Author Topic: Who has watched the documentary Cowspiracy?  (Read 13580 times)

greenmimama

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Who has watched the documentary Cowspiracy?
« on: September 25, 2015, 07:28:59 AM »
It's available on Netflix right now.

I just finished it last night and I would love to discuss it with others.

I'm ready to make some changes, right now, and since I pretty much decide what my family eats, we can make a pretty big immediate impact!

forummm

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Re: Who has watched the documentary Cowspiracy?
« Reply #1 on: September 25, 2015, 08:21:29 AM »
I found it very mooving. Udderly riveting.

Mississippi Mudstache

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Re: Who has watched the documentary Cowspiracy?
« Reply #2 on: September 25, 2015, 10:51:36 AM »
Even though I was braised on a farm myself, I thought that the film was legen-dairy.

greenmimama

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Re: Who has watched the documentary Cowspiracy?
« Reply #3 on: September 25, 2015, 01:45:45 PM »
Wow

BarkyardBQ

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Re: Who has watched the documentary Cowspiracy?
« Reply #4 on: September 25, 2015, 01:48:39 PM »
It's on my Netflix chopping block.

GreenSheep

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Re: Who has watched the documentary Cowspiracy?
« Reply #5 on: September 25, 2015, 02:03:37 PM »
I'm glad you posted this because I am so frustrated by the issues it raises, and it's impossible to talk to anyone about them.

I've watched it twice now, and I've been almost completely vegan (I eat cheese maybe once a month, and I eat honey maybe once a week, but no other animal products) for a couple of years, so I realize that it's sort of preaching to the choir in my case. However, I realize that I can certainly do better... but at the same time, this film (and "Mad Cowboy," by Howard Lyman, who was in the movie -- just read that yesterday) just makes me angry. I'm so tired of people hiding the truth and/or hiding FROM the truth. They just want to eat their burger, keep their head in the sand, and ignore the consequences. This should be THE NUMBER ONE ISSUE that everyone's talking about. Racism, abortion, cancer, etc... all of those things are important, but they won't matter at all when we have no food or water. Yet if you try to bring up any of this stuff, people simply don't want to hear it. They don't even want to hear about it on a personal level. People with obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, etc. just want a pill to fix it all. Most of them aren't even willing to try changing their diet and refuse to believe that it has anything to do with their health. And they certainly aren't willing to believe that it has anything to do with the planet's health.

For the first time in my life, I'm glad that human life is finite because I do not want to be around in 100 years or 200 years or 2000 years or whenever the shit hits the fan regarding all of this. Meanwhile, I feel like I have zero power to do anything about it, other than control my own habits, which really makes no difference in the long run if no one else changes anything.

FIRE me

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Re: Who has watched the documentary Cowspiracy?
« Reply #6 on: September 29, 2015, 09:11:29 AM »
It's available on Netflix right now.

I just finished it last night and I would love to discuss it with others.

I'm ready to make some changes, right now, and since I pretty much decide what my family eats, we can make a pretty big immediate impact!

I knew a meat diet was bad for the environment, but I didn't know it was that much worse. Anyone with an interest in environmentalism should watch Cowspiracy.

What was completely new to me, not being an active Sierra Club or Greenpeace supporter (I have nothing against them, I just don't hang out on their website or give them money), was the fact that they consistently ignore - and even refuse to talk about - the damage that meat farming does to the environment.

As for my meat habit, I usually eat meat once or twice a week. I will try to cut that back to once or twice a month.

Bob W

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Re: Who has watched the documentary Cowspiracy?
« Reply #7 on: September 29, 2015, 09:24:23 AM »
After reading this post yesterday I gave it a watch --

All's I can say is wow!!   Just mind blowing stuff there.

I live in Southern Missouri where we have farm land not suitable for crops and lots of water.   We are either number 1 or 2 in both dairy and beef production.   Around here you hardly notice and impact.  The cows seem happy,  farmers happy etc...  Even the streams are relatively clear.

But Chirst,  when I see the land and rain forest that is being used to raise cows I was amazed.  Hell there isn't even any grass on most of that. 

So for those of you who haven't seen it basically --

Cows use a hell  of a lot of water --10 times what a human does.
Cows require huge amounts of land,   Yooooooge!  Like all the earth.
There are 8 billion humans and 80 billion cows.
Methane,  a green house gas 200 times worse than CO2 is produced in massive quantities by cows.

200 years ago humans and cows represented 5 % of the bio life on earth.

Today cows/humand represent 95%.

Basically it takes 1/4 of an acre to produce enough vegi based food to feed a human.  But it takes 10 acres to produce meat to feed a human.

(I may be off a bit on the exact numbers,  so watch the movie)

enigmaT120

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Re: Who has watched the documentary Cowspiracy?
« Reply #8 on: September 30, 2015, 04:16:15 PM »

What was completely new to me, not being an active Sierra Club or Greenpeace supporter (I have nothing against them, I just don't hang out on their website or give them money), was the fact that they consistently ignore - and even refuse to talk about - the damage that meat farming does to the environment.


It's been discussed in Sierra magazine before.

Thegoblinchief

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Re: Who has watched the documentary Cowspiracy?
« Reply #9 on: October 02, 2015, 10:49:09 AM »
*have not watched the documentary, don't have Netflix.

Any anti-animal agriculture really needs some counter-balance. All sustainable agriculture depends on animals for nutrient-cycling, the ability to thrive on marginal land that is not tilled, etc.

