of a normal cow. There are no scientific mechanisms that would allow it to be otherwise. The US Food and Drug Administration, which has been monitoring cloned food since 2001, has declared it to be safe – and, indeed, indistinguishable from normal meat and milk. Our own FSA agrees, though it is perturbed that cloned food got through the European Union’s “novel foods” regulations without anyone even declaring its provenance.

True, scientists at the University of Connecticut found that cloned cow meat was slightly higher in fat and fatty acids than are the other 2,200,000 beef cattle slaughtered in the UK every year, but the variations were within beef industry standards. And cloned beef is, at any rate, a lot less fatty than corned beef. But that doesn’t get us passed the yuck factor induced by words such as “cloning”. Surveys show that the vast majority of the public feel vaguely queasy at the idea of giving Mother Nature any more of a helping hand than artificial insemination or selective breeding.

But is this merely Luddite? Cloning is not as radical as genetic engineering. No alien material is added, as when fish genes are inserted into tomatoes. Cloning is, rather, reproducing an exact copy of the original. A cloneburger is 100 per cent cow. Genetically, a clone is no different from an identical twin; it is just that the two are born at different times to allow breeders to introduce desirable traits into stock faster than with ordinary breeding.

Of course it is not “natural” in the sense of “happening in nature”, but then neither is growing plants from cuttings, grafting fruit trees, giving blood transfusions or replacing faulty human heart valves with ones taken from pigs. The history of science, from animal breeding to chemical pharmacology, is full of breakthroughs that once felt taboo-busting.

The European Parliament last month voted for a blanket ban on food from cloned animals, though MEPs spoke about animal welfare, the threat to biodiversity and ethical concerns as well as food safety. The EU Commission and member governments – weary from battles with the US over GM crops – are likely to be very wary about risking a new trade war with major agricultural nations such as the US, Brazil and Argentina.

But some rationalisation of the rules is needed. In Britain at present, a scientist requires a Home Office licence to do pure cloning research, while cloning for entirely commercial purposes is totally unregulated. And there are no restrictions on importing semen from a cloned animal, so it is already possible that tens of thousands of pigs and cows in Europe are clone offspring. The Swiss government has admitted that “several hundred” of its cattle are second- or third-generation descendants of clones. Cheese and salami imported into the UK can be from cloned animals with no restrictions; labelling is not even required.

Some labelling rules would reassure those whose fears are not allayed by the blandishments of the scientists – or who point out darkly that nature has a way of slapping down human hubris. Remember the hapless John Gummer who was photo-opped offering his daughter a beefburger in 1990 to prove that mad cow disease was not as bad as it was cracked up to be, after farmers came up with the wheeze of feeding ground-up bits of dead sheep to vegetarian cows?

In any case, if you clone a prize cow, the result will have the same DNA; but it may not be so fine a specimen. Only between 1 and 5 per cent of clones survive to birth. Many have birth defects, including respiratory, digestive, circulatory, nervous, muscular and skeletal abnormalities. Some are so big that their mothers die giving birth. Some have a higher propensity for developmental problems, such as mental retardation.

If your only concern was food safety, you might argue that all that was irrelevant. Milk is still milk, whether it comes from a retarded cow or a clever one. But that cannot be the only consideration. I am not a Darwinian sentimentalist who believes that there is no moral difference between animals and humans. I think that language, grammar, philosophy, religion, poetry, painting, music, science, technology and the self-consciousness of history – all of which allow us to stand on the shoulders of our ancestors – give the lie to that. But it undermines our morality if we take a purely instrumental view of animals.

So Professor Sir Ian Wilmut, leader of the team who created Dolly the sheep, is right to say that, while he would have “no problem” eating cloned meat, he does see troubling ethical concerns about animal cloning on an industrial scale. You do not have to be a vegetarian to agree. In any case, cows and bulls appear to have been at this breeding business successfully enough for several millennia without the assistance of scientists. So what is cloning really for?

