Re-thinking the meat guzzler

A great post and a great article. As an Orthodox Christian, I came to the conclusion that I needed to only consume animal products that came from humane sources (grass-fed, raised with traditional animal husbandry methods). It is becoming easier to find meat raised this way, but as you point out, it is expensive. As a result, my husband and I are almost vegetarian (my husband, an evangelical Christian, believes the same as I do). It took some getting used to, as we are both meat lovers.

Another consideration is that with the entry of cloned meat into the market, and no way for us to determine if the meat bought at our local supermarket is cloned, becoming vegetarian or purchasing meat from local farmers seems like our only option.

Huzzah! Comments are back!

Anyway, for once I whole-heartedly agree and sympathize with Rod. I married a vegetarian 6 years ago, and while I haven't become a vegetarian myself, I have probably cut my consumption of meat by about 80%-90%. I'll buy free-range/grass-fed steaks a couple times a year, and amish chickens every now and then. And apart from my occassional weakness for genoa salami, I've pretty much ditched pork products for good. Factory farmed meat is wasteful, horribly polluting, and wantonly cruel. I grew up as an avid hunter and fisherman, and I'm near-convinced that no one should be allowed to eat meat unless they have personally killed and cleaned an animal for the table at least once in their life.

"Factory farmed meat is wasteful, horribly polluting, and wantonly cruel"

It is also the only way to meet the meat demand. If you backed off factory farming and agribusiness you wouldn't be able to feed everybody - let alone produce surplus.

Rod, I'm with you. I grew up in the livestock business in the Midwest, and worked for ranchers in Montana. Eating meat is an essential part of my culture and heritage, and I'm proud of it. But anyone who truly appreciates eating meat should be disgusted by the industrial, factory-style production of meat. Fortunately, alternatives are increasingly available. Here in Oregon, our local burger chain (Burgerville) uses only beef from a cooperative of local ranchers who rely almost entirely on grass to feed their cattle and don't administer hormones or antibiotics. It has been a smashing success. Or, you can buy organic beef at the local supermarket (even Safeway, etc) or buy a half of beef directly from a rancher. Beef from such "happy cows" is more tasty, and when we buy it we contribute to healthier ranch families, healthier rural economies, healthier ranchlands and healthier animals. Its a way to vote with our pocketbook, to help move agriculture in a more sustainable direction. It's also a way for us, as Christians, to walk our faith talk. If we genuinely believe that God created the world and charged us with its stewardship, we must order our lives (including our eating habits) accordingly. If we dismiss concerns over food production as tangential to the Christian message, we risk falling into the trap of gnosticism. Properly understood, Christianity is an earthy faith, and requires that we infuse every aspect of our life with a faith perspective.

Rod,

Good post on the evil that our dollars authorize by proxy. By the way, I can't get to that Bittman article for love or money, but it may be a problem on the Times as I couldn't get to it from their site either.

To fgp--how is industrial meat farming not one of the "human problems" you refer to? Cruelty, greed, and waste, whether indulged firsthand or by others at my bidding surely harms not just the animal but also perverts the human community that authorizes such.

but animal abuse just doesn't bother me nearly as much as all the human problems that are out there.

This is probably the reason why Bittman focused on the ways our carnivorous ways negatively impact people instead of the animals. Lots of people agree with you. Myself included to an extent.

The problem I have with this is as Rod stated I don't want to be complicit in an evil system. The question for me becomes "Is all energy put toward the alleviation of animal suffering misplaced when there is still one human suffering?" I don't think it is. Especially when I can help, without much effort, (sacrifice yes, in the form of money and eating meat less often) reduce animal suffering by eating meat that comes from humane farms. Like the one Rod has blogged about http://www.windymeadowschicken.com/

fgp, you're missing Rod's point. He specifically said that he doesn't think eating meat per se is wrong. His complaint is about how that meat is procured.

I recommend hunting and fishing too. My husband and I enjoy doing both, and currently have a freezer full of venison and wild hog. We eat everything we catch or shoot, and it's all organically delicious!