I can recommend a whole host of books for the importance of sustainable animal agriculture, but I think the best would be Joel Salatin's "Folks this Ain't Normal". For a shorter but still in-depth version of his views, listen or watch to the interview he did on Joe Rogan's podcast.

Read up on permaculture. This is the most sustainable form of agriculture possible and every single permaculture design relies on animals as a component. My favorite broad-scale book is "Restoration Agriculture" by Mark Shepard.

boarder42

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Re: Who has watched the documentary Cowspiracy?
« Reply #10 on: October 02, 2015, 10:55:21 AM »
After reading this post yesterday I gave it a watch --

All's I can say is wow!!   Just mind blowing stuff there.

I live in Southern Missouri where we have farm land not suitable for crops and lots of water.   We are either number 1 or 2 in both dairy and beef production.   Around here you hardly notice and impact.  The cows seem happy,  farmers happy etc...  Even the streams are relatively clear.

But Chirst,  when I see the land and rain forest that is being used to raise cows I was amazed.  Hell there isn't even any grass on most of that. 

So for those of you who haven't seen it basically --

Cows use a hell  of a lot of water --10 times what a human does.
Cows require huge amounts of land,   Yooooooge!  Like all the earth.
There are 8 billion humans and 80 billion cows.
Methane,  a green house gas 200 times worse than CO2 is produced in massive quantities by cows.

200 years ago humans and cows represented 5 % of the bio life on earth.

Today cows/humand represent 95%.

Basically it takes 1/4 of an acre to produce enough vegi based food to feed a human.  But it takes 10 acres to produce meat to feed a human.

(I may be off a bit on the exact numbers,  so watch the movie)

so can we still eat chicken and pork with out killing the planet or is that coming up next in the series

Chickenpocolyps

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GreenSheep

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Re: Who has watched the documentary Cowspiracy?
« Reply #11 on: October 02, 2015, 12:02:21 PM »
*have not watched the documentary, don't have Netflix.

Any anti-animal agriculture really needs some counter-balance. All sustainable agriculture depends on animals for nutrient-cycling, the ability to thrive on marginal land that is not tilled, etc.

I can recommend a whole host of books for the importance of sustainable animal agriculture, but I think the best would be Joel Salatin's "Folks this Ain't Normal". For a shorter but still in-depth version of his views, listen or watch to the interview he did on Joe Rogan's podcast.

Read up on permaculture. This is the most sustainable form of agriculture possible and every single permaculture design relies on animals as a component. My favorite broad-scale book is "Restoration Agriculture" by Mark Shepard.

Read "How to Grow More Vegetables." No animals required. It was originally published in the '70s, has been reprinted/updated many times, and is considered the single most important gardening book by thousands of gardeners. That said, I see no harm in growing plants to eat on fields that happen to have some animal manure on them (that's nature... there will be animals out there), but growing animals for food is very clearly unsustainable, as is demonstrated over and over in the film.

Thegoblinchief

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Re: Who has watched the documentary Cowspiracy?
« Reply #12 on: October 02, 2015, 12:12:30 PM »
GreenSheep - I've read the book. It's got great info but Jeavons himself never claims it is a fully self-sustaining system, just that it tries to have the lowest input you can...without animals and other elements added.

You still need animals to return nutrients to the soil. There's also tons of marginal land, or abused farmland, that can be healed tremendously using animals in a managed grazing system. Grass (in a managed grazing system) is the most efficient healer of land. And animals make it into human-edible food for us!

Not to mention humans are designed by nature to be omnivores.

UnleashHell

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Re: Who has watched the documentary Cowspiracy?
« Reply #13 on: October 02, 2015, 01:08:45 PM »
After reading this post yesterday I gave it a watch --

All's I can say is wow!!   Just mind blowing stuff there.

I live in Southern Missouri where we have farm land not suitable for crops and lots of water.   We are either number 1 or 2 in both dairy and beef production.   Around here you hardly notice and impact.  The cows seem happy,  farmers happy etc...  Even the streams are relatively clear.

But Chirst,  when I see the land and rain forest that is being used to raise cows I was amazed.  Hell there isn't even any grass on most of that. 

So for those of you who haven't seen it basically --

Cows use a hell  of a lot of water --10 times what a human does.
Cows require huge amounts of land,   Yooooooge!  Like all the earth.
There are 8 billion humans and 80 billion cows.
Methane,  a green house gas 200 times worse than CO2 is produced in massive quantities by cows.

200 years ago humans and cows represented 5 % of the bio life on earth.

Today cows/humand represent 95%.

Basically it takes 1/4 of an acre to produce enough vegi based food to feed a human.  But it takes 10 acres to produce meat to feed a human.

(I may be off a bit on the exact numbers,  so watch the movie)

so can we still eat chicken and pork with out killing the planet or is that coming up next in the series

Chickenpocolyps

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swick

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Re: Who has watched the documentary Cowspiracy?
« Reply #14 on: October 02, 2015, 01:58:09 PM »
Mod Note: I know it is so.so. hard to resist the puns, but OP is looking for some quality and thought provoking discussion. If you feel the need to be punny, please add to the conversation as well.

gaja

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Re: Who has watched the documentary Cowspiracy?
« Reply #15 on: October 02, 2015, 02:38:40 PM »
I understand that you live in countries where you can choose whether to grow vegetables or graze animals. I was flabbergasted the first time I visited Holland and saw cattle grazing on flat land. But there are countries in the world where you can barely get a potato to grow, and where rhubarb is considered a fruit.