The answer, as ever, is making money. Cloning a cow is expensive; it costs around £20,000 per animal as against the normal £1,000 cost. So cloning to eat would not make commercial sense. But cloning prime beasts from which to breed is another story. Cloning is about trying to create whole new breeds that will give leaner meat, higher yields of milk and enhanced disease resistance for lower inputs of grain and soya. Biotech cattle-breeding companies will not be cloning scrawny cows that can live longer on the edge of African deserts as climate change advances.

That raises a different raft of questions about profits, who shares in them, and whether global warming is best served by cloned beef and dairy cattle eating soya from cleared rainforests or standard beasts eating grass that nothing else would consume.

Send in the clones? It might not be such a good idea for humankind to be losing our timing this late in our career. Copy-cow burger? I’ll have the beans on toast, thanks.

Read original article…

Also see the Guardian article which the above photo is from (found here)

A cow being stunned for slaughter

The RSPCA has launched its election platform, calling for live exports to be phased out, truthful labels on humanely farmed food, and an end to the intensive farming of dogs in puppy factories.

CEO Heather Neil says the RSPCA also wants every Australian abattoir to stun livestock before slaughter.

“What we now understand is that there are many thousands of animals who are being slaughtered to meet the requirements of many groups,” she says.

A captive bolt pistol

“We believe that is unacceptable on animal welfare grounds, and the religious requirements of those particular groups can be met in other ways.”

The red meat industry says pre-slaughter stunning is common practice in most Australian abattoirs.

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Serious injuries are inflicted over a period of time before bulls are killed

In the end the vote passed by an absolute majority – a wider margin of victory than animal rights campaigners had dared hope for.

Sixty-eight deputies voted in favour of the ban; 55 were opposed.

“We had three different speeches prepared, and in the end we could read out the one for a big victory,” laughed Jordi Casamitjana, who was heavily involved in pushing for this vote.

He admits he had expected a closer call.

“It means the politicians here actually get it. Bullfighting has no place in the 21st Century. I could not hold back my tears,” he said.

He was not the only one. As the result was announced, those supporting the ban leapt and shouted for joy. Alongside them, some of the losers cried too – in frustration.

But activists collected 180,000 signatures in order to get this initiative off the ground and into parliament – and they were determined to enjoy the moment.

“I’m over the moon!” enthused Deborah Parris, who worked with the campaign group Prou (Enough, in Catalan), to ban the corrida, as the bullfight is known.

“There is incredible suffering in a bullfight. Six bulls are killed each time, not one, and they are tortured for 20 minutes,” she said. “It’s not right to pay money to go and watch that kind of cruelty.”

Waning popularity
During the debate, deputies in parliament heard very different views – as parties that back bullfighting described an age-old tradition and an art form that must be preserved.

They also argued against a formal ban on principle, saying individuals should be left to decide whether to attend a corrida.

There were warnings too, about the economic impact of stopping the fights, both in lost ticket sales and compensation for those who depend on bullfighting for their livelihood. That amount will be decided, in the coming months.

The bullfighting lobby failed to convince though, and the bloodsport will now be banned throughout Catalonia from January 2012.

The practice has been waning in popularity here for many years.

A mixture of animal rights activism, a ban on child attendance and politics has left ring owners struggling to fill seats.

There is just one active bullring now in Barcelona, and an average of 15 fights each year.

Madrid stages eight times that number. Many of the spectators are tourists.

Political agenda?
Although the corrida has deep roots in Catalonia, nationalists here now see it as a “Spanish” fiesta.

“They are trying to get independence and they think if they highlight differences it will help,” said Albert Rivera, a deputy with the “mixed group” in parliament who voted to keep bullfighting alive.
Barcelona’s Monumental bullring – 27 July 2010 Attendance has gradually declined at Catalonian bullfighting arenas

“They don’t like reminders of how much we share.”

Those backing the ban deny any direct link between this vote and wider political goals.

But many Spaniards have wondered whether it is at least partly an act of revenge for a deeply unpopular ruling by the constitutional court.