Rod, thanks for your post. Absolutely encourage you to give this a try. In the early 90s, I began experimenting with the "natural hygiene" approach to health and nurition and for several years avoided all meat in my diet. I substituted fish and tofu to provide protein. My physical stamina and energy increased dramatically. I am no longer a strict vegetarian but still rarely eat red meat.

Some of the economic arguments you very expertly made bring to mind a popular book published in the late 1970s (?) by Francis Moore Lappe entitled "Diet for a Small Planet." If you have not already, you might try to access that work for further insights.

Like you, I grew up enjoying meat products of all kinds (steak, kielbasa, hamburger, etc.). I have fond memories of Sunday family dinners with visiting relatives and the traditional roast beef at the center of the table. It is NOT easy to wean yourself from that habit ... but it is well worth the effort. It will also require support from your family and a shared commitment to this effort on their part as well.

Good Luck, Rod ... and please keep us posted on the "ups and downs" you experience with this :-)

As far as when the eating of meat began, it seems that it was not allowed by God until after the flood Genesis 9:3-5.

Or soon after hominids bagan walking upright and making crude stone tools 4 or 5 million years ago, but who's counting?

As far as when the eating of meat began, it seems that it was not allowed by God until after the flood Genesis 9:3-5.

It may not have been allowed before the flood, but it is inconcievable that people didn't eat them unitl that point.

It's encouraging to read so many thoughtful, open-minded comments on this subject. I too was an enthusiastic carnivore for years, and despite much family pressure did not want to give it up, but then saw the documentary "Peaceable Kingdom," about a farm sanctuary in upstate New York, and found myself questioning my implicit support for the horror of factory farming.

As Bill noted in the comments above, it's not just some consumers who are disgusted by factory farmers: it's many farmers, too. (The environmental consequences are vast as well, but easy to overlook. If we had to see what is happening, I'm confident most people wouldn't stand for it.)

I was also influenced by J.M. Coetzee, the Nobel Prize-winning novelist, who makes cruelty to animals a central theme in his great novel "Disgrace." Comparing cruelty to animals against cruelty to humans at some point becomes meaningless: pain is pain, and cruelty is cruelty. Factory farming is legal but in time may become insupportable -- not unlike slavery, once upon a time.

Yay for comments! I was starting to break out in a rash.

Anyway: I came to this conclusion myself about 5 years ago. It has been a slow painful process to convince my family and husband.

My family is made up of Hunter/Fisher people. I loved it then; would still do it if I didn't live on the Main Line, which is about as far away from Hunter/Fisher'ville as you can get. Rod, I think you wrote about this: most hunter/fisher people have a profound respect for wildlife and the environment. This is the argument that finally allowed my family to see my veggie point of view. When I go home, I still eat venison. (Oh crap, now I'm hungry.)

Trader Joe's thankfully has a lot of organic/no hormone/no cage products. The price is a bit prohibitive, but I feel better about it. As a side note, the texture of tofu kind of freaks me out. I have a hard time with it.

I can't wait for summer and the return of the Farmer's Markets!

If you have room in your backyard for a dog, you have enough room for a chicken. An egg a day takes care of an adult's animal protein requirements.

fgp: "Sorry, Rod, but I think part of the problem is that people (like myself) just don't want to spend the time or energy to deal with this. . . "

The United and Walmart in my area sell a variety of 'cage free' egg and an organic variety of milk - I can't always spring for milk, but I always get the eggs. (I'm fresh out, so I can't tell you the brand right now). Also, the upper-end United in my area sells a variety of humanely raised pork products, (bacon for sure, maybe some other cuts). My point is it's getting easier to make some of these choices - just keep your eyes open. Switch out one thing at a time as they become available - after awhile buying that particular brand/product becomes a habit.