I avoid imported meat, but eat wild game, sheep and cattle who have been grazing in the mountains, and whale and seals from sustainable populations, with completely clear conscience. Imported fruit and vegetables are a much higher part of my environmental impact.

The problem is not the meat. The problem is how the meat is produced. With stricter regulations, meat would soon be so much more expensive that consumption would drop substantially.

UnleashHell

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Re: Who has watched the documentary Cowspiracy?
« Reply #16 on: October 03, 2015, 04:35:22 AM »
Mod Note: I know it is so.so. hard to resist the puns, but OP is looking for some quality and thought provoking discussion. If you feel the need to be punny, please add to the conversation as well.

oops. soory.


OK - I haven't watched the documentary but I am immediately skeptical (skepticow?)  of anything like this that's starting off from the one side of an issue.
Saying that its pretty damn obvious how the amount of meat we eat has to impact our environment. Intensive farming always has negatives but when you throw in the impact of the huge amounts of transportation and packaging then it just has to get damn ugly. The flip side of that is how come local produce always cost so damn much. I live in florida. we have a year round growing season, huge fish resources nearby and raise plenty of cattle here. yet all of these items are no cheaper than buying the same stuff anywhere in the country. Its frustrating that the obvious number one benefit can come from eating local where possible and cutting out the 10 middle guys! But its not happening here.
And why the hell can't they label where the meat comes from?

We, as a family, are cutting down the amount of meat we eat. Part of it is cost but more is about health and impact on the environment. Even small things like buying whole shoulder of pork and making our own sausages does make a difference. we are moving to 2 days a week totally meat free  - a small change but one that does slowly make an impact.

I may watch the program but I doubt i'll change anything we are doing based on that alone.

Thegoblinchief

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Re: Who has watched the documentary Cowspiracy?
« Reply #17 on: October 03, 2015, 06:24:50 AM »
And why the hell can't they label where the meat comes from?

Around here there are at least a few supermarkets that carry meat specifically branded as Wisconsin grown. Many farmers sell retail cuts of their animals, but that gets $$$. Typically, however, the only affordable way to get local meat is to buy whole/sections of animals. Around here pork is sold either half or whole. Beef is sold in as small as 1/8ths.

We have been living off the same pig since March and still have plenty of meat left in the freezer. I'd like to eventually buy a second deep freeze so that we could have pork and beef at the same time, but pork is considerably cheaper and the humanely raised local stuff is quite tasty - a (pun intended) cut above the mass-produced supermarket stuff.

The reasons for the seeming price discrepancy in price between a farmer's market and a supermarket is that you're dealing with smaller suppliers without mechanization. It also costs them labor to sit at a market for X hours versus a farmer that's just selling wholesale. If you get things at their peak seasons, however, most markets (here at least) get incredibly cheap when buying quantity (and then preserving it).

Gerard

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Re: Who has watched the documentary Cowspiracy?
« Reply #18 on: October 03, 2015, 08:12:26 AM »
Giving up beef seems like such an easy thing to do, especially where I live (I can sub out a piece of cow with the equivalent piece of pig or chicken and spend far less). I imagine this is not a fully satisfactory answer for our vegan friends, but it does feel like such easy low hanging fruit. I could step up my game by buying more humanely raised pig or chicken, and probably still pay less than I would for cow.

That said, some of the problem with cows is how they're raised, and there are millions of acres of marginal land that lend themselves to livestock grazing but not to vegetable cropping... every time I take a long-distance bus I see miles of scrubland that was clearly farmed a couple of generations back but has now been abandoned, especially in shallow-soil areas of Canada.

Goldielocks

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Re: Who has watched the documentary Cowspiracy?
« Reply #19 on: October 03, 2015, 10:28:41 AM »
I understand that you live in countries where you can choose whether to grow vegetables or graze animals. I was flabbergasted the first time I visited Holland and saw cattle grazing on flat land. But there are countries in the world where you can barely get a potato to grow, and where rhubarb is considered a fruit.

I avoid imported meat, but eat wild game, sheep and cattle who have been grazing in the mountains, and whale and seals from sustainable populations, with completely clear conscience. Imported fruit and vegetables are a much higher part of my environmental impact.

The problem is not the meat. The problem is how the meat is produced. With stricter regulations, meat would soon be so much more expensive that consumption would drop substantially.

+ zillion

I looked into how beef was raised in my region, and was satsified with the impact trade off.

Mainly cow farts are the big unresolved impact, plus sanitary laws that demand mega processing facilities with long trucking and concentration of animals for their last month if life.   This time period needs waste handling and can be done poorly, but is usually well managed.  But grass fed beef is the norm here until fattening up time, and that is usually on land that can not be used for much else, and we have a large amount of water.  Oh, and those processing facilities pay well over the living wage, too. 

Huge process farms in California were a shocker to me when I saw them...especially as they were not just a 4 week stop on their way to a final processor.

There are big problems with wild fish, and some cropping practices, too...  Pesticides and herbicides are needed to get the volume of food grown in the world today,, and then there are transportation and tractor fuels used... Plus excess water draw from rivers in many regions...

music lover

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Re: Who has watched the documentary Cowspiracy?
« Reply #20 on: October 03, 2015, 10:56:40 AM »
After reading this post yesterday I gave it a watch --

All's I can say is wow!!   Just mind blowing stuff there.

I live in Southern Missouri where we have farm land not suitable for crops and lots of water.   We are either number 1 or 2 in both dairy and beef production.   Around here you hardly notice and impact.  The cows seem happy,  farmers happy etc...  Even the streams are relatively clear.