Earlier this month, the court in Madrid struck down part of Catalonia’s statute of autonomy, including its right to label itself as a nation. The decision sparked an enormous protest.

But the groups who brought the corrida issue to parliament insist it is all about progress: banning a barbaric practice, for good.

“It’s like the ban on fox hunting in the UK,” said Jordi Casamitjana.

“Society has evolved and that’s all about losing bad things. Fortunately, Catalan politicians have seen they need to evolve too, so they don’t remain relics – like these traditions.”

Buoyed by their victory, activists have vowed to help extend the ban across the country.

But they know they will face far stiffer opposition in the bullfighting heartlands of southern Spain and Madrid.

In the capital, a petition calling for a vote on banning bullfights there has collected more than 50,000 signatures of support.

In response, the regional government has declared the corrida protected, part of Madrid’s cultural heritage.

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NZ dairy calf killed for convenience

The practice is done to get all cows in a herd to calve at the same time, and produce milk earlier. It means many calves are born dead, but some are born still alive and have to be euthanised.

Around 200,000 calves were induced each year and although it’s legal, it had become an ethical issue dividing the dairy industry.

SPCA national chief Robyn Kippenberger said the practice of inducing would come as a shock to many New Zealanders.

“It’s an awful look,” she said on TVNZ’s News at 8, saying the practice could have worldwide implications.

“The problem we have is that people aren’t coming to terms with the fact that this is now global, it’s now on YouTube, people in Europe can see it, and that’s the market for our milk.”

Kippenberger acknowledged not all farmers induced calves, but that the ones that did “must demonstrate that they have good practices”.

Many vets, including Bernice Mangnall from Canterbury, were also against the practice.
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“Times have changed, public perception has changed and the requirements on the overseas market have changed,” she said. “So this is just moving it on … and phasing it out.”

Inductions were introduced 40 years ago. They are legal but the government’s code of welfare for dairy cattle said it was best practice not to do them.

The industry originally agreed to end inductions in October but it had since decided to gradually phase them out.

Wayne Ricketts of the NZ Veterinary Association said on TV ONE’s Breakfast programme he had been talking over a period of months with Federated Farmers and Dairy NZ about phasing-out the process.

He said it’s time to “move on” and change the process, but does not think the practice is cruel.

“We’ve actually got some very strict guidelines in place, which are very much around animal welfare.”

He said he does not think there will be a drop-off in milk production once the process is banned.

“Overall, there won’t be a marked drop. Things like the bad weather we had here in Wellingtonn last night will make more of a drop in milk production.”

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The application was lodged in November last year by a Melbourne puppy breeder who hoped to keep 15 dogs and 85 breeding bitches at the property.

Council had received 1300 submissions against the development of the proposed farm, which was to be on the Geelong-Ballan Road.

The issue was resolved at last night’s ordinary council meeting, with five speakers objecting to the application.

It had been recommended that the planning permit be refused due to failure of the applicant to provide a waste management plan, failure to provide noise abatement plans and potential negative impact on the ecology of the area.

The community had also voiced concerns regarding the physical and mental welfare of the breeding bitches.

RSPCA Victoria CEO Maria Mercurio said she was relieved that the recommendation had carried.

A puppy mill (photo from wheredopuppiescomefrom.com.au)

“The community has no idea about the source of the puppies they buy from pet shops or the conditions they are kept in. If they did, they would think twice before buying.”

Last night the applicant asked for the item to be deferred due to amendments to their plan, but council refused. They can appeal the decision at the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal.

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For more information about puppy mills (farms) see wheredopuppiescomefrom.com.au.

Snubfin Dolphin

Dolphin researcher Deborah Thiele wrote the report for the conservation organisation WWF, which is working with the Broome community to minimise harm to the animals.

Dr Thiele identified 161 Snubfins in the bay, finding nearly two thirds had injuries such as deep gashes and line marks and in some cases completely severed dorsal fins.

The problem occurred because the dolphins’ foraging and socialising grounds overlapped the heavily used recreational fishing zone in the bay, she told AAP.