Really thought-provoking posts, folks. Taking off on the post concerning hunting and fishing: when you think about it carefully, probably the most environmentally defensible way to eat meat is to harvest it yourself from wild critters. From that perspective, the hunter is the premier advocate of free-range, organic, sustainable meat. However, hunting is frowned upon by most urbanites and suburbanites, and the numbers of hunters are dropping steadily even here in the West. I do wildlife law for a living and much of that involves hunting regulation. I've come to appreciate good hunters. There are such folks out there, who carefully follow the laws, who adhere to strict "fair chase" ethics, who appreciate the creatures they take and who make use of virtually the entire carcass. Plus, many work Christian spirituality into their hunting. And biologically speaking, appropriately calibrated hunting seasons and bag limits (based on good scientific data) ensure that hunting won't push the species into threatened or endangered status. I'm not a hunter, but I've come to respect responsible hunting. Yet, when's the last time you heard a sermon or read a devotional meditation on the Christian approach to hunting? Unfortunately, the clergy has gotten increasingly urban and suburban, and has lost touch with most rural values and activities. Wendell Berry complains about this. When my dad was young, his church's hymns included many that alluded to agriculture ("Bringing in the Sheaves," etc). But no more. Our society has distanced itself from the production of food, and the church has largely gone along with that. The average Christian has little understanding of the agricultural imagery in the Bible itself.

FGP,

None of the examples you've given contradict my point.

For example, God's making clothes from animal skin may indeed be a sign of his ultimate redemption, but the killing of those animals was still made necessary because of their rebellion.

Even a tragic action can be a symbol of God's redemptive plan. This seems especially clear to me with regard to animal sacrifice. The taking of their lives was a tragedy that was made necesary by the presence of sin in the world.

Just as slaying a lamb for the sins of a nation was a somber, serious act, so ought are slaughtering of animals for food be.

Before y'all give up on meat, please do note that mindful farming practices, often even for produce, depend on livestock to maintain soil health and fertility. So your eating a little meat helps support those farms' ecosystems.

And in my experience, pasture-raised meat and eggs are so delicious and satisfying that I actually find myself eating less of them, counterintuitive as that may seem.

Completely agree! I will be giving up meat and dairy during Orthodox Lent, as my church requires, but I don't want to be understood as urging people to quit eating meat and dairy altogether. I think that we could all probably stand to eat less of it, and to take the money we save and put towards buying better versions of same (i.e., pasture-raised beef, free-range chickens).

"A farmer selling eggs for $1/dozen is losing money. He is subsidizing his egg business with income elsewhere and I highly doubt he is making a profit." -- Dave Chirico
I agree, and I always encourage farmers like that to raise their prices to a profitable level. When they go to the mechanic, they're paying $60/hour like anyone else, but they have a hard time thinking they themselves deserve to make good money. Like everyone else, they've bought the mindset that food should be cheap and plentiful and there's nothing special about it that makes their labor worth as much as another businessman's.

Still, as you said, the quality meat you sell costs a "little extra." I don't think it has to be "unaffordable" the way Rod is saying. I've seen reports that families typically spend 30-40% of their budget on housing and as little as 10% on food. A few decades ago, those numbers were practically switched. As cheap food policy has kept food prices lagging well behind inflation, we've simply shifted much of that part of the budget to things like bigger houses and more toys. There's no reason we can't shift back a little.

When I became pregnant with our first child eight years ago, one of my first "symptoms" was an fierce craving for steak. I devoured meat for nine months and felt so much better eating it that I never went back to vegetarianism.

My vegetarian wife craved turkey sandwiches from Boston Market the whole time she was pregnant with our first child. She said it still grossed her out, but she had to have them.

We had some acreage and chickens for awhile, and try as I could, I really coudn't tell the difference between fresh eggs from our chickens. We gave them some feed, but they were uncaged and free-flying (as opposed to free range - in fact, they took up roost next door because they liked the neighbor's big tree, and we lost our free eggs!) chickens, so they ate whatever came natural to them.

Rod's post prompted me to check on the Laura's beef (ground) we usually buy and found that the steaks, at least, have been mislabeled to show a lower than actual fat content. Kroger used to carry Nolan Ryan beef, but that's not totally organic - they withhold antibiotics for 100+ days before slaughter. I haven't found grass-fed beef in our stores, nor in Sprouts in Lewisville. Maybe I'll have to order online.

