In our own healing path, we often interact with herbs based on narrowing down the memorization of "what herb for which symptom." While this kind of learning is important, If we go beyond that kind of "individual constituent" thinking we can then consider why and how the plant even produced the so called "active" chemicals within it's body millions of years before humans even existed, in the first place.
It is important to remember that all of the isolated names of chemicals known to chemists have been originally designed and perfected by plants for perhaps millions of years before homo sapien existed. And that indeed your tongue was built to taste them.
If we, on all levels, seek to understand (biologically, totemically, metaphorically, symbolically) the signature of what a particular plant is doing in and for the ecosystem then we can extrapolate that same action on all cells, including inside of our bodies. This is a delicate way of perception which takes refinement and practice to capitulate. There is a kind of "mystic intuition" that can open up a person to realize herbal properties and functions, that is not based on book reading alone.
Developing intuition practice with nature and refining this awareness reconnects us with whole systems perception; the fundamental reason for human senses.
By developing the senses and heightening their intuitive knowledge we reclaim the ability to actually see WHAT IS, instead of being perceptually trapped by the fundamental errors of the "individual organism" perception we have been taught through our educational models. We begin to see that relationships between things, are actually more important than things.
As Henry David Thoreau said, "Nature must be perceived with the unborn side of the eye". Heightened perception in nature allows us to perceive the phenomenon within nature directly with less and less mental filter, giving us, as a side effect, a direct access into the intuition of herbal properties of plants.
It is important to remember that all of the isolated names of chemicals known to chemists have been originally designed and perfected by plants for perhaps millions of years before homo sapien existed. And that indeed your tongue was built to taste them.
If we, on all levels, seek to understand (biologically, totemically, metaphorically, symbolically) the signature of what a particular plant is doing in and for the ecosystem then we can extrapolate that same action on all cells, including inside of our bodies. This is a delicate way of perception which takes refinement and practice to capitulate. There is a kind of "mystic intuition" that can open up a person to realize herbal properties and functions, that is not based on book reading alone.
Developing intuition practice with nature and refining this awareness reconnects us with whole systems perception; the fundamental reason for human senses.
By developing the senses and heightening their intuitive knowledge we reclaim the ability to actually see WHAT IS, instead of being perceptually trapped by the fundamental errors of the "individual organism" perception we have been taught through our educational models. We begin to see that relationships between things, are actually more important than things.
As Henry David Thoreau said, "Nature must be perceived with the unborn side of the eye". Heightened perception in nature allows us to perceive the phenomenon within nature directly with less and less mental filter, giving us, as a side effect, a direct access into the intuition of herbal properties of plants.
9 Reasons To Reject Vegetarianism
MORRIS M. <time datetime="2013-06-05" style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-size: 14px; line-height: inherit; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">JUNE 5, 2013</time>
Let’s be honest: eating meat is an objectively bad idea. It’s expensive, has been linked to cancer and causes devastating crises in the developing world. Yet, for all the rational arguments against it, some of us just can’t give our carnivorous habits up. Show us a cross-section of our disease-ridden gut and we’ll show you a juicy steak just begging to be eaten. Show us a slaughterhouse and we’ll ask for a knife and fork. It may sound callous, but we’ll only give up our bacon when you pry it from our cold, dead hands—and here’s why:
<center style="color: rgb(109, 109, 109); font-family: TitilliumRegular, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 18px;">
</center>9Our Bodies Are Designed For Meat
Thanks to the miracles of evolution, we humans can survive just fine on a meat-free diet. But that doesn’t mean we’re natural vegetarians. Far from it: as far back as 2003, scientists had established our ancestors were eating meat up to 2.5 million years ago. In other words, that juicy slab of barbecue isn’t some icon of modern decadence; it’s part of our traditional diet, and there are plenty of other clues too. First, our bodies lack most of the equipment you’d associate with herbivores. For instance, we don’t have four stomachs, any ability to break down cellulose, or the sort of complex intestinal tracts most leaf-eaters possess. Second, our teeth are obviously designed to handle both meat and non-meat diets. And a good job too, because…
8Meat Made Us
From a strictly logical perspective, there are a number of oddities about us humans. For starters, our brains seemingly shouldn’t be this big. If you look across most primate species, brain size increases with body size: humans are noticeable outliers. Then there’s the added complexity of our brains, which are so stuffed full of neurons they’re likely capable of holding more individual thoughts than there are stars in the universe. So what makes us so special? Well, according to one 2011 study, it’s our appetite for meat.
