March 28, 2007
From the desk of Jane Galt:No need to be cruel
As people who know me in the real world can attest, I'm kind of a nut on the subject of animal cruelty. Not like a PETA nut--I nearly snarfed a milkshake all over the vegan friend who told me it was better for cows not to exist at all than to "live as a slave". You know, anthropomorphism is a form of speciesism.
But while I don't think it's necessarily immoral to kill animals for food, I do have serious moral problems with industrial farming. What happens to many animals in industrial farms may well actually be worse than death. Which would you prefer: a nice clean bullet, or spending the rest of your life confined in a cage only inches bigger than you are, with a barred floor so that your excrement can drop down onto the people below you . . . and guess what's coming from above? Don't forget having your nails and teeth removed so that you can't get into fights with others at the food bin.
This is an approximate description of what happens to industrially farmed chickens . . . lifted, mind you, from a business school case aimed at helping industrial farms be more efficient, by using rose coloured chicken contact lenses to cut down on the need for debeaking 'em*. Every rapacious MBA I've ever met who has been given a tour of an industrial farm by the owners, in the course of analysing the business for a bank or consultancy, has seriously considered going vegetarian. It's basically completely appalling.
So anyone who knows me who gets me on the topic is forced to sit through my impassioned plea to support certified humane meat, eggs and milk. Yes, they cost more. But we're a rich society, and morally, I think it's worth it to maybe eat vegetarian once a week so that the rest of the time, you can put meat on the table knowing that it didn't require years of torturing some poor animal to produce. The ASPCA and the Humane Society are doing a wonderful job with Certified Humane, which sets standards for cage-free products and inspects the farms to ensure that they're being met. If you make an effort to buy these products, you'll be helping change farming processes in America to alleviate animal suffering . . . and, if you're a conservative, making agribusiness a less efficient player in food markets, giving small farm communities a little breathing room.
This is not some nutty pinko philosophy. There are a decent number of libertarian vegetarians, as a post I recently pointed to documented. And a surprisingly large number of my acquaintances with impeccably classical liberal credentials, such as Clive Crook of the National Journal and The Atlantic, share my opinion that this is a major moral issue. Now it turns out that Andrew Sullivan is another such. Via his blog today I find that Burger King is switching to cage free products. If you care about animals, I heartily urge you to support their action by switching to BK for your fast food needs. Sure, the fries suck . . . but so do McDonalds', now that they're free of trans fats, tallow, beef flavor . . . and any detectable texture or taste. BK's burgers are better anyway. And if nothing else, you might save capitalism, by illustrating to environmentalists that markets can solve problems, as well as create them.
* No, seriously, I'm not making this up. Unfortunately, the contact lenses don't work very well, so they never made it in the marketplace.
To make matters even worse, chickens raised in industrial farming conditions sometimes starve to death when their feet grow through the wire floors of their cages, leaving them unable to reach their food.
"Free range" doesn't mean much when it comes to poultry. Look for "cage free" instead.
Posted by: Peter on March 28, 2007 1:37 PMJane wrote: " ...I think it's worth it to maybe eat vegetarian once a week so that the rest of the time, you can put meat on the table knowing that it didn't require years of torturing some poor animal to produce. ..."
You seem to be assuming that you could buy 6 "humanely raised" servings of meat for the same price as 7 "factory raised" servings. In other words: Aren't you assuming that the traditionally-grown method is only about 15% more costly than the factory-farm method.
Have you verified those numbers?? I haven't either -- to be perfectly honest -- but my intuitive guess is that if everybody suddenly started demanding "free range" food, its price would level off at about 3 to 5 times more expensive than factory-farmed food.
So, shouldn't the question be: 'Are you willing to be a vegetarian about 5 or 6 times per week so that you can eat traditionally-raised meat the other 1 or 2 times?'
Which would you prefer: a nice clean bullet, or spending the rest of your life confined in a cage only inches bigger than you are, with a barred floor so that your excrement can drop down onto the people below you . . . and guess what's coming from above? Don't forget having your nails and teeth removed so that you can't get into fights with others at the food bin.
I don't think it matters what I would prefer, as chickens are, at least on most days, far lower on the tetrapod intelligence scale than I am. Besides, I do rather like living.
So anyone who knows me who gets me on the topic is forced to sit through my impassioned plea to support certified humane meat, eggs and milk. Yes, they cost more. But we're a rich society, and morally, I think it's worth it to maybe eat vegetarian once a week so that the rest of the time, you can put meat on the table knowing that it didn't require years of torturing some poor animal to produce.
But with the rising costs of health care and education, as you post on frequently, is it moral to ask people to make financial sacrifices to get the same product, only with 50% more morality? Should only the rich eat meat? Or do only the rich get to be moral?
And a surprisingly large number of my acquaintances with impeccably classical liberal credentials, such as Clive Crook of the National Journal and The Atlantic, share my opinion that this is a major moral issue. Now it turns out that Andrew Sullivan is another such.
Err, if Andrew's in . . .
A lot of this comes from the personification of animals. For some reason we believe when an animal looks up at us with its big brown eyes it is seeing and feeling the same thing as you or I. When in fact it is not because 1. It is not human. 2. Does not have the same kind of mental capacity
But still we persist in personifying animals with emotions that they don't have. What makes you think the Chicken isn't sitting in its cage thinking nothing more than: "instinctivly bite the animal next to me, eat the food in front of me"?
1) I agree on the moral issue, and to my shame I have not done anything about it,
2) Except for spending my time and energy in pursuit of the ultimate in "free range" meat, which activity the ASPCA and HS (and many lefty pro-animal urbanites) vehemently oppose.
Maybe someday I'll be skilled enough to stop buying others' meat, but that will take a few years.
Posted by: Rob Lyman on March 28, 2007 2:04 PMBismarck famously compared legislative action to sausagemaking, suggesting that close scrutiny of either was not for the faint of heart.
I think it's safe to say that most cityborn have little or no idea of how this stuff works, even on the farm, and would be almost equally horrified by the latter (ever watch a farm animal being slaughtered?).
Posted by: David Hecht on March 28, 2007 2:06 PMI agree completely. But in the UK, BK fries are incredibly good. What gives here?!
Posted by: Chris on March 28, 2007 2:10 PMI can attest that I had the chicken contact lens / debeaking case at HBS. I was so freaked out about the concept that 20 years later I included it as a funny scene in my new novel BMOC
Posted by: coyote on March 28, 2007 2:10 PMThis reminds me of an exchange in the movie Napolean Dynamite:
Napoleon Dynamite: Do the chickens have large talons?
Farmer: Do they have what?
Napoleon Dynamite: Large talons.
Farmer: I don't understand a word you just said.
Just thought I'd put in a plug for my favorite movie.
Ah I love the web. You can count Megan's readers to chime in on a subject they know absolutely know nothing about. At least that's apparent from the comments here. Disclaimer here. I am a hearty meat eater with the provision that the meat and chicken I eat are either free ranged or meat I have raised (such as chickens). My property is ill suited to raise cattle so I am buying those from the local ranchers.
Why the defense of industrial farming practices? There are a number of costs that society is forced to bear such increased resistence to antibiotics. It's only because industrial farms are able to externalize their costs that the meat is cheaper.
Besides why eat the garbage? It really is garbage too. It's the same reason I can no longer eat even high quality store bought breads - they just aren't as good as the bread I make myself (which are actually cheaper in cost as well).
Let industrial farms bear the actual costs of their production methods and then we will see what people prefer.
Posted by: Brian Despain on March 28, 2007 2:21 PMWell Brian Despain certainly answered my questions.
None of us non-sociopaths want to be cruel to animals. I'd love to be able to eat test-tube meat and have birds fly free, and I admit the wild chickens we rustled while camped near Stanleyville in '63 were the best I've ever had. But I have plenty of things to worry about besides the morality rating of my food.
