Optimum Health

This week in NY Times

By NICOLETTE HAHN NIMAN

Bolinas, Calif.

IS eating a hamburger the global warming equivalent of driving a Hummer? This week an article in The Times of London carried a headline that blared: “Give Up Meat to Save the Planet.” Former Vice President Al Gore, who has made climate change his signature issue, has even been assailed for omnivorous eating by animal rights activists.

It’s true that food production is an important contributor to climate change. And the claim that meat (especially beef) is closely linked to global warming has received some credible backing, including by the United Nations and University of Chicago. Both institutions have issued reports that have been widely summarized as condemning meat-eating.

But that’s an overly simplistic conclusion to draw from the research. To a rancher like me, who raises cattle, goats and turkeys the traditional way (on grass), the studies show only that the prevailing methods of producing meat — that is, crowding animals together in factory farms, storing their waste in giant lagoons and cutting down forests to grow crops to feed them — cause substantial greenhouse gases. It could be, in fact, that a conscientious meat eater may have a more environmentally friendly diet than your average vegetarian.

So what is the real story of meat’s connection to global warming? Answering the question requires examining the individual greenhouse gases involved: carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxides.

Carbon dioxide makes up the majority of agriculture-related greenhouse emissions. In American farming, most carbon dioxide emissions come from fuel burned to operate vehicles and equipment. World agricultural carbon emissions, on the other hand, result primarily from the clearing of woods for crop growing and livestock grazing. During the 1990s, tropical deforestation in Brazil, India, Indonesia, Sudan and other developing countries caused 15 percent to 35 percent of annual global fossil fuel emissions.

Much Brazilian deforestation is connected to soybean cultivation. As much as 70 percent of areas newly cleared for agriculture in Mato Grosso State in Brazil is being used to grow soybeans. Over half of Brazil’s soy harvest is controlled by a handful of international agribusiness companies, which ship it all over the world for animal feed and food products, causing emissions in the process.

Meat and dairy eaters need not be part of this. Many smaller, traditional farms and ranches in the United States have scant connection to carbon dioxide emissions because they keep their animals outdoors on pasture and make little use of machinery. Moreover, those farmers generally use less soy than industrial operations do, and those who do often grow their own, so there are no emissions from long-distance transport and zero chance their farms contributed to deforestation in the developing world.

In contrast to traditional farms, industrial livestock and poultry facilities keep animals in buildings with mechanized systems for feeding, lighting, sewage flushing, ventilation, heating and cooling, all of which generate emissions. These factory farms are also soy guzzlers and acquire much of their feed overseas. You can reduce your contribution to carbon dioxide emissions by avoiding industrially produced meat and dairy products.

Unfortunately for vegetarians who rely on it for protein, avoiding soy from deforested croplands may be more difficult: as the Organic Consumers Association notes, Brazilian soy is common (and unlabeled) in tofu and soymilk sold in American supermarkets.

Methane is agriculture’s second-largest greenhouse gas. Wetland rice fields alone account for as much 29 percent of the world’s human-generated methane. In animal farming, much of the methane comes from lagoons of liquefied manure at industrial facilities, which are as nauseating as they sound.

This isn’t a problem at traditional farms. “Before the 1970s, methane emissions from manure were minimal because the majority of livestock farms in the U.S. were small operations where animals deposited manure in pastures and corrals,” the Environmental Protection Agency says. The E.P.A. found that with the rapid rise of factory farms, liquefied manure systems became the norm and methane emissions skyrocketed. You can reduce your methane emissions by seeking out meat from animals raised outdoors on traditional farms.

CRITICS of meat-eating often point out that cattle are prime culprits in methane production. Fortunately, the cause of these methane emissions is understood, and their production can be reduced.

Much of the problem arises when livestock eat poor quality forages, throwing their digestive systems out of balance. Livestock nutrition experts have demonstrated that by making minor improvements in animal diets (like providing nutrient-laden salt licks) they can cut enteric methane by half. Other practices, like adding certain proteins to ruminant diets, can reduce methane production per unit of milk or meat by a factor of six, according to research at Australia’s University of New England. Enteric methane emissions can also be substantially reduced when cattle are regularly rotated onto fresh pastures, researchers at University of Louisiana have confirmed.

