Toxic Veganism: Boycott Soy
I used to work with an evangelical vegan. He was radically concerned about farm animals. But he couldn’t see past the end of a chicken run in terms of the implications of anything he said.
His first line of argument I called “The Frances Moore Lappe”: we should plough up the pasture land in order to turn it into arable land, and plant crops on it. But we tried this before, in many regions of the world, and the result was dustbowls. Much pasture land is a delicate eco-system of plants, ruminants and light soil. If you plough it, it flies away in the wind, resulting in topsoil loss, and not much else. It’s not made to be cultivated. It’s made to be grazed. As such, its only contribution to the food system is as grazing land. Marginal land that can’t be used to grow grain and other crops can nevertheless be used by animals for forage. And humans can then eat those animals.
This brings me to a second point: what about the rights of wild animals? If you plough the forage land and the pasture, you lose their ecosystem. Mice, voles, hawks, small wind-blown plants with delicate flowers. The vegan appeared not to care about these species at all. He was all for cows, but not for cowslips. Many people are surprised to hear that soy, so beloved of vegans, is the bloodiest crop there is, when harvested. Soy combine harvesters are massive, and they trap rabbits, mice, hares, voles, rats and other creatures in their blades. Tofu is tainted with their blood. So is any grain harvest, but soy is the worst.
And here’s another thing: soy, like corn, is 90% genetically modified. Eat soy and you fatten Monsanto. You support agro-business, mono-cropping, genetic modification, and the monsterization of food. Your soy is nowhere near locally grown, it’s flown and trucked around, and over-processed, and you know what? It’s not even good for you—soy was sold to us as a health food by the agro-business lobby, but in fact, it has been linked to breast cancer. Raw foodies won’t touch it.
But none of these is the most critical argument. The most critical is that the growth in demand for soy (along with the demand for McDonald’s burgers) is directly leading to the destruction of the Amazon rain forest. It’s being razed so that the land can be converted to grow beef and soy. If you care one iota for this planet and the species upon it, you will boycott soy (I’m assuming you already wouldn’t be caught dead with a McAnything) for this reason. The Amazon is our oxygen generator. It’s our wild pot of gold in terms of its rich variety of species. And it’s home to indigenous tribes whose world is being burned to the ground…so we can eat tofu and drink soy lattes, while congratulating ourselves that no chickens died for us this week.
I don’t mean to disrespect Frances Moore Lappe, whose work has inspired me for years. I agree that we need to modify our diet in order to promote the planet we want, which I hope for all of us here is one on which most people eat enough. But veganism is not the way to go.
I was brought up in China and in the Mediterranean. In both places people eat primarily unprocessed food based on plants, supplemented with a little animal protein. This is the diet I follow. Meat has a role in it. A few ounces of chicken per week is much healthier for the planet than soy. Chickens can be locally raised, eat scraps and forage, and have a small footprint. Same with pigs.
To live is to die. To live is to cause other creatures to die. To produce milk you have to kill male calves. To harvest grain you kill small critters. Jain monks wear a face mask to avoid inhaling gnats and carry a broom to sweep the ground in front of them clear of spiders and other small scuttlers. Does any of us go that far?
So let’s get real. It’s time for a sensible diet and a soy boycott.
Tags: agriculture, diet, food, soy, vegan
Jun 20, 2009
Wow! Insightful to say the least, and I am impressed by your ability to see more than one point of view. I am inspired.
Jun 22, 2009
I totally agree with you that some vegans are clueless about the broader implications of their actions while congratulating themselves for not consuming animal products (VegNews magazine comes to mind, although I think they do agree with you about soy in particular). Good for you for calling them out!
I’m a “flexitarian”, in part for environmental reasons, and I would like to suggest that soy vs. meat is not exactly a neat dichotomy the way it’s presented in this article. If you stop eating meat, it doesn’t mean you have to start substituting soy. And especially if you just reduce your meat consumption (as I believe we all should, for the sake of the planet) rather than quitting entirely, you don’t need to add anything new to your diet at all.
Your points about soy are really interesting. It definitely seems worth looking into these issues further and considering cutting it out or at least being mindful of these problems when we do eat soy. A further implication of the article is an argument in favor of eating more locally — most of us are able to do that, to varying degrees.
