Posted on 11/02/2008 3:36:07 PM PST by Abathar
Eating less meat is one of the most effective steps any of us can take to fight climate change, as Nicholas Read points out in his insightful article in The Vancouver Sun last week.
However, as he demonstrates, despite evidence that intensive meat production contributes significantly to global warming, and to further threats to public health and environment such as water pollution, most citizen and environmental groups play down the issue. They ask people to walk more and turn off lights, but usually steer clear of the meat question.
As an educator working on this issue, I can concur that the Eat Less Meat message is a hard sell, even for groups dedicated to sustainability.
Why the resistance? Both for sustainability professionals and for their audiences, some people understandably just don't want to eat less of foods they enjoy. Others consume animal products out of habit or convenience, or because they believe meat-eating conveys sophistication, or affluence, or virility.
But one key source of resistance to the Eat Less Meat message is a belief, even among some environmentalists, that food decisions constitute a sacred kind of "personal choice" that society cannot, or should not, seek to influence.
This argument doesn't stand up to analysis.
Deciding what to eat is no more personal choice than are other consumption decisions. All are shaped by culture, family and habit. We are not born craving chicken wings or pork chops. Humans' innate food desires are for salt, fats and sugars, which can be obtained in many ways and do not require much, or any, meat.
When people buy beef burgers rather than veggie ones, it is partly in response to years of ads and special-interest messages that animal products are delicious, nutritious, and necessary to health -- all of which are debatable.
(Excerpt) Read more at canada.com ...
You can pry my prime rib bone from my cold, greasy, dead hands before I stop eating meat.
This argument doesn't stand up to analysis. "
You can go suck on your cold commie potato then, our whole existence as humans has been for a cheap, reliable source of meat and protein.
If God did not mean for humans to consume meat, then He would not have created animals. Humans are carnivores, but the left cannot even grasp that fact. I have a couple of words for them, and they are not Happy Thanksgiving.
Oh man does that look good!...
I happen to think I do eat too much meat. That being said, I don’t think it’s long before some idiot in government will try to make it his/her business. And when that happens my reaction is going to be, eat twice as much meat.
This politically correct nonsense is becoming epidemic, and it’s time we start rising up and start butting some heads over it.
I think I’ll cook up a steak and feed it to the dog!
because Americans don’t like to be told what to do... many of us still like to exercise our right to choose for ourselves... and we know that many of those in the upper echelons of American government, who like to tell us how we should live, will not live that way themselves...
I think we need a slightly clearer explanation of why eating meat causes global warming. Is it all those cow farts? If so, let’s hook them up to methane collectors, by all means.
If God doesn’t want to eat animals, then why did He make them out of MEAT?!
“want us to eat animals” is what I meant...
wouldn't the answer be to consume more cows? that way they will not be passing methane?
You can pry my prime rib bone from my cold, greasy, dead hands before I stop eating meat.
Amen to that brother.
These morons can take their veggies burgers and stick them where the sun won’t shine on them...
I’ll take my steak medium rare, thank you.
“You can go suck on your cold commie potato . . .”
Don’t even think about what that thing sucks on.
When I read this “As an educator working on this issue” I knew not to waste any more time. When I want the opinion of an educator, I’ll give it to him/her/it.
He went to a North Carolina barbecue place and ordered chicken. I mean, he just ain't RIGHT.
Because, as Denis Leary once said, “Meat is murder...and murder is pretty BLEEPin’ tasty.”
Because there are just going to be some aspects of my life you are not going to control, you effin' busybody.
I am going to keep on wolfing down high-fat pork sausage patties, just to make the food nazis crazy, and to eternally offend the Muslims. If this means we are also adding to the carbon footprint, so much the better.
I just do not see a down side.
You know, if we raised cattle like we do veal, that would actually work.
Vegans: the other white meat.
It just ain't happening.
I have serious doubts about the coming ice age global warming climate change, so that isn't a concern for me. If it turns out to be true, we had better start terraforming Luna and Mars.
Survival of our species can be a helluva incentive.
...snip...
They ask people to walk more and turn off lights, but usually steer clear of the meat question.
Don't waste electricity and walk, when reasonable, for your health. Has nothing to do with being an econut.
