To be fair I was in the same situation as you, when I first made the Vegan plunge I was amazed to see how many things have egg and milk etc in them, its usually used to bind. Even the Quorn products contain egg. Not having been vegetarian before it was a hell of a shock. Luckily for me when I started, my flat mate has been a vegan for 6 years so I had a bit of help but once you’re in that routine its just like doing a regualr shop because you already know without looking at the labels what is ok and what isnt.

Like Jane I would suggest Waitrose for a start, if you ask them for a list of their Vegan friendly products they are usually very helpful (my parents did that for the first few times I went for dinner with good results).

Cheers

Here are a few ideas.
1. Buy yourself a copy of the Animal-free Shopper from Viva! or the Vegan Society.
2. Go to http://www.viva.org.uk . Click on ‘Resources’ and download ‘How to Be Dairy-free’ for useful hints and yummy recipes that replace dairy and eggs. ‘It’s Easy to be Dairy-free’ is also free and lists lots of products. (You can also get these very cheaply as hard copies from Viva!. Just ring them 0117 944 1000
3, Join a local vegan group – or join a group online.
4. Learn to make a few simple vegan cakes
5. Switch to soya milk – not only is cows’ milk (including organic) cruel to cows and their calves, it’s also associated with breast cancer and other nasties. Try it for a few weeks – you’ll soon get used to it and will wonder why you never drank it before!

That’s a start… contact me again if you need to. Hope this is useful. Good luck!

Be Vegan. If you dont eat animals on moral grounds then why consume and use other things that they are exploited for too?

Well, there is going to be a fair bit of legislation about all polluting activities – how else do we stop global warming and other environmental disasters. Meat/fish/dairy are at the heart of almost every environmental nightmare, from emissions to water depletion to the oceans’ eco-collapse to desertification, deforestation and all the rest – not to mention world hunger.

George Monbiot has suggested that carbon rationing may be the only fair way to stop the rich from guzzling the world’s resources. I for one would welcome a carbon-tax on animal products, although whether the G8 and co would ever risk their re-election chances/alienate the multinations is another question!

However, that’s not the remit here – as I see it, the blog is simply to get the debate going, to educate and inform. I’ve had too many depressing conversations with self-professed greens who continue to eat meat/fish/dairy but think that’s OK because they ‘only eat organic’. While I don’t want to diss those who genuinely believe they are doing their bit, the argument has to be had – there’s just too much at stake not to.

Ironically, organically reared meat/dairy takes up even more resources than factory-farmed. Our addiction to animal products harms in so many ways, from our health to the animals to the planet to the world’s poor.

Enough to force that on them through legislation?

Settling for a small reduction in anything that is damaging or harmful is not really a viable option!.

Environmentally responsible people need to “really believe” that it is unethical or even “immoral” to support the continued breeding of animals in their billions for captive meat production, otherwise the “essential will” to make these changes will be absent and the significant reduction in methane that the environment needs to stabilize itself will never be acheived.

We now know the dire consequences to the environment if we don’t make such ethical changes…

“The captive animals will belch and fart us all into oblivion“!.

I havent replied in a while, sorry.

Jonny, on your paragraph on the ‘moving away from the carbon emmision’ thing is true. Personally for me, like i probably had said earlier, but i dont believe you can be an 100% ‘eco’ human if you carry on eating meat. Someone earlier in the disscusions said to me that i was looking at the black and white. I am trying my best to look at the grey shades. Especailly when im talking about hoe much meat you eat. Dale said earlier that its better for more people to cut down on meat then small amount of people cutting meat out completley is kind of true and false. Yes, its good for people to stop eating as much meat, but for me, i would rather people become veggies.

What are your guys and girls views?

Thank you,

Betsy

If the Nazis hadn’t been beaten around the heads for their injustice and others taken note then perhaps the allies might not have seen the need to help overcome them and the gas chambers would have carried on belching out human life.

While any reduction in meat eating and the development of the humane character is welcomed, still I believe that we should not keep from before the eyes of the masses that some of the greatest philosophers sooner or later came to understand that total abstinence from unnecessary harm to others creatures is the ultimate remedy for peace on earth, and of course as we now know it also fosters a healthy environment.