I have bought goat at the Indo-Pak store. It's halel slaughtered (not quite kosher, but something like it), but I don't know if it's raised organically. Goat is great - very lean and mild - my favorite way is broiled or grilled.

Anybody know of fresh sources of grass-fed beef in the Carrollton/Lewisville area? I assume Whole Foods and/or Central Market might have it, but those are a bit of a drive for us, and The Cupboard in Denton (which probably has them frozen) is overpriced.

On another (related) note:

Seattle has passed an ordinance allowing in-city goats, if you have a proper fence. Apparently they realized that goats make cheap and non-polluting lawnmowers.

(Plus, Seattle is overrun with blackberry bushes - they are a noxious weed there. Goats make short work of them!)

If people or communities here were allowed to keep a few goats and some chickens, it could reduce peoples' dependence on stores and feedlots for eggs, meat, cheese and milk. Goats will eat you out of house and home in short order after they have babies, though - when all the newborns came at once, they stripped our front acreage bare in no time, and once they tasted expensive alfalfa hay, there was no getting them to eat coastal hay anymore!)

Sometimes progress is not progress.

Wow! There have been 40 posts with nary a disagreement, and, miraculously, nobody has demonized Rod. There's something to that, and I'm still trying to figure out what it is. Food brings people together.

"Cheap" food isn't really cheap. By the time you figure in the government subsidies that ulitmately support big agribusiness and are financed by government debt; the cost of rampant health problems; dependence on foreign oil to power our whole food-growing/production/distribution system, the word is that is that "cheap" food is really more expensive.

Perhaps an awakening in America concerning this topic will bring something like the family farm back into fashion, sustainability, and profitability.

Dean, how do you account for this:

"But the father said to his servants, 'Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let's have a feast and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.' So they began to celebrate."

This is from Luke 15, the story of the Prodigal Son. The father in the story represents God the Father.

Here you see the redemption necessitated by sin. That of course is serious and somber. But the father's reaction is not one of sobriety, but one of joy. The prodigal son returns, and the father responds with "bring the fatted calf and kill it." That doesn't sound tragic to me. The father (God) is joyful when a sinner repents.

The calf, of course, is a type (picture/symbol) of Christ, who was slain for our redemption. Just like the passover lamb "without spot or blemish."

I apologize to those who are not interested in these things. But there is a Biblical view of eating meat with joy.

As ironic counterpoint to Mark Bittman's essay from Sunday's NYT counseling dietary fleshdown, comes a piece today by Paul Lukas highlighting the survival in northern New Jersey of the traditional New York beefsteak, or civic mixer at which each attendee's Hoovering great Everests of tenderloin honors a lineage sketched in this historic fleshback:

from "Gluttonous Rite Survives Without Silverware":

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/30/dining/30beef.html

"Back in the days before cholesterol testing, beefsteaks — boisterous mass feeds featuring unlimited servings of steak, lamb chops, bacon-wrapped lamb kidneys, crabmeat, shrimp and beer, all consumed without such niceties as silverware, napkins or women — held sway in New York for the better part of a century.

The ritual was documented by the writer Joseph Mitchell for the New Yorker magazine in his 1939 article 'All You Can Hold for Five Bucks.' As Mr. Mitchell told it, the beefsteak came into being in the mid-1800s, became popular as a political fund-raiser and vote-buyer, and began a slow decline when women started taking part after being granted suffrage in 1920.

Mr. Mitchell’s essay has become something of a Rosetta stone among fans of old New York and carnivorous foodies, prompting considerable hand-wringing among those born too late for the beefsteak era...

Along the way, some protocols developed, most notably the habit of stacking the accumulated bread slices instead of eating them. This routine saves valuable stomach capacity for more beef while simultaneously serving as an informal scorekeeping system to determine how many beef slices the person has consumed. At some beefsteaks, the person with the biggest stack wins a prize.

The Nightingales have made only a few changes since the early days: They now dip the meat slices in margarine instead of butter ('Butter can burn more easily,' Rob Nightingale explained)...