But Chirst,  when I see the land and rain forest that is being used to raise cows I was amazed.  Hell there isn't even any grass on most of that. 

So for those of you who haven't seen it basically --

Cows use a hell  of a lot of water --10 times what a human does.
Cows require huge amounts of land,   Yooooooge!  Like all the earth.
There are 8 billion humans and 80 billion cows.
Methane,  a green house gas 200 times worse than CO2 is produced in massive quantities by cows.

200 years ago humans and cows represented 5 % of the bio life on earth.

Today cows/humand represent 95%.

Basically it takes 1/4 of an acre to produce enough vegi based food to feed a human.  But it takes 10 acres to produce meat to feed a human.

(I may be off a bit on the exact numbers,  so watch the movie)

Actually, there are 1.5 billion cows, not 80 billion. They are off by a factor of 50.

Also, stating that humans and cows make up 95% of the world's biomass?? That's another outright fabrication. Ants alone have more than 3 times the biomass of all the humans and cattle combined, and bacteria have 1100 times more biomass than humans and cattle. Humans and cattle make up less than 1/10 of 1% of the world's biomass of living organisms. Plus, plants have 100 times the biomass of all living organisms...but why let those silly inconvenient facts get in the way?? That 95% claim is really 1/1000 of 1%.

What else is wrong or made up in that "documentary"?

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2011/11/03/141946751/along-with-humans-who-else-is-in-the-7-billion-club

Gerard

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Re: Who has watched the documentary Cowspiracy?
« Reply #21 on: October 03, 2015, 01:08:24 PM »
Mainly cow farts are the big unresolved impact

Cow burps, actually!

From what I remember from Michael Pollan's work, grass-fed cattle actually produce more methane than grain-fed, although they do a lot more good in other ways. But basically both kinds sorta suck.

gaja

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Re: Who has watched the documentary Cowspiracy?
« Reply #22 on: October 03, 2015, 02:40:07 PM »
Mainly cow farts are the big unresolved impact

Cow burps, actually!

From what I remember from Michael Pollan's work, grass-fed cattle actually produce more methane than grain-fed, although they do a lot more good in other ways. But basically both kinds sorta suck.
A cow is not a cow. There are loads of different breeds, and loads of ways to improve the raising of the lifestock. But then you have to care about the welfare of your animals, not just the yield.

A fun detail: a friend told me that you can produce twice as much methane (biogas) from a ton of swedish cow manure, as from a ton of norwegian cow manure. The Norwegian cows get fed less grain, and produce less milk and meat per unit.

Also, the simplified carbon cycles usually don't depict the carbon stored in soil and roots. A good farmer will leave the soil of his farm in better condition than he got it. That includes a thicker soil layer storing more carbon.

LibrarIan

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Re: Who has watched the documentary Cowspiracy?
« Reply #23 on: October 03, 2015, 08:21:52 PM »
Not to mention humans are designed by nature to be omnivores.


While it is true that humans are naturally capable of being omnivores (i.e. our bodies are biologically capable of digesting meat), that doesn't mean we have to eat meat. (In fact, we are capable of digesting a great many things that aren't even food, but that's beside the point.) There is nothing in meat in and of itself nutrient-wise that cannot be obtained from a vegetarian or vegan diet. While there certainly are benefits to soil and general plant life from having animals (like cows) present around farmland, that doesn't mean we need to eat the animals.

I have been a vegetarian for nearly five years and I feel so much healthier and energetic than I did when I ate meat (the first 21 years of my life). Also, as part of my employer's health program, I can get my blood tested free of charge annually, and strangely enough, I was actually too high on protein levels last time around. I guess I've been overcompensating. Interestingly, since I became a vegetarian my sense of smell has changed. The smell of cooking meat (with the odd exception of bacon) smells completely foul to me. The taste of milk tastes vile as well.


Thegoblinchief

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Re: Who has watched the documentary Cowspiracy?
« Reply #24 on: October 04, 2015, 06:58:45 AM »
Librar1an - glad it works for you.

I've tried vegetarianism and it doesn't work for me at all. I suspect, after reading more, that I am someone who can't synthesize the long-chain omega-3s animals need from the short-chain forms in plants. Omega-3s are quite useful, particularly for triggering the body's natural satiety (I'm full, stop eating) mechanism.

Properly raised animal meats and animal products were a revelation to me. I felt so much better and sated than on a plant-based diet. That's why I feel the need to argue in favor of it, when meat production is equated solely with agri-business commodity animal farming, where the most important nutrients like omega-3s have been almost completely removed from the process thanks to unnatural diets.

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Re: Who has watched the documentary Cowspiracy?
« Reply #25 on: October 04, 2015, 09:52:33 AM »
I mostly use meat for flavoring my beans and pasta. I do not seek out local meat--we don't have a chest freezer. Maybe in the future.

My understanding is that there are traditional diets that are vegetarian, suggesting that this can be natural for humans--but that there are NO traditional societies that are entirely vegan, suggesting that this is not a natural diet for humans. (I did not verify these facts.)

Something I found interesting about the effects of different diets on human beings was Newsweek's Fertility Diet. Certain foods were associated with either having regular menstrual cycles, OR with ovulatory infertility (failure to ovulate).

The main offending foods, as I recall, were too much meat and low-fat dairy products.

Helpful foods included plant sources of protein and whole-milk dairy, but only a tiny amount of the latter was enough for a boost. Like half a cup of ice cream per week. Fish was neutral.