Posted by: AT on March 28, 2007 2:31 PMWell AT I wasn't trying to answer your questions, I merely pointing out that properly grown meat isn't that much more expensive and that you can easily grow your own. Industrial farms exist because they can pass certain costs onto society.
BTW I don't think "only the rich can eat meat"
I realize that many of Megan's readers are urban city dwellers who have no idea how their food is made but that's no excuse to my mind.
Posted by: Brian Despain on March 28, 2007 2:37 PMBrian,
So did you write your own web-browser software that you used to post your comments here? Or build your own router to connect to the internet? Where'd your keyboard come from?
It turns out that some of us feel the same way about raising our own food.
Posted by: Kirk Parker on March 28, 2007 2:48 PMLong ago I came to realize that eating other animals is what it means to be on the top of the food chain. I care no more about "the feelings" of food animals than other omnivores or carnivores do.
I don't see this in morality terms at all. But it also doesn't bother me a bit for others to feel as they do, as long as they don't try to force me to change. Which unfortunately is not the case where I live.
Posted by: Rex on March 28, 2007 3:04 PMBrian - it would actually be against the law for most folks (those in urban and suburban areas) to raise livestock on their property. So, no, most people can't easily grow their own.
My sense (without any research) is that factory farming has radically transformed diets in the western world and folks have eagerly embraced these changes. In a rich society like ours, humane care sounds like a great way for retailers to improve their margins through price discrimination. In the developing world, I imagine most folks would tell you to go pound sand.
Just let me know if it tastes better.
I can recommend Michael Pollan's excellent book The Omnivore's Dilemma on this point. Just because animals are good to eat doesn't mean you have to torture them and poison the earth first in order to do it. There are a lot of good medical and ecological reasons to eat animals whose diets are not comprised of antibiotics and grains they never evolved to eat ("grain-fed beef," for example, is a terrible idea). I used to be a reflexively defensive agribusiness proponent as well, I know where a lot of these commenters are coming from. But eventually I had to admit I knew too much to keep blindly purchasing industrial foods. Not that I'm a purist on that point, by a longshot.
Posted by: Lane on March 28, 2007 3:17 PMIn my area, any of the humane alternatives are at least three times as expensive as the normal stuff. And our town doesn't have a Burger King.
Posted by: Misty on March 28, 2007 3:28 PMAh I love the web. You can count Megan's readers to chime in on a subject they know absolutely know nothing about.
So long as “Megan's readers” is defined as “Brian Despain,” I cannot disagree with that statement.
Wow: my prediction about Brian came true!
http://janegalt.net/cgi-bin/MT/mt-comments.cgi?entry_id=9712#123833
Posted by: smartass on March 28, 2007 4:08 PMIn the 30s, my mother's family raised chickens in their backyard. As a pre-teen and teenager, it was her job to feed them, collect the unbroken eggs, keep them from pecking her and each other to death, catch them, wring their necks, scald them - then pluck them, gut them and then pull the quill bases out as they were eaten.
They were free range. The city wisely outlawed raising farm animals in the city because they were disease and vermin ridden pests who the poor and ignorant kept because they were too stupid to know better.
Once the chickens were gone, they stopped eating chicken because it was too expensive - and she started trapping rats....
I worked on a dairy farm for one week.
To this day, every hamburger I eat makes me think of those poor cows - and I relax and get a happy warm glow knowing that I am eating another one....
As for chemicals and growth hormones, Americans are taller, fatter, healthier and live longer than others elsewhere.
Obviously, this has been bad for us.
Posted by: Dan in MD on March 28, 2007 4:37 PMI don't want to see any animals tortured, and I have to admit that I have never really given much thought to buying "cage free"....
but...
Once you get past the 'Gentleman Chicken Rancher' of say, more than a dozen chickens, the Ma and Pa chicken farms aren't any better. Poop is a major problem. So is protecting them from critters. I could be convinced that these and other problems could be solved, but I just haven't ever seen a free range/cage free model that looks workable at the scale that we would need as a society.
The other issue is the "moral" thing. I say again, I don't want to see animals tortured, but I just don't see it as a moral thing. I know where you are coming from Jane, but the first question I am going to ask a vegan when I get called immoral is, "So, that means that you are against abortion, right?" That is a moral issue to me.
I baled hay as a high schooler and animal farmers--that meant pigs, turkeys, chickens, and especially milk-cattle in my parts-- look at the world in a different way. When the word 'immoral' pops up, you are slamming them, their children, their parents, and probably their grandparents. Frankly, if you approach it that way, you aren't going to get a lot of converts.
Posted by: Reagan Fan on March 28, 2007 5:08 PMI'm a poor college student who can hardly afford msg laced Ramen. When I do get to eat meat, which is always industrialized torture meat, I'm so happy that the market gave us such wonderful meat for the price even if it is at the expense of a chicken's welfare.
Perhaps when my income rises, I'll pay the premium for non-tortured murdered animal, but not now, and I know many people are in the same boat as me except with no land in sight.
Human welfare first, Robot welfare second, Animal welfare third.
Posted by: Hollywood_Freaks on March 28, 2007 5:08 PMIf it is immoral to eat an animal because it has lived an uncomfortable or even tortured life, is it not also immoral to kill that animal in the first place?
What makes it immoral to stick it in a miserable cage, implies that the animal is indeed miserable and wants to live a "free" life. In that case you sure as hell better not kill it.
Stop attributing human characteristics to an animal. It does not have your brain. Was not raised like you are.
ps - to the guy who said the free range chicken was the best ever, that had to be because you were camping. Everything tests better then, even something that is only moderately tastey is great when camping. To the real world farmers who live right next to me and raise their own chicks for eggs, steers, and sheep for meat, they have told me time and time again store bought chicken is bigger, juicier, and more tendor than anything they've ever raised. And cheaper too. Try plucking all the feathers off a chicken, cleaning it, and cooking it, after taking care of it for a couple years, and do it less than the $4 you can get for a rotisserie chicken at Walmart.
Posted by: cdub on March 28, 2007 5:15 PMActually Thorley I was merely pointing out that reflexive defense of factory farming without know any thing ABOUT IT and then assuming that this is the "conservative/liberterian position" and it's correct.
So no one has addressed my point that factory farming has costs that no one thinks about namely the rapid development of antibiotic resist bacteria. But addressing my point instead ad hominem attacks seems impossible here.
I thought people were mostly saying that they don't care about the morality of their buffalo wings. How does that become a "reflexive defense of factory farming"?
Posted by: AT on March 28, 2007 5:43 PMExactly where did I make a morality argument? Oh I didn't. I merely pointed out that factory farming is able to externalize certain costs that society as a whole bears.
Posted by: Brian Despain on March 28, 2007 5:48 PMStop attributing human characteristics to an animal. It does not have your brain. Was not raised like you are.
Does this mean I can rape kittens with a clear conscience? Whew! I was worried there for a second!
While other animals aren't like us in some important ways, it seems unlikely that cows, pigs, chickens, etc. are in essence just machines whose apparent cries of pain or fear are actually just equivalent to the screeching of unoiled gears. If we were talking about an ant or worm, that seems a rather more difficult question, and whose answer may well be "no," given what we know about their nervous system, etc.. But given the (relatively) large-brained complex-behaving creatures we are actually talking about - well, to bounce off the Immoralist's comment, everyone espousing such a view should have no trouble kicking puppies or burning kittens - at best, one would refrain from such an action because the possible effects of doing so, in terms of rendering one more likely to mistreat actually feeling beings.
The points Brian raises are also extremely relevant. Remember, the logic of factory farming brought us mad cow disease. As mentioned, it (that is, factory farming) also requires regular and large doses of antibiotics - I trust readers will understand why that is a problem.
Posted by: Dan S. on March 28, 2007 6:38 PMAT:"But with the rising costs of health care and education, as you post on frequently, is it moral to ask people to make financial sacrifices to get the same product, only with 50% more morality? Should only the rich eat meat? Or do only the rich get to be moral?"