Seriously: researchers from Spain identified signs of malnutrition in a child’s skull dating from 1.5 million years ago, consistent with a meat-deficient diet. What’s interesting about this is it suggests we were so used to eating meat back then our brains couldn’t develop without it—a theory supported by other evidence that links primate brain complexity to the number of calories consumed per day. Since we didn’t begin cooking our food until long after our brains went supernova, the only likely candidate for our calorific diets is meat. Meaning we’re only capable of making logical choices like vegetarianism because we originally ate other animals.
<center style="color: rgb(109, 109, 109); font-family: TitilliumRegular, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 18px;"><iframe id="google_ads_iframe_/9649879/LV_ADUNIFY_MID_0" title="3rd party ad content" name="google_ads_iframe_/9649879/LV_ADUNIFY_MID_0" width="480" height="350" scrolling="no" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" frameborder="0" style="border-width: 0px; border-style: initial; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-size: inherit; line-height: inherit; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: bottom; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"></iframe>
</center>7Other Primates Eat Meat
One argument often put forward for going vegetarian is that humans are the only primates to eat meat. Ergo, it must be unnatural: like using the internet to moan about steakhouses. But guess what? It’s not just untrue; it’s about as scientific as punching biology in the face.
Back in 1960, Jane Goodall observed chimps hunting and eating other animals in the wild. In the years since, it’s been shown that certain chimp communities eat as much as one ton of meat annually. In other words, they’re less indulging occasional cravings than they are taking part in the chimpanzee equivalent of Man V. Food. Not only that, but they apparently use the slaughtered meat to gain a reproductive and ‘political’ advantage over one another. So, to recap: our evolutionary cousins love a good steak so much; they’ll literally whore themselves out to get it.
6Meat Can Be Sustainable
One of the big reasons for giving up meat is the devastating environmental impact of shipping, say, a chunk of dead cow halfway across the world. So if you’re into environmentalism, dropping meat should be a no-brainer, right?
Not quite. While our current model of shipping is about as environmentally-friendly as a forest fire, it doesn’t have to be this way. See, livestock—managed properly—can be used to do a lot of stuff that would otherwise require a heck-load of fossil fuel. For example, grazing animals can help cycle nutrients and aid in land management: while also requiring little in the way of chemicals and pesticides to grow to an edible size. Not only that, but a lone cow slaughtered on a small farm can feed its owners for ages, which is why we got into agriculture in the first place. So it’s not meat itself which is the issue, so much as our current supply chain.
5Damage to the Environment
In our modern age, it’s taken as read that eating meat is a bigger planet killer than chowing down on tofu. But that’s not always the case. For example, compare organically reared animals with industrially produced tofu. The quantities of land needed are greater, the treatment and harvesting of the soya involves more fossil fuels, and the end product often has to be shipped great distances if you live somewhere like Britain—where the climate is really, really bad for growing meat substitutes. Simply put: that tasteless tofu burger you’re forcing down to preserve our planet’s future may actually be more atmosphere-frying than the delicious hunk of beef being eaten by that smug bastard across the table from you.
<center style="color: rgb(109, 109, 109); font-family: TitilliumRegular, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 18px;"><iframe id="google_ads_iframe_/9649879/LV_ADUNIFY_BOT_0" title="3rd party ad content" name="google_ads_iframe_/9649879/LV_ADUNIFY_BOT_0" width="480" height="350" scrolling="no" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" frameborder="0" style="border-width: 0px; border-style: initial; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-size: inherit; line-height: inherit; font-family: inherit; vertical-align: bottom; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"></iframe>
</center>4It May Reduce Aggression
There are certain psychological traits among humans that seem so obvious we shouldn’t need a study to prove them. One is that exposure to weapons triggers violence. Another is that meat-eaters are more aggressive than vegetarians. However, a group of scientists decided to look into the meat/aggression issue anyway—and what they found turns common sense on its head.