Seppia

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Who has watched the documentary Cowspiracy?
« Reply #26 on: October 04, 2015, 10:10:03 AM »
Overuse of animal resources is a tremendously dangerous problem for humanity.
Westerners, especially Americans, eat unhealthy amounts of red meat so reducing would be a great idea even without considering the environmental implications.
I hate proselytizing but I subtly try instill the idea of eating less meat in others.
What I don't understand is why the offered solution in many cases is a vegan diet.
I think it's counter productive, a vegan diet is unacceptable for most people (plus it's not healthy either), but a big reduction would still be a huge step in the right direction.

My wife and I eat meat/fish approximately once per week, in small quantities.
If everybody did like us, they would save money, be healthier and the planet would still benefit greatly.

Go see average Joe and tell him "you have to go vegan" and he/she will probably immediately think you're a fanatic hippie environmentalist, and you've lost him/her immediately.

GreenSheep

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Re: Who has watched the documentary Cowspiracy?
« Reply #27 on: October 04, 2015, 12:59:17 PM »
a vegan diet is unacceptable for most people (plus it's not healthy either)

Please clarify this and explain how people like Rich Roll (ultrarunner), Garth Davis (weight loss physician), Joel Fuhrman (physician), Rip Esselstyn (firefighter and triathlete), Colin Campbell (diet/nutrition researcher), Scott Jurek (ultrarunner), and John Salley (NBA allstar), as well as those of us not-so-famous people who are living a perfectly healthy vegan life, are wrong.

Here is a list of other vegans you may have heard of, followed by a NYT article on how veganism isn't quite what people think:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_vegans

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/30/dining/vegan-diet-lifestyle-recipes.html?_r=0

Seppia

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Who has watched the documentary Cowspiracy?
« Reply #28 on: October 04, 2015, 01:20:39 PM »
Calcium and vitamin B-12 seem the most obvious things lacking in a vegan diet.
I don't understand how the fact that you have athletes being vegan proves anything.
Patrick Ewing went on record saying he used to eat two pounds of red meat per day while playing pro, that doesn't make it healthy.
Lots of athletes take steroids, that's not healthy either.

Of course it's much better to be vegan than to eat McDonald's every day, but we would not be setting the bar too high right?

As any type of diet completely eliminating a large chunk of the food pyramid, a vegan diet is unbalanced.

I have lived with and around vegans for a full year, I respect 100% people who chose to eat this way for moral reasons, but that doesn't make veganism a "correct" diet, biology wise.

Thegoblinchief

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Re: Who has watched the documentary Cowspiracy?
« Reply #29 on: October 04, 2015, 01:43:03 PM »
Also, unless your vegan diet is primarily centered around perennial crops, or you grow your own annual crops, your calories come in a more environmentally damaging form (destruction/erosion of soil) than pastured meat. We're currently losing more topsoil than during the infamous Dust Bowl days. This is due to an over-reliance on annual row crops that require huge amounts of soil disturbance when grown at scale.

Meat != factory farmed meat. Pasture meat is grown in a perennial poly culture that is earth-healing, not earth-damaging. This point can't be driven home enough. Read about the history of the land owned by folks like Joel Salatin or Ben Falk.

The "bad for your health" claims about meat also fall apart when analyzing pastured meat.

gaja

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Re: Who has watched the documentary Cowspiracy?
« Reply #30 on: October 05, 2015, 12:14:30 AM »
It is not about size, it is how you use what you have got. This is a video from some of my cousins collecting sheep. You can't grow a single carrot in those hills, but you can make a lot of good meat.

Don't watch if you suffer from vertigo.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_CmcP_ec9ok

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Re: Who has watched the documentary Cowspiracy?
« Reply #31 on: October 05, 2015, 05:33:23 AM »
I give up. There is plenty of research out there that speaks for itself, as well as plenty of 80-100 year old vegans with no medical problems. I try not to be a stereotypical preachy vegan, and I'm sliding toward that here, so I'll stop. Anyone who wants to learn more can find information easily enough.

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Re: Who has watched the documentary Cowspiracy?
« Reply #32 on: October 05, 2015, 06:22:48 AM »
This thread gave me the hankering for a bacon cheeseburger, because bacon.

Thegoblinchief

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Re: Who has watched the documentary Cowspiracy?
« Reply #33 on: October 05, 2015, 06:23:53 AM »
I give up. There is plenty of research out there that speaks for itself, as well as plenty of 80-100 year old vegans with no medical problems. I try not to be a stereotypical preachy vegan, and I'm sliding toward that here, so I'll stop. Anyone who wants to learn more can find information easily enough.

I, personally, haven't been disputing the existence of healthy vegans. What I HAVE been disputing is the purported environmental benefits.

Factory farmed meat is environmentally damaging because you're taking animals meant to grow in a perennial poly culture and feeding them annual row crops. You're also concentrating their manures to the point it becomes hazardous waste instead of part of nature's natural fertility cycle.

When you return them to an environment where, to paraphrase Joel Salatin, a "cow can express their cowness", they go from damaging to (with skilled farming) healing of the environment. Topsoil in nature (the most import carbon sink we have) builds at a rate of 1" per century, but many of these farmers have achieved rates of 1" per YEAR. Most, if not all, of the health dangers of overeating meat fall apart when analyzing the nutritional profile of pastured meats.