Actually, I've purchased "Cruelty Offsets" to reduce my Cruelty Footprint to zero. I happily consume torture meat because I've donated money to Buddhist Missionaries who convince the peasants is parts of India, Eastern Europe and Central America to adopt a vegan lifestyle. I've bought all of Cindy Sheehan's books. And I've written to my Congressman on behalf of whatever cause is trendy and involves suffering.
I can now practice my lifestyle, which involves 623% more cruelty than the average American, without any kind of guilt!
Posted by: bristlecone on March 28, 2007 7:04 PMBrian:
Let's talk about the antibiotic issue. I'm guessing that people are aware of it and just don't care. They want to eat meat; being a meat-eater myself, I sympathize.
However, I think that the issue is a little overblown in the US. There are veterinary antibiotics and there are human antibiotics. They are different and not supposed (note that) to be used interchangeably. I'd love to hear evidence to the contrary.
I am sure that given the choice between 1) paying slightly more (2X) for totally OK meat or 3) not doing anything and getting cheap meat, people will opt for option 1 or 3 pretty quickly.
Posted by: now not trying to be a smartass on March 28, 2007 7:30 PMWhile other animals aren't like us in some important ways, it seems unlikely that cows, pigs, chickens, etc. are in essence just machines whose apparent cries of pain or fear are actually just equivalent to the screeching of unoiled gears.
And it's troubling how many here apparently believe just the opposite, as though a cow or a chicken were both just automatons lacking basic stimulus and response processes.
News flash: The cows and the chickens don't like it when we slaughter them.
I'm a poor college student who can hardly afford msg laced Ramen. When I do get to eat meat, which is always industrialized torture meat, I'm so happy that the market gave us such wonderful meat for the price even if it is at the expense of a chicken's welfare.
Hooray for commodity exchange! How much will you pay me to urinate on your face?
Posted by: Immoralist on March 28, 2007 7:41 PMIf I didn't loathe BK burgers, I might actually do that.
Posted by: Alsadius on March 28, 2007 8:30 PMDoes this mean I can rape kittens with a clear conscience? Whew! I was worried there for a second!
No, but because it's bad for us, not bad for the kittens.
Posted by: AT on March 28, 2007 8:48 PMI work with animals every day, in an "industrial" environment. I grew up working around farm animals in what was then perhaps a more bucolic setting. The animals I observed in the old days were no happier than those of today. If anything, the contrary is true.
Regardless, when whole generations of persons are disconnected from daily contact with farm animals (non-pets), their perspective will change. If, as a kid, you had to gather eggs from a coop where the old hens would flap around and peck your arms, you'd have a greater appreciation for cages. You would know how utterly nonsensical it is to suppose that farm animals are affected one whit by having flecks of their own or anyone else's feces on their body. And you would realize that being comfy, dry, and sated with food, as is the case on today's farms, was not the norm when the animals lived out in the mud under a tree in the backyard (which is how your g-grandparents observed animals regularly).
The whole idea of utilitarian, domesticated animals just doesn't fit modern sensibility. Is it that nature presents such little challenge to our own lives that we assume animals in the wild have the optimum existence, and any confinement must mean cruelty? Hence the Germans who wanted to kill the polar bear cub because otherwise it's existence would be only "domestic."
I realize there is no going back on this debate. In the not too distant future, we will grow animal muscle tissue without the animal - it can be done now in a petry dish. Eating animals will become boutique. But in the mean time, either get out and see for yourselves, meaning visit the farms and talk to the people caring for the animals, or can the self-righteousness. Neither the morality nor the economics of animal agriculture is as simplistic as you assume.
Posted by: BrianinOH on March 28, 2007 8:49 PMAs far as debating antibiotic usage, you need to understand that very often antibiotics used in food production and human antibiotics are sometimes identical and sometimes very related compounds.
People aren't really aware of the issue at all. In fact this was the first time anyone even responded to my primary point.
http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Medical+Consequences+of+Antibiotic+Use+in+Agriculture&hl=en&lr=&btnG=Search
Due to Megan's link policy, that all the links I am going to put up. However long and the short of it - extensive use of antibiotics in animal husbandry leads to resistence and through known mechanism, these genes get spread into other bacteria. Not surprisingly antibiotics has been in active use in animal husbandry for 40 years - correlated with a speeded up cycle of bacteria resistence. Please note that the use of antibiotics in animal husbandry isn't the only cause. I will post links in a couple of more posts.
Incidentally this is why I support animal cloning. When a rancher finds an animal that simply shrugs off every single disease and infection, the ability to clone that animal would significantly increase his yield while reducing his antibiotic load.
Posted by: Brian Despain on March 28, 2007 8:56 PMFeel those sharp teeth of yours at the front of your mouth? That's what comes from being on top of the food chain. On the sentience scale, we are far, far beyond food animals, especially beef and chickens. Sneaking up on grass isn't that hard, while catching gazelles and mastodon is a rather tougher assignment.
If Andrew Sullivan and the animal rights lobby is for it, I'm going to need something close to the hand of god to come down to convince me that it is right. I eat animals to annoy misanthropic, nihillist environmentalists such as those who form the "animal rights" movement. The more worked up they get, the more I enjoy my meal. I love fur, beef, sushi, and I will endeavour to upholster a yacht in baby seal penises, just to see the heads of PETA freaks explode.
Supposedly humane practices have VERY many downsides, being expensive, dangerous, and unproductive. It's decent as a luxury product, but it has almost as many negative externalities as "organic" produce. These practices are designed to create starvation so that the environmentalists prophecies of doom and starvation may come true. They are the enemies of humanity, along with the communists (but I repeat myself), and desrve to do the Spandau ballet!
Posted by: Hey on March 28, 2007 8:57 PMThe reality BrianOH is quite different
"You would know how utterly nonsensical it is to suppose that farm animals are affected one whit by having flecks of their own or anyone else's feces on their body."
If this were the case, the massive amounts of antibiotics in today's factory farms wouldn't be needed. As I said before my point is that cows are happier/unhappier - that is nonsensical - it's cow and I am going to eat it. The problem is that massive uses of antibiotics speed the process of antibiotic resistence. Please note I said speed up - it's going to happen eventually but what we have been witnessing over the last twenty years is a speeding up of the cycle which of course makes complete sense. When previous level of antibiotics are no longer effective, dosages are increased or new antibiotics are tried which simply speeds up resistence spread.
OOPS!
"As I said before my point is that cows are happier/unhappier"
should read
"As I said before my point isn't that cows are happier/unhappier"
Sigh. Brian had me thinking he was scientific and all, then he goes and suggests cloning to reduce antibiotic usage.
Okay. Clone => monoculture => if any is vulnerable, then all are vulnerable => massive systemic vulnerability to any microorganism strain that can infect any one animal.
To reduce antibiotic use you either have to reduce transmission factors or increase heterogeneity of the vectors. Pigs farther apart or pigs biologically different or pigs defended strongly.
Posted by: Twill00 on March 28, 2007 9:21 PMBrian,
I agree with your concern about overuse of antibiotics. If necessary, I would support government action to address the issue.
Megan,
I understand your views on the morality of animal husbandry practices. I disagree with them. Maybe that's because I spent much of my youth raising and caring for all kinds of farm animals (horses, cows, pigs, goats, sheep, ducks, geese, chickens, and rabbits). I've eaten them all. If you feel better paying more for humane meat, that's way cool. Go for it! It's a free country and all of that.
I won't mind at all your occasionally sharing your views on the topic. I've got a few topics I feel strongly about, too. Perhaps we can discuss them over drinks someday. I'd honestly enjoy the discussion.
