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The Brian Lehrer Show
Tell Me About My Burger
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Gidon Eshel, Bard Center Fellow and a geophysicist at Simon's Rock College, and Joan Gussow, professor emeritus of Nutrition and Education at Teachers College Columbia University, discuss the many social and ecological ramifications of eating meat.
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Comments
Possibly relevant:
Mark Bittman: "Rethinking the Meat Guzzler"
Top 10 article presently @ NYTimes.com
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/27/weekinreview/27bittman.html?_r=1&scp=6&sq=meat&st=nyt&oref=slogin
I wonder what 60-100 million bison wrought on the environment before the European slaughter. Imagine the African Savanah's fauna and it's effect back in the day.
But seriously...
I think there is a conflation here of use of petrochemicals for feeding and fattening of ruminants through the grain used versus conscientious raising of animals for slaugher on pasture. This uses suboptimal lands for tillage as land for forage. Using organic fertilizers, if needed, no petrochemicals are used. It is essentially cycling existing carbon rather than mining carbon. This is a sustainable way to have high quality protein. In addition, this is an important resource in the third world, where raising goats is important for the family as well as an economic model to bring families out of poverty (see Heifer International http://www.heifer.org/ which received $43 million from the Gates Foundation)
Any vegetarian that eats using plants grown with petrochemicals is less green than an omnivor eating a locally raised lamb or kid.
What is needed is education to promote sustainable agriculture.
(Disclosure-I raise market lambs on pasture and sell locally).
I am so torn on this. I love meat but years ago I did give up veal and lamb when I found out how veal is raised and saw a little lamb slaughtered, but I still eat beef, pork, chicken, fish, etc. In light of the video these last 2 days shown on the news of the horrible treatment of cows by workers in a slaughterhouse, I'm rethinking the whole meat eating side of me, as I sit here waiting for my short ribs to defrost for tonight's supper. Truth is you see in the shop the rib, the chop and the steak and not the living being, the animal and it all goes away. I would like to have some convincing thing to get me off meat as blocked corotid arteries got me to stop smoking 7 years ago after 37 years of smoking. Sad but it seems to be those drastic measures that work. Will this segment do that? I hope?
As we saw from the pictures released by the Humane Society on Wednesday cows are beaten,kicked and even waterboarded(by having powerful hoses pour water up their noses) in USDA approved slaughterhouses. As Mark Bittman pointed out on Sunday in the Times raising cattle is responsible for tremendous ecological damage to the rain forests. Going organic still means that an innocent animal is losing his life for our taste buds. Veganism is a moral alternative to this cruelty.
I decided just before this past thanksgiving to buy meat only from the vendor/farmers at the Saturday market in Grand Army Plaza.
Brian,
Your voice sounds very distorted (in a comical way). I am listening through the web stream.
I had to turn the show off. The guy (Gidon Eschel?)is constantly saying ahhhhhh. Don't do that if you are going to be on the radio. It gets ahhhhhh... ahhhhhh... ahhhhh.... maddening!
How do you buy locally? How do we do this? I would welcome knowing where I can buy locally raised beef. LOCAL FARMERS!!!!!
a recent article [sorry don't remember the location] indicates a problem now in Africa, that the consequences of which can be seen in our own country - mainly using non-native species cows, here the Holstein, which is a British cow that needs a lot of fresh water and grass, in arrid environments, this diverting limited natural resources to a highly innefficient food source.
I didn't think about this much until I first heard about the carbon footprint of the meat industry, and then I read the Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan and was changed by it.
I'm not a vegetarian now, but I have substantially cut back on my meat consumption as well as processed foods where possible. The said reality is that everything in the supermarket is a processed food today, but I try to avoid those things which have gone through a particularly rigorous processing like pre-packaged snack foods, etc. And I have introduced more vegetables into my diet.
I've been a vegetarian since I was 14 yrs old. When I start eating meat again, I do want to know where it comes from; getting meat from local farms would probably serve that.
I've got a question: do my parents (who live in Maine) -- who are in a cooperative where they supply their food scraps, garden waste for furtilzer, etc. to a farm about a mile away where they raise organic beef and pork, and they get the meat in return -- negative effect the environment?