'Some people — usually women — try to dress it up, make it more than it is,' Rob Nightingale said. 'They’ll want a pasta course, or antipasto. We’ll do it if that’s what they want — you know, business is business — but it’s not the same.'

Ah, yes, women. Their attendance at beefsteaks has been controversial for some since the 1920s, and that gender gap apparently persists today.

'A man isn’t inclined to eat as much if his wife or girlfriend is watching,' Rob Nightingale explained. 'After their 15th or 18th slice, she kind of gives him the look and makes him stop.' (Mr. Mitchell put it more succinctly: 'Women do not esteem a glutton.')...

...Nutley is only six miles south of Clifton. But it’s over the county line, in Essex, which in beefsteak terms means it may as well be in Kansas.

'Whenever I travel, whether down south or wherever, nobody’s ever heard of the beefsteak,' Mr. Argieri said. By 'down south,' he meant southern New Jersey."

>>>
Goats will eat you out of house and home in short order after they have babies, though -
Posted by: Eric W | January 30, 2008 3:36 PM
>>>

Cabrito! Yummy...

>>>>
...the problem is the lunatic derangement of industrialism itself, capitalist and socialist alike, the mechanisation of the human body, soul and social economy to machine rhythms, the full flower of the whole Cartesian-Newtonian heresy.
Posted by: Scott Lahti | January 30, 2008 4:24 PM
>>>>

Hear, hear!!

Dr. Weston Price found that of all traditional diets vegetarianism had the shortest lifespan. Healthy traditional cultures incorporated lots of raw, high fat animal foods into their diet, especially for pregnant women.

As my priest says, "If God didn't want us to eat animals he wouldn't have made them out of meat."

Nicely said, Scott L.

Dave

Then there's this from an anonymous "Talk of the Town" essay in The New Yorker for June 25, 1990, which a librarian there attributed for me to Berton Roueché, the magazine's master of medical mysteries:

AND another friend writes:

I am a frequenter of old cemeteries, enjoying their tranquil beauty and what Emily Dickinson called their "marble stories," and the other weekend, when I was down in Southampton, I paid a visit to its North End Graveyard . North End, the second-oldest cemetery in that venerable village, had its first burial in 1717 and, in the peculiar jargon of the trade, was "abandoned" in 1940. It is a small cemetery, of hardly more than a couple of acres, and containing perhaps two hundred graves, but as I strolled under its pines and cedars among the wandering rows of weathered headstones I found a plenitude of stories: "Died at sea." "Died in California in 1851." "Served in the Union Army/in the war of the Rebellion." There were the pathetic commonplaces of those distant times: "Æ three months, three days." "Aged one year/Seven months & eight Ds." "Æ six mo., eleven dys." And there were the beloved wives: "Æ twenty yrs." "Æ twenty-two." "Æ twenty-seven yrs., nine mo."

But then I became aware of something less expected: "Hervey Sayre/Died/March 23, 1880/Æ 83 ys. & 4 mo." "David White/Died/Nov. 16, 1866/Æ 95 yrs., 10 mo." "Robert Woodburn/1824-1908/Jane Oakes/His wife/1828-1916." "Ephraim Hildreth/He dy'd Jan. 16, 1771/in the 83rd yr. of his age." "Merritt Culver/Died/Sept. 15, 1879/83 yrs. & 11 mo." "Gamaliel Marshall/Died/June 16, 1837/Aged 69 years." "Fannie E. Parker/1846-1933." "James M. Laing/May 13, 1834/Dec. 9, 1924." And there were more, many more, of the same. I sat down on an accommodating marker ("Æ 78") and wondered. It was painfully easy to understand the deaths of those infants and the somehow even sadder deaths of those young women --- young mothers, most probably, and victims of a then almost endemic puerperal fever. But the others? I wondered how one could account for so many survivals into the later seventies, into the eighties, even into the middle nineties. Those old farmers and fishermen and shopkeepers and housewives lived out their long lives without the death-defying medications and surgical interventions that are the triumph of late-twentieth-century medicine. What gave them that strength and stamina?