Just don't try to impose your view on the rest of us with the force of law. In Arizona last year, the ballot had an initiative to curb the "immoral practices" of our factory farms. Excuse me, but I thought we had an agreement in this country: We the People lack the moral authority to prohibit abortion. If we cannot outlaw the killing of the unborn, don't you dare tell me how I'm going to raise my chickens! I'll find the incongruity very difficult to deal with.
"Clone => monoculture => if any is vulnerable, then all are vulnerable => massive systemic vulnerability to any microorganism strain that can infect any one animal."
I am aware of that issue as well. It's another risk you have to mitigate. On the other hand if you have a cow that produces 40% more meat with fewer inputs, you really want those characteristics. Sure you can breed them into the herd but then regression to the mean comes into play.
"To reduce antibiotic use you either have to reduce transmission factors or increase heterogeneity of the vectors. Pigs farther apart or pigs biologically different or pigs defended strongly."
I agree with this, certainly with reducing transmission factors.
Posted by: Brian Despain on March 28, 2007 10:09 PMDoes this mean I can rape kittens with a clear conscience?
I would worry more about anatomical size compatibility. If you feel that hurdle is met, then I can't think of any objections that would touch an immoralist's conscience.
Posted by: anony-mouse on March 29, 2007 12:15 AMThe antidote to seeing chickens raised in an industrial farm is caring for the things yourself, even if only once in a while when the neighbors go on vacation. In few words, chickens are blinkering idiots with an ocassional mean streak.
In longer words:
Chickens do not normally fly, and will usually only do so when severely spooked (and that only for short distances at heights not exceeding 3-5 feet, while flapping like a bumble bee). The rest of the time, they mosey around on their feet, scoping out the ground for anything that might be edible, which is consumed when found.
This same ground usually contains an ample amount of chicken feces, since like all birds and most animals, chickens will crap when the urge arises, irrespective of sanitary conditions or audience. In some situations these feces get scattered into the food and water supplies, or even onto the birds themselves. They do not seem to take notice of such things.
Chickens, by virtue of their dullness and limited flight ability, are a ready prey for skunks, foxes, stray dogs, overly-aggressive tom cats, and possibly a few more exotic animal types if you happen to have them in the area. Skunks can dig and squeeze through fence gaps like mice; foxes are as nimble as cats in terms of jumping and 'stairstepping' their way to a destination. Any chicken coop that isn't acitvely guarded at all hours, or else strongly secured on all six sides, will be accessed and thoroughly decimated. A weasel, should you happen to be so unlucky, will kill every chicken in the coop just for the sport of it.
Finally, chickens will sometimes turn on each other, particularly if they feel crowded, or if one of their own becomes wounded, or if they detect a runt. If such a problem isn't noticed early and corrected, the targeted bird(s) will literally be pecked to death in an orgy of blood and feathers. "Nature red in tooth and claw", is it?
I can't speak on behalf of the chickens, but my suspicion is, if a chicken woke up in a secure cage with a generous supply of food and water in front, she'd probably think that death and heaven had both occurred. Assuming a chicken even thinks about such things.
Posted by: anony-mouse on March 29, 2007 12:37 AManony-mouse,
I agree with your view on chickens. With the possible exception of turkeys, chickens are the dumbest and dirtiest of barn yard animals. I also agree that chickens might prefer living in a safe cage to being allowed to roam free. At least, several of the chickens we bought from a "factory farm" refused to leave their new coop to get food and water. They just sat in the nesting boxes. If we hadn't brought food and water to them, they would have died. Eventually, we put them in cages hung from the wall with water and food, just like their former home (except we kept the doors to the cages wired open). They seemed to like the arrangement. At least, they layed well enough. It was a minority view. Most of the chickens we got from the factory farm scratched in the dirt like, well, chickens. Just this handful seemed to prefer their own cage.
(No, I don't think the chickens sat in the cages because of any physical injury that prevented their using the fenced in chicken run. We unloaded all the chickens into the run. The hens made it into the coop and into the nesting boxes on their own. After they were in the cages, every month or so we would remove them to clean the cages. The hens would wait until we were through and then get back into their own cage on their own.)
I also agree that much of the attitude city folk have about animals comes from their lack of experience with them. My wife's family raises and shows dogs. Their dogs are part of the family. (We had one of my mother-in-law's champion bitches. When my mother-in-law came to visit us, she'd check on the dog before her grandchildren. After all, she'd raised the dog and knew it better than our children.) In my family, dogs and cats were working animals. We loved them and we would never let them suffer, but they were not part of the family nor would we have dreamed of spending money on them. The weren't worth more than their replacement cost (which might be a lot if a dog were trained for some role).
This difference in attitude towards dogs and cats became obvious soon after my wife and I married. We were visiting my parents when my youngest sister ran over a small kitten with her bicycle. The poor creature was almost decapitated. My wife and I both sprang into action. She ran into the house to get a shoe box lined with tissue for holding the kitten on the trip to the vet (a 30 minute drive) to be put it to sleep. By the time she got back outside, I had cut the kitten's head off with a shovel and buried the animal under a rose bush.
My actions bothered my bride. She wondered if that's how I would have treated one of our children. No. I would have taken our child, or anyone's child, to the hospital and spared no effort or expense to save the child's life. A kitten? I saw no reason to allow it to suffer another 30 minutes only so the vet could put it down humanely. (I didn't say it, but I saw no reason to pay a vet for such a service, either. I would not have thought of taking the kitten to the vet had the vet's office been across the street.)
Posted by: David Walser on March 29, 2007 1:28 AMJane, since you are in the DC area, consider seeking an interview with the founder of Certified Humane, Sandy Lerner. She founded Cisco and when she got defenestrated for caring too much about customers she moved to Virginia, started an organic farm and a store and a restaurant that sell the products of the farm, bought Jane Austen's house and established an institute for the study of English women writers, took up jousting and Harleys and cigars, founded teh Urban Decay cruetly-free Goth cosmetics company, posed nude for Forbes magazine, and started breeding Shire horses and other heirloom livestock in an effort to reproduce the genepool of centuries ago. What a hippie libertarian success story! I am a huge fan and really, you two were made for each other. Oh yeah she also runs a music studio -- she is a big nerd for sound engineering. She is a thorn in the side of the *precious* foxhunting crowd here in the Piedmont because she will not allow the hunt onto her property. Her restaurant is called the Hunter's Head -- get it? The sign is an anthropomorphised fox carrying a covered platter...
Roll that rent car out West and take Rte 50 to Upperville. The Hunt Country offers some of the most beautiful scenery in the US and you are right next to it.
Posted by: john clark on March 29, 2007 3:15 AMJane, since you are in the DC area, consider seeking an interview with the founder of Certified Humane, Sandy Lerner. She founded Cisco and when she got defenestrated for caring too much about customers she moved to Virginia, started an organic farm and a store and a restaurant that sell the products of the farm, bought Jane Austen's house and established an institute for the study of English women writers, took up jousting and Harleys and cigars, founded teh Urban Decay cruetly-free Goth cosmetics company, posed nude for Forbes magazine, and started breeding Shire horses and other heirloom livestock in an effort to reproduce the genepool of centuries ago. What a hippie libertarian success story! I am a huge fan and really, you two were made for each other. Oh yeah she also runs a music studio -- she is a big nerd for sound engineering. She is a thorn in the side of the *precious* foxhunting crowd here in the Piedmont because she will not allow the hunt onto her property. Her restaurant is called the Hunter's Head -- get it? The sign is an anthropomorphised fox carrying a covered platter...
Roll that rent car out West and take Rte 50 to Upperville. The Hunt Country offers some of the most beautiful scenery in the US and you are right next to it.
Posted by: john clark on March 29, 2007 3:16 AMTo reduce antibiotic use you either have to reduce transmission factors or increase heterogeneity of the vectors. Pigs farther apart or pigs biologically different or pigs defended strongly.
Or use phage therapy. It's not employed currently by any farms I know of, but there are no real remaining technological barriers. I'm not sure of legal ones...