By exposing men to pictures of red meat then placing them in a position of power over another subject, researchers discovered that thinking about steak might actually reduce aggression in humans. No-one’s really got any idea why—beyond hazily linking it to ‘evolution’—but the conclusion seems valid. So, while we may imagine a rabid steak-eater to be more violence-prone than a guy who lives off soy beans and lentils; the opposite may well be true.
3It Doesn’t Have to Harm Animals
Of course, one of the ‘big’ arguments against eating meat is that it’s cruel. However you look at it, cramming a bunch of chickens together in a cage and feeding them until they’re too fat to stand isn’t a particularly pleasant thing to do. Even if you give the animal the best life possible, there’s no getting around the fact you’re killing a sentient creature for no better reason than ‘dinner’. So it’s easy to see why some people just flat-out refuse to eat meat.
Only that’s about to change. Thanks to Dutch scientist Willem van Eelen, we’re now at the stage where we can grow burgers in a lab. Slow down and read that again: we’re now so advanced as a species we can grow a hunk of cow in a lab without ever actually involving a living cow. Currently, the technology is too expensive for mass-production—the first lab-grown burger cost $300,000 to make and tasted only ‘reasonably good’. But we’re conceivably only a decade or two away from a world where steak, sausages, bacon and even veal cutlets can be created without harming a single animal.
2It Could Save the Planet
Go for a walk in the countryside and chances are—unless you live near a National Park—that the ‘natural’ landscape you’re seeing is nothing like how nature intended it. For thousands of years, animals belonging to our ancestors grazed dense natural forests to destruction, resulting in the great big open spaces we now associate with ‘being outdoors’. And while it may seem kinda sad, this slow-motion deforestation is actually just what we need. See, if the country ever gets its act together and decides to ‘go green’, we’re gonna need as much open space for wind farms and solar panels as we can get. Know the most eco-friendly way for maintaining such places? Yep: grazing livestock. This isn’t just me speculating either, British ‘eco warrior’ Simon Fairlie famously argued that rearing livestock is essential for increasing biodiversity and creating a truly-sustainable world. And what do we ultimately do with all this necessary livestock? That’s right: we eat it.
1Meat’s Delicious
OK—I admit this isn’t much of a point. But let’s be honest: a huge amount of the vegetarian v. carnivore internet war comes down to this simple fact. For all we talk about protein and write long list articles defending our choices, most of us meat-eaters just basically like the taste. Does that make us callous, immoral people? Well, maybe kinda. But we live in a world that’s an ethical minefield—every single day we log onto computers manufactured by tax-dodging multinationals using sweatshop labor; wear clothes made by virtual slaves in third world countries; give a big chunk of our paychecks to a sociopathic government; and generally reap the rewards of living in a nation subsidized by the unethical treatment of most of the rest of the planet. If eating a hunk of bacon each day is what it takes to get me through this headache-inducing liberal guilt-trip, then so be it.
Our bodies are not designed to eat meat lol. There is nothing aggressive about us. From our teeth to our hands are made to peel and open things. Even our digestive track is not designed to house meat for as long as it does. Were made to eat fruit and raw foods, def not meat lol. For as smart as you think you are, you sure do sound like a complete fool on this subject.
animals suffer without any intervention from man, it's called nature, you're just going to have to deal with or die crying
[ Vegas are ruthless animal killers ]
<header class="grid-twelve large-grid-eleven" style="margin: 0px 20px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; float: left; width: 926px;">[h=1]Ordering the vegetarian meal? There’s more animal blood on your hands[/h]
<time pubdate="pubdate" datetime="2011-12-15T19:34:16Z" itemprop="datePublished" content="2011-12-15T19:34:16Z" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 11px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; color: rgb(114, 114, 114);">December 15, 2011 2.34pm EST</time></header>
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</section><section class="content-disclosure-statement" style="margin: 0px 0px 36px 60px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent;">[h=3]Disclosure statement[/h]Mike Archer does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond the academic appointment above.
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UNSW Australia provides funding as a member of The Conversation AU.
