If you want to start a fight, just raise this question in a mixed group of meat eaters, vegetarians and vegans!
One of the core problems modern Western people have is that we've forgotten that the rest of nature is alive. This is why we feel free to mistreat the land, the plants and the other animals -- to the point where we're actually destroying our own life support systems and those of thousands of other creatures.
Many indigenous peoples have been trying to tell us for a long time that this arrogant attitude just doesn't work in the long run. The Lakota Sioux talk about the animals, plants and the rest of nature as "all our relatives" -- and perhaps this can give us a different perspective on the whole question of if and/or how we devour these relatives.
For of course there is no life for us if we don't do what every other creature in nature does: eat our relatives -- even if it's only our plant relatives. But it's HOW we go about doing this that's important. Do we treat them as inanimate, dead objects just here for human use or as fellow sacred beings with whom we share this fragile water planet?
It may shock hardcore vegans and vegetarians to know that growing their food involves killing or displacing other animals. Any home gardener or farmer who grows veggies and fruit must compete for that harvest with some of our "relatives" who would like to eat it before we do: the gophers, insects, rats, deer, raccoons, rabbits, moles, voles and more. In fact, merely clearing land to grow our favorite veggies and fruit destroys the habitat of many other animals and native plants -- both above and below ground. This is why there is now a growing movement in agriculture to leave a certain percentage of every farm for wildlife. Finding humane ways of removing or killing these competitors is a huge ethical and practical challenge for the farmer or edible gardener.
Organic gardeners and farmers have also learned that other animals -- the "beneficial" insects, worms, fungi and other soil creatures -- are absolutely critical for human survival and that of our favorite foods. These allies become the grower's treasured friends, and harming them with chemicals and unfriendly soil practices becomes out of the question.
The "should I eat meat or other animal products?" debate is incredibly complicated. Quite apart from the health consequences (and research is trying to get us answers to this issue but most studies don't yet distinguish between eating healthy organic, humanely raised meat, eggs and milk vs. eating factory-farmed animal products), what are the ethical considerations? Is it possible to find a way to allow animals the freedom to live as they were evolved to live and at the same time use their products or flesh to nourish ourselves? Is there such a thing as a humane kill?
And do animals have "rights"? And if so, rights to what? This is becoming a hotly-button political issue.
And what about waste? Is it ethical to kill an animal, eat part of it and throw most of it away? Studies are revealing that a shocking percentage of food in wealthy nations is thrown away -- perhaps the ultimate disrespect of the animal's sacrifice. What makes it worse is the millions of people on the planet who are starving.
Perhaps the answer to all these thorny questions lies in a renewed understanding of humans as one animal species among many. If we see ourselves once more as an integral part of nature instead of a completely different and superior entity, hopefully we can find a way to be part of the whole but in a truly "humane" way that is worthy of the great gift of consciousness we have been blessed with.
So if we do choose to eat animal products, we need to do so with the attitude some indigenous cultures recommend: recognition that cow, pig, chicken, deer, corn and worm are all sacred creatures worthy of respect as we interact with them -- and even as we kill them. In some cultures it is a traditional practice to ask permission from an animal or plant before we hunt, pick or eat it; and to express thanks for its sacrifice. Perhaps this is the least we can do before we take life or milk or eggs -- for the survival of our children and the human community.
By the way, I am very familiar with veganic permaculture. It's not permaculture. It has as much to do with permaculture as vegan chick'n has to do with chicken. I can honestly say that I have been genuinely amazed by how many former vegan farmers that I have encountered who went back to farming with animals, and eating animal foods, after learning the essential importance of animals in any truly sustainable system of food production. Biodiverse systems are the healthiest food systems.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJ--faib7to
Sorry to have to burst your bubble, but virtually all of the plant foods in the world are either grown with animal inputs (organic agriculture) or toxic and completely unsustainable chemical inputs, largely derived from petrochemicals (industrial agriculture). Considering that incontrovertible fact,it is almost as sad that you are seriously trying to argue that petroleum based plant agriculture is more sustainable than every major form of sustainable ag.