Posted by: Ryan W. on March 29, 2007 4:53 AMActually, I've purchased "Cruelty Offsets" to reduce my Cruelty Footprint to zero. I happily consume torture meat because I've donated money to Buddhist Missionaries who convince the peasants is parts of India, Eastern Europe and Central America to adopt a vegan lifestyle. I've bought all of Cindy Sheehan's books. And I've written to my Congressman on behalf of whatever cause is trendy and involves suffering.
I can now practice my lifestyle, which involves 623% more cruelty than the average American, without any kind of guilt!
Haha! That's pretty good.
Posted by: Justin on March 29, 2007 9:31 AMInterestingly, I don't think I've seen even one of the brands listed as "certified humane" on sale down in GA. Maybe Maverick Ranch, and then it was (obscenely expensive) beef, not bacon.
I've been trying to buy cage-free eggs (4grain -- I just opened the fridge to check), non-rBGH-laced milk (Horizon, now Naturally Preferred [the Kroger brand] or Publix Greenwise), and relatively humanely produced chicken (Springer Mountain Farms) and beef (Laura's) for a while now. None of those make the cut. Is it just that the testing is going on in a limited area, or are certified-humane brands having a hard time making it into Southern supermarkets? Or am I just being completely hoodwinked?
Posted by: Jessica on March 29, 2007 10:29 AMBrian:
Interesting link, but again, I'm not convinced that this is a particularly bad issue for human health. I read the Microbial Drug Resistance article by Anderson et al. At the most, this indicates that we need to be careful about which classes of antimicrobials are allowed to be used for farming and which for human health. Using the fluoroquinolones for farming doesn't seem like a particularly good idea from the outset, I might note.
However, it sounds like a problem that the relevant stakeholders are addressing (and this was an article in 2003.) I'd love to hear more.
P.S. To put it delicately, I notice "tone" in your posts. Perhaps people would be more receptive without it.
Posted by: now not trying to be a smartass on March 29, 2007 11:15 AM"P.S. To put it delicately, I notice "tone" in your posts. Perhaps people would be more receptive without it."
Actually the only "tone" I has when I noted that people reflexively defended factory farming without knowing anything about it. Thereafter I has fairly neutral.
"At the most, this indicates that we need to be careful about which classes of antimicrobials are allowed to be used for farming and which for human health. Using the fluoroquinolones for farming doesn't seem like a particularly good idea from the outset, I might note."
Indeed but currently we are not being careful. I imagine this will moderate and change if only because the cost of developing a new antibiotic is so high pharmaceutical companies need to extend the effective life of their drugs.
Posted by: Brian Despain on March 29, 2007 12:07 PMI am not sure that chicken's have 'minds' or pigs for that matter. Nobody is. No minds no suffering either.
Re Mr. Walser. My father grew up in the Bronx and whan he was 14 my grandmother took him back to Ireland on a trip to the Olde Sod and the family farm. They put him to work feeding the pigs and pointed out one of the pigs as the one they were going to eat the day before he left. My father felt sorry for the pig. After a week of feeding the pigs, he couldn't wait to eat that pig.
There is a reason that being called a pig is insulting, and not because pigs are fat either. Doing one's best to make a pig happy would be different in scale but not in kind, to letting the Nazis conquer you because you didn't want to make them unhappy, pigs are not nice.
One guy that seems really funny when he talks about stuff like this stuff is the Peter Singer guy. Sure, he'll give you learned sounding reasons for his thought, but one can't help suspecting that the real reason that he thinks what he thinks is that he watched Bambi too many times when he was a kid.
I'm worried about factory farms because they seem to generate a lot of pollution. I would love to see them cleaned up to some extent. I'm not worried about the morality of treating animals like, well, animals. I am opposed to excessive or deliberate cruelty to animals, but that harms the person doing the deed as well.
As far as Peter Singer goes, he's an idiot. He claims to work from first principles and deduce a logical morality, but in the end, his axioms are just as made up as anyone else's. And he isn't nearly as consistent or logical as he thinks he is. The more I read of his stuff, the more convinced I become that he's not even all that smart.
We should probably just wait until vat-grown meat becomes available... then the whole question will largely go away.
EI
Posted by: Earnest Iconoclast on March 29, 2007 1:33 PMBrian:
Part of the reason that I suspect this is a relatively isolated instance of threats to human health are the lack of crossover between human antibiotics and farming ones. Fundamentally, you would think there's a price issue. Human antibiotics cannot be used for farming purposes because they're too expensive. If that's not the case, I'd love to hear evidence to the contrary.
The fluoroquinolones are interesting, but I might add that they were not the same compound, but different drugs within the same class (directed at a specific bacteria.) I would think that it would be equally useful to prevent contact with the infectious agent.
Posted by: not a smartass on March 29, 2007 3:03 PMBrian_Despain, could I audit your accounting methodology, or did you just make up your conclusion?
Posted by: Person on March 29, 2007 5:07 PM"I think it's worth it to maybe eat vegetarian once a week so that the rest of the time, you can put meat on the table..."
I'm surprised that the normally level headed Megan would embrace the common fallacy that I call "the quantitatively mismatched 'solution' ".
Big problems don't have easy solutions. The romantics just don't grasp the quantitative dimension of the problems.
You can't get rid of factory farming by "eating vegetarian once a week".
You can't solve our energy problems by a little conservation and a little more renewables. Etc., etc.
The problems and the "solutions" are not in the same quantitative class.
Banning factory farming means meat only for the rich, just like banning factory sewing means clothes only for the rich.
Posted by: Jacob on March 29, 2007 6:09 PMRe factory farm pollution problems: they do need to treat their sewage better, but factory farms are actually better in terms of pollution as they are an intensive source where it is economical to trap, treat, and repurpose the waste. Organic or humane farms would just have all the sh$t outside and exposed to the elements, creating a much bigger problem and not providing opportunities for reuse. Chickens sh$t just as much for Sandy Lerner or the Niemans as for Con-Agra, it's just spread over a wider area.
Posted by: Hey on March 29, 2007 7:14 PMDid I miss the part where our lovely hostess actually demanded a ban on factory farming? She was saying that she finds factory farming unnecessarily cruel. She further noted that there were slightly more costly alternatives on the market, and that those of us who could afford to purchase them ought to consider doing so. Bravo to her for that.
What followed seems to have been a litany of "pry my McNuggets from my cold, dead hands!" knee jerking. Fear not, gentle readers! She's not going to take your factory food from you and neither am I.
The argument here is a free-market, libertarian, argument. Jane wants a world where less factory farming occurs. As a result, she's demanding non-factory meat with her dollars and peacefully advocating that others do the same. We live in a wealthy society, with many members wealthy enough that their personal strain of morality can be added to things like quality and price when evaluating purchases. This is a Good Thing. I don't buy from a restaurant that treats me poorly even if they have good food for cheap prices. Why is it wrong that I not buy from a farm that doesn't treat pigs and cows as I would have them treated?
Like Jane, I'd prefer to not encourage factory farming. My understanding based on limited research suggests that it's an incredibly dangerous job for the human workers (in the case of beef especially), a source of health problems like mad cow and pollution, a contributor to greenhouse gases (cows fixing carbon in the form of methane as opposed to the relatively less harmful CO2) and a pretty brutal life for the animals (the argument that pigs can't feel feelings doesn't jive with my farm animal experiences). As a middle class professional, my income gives me the luxury of a quality diet in which factory farmed meat doesn't play a part.
I'm not going to force anyone to join me, but I would hope that anyone consider the issue seriously before coming to their own conclusion. If you're cool with the way your sausage is made, fine. That said, it seems to me like some here have no idea how their sausage is made. They just like sausage and would rather lash out at anyone who would dare to burst the bubble of their intentional ignorance than be forced into a mindful consideration of the situation. I'm less inclined to support that kind of behavior.
