Have you seen Alma? The breathtaking images will guide you through the heartbreaking facts about the costs of consuming meat, leather and dairy products. It's an unforgettable film.
"Greed and consumerism are transforming the Amazon into a sad and deadly place. Not only is the forest being wiped out, in it's place are cows by the millions, destined for slaughter. Ever larger soybean fields are being planted, so that ever more animals around the world can be fed and slaughtered for our consumption." Have you seen the satellite imagery of U.S. feedlots? Ninety-seven percent of the flesh from "beef-cows" that are consumed in the U.S. are “finished” on a feedlot.
There are up to 100,000 crowded steers, crammed body to body for the last six months of their short, miserable lives. They gain up to 30 pounds a week on an unnatural diet of corn, protein supplements, and antibiotics. This fattening process also produces a fiendish volume of digested matter.
One cow creates as much waste as 20 humans... Disposing of the tons of manure has become the unending chore of being a rancher. Cattle poo is saturatingour planet. Hasn't anyone heard that you don't sh*t where you eat? Have you heard carnists say "It's always been this way"? No. This isn't so at all. Meat eating has always been viciously wrong for the victims, there's no denying that, but it's never had this devastating impact on the planet and human health:
Plant and animal species are becoming extinct due to the infestation of cattle interests and meat-lust. But as the timeline above shows, this annihilation of other species can be traced to 1627 when the poor wild Aurochs became extinct, a few decades after the invasion of "livestock". "The causes of extinction were hunting, a narrowing of habitat due to the development of farming, and diseases transmitted by domestic cattle." And it's no secret that now the Buffalo species is driven to near extinction in order to "protect" cattle. What I see regarding all of it, is a whole lot of dung-shoveling and a whole lot of dead-planet.
There's another way to eat and live... It's everyone's planet. No excuses. You can go vegan.
In celebration of Earth Day I can't help but get enthusiastic about modern methods that will ethically sustain our nutritional needs. Anyone who's read my opines throughout the web or on this blog also knows what optimism I have in hydroponic food production. This along with veganic gardening and perma-culture - We actually stand a chance to feed ourselves in ways that don't destroy the planet or harm others. In rural and suburban areas I love the idea of turning lawns into gardens and I praise guerrilla farmers in cities. In residences I think someday all homes will be equipped with food stations that add ever more to the possibility of sustaining a good life on this good planet:
And even in our future galactic travels plants are the answer! Anyone can see the urgency that should motivate industrial and architectural shifts to producing good food for the generations to come.
This sustainable plant based food model might include floating barges at every port filled with all sorts of grains, legumes and leaf-foods... Grocery stores might have facilities on the roof that grow vegetables of all varieties... It would be processed on the spot and the "food miles" would be the elevator that moves the goods to the ground floor for sale and local distribution. The chaff and waste would be recycled to supply energy for the building and nutrients for the next growing crop. I mean really! Can you just envision what we could do if we shifted our mindset to what's healthier for us any way? (And also what's so much kinder to others too). So now - You may roll your eyes as I have, at the ludicrous, daft, nonsense the meat industry shows in it's attempt to take these viable, modern methods of feeding humans to ironically --- Feed cows instead! :( Greenhouse feeds gaining ground in livestock industry.
The Earth, the inhabitants and I thank you for consuming in an ethical, vegan manner.
Here ya go folks... The "science" of eggs as demonstrated through common animal agriculture practices. Starving and gassing 50,000 hens - if not for the amazing rescue by the heroes at Animal Place.
And here's the real science of plant based Beyond Eggs:
Beyond Eggs ingredients include peas, sunflower lecithin, canola, and natural gums. In addition to being vegan, it's also gluten free and cholesterol free. More info on Beyond Eggsand here. And don't miss your opportunity to sign up for a free sample!
Today is Occupy Our Food Supply blog-action day... It's a shame that aside from a link to the CAFO book, the tag cloud doesn't mention one word about the nonhumans, the animals, the "livestock" or the meat... But here in my little piece of it all - I will!
But no, I won't be supporting any Willie Nelson/Chipolte happy meat... Not only does that clash with my ethical view of how we should treat others, but I also know that such pastoral systems are myths. And any attempt to obtain meat, milk or eggs from such idealized settings is unsustainable. Corporations will always reduce their practices to the most "efficient" and cheapest methods:
And if we're talking about fairness to humans, Food First’s Frances Moore Lappé asks people to imagine sitting down to an eight-ounce steak, and then, “imagine the room filled with 45 to 50 people with empty bowls ... For the feed cost of your steak, each of their bowls could be filled with a full cup of cooked cereal grains.”
