[PLUG-TALK] Vegan diets do not benefit the environment...

[Jason Dagit]

On Sun, Jan 4, 2009 at 5:51 PM, Michael Robinson
<plug_1 at robinson-west.com>wrote:

> Supposedly, if you don't eat meat you reduce dependency on foreign oil.
>
> That would be great if it were true.  It isn't, all mass agriculture
> uses internal combustion based farm and delivery equipment.  That
> means biodiesel or diesel based tractors and trucks.  How much
> biodiesel?  Well, only the portion that the tractor uses most likely.


As Michael Pollan explains in Omnivore's Dilemma a big nasty cycle that we
have going on in the US is the one of commodity corn.  Farmers grow corn as
a cash crop and they add tons of fertilizer to the crops to make it more
bountiful (and help offset the problem induced by growing corn again and
again on the same plot).  This isn't the corn that ends up in the produce
section either.  This corn is a comody, it's low grade and it is either
broken down futher into things like high fructose corn syrup, used as feed
or it goes it other house hold products.  The fertilizer production
consumers fossil fuels and so does the transport and application of the
fertilizer.  Now once you add in the tractor and the fuel cost to transport
the corn it turns out that you are actually at an energy deficiet per
calorie of corn.  Factor in the cost to process corn to break it into high
fructose corn syrup and it gets even worse.  Even worse is when you feed
this corn to livestock such as steers and chickens.  Scientists say that
there is about a 9 to 1 ratio of calories for the meat you get out of this
process.  That is, you put in 9 calories of corn and get 1 calorie of meat.
What this means is, we are multiplying the calorie deficiet.

Hopefully my explanation shows you that there are multiple solutions to this
problem.  One of which is to eat lower on the food chain.  Permaculture is
another, and actually much better, way to achieve the goal.  Another
solution would be to fix the motivating factors.  Michael Pollan explains
how the New Deal was rewritten at some point and the result was this cycle
of commodity corn.  Perhaps we should revise it again so that farmers don't
have incentive to create excess corn.


>
> There is also the issue of getting all your nutrients without eating
> meat and eggs.  There is many an anorexic vegan.  This is not healthy
> and I hope noone is suggesting that everyone should become anorexic.


I would say that the argument you just made is an example of the slippery
slope fallacy:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slippery_slope

One thing you're not taking into account is that there are plenty of
anorexics that are not vegan or vegetarian and plenty of non-anorexic vegans
and vegetarians.  So, what you need to establish to make this point is that
veganism leads to anorexia.  Note that showing a link, or correlation,
wouldn't be sufficient here; you need to show cause and effect.


>
>
> "Therefore, an HIV-positive individual may need additional protein,
> calorie and vitamin B12 supplementation (since vitamin B12 is found
> primarily in animal foods). "


And right before that sentence they said, "People on vegetarian diets
generally have reduced incidences of cardiovascular disease, cancer,
diabetes, hypertension, and gastrointestinal abnormalities."


>
> from
>
> http://www.jamaicaaidssupport.com/information/nutrition/diets.htm
>
> Look also at:
>
> http://www.chetday.com/strictvegandiet.htm
>
> http://www.second-opinions.co.uk/vegetarian.html#link1
>
> Okay, the argument that only cows and sheep and buffalo
> ( grazing animals ) can make use of a significant portion of the earth's
> surface is true.  Try to plough shallow soil that has volcanic rock
> under it.


And yet we feed many of the grazing animals that people in the US eat with
corn :(  They should be eating what God (or evolution, take your pick)
created them to eat, grass.


>
> As far as the runoff from the feed lot problem, that shit can be used
> to produce hydrogen.  Yes, hydrogen.  Methane gas is a feedstock for
> producing hydrogen.


While we can reuse a bit of the problem here treating the symptom would be
better.  Our agriculture is big and consolidated these days and it's having
negative effects.  We shouldn't have to use tons of fertizer and
antibiotics.  Putting nutrients into the growing process is one thing, but
we have industrialized things too far.  The organic movement started as a
way to find a better solution but sadly modern organic labels don't mean
much in the big picture.  Again, permaculture is better here.  To reiterate,
one of the main problems is simply the extreme to which we have taken
things.


>
>
> The visitor's fiancee was vegan, don't know why, and everyone wants
> to commend her for doing something good for the environment.  I don't
> buy that vegetarianism is good for the environment at all.
>
> How does vegetarianism address the problem of irrigated land becoming
> covered with salt?


Any industrial form of agriculture is going to be bad, but some habbits and
lifestyles will have greater impact than others.


>
>
> Try to grow grain in the high plateau region of the Andes.


Sounds fun, but I doubt I could give up my day job to try it.


>
>
> Want to do something good for the environment?


Yes!


>  Encourage the
> development of factories that turn waste into ethanol, hydrogen,
> and other biofuels.  At least biofuels don't put carbon dioxide
> into the air that wasn't already there if you can remove fertilizer
> and petroleum based fuels from their production.  The corn subsidies
> for ethanol need to stop and a move to cellulosic ethanol needs
> to begin in earnest.  Tractors need to be converted from diesel
> to be fully electric or fuel cell based.  A tractor doesn't need
> to go 200 miles, so the range problem goes away.


The above sounds fine to me but it's outside my area of expertise.


>
>
> I think the biggest difference for the environment though would be
> eliminating the 30% of oil imported that goes to agriculture
> replacing it with something clean.


And that's a good reason for people to support CSA:
http://www.localharvest.org/csa/

The food doesn't have to travel as far for one.  It also gives you the
ability to checkout the farmer's methods to see that you agree with the way
they are running the show.

Jason
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