Your straw-man argument about simply handing over a pig or a goat to a family living in poverty is laughably oversimplified. It won't solve all problems, but there are many cases where it means the difference between life and death for families. What has been an absolute disaster, often driving entire regions to starvation, has been the industrial ag/pseudo-environmental green revolution practice of sending bags of industrially produced monocrop grains around the world, fostering corruption and making sustainable local food systems impossible.
“This is perhaps one of the biggest misunderstandings people have about farming ecology. In a desire to get rid of the cow, they want to substitute plants that require tillage. No long-term example exists in which tillage is sustainable. It always requires injection of biomass from outside the system or a soil-development pasture cycle. To think that plants which require tillage can build soil like perennial pasture indicates environmental absurdity."
Since food animals are absolutely essential to every single major form of sustainable agriculture, I-US has backed herself into an unfortunately ridiculous corner, where she can only argue that either industrial agriculture is the solution to sustainability, which is a joke, or veganic gardening is, which is an even bigger joke.
Is I-US under the impression that she knows more about sustainable agriculture than Joel Salatin? Salatin has proven that he is a sustainable ag expert, beyond question. He has produced an enormous amount of food, while actually improving the health of the land in the process! Plant agriculture without animals is literally measured by how much damage it does to the land! As Salatin rightly points out, there is no such thing as plant ag without animals, actually improving the health of the land.
Edible Ojai & Ventura 2011 The issue of Meat
http://www.ediblecommunities.com/ojai/winter-2012/winter-2012.htm
http://www.ediblecommunities.com/ojai/winter-2012/how-animals-will-save-the-planet.htm
http://www.acresusa.com/toolbox/reprints/Sept10_Salatin.pdf
Author, I believe you have it reversed. If we see ourselves as just another species among many than we shouldn't feel the need to treat animals with any more respect than with which they treat each other. Also, animals that we throw away are not wasted. They are eventually consumed by microorganisms. Why would it be more ethical for a cow's carcass to be eaten by a homo sapien instead of some other species, albeit a much smaller one? Why is it okay for a whale to eat millions of plankton but I will get criticized for eating 1 chicken? I'd wager that the animals I consume are a very small percentage of the animals whose deaths I am responsible for simply for being on this earth.
I also feel that small-scale animal farms will not be able to feed the world's current appetite for meat. Also, the small scale farms (which account for less that 1% of all meat production int he US) are not affordable for many people.
http://veganicpermaculture.com/
http://www.goveganic.net/spip.php?article68
http://animalplace.org/vegan-farm-internship
Tou answer your question, lets look at the facts. A single acre of perennial grassland can be home to more than a million creatures. When that acre is plowed for rows of the shallow-rooted annuals of plant ag, the habitat for those creatures is annihilated, with many of them dying absolutely horrific deaths in the process. A tablespoon of that soil can contain more than 2 billion microorganisms, which are obliterated through oxidization in the process, killing off the soil vitality that the entire ecosystem depends on. And the root systems of those plants are too shallow to control soil erosion and water runoff, which kills the land and the creatures that depend on it.
Conversely, if a cow is pastured on that same acre, instead of destroying the land and uprooting the deep-rooted perennials that control soil erosion and distribute nutrients throughout the entire ecosystem, the health of the land actually increases, as does the soil vitality! The result is a significant net GAIN of life!
No matter how you slice it, far more living creatures have to suffer to compensate for your all-plant diet. In fact, a recent study found that per kilo of protein, at least 25 times more sentient creatures die in plant ag than in pasturing ruminants.
The ethic and moral issue is complex. Many domestic species would disappear if they weren't a human food source. However, much of the animal products we eat in this country come from polluted and abused animals. I think the minimal ethical requirement is that if we eat meat, it should come from ethically raised animals that are not abused. Personally, I stop on the food chain at fish. I eat no other animal product.
