Berlin Reed: Vegetarian Butcher Turned Ethical Omnivore

Mother Nature Network:

When dangerously underemployed vegetarian Berlin Reed agreed to temporarily work the meat counter at Brooklyn's The Greene Grape, he never expected that butchery would become his new career. Yet by the time temp turned to perm, Reed had found an unexpected new calling. By providing customers with meats from more humane and local sources, Reed saw that he could address the toxicity of the meat industry by changing it rather than just avoiding it.

Read the whole story: Mother Nature Network

Comments

[LyssaBarnes]

10:59 AM on 02/07/2010

Funny how some people bash meat eating and never give a second thought to the life of a plant. Vegetation is just as alive as any animal. Just because it is not mobile and doesn't make a sound doesn't mean it has no feelings.

[ProfessorBrooks]

11:20 AM on 02/07/2010

It sounds like you are a very caring person--but this comment is just silly. First, you have to eat something or you are just committing slow suicide; second, by definition, "feelings" belong to animals with a brain and a nervous system which plants lack; third, plants by nature are designed to attract animals to eat them, because they need pollinators to help them reproduce and because their seeds enjoy distribution and fertilization when animals poop them out. You are projecting animal characteristics onto plants which would actually suffer if animals did not eat them.

[grumpyfarmer]

11:27 AM on 02/07/2010

I can see the future now....once everyone goes vegan sometime in the very distant future, a new movement will emerge...PETOP...People for the Ethical Treatment Of Plants. Suddenly we will be preached to that we must find new and more humane ways of raising plants, maybe eat only plants that ripened and died. Videos will be posted on the web of baby tomatoes being sadistically made into ketchup, while they are still alive....people eating fresh salad will have sap thrown all over them..movie stars will advocate eating food totally synthesized in petri dishes..I guess people will always need a cause.

[grumpyfarmer]

09:23 AM on 02/07/2010

I think the sustainability argument sometimes is a little off the wall. Some fairly intelligent people are zeroing in on farming in general and especially meat production as being a resource hog. Mostly through better genetics and nutrition, sows produce more pigs that grow faster than ever before, chickens grow faster, cattle grow faster(and nearly all of that is due to better genetics and nutrition, not hormones) and they are all doing it on LESS feed. Not lots less, but feed efficiency has improved over the years. In the case of beef, sheep,and goats, that industry already is grass based. The fact there are commercial feedlots has enabled the anti meat left to promote the idea beef is raised on factory farms, that is not true. Almost all beef animals are grazed for most of their lives(when weather permits), nearly always on land that could not grow crops successfully.

Cattle are grain fed for 3-4 months before slaughter in most cases, and while it is in vogue to damn corn,veggies take fertilizer, pesticide and herbicide to grow as well, and it should be obvious if all the corn acres were turned to growing veggies, vegetable prices would plummet, bankrupting another generation of farmers.

I would argue based on my experience that beef/goat/sheep is the most sustainable of any system, because you are able to utilize land unsuitable for crops, and get both meat and fertilizer(manure) in return. Investment is facilities is small as well.

[BannedNBoston]

04:48 PM on 02/04/2010

Are you saying the Muslim ceremony of slaughtering a goat and roasting its flesh
as a reaching manhood event is wrong?
"Killing animals can never be humane nor sustainable."
WE GROW SUSTAINABLE GRASS FED BEEF IN NH MORE AND MORE

[MyVesta]

12:43 PM on 02/10/2010

Yes, I'm saying killing animals is unnnecessary, barbaric and wrong for a myriad of reasons.

It doesn't matter to the animal if it's a Muslim, a Christian, a Jew, a Scientologist or any other "believer" who is doing the killing, the end result is the same: the animal's life is taken purely for the purposes of satisfying a primative, violent urge.

[Brendan H]

12:01 PM on 02/04/2010

I am a vegetarian and that is never going to change, but I think that this guy has the right idea. He isn't living under delusions about how if there is sustainable meat we can keep eating it at the rate we do. He accepts the reality of meat supply without factory farms.

[MyVesta]

11:22 AM on 02/04/2010

Yet another "ethical omnivore". What a wonderful promotional technique, the thought of happy meat that one can consume "guilt free".

How pedestrian.

[ProfessorBrooks]

11:24 AM on 02/07/2010

I see you haven't become any less condescending or petulant since the last time I encountered your posts. "Pedestrian"--are you trying to sound elitist and special?

What pedantry.

[MyVesta]

12:49 PM on 02/07/2010

Who are you?

Why are you so threatened by my comment?

Perhaps you should seek professional help.

[m4rk0]

10:14 AM on 02/04/2010

Killing animals can never be humane nor sustainable. Put your blinders on and keep dreaming.

[SuperCanuck]

12:07 PM on 02/04/2010

If you are talking about the beef industry it is actually quite humane because stress has to be reduced.

[Bea Elliott]

10:26 PM on 02/09/2010

Hi - SuperCanuck

Nothing "humane" happens in the bowels of a kill floor.

"Humane" means to be concerned with the alleviation of suffering. These beings are not ill, maimed or otherwise "unhealthy". They are not in an aging pain. They are delivered "fit for living", so there is no "suffering to alleviate". And if one is truly sincere about "ethics" they would decline using the animal at all... After all, we don't "need" to.

Another thing - What if I were to give you a wonderful, happy life --- New car, lovely home, and a "good life"... But one day I decided I required something from your body... A trinket or two. And I promise to acquire this part in the most painless of ways - Would that justify the frivolous taking, any less?

These animals have a right to their lives just as an of us does. To say otherwise is to fall into the void of nonthinking speciesism... What we wouldn't want done to ourselves - no other animal wants done either.

"Tender steak" is an oxymoron. There's nothing "tender" or kind in killing when you don't have to. We don't "have" to.

[HekmagaJuximakLives]

05:49 PM on 02/05/2010

Well, now you're talking about ground horse meat, and that I won't stand for.
Delicious horse meatloaf

[amaycatbaker]

09:55 AM on 02/04/2010

Being a vegetarian is tough. Since trying to be one I have fallen hard twice. Maybe his way is a good way for some. I will keep trying not to eat meat. It is hard.

[HekmagaJuximakLives]

05:48 PM on 02/05/2010

Yes, especially when your job is baking cats.
In May.

[grumpyfarmer]

09:05 AM on 02/07/2010

That is funny.

[grumpyfarmer]

09:14 AM on 02/07/2010

I had been reading it AMY catbaker. Never picked up we were talking to someone baking cats in May.

[Bea Elliott]

10:40 PM on 02/09/2010

Hi amaycatbaker... The first week or so might be hard as you substitute different menus for ones you've eaten all your life. I was vegan before my husband, so it was a little easier for him to swing into it. What he did was "double up" on veggies --- And his transition was painless because he likes analogs... There is faux "chicken" and tvp --- as well as dozens of other choices. Everything is in the seasoning. Try eating a piece of unseasoned "flesh" and you'll see what I mean. Variety is the key - The more color on your plate the better. And just because you tried twice - doesn't mean the third time won't do the trick! There's plenty of help on the web - Here's a great site for recipes:
http://vegweb.com/
Good luck! :)

[amaycatbaker]

12:25 PM on 02/10/2010

Thank you. :)