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<figure class="content-lead-image grid-twelve large-grid-eleven" style="margin: 0px 20px 0px 0px; padding: 0px 0px 36px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; position: relative; float: left; width: 926px;">
<figcaption style="margin: 0px; padding: 6px 0px 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 11px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; color: rgb(102, 102, 102); line-height: 18px;">Being vegetarian saves cows’ lives, but threatens the future of other sentient creatures. nunro</figcaption></figure><aside class="grid-two content-share" style="margin: 0px 20px 0px 0px; padding: 0px 0px 36px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 11px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; float: left; width: 152px;">
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[FONT="]The ethics of eating red meat have been grilled recently by critics who question its consequences for environmental health and animal welfare. But if you want to minimise animal suffering and promote more sustainable agriculture, adopting a vegetarian diet might be the worst possible thing you could do.
Renowned ethicist Peter Singer says if there is a range of ways of feeding ourselves, we should choose the way that causes the least unnecessary harm to animals. Most animal rights advocates say this means we should eat plants rather than animals.
It takes somewhere between two to ten kilos of plants, depending on the type of plants involved, to produce one kilo of animal. Given the limited amount of productive land in the world, it would seem to some to make more sense to focus our culinary attentions on plants, because we would arguably get more energy per hectare for human consumption. Theoretically this should also mean fewer sentient animals would be killed to feed the ravenous appetites of ever more humans.
But before scratching rangelands-produced red meat off the “good to eat” list for ethical or environmental reasons, let’s test these presumptions.
Published figures suggest that, in Australia, producing wheat and other grains results in:
Agriculture to produce wheat, rice and pulses requires clear-felling native vegetation. That act alone results in the deaths of thousands of Australian animals and plants per hectare. Since Europeans arrived on this continent we have lost more than half of Australia’s unique native vegetation, mostly to increase production of monocultures of introduced species for human consumption.
Most of Australia’s arable land is already in use. If more Australians want their nutritional needs to be met by plants, our arable land will need to be even more intensely farmed. This will require a net increase in the use of fertilisers, herbicides, pesticides and other threats to biodiversity and environmental health. Or, if existing laws are changed, more native vegetation could be cleared for agriculture (an area the size of Victoria plus Tasmania would be needed to produce the additional amount of plant-based food required).
<figure class="align-center " style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; position: relative;">
<figcaption style="margin: 0px; padding: 6px 0px 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 11px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; color: rgb(114, 114, 114); line-height: 18px; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, sans-serif; cursor: default;">Australian cattle eat mostly pasture, reducing their environmental impact. chris runoff</figcaption></figure>Most cattle slaughtered in Australia feed solely on pasture. This is usually rangelands, which constitute about 70% of the continent.
Grazing occurs on primarily native ecosystems. These have and maintain far higher levels of native biodiversity than croplands. The rangelands can’t be used to produce crops, so production of meat here doesn’t limit production of plant foods. Grazing is the only way humans can get substantial nutrients from 70% of the continent.
In some cases rangelands have been substantially altered to increase the percentage of stock-friendly plants. Grazing can also cause significant damage such as soil loss and erosion. But it doesn’t result in the native ecosystem “blitzkrieg” required to grow crops.
This environmental damage is causing some well-known environmentalists to question their own preconceptions. British environmental advocate George Monbiot, for example, publically converted from vegan to omnivore after reading Simon Fairlie’s expose about meat’s sustainability. And environmental activist Lierre Keith documented the awesome damage to global environments involved in producing plant foods for human consumption.
In Australia we can also meet part of our protein needs using sustainably wild-harvested kangaroo meat. Unlike introduced meat animals, they don’t damage native biodiversity. They are soft-footed, low methane-producing and have relatively low water requirements. They also produce an exceptionally healthy low-fat meat.
In Australia 70% of the beef produced for human consumption comes from animals raised on grazing lands with very little or no grain supplements. At any time, only 2% of Australia’s national herd of cattle are eating grains in feed lots; the other 98% are raised on and feeding on grass. Two-thirds of cattle slaughtered in Australia feed solely on pasture.
To produce protein from grazing beef, cattle are killed. One death delivers (on average, across Australia’s grazing lands) a carcass of about 288 kilograms. This is approximately 68% boneless meat which, at 23% protein equals 45kg of protein per animal killed. This means 2.2 animals killed for each 100kg of useable animal protein produced.
Producing protein from wheat means ploughing pasture land and planting it with seed. Anyone who has sat on a ploughing tractor knows the predatory birds that follow you all day are not there because they have nothing better to do. Ploughing and harvesting kill small mammals, snakes, lizards and other animals in vast numbers. In addition, millions of mice are poisoned in grain storage facilities every year.