None of us can lead a life free of negative consequences, but it's always good to try. More to the point, it's never good to criticize someone else for trying for no other reason than that it makes you feel better about your own inaction.
Posted by: mrpinto on March 30, 2007 12:23 AMDoes this mean I can rape kittens with a clear conscience?
Sure, but declawing them first is just wrong.
Posted by: markm on March 30, 2007 8:28 AM"She was saying that she finds factory farming unnecessarily cruel.'
That implies that she would rather that it did not happen. But - having a factory-farming free world means: a hungry world, a world where the poorest starve.
I'm sure Megan would not advocate hunger, but maybe she is unaware that the first implies the second. Between a bad and a good alternative (factory farming vs. natural farming) you select the good, but between a bad and a worse alternative (factory farming or hunger) what do you select ? This is the real choice.
It's just the implied idea that you can avoid factory farming by just paying a little more for meat - that is factually very wrong.
Posted by: Jacob on March 30, 2007 8:45 AMto the guy who said the free range chicken was the best ever, that had to be because you were camping. That matches my experience, too. Leave chickens free to roam and socialize with each other, and they grow up tough and scrawny - aside from the ones that got pecked to death, that is. It's like they spend too much of their energy jockeying for social position, which is very important in chickens since they show dominance by pecking their inferiors...
OTOH, free range beef can be better than anything I've ever tasted from a feedlot. Put several calves of a good breed in a 20 acre pasture in Michigan, with plenty of mixed grass and alfalfa to eat. Feed about a half-cup of grain per calf a day, just enough that they'll come together so you can count them and know when you've got to go look for a break in the fence and then start tracking the runaways... In the wintertime, keep them in a barn but with the door open so they can go out and run around a large fenced lot, and increase the grain a bit because the cold uses more energy but still have them mostly eating hay. Butcher at the end of their second summer. Yummie!
But don't tell your little sister where the meat came from.
Posted by: markm on March 30, 2007 8:48 AMBut don't tell your little sister where the meat came from.
Ain't that the truth! We moved to a ranch when I was in the 5th grade. That spring we got our first "drop calf". (A drop calf is one that is taken from its mother as soon as it is born. Usually, it is one of the male offspring from a dairy herd -- male cows don't produce milk, so they aren't much use to a dairy.) We fed the calf by bottle, named it JK, and pretty much made a pet out of it. At the end of the following summer, we had someone come to slaughter the calf. It was killed and gutted underneath a large oak tree in our lower pasture. The carcass was then taken to the butcher's to be aged before being cut and packaged.
That night, over a dinner of liver and onions, all of us kids agreed we would not eat JK. We swore we would not forgive our parents for their cruelty in killing our pet. Finally, my mom had had enough and she told us we had been eating JK's liver. (The internal organs do not need aging and had been given to mom soon after they were harvested.) My younger sister grew red in the face and yelled at mom: You, you, you... cannibal!
The rest of JK tasted as good as his liver. Even my sister would agree.
@Jacob
I can't speak for Jane, but I know that that for me, the leap from "I'd rather not support factory farming" to "I'd rather that poor people starve so that it never happens" is a bit of a jump.
For starters, no one, poor or otherwise, would starve if we all woke up tomorrow and every chicken, cow, pig and sheep disappeared off the face of the earth. Meat is a a luxury item. People like to eat it and it's part of a balanced diet and so on, but let's try to keep sane here.
More importantly, my personal view is that I'm not going to worry myself too much about what other people are doing. *I* don't want to support it, and I'm not above trying to convince others who can afford the sacrifice to join me. No one's forcing anyone to do anything here, so please let's remain calm.
Factory farming vs hunger is absolutely a false dilemma. There are enough vegetarians in the world to demonstrate that the more general case of "meat vs hunger" isn't a dilemma either. Even accepting that we want to eat meat, the matter of how much, for what cost, and from what source can be decided entirely independently of starvation issues.
Not that the world is in need of more food right now, but avoiding meat altogether might actually improve rather than harm world hunger. Most of the animals you and I would eat are fed things that we could also eat: corn, wheat, other grains. A cow is basically an incredibly inefficient (10:1 or worse, IIRC) means for converting the energy from corn into hamburgers.
Enough is enough. We eat meat because we like meat. That's fine. Some of us are willing to sacrifice money or dietary meat intake in favor of reducing factory farming. There's nothing wrong with that. If you don't care about factory farming, can't or don't want to afford alternatives, and can't or don't want to bear the anguish of cheese pizza without the pepperoni and sausage, then do what you have to do. I'd request though that you own up to your decision rather than trotting the starving children out as an excuse.
Posted by: mrpinto on March 30, 2007 7:22 PMMrpinto:
Do you mean to say that meat is a luxury now, when we have adequate nutritional analyses as opposed to caveman days?
I could be wrong, but I think I could turn around the saw about grains/cows, 10:1, etc. It seems to me that hamburger is a much more efficient means of delivering energy than grain.
If you're going to argue that factory farming (and its excesses) has cheapened meat to the point where people can eat too much of it, fine. But you should admit that if all the food animals in the world evaporated, we'd spend a lot more time doing the "gathering" part of "hunting and gathering" than we do now.
Posted by: Klug on March 30, 2007 10:00 PM@klug,
By labeling meat as a luxury, I mean only that it isn't necessary for survival. Jacob had warned of starvation in the event of an interruption in supply. I contend that not only can the poor survive with more expensive meat, they could survive with no meat at all. I don't personally feel that meat is necessary for preventing starvation of the poor, the rich, or the caveman in your life. Meat might have some handy nutritional properties like high concentrations of protein, fat, calories and minerals like iron and zinc, but these are certainly things that can be obtained elsewhere. That's really just so much distraction though - I'm not advocating that anyone who can't handle a meatless diet or even the expense of a "moral" meatless diet do so. I'm just trying to say that the stakes here are matters of preference, not survival.
As for efficient means of delivery energy, I think you misunderstand. Most meat probably does have higher caloric (energy) content per unit of volume or mass than grain. That's not the issue. The issue is that your 500 calorie hamburger took 5000 calories worth of grain to produce. Where does the energy go? Well, the cow spent its life producing body heat, moving around, making noises, etc. Besides, any energy conversion loses something. The more jumps you take from the source (plants converting sunlight), the more energy conversions take place. A unit of arable land should be able to feed many more people (5-10x, I'd wager) if used for growing grains for direct human consumption. I'd wager that this is why China depends on rice as the staple for its masses rather than, say, chicken.
I haven't mentioned that we eat too much meat, but I should think that's obvious. Red meat is implicated in heart disease, an ailment that I believe kills more Americans than any other. Once again (still!), this doesn't mean that I'm going to tear the McNuggets from the mouths of the impoverished. It just means that they might actually be better off in the long run if I did. I'm a libertarian - I'm not going to take your pot much less your meat.
Addressing your final point: yes, if there were no meat-producing animals, we'd hunt less. What's your point? If we weren't growing all that soya and corn and grain to feed our cows, we could grow a whole lot less of it and feed ourselves. There'd be less hunting AND less gathering.
Of course, there'd also be less meat. And we like meat. But that's it. We don't need meat, be we poor, rich, or caveman. Our economy doesn't need meat. We aren't saving time or money or effort or health by eating meat at all much less in our potentially excessive quantities. We're just producing and consuming something that we prefer.
I'm not going to sit and argue preference. If your taste for meat and money (or anyone else's, really) outweighs your distaste for factory farming, so be it. I won't even feel "holier than thou" or anything like that. We all have our own decisions to make, and you'd probably disagree some of mine too. You're just not going to convince me that you're deciding based on need rather than want.
Posted by: mrpinto on March 30, 2007 11:20 PMWell, count me in. You all should stop supporting cruel farming practices. Especially, pate. Really bad, that one. I suggest everyone cut back on their pate consumption. Not stop it, mind you. Just cut back. Keep doing it until the price begins to rise again from market adjustments, then go back just to the lowest price point. While you're at it, could you do the same with Flemmish red ales?