So because all other beings are ultimately affected by the methane emissions from mass animal farming“, then surely the greater the personal reduction of meat eating to help cure the problem and therby help others then the more noble that person becomes, (not to number me among these that is, I gave up eating meat long ago for other reasons).

He who allow the oppression
Shares the Crime

Erasmus Darwin

If we oppress the environment by supporting mass production of livestock to feed the masses what is actually unecessary, then it would seem that we also sharers in an environmental crime!

Regards
George

On finding the time, two things struck me.

First was a view expressed by several people that it is better to ask people to give up some of their meat consumption rather than all. The argument surely being that 100% of us giving up 90% is a better result than 10% of us giving up 100%. I share that view, very much so.

My purpose in raising food as an issue is not to beat people round the heads with something they should be doing. It’s to spark a debate on the issues and alert people to some things they might not know or have thought about.

Too often green choices are seen as extreme and about sacrifice. That makes it harder for them to gain large scale traction. That’s the opposite of what we need.

Second was a feeling that there are a bunch of myths out there about food, about meat eating and about being vegan, things that get to be believed and things that are misunderstood. I thought it would be useful to explore that.

I asked Dr Justine Butler, a nutrition expert from Viva (the Vegetarian and Vegan Association) to help me out with that and together we’ve come up with the top ten food myths – and busted them. I’ve posted it here. Have a read of it and pls feel free to download the PDF version and use as you see fit. There are some useful perspectives in here I think.

In the production of these Busted Food Myths, I gained a few new perspectives myself, leading to my second post on this subject – Treeheads and Meathuggers (Cutting out the ‘Middlemen’).

I hope you’ll find this and the Busted Myths interesting, even useful.

Cheers.

But it’s been a long day and I’m probably feeling a bit shirty! )

Thanks for your considered response. However, I have to take issue with your statement: ‘carbon emissions are not of great interest to Viva!, except insofar as they can be used to spread another layer of guilt onto meat-eaters, no matter where they exist on the supposed animal cruelty continuum. ‘

You are completely missing the point and yes, I do think you’re being a tad paranoid! Or perhaps a bit defensive – whatever it is, it’s not helpful nor is it constructive. All this isn’t about you, Jonny, or me for that matter – but about the survival of the planet and all that live on it.

For the record, Viva! has been in the vanguard of campaigning on this issue. Tony Wardle (Viva!’s assistant director) is a committed greenie and has worked with the Green Party (who were very slow to take up the cudgels) even before the UN report (Livestock’s Long Shadow) was published, For years, Viva! said pretty much what it says now – there was a lot of evidence about the sustainability of rearing animals for food and its catastrophic environmental impact but it was dificult for a small group to get this information out before the UN’s findings. Interestingly, Wardle was blanked by the Ecologist magazine, FOE and so forth – all of whom were dominated by the organic meat brigade. He is a skilled, award-winning writer/director. Nonetheless, it’s taken years for the likes of Viva! and others to bring these facts to even the green mainstream.

In addition, Wardle also has two young children, is desperately concerned about their future and to say that he or anyone doing such campaigning is doing this just to inflict more guilt on meat-eaters is missing the point rather badly. There are groups all over the UK and indeed, the world, who are saying this. Some of them are so concerned that they have become active and got involved with those groups in order to put grass-roots, democratic pressure on green groups like FOE to incorporate the findings into their policy and promote veg*sm – or at the very least, big meat reduction – to their members. It’s starting to take root but it’s all too slow.

It’s about survival and a better world. I don’t know if animals will ever not be food for humans – all I know is that we need to find better ways of feeding ourselves. The ethics arguments are to me, part and parcel of it all – I take a more ‘global’ approach to what we are doing to animals and each other, but not everyone does. I know plenty of people who like meat and don’t have a problem with killing animals, but nonetheless are going veggie or vegan because they believe not to do so is inconsistent with their green beliefs and lifestyle.