I'm really happy about this segment. These are highly relevant issues for our times.
I do feel that all the ethical quandaries raised here are immediately resolved simply by going vegan. I've been vegan for 10+ years--it's not that difficult (though going vegetarian first is probably easier) and I recommend it to anyone struggling with these issues.
As a very light meat eater I would like to know meat origins - ie which farm on restaurant menus' (common in england)
I have been trying to only eat meat when I know where it is coming from, which generally means not eating meat when I am out...although I do occasionally. However, I decided to join a meat CSA with grass-fed beef and lamb, as well as pasture raised pork, that is sent to me from mid-state NY. Even though it is shipped, I get a lot of meat once a month, and it is significantly less expensive than buying it at the store.
Is "corn-feeding" an old practice? Was it something that has been traditionally done for short periods of time right before slaughter, for instance, to improve marbling, etc.?
just wanted to say that it is so great and refreshing to hear a moderate and noninflammatory discussion about meat issues. Was surprised/refreshed by the times article and am hoping to hear more of this type of discussion in the media.
I gave up meat, eggs and milk nearly six months ago after seeing PETA video secretly filmed in a chicken factory. I concluded from it that the whole animal-derived food industry is cruel by the necessity of keeping costs down to an absolute minimum.
This recent revelation about the way cattle can be treated confirms my deep-seated suspicions.
I'm a meat-eater who thinks about these things. To minimize cognitive dissonance, I try to buy local, grass-fed meat on a regular basis, and to not eat meat more than a few times a week. That said, I still eat more meat than I should--particularly because my not-so-meat-conscious roommate goes out and buys it, and I'm obligated to eat it.
* More importantly * there's a big component you're missing: the conditions that farmworkers and meat-packing workers suffer as a result of the industrial approach to agriculture. Please follow up on this.
http://greenguideforkids.blogspot.com/2008/01/you-are-what-you-eat_07.html
Here's a link to an easy to grasp piece I wrote on the environmental implications of eating beef.
Where to get local meat:
1) Farmers Market
2) CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) projects. Find one and join at justfood.org
3) localharvest.org -- but find a meat supplier in your geographic area to reduce the environmental cost of shipping.
Supporting local farms is the only way to dismantle the unsustainable horror of CAFOs.
the only truly ethical meat....is no meat at all.
sorry to sound like a vegi-nazi....but in the end you are eating your dog, more or less.
before actually being slaughtered most animals live a short and miserable life....and their brains are more than smart enough to fully experience their misery.
What about the environmental value of preserving farmland by supporting grass-fed local animal farming? Some land isn't suitable for anything but grazing.
I am aware and concerned about the inhumane treatment of animals raised for meat. I try to purchase grain fed beef and free range organic chicken whenever I can, even though it costs more. I recommend the movie "Fast Food Nation" which shows how the meat industry inhumanely treats not only the animals but the humans who work in the slaughterhouses.
You and your guests forgot (?)
to mention that to raise ONE single lb of meat takes about 15 pounds of vegetables.
that was a number from years ago.
Today it's worth.
Vegetarians (have been one for 31 years)
not really a difficult choice, and my biggest problem is when I need to buy a belt for dress pants.
It used to be a problem, but now-adays, most shoes are all man-made, or man made can be found.
give it up, save the environment!
Galveston, Tx, is a lovely place.
Thank you Brian for pointing out this gentlemen's New York-Centrism. In the past I have been very put off by the way guests/hosts on WNYC have derided anywhere that is not New York as backwards and essentially "lesser" than NYC.
That his first statement on the this topic is to rip on a city (repeatedly) as "god forsaken" certainly set the tone the rest of his uninformed, snide and sarcastic remarks. Does he have a point under all the self possessed hyperbole? I'm not sure.
Please, do not have this guy back. there are plenty of other "experts" who can provide intellegent banter on this topic.
Buffalo is much better meat both in taste and health wise than any cattle. The biggest mistake this country made was slaughtering them to defeat the Native Americans. They existed in copious numbers and required no land alteration at all. The great plains would still be THE GREAT PLAINS!
