Green Living
Dear Community,
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
The Truth About Vegetarianism
http://www.motherearthnews.com/nature-community/the-truth-about-vegetarianism.aspx
I admit that I'm biased as the daughter of a beef rancher, but this articles sums up why I will always eat meat. Not CAFO meat - real meat, that works with the land. The land we grow cows on can't grow crops. The land we grow hay on grows terrible crops. The grain fed to cows is not of a grade people would want or eat. So many of the "formulas" are stacked unfairly and unrealistically against the idea of meat production. I prefer to embrace that there is a way and a place for responsible meat. And it's delicious.
Re: The Truth About Vegetarianism
I'm not loving this book at all, BUT it's funny you mention this today because I just read the meat chapter last night where he states "Ranchers will tell you that nothing can grow on their land." Almost word for word!
http://www.amazon.com/Just-Food-Where-Locavores-Responsibly/dp/031603374X
Soil type is a real issue when trying to grow crops.
My favorite thing I've ever seen at work was a climate change map suggesting that we could grow canola in Northern Saskatchewan if the predictions were accurate.
You know... except for how that's Canadian Shield with negligible amounts of topsoil. That's how I feel when people imply my parents should just grow wheat and oats and canola instead of cows. It's really not an either/or decision.
Oh no, please no more canola!
I certainly don't think the world needs to go vegetarian, but I do think we need to stop being so meat-centric. Every meal does not have to have meat, and be based around meat.
Real cattle ranching, where the animals have a decent life, and the land and the lives and what they give to us, should have a place in our food system.
I hope that someday, factory animal farms do not.
Me too. I was vegetarian for almost a year and gave it up because I didn't feel healthy, but also I wanted to replace all the heavily processed, long-distance meat substitutes with pasture-raised local meat. It takes a lot of fossil fuels to keep someone eating tofu year-round, I figure it is more EF to eat pasture, humanely raised meat than veggie burgers processed with hexane made in China. I wish the article author had talked about that more.
That being said, I agree with Alisha. Not everything has to revolve around meat, and I don't think humans were designed to eat meat 3 meals a day. People complain about how expensive organic or local meat is, and I'm like, well if that's what it costs to raise meat sustainably and humanely, then maybe you shouldn't eat so much of it. We eat meat twice a week, and that's usually chicken in penne pasta, or on top of a salad, or in a stir-fry. Your money goes a lot further that way. There's a reason meat is such a small portion on the Food Pyramid. Our meals aren't supposed to be a huge burger, tallow-fried potato pulp, and liquid sugar.