Jun 22, 2009
While your comments about the ecological destructiveness about soy are true (processing, rain forest destruction, GMOs, etc.), your blanket remark about veganism being “toxic” and not the way to go (as if it is necessarily bad) are dead wrong. You are ASSUMING that all vegans, like the person you mentioned, necessarily eat soy, whether as a major or minor component of their diets. That is simply not true. There are most certainly vegans and vegetarians who do, but while well-intentioned I believe they can be almost as misinformed and uneducated about nutrition as the average meat eater. There are many veg*ns who choose not to eat things like tofu and fake meats for the very reasons you mentioned, plus the fact that it’s just plain HEALTHIER. An ideal vegan diet – no, an ideal human diet, because we are made to be herbivores, period – is a balanced one that includes a variety of plant foods, fruit, grains and some beans, but NOT processed or genetically modified foods. At the very least, if one eats soy, it should be small amounts of organic, fermented and not heavily processed tofu and fake meat products. I would advise you to be more careful about your assumptions, presumptions and blanket statements. And you may also want to learn a little more about humans and their ideal diet, starting here: http://www.vegsource.com/veg_faq/comparative.htm
Jun 22, 2009
To boycott soy you must boycott commercially raised animal products. “Nearly 80 percent of the global soybean harvest is milled into animal feed, according to the Worldwatch Institute.” (http://www.nature.org/magazine/autumn2007/features/art21918.html) It’s ludicrous to pretend that all that soy is being grown to feed a few vegans. Sure, chickens and pigs CAN be raised in your backyard on scraps, but with very few exceptions they are raised is massive, polluting factories. “Eighteen percent of all greenhouse gasses are produced by the livestock industry.” (http://www.emagazine.com/view/?4264&printview&imagesoff) So just because you used to work with an irritating vegan don’t try to say that a vegan diet is bad for the planet.
Jun 22, 2009
Why use modern agricultural products at all? Nature and/or God (depending on your worldview) gave us perfect vegan food: fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds. Grains are toxic to us and to the animals we feed them to. Soy and grains are NOT required for a vegan diet! Let’s get back to eating what we used to pick off trees – and plant a few more trees and vegetable crops! Nevermind that trees protect the soil, improve our air – and use less water. Healthier land, cleaner air, healthier people – a win-win-win in my book.
Jun 22, 2009
The argument presented about soy is I’m afraid long since discredited. The majority of soy is eaten second-hand by meat-eaters, not first-hand by humans. I believe the figure is that about 70% of all soy (and around 90% of all soy protein) is used for industrial animal feed. At least half the calories and protein in the soy will be lost to the human food chain thereby.
The Vegan Society has calculated, from peer-reviewed figures, that a well-planned, nutritious and exciting vegan diet needs only one third of the fertile land, fresh water and energy to produce of the current typical UK diet. This will leave more land and richer habitats for other species.
It certainly should not be necessary to plough any pasture, which can be left for wild grazers.
Jun 22, 2009
Great info in the comments about the majority of soy being used for animal feed. In addition, even when cows are pastured, they still go to feedlots and are fed corn/soy to fatten them up (for 6 months?) before slaughter.
Although most cropland is used for growing animal feed, overtilling and soil erosion, especially in hot climates, is still of great concern to us all. That is why many organic and veganic farmers are turning to no-till or shallow tilling methods.
In addition – most vegans I know who still do eat soy, buy organic. So no support of Monsanto, gmos or herbicices here!
Jun 22, 2009
We’re all on the same side here. I’m a vegetarian of Japanese descent, and non-GM edamame is something I eat 2-3 times a month. The tone of the article is unfortunate in that it places me on the defensive. The real villains are not tofu-eating vegans, nor is it necessarily Monsanto (as much as we all love to hate them). Agribusiness models have failed us and destroyed the planet, and it’s up to us to present holistic sustainable alternatives, not brash assumptions and blanket boycotts.
Jun 22, 2009
I dread wading into this overly emotional issue but I do have questions. My nephew and his fiance(non-evangeical vegans)visited last week and I got to read VegNews for the first time. I felt angry for days. I am a meat eater who has reduced my consumption considerably with one or two days a week being my current goal. (am I the only one who finds life answers evolving?)