Dr Thiele said the slow-moving dolphins, often in shallow water, were hit by speeding boats across the bay.

Even more injuries were caused by lost or discarded fishing line and hooks that cut into the animals’ skins.

Dr Thiele has worked with the Roebuck Bay Working Group, set up to protect the bay’s ecosystem, on guidelines to minimise harm to the dolphins, dugongs, turtles and other wildlife.

“My purpose is not to stop any fishing, my purpose is to get people who are fishing to slow down and to try and look after their line and just by doing that I think we’re going to make a huge difference,” she said.

The Snubfin Dolphin was only recently recognised as Australia’s only endemic dolphin, found in tropical coastal waters across northern Australia.

Until 2005, they were thought to be Irrawaddy Dolphins found in Asia, but they are now classified as a separate species.

WWF’s spokeswoman on tropical marine species, Lydia Gibson, said the number of injuries seen in Roebuck Bay meant it was likely dolphins had died, while injured animals would find it harder to feed and socialise.

She said raising awareness was key, but state, territory and federal governments must also work together to protect areas crucial to the Snubfins’ survival, including more research, which could see it put on the threatened list.

Environment Minister Donna Faragher has said the WA government would commit nearly $30,000 for more research on Snubfins and there were opportunities for establishing a marine park at Roebuck Bay.

Broome Fishing Club president Jeff Cooper said the club was keen to ensure the Snubfins were unharmed, but tourists needed to be educated about how to protect the animals in the bay.

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The ally relationship can be an odd one. I remember my shock in third grade, learning that the Soviets had been our ally in World War II. “How could this be?” I wondered. “Our arch-enemies, the reason we have to crawl under our desks and prepare for The Bomb, were once our friends?”

I’m having similar feelings now, as I contemplate the locavore movement. As a vegan, and someone who believes in organic growing methods and family farms, I thought we were allies. I’m also a realist: I know the world isn’t going vegetarian overnight. Our numbers are growing, certainly, but the global demand for meat is greater than it’s ever been. Amid all this, I was happy to see a substantial group of small farmers, given a voice by authors and commentators such as Michael Pollan and Barbara Kingsolver, take a stand for better farming, including more humane methods of animal husbandry than the factory-farming norm. We didn’t have the same ultimate goal, but both theirs (replacing corporate agriculture with small, conscientious farms) and ours (a vegan planet) are so lofty that none of us will live to see either one. But for now we were, I thought, allies.

I’d go to the farmers’ market at Union Square–it’s every bit as gorgeous as anybody’s Eiffel Tower or Grand Canyon–and if the farmer selling goat cheese also had glorious spring greens, I’d buy her greens. It was totally friendly. I never said, “Shame on you for stealing the milk God meant for goat babies!” and she never said, “Damn you, veg-head: buy some cheese or you don’t deserve arugula!” And the couple that provide the provisions for my CSA (Community-Supported Agriculture: you buy a share in a small farm for a season) always knew that I wouldn’t be getting eggs. I didn’t ask for anything to make up for that, but they often put in some extra potatoes or apples or a bottle of herb-flavored vinegar. It was nice. We were allies.

And, in terms of individuals like that woman, that couple, and me, we still are. I fear, however, that a strong anti-vegetarian sentiment has grown up in the locavorism movement as a whole. Several recent documentaries suggest this. The first I saw, Food, Inc., was an impeccably researched indictment of the corporations that want to take over all food production and apparently don’t care how thoroughly we’re poisoned and “genetically modified” in the process. It showed small, organic farmers weighing in on the issue while doing what they do, in one case, cutting the heads off chickens. “This is hard to watch,” my husband whispered. “I know,” I said, “but he’s the good guy.”

The next film we saw was Food Fight. It went into detail about providing whole food in school cafeterias, rather the way chef Jamie Oliver did on his reality show, Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution. No one could fault the sincerity of these people, but it did cross my mind that the vegan option–getting our nutrition firsthand rather than cycling it through animals who are, even in the best of circumstances, slaughtered in their youthful prime–was never mentioned.