Not eating meat does not mean a better life for many animals, it means that many animals have no reason to be allowed to live since they would be eating food and taking up space that our ever increasing population would need to consume.
I don't eat a lot of meat, but once a month(ish) I absolutely *must* have serious protein. I get like Mia Farrow in Rosemary's Baby, shoving chicken liver in my mouth. Cheese, tempeh, and eggs don't cut it, and now we can't eat fish without mercury poisoning...
what to do?
One reason I still eat meat (organic whenever possible!):
Meat-raising and consumption is HUGELY involved in our culture and history. Like all food, it connects us to tradition, but I think meat is particularly important because it has frequently been the focal point of meals, the center of the deepest rituals, and the main part of celebrations. Frequently in the culture of meat, the fact that an animal died to produce it is part of its value. By eating it we take some small part of the responsibility for its death, which I find pretty sobering (when I think about it) and intensely humanizing.
So while I recognize that meat is a luxury, and a pretty devastating one at this point, I cling to the dream that we can actually deal with its problems without having to eliminate the culture of meat completely.
Brian, instead of just saying "cruelty" can you just mention that slaughterhouse workers were using electric shocks, forklifts and high powered hoses to the face to try to get cows who were
too weak to get up
to stand for inspection so they could move on into the slaughterhouse?
It makes a difference to me that the animals were sick and too weak to stand.
with regard to amount of proteins needed:
Give me a break, most americans have WAY WAY WAY
too much protein in their diet.
It is inexcusable for this speaker (nina)to claim that americans dont need only 50 grains of protein.
There is so much EXtra protein..
If a family were to go from 2 lbs of hamburger, to a stir fry, with 4-8 oz of hamburger meat, combined with some grain (say bulgar or rice)
and a vegetable,
this would go a HUGE way to saving our planet!
ugh
We went past the point of ethics once we started thinking about meat, and all agriculture as an industrial process. Animals are not machines, the earth is not a factory. Ecology simply does not work that way.
We have decided that economics, particularly that of meat production, are more important than the ecology of biological systems world wide. We have reduced the biodiversity of the mid-west to sterile levels. The least biodiverse place in North America is Iowa.
Many of the fast food meats are coming from South American beef, which is largely raised on deforested rain forest land.
We need to step back and remember that reducing biodiversity is fundamentally unsustainable. It has lead us to grow like cancer, and we all know where that ends.
Q for Nina:
My vegetarian friends generally seem to be in better health than the average... has there been a study done comparing mental and physical performance of vegetarians vs. meat-eaters????
(note: my veggie friends are also fairly well-off)
I would love to hear a discussion of the role of subsidies in keeping meat prices artificially low. It seems crazy to me that vegetables, which come directly from the farm to your table, can often be more expensive than industrially-produced meats.
BTW, I am vegan, and I find it easy, happy, healthy and not really at all hard to maintain as long as you are not unreasonably fascistic about it. I have to strongly disagree with Nina, who speaks in terms of hypothetical dietary abstracts, and not the way people actually eat.
The confluence of advances in genetics engineering and stem cell research will in 15 to 30 years make the ethical consumption of meat a moot issue. The recent advances in iPS coupled with the ability to express entire organ tissues which is maybe 10 years away will lead to a revolution in the meat industry where all types of meat from many different species can be painlessly cultured from living creatures and then grown in "vats". This will be a real possibility fairly soon. That said, though I recognize that killing animals for food is not my first choice it is part of the natural system in which we have evolved and were it not for that act we wouldn't have the big brains that we do today. I am glad that these big brains are going to find a way to eliminate the need for killing for us to get meat. It is only a matter of at most a few decades.
Here’s the deal folks, ethically raised, grass-fed animals or not the over consumption of meat will expose you the possibility of stomach cancer or in men prostate cancer.
The side of beef you eat this evening will stay in your intestinal tract for about 36 hours, rotting.
There's more to meat than beef. It's easier to find ethically raised poultry or lamb, than beef, simply based on the amount of land and grass or grain required.