Finally, livestock farming plays a role in nitrous oxide emissions, which make up around 5 percent of this country’s total greenhouse gases. More than three-quarters of farming’s nitrous oxide emissions result from manmade fertilizers. Thus, you can reduce nitrous oxide emissions by buying meat and dairy products from animals that were not fed fertilized crops — in other words, from animals raised on grass or raised organically.

In contrast to factory farming, well-managed, non-industrialized animal farming minimizes greenhouse gases and can even benefit the environment. For example, properly timed cattle grazing can increase vegetation by as much as 45 percent, North Dakota State University researchers have found. And grazing by large herbivores (including cattle) is essential for well-functioning prairie ecosystems, research at Kansas State University has determined.

Additionally, several recent studies show that pasture and grassland areas used for livestock reduce global warming by acting as carbon sinks. Converting croplands to pasture, which reduces erosion, effectively sequesters significant amounts of carbon. One analysis published in the journal Global Change Biology showed a 19 percent increase in soil carbon after land changed from cropland to pasture. What’s more, animal grazing reduces the need for the fertilizers and fuel used by farm machinery in crop cultivation, things that aggravate climate change.

Livestock grazing has other noteworthy environmental benefits as well. Compared to cropland, perennial pastures used for grazing can decrease soil erosion by 80 percent and markedly improve water quality, Minnesota’s Land Stewardship Project research has found. Even the United Nations report acknowledges, “There is growing evidence that both cattle ranching and pastoralism can have positive impacts on biodiversity.”

As the contrast between the environmental impact of traditional farming and industrial farming shows, efforts to minimize greenhouse gases need to be much more sophisticated than just making blanket condemnations of certain foods. Farming methods vary tremendously, leading to widely variable global warming contributions for every food we eat. Recent research in Sweden shows that, depending on how and where a food is produced, its carbon dioxide emissions vary by a factor of 10.

And it should also be noted that farmers bear only a portion of the blame for greenhouse gas emissions in the food system. Only about one-fifth of the food system’s energy use is farm-related, according to University of Wisconsin research. And the Soil Association in Britain estimates that only half of food’s total greenhouse impact has any connection to farms. The rest comes from processing, transportation, storage, retailing and food preparation. The seemingly innocent potato chip, for instance, turns out to be a dreadfully climate-hostile food. Foods that are minimally processed, in season and locally grown, like those available at farmers’ markets and backyard gardens, are generally the most climate-friendly.

Rampant waste at the processing, retail and household stages compounds the problem. About half of the food produced in the United States is thrown away, according to University of Arizona research. Thus, a consumer could measurably reduce personal global warming impact simply by more judicious grocery purchasing and use.

None of us, whether we are vegan or omnivore, can entirely avoid foods that play a role in global warming. Singling out meat is misleading and unhelpful, especially since few people are likely to entirely abandon animal-based foods. Mr. Gore, for one, apparently has no intention of going vegan. The 90 percent of Americans who eat meat and dairy are likely to respond the same way.

Still, there are numerous reasonable ways to reduce our individual contributions to climate change through our food choices. Because it takes more resources to produce meat and dairy than, say, fresh locally grown carrots, it’s sensible to cut back on consumption of animal-based foods. More important, all eaters can lower their global warming contribution by following these simple rules: avoid processed foods and those from industrialized farms; reduce food waste; and buy local and in season.

Nicolette Hahn Niman, a lawyer and livestock rancher, is the author of “Righteous Porkchop: Finding a Life and Good Food Beyond Factory Farms.”

I have been wondering, and have done a lot of looking around to try to find the answer, but my here at Fake Plastic Fish came through, she found out the dirt on those green plastic produce bags that keep produce fresher longer.

Sorry to go all Charlton Heston on you. It’s just that, based on several blog posts I’ve read, a lot of people seem to think that Evert Fresh green produce bags are plastic-free, and they are absolutely not. After calling the company several times a week for over a month to try to reach the owner, Lynn Everts, I finally received the information I needed today from his assistant, Tyra. She told me that the bags are indeed made from low density polyethylene (the same type of plastic in disposable grocery bags) combined with a special clay called oya which helps to keep produce fresher longer.