Just as one illustration of how inside-out our food system is Bangladesh poultry farmers are protesting the rising cost of chicken feed meanwhile here in the U.S. 50,000 hens were starved because the "owner" couldn't afford to feed them. :/
What I see as a solution is obvious - Adopting a plant based diet makes more go around for everyone... Grow a much of your own food as you can... A bit of soil, water and sun goes a long way!
Anything that breaks away from the animals-as-food-notion is a step in the right direction.
Kindness and compassion towards all living beings is a mark of a civilized society. Racism, economic deprival, dog fighting and cock fighting, bullfighting and rodeos are all cut from the same defective fabric: violence. Only when we have become nonviolent towards all life will we have learned to live well ourselves. - Cesar Chavez, civil rights and labor leader, founder of the United Farm Workers
I thought my last post about the AFF here in Florida would be my last story on this "disordered" organization... But finding this short Hoosier Ag Today podcast, interviewing a AFF teen changed that. Note that the first few sentences indicate that it is "consumers" and economics that are of the most interest to agriculture. No surprise there... The clip also says that vegan and animal rights advocates are "aniti-agriculture", as if we didn't consume food too. But surely they've got that all wrong!
Young Morgan Dawson states that the population will nearly double in the next 40 years and that agriculture has to devise "new ways" to meet food demands. With this I couldn't agree more!
My thought however is to do things in complete reverse of what's being done now. Currently, we have billions of animals crammed inside warehouses... And countless thousands of acres of crops grown outdoors.
Now, indoor animals must be regulated with electronic "climate controlled" facilities and many drugs.
Indoors their waste accumulates to a point where air quality around factory farms is inferior to major cities. Raising animals indoors is wasteful in water and energy use. And of course it's downright torture for these beings! Talk about "intensive confinement":
On the other hand, plants that are raised outdoors take up vast swaths of land. These are vulnerable to weather conditions. Crops must be sprayed to guard against instects and "pests". And there is also collateral damage done to wildlife that find these foods suitable for their meals too.
Now --- What if we revolutionized the system, removing animals from their indoor prisons and put plants there instead? What if all the grants, fundings, "pork" and favors that go to producing "livestock" were to go to inovative new forms of high-tech food production instead?
Many such systems are on the drafting boards and blueprint stages but of course without sufficient economic backing they're having a challenge in being realized. But here's a few that are built and already producing food with closed loop energy systems:
The Science Barge in New York uses state of the art computer technology and an agricultural technique called hydroponics to grow fruits and veggies using much less water and space than field farming.
The Eden Project that is what it's name implies.
The Sahara Forest Project, that is also a restorative technology.
And look what a green marvel is being built in Newark, New Jersey:
Imagine what kind of future we could have if we planned communities that were sustainable within their own environment and location. Housing units where people could literally obtain their food in the same building that they lived in. No trucking food for hundreds/thousands of miles... Food that also supplied energy to your building would only be steps away. Now that is projecting into the future!
There are a lot of ways that we can make the next decades be bountiful, clean, safe and wholesome environments for both humans and animals... One of my favorites is the brainchild of these young group of "future farmers of America" who created a hydroponic plant by converting (of all things!) an old meat packing plant. Indeed this concept Conscious Vertical Farming 312 AQUAPONICS is Phoenix rising from the ashes:
Granted... I know some of these systems still depend on sea creatures to produce fertilizer. But we humans also generate an abundant amount of waste too, that could be used instead, as the technology advances... Thus eliminating our need for "water treatment" plants... Or nearly so. Genius - Isn't it?
So, you live in a rural area... In a home not a high rise --- Nourishing food could be grown in these systems by building them on top of grocery stores! What a site to see our foods living on the roofs of the supermarkets we shop in! The possibilities with this future are endless, sustainable, and most of all allow all living beings their unharmed and *unviolated* place on this earth!
If there was ever a way to provide a secure, peaceful co-existence with the planet and each other surely this is it! We don't need "glass walls" in slaughterhouses! We don't "need" slaughterhouses at all! Glass walls that could protect our real food and our survival is the way to go for "future farming" in the world.
