=
×

Julian Cope presents Head Heritage

Head To Head
Log In
Register
U-Know! Forum »
So why are you a veggie?
Log In to post a reply
67 messages
Topic View: Flat | Threaded
grufty jim
grufty jim
1978 posts

Re: Why am I still vege?
Feb 01, 2001, 17:11
it's not so much the 'environmental impact' thing (though there's lots of very good evidence to suggest that vegetarianism is more environmentally sound than meat eating) as the 'death and suffering' thing.

interestingly, i've been reading some info recently that suggested that meat has a higher EROI (Energy Returned On Investment) than vegetables. This contradicts what I always believed (that meat was a big energy sink), but I've not got deep enough into the specifics to see whether it bears out.

However, what isn't in question is the fact that meat is a massive "land sink". There's a statistic (bandied around by a lot of veggies - including me - despite the fact that I suspect few of us have seen hard data to support it) that claims that an acre of land can provide 30 times more nutrition if devoted to certain crops (soya and spinach probably) than if devoted to grazing. This makes a lot of sense as the cows (or sheep or whatever) are extracting their nutrition from grass - which is obviously a lot less nutritious than soya (for example).

All the same, the question of energy *expenditure* on crop growth versus animal husbandry is one that I can see being a lot less clear cut (coffee, as an example, is a ridiculously inefficient plant when viewed as a nutritional source... though of course, 99.9% of people consume coffee for the caffeine and not the nutrition).

All of this is moot though (in a sense). It is still the case that meat-eaters are directly responsible for causing a massive amount of death, while I am responsible for significantly less (not *zero* of course... I swatted a fly a couple of nights ago for example, so there are certainly a few karmic blotches on my slate - if karma is your bag).

so when i said "low impact" it was a more general point than mere environmental damage... i was including such nebulous concepts as the moral impact of eating meat (i don't call it murder, because murder is a legal concept - whatever morrissey may say in his very fine song - and killing an animal isn't murder), which is a biggie in my book.
In reply to:
Why am I still vege? (IzzyOrange)		 Replies:
Re: Why am I still vege? (IzzyOrange)
Topic Outline:
U-Know! Forum Index