However, my train of thought was not about the choice but about the idea of choice. I have struggled to understand the tide of fundamentalism that has consumed our planet and many of the lives on it for decades now. Religious fundamentalists, economic fundamentalists, political fundamentalists and now I find I must add dietary fundamentalists to my list of groups who believe that there is only one right, decent, moral, ethical way for everyone to live. They’ve done their homework and reached their conclusions and now exhibit the self-righteousness of the converted. How is it people feel so entited to choose for others? All others? Do we really need more divisiveness? In order to believe you are right must everyone else make the same choice?
My other quetions have to do with the rights of animals. Do they have a right to live? I am assuming many species bred for food production would be elimated (naturally of course but not allowed to breed). Do they have a right to be fed? I don’t, I have a right to food I think but generally I have to earn my daily bread. If I feed the cow, chicken, pig etc and provide a comfortabe living environment is their milk, honey, eggs not a fair exchange – for me to consume or sell to earn my money which I spend part of on them as well as myself? Can I not buy my foodstuff from such a steward? I understand people drawing the line at eating their flesh and the use of their body after death but I do not understand their care without reciprosity. I personally don’t believe such a system is sustainable. As I see it, life is about relationships and they are about exchanges.
I think it is very hard to care about animals and be a meat eater. And I think it is possible. I find the distinctions other make profoundly human-centric and they don’t work for me. If I choose to live consciously with the morality of my decision why do people need to convert me? One god, one government, one diet, one economy. It doesn’t feel wholistic it feels empty.
Jun 22, 2009
“To produce milk you have to kill male calves.” I’m not quite sure what you are getting at with this statement. And you do realize that vegans, for a variety of reasons, choose not to consume dairy products, right? I think I can confidently say that “To produce milk a female cow must birth a calf – male or female.”
Jun 22, 2009
Thank you for all of your comments, and all the differing opinions.
You are right, I was making generalizations (otherwise I’d have gone on for pages) but I was counting on you all to put me right where you think it was needed, and you did. I am continually amazed at the amazing knowledge of people on this site, and the range of opinion within the sustainability community.
My ideas are much influenced by permaculture, and the questions it raises. For example, if we don’t use animals for farming, where does the manure come from to regenerate the organic farmland land? Plus we are manifestly not herbivores–we evolved omnivorous teeth, and if we eat a strictly vegan diet we lack vitamin B12.
My comment about the male calves is based on the fact that if you are going to eat a lacto-vegetarian diet, you still cause the deaths of the male calves, who have to be culled. The females are kept to raise as more milk cows (or sheep/goats). In the days when I was a lactovegetarian, this horrified me out of eating milk.
You are right that it is our toxic agrobusiness system that is the real culprit. Personally I eat a very little free range, grass fed, locally raised meat, and no fish since they are being eaten to extinction. I like Stephanie’s food forest idea.
Jun 22, 2009
You are way off base.
As the owner of a small local tofu company, I can assure you it is not “soy” that is the culprit, but large corporate agriculture/food production. We by directly from small, local, organic farmers. These guys don’t have combines. They are not burning the Amazon. They are providing local foods and local jobs. As are we. If you buy corporate foods you get corporate problems. Generalizing and trashing a whole industry because you knew one wacky vegan is childish.
The only way to change the world is to provide positive information, that is clearly stated. Not convoluted hear-say. I noticed you didn’t address how much water it takes to grow and process one pound of beef.
How about land usage for a plant based verses meat based diet? Since most folks don’t live on a farm, what about transporting all that beef?
How about the amount of grain that goes into feeding all those animals?
There are many issues to be considered. Maybe it would be good to do so before starting a boycott on a whim.
Jun 22, 2009
Great article and one I have believed for a long time. I have worked with many vegans and I’m always amazed at the hypocrisy. One vegan will not wear leather shoes so she buys her shoes at Payless that are made by 12 year old children in Pakistan and India. I cannot understand advocating child labor in defense of a cow. I use a good karma technique. I only eat range free locally harvested organic eggs. I eat range free organic chickens. I buy my fruits and vegatables at farmers markets and I rarely eat processed food. Again – most vegans I know eat mostly processed food. One vegan I know won’t eat honey. 25% of our honey population is gone. If we bought more products with honey then respect for honey bees would be there and the populaiton would grow and besides – a honey bees job is to make honey! It is NOT harming the bess to eat honey….. The idea of being vegan is a joke.
Jun 22, 2009
While I find your views interesting and almost refreshing in the face of all the “evangelical vegan” propaganda I face on a regular basis, I’m disappointed by the lack of sources you have provided.