Posted by: Bill Dalasio on March 30, 2007 11:32 PMmrpinto,
I think that you underestimate "preference". This preference is really, really strong -- like centuries strong. Like around the world strong. It's so strong that people are more than willing to turn their heads and not think about the nastier consequences of their market choices. No, it's not a necessity, but I think that history indicates that the human desire for meat is more than say, my preference for Diet Coke over coffee. I think the Chinese eat rice out of necessity, not preference. If they could (and I think they are), they'd factory farm all they could to feed their people meat.
"If we weren't growing all that soya and corn and grain to feed our cows, we could grow a whole lot less of it and feed ourselves."
You might be a action libertarian (don't want gov't intervention), but you're sure not a thought libertarian. If we all walked to work, we wouldn't have to pump all that oil out of the ground. (sorry, non sequitur) My point is that I'm skeptical that there would be that much less agriculture if everybody went vegetarian.
On another point, I could be wrong, but the cows/grain/10:1 is trotted out so often that I'm reflexively skeptical. First of all, cows don't eat just grain. Matter of fact, they eat a lot more hay than grain. Last I checked, we can't eat hay. So if they're an inefficient way of turning things I can't eat into things that I can, more's the better. FWIW, I did a little searching and Wikipedia says that 1 kg of beef takes about 100 kg of hay and 4 kg of grain. Assuming that all the grain magically turns into an equal weight of wheat bread and all the beef magically turns into sirloin (trimmed, no less), the ratio is more like 5:1, calorically speaking.
Cards on the table: I grew up in Portland, OR with lots of vegans and vegetarians. I love lentil loaf. I don't eat meat very much, 'cause it's expensive and I like to save my money and calories for good meat. I've read FFN, I was horrified by the meatpacking chapter.
But I strongly object to your terming this a "preference" or a "want" like it's Aguilera over Spears. People really, really like meat and they like it cheap. I think it's worth reforming the system, sure, but it's going to take a lot more convincing and a lot less preaching.
Posted by: Klug on March 31, 2007 1:15 AM@klug
I use the loosest definition of "preference" possible. The one where "need" means "have it or I'll die," and "want" means anything else. My intent was to refute a claim that the choice before us is factory farming or starvation. This is a false dilemma. Less meat, paying more for meat, no meat, and improvements in the humaneness of production all strike me as alternatives.
When you say it's not really a preference, I think you mean that, right now, the difference in cost is so high that the meager concern for the animals is insufficient to overcome it. Given the success of factory farming, that's pretty obvious. Of course, that just means that the preference for meat is strong. It doesn't mean it isn't a preference. The situation could be remedied by 1) decreasing the cost difference, 2) decreasing the meat preference or 3) increasing the perceived repugnance of factory farming. Jane and I attempt number 3.
As for the energy efficiency business, so cows eat hay too and not just grain. So? Just because we don't use hay doesn't mean that it's useless. What happens to the hay that would have gone to the mysteriously vanished cattle? Well, maybe we burn the hay for fuel. Or grow switch grass. Or maybe we plant the land with something that we can eat. It's not like the only possible use for the sunlight and the land is to make hay for cows for burgers.
Anyay, there's absolutely no way out of the math here: laws of thermodynamics plainly state that energy is lost in any conversion. If you add a cow as the middle-man between you and the plant, you've added loss. Any energy actually used by the cow in living its life is also obviously loss. Are we just arguing about the multiplier here? Honestly, 10:1 feels a bit low to me, but I wouldn't pretend to be an expert on these things. I wouldn't be surprised if it were 5 or 15. It's definitely greater than 1, and that's really all that matters in terms of supporting my original argument: a world without factory farming would not only not result in mass starvation, it would actually allow for more food. That's just a thought exercise though, playing with the "factory farm or starve" choice. Just because it would be more energy- and land-efficient if we all went vegetarian doesn't mean that we should, and it sure as hell doesn't mean that we want to.
I have no idea what the difference between an "action" and a "thought" libertarian is. I think you're free to eat whatever meat you find in the store, and you're free to think whatever you want to about it. Your even free to think that raising cattle is a more efficient use of our world's land than growing food or fuel for humans. You'd just be wrong on that last one. =)
Finally, what's the difference between "convincing" and "preaching?" Appeals to morality instead of wallets? Perceived fanatacism? I agree that people really like meat and really like it cheap. The first step towards convincing in my book is to tear down the knee-jerk reactions. Folks seem to think "OMG! They're coming for my burgers! I *LOVE* burgers! I *NEED* burgers. Maybe if I tell them that poor people are going to starve, they won't come for my BURGERS!" It might be that our concern for animals and environment is so slim that there's no cost premium, no matter how small, that we'd be willing to pay in order to improve production. But we'll never find out if we can't first cut the hysterics and start thinking about costs and benefits in a semi-rational fashion.
Posted by: mrpinto on March 31, 2007 2:40 AMOk, maybe stating the alternative between factory farming and starvation is a little hyperbole - but - without factory farming the quantity of meat produced will be decreased drastically, which means - the price would go up - very much up. Which means: only the rich can afford meat.
The poor ? Maybe they won't starve, they'll subsist on bread or rice or corn, like they did in the past.
I just wanted to say that getting rid of factory farming has consequences well beyond "eating meat only five days a week".
Everyone is welcome to eat or not this or that meat. That's a personal choice. It's just that getting rid of "cruel" factory farming is not a practical possibility.
Posted by: Jacob on March 31, 2007 11:27 AM@jacob
I personally found it a practical possibility. Ditto Jane. You too might also find it manageable to change the source of your meat. Let's leave the hypothetical poor man out of this. He can make his own decision.
It seems silly to offer the inability to do everything as a rationale for failing to do anything.
Posted by: mrpinto on March 31, 2007 12:34 PMmrpinto:
"Your even free to think that raising cattle is a more efficient use of our world's land than growing food or fuel for humans. You'd just be wrong on that last one."
I don't think that it's more efficient, but I hold to my original point, which is that there has been/is clearly a nutritional advantage (calorically and otherwise) to some amount of meat eating. (Ironically, that advantage has probably been decreased by the industrialization of vegetable farming.) Whatever you and I think, it's pretty clear that the market values meat a lot.
Moreover, I find this insistence that all meat is fast foot meat to be ridiculous. Your example of sausage, pepperoni, burgers and McNuggets is more than a little misleading: not all meat eating is heading down to Fatburger for your fifth 99 cent cheeseburger of the day. It's chicken breasts with basil and zucchini or salmon for dinner. Speaking as someone on a budget, I don't buy meat a whole lot. When I do, I find it to be already pretty darn expensive. I raise my eyebrows at suggestions that I either select things that are more expensive or do with even less; I have my own charitable causes.
Finally, there is a strain of nannyism in your comments that I find odd in a libertarian: repugnance, distaste and a desire for "efficiency". Your last comment is especially telling: "It seems silly to offer the inability to do everything as a rationale for failing to do anything." I don't want to impute intention, but it seems to me that you're offering rationales for regulation.
If you have numbers to suggest that changing my purchasing habits would be easier than I think, I'd love to hear them. Matter of fact, I'm making dinner tonight. I'll walk down the meat section and see what I can see. TTY Monday.
Posted by: Klug on March 31, 2007 3:03 PMmrpinto,
You missed the thermodynamics of money.
The federal government spent over $ 51,000,000,000 dollars (51 billion dollars) paying farmers to grow corn. The federal government also spent a ton of money paying farmers to not farm.
I remain puzzled how so many apparently educated people waste time complaining about animal agriculture when the root cause of almost every single issues they are concerned about is farm subsidies.
If you want to help the environment work to end farm subsidies. Any policy changes short of this is the equivalent of trying to fight a forest fire with a spray bottle.