I have no doubt that these bags work. But I find it ironic that we would choose to purchase an ultimately disposable plastic bag (these bags can be reused up to 8 times) made from a material that lasts forever in the environment in order to preserve something that is completely biodegradable. Personally, I’d rather buy my produce more often and be careful to eat it in a timely manner than purchase brand new virgin plastic bags to make it last a little longer. And I’d rather compost the few produce items that do go bad than landfill plastic bags.

Others may feel that saving produce is worth the plastic. And that’s their choice. My problem is that folks who believe they are avoiding plastic may be purchasing these bags because of the way they are described on various web sites. On Amazon.com, two sellers, Greenfeet and 877myjuicer, list them as being made from "non-petroleum based materials," while seller, Showcase, claims they are "made from all-natural, environmentally safe materials." These claims are simply not true, and I have e-mailed Amazon to find out how to go about getting the descriptions changed.

It’s one thing for Amazon to be selling plastic bags, but it’s quite another for Reusablebags.com to promote and sell them. No where in Reusablebags.com’s description of these bags is it revealed that the base material is actually plastic. The write-up only states that the "active ingredient is a natural mineral" and further down the page proceeds to describe the mineral as a clay called "oya" which absorbs ethylene gas given off by produce as it matures. Since Reusablebags.com is a site devoted to eliminating plastic bag waste, it would be natural for a customer to assume the Evert Fresh bags were not plastic. So I’ve also e-mailed Reusablebags.com to request they update their description of this product so that their customers can make informed purchasing decisions.

Representatives from both Reusablebags.com and Evert Fresh have told me that the bags are recyclable. However, reps from neither company could provide the names of recyclers or recycling programs that would accept them. So I checked with three of my recycling insiders, and all three felt that the clay used in the bags to keep the produce fresh actually makes them a contaminant in the waste stream rather than a recoverable material. They would probably be weeded out and landfilled by plastic bag recyclers.

So, how do we keep produce fresh without plastic? It’s a good question, and I don’t have all the answers. At the farmer’s market where I table with Green Sangha, we distribute organic cotton Eco Bags, which can keep many fruits and vegetables fresh in the refrigerator if dampened. However, this past Sunday, a customer told me she’d not had good luck with loose leaf salad greens. The cloth bag couldn’t do as good a job as plastic. Any suggestions from plastic-free salad eaters?

Another customer asked me about carrots, and I did have the answer to that one! Carrots last a really, really long time if you keep them immersed in a container of water in the fridge. I like to replace the water every few days. I think this works for celery, too.

We keep apples, pears, and citrus loose in the refrigerator without any bag or container. Tomatoes and avocados stay out on the counter. Bananas stay out on the counter too but tend to turn brown pretty fast. Most other vegetables and fruits are in the dampened cotton bags in the refrigerator.

So, what are your tips for keeping produce fresh? The clay sounds like a good idea. Too bad it’s attached to a bunch of plastic. Hmmm..I wonder if it’s possible to get this clay somewhere…I’ll look into it….

Banners saying simply “Local” hang above the produce sections at some Wal-Marts. Don’t ask questions. Writes Mitchell: “The chain’s local food offerings are usually limited to a few of the main commodity crops of that particular state—peaches in Georgia or potatoes in Maine—and sit amid a sea of industrial food and other goods shipped from the far side

‘Feeding the world’–or consuming it?

Posted 5:04 PM on 31 Aug 2009
by Tom Philpott

In the ongoing debate about whether sustainable agriculture can “feed the world,” it’s important not to lose sight of what industrial agriculture is doing to ecosystems—both in specific areas and on a grand scale.

Producing and distributing lots and lots of calories, leveraged by fossil fuel and synthetic fertilizers and poisons, may solve certain short-term problems; but the practice also creates long-term ones that won’t be easily solved.