Simon, no group is just saying ‘don’t eat meat’ – they are arguing in a far more sophisticated way than that – it’s mainly the media who distort the message. What we and everyone else like me is saying is that we can’t keep consuming food in the way we have been post WW2. We have to stop kow-towing to the food industry and governments need to address the issues. Most importantly, the debate has to start somewhere – it isn’t happening on TV, is it? Even Al Gore’s ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ omitted the massive role that meat/dairy consumption is having on the environment he’s been taken to task by committed greens everywhere, but too late. What a tragedy, what a missed opportunity!

Jonny, re your scepticism about vegan organics/stock-free farming, it was done liberally during the war and is being done as we speak. There is plenty of evidence – go to the Vegan Organic site or better still, email Iain Tollhurst who currently runs his successful organic veg business on these principles – I’ve given you plenty of places to get evidence if you are genuinely interested!

Re meat and ‘all the ramifications for our physiology that derive from that fact’ there was a big study done in California recently which suggested that the biggest development in humans came from fire (not meat) – ie it allowed us access to foods that would hitherto have been unavailable, such as cereals, grains and so forth and widened our food sources hugely and thus allowed us to survive and grow in numbers as we did. Meat played a very minor part in that – ‘awkwardly bipedal animals’ such as humans could never rely too heavily on such a hit and miss scenario as hunting. Haven’t got the refs to hand but can get them for you if you’re interested!

As for our evolutionary heritage – so what? The whole point of evolution is that we continue evolving – or else we die.

Take care
J

Telling the UK population, the majority of you are bad people, stop eating meat! Is pointless. Developing a reasoned argument that leads to a reduction in carbon generated by the farming industry along with a return to greater sustainability in farming has a point!

So we have established that we do not agree with each other. You are convinced of the rightness of your cause – based on one moral position. I am convinced of the rightness of mine – based on another. We omnivores have brought forward points of view in support of our position and you vegans have countered with yours, I and others have questioned your assertions, you have questioned our ethics….

I think we can agree that we are getting nowhere. What started as a fairly circumscribed discussion about the carbon footprint of the meat industry has descended – perhaps inevitably – into a discussion about cruelty to animals. I am as guilty as any for having contributed to that departure.

However, on reflection, I cannot help thinking that it was the express purpose of Juliet’s original piece. I have concluded that carbon emissions are not of great interest to Viva!, except insofar as they can be used to spread another layer of guilt onto meat-eaters, no matter where they exist on the supposed animal cruelty continuum. I am aware that this accusation is serious – and I only make it reluctantly. I am also aware that I may be accused of paranoia.

Anyway, we must agree to disagree on matters of animal cruelty. You are unlikely ever to see any compassion in my point of view and I am equally unlikely to see robustly reasoned empiricism in yours.

In matters of human bodily and spiritual health also, you have your opinions and I have mine. I believe that a small proportion of my diet should consist of animal protein, you believe it can usefully be replaced by vegetable derived sources. Statistics and dietary research – good, bad and indigestible – can be marshalled on either side but both of us know they will make little difference to our opinions.

Likewise we must disagree in matters of utility; the many practical applications of animal by-products to a healthy human existence in line with natural principles. Green manure has been spread liberally through this discussion but has not been able to grow any consensus as to its primacy in matters of fertilising the soil. Again, vegans say one thing, omnivores say another, facts and fabrications fly in all directions; disbelief and mistrust of motives reigns supreme.

I believe that – as Jane rightly says – all of us involved in this conversation are humans trying to do the best thing in a confusing world. I believe the vegan way, although better than many, is in the end unsatisfactory because it is based on a misreading of nature and humanity’s place in it – applying the morality of human to human relationships in our dealings with species that have for many millions of years been our food – let alone food for each other – with all the ramifications for our physiology that derive from that fact.

I also have a distaste for squeamishness in the face of nature, which position invariably becomes a justification for a retreat to a techno-fix model of engagement with the world. I want to understand nature from the perspective of thorough involvement. I do not believe this robs me of the human capacity for compassion and empathy – although I accept that vegans would have me take those traits further. I argue that to do so would cross an important line, beyond which I would risk divorcing myself from my evolutionary inheritance. Feel free to consider amongst yourselves that I am talking rubbish, but at least give me the benefit of the doubt that I sincerely hold this view.