Opinion is great to start discussions and make people consider alternate viewpoints, but you’ll certainly have a hard time convincing anyone of anything without research to back it up.
Jun 23, 2009
what about organic soy? is that modified and irresponsibly-grown as well?
Jun 23, 2009
Seems everyone has already taken you to task on this article, but two more for you:
Culling male calves (often to make veal) is a practice found in the big dairy agrobusiness. On more sustainable farms, however, cows are treated better with more productive years of giving milk and less turn-over and subsequently less calves to be culled.
On vitamin B-12, I like to remind people that bacteria are the source of this vitamin, not animals. It is produced by certain types of bacteria that thrive in our lower digestive tract (unfortunately, we don’t absorb the nutrient there). So how is it obtained? It is very unpleasant to talk about, but you must somehow eat poo! Meat-eaters get it because animals eat poo (yes, I am aware of a somewhat special case with ruminants, but they aren’t that hygenic either). Poo, poo, poo! A study was conducted many decades ago in Iran where poor peasant farmers living a vegan diet had adequate B-12 levels, and the reason discovered was their copius use of night soil for growing vegetables. Personally, I like to get my B-12 from synthetic sources where it is produced by these same bacteria but in giant laboratory vats and then refined, but your mileage may vary.
Jun 23, 2009
On the one hand I have also experienced evangelical vegans (and vegetarians, for that matter) who really irritated me. On the other hand, I think you are boarding on being evangelical against them. I bristle when I see statistics cited in an article such as this because statistics do not tell the whole story. This is the quote you got my dander with, “soy, like corn, is 90% genetically modified. Eat soy and you fatten Monsanto. You support agro-business, mono-cropping, genetic modification, and the monsterization of food. Your soy is nowhere near locally grown, it’s flown and trucked around, and over-processed, and you know what? It’s not even good for you—soy was sold to us as a health food by the agro-business lobby, but in fact, it has been linked to breast cancer. Raw foodies won’t touch it.”
1. I don’t know about your sources that say 90% of soy is genetically modified and is the “bloodiest harvest” we do. But, I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s close to reality. What bothers me here is the insistence that the soy conscious eaters eat is part of the agri-biz complex. All the soy I eat is non-GMO, sustainably farmed organic bean. Show me one vegetarian or otherwise conscious eater who buys any other soy product for their table. The 90% of soy that is genetically modified and bloody is the soy grown for the fiber for manufacturing all sorts of things from car seats to bio-fuel; for feed grain, etc.
Boycotting organic soy destined for our tables and bellies will only serve to further reduce the support for sustainably grown farm products like soy! What we need to be looking at is the impact of the use of the non-organic products that at the end of the chain. Once again: choose your meat wisely if you eat it. MacDonalds’ cows are not fed organic feed stock, what a surprise! Most of the meat you buy at your major grocery store (say, Stop and Shop) was raised on the cheapest, most plentiful mass-produced grain available – don’t buy it. The bio-fuel problem has already hurt food prices, never mind the demand it has created for more soy and corn to be mass produced.
2. The reason raw foodies won’t touch most soy products might have something to do with the fact that most soy food products are, well, _cooked_! Tofu is not a raw food! A raw foodie will avoid it because it is cooked! Claiming they don’t eat it because it’s dirty soy is just wrong. Soy milk is not a raw food! I don’t know anyone who eats raw soy beans, but that would be raw. I am pretty sure a raw foodie who wants to have raw soy can get organic without too much effort. If they can get raw cacao from the Amazon, they can get organic soy beans.
3. I disagree that a few ounces of chicken a week is healthier for the planet than soy. A blanket statement like that is just weak debate. 2 8 ounce tubs of tofu is healthier for you and the planet than a the same amount of chicken bought at stop and shop. Again, it’s how we choose what we choose that will make the difference, not a blanket declaration that eliminating commercial demand for soy will be a major leap in the cause for saving the planet.
4. Think back to the grape boycotts. Cesar Chavez saved many lives by bringing our attention to the plight of the migrant workers and the diseases the crops they were harvesting caused. What did we really get out of that from a consumer-point-of-view? Choice. We now choose organic grapes over conventional. We also get to choose organic soy over conventional. Choosing organic soy will be a much stronger economic vote than eliminating it.