In June, a study emerged showing that so-called inert ingredients in Roundup, Monsanto’s widely used flagship herbicide, can kill human cells even at low levels—“particularly embryonic, placental and umbilical cord cells,” reports Scientific American. This is an herbicide that’s used on virtually all of our nation’s corn and soy fields, covering tens of millions of acres of cropland. (It’s also widely used by landscapers and on home lawns.)

Then there was the recent atrazine imbroglio. For years, the EPA has been assuring the public that the highly toxic herbicide, still widely used in the Corn Belt, wasn’t showing up in drinking water in worrisome levels. Turns out that was a lie, as some excellent muckraking by the Huffington Post Investigative Fund revealed. Atrazine exposure has been strongly associated with reproductive health maladies, including a rise in hermaphroditism among frog populations.

Note that corn and soy production, as practiced today, is completely reliant on these two broad-spectrum herbicides.

Now comes news about the hazards of another input critical to the project of industrial agricultire: synthetic nitrogen fertilizer. When farmers apply nitrogen to farm fields, a certain amount enters the atmosphere as nitrous oxide. And according to a study conducted by researchers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and published in Science, human-generated nitrous oxide is now the No. 1 contributor to ozone-layer depletion.

The study is the first ever to look closely at nitrous oxide’s role as an ozone destroyer. The results are alarming. From a summary of the study on the NOAA website:

For the first time, this study has evaluated nitrous oxide emissions from human activities in terms of their potential impact on Earth’s ozone layer. As chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), which have been phased out by international agreement, ebb in the atmosphere, nitrous oxide will remain a significant ozone-destroyer, the study found. Today, nitrous oxide emissions from human activities are more than twice as high as the next leading ozone-depleting gas.

The withering away of the ozone layer, which was slowed but not stopped by the 1987 Montreal Protocol phasing out CFCs, is no trivial matter. As the NOAA summary puts it:

The ozone layer serves to shield plants, animals and people from excessive ultraviolet light from the sun. Thinning of the ozone layer allows more ultraviolet light to reach the Earth’s surface where it can damage crops and aquatic life and harm human health.

Moreover, the Montreal Protocol does not regulate nitrous oxide.

Of course, agriculture-induced nitrous oxide isn’t just eating the ozone layer. It’s also a greenhouse gas with 300 times the heat-trapping power of carbon dioxide.

Thus the implications of agriculture’s reliance on synthetic nitrogen fertilizer are literally earth-shaking: The way we’re feeding ourselves is contributing dramatically to two processes—climate change and ozone depletion—that could literally make the planet uninhabitable by humans.

Worse still, we my be seriously underestimating industrial agriculture’s nitrous oxide emissions. When considering agriculture’s contribution of nitrous oxide to the atmosphere, scientists have assumed that about 1 percent of the nitrogen fertilizer applied by farmers ends up in the atmosphere as nitrous oxide. The EPA operates under that assumption, as did the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. But the real number may be considerably higher. A 2008 study [PDF] by the Nobel-winning atmospheric chemist Paul Crutzen found that as much as 5 percent of nitrogen fertilizer applied by farmers turns into nitrous oxide—which would make agriculture a much larger contributor to climate change (and ozone depletion) than is currently assumed.

On top of all of that, nitrogen runoff from agriculture is also strongly implicated in the creation of coastal dead zones—large algae blooms that suck oxygen out of the sea and snuff out marine life.

What all of this points to is the need to bring ecological considerations into agriculture. And in fact, there’s already a budding field known as agroecology. Agrocecology is now at best a fringe field in academia; as public funding for university research dries up, giant agribusiness firms like Monsanto increasingly finance—and control—the research agenda. They have little interest in ecology and vested interests in pushing their own proprietary products.

From The Good Human

We have not used antibacterial soaps in our house for years, yet no bugs have come along to kill us yet. The fact is is that the increased usage of antibacterial everything is actually going to make us sicker in the long run. From Mother Jones magazine (one of our favorites), I wanted to share a few facts about our “war on germs”:

• In 1993 there were only a few dozen antibacterial products. Today there are more than 9,000.
• In 2005, an FDA advisory panel concluded that antibacterial soap is no better than regular soap for preventing infection.
• Triclosan, the active ingredient in many antimicrobial soaps, has been detected in women’s breast milk and 58% of US waterways. (I wrote about the dangers of Tricolsan before.)
• A 2007 study found that adults who regularly use household cleaning sprays are 30-50% more likely to develop asthma.
• In 1974, 2% of staph infections were resistant to antibiotics; today, more than 60% are.

