RE: Dr. Doug Graham (80-10-10 raw vegan)
November 6, 2014 at 12:20 pm
(This post was last modified: November 6, 2014 at 12:55 pm by The Grand Nudger.)
With regards to my dietary choices....let me give you a little list.
I do eat beef, not often, but I do. It's probably the most wasteful thing I eat so I'll use that as a very unfavorable baseline.
On average, there are 430lbs of retail cuts after weight "on the hoof" is reduced to "the rack" and further to the store shelves. Now I live in cattle/horse country - so I can get it cheaper from my neighbors pastured animals..and if I wanted to, I bet Beverly would even let me shoot the fucker in the head..to make sure it died quick by my own hand. Now, these cattle don;t look to be suffring very much. My kids think they're pets. We feed them, wash them (and they aren't even ours..they just hang out on my fenceline looking for handouts). As I understand it, she keeps them primarily as a tax break when she doesn't have thoroughbreds to board. Long story short..they're happy cattle. There's still that one thing though, where I kill them.
hrugs:
So, at 4 ounces per day thats. 1720 days of beef per 1 dead cow. At 6 ounces it's 1146.6rep...lets call that 1147 days of beef per 1 dead cow. So, for me....arguing that the cow suffered (which it plainly does not) I could continue eating beef for over 3 years on the balance of a single soul.
-but, can we down the rabbit hole on this one? Yup. Cattle end up eating approx 3000 lbs of grain -alone- over the course of their life. That amounts to about a half acres worth of corn. 100ft x100ft, or so. Now - how do we quantify the souls harmed, injured, killed, displaced ......suffering for every half acre of cropland established and devoted to meat production? Give me some means to determine this that you would accept and lets see whether or not it;s the meat eating or the grain production that yields more suffering?
The bar is 1 dead cow over 3 years per half acre of developed cropland.
Taking that further down the hole, what does the crop need to survive? About 70 gallons of oil- for starters. Who knows what lethal concoctions I might also avail myself of in service of the seed. I don;t think that would be quantifiable...but I could probably find averages.
So now the bar is set at 1 dead cow over three years per half acre of developed land and 70gallons of oil (and assorted toxic chemicals).
......I can keep going...it just gets worse and worse for the ag end though, as the number of dead cattle doesn't continue to balloon everytime I go down a step. Worse yet, the production described (our current method and the reason that meat is a byproduct) is not the best practice of livestock production, nor is it even required for livestock production. We can't actually eat the grains used themselves, so there's no option to just eat all of that corn instead of the cow, before you even ask- and no, the land used for livestock grains is not amenable to mixed veggie production (though it can, ironically, be used to produce livestock directly) so there's no option of simply growing tomatos (or even grain that is useful to us) instead..lol.
Why -wouldn't I eat the cow, that eats the grass, use it's manure to fertilize my veggies...and eat them (in the process supplementing the cows diet with vegetable mass as human beings eat a tiny portion of most veggies total structure-single digit percentages-)? I could cut everything out of the above rundown that follows "1 dead cow". Don't you think that might have a positive effect on the relative amount of suffering that my dietary decisions cause...relative to your own, for example? (If you'd like, pick what you feel to be the most wasteful thing you eat and I'll get you some numbers, or hell, the least wasteful..I'll line my worst case up against your best case).
I can't..before you ask, just not kill the cow. Firstly, I need that manure (to cut out the oil)- but I can't afford to actually keep the cow past the three year mark (as that's when it begins to be a recurring cost with no gain in yield...a reduction in yield, actually - as opposed to selling it...and we know what happens to sold cattle don't we)...if I did that, my family would suffer - but I would also be forced to increase the developed portion of my land at a ratio commensurate to absorb that cost. I want to minimize that (to cut out all the dead critters). I would also have to increase my land further to cover the loss of that 4-6 ounces of meat...and since cattle have an abysmal rate of exchange available to us....that means I'd need 10x the weight in just the right veggies (which themselves have further requirements) to offset that loss. At the same yield as grains mentioned above (ludicrous, nothing yields like the grains we've dicked with for feed - not even close ...but what the hell, right?) that means I'd need another half acre of intensively developed land to cover that as well .How many critters have to die to save this cows life? I'm willing to shoot the motherfucker as a matter of course but we're approaching the thresh-hold of a decent Godwin already-I almost feel justified in killing the damn thing after we've done a little math.
If somebody came to me for an assessment on an ag startup model with those numbers....I'd tell his silly ass to invest in government bonds for a better overall return...as well as a better rate of return. I'd also suggest that he not scorch the earth around him for his love or sympathy of what must be his pet cow - to take a step back and look at the bigger picture. So you can see my predicament, what with wanting to reduce suffering but simultaneously wanting to continue in food production, with wanting to reduce suffering by my dietary choices but also wanting to be thorough and honest about them? It's not as though there isn't a part of me that wouldn't resist a moral or ethical condemnation of meat -in the event that we solve all of our relevant ag issues- that portion of me exists. It has canines and a well developed suite of apparatus for hunting and killing other animals (complete with supplemental chemical conditioning to increase the propensity -for- and enjoyment -of-). We're just not at the point (technologically, or methodologically) where I have to grin like a jackal and say "because they taste delicious" -yet.
Rest assured, when that days comes - I will. I mention this just in case you think I'm looking to actually take the high ground. I'm not, I'm simply looking to remove you -from it-.