5. Monsanto is not responsible for my choice of tofu and soy milk. How my body feels after drinking cows milk and eating cows cheese drove me to find an alternative. Go figure, I feel better after a nice tofu and veggie sautee over brown rice than I do after a home-cooked steak from a free range Angus with organic potatoes. I still eat steak. I feel better when I sautee tofu. I think White Wave is doing a good thing. They have commercialized responsibly farmed soy products and made them accessible to the masses.
I will conclude by reiterating that it is our choices that will ultimately make a difference. Finding better ways to meet our demand for conventional/commercial soy is vitally important to the survival of our future generations. Soy as a plant offers so many assets it would be tantamount to throwing out the baby with the dirty bath water because we haven’t figured out the best way to get the most benefit out of such a useful plant.
Jun 23, 2009
Thanks for your article Rachael.
It really doesn’t matter what our diet preferences are, everyone’s entitled to their own dietery beliefs. The most important thing is not to be WASTEFUL when it comes to eating animals or plants. Wastefulness is the culprit of Earth abuse. Eat moderately and avoid processed food and meat from animal factories altogether. Eat only healthy animals. Eat mindfully.
Jun 24, 2009
humans are not ‘made’ or ‘designed’ to be anything. we make choices in conjunction with environmental pressures and either live or die.
Jun 24, 2009
MCDONALD’S FOR THE WIN!
Jul 03, 2009
The human species evolved as an omnivore. As such meat plays a crucial role in the human diet, for example the only form of vitamin B12 the human body can process comes from red meat. B12 is very important to our bodies, as without it many hormones cannot be triggered.
In addition, fat in the form of saturated fats (mostly from red meat and fish, but available from Coconut Oil) is essential for the human body to process fat soluble vitamins, minerals and enzymes. As for fish, it is so toxic now that I no longer eat it, except for the fish lower on the food chain, such as sardines, herring and mackerel. Give me a good bloody pastured steak from beef, bison, venison or lamb. Much healthier, especially if you buy it directly from the farmer or at your local farmers market. Consuming local meat, raw dairy and veggies in season are the best way to save the planet.
Funny how ignorant many vegans are about the requirements of the human body and their own bodies.
For more information check out “Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats” by Sally Fallon and for more information on why soy is toxic to humans and other issues related to the human diet and health, check out natural doctor, Dr. Mercola’s website at http://www.mercola.com.
Peace,
Jim
Jul 05, 2009
As Jim pointed out, we are omnivores. One only has to examine our teeth to see the design: tearing teeth in front and grinding teeth in back. It is what it is. One may wax eloquent one way or the other on veganism or whatever but facts are facts.
Jul 05, 2009
P.S. I agree with many in that we should NOT be cutting down rain-forests … or forests anywhere for that matter. I laughed/cried when I first heard someone wanted to build “electronic” trees to suck up CO2. This is just a thinly veiled attempt to further pick the pockets of the taxpayers by corporate moguls trading on the fears of ignorant ecofreaks everywhere to leverage legal might into more corporate profits with little or no benefit to anyone least of all the planet. Instead of spending tens of millions of dollars on more gadgets to enrich the favored few, plant millions of trees and not only will they suck up CO2, they will release 02 (which we all need) as a bonus. It’s all in the design folks. If we can just stop twittering and texting long enough to notice. And what can be said about all the buying and selling of thin-air, also referred to as CO2 credits? Just more insanity similar to buying H2O in plastic bottles for $8-$10 a gallon when it comes out of the tap most places in the US for pennies. [If your water is that bad, dig a new well or hook up to the municipal water or install a filter for crying out loud.]
Aug 05, 2009
Great, great article. Since my mother was vegetarian for over 40 years, she ate a lot of the processed soy products – like the fake soy sausages, etc. I only realized in the last few years how deadly these were – and how processed all the soy products are, as well as being Genetically Modified.
I used to love soy milk, but have moved over to Rice Milk and Almond Milk, in moderation.
Thanks for the article!