Posted by: TJIT on March 31, 2007 6:24 PMmrpinto,
Great portions of the land mass around the world are not suitable for farming. Furthermore, many ecosystems evolved being grazed by ruminants and these ecosystems require continued grazing to maintain their health.
By grazing in these ecosystems cattle.
1. Maintain the health of the ecosytem
2. Provide and additional source of food that would not exist without cattle
3. Provide an economic way to preserve these ecosystems.
Posted by: TJIT on March 31, 2007 6:33 PMhome lenders manufactured mortgage
Posted by: mortgage manufactured lenders home on March 31, 2007 8:41 PMIn no particular order:
I use fast food as examples since that's where I figure the majority of factory-farmed meat is consumed, and since we were discussing the nutrition of the poor specifically.
When I say it's silly to say that the inability to everything justifies a decision to not do anything, I'm talking at an individual level. No one's advocating regulation here, and I've been pretty explicit about that. If anything, the counter-arguments I'm seeing are anti-libertarian. It seems that for some, there's no value in an incomplete measure: it's no good if I, Megan and (possibly) Jacob ditch factory meat: the "poor" can't or won't, so it's worthless. You guys are the ones who seem to think that the only way any of this will be any good is if everybody does it. Regulation is probably the quickest way to make everybody do it. I'm willing to accept a Coalition of the Willing here, so to speak. Me, Jane, and anyone we can convince. It's not an all-or-nothing affair: reducing demand by 1% reduces production by 1%.
Farm subsidies are a total off-topic distraction. Of course I oppose farm subsidies on corn. That has little to do with the matter at hand, which is how we treat our animals.
The non-arable land canard is an oldie and a goodie, but I don't buy it. If factory-farmed cows are eating hay and grain, they're eating the product of farmable land. Hay and grain are things that we farm. As I've mentioned before though, the efficiency is off-topic too. It might be a reason to go vegetarian, but it's not a reason to reform animal treatment, since the animals are going to be "wasting" the energy anyway. The only reason I ever brought it up was in a response to the hyperbolic claim that ditching factory meat would result in starvation. It wouldn't. The meat we eat is a net LOSS in produced food and energy. That's fine since we can afford it, but it's the exact opposite of a situation where banning meat would lead to starvation. The second portion of this claim is even worse - that cattle-farming preserves ecosystems. My understanding is that cattle-farming is pretty bad for the environment, whether factory or otherwise. Isn't it a major factor in the Brazilian deforestation? I personally believe that we can have our cows and have our environment too, but I strongly suspect that we'd be preserving ecosystems *in spite of* rather than *as a result of* our cattle raising.
Nannyism is a silly label. I'm not forcing anyone to do anything. I'm asking those who can afford it to consider doing something. For the love of God, I'm not going to steal your burgers (or your chicken with basil and some zesty lemon sauce)!
The claim of nutritional advantage to meat consumption is suspect. Meat is a good source of protein and some minerals. It's actually a lousy source of calories since it tends to get most of its calories from fat. The best things for your diet are whole grains and leafy greens. The first gives you your energy, the latter your vitamins, minerals and protein. Anything beyond that is above and beyond the minimum requirements. Since grains and greens are cheaper to produce and more energy-efficient, there's no real "benefit" to meat. The best thing I could come up with is that we don't really like leafy greens, and meat is a good place to get the protein, iron, zinc, and so-on that we'd otherwise get from spinach. I personally hate leafy greens, so I have a *preference* for meat in that regard. =)
@klug, meat prices, factory or otherwise, vary greatly depending on where you live. I travel a bit and I've noticed that e.g. chicken is more expensive in California than DC. I hope you found something tasty and affordable at any rate. If there was a "now with 25% less cruelty" sticker, more the better. =)
Right now, I'm actually in the middle of a vegetarian experiment (almost, I eat fish once every week or two). Not really for environmental or ethical reasons, but as a test for how it helps my athletic training, energy, and sleep patterns. The results so far: my food bill has dropped. I sleep a little less than before. I don't have nearly as many indigestion problems on long runs. I've maintained weight but reduced body fat. I set a personal record at my last half-marathon. The real test is at the end of the month when I attempt my first post-veggie marathon, but I'm feeling pretty good right now.
Why mention that? Well, it's become pretty clear to me that the cost of my preference for meat (which I still prefer and might well return to) is much greater than just the dollar cost at the store. Eating a lot of meat also means giving up on a lot of those other advantages as well. If I do return to meat, I'll treat it as I now treat sushi: an occasional treat, not a staple part of my diet.
Posted by: mrpinto on March 31, 2007 9:44 PMmrpinto, your statements are in block quotes
Farm subsidies are a total off-topic distraction. Of course I oppose farm subsidies on corn. That has little to do with the matter at hand, which is how we treat our animals.Farm subsidies are absolutely central to the issues you are concerned about. The production systems you dislike are economically possible because farm subsidies create the cheap corn supply they need to be profitable. Remove the subsidies and less intensive animal raising systems become cost competitive.
The non-arable land canard is an oldie and a goodie, but I don't buy it.Many areas are not suitable for farming because there is not sufficient moisture or topsoil to support cropping activities. You don't have to buy it, the fact that you won't shows you really don't know what you are talking about.
If factory-farmed cows are eating hay and grain, they're eating the product of farmable land. Hay and grain are things that we farm.Have you heard of an activity called grazing? Cattle and other ruminant animals spend much of the day grazing on the prairie, and this provides an economically and ecologically sustainable use of the land. Most cattle will spend the vast majority of their life in a non-confined setting grazing grass and are only in a feedlot for about four months. In other words a lot of cattle food is the produced by ecosystem preservation, not farming.
My understanding is that cattle-farming is pretty bad for the environment, whether factory or otherwise.Your understanding is wrong and does not account for the ecology and economics of either cattle production or grain farming. Cattle production preserves ecosystems by
1. Filling the ruminant niche these ecosystems require for continued health.
2. Providing an economic return that allows the ecosystems to be maintained intact instead of being converted to monoculture farming.
Isn't it a major factor in the Brazilian deforestation?No, Brazil has endemic foot and mouth disease and because of this can't export raw beef to either the United States or many other countries. Mandated biofuel usage and production is one of the main drivers of rainforest destruction.
I personally believe that we can have our cows and have our environment too, but I strongly suspect that we'd be preserving ecosystems *in spite of* rather than *as a result of* our cattle raising.That statement is flatly wrong. Cattle production has preserved and improved a variety of ecosystems covering a vast amount of the landscape.
On the other hand, many ecosystems have been destroyed by converting land from cattle production to mono-culture crop production.
This destruction was caused because the farm subsidies you don't find relevant made monculture grain farming more profitable then cattle production.
If you really want to help the animals and the environment learn the facts on the ground. Then you will know enough to address the root cause of the problems that concern you. Without knowledge you risk floundering around and pushing for policies that will do more harm then good.
Posted by: TJIT on April 1, 2007 1:39 PMMore on the way, but I thought I would check in with my foray. I'm in southern CA and I was at a Vons. I was in the market for some chicken breasts; ended up buying 4 at $1.79/lb. Couldn't directly compare to my 'still-bone-in' breasts; the best I could do was the chicken breast strips, which I wouldn't buy in a million years. The regular was 6.99, the organic free range, 8.99.
More eye-opening were the eggs. The regular: 1.79/doz and $10/doz for the free range. Didn't say 'cage-free' or 'cruelty-free'.
All I gotta say (as someone who doesn't buy a lot of meat) is wow, that's too much for me.
Posted by: Klug on April 2, 2007 1:26 PMRed contacts? We used red heat lamps to keep chicks from pecking each other to death forty-odd years ago. I can't figure out why someone would even consider contact lenses.
I Googled it and found this:
http://www.inc.com/magazine/19890501/5636.html
and it still sounds nuts to me. And the story doesn't mention using red lights once. Is it inobvious?