...snip...
because they believe meat-eating conveys sophistication, or affluence, or virility.
Maybe it's because meat is yummy? Yeah, I know, crazy idea.
...snip...
food decisions constitute a sacred kind of "personal choice" that society cannot, or should not, seek to influence.
This argument doesn't stand up to analysis.
There we go. Control!
I've recently discovered ground bison at my local Safeway. Lovin' the stuff! :D
Nonsense.
When people buy beef burgers rather than veggie ones, it is partly in response to years of ads and special-interest messages that animal products are delicious, nutritious, and necessary to health -- all of which are debatable.
I just had some great roast chicken. So shove your nonsense where the sun don't shine.
Sure , I could have had a tofu patty, but why, when sirloin is available?
Choice, it's a wonderful thing.
Because meat is tasty, silly. And we humans are biologically programmed to eat it!
Just a tasty pork roast w/ caramelized fennel and onions, roast potatoes with garlic, and acorn squash w/ butter, cinnamon and a bit of brown sugar. Yum!!!
Ms Boyle:
It could be because your entire philosophical mindset was created for you, as a non-thinking, knee-crawling, neo marxist useful idiot by those who’s entire motivation is the destruction of our culture, society and national sovereignty.
You know, the useful idiot thing as defined by your great Thought Boss himself, Uncle Joe. Those stupid enough to swallow whatever propaganda the rabid left spews out and are therefore useful in bringing about the anti-human abomination of socialist utopianism. The same folk who are most usually the first to be put up against the wall and slaughtered by that same socialist utopia due to their demonstrated willingness to believe anything, no matter how incredibly idiotic and therefore, always potentially falling for someone else’s idiot crap and kicking off a counter revolution.
Or it could be because veggie burgers taste awful. They try to make them taste like beef by adding artificial smoke flavor but for really disgusting flavor, try an imitation chicken burger. Yech!
“if we raised cattle like we do veal”
Aren’t veal the cattle we raise like veal? I know, tongue in cheek.
Get your grubby hands out of my wallet and I might be able to afford those expensive veggie burgers. Of course the chicken I just had was sooooooooooo good.
Fennel is actually one of my favorite vegetables (yes, I know I'm weird) - can you give me some details on this?
"Vegetarian" An old-west term for "bad hunter."
“Why is the ‘eat less meat’ message such a hard sell?”
Because they are not saying, “with less meat, eat less mash potatos and gravy and less cream spinach.”
We are not born craving chicken wings or pork chops.
We aren’t?
Could have fooled me.
Why this liberal drive to turn man into a herbivore?
Herbivores are #2 on the food chain.
Maybe you could strap on portable methane collectors, and harvest them once a week or so.
The more meat you eat, the fewer cows there are standing around producing methane, SO EAT MORE MEAT!!!!!
Why is the 'mind your own business' message such a hard sell?
That to me is the big question.
if meat eating were just a matter of choice, why did so many or our ancestors go to such extreme and dangerous lengths to organize hunts?
“Eating less meat is one of the most effective steps any of us can take to fight climate change, as Nicholas Read points out in his insightful article in The Vancouver Sun last week.”
Errrrr.... wrongo buckaroo. If you eat less meat, the environment will get worse not better. More methane will be generated by bovine blasts which will hurt the ozone.
I love the Libs unintended consequences.
Vegetables are what food eats.
If they were only harvested once a week, the methane balloons would lift them above the grass and they would starve. The cows will have to be perpetually confined. Kind of like a permanent milking machine, only attached elsewhere.
“However, as he demonstrates, despite evidence that intensive meat production contributes significantly to global warming, and to further threats to public health and environment such as water pollution, most citizen and environmental groups play down the issue. They ask people to walk more and turn off lights, but usually steer clear of the meat question. Why the resistance?”
The simple answer is that these environmental groups don’t want people to understand the real costs of their agenda until it is too late. They want people to sign up to ‘reducing global warming’ which they will use as a mandate restricting all sorts of personal choices. They will then claim that they are only doing what people asked them to do. If the ‘environmentalists’ ever had to admit exactly what the costs will be, they will lose.
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