However, the largest and best-researched loss of sentient life is the poisoning of mice during plagues.
<figure class="align-right " style="margin: 0px 0px 18px 20px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; position: relative; float: right; clear: right; width: 237px;">
<figcaption style="margin: 0px; padding: 6px 0px 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 11px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; color: rgb(114, 114, 114); line-height: 18px; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, sans-serif; cursor: default;">With its soft feet and low water use, kangaroo is a source of less ecologically damaging meat.No Dust</figcaption></figure>Each area of grain production in Australia has a mouse plague on average every four years, with 500-1000 mice per hectare. Poisoning kills at least 80% of the mice.
At least 100 mice are killed per hectare per year (500/4 × 0.8) to grow grain. Average yields are about 1.4 tonnes of wheat/hectare; 13% of the wheat is useable protein. Therefore, at least 55 sentient animals die to produce 100kg of useable plant protein: 25 times more than for the same amount of rangelands beef.
Some of this grain is used to “finish” beef cattle in feed lots (some is food for dairy cattle, pigs and poultry), but it is still the case that many more sentient lives are sacrificed to produce useable protein from grains than from rangelands cattle.
There is a further issue to consider here: the question of sentience – the capacity to feel, perceive or be conscious.
You might not think the billions of insects and spiders killed by grain production are sentient, though they perceive and respond to the world around them. You may dismiss snakes and lizards as cold-blooded creatures incapable of sentience, though they form pair bonds and care for their young. But what about mice?
Mice are far more sentient than we thought. They sing complex, personalised love songs to each other that get more complex over time. Singing of any kind is a rare behaviour among mammals, previously known only to occur in whales, bats and humans.
Girl mice, like swooning human teenagers, try to get close to a skilled crooner. Now researchers are trying to determine whether song innovations are genetically programmed or or whether mice learn to vary their songs as they mature.
<figure class="align-left " style="margin: 0px 20px 18px 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; position: relative; float: left; clear: left; width: 237px;">
<figcaption style="margin: 0px; padding: 6px 0px 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 11px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; color: rgb(114, 114, 114); line-height: 18px; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, sans-serif; cursor: default;">“Hoping to prepare them for an ethical oversight” Nikkita Archer</figcaption></figure>Baby mice left in the nest sing to their mothers — a kind of crying song to call them back. For every female killed by the poisons we administer, on average five to six totally dependent baby mice will, despite singing their hearts out to call their mothers back home, inevitably die of starvation, dehydration or predation.
When cattle, kangaroos and other meat animals are harvested they are killed instantly. Mice die a slow and very painful death from poisons. From a welfare point of view, these methods are among the least acceptable modes of killing. Although joeys are sometimes killed or left to fend for themselves, only 30% of kangaroos shot are females, only some of which will have young (the industry’s code of practice says shooters should avoid shooting females with dependent young). However, many times this number of dependent baby mice are left to die when we deliberately poison their mothers by the millions.
Replacing red meat with grain products leads to many more sentient animal deaths, far greater animal suffering and significantly more environmental degradation. Protein obtained from grazing livestock costs far fewer lives per kilogram: it is a more humane, ethical and environmentally-friendly dietary option.
So, what does a hungry human do? Our teeth and digestive system are adapted for omnivory. But we are now challenged to think about philosophical issues. We worry about the ethics involved in killing grazing animals and wonder if there are other more humane ways of obtaining adequate nutrients.
Relying on grains and pulses brings destruction of native ecosystems, significant threats to native species and at least 25 times more deaths of sentient animals per kilogram of food. Most of these animals sing love songs to each other, until we inhumanely mass-slaughter them.
Former Justice of the High Court, the Hon. Michael Kirby, wrote that:
“In our shared sentience, human beings are intimately connected with other animals. Endowed with reason and speech, we are uniquely empowered to make ethical decisions and to unite for social change on behalf of others that have no voice. Exploited animals cannot protest about their treatment or demand a better life. They are entirely at our mercy. So every decision of animal welfare, whether in Parliament or the supermarket, presents us with a profound test of moral character”.
We now know the mice have a voice, but we haven’t been listening.