Yes, we need a new worldview for mankind as, if any credibility exists to the science of ecology, mankind is killing every and all reasons he exists or the Earth's ecosystems, the real, life giving body of the Earth and ecosystems' plant and animal biodiversity, the animals in the eco-nomy of life itself. Eco-scientists maintain, man is suicidal when he kills ecosystems.
Referencing the Native Americans is a great idea. They had a drastically different worldview than modern man. Modern man believes the Earth is his slave, to be used and abused without realizing, he, too, is merely a plain member of the community of all life and is so stupid as to kill his only home, his house, his eco, Earth's ecosystems, providing mankind with life itself.
How did the Native Americans survive on this continent for 20,000 years without grease, energy, cars, jobs, bosses, paper monies and dead concrete jungles while experiencing 80% more free, leisure time and played and lived in paradise?
It is possible to raise livestock (especially ruminants) in ways that rebuild topsoil, recharge watersheds and increases biodiversity. It is not possible to raise crops without destroying habitat.
You might enjoy browsing this site.
http://www.soilcarbon.com.au/case_studies/pdf/08TL_SCCPPP_En.pdf
How possibly could the "hooved locust" increase plant and animal biodiversity while they literally devour the Earth and the ecosystem, the home/habitats, food, shelter, cover and nurseries of the strands in the web of all life. Everywhere cattle range, they disturb the soil so violently and devour so much of the plant biodiversity, an ecosystem quickly devolves into a dead field of weeds. The weeds, like cheat grass, left their ecological checks and balances back in Europe, thus quickly taking over the ecosystem. These weeds are annuals that die out just in time for fire season, causing hotter, faster and more frequent fires while they push out the plant biodiversity.
California's hills and mountains were green before the introduction of the hooved locust. Today our hills are yellow with straw or brown, as life giving and supporting as the dead tumble of rocks on Mars.
And, an ecosystem has only so much energy and food to expend. Without checks and balances on cattle, like the wolf and coyote, ecosystems crash and become dead fields of lifeless straw. Always, because an invasive specie has no ecosystem checks and balances, they always take over the system, killing the biodiversity. Invasives are a top agent of extinction.
The Native Californians were small scale hunters and gatherers. A few desert tribes grew a few crops in the floodplains of rivers, and they resorted to fires to flush out game and insects. Other than that, they survived on the continent for up to 20,000 years without intensive agriculture, cars, energy, concrete, jobs, slaves to the job and enjoyed 80% more free, leisure time and do so in paradise. They thought the white man was insane because he was filthying their water and chopping down 1,000 year old oak trees, whose trunks were as wide as a car.
Today, social scientists maintain small scale hunting and gathering was the most successful lifestyle for mankind as he didn't have to work so long and so hard for the basics of food and shelter. The Californians did not war, and when the white invaders began genociding them, they had no war weapons to defend themselves! Shell mounds in CA. indicate many thousands of years went by without one major event, like famines, wars or epidemics.
The first European explorers to CA. wrote in their journals, though they had traveled the world, they had never met a people who loved each other like they. Wealth was judged by one's ability to help others.
One of the main reasons so many indigenous people were able to live "in harmony and balance with their life support system" is that there just weren't too damn many of them and they didn't exceed the "carrying capacity" of their land. But we're now victims of our own success, and many people, particularly in developing countries (which is where all the wild population growth is taking place) haven't yet caught on to the the idea that you no longer need to have 8 kids because 6 of them are going to die in infancy.
But as controversial as the meat-eating issue is, the population issue is even more controversial. As we've seen in the news lately (Rush Limbaugh), merely providing contraception to women who want it is still an unacceptable idea for many people.
Almost seems irrelevant, since I do not see any big changes in the way people approach things on the way, but still, all good ideas are worth putting out there. You never know.