I've been thinking a lot lately about how we humans live our lives. I think sometimes that we don't permit ourselves to consider how our actions, our behaviors, our lifestyles impact the world around us.
Just this morning, I thought about how I want to build my 'place in the country' that will become the 'family compound.' I wonder how, if it were truly to become my family compound, we would all get along together, even with designed-in privacy.
Then, I re-read a post on a website that a blogger friend referred to in one of her posts. If you were a regular reader of my friend's blog, you'd know that she is vegetarian and that she is very much an advocate for animals. I've not shared her philosophies, but I've respected them. But I've noticed as I have revisited the post she referenced that I am becoming more conscious of my behaviors. I eat meat. But when I do, I sometimes think back to the referenced post (hold on, I'm coming to that...I'll give you a link) and I cringe. More than that, though, I start to wonder how to validate the information on referenced post...because I want to be sure, when I start arguing its points, that I have a leg to stand on.
If the points the poster makes are valid, we are absolutely, completely, and totally crazy to be devoting our energies toward producing meat for our diets. We would be far better off, and the earth would be better off, if we redirected some of that energy toward improving the food distribution channels so that the abundant food supplies that today we are directing toward animals to be used as meat.
OK, here it is...this is the post. I'm going to ask the poster for references so I can validate what she says. And if I can validate what she says, then I am likely to have quite the incentive to change my habits.
3 comments:
There is a new documentary out called "Our Daily Bread." We picked up a flyer about it at our local food co-op. It's about industrial food production. Everyone should see it. In fact that's the point of the movie itself, that people should see how their food comes to them. The flyer said, "you are what you eat, as it happens, you are also what you dare to watch."
Our diet is almost entirely vegetarian. We do eat chicken once a week. It is locally grown and organic. If we could not get that, we would stop eating chicken. I have not eaten red meat in 37 years. The best part, besides the delicious meals we create with tofu, tempeh, beans, rice, and vegies is this-- it is also better for the planet to not have to produce all this meat for consumption. Win win.
Bev, thanks very much for the great information. I've not yet thoroughly reviewed your linked resources, but certainly will. The more I learn about what is involved in both raising animals for meat and how they are treated, the more horrifying it becomes. I have to take a look, too, at Robin Andrea's reference, "Our Daily Bread." This stuff is important and we need to understand it. I wish I'd 'gotten it' much earlier...and I guess I'm still not there. But I really believe big business, large-scale agribusiness, has worked hard to attempt to keep people from getting the full picture. They pooh-pooh anything that paints their practices as inhumane, suggesting that they are just as interested in being humane as we are. I doubt it. I don't just doubt it, I think it's a bald-faced lie. I've been complicit in it, I fear, but I'm waking up to reality, the more I read and the more I communicate with people who know and care.
One point: I read recently that in America, all animals, no matter how they're raised, must be slaughtered at USDA slaughterhouses, so those humanely raised animals end up at the same place as the factory farm animals.
I'll look for more details on this; I read it in The Way We Eat, which I highly recommend.
BTW, I am still pondering your idea of a week's worth of menus. I was thinking along the lines of a veggie primer.
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