We are actually doing way more harm than good by coating our lives with antibacterial sprays, lotions, soaps and gels. In doing this so much, we are creating superbugs that will adapt and become immune to our products…which in turn could make us all very, very sick. Also, all these antibacterial products end up in septic tanks and sewage treatment plants, where they kill off the good microbes needed to digest our waste. We need germs in order to survive as a species!  So next time you reach for the antibacterial stuff at the store, think twice – and realize that regular old soap cleans just as well without doing anything harmful to our germs or our environment.

A year ago I started a square foot garden in my backyard. I had a compost pile already, but began bringing kitchen waste from the health food store deli I where I was a Chef.  I mean huge amounts; black plastic bags full of lettuce, 3 gallon buckets almost everyday full of veggie waste.  And seeds! I planted bell peppers from the seeds I got from the produce. Along with buying potting soil by the 40 pound bag, I was able to build up my soil, kinda.  I needed fertilizer. I bought composted manure and along with buying organic fertilizers, I was able to start growing sweet potatoes, tomatoes, Swiss Chard.

Now bear in mind I am a newb at this, I haven’t grown any veggies since the early 80’s and quite frankly my ex did most of the work, I got to pick it and prepare it.  So this time I got to see how it all worked, had to start really learning how.  One thing that quickly struck me was that I was sick of buying dirt and fertilizer!  So I tried worm farming and Bokashi composting. Not enough compost could be produced this way for me to get enough fertilizer out of it.

At the same time I was continuing studying how to radically green my lifestyle. I have always been a very serious environmentalist; never used paper towels, used cloth bags to shop, used cloth diapers and a clothesline with all 5 kids, never worn polyester clothing, used as little plastic in the kitchen as possible, never bought water in plastic bottles, taken short showers. But I wanted to do more. I insulated all my windows, went the bidet route when it came to toilet paper, began making everything I eat from scratch including mayonnaise, salad dressings.

Then I came across Joseph Jenkins book; “The Humanure Handbook”. It is available free on the web, so I dove in, built a sawdust toilet. Now I didn’t know if this was going to be something I would stick with, didn’t know what the ick factor would be…so I decided to try it a month and see.  My kids howled, made fun of me, said mom was turning into a cat, using a litter box…we had much fun with it. But the bottom line is it was easy; no smells, easy to deal with. I buy wheat bran from the feed store; 50 pounds for 12 bucks.  About the time I needed to empty the bucket, it was time to mow the yard…this gives me the cover material I need, along with food scraps and yard waste to do high heat, or Thermal,  composting.  This is the only way to create enough compost to grow my own veggies, make compost tea, build up my soil.

Which is exactly how it plays out on a farm. You need farm animals to keep from having to buy fertilizer!  And it makes the most beautiful soil, light, fluffy, loamy dirt. Since I have no room for a cow, or goats or chickens..that leaves humanure; cheap, readily available.

AND BEST OF ALL??  I do not foul 3 gallons of drinking water every time I flush! That is awesome!

But the reason I started this rant is because of the big push every one on the net seems to be making to get people to turn to a vegetarian diet, saying it is green, that animal farming isn’t a good use of our land, that we can all eat grains (a horrible choice health wise, BTW!, see this article- Grain Based Diets Are Bad for Humans).  Vegetarian Diets are not healthy for many reasons (see- Vegetarian Diet are Not Healthy For Humans).  But the main point I want to make is that we are healthiest eating meat, and we do not have enough arable land to grow all the veggies and grains if that all people ate, there is not enough depth of nutrients. We need saturated fats and meat broths and grass fed meat to be healthy!

Read what Barry Groves, PhD, has to say on his website- Second Opinions- Exposing Dietary Misinformation.