The challenge for the ethical eater is to choose the diet that causes the least deaths and environmental damage. There would appear to be far more ethical support for an omnivorous diet that includes rangeland-grown red meat and even more support for one that includes sustainably wild-harvested kangaroo.
[/FONT]
<header class="grid-twelve large-grid-eleven" style="margin: 0px 20px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; float: left; width: 926px;">[h=1]Ordering the vegetarian meal? There’s more animal blood on your hands[/h]
<time pubdate="pubdate" datetime="2011-12-15T19:34:16Z" itemprop="datePublished" content="2011-12-15T19:34:16Z" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 11px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; color: rgb(114, 114, 114);">December 15, 2011 2.34pm EST</time></header>
<section class="content-authors" style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 60px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 12px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent;">[h=3]Author[/h]
-
Mike ArcherProfessor, Evolution of Earth & Life Systems Research Group, UNSW
</section><section class="content-disclosure-statement" style="margin: 0px 0px 36px 60px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent;">[h=3]Disclosure statement[/h]Mike Archer does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond the academic appointment above.
</section><section class="content-partners" style="margin: 0px 0px 36px 60px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent;">[h=3]Partners[/h]
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[FONT="]The ethics of eating red meat have been grilled recently by critics who question its consequences for environmental health and animal welfare. But if you want to minimise animal suffering and promote more sustainable agriculture, adopting a vegetarian diet might be the worst possible thing you could do.
Renowned ethicist Peter Singer says if there is a range of ways of feeding ourselves, we should choose the way that causes the least unnecessary harm to animals. Most animal rights advocates say this means we should eat plants rather than animals.
It takes somewhere between two to ten kilos of plants, depending on the type of plants involved, to produce one kilo of animal. Given the limited amount of productive land in the world, it would seem to some to make more sense to focus our culinary attentions on plants, because we would arguably get more energy per hectare for human consumption. Theoretically this should also mean fewer sentient animals would be killed to feed the ravenous appetites of ever more humans.
But before scratching rangelands-produced red meat off the “good to eat” list for ethical or environmental reasons, let’s test these presumptions.
Published figures suggest that, in Australia, producing wheat and other grains results in:
- at least 25 times more sentient animals being killed per kilogram of useable protein
- more environmental damage, and
- a great deal more animal cruelty than does farming red meat.
Agriculture to produce wheat, rice and pulses requires clear-felling native vegetation. That act alone results in the deaths of thousands of Australian animals and plants per hectare. Since Europeans arrived on this continent we have lost more than half of Australia’s unique native vegetation, mostly to increase production of monocultures of introduced species for human consumption.
Most of Australia’s arable land is already in use. If more Australians want their nutritional needs to be met by plants, our arable land will need to be even more intensely farmed. This will require a net increase in the use of fertilisers, herbicides, pesticides and other threats to biodiversity and environmental health. Or, if existing laws are changed, more native vegetation could be cleared for agriculture (an area the size of Victoria plus Tasmania would be needed to produce the additional amount of plant-based food required).
<figure class="align-center " style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; position: relative;">
Grazing occurs on primarily native ecosystems. These have and maintain far higher levels of native biodiversity than croplands. The rangelands can’t be used to produce crops, so production of meat here doesn’t limit production of plant foods. Grazing is the only way humans can get substantial nutrients from 70% of the continent.
In some cases rangelands have been substantially altered to increase the percentage of stock-friendly plants. Grazing can also cause significant damage such as soil loss and erosion. But it doesn’t result in the native ecosystem “blitzkrieg” required to grow crops.
This environmental damage is causing some well-known environmentalists to question their own preconceptions. British environmental advocate George Monbiot, for example, publically converted from vegan to omnivore after reading Simon Fairlie’s expose about meat’s sustainability. And environmental activist Lierre Keith documented the awesome damage to global environments involved in producing plant foods for human consumption.
In Australia we can also meet part of our protein needs using sustainably wild-harvested kangaroo meat. Unlike introduced meat animals, they don’t damage native biodiversity. They are soft-footed, low methane-producing and have relatively low water requirements. They also produce an exceptionally healthy low-fat meat.