Of course animals fear pain and can undoubtedly conceive of that eventuality happening to them, particularly if one of their number is suffering nearby. That is why I broadly agree with vegans that the causing of pain and suffering at human hands is unwarranted. But, for the many reasons I have outlined above, I do not count the quick and unexpected (to the animal) killing of that animal as being unacceptable.

In the same way as individual insects, earthworms and other invertebrates are apparently expendable within a vegan agricultural model – for the greater good of food production – individual stock animals in an omnivorous system are rightly used as a crop. We all draw the line somewhere; we just disagree on which rung of the evolutionary ladder the line should be drawn.

Best regards,

Jonny.

Firstly, you don’t offend me. I’m safe and not going to be killed and eaten by you! I regard this as a frank but civilized exchange of views. Several points here.

The main point really is that if we turned these arguments on their head, we’d still have slavery for black people or the oppression of women, both of whom were once regarded as less than human. I’m no sentimental bunny-hugger and neither are most of the extremely bright vegans I know. I and they simply object to the violence and destruction engendered by the human addiction to eating other species. There is no need for it, essentially and it’s simply not fair!

Jax has explained the ‘but what would happen to all the animals’ most eloquently, so I won’t attempt to improve on it, except to say that the billions of animals killed each year are only there because we bred them for the meat market! They aren’t rolling around having great sex in the forests and meadows… Reduce the culture of meat-eating and there will be fewer animals bred etc etc.

But why is it that whenever veganism is debated, meat-eaters always go into the most extreme scenario. There is ‘What Would Happen to All the Animals ..’ as above and ‘but what if you were on a desert island’ and probably more. Sub-text being ‘Hey, I’m a really good person and it’s my Duty to eat animals!’ Yawn. Basically, why not be kind instead of cruel? Why not refrain from killing instead of taking life? It really is that simple.

As to say that CIWF approved animals are happier despite being destined for the killing factory at some point, rather than being free… pro-slavery advocates said something similar.

Oh, and I don’t believe you or I are like Hitler/Stalin/Pol Pot – I think both of us are just two humans trying to do the best thing in a confusing world. I just happen to believe your way, although better than many, is wrong nonetheless because it’s based in an outdated speciesist approach to other living creatures!

Re my apparent patronising of small hunter-gatherer tribes. It’s not. just an acknowledgement that there are a relative handful of humans on the planet who are still dependent on hunting in a way most of us are no longer so. Similarly, Tibetans couldn’t grow enough food to be veggie – with the invasion of Han Chinese, there is probably a much wider variety of foods imported in the cities at least. Things change, not always for the better, but they do change.

Re the likes of HFW and such viewpoints. I’ve seen a picture of HFW cradling a dead pig with a sickly smile on his face. I found it spooky to say the least.

But yes, when I went back to eating animals myself for a few years, I used similar self-serving arguments. I was wrong. I won’t bore you with the wake-up call I had, but suffice it to say I got sick of kidding myself at the expense of sentient beings’ lives. Killing animals is cruel and those who justify it are just trying to justify their own cravings . No animal wants to die; they scream, struggle and cry for their lives. I don’t care how skilled a slaughterman is at his job, it’s still a gross violence to take another creature’s life against his or her will. Ultimately, there is no such thing as ‘humane killing’, only that some are less painful than others. It’s a bit like saying Theresianstadt concentration camp was humane – well, compared to Auschwitz, conditions were marginally better, but the outcome was the same. Isaac Bashevis Singer – a Holocaust survivor, nominee for Nobel Peace Prize and literary mogul said ‘to animals, all humans are Nazis’. I don’t want to reclaim my inner Nazi – we all have that potential inside us as well as the nice stuff. We have a choice. I know what mine is.

thanks betsy

there is one fundamental flaw in your arguments above; you seem to assume that if the world’s humans went vegan we would all go vegan overnight. No vegetarian or vegan who is capable of logical thought would ever assume that this would happen, as much as some people may like this idea.