Diana
Dec 05, 2009
Strangely, many happy hearts beat in Asian countries! Many more than in America! Smaller, lighter bodied, little folk! Vegan folk for economic reasons mostly – they live long, productive, creative, loving, happy, lives even without McMansions and SUV’s, without soda pop, without potato chips and color TV’s, Great fancy steak dinners, Turkeys once a year and great Christmas festivities with piles of gifts – in fact, they live on much less than the average American! The problem with farmland of America is the Great Hulking American Neanderthal, spawn of force-feeding for the rapid exploitation of the easy resources, now gone from America, and he too faces extinction by enrollment into Armed forces, or busing one way out of New York City Centers, by the Uber-Rich there to the boon-docks of America and an uneasy existence in Hoovervilles, Tent Cities, Shanty Towns and Tar Paper Shacks at villages’ edges – to languor on part-time and temporary employment until disenfranchisement by the American Medical Cartel, and disease takes over, he dies, without even clean dressings for weeping cancers, without even morphine for pain! The United Nations too intimidated to investigate this travesty of humanity – Even Simeon Weisenthal Foundation tight lipped, not counting the young Jews dying this way, proffering I suppose the good mileage the press gives them touting 60 year old German Jews dying quickly, humanely in gas chambers as opposed too the young American Jew – dying in cold slum rooms, no dignity of a fast, humane death afforded! The fact is: The great Hulking American Neanderthal is unsustainable! Even by American standards he no longer has a use! He includes the “Smoke Stack Era”, the “Industrial Era”. the “Manufacturing era”’s “legacy Workers” and most their ineducable low mentality large bodied “Foot Ball Star” offspring! Great sorrow America! Greater shame than Nazi Germany ever had, once the story is told! Human lives created bred and sacrificed for ROI by the banker’s equations, mot medical science at all! Once they are all gone, America can re-build in sustainable fashion, and keeping in line with her new place in the world, “Third World” at best, now that the international Cartels have raped her, the Oil barons had their way with her, the Asians draining her dollars away without reciprocating! Polluted, salted fields, stinking lakes, great green and grey rivers with no life, we will star again like a Phoenix, and rise wise enough by education to destroy the world again, but wiser by experience to maintain the sustainability and agricultural good sense to chasten the Banker, drive the money changers from our temple, America !
Dec 06, 2009
You don’t seem to have carried your arguments to their logical conclusions. You make it sound like pastureland is better for the environment than land used to grow plants… but WHAT exactly do you think cows eat?? You forgot to mention how many pounds of grain must be grown (soy included) in order to produce one pound of beef. Also are you actually under the delusion that all cattle still graze in pastures? They eat grains and are lucky if they ever walk on grass in their entire lives. They eat the same grains that “support agro-business, mono-cropping, genetic modification, and the monsterization of food”. So how much GM corn and soy are you inadvertently eating every time you consume a steak??? I guarantee my one glass of silk is less harmful to the environment than your hamburger… not only for the gm grains fed to the cow, but for the pesticides used on the cattle feed, the manure polluting the water, the antibiotics and artificial hormones injected, the thousands of gallons of water used to produce the cattle’s grain diet and water that the cattle drink directly.
EVERY argument you used against plant-foods can be turned around ten-fold on the plant-foods used for animal feed.
The fact is, the world currently produces far more plant-based foods than are needed to feed every human on earth. The problem is that most of that food is being fed to animals. A pound of meat is worth more money than the grain required to produce it, so we let people around the world starve while people in the more wealthy countries enjoy their high-meat diets. I do NOT believe that everyone should become a vegetarian, because the variety of foods most vegetarians eat is a luxury most people in poor countries do not have. Unfortunately they don’t get much meat in their diet so they end up suffering from nutritional deficiencies either way.
If less meat was eaten, less land would be needed to feed livestock. Most vegetarians don’t have a huge problem with grass-fed cattle, it’s the factory farmed cattle on grain-diets that suffer the most, and the environment suffers from that system as well.
Dec 06, 2009
FYI: B12 only comes from one source and it is not meat. It comes from bacteria. B12 is found in meat because the bacteria thrives in the meat. However the bacteria form of B12 is so commonly added to cereals and other foods that the average american will not suffer from a deficiency, vegan or not.
Secondly, take a biological anthropology course and tell me our teeth are made for eating meat. Gorillas have the same basic teeth as us, only with massive canines… and they are herbivores! You do not have teeth like a cat or a wolf, and if you DO you seriously need to see a dentist.
Dec 06, 2009
Well, i have to say luci said pretty much what i was conjuring in my head when i read this. I have to reiterate one thing that drove me nuts to see written in this article. The amazon being cut down to grow soy that vegans eat is dead wrong. Most of the soy grown in the amazon is grown to feed livestock; it isn’t even the same variety of soy that people eat (just like livestock corn is virtually inedible by humans).