In Australia 70% of the beef produced for human consumption comes from animals raised on grazing lands with very little or no grain supplements. At any time, only 2% of Australia’s national herd of cattle are eating grains in feed lots; the other 98% are raised on and feeding on grass. Two-thirds of cattle slaughtered in Australia feed solely on pasture.
To produce protein from grazing beef, cattle are killed. One death delivers (on average, across Australia’s grazing lands) a carcass of about 288 kilograms. This is approximately 68% boneless meat which, at 23% protein equals 45kg of protein per animal killed. This means 2.2 animals killed for each 100kg of useable animal protein produced.
Producing protein from wheat means ploughing pasture land and planting it with seed. Anyone who has sat on a ploughing tractor knows the predatory birds that follow you all day are not there because they have nothing better to do. Ploughing and harvesting kill small mammals, snakes, lizards and other animals in vast numbers. In addition, millions of mice are poisoned in grain storage facilities every year.
However, the largest and best-researched loss of sentient life is the poisoning of mice during plagues.
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At least 100 mice are killed per hectare per year (500/4 × 0.8) to grow grain. Average yields are about 1.4 tonnes of wheat/hectare; 13% of the wheat is useable protein. Therefore, at least 55 sentient animals die to produce 100kg of useable plant protein: 25 times more than for the same amount of rangelands beef.
Some of this grain is used to “finish” beef cattle in feed lots (some is food for dairy cattle, pigs and poultry), but it is still the case that many more sentient lives are sacrificed to produce useable protein from grains than from rangelands cattle.
There is a further issue to consider here: the question of sentience – the capacity to feel, perceive or be conscious.
You might not think the billions of insects and spiders killed by grain production are sentient, though they perceive and respond to the world around them. You may dismiss snakes and lizards as cold-blooded creatures incapable of sentience, though they form pair bonds and care for their young. But what about mice?
Mice are far more sentient than we thought. They sing complex, personalised love songs to each other that get more complex over time. Singing of any kind is a rare behaviour among mammals, previously known only to occur in whales, bats and humans.
Girl mice, like swooning human teenagers, try to get close to a skilled crooner. Now researchers are trying to determine whether song innovations are genetically programmed or or whether mice learn to vary their songs as they mature.
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When cattle, kangaroos and other meat animals are harvested they are killed instantly. Mice die a slow and very painful death from poisons. From a welfare point of view, these methods are among the least acceptable modes of killing. Although joeys are sometimes killed or left to fend for themselves, only 30% of kangaroos shot are females, only some of which will have young (the industry’s code of practice says shooters should avoid shooting females with dependent young). However, many times this number of dependent baby mice are left to die when we deliberately poison their mothers by the millions.
Replacing red meat with grain products leads to many more sentient animal deaths, far greater animal suffering and significantly more environmental degradation. Protein obtained from grazing livestock costs far fewer lives per kilogram: it is a more humane, ethical and environmentally-friendly dietary option.
So, what does a hungry human do? Our teeth and digestive system are adapted for omnivory. But we are now challenged to think about philosophical issues. We worry about the ethics involved in killing grazing animals and wonder if there are other more humane ways of obtaining adequate nutrients.
Relying on grains and pulses brings destruction of native ecosystems, significant threats to native species and at least 25 times more deaths of sentient animals per kilogram of food. Most of these animals sing love songs to each other, until we inhumanely mass-slaughter them.
Former Justice of the High Court, the Hon. Michael Kirby, wrote that:
“In our shared sentience, human beings are intimately connected with other animals. Endowed with reason and speech, we are uniquely empowered to make ethical decisions and to unite for social change on behalf of others that have no voice. Exploited animals cannot protest about their treatment or demand a better life. They are entirely at our mercy. So every decision of animal welfare, whether in Parliament or the supermarket, presents us with a profound test of moral character”.
We now know the mice have a voice, but we haven’t been listening.
The challenge for the ethical eater is to choose the diet that causes the least deaths and environmental damage. There would appear to be far more ethical support for an omnivorous diet that includes rangeland-grown red meat and even more support for one that includes sustainably wild-harvested kangaroo.
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[FONT="]Published figures suggest that, in Australia, producing wheat and other grains results in:[/FONT]
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- at least 25 times more sentient animals being killed per kilogram of useable protein
- more environmental damage, and
- a great deal more animal cruelty than does farming red meat.
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