A vegan diet can be healthy. If, however, it is still predominately based on annual row crops grown at industrial scale, it's only marginally better for the environment than factory farmed meat and much LESS beneficial than pastured meat and other crops grown in perennial poly cultures. The ENVIRONMENTAL claim is what I've been disputing.

I, personally, am not healthier without good meat. I'm glad that your diet works for YOU. I'm just trying to correct the erroneous claim that your diet is better for the environment than mine. It's not. I've read extensively on sustainable agronomy because once I get off my postage-stamp city lot I'll be doing these same practices either as a hobby/homesteading or as income.

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Re: Who has watched the documentary Cowspiracy?
« Reply #34 on: October 05, 2015, 07:12:26 AM »
I haven't seen it yet, but will watch it when time allows. From the discussion, however, it seems like it will leave me thinking it's not at all covering the full picture, which is frustrating. At least a footnote acknowledging that in those areas where other crops don't grow, meat might be the most efficient crop to raise. I'm from Ireland and grass really is the thing that grows best there for the most part. I've had the China Study on my to-read list for the longest time, hopefully will get to that soon as I am interested in reading about that aspect of things. But for now, I'm in the sustainable, properly raised local meat is not a bad thing camp. :)

Seppia

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Re: Who has watched the documentary Cowspiracy?
« Reply #35 on: October 05, 2015, 07:15:52 AM »

I, personally, haven't been disputing the existence of healthy vegans. What I HAVE been disputing is the purported environmental benefits.

Factory farmed meat is environmentally damaging because you're taking animals meant to grow in a perennial poly culture and feeding them annual row crops. You're also concentrating their manures to the point it becomes hazardous waste instead of part of nature's natural fertility cycle.

When you return them to an environment where, to paraphrase Joel Salatin, a "cow can express their cowness", they go from damaging to (with skilled farming) healing of the environment. Topsoil in nature (the most import carbon sink we have) builds at a rate of 1" per century, but many of these farmers have achieved rates of 1" per YEAR. Most, if not all, of the health dangers of overeating meat fall apart when analyzing the nutritional profile of pastured meats.

A vegan diet can be healthy. If, however, it is still predominately based on annual row crops grown at industrial scale, it's only marginally better for the environment than factory farmed meat and much LESS beneficial than pastured meat and other crops grown in perennial poly cultures. The ENVIRONMENTAL claim is what I've been disputing.

*applause*



markbrynn

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Re: Who has watched the documentary Cowspiracy?
« Reply #36 on: October 05, 2015, 08:53:45 AM »
Quote
My understanding is that there are traditional diets that are vegetarian, suggesting that this can be natural for humans--but that there are NO traditional societies that are entirely vegan, suggesting that this is not a natural diet for humans. (I did not verify these facts.)

I always get a kick out of thoughts like this. It will depend on your view of evolution, but the idea that something is a "natural diet for humans" is a bit bizarre. Mostly, life evolves to adapt to what ensures the best chance of survival of the species. If eating a vegan diet makes you less likely to live long enough to reproduce, then this will not be a common practice in future generations (and this isn't even entirely true because diets are more learned behaviours rather than genetic traits). Keep in mind, this only addresses health up to the point of reproducing (or perhaps a bit beyond in order to provide protection to the next generation). Maybe a vegan diet hurts your (relative) chance of successfully reproducing, but it might also provide the best chance for living a healthy and long life. Evolved traits are things that help a species to successfully reproduce. Having the members of the species who are beyond reproductive age live longer or more healthily is not something that evolution controls (as far as I understand it).

The part that really gets me is when people think that something that happened "naturally" (meaning before the past 200 - 2000 years) is automatically healthy or good. Cannibalism, ritual sacrifice, plagues, starvation, and many more wonderful things happened "naturally" on this planet. The fact that we have (largely) moved on from them is not a bad thing.

Slightly more on topic, agree that eating meat at the levels that most people in developed countries do is not healthy for the planet. With rising prosperity around the world, we all need to accept that going forward there will likely be a reduction in the amount of meat available per person due to any number of factors (cost, laws, etc.). Maybe we'll all be dead before it's truly noticeable, but I would be very surprise if it doesn't happen fairly soon.

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Re: Who has watched the documentary Cowspiracy?
« Reply #37 on: October 05, 2015, 02:46:33 PM »

Factory farmed meat is environmentally damaging because you're taking animals meant to grow in a perennial poly culture and feeding them annual row crops. You're also concentrating their manures to the point it becomes hazardous waste instead of part of nature's natural fertility cycle.

When you return them to an environment where, to paraphrase Joel Salatin, a "cow can express their cowness", they go from damaging to (with skilled farming) healing of the environment. Topsoil in nature (the most import carbon sink we have) builds at a rate of 1" per century, but many of these farmers have achieved rates of 1" per YEAR. Most, if not all, of the health dangers of overeating meat fall apart when analyzing the nutritional profile of pastured meats.

A vegan diet can be healthy. If, however, it is still predominately based on annual row crops grown at industrial scale, it's only marginally better for the environment than factory farmed meat and much LESS beneficial than pastured meat and other crops grown in perennial poly cultures. The ENVIRONMENTAL claim is what I've been disputing.

I, personally, am not healthier without good meat. I'm glad that your diet works for YOU. I'm just trying to correct the erroneous claim that your diet is better for the environment than mine. It's not. I've read extensively on sustainable agronomy because once I get off my postage-stamp city lot I'll be doing these same practices either as a hobby/homesteading or as income.


+1,000,000 golblinchief  Couldn't agree more.

