Meat is good
Home » Blog » Meat is goodYou lose me when you imply that meat eating is a no-no from an environmental point of view.
I like Good magazine, but I have a gripe. Why does Emily Perkins feel she has to live without steak? I can see that at Good you are embarking on a battle for hearts and minds, and most of the way I’m totally on your side. But you lose me when you imply that meat eating is a no-no from an environmental point of view.
It seems to me that this element of the campaign is totally unnecessary, and therefore likely to be counter-productive.
I have read your magazine from cover to cover and, though it doesn’t say so directly, there seems to be an assumption in it that “vegetarian is good, vegan is better”. It is better not to make assumptions without examining them.
I agree that it is a good idea to think carefully about what we eat, rather than just basing our habits on—habit! What we eat is very important, from the point of view of health as well as because it helps to shape what kind of world we live in. And I too am an animal-lover, and am disgusted by the ways that animals can get treated when they are caught up in a factory farming system.
I think that this kind of disgust is what propels people who would like to mandate vegetarianism or veganism—as well as reluctance to be responsible for the deaths of sentient beings. But sometimes it seems to me that these people have forgotten that we do not have any means of ensuring immortality—for ourselves or any other creature. Death is inevitable, for me, for my beloved but slightly dim-witted dog, and for my favourite cow, who is smart and wise (I think).
What matters for each of us three is, first and most importantly, that we have a good life; and second, that our death be not too hard. I can ensure that both my dog and my cow have a good life (and, in the process, enhance my own life). When my dog gets too old to enjoy life any longer, I may take her to the vet to be eased out of her life painlessly. In the case of my cow, I will probably call the home kill butcher, because I know that that will be the easiest (most sudden, unexpected and painless) exit for her. I will try to time it also before she breaks down completely, which would be distressing for her and cause practical problems for us. (I would rather be able to eat her carcass myself than have to bury it for other organisms to consume. I have buried a cow before, it was a lot of work!)
I don’t expect or demand that anybody give me such an easy exit. Humans generally have to put up with whichever kind of exit fate awards them, easy or hard. I feel strongly, however, that if we make ourselves responsible for the life of an animal, then it is incumbent on us also to make sure that both its life and its death are as kindly managed as is possible.
In New Zealand, where sheep and beef animals are raised and fed on pastures, the abuses of farm animals that I am aware of are such things as parting new-born calves from their mothers so that the mothers can be pressed into immediate service as dairy cows, and the over-stocking of farm land and consequent lack of welfare of the cows; impoverishment of animals’ social structure by segregating herds into groups of youngsters or mature animals only; insufficient provision of shade and shelter, sometimes; and of course the “factory farming” of pigs and chickens.
All of these abuses are eliminated under a good organic regime, so I think that if we work for the transition to organic farming in New Zealand, and pay careful attention to the conditions in abattoirs and slaughterhouses, we will be doing what we need to do to ensure the welfare of farm animals. Rather than abominating the job of butchers, I feel that they should be honoured for the skill of their work, in giving the animal a quick, easy end, and transforming it into the source of nourishment and pleasure for us.
I would be concerned at the prospect of New Zealand trying to feed its population without raising meat. So much of New Zealand’s land surface is not arable land, on which crops and vegetables can be grown, but more marginal land, where the simplest and most sustainable way of raising food, is to let animals browse grass and convert it into proteins.
I know that we are now faced with the issue of how to reduce the methane emissions of those browsing animals, but this issue is no longer insoluble. Besides, to replace all that protein with lentils and chickpeas would either require an awful lot of imports from the Middle East and Turkey (which, as well as running up carbon miles, are needed elsewhere in the world), or else the development of agricultural industries that we have never tried here, and that we may not have a suitable climate for. I would like to see somebody with arable land trialling chickpeas here, since I value chickpeas, but they won’t grow where my cows and sheep happily graze.
I am reminded of Bill Mollison’s advice that we should look out of our windows, and eat what we see growing there. “If we see cows and cabbages, we should eat cows and cabbbages.” North American-style grain-based farming of livestock is a totally different reality from what we have here, so please don’t try to fit the wrong mental model onto us.
I understand that the Dalai Lama eats grass-fed beef, and I am content and happy to do the same. Please don’t set yourselves up to be “holier than thou”, or than him.
May I recommend that you add to your reading list The River Cottage Meat Book, by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall?
Tue August 12, 2008 @ 12:18 PM