In reality, if the whole country, or world’s humans, went vegan it would be a very gradual process. The basic theory of supply and demand would come into play and the number of farmed animals would reduce gradually. There would be less need to breed further animals for meat and therefore the populations would gradually decrease. In this case there would be no large population of ‘unwanted’ farm animals to leave to live out their lives or make some other ‘ethical’ decision about.

If we all did go vegan, and did so gradually, this would make most of your points above redundant. There seems to be a few comments on here from meat eaters who are implying that a vegan adopting the moral high ground has a fatally flawed argument, but on this point I think the assumption that if everyone went vegan it would be overmight is not only a fatally flawed argument but plain daft.

A gradual change towards a population adopting a more vegan diet will help on many fronts, including dealing with the farmed animal population, learning a range of methods of looking after our agricultural land and allowing the time for the the animal husbandry business’ workforce to move into other areas of agriculture etc.

However, despite being a relatively optimistic person and a vegan myself, I know that I will never see the whole world’s population turn vegan in my lifetime, so I would at least advocate a drastic reduction in meat, dairy and other animal product consumption by those who, for whatever reasons, will not cut out animal products altogether.

Last night I needed a bit of spiritual uplift – so I read the first chapter of Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s “River Cottage Meat Book” for inspiration for my point of view. It is entitled “Meat and Right” and I urge anyone with an open mind to read it.

It appears from this chapter that animals are not immortal. One way or another, they die sooner or later, as do we humans. In this sense as in so many others we are no different from our animal cousins – as Darwin and his supporters showed, much to the chagrin of a bunch of self-appointed moral arbiters, in this case the 19th century church.

No animal in nature ever dies of old age. Few die directly of disease or even starvation, although these are often the debilitating factors leading to their being hunted down, killed and eaten by carnivores – obligate or not. In such instances the process is often long drawn out and extremely painful.

In the case of farm animals (the vast majority of our subject matter, I am sure you will agree) we would be faced with several very difficult decisions, if the world turned vegan. How would we manage their eventual demise? Would they be “put down” like so many pets? Would they be left to fade away like so many old aged pensioners? What moral justification could there be for sanctioning such a lingering decline? Perhaps the salving of our consciences would be a weird metaphorical looking-glass altar on which animals are sacrificed – condemned not to death but to unhealthy life. Where are mercy, compassion and empathy in this future? At least we humans can express our wishes. We can opt for medical intervention to relieve pain, in the knowledge that it will shorten our lives. We can express a wish to abjure resuscitation. In some enlightened jurisdictions we can even opt for assisted suicide. How can any animal, in pain through disease and old age, ever express such wishes? In a vegan world, how would the unexpressed wishes of such animals be interpreted? It would surely be deeply unethical to vegans to second-guess any choice on their behalf.

Furthermore, after the inevitable eventual deaths of the last farmed generation of animals there would, no doubt, be a residual (possibly sizeable) population of their offspring, still requiring our care. What would be the fate of these domesticated animals? Would they be turned out, into the wild, to take their chances? Would that absolve us of any further responsibility to their care?

If we have moral responsibility to any animals over which we have any control (and I believe we do have that duty) it is to limit suffering. Death, in all natural circumstances, involves suffering to a greater or lesser degree, and usually greater. What would be the vegan means of ending animal suffering? What is the best use of the resulting carcass after inevitable death – whenever it may come, as it surely will?

My omnivorous habit is informed and underpinned by a profound dislike of factory farming and the industrialisation of food, not least on grounds of animal welfare. I have stated many times exactly how I believe animals should be reared so that their lives can be as fulfilling and natural as possible, while also largely free from pain, fear and disease. I maintain that the lot of a well cared-for, healthy farm animal (even when destined for my plate) is not only to be preferred to that of its wild cousin and its life of hunger, stress and possible lingering pain but also enhances human morality. In that sense, surely, the lot of an organic, CWIF accredited herd is immeasurably better than its wild counterpart.