My final cinematic foray into the locavores’ way of seeing things was a film called Fresh, screened at a yoga studio here in Manhattan. It featured The Omnivore’s Dilemma author Michael Pollan; Joel Salatin (the guy who beheaded the chickens in Food, Inc., and referred to himself in this doc as “a caretaker of creation”); and Will Allen, an urban farmer in Milwaukee, quoted in Fresh saying, “Food is the foundation, but it’s really about life.” Yes. I think so, too. Everybody’s life.

After that showing of Fresh, there was a group discussion led by two erudite young men, one of whom claimed to be a vegetarian but who joined his cohort in ripping to shreds the concept of a plant-based lifestyle. “A vegan diet is totally unsustainable in this part of the country,” somebody said. “That’s nuts,” I was thinking, remembering my grandmother and how she “put by” so much food with drying and canning, her pantry was overstuffed, even (according to my mom) during the Great Depression. My grandparents had a small farm in northern Missouri, and although they did raise animals, the produce alone could have gotten them through the winter. Hardy vegetables like cabbage and kale stayed in the garden, where Gramma built little coverings to protect them. “Now your kale is always sweeter after a frost,” she’d say.

Apples, potatoes, yams and winter squash went into the root cellar and were good till spring. Black walnuts, hazelnuts, and pecans joined them there. Tomatoes, string beans, peaches and pears were canned, along with all sorts of preserves and jams and marmalades. Beans and peas were dried, as was some of the fruit. Nobody in Missouri had heard the word “vegan” in those days, but if such a person had wandered by, he’d have been well-fed.

I didn’t pipe up with my opinion during the Q&A after that film, however, because I’d rather be an ally than an adversary. Besides, my message is to the farmers and their spokespeople, not a bunch of New Yorkers who think Long Island is “the country.” I want to tell them they need us vegans: There aren’t nearly enough low-intensity farmers growing animals to meet the demand. For them to make a dent in the marketplace, there will need to be millions of people not eating animal products. I’d tell them that I admire their commitment and believe there are ways we can work together, but that the vegetarian ethic didn’t come into being with modern factory farming. Some of us don’t like the idea of taking a life, even if that life wasn’t nonstop horrific, as on factory farms.

My vegetarian predecessors from Pythagoras to Einstein made two conclusions: First, the killing of a sentient being for anything less than self-preservation or to save another is wrong; and secondly, it is close to impossible to raise animals for food and keep the process consistently humane. My grandparents, on their little farm, did the things the locavores say farmers should be doing now. Their chickens lived in a coop, had access to the outside, and nobody seared off their beaks. Roosters were pretty much dispatched with, however, because one was enough. And come Sunday, a hen whose laying was waning a bit, had her neck wrung and she showed up on a platter. The pigs gave birth and nursed their young without the hideous confinement of farrowing crates, but each one was destined for slaughter and the runt of every litter was killed as an infant.

It wasn’t that my grandparents were bad people. They were simply trying to make a living and, in terms of animal agriculture, they–and the modern proponents of family farming–do it in the best way possible. This is why I want to be their ally. I know that as a vegan, I’m in a minority. People love their meat. It’s up there with sugar and TV and maybe even coffee on the list of inalienable American rights. As long as people demand the product, of course I champion anyone who’s willing to produce it with the least amount of suffering to the creatures involved, but that is still a great deal of suffering.

Former Michigan beef farmer Harold Brown put it this way on the sitewww.humanemyth.org:“In my experience, there is no such thing as humane animal products, humane farming practices, humane transport, or humane slaughter.” I realize that in quoting him, I’m bringing out one of the “big guns” from “my side,” just as the locavores have theirs. But I myself spent a day in a slaughterhouse once, and those sights and smells and screams will never leave me. With what I know and what I’ve experienced, I gladly I support anyone working to make things better. But, ultimately, “better” isn’t good enough.

Victoria Moran is the author of books including Creating a Charmed Life, Shelter for the Spirit, and The Love-Powered Diet. You can view all her books here at Amazon.com.