I was waiting for the movie to get to grass-fed beef, and they only spent about 5 minutes before blowing past it.  They didn't get into the greenhouse-gas offset of having a perennial prairie or the carbon sequestered in the soil.  Then they blew on about how if we ate as much grass-fed beef as conventional then we'd need to cover something like all of North America with grass.  But um, no, what about if we eat less meat like we should?  Then how many acres?  And what if you take into account the fact that you can also graze chickens, pork, and sheep on the same land? 

It was a very compelling movie, until they ignored all the newest trends in polyculture and no till farming.

Seppia

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Who has watched the documentary Cowspiracy?
« Reply #38 on: October 05, 2015, 02:58:11 PM »
Maybe because they have an agenda.
The fact that they propose a vegan diet as the solution makes me suspect they do.
Like you say, if everybody ate responsibly and naturally farmed meats in small quantities (like you seem to do and I do as well, as many others), there would be no damage to the environment.
Obviously, "naturally" (let's call it like that you see what I mean) meats are substantially more expensive, but eating only a fraction of the meat average Joe eats, and substituting with grains/vegetables/etc, one can still spend less.
« Last Edit: October 05, 2015, 02:59:46 PM by Seppia »

La Bibliotecaria Feroz

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Re: Who has watched the documentary Cowspiracy?
« Reply #39 on: October 05, 2015, 05:03:20 PM »
It is a valid point that we could not possibly grown enough grass-fed meat to fill our current diet and that our standard diet needs to change. All the way to vegan? Nope.

I suspect, though, that most people buying grass-fed beef are already cutting back, if only because it's expensive! I buy organic beef at Costco, I think it's grass-fed, and the five pounds of ground beef for which I just paid twenty-some dollars (maybe close to 30? I forget) will last me probably six months.

Thegoblinchief

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Re: Who has watched the documentary Cowspiracy?
« Reply #40 on: October 05, 2015, 07:52:29 PM »
I buy organic beef at Costco, I think it's grass-fed, and the five pounds of ground beef for which I just paid twenty-some dollars (maybe close to 30? I forget) will last me probably six months.

Sadly, the label "organic beef" only means:

1.) cows were not given antibiotics, etc.
2.) they were fed organic corn and other feeds, not grass

Considering all the damage #2 does to cattle health, #1 is even crueler than standard beef IMO.

At least at my Costco, the only truly sustainable meats I've ever found were Alaskan salmon (canned and frozen) and they used to carry ground bison, which is a fantastic product (always grass-finished), but they no longer do. 

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Re: Who has watched the documentary Cowspiracy?
« Reply #41 on: October 05, 2015, 08:31:09 PM »
I, personally, haven't been disputing the existence of healthy vegans. What I HAVE been disputing is the purported environmental benefits.

Factory farmed meat is environmentally damaging because you're taking animals meant to grow in a perennial poly culture and feeding them annual row crops. You're also concentrating their manures to the point it becomes hazardous waste instead of part of nature's natural fertility cycle.

When you return them to an environment where, to paraphrase Joel Salatin, a "cow can express their cowness", they go from damaging to (with skilled farming) healing of the environment. Topsoil in nature (the most import carbon sink we have) builds at a rate of 1" per century, but many of these farmers have achieved rates of 1" per YEAR. Most, if not all, of the health dangers of overeating meat fall apart when analyzing the nutritional profile of pastured meats.

A vegan diet can be healthy. If, however, it is still predominately based on annual row crops grown at industrial scale, it's only marginally better for the environment than factory farmed meat and much LESS beneficial than pastured meat and other crops grown in perennial poly cultures. The ENVIRONMENTAL claim is what I've been disputing.

I, personally, am not healthier without good meat. I'm glad that your diet works for YOU. I'm just trying to correct the erroneous claim that your diet is better for the environment than mine. It's not. I've read extensively on sustainable agronomy because once I get off my postage-stamp city lot I'll be doing these same practices either as a hobby/homesteading or as income.

Bravo, goblinchief, bravo.

I think the worst argument for something is the one that goes too far. There are plenty of people who gorge on meat who are going to see this and think "man, that argument could be picked apart by an 8-year-old. Guess that means what I'm doing is a-OK."

Veganism works for some people in some situations; it's not a panacea. In particular, it's often difficult for women of childbearing age to menstruate on a vegan diet. And, as many people have said, there's a lot of the planet that isn't suited for farming but is suited for ranching.

On whether veganism or vegetarianism are "natural" or not; it probably doesn't matter. Plenty of things that are natural are things we've decided are immoral, as many vegans will tell you consuming animal products is. It seems unlikely that any historical groups would be vegan or vegetarian by choice, given how prevalent hunger and malnutrition were until very recently. It also seems unlikely that you'd find vegetarian groups (no meat or fish, but eggs and dairy). The presence of eggs and dairy would suggest that animals are around and available to be eaten; not consuming them at all would be odd.

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Re: Who has watched the documentary Cowspiracy?
« Reply #42 on: October 06, 2015, 03:37:37 PM »
This documentary had a big impact on me and I plan to make changes to my diet but not sure if going full vegan is right for me. I realize that some of the statistics could be skewed but there is obviously a huge environmental impact from producing enough meat to handle current demands. I hear the posters talking about eating only meat from sustainable sources but I wonder if the prices (already quite high) would be astronomical if they didn't have to compete with industrialized meat. Imagine the demand if all meat had to come from sustainable sources. It certainly would price me out of eating meat if I had to pay the true cost so why keep eating it now just because it's subsidized by governments and environmental destruction.