Let me also reiterate that I believe that the connection between anthropogenic climate change and our current over-indulged appetite for meat is clear. That is what the research shows and I think we all agree upon it. Where I part company with vegans is in making the leap to argue in favour of total abstinence; rather I argue for strict moderation of the meat content of our diets, informed by the natural stocking density of the land. I think that to embrace the ill-conceived pro-vegan case would lead to the rule of the law of un-intended consequences. I strive (often, to my shame, less successfully than I would like) to live sustainably. The benign cycle I have mentioned so often before – incorporating all elements of the animal presence into a perpetuating system of land husbandry – is the better for that inclusion, on all ethical, spiritual and dietary measures.

In short I believe that the vegan claim to any moral high ground is deeply flawed.

Best regards,

Jonny.

First of all, this is all meant in a spirit of constructive dialogue and mutual respect. I may disagree with you on many issues but have no intent to offend.

Cruelty is a human moral construct. Our species conceptualised it from natural aggressivity, probably as an evolutionary adjunct signifying unacceptable behaviours to others of our tribe – our closest family – and by extension what was then deemed acceptable but contrary behaviour towards other competing tribes. With the general abandonment of a Cartesian (utilitarian) philosophy towards other organisms – particularly farm animals – and the general demise of the religious edict of Mankind having dominion over the earth and all life, it has become accepted that human cruelty exists towards other species than our own. In this context, cruelty cannot be said to exist between other animals in nature; it is only due to our imperfect view of their behaviour that we choose to identify it as cruelty. We have no other word we can use.

So – should we humans now separate ourselves further from nature to “save the planet” or is our best hope for that end to reconnect with nature? Are the choices to ensure the survival of our species as we might imagine them to be – simple and apparently obvious – or more complex and uncomfortable?

In response, firstly, I will resist saying that there is a huge amount of romantic hogwash about vegetarianism and veganism, with the usual “sentimental bunny-hugger” nonsense that goes with it. To do so would be as unproductive as your assertion about noble savages. However, I find it strange for a vegan to condone meat eating among small hunter gatherer tribes; surely, it borders on patronising doesn’t it? It is almost as if you are saying they are too primitive to be expected to understand. Numbers of humans can have nothing to do with rights and wrongs if we are talking about moral absolutes. I have always in this discussion and elsewhere held that meat should be a part of our diet only in strict moderation. The determining factor should be the stock carrying capacity of the locality – and the planet as a whole – but on an environmentally sustainable basis. I believe that our survival depends as much on our connectivity to nature and a humble appreciation that we are part of it. Perhaps that is what you would call “noble savage nonsense”. Nevertheless I entirely agree with you about the ease with which killing can become meaningless and I give no support to any who would defend the worst excesses of the meat industry as shown in the sort of undercover video footage you mention.

Secondly, you are correct, we have a choice – and I have made mine. I have chosen to eat a moderate amount of good quality meat from animals that I have made efforts to ascertain (to my satisfaction) have lived good lives and in death have been as free from suffering as possible. I also agree with you that we are omnivores, in that we have longer guts than straight carnivores, with acids that break down plant fibres – but which are also capable of breaking down meat, particularly when cooked. Would you say that, to be unwaveringly true to our natural gut type, we should not cook vegetables? If the ease with which a food can be broken down in the gut is the determinant of what we should eat, perhaps we should stick to yoghurt – although that is not a vegan option. The fact is that the human digestive tract is not as long as that of a straight herbivore. We are somewhere in between, not far from the chimpanzees you cite. As opportunists we have done well and, uniquely, have the capacity to choose to modify our natural urges. The quantity of animals killed, the resources squandered, the quantity eaten per human and the diseases we suffer as a result of over-indulgence are all unarguably excessive and I do not advocate anything like the status quo in per capita meat intake.