I think the whole things a shit sandwich (not the least of which my own inner drives).
I do eat beef, not often, but I do. It's probably the most wasteful thing I eat so I'll use that as a very unfavorable baseline.
On average, there are 430lbs of retail cuts after weight "on the hoof" is reduced to "the rack" and further to the store shelves. Now I live in cattle/horse country - so I can get it cheaper from my neighbors pastured animals..and if I wanted to, I bet Beverly would even let me shoot the fucker in the head..to make sure it died quick by my own hand. Now, these cattle don;t look to be suffring very much. My kids think they're pets. We feed them, wash them (and they aren't even ours..they just hang out on my fenceline looking for handouts). As I understand it, she keeps them primarily as a tax break when she doesn't have thoroughbreds to board. Long story short..they're happy cattle. There's still that one thing though, where I kill them.
hrugs:So, at 4 ounces per day thats. 1720 days of beef per 1 dead cow. At 6 ounces it's 1146.6rep...lets call that 1147 days of beef per 1 dead cow. So, for me....arguing that the cow suffered (which it plainly does not) I could continue eating beef for over 3 years on the balance of a single soul.
-but, can we down the rabbit hole on this one? Yup. Cattle end up eating approx 3000 lbs of grain -alone- over the course of their life. That amounts to about a half acres worth of corn. 100ft x100ft, or so. Now - how do we quantify the souls harmed, injured, killed, displaced ......suffering for every half acre of cropland established and devoted to meat production? Give me some means to determine this that you would accept and lets see whether or not it;s the meat eating or the grain production that yields more suffering?
The bar is 1 dead cow over 3 years per half acre of developed cropland.
Taking that further down the hole, what does the crop need to survive? About 70 gallons of oil- for starters. Who knows what lethal concoctions I might also avail myself of in service of the seed. I don;t think that would be quantifiable...but I could probably find averages.
So now the bar is set at 1 dead cow over three years per half acre of developed land and 70gallons of oil (and assorted toxic chemicals).
......I can keep going...it just gets worse and worse for the ag end though, as the number of dead cattle doesn't continue to balloon everytime I go down a step. Worse yet, the production described (our current method and the reason that meat is a byproduct) is not the best practice of livestock production, nor is it even required for livestock production. We can't actually eat the grains used themselves, so there's no option to just eat all of that corn instead of the cow, before you even ask- and no, the land used for livestock grains is not amenable to mixed veggie production (though it can, ironically, be used to produce livestock directly) so there's no option of simply growing tomatos (or even grain that is useful to us) instead..lol.
Why -wouldn't I eat the cow, that eats the grass, use it's manure to fertilize my veggies...and eat them (in the process supplementing the cows diet with vegetable mass as human beings eat a tiny portion of most veggies total structure-single digit percentages-)? I could cut everything out of the above rundown that follows "1 dead cow". Don't you think that might have a positive effect on the relative amount of suffering that my dietary decisions cause...relative to your own, for example? (If you'd like, pick what you feel to be the most wasteful thing you eat and I'll get you some numbers, or hell, the least wasteful..I'll line my worst case up against your best case).
I can't..before you ask, just not kill the cow. Firstly, I need that manure (to cut out the oil)- but I can't afford to actually keep the cow past the three year mark (as that's when it begins to be a recurring cost with no gain in yield...a reduction in yield, actually - as opposed to selling it...and we know what happens to sold cattle don't we)...if I did that, my family would suffer - but I would also be forced to increase the developed portion of my land at a ratio commensurate to absorb that cost. I want to minimize that (to cut out all the dead critters). I would also have to increase my land further to cover the loss of that 4-6 ounces of meat...and since cattle have an abysmal rate of exchange available to us....that means I'd need 10x the weight in just the right veggies (which themselves have further requirements) to offset that loss. At the same yield as grains mentioned above (ludicrous, nothing yields like the grains we've dicked with for feed - not even close ...but what the hell, right?) that means I'd need another half acre of intensively developed land to cover that as well .How many critters have to die to save this cows life? I'm willing to shoot the motherfucker as a matter of course but we're approaching the thresh-hold of a decent Godwin already-I almost feel justified in killing the damn thing after we've done a little math.
If somebody came to me for an assessment on an ag startup model with those numbers....I'd tell his silly ass to invest in government bonds for a better overall return...as well as a better rate of return. I'd also suggest that he not scorch the earth around him for his love or sympathy of what must be his pet cow - to take a step back and look at the bigger picture. So you can see my predicament, what with wanting to reduce suffering but simultaneously wanting to continue in food production, with wanting to reduce suffering by my dietary choices but also wanting to be thorough and honest about them? It's not as though there isn't a part of me that wouldn't resist a moral or ethical condemnation of meat -in the event that we solve all of our relevant ag issues- that portion of me exists. It has canines and a well developed suite of apparatus for hunting and killing other animals (complete with supplemental chemical conditioning to increase the propensity -for- and enjoyment -of-). We're just not at the point (technologically, or methodologically) where I have to grin like a jackal and say "because they taste delicious" -yet.
Rest assured, when that days comes - I will. I mention this just in case you think I'm looking to actually take the high ground. I'm not, I'm simply looking to remove you -from it-.
I think the whole things a shit sandwich (not the least of which my own inner drives).
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