I call myself an unrepentant omnivore, having tried for a year and failed to be a vegeterian when I was twenty, but I really only eat red meat or fowl once or twice a week. I easily get by on tofu, eggs, peanut butter, or rice and beans most of the time. A small steak or a turkey burger are treats.
Where's the article from the Washington Post?
Anyone?
I don't eat meat - but just because I got disgusted by it over a decade ago, each meat witha a story, not anything moral. I am a serious Weston Price "adherent" though and have been reluctant to buy any food from anybody I don't know! I have joined a buying club, I frequent farmer's markets and I sometimes buy veggies at Fairway or Whole Foods - and fish from same or the guy at the farmer's mkt. Shopping takes a lot of time for me!
(I do buy things like guerande salt and vanilla from TJ's) Funny because my grandfather was a supermarket supplier of of all things Pillsbury Flour
I just read premier nutritional scientist Thomas Campbell's book The China Study which advocates a vegan diet. I would love to hear a discussion of the nutritional science that he presents and even better an interview with him.
I spend time with my meat before i eat it. LOL
Although I am currently a semi-responsible meat eater, I was raised a vegetarian from birth and I am very grateful for my mother's decision. I had a healthy childhood, and am a very healthy adult, and I attribute much of my resilience and high energy levels to my meat-free adolescence! My mother worked full-time and raised me mostly on her own. She wasn't a gourmet cook, but we ate simply and well--mostly whole grains, good produce and lots of delicious peanut butter shakes. Raising a vegetarian child is not as difficult as one might assume--and your children will thank you for it later!
A new farm-to-table resraurant opened in Jim Thorpe, PA. It's called Flow, in partnership with a farm up the road called Fourteen Acre Farm.
Everyone should think about the way we are told to consume meat from a very early age and notice how similar it is to the way young men are taught to consume women, i.e. legs of lam, chicken breasts, thighs, etc. It's all very sexualized. Anyone who has gone vegetarian or vegan probably caught a lot of flak from their father. Coincidence? Meat is unnecessary. But worse, it's exploitive.
ANGELA
I agreed with you! I found it hard to decide if I wanted to listen to what he had to say and as a matter of fact he's wrong because Galveston, TX is actually a very cool and progressive place. It was a major port during the turn of the last century and many people from the old world came through Galveston and settled there. He should have been a little more open and careful about what he said.
:)
I wonder how much of this meat awareness movement of late can be attributed to the ripple of the Omnivore's Dilemma? It was recommended more than anything else over the last two years, and when I finally got to it a few months ago, my whole opinion of food changed pretty radically.
Question... one of the guests mentioned a Washington Post article, which I assume is this one:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/30/AR2008013003300.html
Furthermore, they mentioned a link to video in the article, which doesn't seem to be there. Anyone have a link to the video in question?
Could someone please post the websites that Joan Gussow mentioned with regard to finding local and grass-fed meat, and local and organic vegetables in the NYC area? Thanks!
At the end of the show Brian mentioned a group in Windsor Terrace that acquires and sells grass fed meat from the New England states. He said they did not mention their name or how to contact them. I live in Windsor Terrace and would like to purchase meat from them for myself and my family.
Please list this information. Also I would be interested in information on any other such groups that sell ethically raised meat. Thanks.
I, too, live in Windsor Terrace and would like to participate in the local meat buying cooperative. Please share the information, if possible.
I also live in Kensington/Windsor Terrace and would like to buy meat through the local meat cooperative. How can I contact them???? I would really appreciate this information.
Thanks.
Hopefully this Windsor Terrace Group will respond. But I'm serious about doing this. If they don't respond, how about all the Windsor Terrace/Kensington People who are interested in finding a way to eat meat more ethically meet at CrossRoads on Sunday at 4pm to discuss? I already have some leads and would be willing to work on this.
Here are the links that Joan Gussow mentions, including a link to the Windsor Terrace group:
http://www.justfood.org/csa/locations/
(community supported agriculture groups in NYC)
http://www.eatwellguide.org/
http://www.eatwild.com/
And the VIDEO of the meatpacking plant:
http://video.nbcsandiego.com/player/?id=212316
Join KWTNeighbors....your neighborhood list serve to find out when the group will be able to take new members.
This thread is closed.
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