Bringing in the subject of how we might evolve as a species, as if evolution were a process of ethical betterment, is to conflate two distinct precepts. Humans, like all other species, are undoubtedly still evolving – but we will do so in response to our environment, with the most suited individuals passing on their genes and others not doing so. Ethical progress exists on a different continuum. I do not say that our choices will have no effect on our survivability but I do believe that engaging with all of nature’s mechanisms – not abdicating ourselves from one crucial process, in this case the causing of the death of another animal – is important to our understanding of the forces within it which might finish us off or save us. Being as close to that process as I can is the most consistent approach with the greatest integrity, given my beliefs. Use of the word “enslave” in the context of this discussion is even more inflammatory than my earlier use of the word “fundamentalist” (although I do not recollect the mention of Hitler or Pol Pot) – and wrongly ascribes a human condition to the animals concerned.

We insist on the rights of disabled people because they are family – but I am sure that under more straitened circumstances for the human race, society could very likely dispense with what might at that time be seen as an unjustifiable burden. Don’t misunderstand me – I heartily agree with the prevailing ethos of universal human rights, but I also know it is a very recent and possibly transient invention. You ask why we should “condemn a healthy, intelligent and sentient being to a miserable, short life and brutish death” as if the only alternative to veganism is to agree with the misery, brevity and brutality. I would also ask why beings neither healthy, intelligent nor sentient should be discriminated against – as if their deaths were somehow less valid, more excusable. Which of us truly understands the pain of an old apple tree, harvested of its last fruit and cut down? The fact is that intelligence and sentience as they exist in animals, are properties vastly removed from the human conscious experience, which is not to say that we should not accord those animals due respect when they die to feed us.

I am intrigued by your sweeping assertion that animal fertiliser is “not necessary” and wonder if this is the same Africa as we know from the media as being subject to poverty, malnutrition, soil erosion and drought. True, these things have other causes as well, not least of which is anthropogenic climate change, but I understand most of these have been long established problems – for aeons. I do not disagree that it is possible to grow food without animal manure (or NPK) but only on high quality land, where reliance is put on the natural fertility of the soil, and no doubt starting from a high base. I seriously question whether it is applicable on the less fertile soils worked by the majority of subsistence farmers.

You accept that it is not possible not to kill insects and other creatures when farming, given the background natural fauna and the character of the activity. I go further and maintain that completely stock-free farming is inherently un-natural, in that neither temperate forests, nor African savannah, nor any other remotely fertile landscape in nature is stock-free. If it were so there would be no place for “higher” animals in the natural environment. I concede that stocking densities on most farms are much too high and are predicated on our unbalanced meat-intensive diet. However, a proportionate response to this glut is not to deny a meat content to a healthy diet but to re-balance it to something approaching natural sustainable levels. This balance, replicated in our farming and soil management would, in turn, be reflected proportionately in our food.

Best regards,

Jonny.

“I would have no ethical problem in performing all the tasks necessary (including killing the animal concerned) to provide my family and friends with meat.”
Why dont you have a problem with doing such things, dont you think you should be ashamed of keeping animals in this way! Have you never heard of the words, Mercy, Compassion or Empathy, each of these would forbid us to keep animals in this way? Its precisely this kind of attitude toward non-humans that is so damaging to our environment.

“I have done so in the past and regard these processes as deeply sacred, to be performed with care and reverence.”
There is no reverance in such exploitive practices, only complete shamefulness,

“I am still waiting to be informed about any truly vegan – but climate friendly – methods for fertilising the soil.”
Its possible to grow just It, ever heard of green manure Johnny?

“Typically, a green manure crop is grown for a specific period, and then plowed under and incorporated into the soil. Green manures usually perform multiple functions, that include soil improvement and soil protection: Leguminous green manures such as clover and vetch contain nitrogen-fixing symbiotic bacteria in root nodules that fix atmospheric nitrogen in a form that plants can use.
Green manures increase the percentage of organic matter (biomass) in the soil, thereby improving water retention, aeration, and other soil characteristics.
The root systems of some varieties of green manure grow deep in the soil and bring up nutrient resources unavailable to shallower-rooted crops.
Common cover crop functions of weed suppression and prevention of soil erosion and compaction are often also taken into account when selecting and using green manures.
Some green manure crops, when allowed to flower, provide forage for pollinating insects.
Historically, the practice of green manuring can be traced back to the fallow cycle of crop rotation, which was used to allow soils to recover.
Quote Wiki

So we don’t really need Cow, Pig, Sheep or Horses muck at all, we can easily grow an abundance of adequate alternatives.

