Factory Farm Meat: Why Vegetarians, Ranchers and Conscious Omnivores Need to Unite

[marmar]

Factory Farm Meat: Why Vegetarians, Ranchers and Conscious Omnivores Need to Unite

Saturday, 11 April 2015 00:00
By Ronnie Cummins, Organic Consumers Association | Op-Ed


For the first time since the advent of industrial agriculture, the federal government is considering advising Americans to eat “less red and processed meat.”

That advice is the outcome of studies conducted by an independent panel of “experts” which was asked by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) for recommended changes to the U.S. Dietary Guidelines.

The February 19 “eat less red and processed meat” pronouncement by the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee (DGAC) was reported widely in mainstream media. It set off a heated debate about whether or not consumers should eat meat, a debate that included the standard name-calling by factory farm front groups, including the Farm Bureau, denouncing consumers and environmentalists (and their alleged pawns on the DGAC) for being “anti-meat” and “anti-farmer.”

Unfortunately in its recommendations, the DGAC didn’t really come out and tell us the whole truth, which would go something like this: “Americans should eat less, or rather no red and processed meat from filthy, inhumane factory farms or feedlots, where the animals are cruelly crammed together and routinely fed a diet of herbicide-drenched, genetically engineered grains, supplemented by a witch’s brew of antibiotics, artificial hormones, steroids, blood, manure and slaughterhouse waste, contributing to a deadly public health epidemic of obesity, heart disease, cancer, antibiotic resistance, hormone disruption and food allergies.”

If the DGAC had really told us the truth about America’s red meat horror show (95 percent of our red meat comes from these Confined Animal Feeding Operations or CAFOs), we’d be having a conversation about how we can get rid of factory farms, instead of a rather abstract debate on the ethics of eating meat. ..................(more)

http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/30110-factory-farm-meat-why-vegetarians-ranchers-and-conscious-omnivores-need-to-unite

[daleanime]

1. One of the best things you can do for yourself...

and the planet.

[FLPanhandle]

2. I don't eat factory farmed meat, but I'm not a vegetarian.

I have no issue with consuming range grass fed cattle.

I've always said the options are not factory farmed meat or vegetarianism. There are alternatives (albeit more expensive alternatives) to factory farmed meat without having to become a vegetarian.

However, I don't see vegetarians joining with ranchers and omnivores without proselytizing about giving up all meat.

[chernabog]

6. Free range is no good

There isn’t enough available land on earth to raise all livestock free-range or cage-free. The United Nations reports that "livestock now use 30 per cent of the earth’s entire land surface, mostly permanent pasture but also including 33 per cent of the global arable land used to producing feed for livestock." Free-range, pasture-fed animals would require even more land on which to feed. They require even more food and water than factory farmed animals, because they are exercising more. To meet the increasing demand for grass-fed beef, South American rainforests are being cleared to produce more pasture for organic, grass-fed beef to be exported.

The only viable option would be to stop eating meat altogether. There are no negatives to that, only positives, unless you are a selfish asshole who doesn't care about animals or the environment.

[Trillo]

3. Over easter dinner, the subject of the cost of rib roasts came up.

Rib roasts aka prime rib. I haven't looked for one for a long time, but the assertion was they cost over $125 now. Just a few years back, you could get a nice one for $30.

I'm certain that pricing structure will force poorer folks to eat a lot less red meat.

[Dr Hobbitstein]

4. Prime rib was on sale at Publix this easter

at $8.99/lb. depending on how many you're feeding, you could feasibly buy a roast for $30. Hell, you could pick up a Coleman Natural (grass-fed, free roaming) rib roast at Whole Foods for about $10/lb (closer to $13/lb the rest of the year).

Now, there are high end places (Omaha Steaks, for instance) that do charge about $125 for a rib roast.

[Quantess]

5. K & R