Animal farming is an efficient use of land

The human population of this planet is now approaching six billion and, even if every country on Earth enforced a strict and effective birth-control policy today, it is estimated that the total population will climb to fifteen billion before stabilizing. The Earth’s total land area is 179,941,270 square kilometers (69,479,518 square miles). A little simple mathematics tells us that at present, on average, one square kilometer has to support just over thirty-three people. If all of it were cultivated, that would certainly be possible.

The argument fails, however, because not all of it is available for arable cultivation. The main environmental factors which determine plant development and distribution are climate and soil type. We can discount the whole of the unproductive continent of Antarctica, so that reduces the total by 13,335,740 square kilometers immediately. We can also discount, at least as far as arable farming is concerned, all other ice-covered areas, tundra, mountains, deserts, heath and moor land, areas covered by rivers, salt marshes and lakes, cities, roads, and railways; and to a large extent semi-deserts, savannah, rain forest, low-lying meadow land and areas liable to regular flooding. We have now discounted most of the Earth’s surface. In fact, only eleven percent of the land surface is farmed.

Almost all of the land we have just discounted does support grass or other plant life which we cannot utilize directly. We need a system which converts that grass into a form of food that we can eat. And we have one: much of the land we have discounted for arable use can be, and is, used for the raising of food animals. Take New Zealand, for example. Here we have a country of 269,000 square kilometers — larger than Great Britain — with a human population of 3 million, a sheep population of 42 million (see figure 1) and many cattle. When I was in New Zealand for three months in Spring 1999, I didn’t see one field of grain. It wasn’t surprising: as the ground is rarely flat and the volcanic rock on which New Zealand is built is very close to the surface, that country is quite unsuitable for the cultivation of grain (see figure 2). And the same applies to many other parts of the world.

At present one-third of the world’s population is starving. If we all became vegetarians, we would have no use for, and would stop farming, all the land that will support only food animals. But taking all the land that supports food animals, but cannot support arable farming, out of production is hardly likely to ease the problem. In many areas where animals are farmed, they are the only things which can be farmed. In these areas, therefore, animal farming is the most efficient use of the land.

The vegetarian may argue that land that is not cultivable at present can be made so, but it is an argument which has already been shown to be false. The situation with respect to land use is not static. As the population has increased this century, so the amount of land available for cultivation has decreased. Where deforestation has taken place to make way for cultivation, soils have been exposed to higher precipitation and temperatures ⁽⁴⁾ . These processes deplete the soil’s organic matter, the soils harden and turn to desert. In 1882, desert or wasteland covered an estimated 9.4 percent of the Earth’s surface. By 1952 that area had increased to nearly twenty-five percent. It is a growing trend and one which, once it has happened, is very difficult, if not impossible, to reverse.

In many areas with naturally low productive capability, irrigation is used to increase agricultural productivity. But irrigation carries with it the seeds of its own destruction. Semi-arid soils are characteristically salty. The irrigation water, from essentially the same area, is also usually saline. Without adequate drainage, the irrigation water seeps into the soil and raises the water table. This brings the underlying water nearer the surface where it evaporates more freely, leaving behind the salty chemicals. In time, the salts of sodium, magnesium and calcium clog the pores in the soil and leave a whitish bloom on the surface. This process not only destroys the soil structure so that yields fall, it leads eventually to a level of salinity where no plant can grow. Kovda estimates that between sixty and eighty percent of all irrigated land, that is millions of acres, is being transformed into deserts in this way.

Most of the world’s surface is not covered by land, but by the oceans and seas. At present, millions of tons of fish are caught or farmed each year. As well as not eating meat, many vegetarians don’t eat fish. If vegetarianism really caught on and everybody on the planet stopped eating fish, the two-thirds of the population who are not starving at present would soon join the third who are.

The British situation

The prosperous, well-fed United Kingdom has a total land area of some 88,736 square miles (229,827 sq km) and a population of 57,537,000 ( 1991 Census ). Arable and orchard farming occupy thirty percent while permanent meadow and pasture, which support food animals, covers fifty percent of the total area. But all of that is woefully insufficient — we still have to import one-third of the food that we need.