It seems probable that many of the men used tobacco in some form --- in a pipe, in a cigar, as a chew. (For most, the cigarette was yet to come.) They used alcohol. They drank beer and rum and maybe whiskey, and, very probably, not all of them always in what we would today call moderation. What else? There is ample evidence that both men and women ate well --- off the land and out of the sea. Well and abundantly. They ate meat and potatoes. The meat was bacon and ham and sausage and chicken and beefsteak, and they ate it fried in lard. Potatoes were usually fried, and served with fried onions.

They ate fresh fish (fried) and shellfish when the weather permitted, and at other times they ate salt cod and smoked eel. They drank whole milk and used plenty of heavy cream and butter and eggs and cheese. They ate the local fruits and vegetables in their natural season. They shot and ate migrating ducks and grouse in fall and spring. They ate pancakes and johnnycake and samp and doughnuts and plenty of rye bread (made of stone-ground flour) and biscuits and pies and cakes and cookies, all baked with lard. Oranges and lemons were luxuries, and grapefruit was still in the future. Oats were something they fed to their horses. They drank well water. It was plain fare, simple fare, and probably a bit monotonous. It was also a diet that the National Institutes of Health, the American Heart Association, and the American Cancer Society would consider not much short of toxic. So what was different? One thing came immediately to mind. These were for the most part men and women who worked with their hands; their work was physical labor. Even the shopkeepers cut firewood, dug gardens. And they all walked.

Quote:
===========================
I think maybe a far better view of this is to say that we're stewards of the wealth that God entrusted us with, and eating excessive meat is financially irresponsible, and a hazard to our body (another gift we steward) as well.

This seems too limiting in lumping non-human creatures in with ''wealth'' (unless you are using "wealth" in a very abstract way that encompasses creatures, "Permanent Things", our history/culture/traditions, the planet, our spiritual environment, etc. -- i.e. all things that have some value or meaning for us)

============================

By wealth, I meant... "wealth". Money. Savings. Value.

What's with all the convoluted stuff, anyway? Meat is expensive, to say the least. It isn't good for us in any sizeable quantity.

What more needs to be said? That's all that's required, for us to know that we need to look at what we do and make judgements about it.

All of the considerations mentioned do not measure up on iota against the taste of a good hamburger.

Once I saw a innumerable chickens packed into a mass-production facility...a creepy and grotesque scene. Rural folks told me disquieting stories of what goes on in such places. I forced myself to stop eating meat because I didn't want to support cruelty. Also, in a family with serious weight and cardiovascular problems, my vegetarian diet helps keeps me healthy and fairly slim.

Some people have to eat meat to survive, but that is generally not true for us in the West today. For those who buy mass-production cheap beef, be honest: unflinchingly examine what is happening in those facilities. Make an informed choice one way or the other. However, I don't have a problem with people who raise animals, and give them a life worth living before killing them without cruelty.

That moral and intellectual giant, John Paul II, has this to say:

"animals possess a soul and men must love and feel solidarity with our smaller brethren."

Rod,

This came in across the transom this morning. Thought it might be of interest.

Cheers,

Basil Seal
The Cow and Acres

Okay, comments not mediated, right.

Very well. The Cow and Acres blog is here.

Just ghastly, embarrassing...

Basil

One last thought: although I respect the viewpoint that says most contemporary Americans should reduce the amount of meat in their diet, we probably should realize that the answer may depend upon what type of work they do. Our forebears (who ate gobs of meat) mostly worked outside from before sunup to after sundown. My farmer and logger grandparents were like that, and the amounts of meat they ate was prodigious. However, they remained slender and healthy. My granddads said meat helped them keep going. But now, of course, most Americans have jobs that are largely sedentary and indoors. Perhaps we should cut some slack for the folks who do still survive by the sweat of their brow doing outdoors work. They probably deserve to eat more meat than I do (though I would continue to urge them to buy local, sustainable, ideally organic, meat wherever available).