Since a child I have felt a little uneasy at the knowledge that an animal has been killed so that I can eat meat. I have taken some comfort from the fact that I have been designed by Nature to be omnivorous[1] though I have never been entirely convinced by the pro-meat eating argument (most recently propagated by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall eloquently in his book “The River Cottage Meat Book”.) However, because I have never been presented with a convincing, decisive argument in favour of vegetarianism, I have continued to be an “omni”. It has not been uncommon for my meat eating prejudices to have been reinforced by half-baked, flawed arguments made by vegetarians in favour of their preferred diet, relying upon facts I know to be bogus.[2]
I was reminded of this when reading the letters page of The Guardian Weekend (14.01.06). My attention was drawn to correspondence by Nitin Mehta from Croydon, provoked by an article in the same publication a week earlier, entitled “Super Green Me”.
Remarks Ms Mehta,
“Some 55 billion animals are raised and killed for meat every year. Our planet is simply not big enough for these numbers. The result is destruction of rainforests, spreading of deserts and massive methane gas emissions. The grain fed to these animals could feed almost 4 billion people…”
Leaving aside the dubious, funny figures quoted, the destruction of rainforest arises almost entirely by way of demand for wood (such as teak) from the
The staple diet of the six million people currently living on this planet is not grain (in fact it is more likely to be rice.) If the land to which Ms Mehta refers were put over to producing the type of vegetable foods[3] that those 4 billion people actually wanted to eat, it could not support all of them.
Yes, methane is a greenhouse gas, but the Earth has always been full of it and remember this, the alleged Greenhouse Effect is still a hypothesis, no matter what the Media says to the contrary and some scientists would like us to think.
Woolly, lazy thinking like this is enough to make any reasonable person reach for their chicken roast.
[1] Yes, omnivorous. This is an interesting concept for single issue fanatic Animal Rights veggies/vegans, who like to disparage people who have made a decision to eat meat, by referring to them dismissively as “Carnies” (Carnivores). Lions and Tigers for instance are carnivorous, humans are omnivorous – we eat all foods, though mainly vegetables, with some (in the West, too much) meat.
[2] I have never been sure whether I was more annoyed by the deliberate attempt to misinform or by the fact that the activist in question just could not live with the fact that people like me choose a life-style (in this instance, meat eating) which does not accord with theirs.
[3] That is, instead of grain for meat production, assuming these figures are accurate.