put down that hamburger!
I am not a vegetarian; I am a “poultritarian.” People laugh at my self-proclaimed “poultritarianism,” but for the most part, I have good reasons for not eating anything but chicken, especially for cutting beef out of my diet. At first, I wanted to be a full-fledged vegetarian for moral and health reasons but I’ve settled down with cutting red meat and pork out of my diet. I guess the reason I still eat chicken is because I’m selfish and just can’t think of going the rest of my life without the tastiest source of protein (and I don’t eat any seafood because I’m not into fishy things). To get to the point, I have deep-seated reasons for not eating beef that I will try and explore in this paper. As for pork, there are no particular reasons except that I could easily cut it out of my life (well…not SO easily). And I know it may sound hypocritical to some vegetarians and omnivores alike, but unlike many people, I’ve made a sacrifice for something that I feel very passionately about. And although it may not be completely practical, it’s the principle that counts, right?
Like I stated above, I try my hardest to align my actions with my beliefs. To that cause, I have permanently eliminated beef from my diet. Like Miguel Altieri stated in his “Ten Reasons Why Biotechnology Will Not Ensure Food Security, Protect The Environment, And Reduce Poverty In The Developing World” article, we have made critical assumptions that 1) “Hunger is due to a gap between food production and human population density or growth rate,” and 2) “genetic engineering is the only or best way to increase agricultural production and, thus, meet future food needs.” Miguel Altieri, one of my favorite professors on campus, knows that these assumptions are complete misconceptions because there is no relationship between hunger and population. There is an ample supply of food on the planet to feed every person alive. The reason why people go hungry is for reasons such as “poverty, inequality, and lack of access to food and land,” (Altieri). Hunger in the face of ample food is shocking and unjust. Miguel Altieri has mentioned in an interview with Russell Schoch that hunger would immediately cease to exist if all the grains used to feed cattle were redistributed to feed people. It is an amazing statistic and fact that in the US alone, seven out of ten pounds of grain are used to feed cattle. Moreover, cows are the most inefficient converters of feed, energy guzzlers, and can be considered to be the “Hummer” of farm animals. Additionally, the meat produced in third world countries (to which we export) does not go to the people most in need; a little goes to the tiny minority of the population who can afford it, and the rest is exported to wealthy countries such as the Unites States. After I learned this, how could I ever go back to consuming a product (like beef) that keeps others in a constant state of hunger? I am fortunate that I have the choice to eat beef, but the fact that others don’t have that option is more than enough to make me never eat it again. Food is a human right. Period.
Furthermore, livestock are one of the most significant contributors to today’s most serious environmental problems. In class, we’ve discussed our ecological footprint in conjunction with global warming, focusing primarily on transportation and infrastructure, but we must consider that the livestock industry is responsible for 18% of greenhouse-gas emissions—including 9% of all carbon dioxide emissions, 37% of methane, 65% of nitrous oxide (csmonitor.com). American meat eaters are responsible for 1.5 more tons of carbon dioxide per person than vegetarians each year. Arguably, one of the best ways to reduce global warming in our lifetimes is to reduce or eliminate our consumption of animal products, especially beef. Still, changing what eat may prove as hard as changing what we drive. Of course this may be what Al Gore would call an “inconvenient truth,” because cutting down on the amount of meat we eat may prove to be even harder than changing what we drive. And although vegetarianism is quite “in” right now, there are many environmentally conscious people that will not go so far as cutting hamburgers, juicy filet mignons, and meatloaf out of their diets.
In class we’ve also discussed human rights and sustainable food systems; the consumption of beef (or the lack thereof) definitely mirrors some of these guiding principles. Like I mentioned before, food is a human right. However, the wealthy nations determine who gets too much food (think obesity in America) and those that get none (the little piggy that had none?). Sustainability, as defined by Wikipedia, is a characteristic of a process or state that can be maintained at a certain level indefinitely. The cattle industry is, simply put, not sustainable. I’ve already mentioned the human right and global warming components, but additionally, feedstock production uses one-third of all arable land. This is no way to sustain a healthy environment, and definitely no way to maintain a healthy population. Plus, like Michael Pollan and Kevin Feinstein (from our readings) have mentioned, we are at a complete stage of disconnect with our food. We need to know where our food is coming from and we need to know whom we are robbing basic nutrition from. We must always keep in mind that: “We may live in a world where universal rights proclaim that all people are of equal worth, but where you are born in the world dictates your life chances”—UNDP Human Development Report (2005).
"Protest beyond the law is not a departure from democracy; it is absolutely essential to it."
--Howard Zinn