Kind Regards
George

Kind Regards,
Betsy

Re stock-free farming in the developing world, Animal Aid’s articles opposing the Send a Cow scheme mentions traditional farming methods – I’m sure they could find you more info if you asked.

Obviously, it’s impossible not to kill insects and other creatures when farming, but organic and especially vegan-organic would go some way to alleviate that, partly because of the reduction in pesticide use, partly because more traditional farming methods tend to keep hedgerows etc.

Currently, about 90% of UK’s crops are used for animal feed and still we import loads more – if we moved towards more of a vegan diet we could both grow more cereals and veg and grow more trees to feed ourselves and also increase biodiversity. We may never be able to feed the entire population but we could do way better than we do now. Climate-suitable (non-GM) soya beans have been developed to grow in Europe and UK now, so presumably we could do the same with other pulses and maybe some grains. Even importing grains/pulses is still less heavy on environment overall rather than feeding them to animals.

I didnt finacialy mean YOU i meant people that dont have enough money.

If you treat the animal with respect and kill it as ‘humane’ as you can, they i guess
i have no problem. But personally for ME, i will never eat meat (because i will never be able
to have any space for the animals, for rearing.)

Im really glad when you watch a documentary programme, when animals are killed, you dont mind. (if you read the comments before, me and jeff said stuff about that).

Thanks fro replying,

betsy

P.s. What do you mean ‘truly vegan’ ways of fertilising soil? You mean without killing insects?

Secondly, obligate carnivores are just that, they have no choice but we do. Also, in the animal kingdom there is a genetic relationship between the hunted and the hunter in the wild; the hunter culls the weakest and this strenghtens the gene pool of the hunted herds et al. H0wever, humans are omnivores at most – in fact, our guts and teeth resemble the more or less vegan great primates who are are our closest relatives. We have long guts with acids that break down plant foods easily – meat stays around in our guts for about a week, creating toxins, compared with natural carnivores with short guts which poo it out very fast!
Even chimps get only a tiny fraction of their food from meat, whereas gorillas and other great primates exist mainly on plant foods. What humans are is opportunist tool-makers. We had to eat what we could get hold of to survive. But now that very opportunism debases us and destroys the planet and its biodiversity. The 54 billion or so animals that are killed for meat are bred deliberately by us and destroy the planet and its resources in the process. We were never meant to eat this much meat, yet we do – and it kills us. There is a direct link between high levels of animal protein and heart disease, as well as most cancers, obesity, diabetes and all the ‘diseases of affluence’.

On an ethical level, I think if we are ever to evolve as a species, we have to develop empathy pretty fast. Some philosophers (eg Isaac Bashevis Singer, Charles Paterson, ‘Eternal Treblinka’) suggest that our proclivity for slaughtering each other is rooted in killing other species. Either we treat animals as commodities, as does factory farming, with all the immorality that engenders or else we form a relationship with the animals we farm – yet still kill them for appetite and profit. Either way, I’m not convinced that it’s good for us, let alone the animals that we enslave and kill.

Finally, in my experience vegans and veggies (I’m the former) say all this not because we’re fundamentalists – I for one try to lead by example and do the least harm I can and I don’t berate people and try not to judge them. Using terms like ‘fundamentalist’ or even comparing us to Hitler and Pol Pot as someone did recently, is turning it upside down! Whatever people’s views, surely we humans need to examine our speciesism. Why for example to we insist on the rights of disabled people (and quite rightly!) yet condemn a healthy, intelligent and sentient being to a miserable, short life and brutish death – just because we can? Isn’t that the worst sort of ‘might over right’ philosophy?

And there is no such thing as ‘humane killing’, that’s Orwellian in my book. Even in relatively regulated slaughterhouses such as we have, millions of animals each year are inadequately stunned, meaning they are paralysed but fully conscious when killed.
I’ll stop now… !