Another argument I see against giving up meat is that crops also cause environmental destruction. The counter to this is that we could actually grow much fewer crops if we only needed them to feed people and not the livestock too. It just seems like a very inefficient use of our resources to grow a massive amount of crops and turn that into a much smaller amount of meat.

I try to live an efficient sustainable life and I just never realized that this was was so incredibly inefficient and damaging. I love meat like you wouldn't believe and when I was younger there were only a handful of veggies I could stand. Only in the last couple of years have I come around to the fact that I don't need meat with every meal. Now I feel like a total d-bag for contributing to this problem for so long. This is all new to me so maybe the shock will wear off soon and I'll go back to my old life but I really feel like I was just let out of the matrix.

Seppia

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Re: Who has watched the documentary Cowspiracy?
« Reply #43 on: October 06, 2015, 04:21:49 PM »
The thing is: meat has never been as inexpensive as today.
My grandparents were upper middle class people in Italy, and they told me they would only eat red meat once per week, and it was a  relatively small 6oz portion.

Raising an animal the natural way is expensive, whenever I see chicken sold for $0.99 per pound I shake in terror.
That comes from a living, breathing animal that you have to feed, slaughter, clean and transport quickly in a refrigerated truck, how the hell can it cost just a little more than tomatoes?

Meat should be very expensive, so people would consume only a healthy dose of it.

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Re: Who has watched the documentary Cowspiracy?
« Reply #44 on: October 06, 2015, 04:51:48 PM »
The thing is: meat has never been as inexpensive as today.
My grandparents were upper middle class people in Italy, and they told me they would only eat red meat once per week, and it was a  relatively small 6oz portion.

Raising an animal the natural way is expensive, whenever I see chicken sold for $0.99 per pound I shake in terror.
That comes from a living, breathing animal that you have to feed, slaughter, clean and transport quickly in a refrigerated truck, how the hell can it cost just a little more than tomatoes?

Meat should be very expensive, so people would consume only a healthy dose of it.

Which raises a good point:  there doesn't have to be a meat/no meat dichotomy.  I'm not vegetarian, but on the other hand I doubt I have meat more than once a month or so, so I feel pretty guilt-free about the environmental impact.  What I find hard to stomach, if you'll pardon the expression, is the idea of eating meat every day, or even several times a week.  I'm not sure how many people do so, but that strikes me as way too much.





Seppia

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Re: Who has watched the documentary Cowspiracy?
« Reply #45 on: October 06, 2015, 05:36:15 PM »
I agree 100% and I also made a similar point in some of my previous posts.
Your environmental impact (or mine, as I eat very little meat too) in terms of food consumption is very close to the one of a vegetarian or vegan, I don't understand why the documentary offers "go vegan!" as the solution.

The result is just alienating a lot of people.

greenmimama

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Re: Who has watched the documentary Cowspiracy?
« Reply #46 on: October 07, 2015, 07:49:19 AM »
This documentary had a big impact on me and I plan to make changes to my diet but not sure if going full vegan is right for me. I realize that some of the statistics could be skewed but there is obviously a huge environmental impact from producing enough meat to handle current demands. I hear the posters talking about eating only meat from sustainable sources but I wonder if the prices (already quite high) would be astronomical if they didn't have to compete with industrialized meat. Imagine the demand if all meat had to come from sustainable sources. It certainly would price me out of eating meat if I had to pay the true cost so why keep eating it now just because it's subsidized by governments and environmental destruction.

Another argument I see against giving up meat is that crops also cause environmental destruction. The counter to this is that we could actually grow much fewer crops if we only needed them to feed people and not the livestock too. It just seems like a very inefficient use of our resources to grow a massive amount of crops and turn that into a much smaller amount of meat.

I try to live an efficient sustainable life and I just never realized that this was was so incredibly inefficient and damaging. I love meat like you wouldn't believe and when I was younger there were only a handful of veggies I could stand. Only in the last couple of years have I come around to the fact that I don't need meat with every meal. Now I feel like a total d-bag for contributing to this problem for so long. This is all new to me so maybe the shock will wear off soon and I'll go back to my old life but I really feel like I was just let out of the matrix.

This, this is exactly what I am thinking.

My family has reduced our meat intake by about 90% and our dairy by maybe 60% but we ate a lot of meat and dairy, we bought from local sources, but the environmental impact is what I can't get over, how fields to grow wheat to feed cows for me (a rich person in a developed country) takes away food from others just breaks my heart, I'm not an animal lover who doesn't like meat, but I am a responsible person who loves others and my environment, heck my DH is on board after watching some of the documentary, and he loves meat!!

Makes me wish we hunted deer and turkey, I guess we could learn.

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Re: Who has watched the documentary Cowspiracy?
« Reply #47 on: October 07, 2015, 08:23:22 AM »
Much alarmism about a non-issue.

Thegoblinchief

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Re: Who has watched the documentary Cowspiracy?
« Reply #48 on: October 07, 2015, 08:26:24 AM »
I don't understand. Meat from grass-fed ruminants or other animals fed primarily on forage, purchased locally, isn't taking food away from anyone. It's also not that expensive, IMO. Americans spend the smallest fraction of their income of any country on food.

US exports do more harm than good, typically, anyways because they destroy the local food economies that used to be able to provide all of their own food.

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Re: Who has watched the documentary Cowspiracy?
« Reply #49 on: October 07, 2015, 08:44:44 AM »
I'll be right back  I gotta get this ribeye on the grill...

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