I also still have a few things to say about free-range chicken. First of all free range usually doesn’t mean much. To be certified as free range it often means that a company merely has to have a door open to a small fenced in area for the chickens to have access to for a few weeks in their adult lives prior to slaughter. Because access to the free range area comes later in life most chickens never utilize it because it is unfamiliar (ie perceived as dangerous to an animal). You are probably better off going local with foods because local farmers often run small operations and many are organic or free range but don’t have the money to certify themselves as such (it’s extremely expensive).
Dec 06, 2009
The dishonesty in this article is amazing. Even with all of the comments already showing exactly why the entire premise of your argument is wrong, you haven’t even put up a disclaimer on the article. And before you say “What do you mean”, what I mean is that your argument is that vegans are destroying the planet by eating soy, even though the majority of soy is grown to feed animals. Not to mention that vegans are much more likely to buy non-GMO soy products.
Dec 07, 2009
Your article is built on flawed logic. It’s almost written as if you have the conclusion (you will eat meat no matter what, dammit) and everything was cobbled together to pretend to prove it.
Let me just take your first arguement about creating dustbowls by going vegan. First problem is that if we all went vegan, we’d get by on about 1/7th the land we need now. What I think you don’t understand is that to make a pound of meat, that food had to come from somewhere. Cows do not photosynthesize their own food from sunlight, sorry. Cows are inefficient. To make a pound of beef, you’re throwing about 6-8 lbs of grain into him. If it’s grass, multiply that even higher because grass contains so few calories per pound. Skip the cows and eat the plants directly. Voila! Imagine where food is so plentiful, prices drop. Imagine where we can afford to turn marginal land back into wild prairie or other sustainable use. You’ve also removed BILLIONS of tons of manure out of the watersheds and drinking wells (and yes, even grass-fed cows poop). You’ve removed one of the largest sources of greenhouse gasses; 28% of greenhouse gasses are from livestock in the US. See the bigger picture? You’re freeing up land, cutting pollution, cutting fertilizer requirements… and the side effect in you, the human, is your saturated fat intake drops so you’re less likely to keel over from a heart attack.
“Meat” and sustainable are mutually exclusive terms.
Dec 08, 2009
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Andy Cowley, OctoberRiot. OctoberRiot said: Interesting indeed RT @crazygibbon: Interesting, veggies and vegans beware… http://tr.im/H49w #fb [...]
Dec 15, 2009
Thanks for the article.
To attack any dietary group based on generalisations is folly. Poor choices are always going to have a negative impact, however the non-meat eating community has always been more vocal and articles like this help redress the balance.
There should be more distinction when calling anyone who eats meat a ‘meat eater’ since it’s pretty rare to find anyone who lives solely on meat, though there are some who do with very few of the adverse side effects often bandied as a consequence of losing fruit and veg from the human diet. Conversely these groups rarely find themselves taking synthetic supplements to make up a short fall. This is especially true when organ meat is part of that diet.
For anyone promoting world wide vegan eating as a solution to world famine, you need to look at the bigger picture. We’re overpopulated because of socio-economic and political issues which aren’t going to change because of a change in diet. Even if a worlwide vegan diet did solve the problem it would only be delaying it for long enough to reach the new limit to human population.
Dec 15, 2009
hmm
WRONG
Reading this S _ _ T
i can assume that you sir don’t know nothing about ecology AND evermore about vegans
hint: SEARCH before post those kinda of things, 90% of soy gos to animalsfarm
amazon is not an oxigen generator! THE OCEAN IS (alga, seaweed)
take care
Dec 21, 2009
These are certainly good points and like mentioned soy is not the miracle food it was once perceived. I think we need to get away from extremes on both sides.
Feb 23, 2010
THANK YOU!! saving the rainforest stopping deforestation is so important! eat brazil nuts, don’t eat soy.
Feb 23, 2010
oh and @ Jason…
the ocean is an oxygen generator but it is not the only one, and it certainly isn’t the only significant. the amazon rainforest produces 30% of the world’s oxygen, and we can’t live with only 70% of our oxygen, especially as the population sky rockets. plus as the trees are slashed and burned massive amounts of co2 are released into the atmosphere which is extremely detrimental to air quality