The UK’s major livestock production is sheep, which are reared in almost every part of the kingdom. If we all became vegetarians, the mountains of Wales and Scotland would become largely unproductive, as would the moorlands of central and northern England. We would not eat the 720,000 tons of fish caught each year — over 12.7kg (28 lbs) per head. If we all became vegetarians, how much more food would we have to import? and where would it come from? The USA and Canada, who are net exporters of grain, might seem to be the answer to the latter question, although our food import bill — already £6 billion per annum — would rise alarmingly. If they too became vegetarian, however, they too would need to import. No: if we all became vegetarians, make no mistake, we would starve.

A fishy problem

For many lacto-ovo-vegetarians, the killing of animals is a problem. On moral grounds some are tending to change to eating fish — although the logic whereby the killing of fish is considered correct if the killing of land animals is not, escapes me. They are encouraged in this change by the belief that the eating of fish is what has allowed the Japanese to live longer and that it is good for them. Wanting to be healthy themselves, they buy sea fish like cod, sea bass, red snapper and haddock. But these are not the ‘healthy’, omega-3-oil bearing fish that doctors are advising us to eat.

Fish stocks are declining. Cod used to be a cheap fish. It is presently £7.70 per kilogram, — over £2 more than farmed salmon. As prices reflect the laws of supply and demand, this can mean only one thing: there is a shortage of cod. Cod is not the only fish that is scarce around Britain, so are haddock, wild salmon and monkfish. It is the same story world-wide. The one fish which is plentiful now is the North-Sea herring. This does contain omega-3 oils and, with the mackerel, is good for us. It is also the cheapest fish on the market, yet the British have almost stopped eating it.

The fish for which we have rejected herring is tuna from the Pacific and other exotic species: tiger prawns from India and sailfish from the Caribbean. This change reflects a growing and disturbing trend. With the North Sea almost fished out and now highly regulated, third-world fishermen, hungry for foreign currency, are plundering their own declining stocks in other unregulated oceans.

With fish becoming increasingly difficult to catch in quantity, modern fishermen and their equipment are becoming increasingly sophisticated. Cornish fishermen are using four-mile-long drift nets to catch tuna in the northern Atlantic. The nets are called ‘walls of death’ because of the numbers of dolphins and other unwanted fish they catch. The Japanese fish for tuna with lines up to sixty-five miles long with thousands of baited hooks. In the North Sea, trawling does more damage than pollution.

Fish are very good at renewing themselves — if they are allowed to do so. But few will let them. Despite international agreements and quotas, in the northern seas, no-one, with the possible exception of Iceland, is managing their fish stocks properly and the problem of over-fishing is spiraling out of control.

Fishermen’s methods have been likened to farming. But they are centuries behind: where the farmer sows and reaps, the fisherman, like the primitive hunter-gatherer, only reaps. He does not use his resources nearly as efficiently as the land farmer. Without fish, we would be hard pressed in this island for sufficient high-quality food. We need fish, but we will only exacerbate the problem of over-fishing if we switch from meat to fish — from efficient animal farming to inefficient and wasteful fishing.

In conclusion, meat eaters must have sympathy for and agree with the animal rights campaigner where animals, which should be grazing in fields, are confined to pens and battery houses while their natural habitat is turned into golf courses and leisure grounds for us.

And paying farmers to let land lie fallow when it could safely support cattle or sheep, particularly while we are importing vast quantities of food, is madness.

It is legitimate to challenge this regime.

The only way to eradicate the forms of intensive farming which are so disliked, is to control and reduce the population and, hence, the need for such a system.

Not only will undertaking unnatural dietary practices not provide a solution, they are much more likely to exacerbate the situation.

The Western vegetarian at the moment is in a very privileged position. So long as not too many join him, he can afford to indulge his naïve dietary fads in a way that is denied to most of the people of this Earth. While he ponders on this fact, he might also apply himself to Kant’s Categorical Imperative which may be rewritten:

What would be wrong for all, is wrong for one.

Thought I would add these references the last time I wrote on this subject, some girl wrote me all irate because she said she assumed my work was satire because the every IDEA that Vegetarianism was bad for humans was ridiculous and she wanted references…

References

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2. MORI/Sunday Times. Attitudes to Health and Diet 1989.
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