Vegetarians and destruction of the environment for veggies

It seems like a lot of people now days are into the consumer fad of being a vegetarian and I was wondering if it is worth the extra destruction to the environment to be a vegetarian.

I know in some environments it is not that much more destructive, like closer to the equator high energy plants grow and you can live off of destroying less environment to grow food. But all the people who are living in the U.S and Europe where they have to ship things with diesel gas half way around the globe 8 months out of the year.

Is it worth all the extra destruction of natural forests and eco systems and killing and displacing animals to clear-cut growing environments for veggies and fruit?
Is it worth all the extra millions of gallons of gas?

I know a lot of vegetarians will post a bunch of twisted warp manipulated facts that say cows destroy this much virgin rain forest blabla.
But those statistics are just vegetarian marketing propaganda made up from people making millions of dollars off of the marketing the vegetarian consumer fad.
In reality is most cattle for Northern climates is raised in open range or is fed on grain grown in fields close by and they are shipped short distances to be processed and sold. Cattle are not shipped from south American virgin rainforest to California super market they are from probably from Texas were they were they live on a open range.

I think open cattle grazing environment is a lot less destructive then a clear-cut forest with rice and beans growing.

I think it would be neat and fun to live off of veggies and fruit all year but is it worth all of the extra destruction to the environment and all the extra violence and suffering for the gas to ship in a special imported diet.?

 

I've heard the animals-versus-plants (as far as land consumption) debate, and I'm still not sure what the REAL story is. It seems to me that both sides are giving a slanted view.

As far as veggies coming from clear-cut land though, I get NEARLY all of my fruits & veggies from local farmers! No rainforests are being clear-cut, and it cuts down on all sorts of transportation & processing because during the warmer months 90% of my produce is grown within 50 miles of my home. Even during the winter there are late-season apples, Florida oranges, and other fruits & veggies that don't have to come from outside the country. So other than goodies like the occasional coconut, I'm not sure your argument is valid in my case.

Most of the other veggies I've talked to also frequent their farmer's market for locally grown foods too.
love,
mom

 

is this guy serious? :spam: sounds awfully funny to me.

 

I def Have to agree with BooGaBah. I mean come on!
You need to do a bit more research on this buddy. Local is the way to go. or just grow it yourself. Most Vegetarian's I know, seldom buy products that are close to the equator. Avacado's, papaya, pineapple's etc... obviously arent easily grown in the northern 48, but most things eaten, atleast in typical vegetarian homes are grown in and around their own country.

 

i like how the OP thinks only veggies are shipped around the world.

 

I don’t think veggies are the only import a lot of other stuff is to, but I think the best way to live is to buy local and living on mostly imported food is not buying local and very destructive.

Right now I live in Colorado and I would have to import fruits and vegetables from far away to be a vegetarian. I still do a little just for a salad and to get essential vitamins but I try to eat all local stuff, which are mostly grain products and beef.
I eat beef I buy from a rancher that lives down the road he open grazes his cows in the summer and feeds them grain that is grown in one of his fields in the winter. If you look at it is really is not that destructive, a lot of the animals are displace when the cattle are grazing, but I just don’t think importing food from a clear cut on the other side of the globe is going to be less impact on the world.

When I lived in Hawaii I was mostly vegetarian I ate fish about once a week but the rest of the time I was able to live off of fruits and veggies locally grown and from food collected by my self.
I would like to be a vegetarian but in my current living environment it would be to destructive and I would support to many things that cause suffering and destruction.

For people living in a northern climate buying local means grain and cattle as a staple food in the winter.

In the old days before eastern oil production people could never eat salad everyday in the winter or tomatoes and avocados. The vegetarian diet in a northern climate is all a product of global mass-market consumerism.

I would like to be a vegetarian and I am open to suggestion if someone can tell me how to do it and not import most of my diet in the winter or spend outrageous amounts of money on a green house.

 

I am in a northern climate, (US zone 4, FAR north of CO!) and during the winter we expand our idea of "local" to include anywhere within the country. Keeping that in mind, our options are wide open. Canning & freezing produce from our own garden helps, but I also rely fairly heavily on frozen fruits & veggies since they're grown within the US. It can still be done, and frozen veggies won't break the bank like some fresh produce can... but still have NEARLY all of the vitamins & minerals intact because of how they're prepared.
love,
mom

 

Okay! Lets get this straight zingher you need to understand that every vitamin and mineral to sustain human life, as a vegetarian. can be obtained through your local grocery store with out having to succumb to any wasteful consumerism. the way you explain your location, it's like your out on some distant island and the only option is beef. if you want to become a vegetarian, it takes dedication and work to find the right path for yourself. if you are dedicated you will find the right farm and like homeschoolmama said canning, pickling and freezing are options. just please stop eating those cows, better yet sneak in at night and let them loose! ;P

 

Homeschoolmama and Dummingmama, freezing local vegetables is a good idea you guys have got your acts together. That’s is a good way to stay local in the winter.

I have a very small living set up right now, I live in a one bedroom apartment so putting a freezer in my living room is not that appealing. I do like that idea though, the only thing I don’t like about it is depending on the electric company to keep my winter supply of food from being destroyed. But I bet if someone had a good living situation a small solar panel would probably keep a deep freeze running.
To be honest about it if I had a deep freezer 3/4s of it would get filled with deer or elk. Nice thick juicy deer and elk steaks are just so good and there is no diesel gas and plowed up land involved to grow them.
Most of the appeal of be a vegetarian to me would be not being a predator and not killing animals but when you eat food from a farm you are basically killing the animals that should be there before the earth was ripped up and turned in to a farm to feed humans.
So it just seems to me that the human life form can’t exist with out killing stuff and disrupting the rest of the planet. Even if you only eat vegetables you still are disrupting and killing the environment. To me it just comes down to your living situation and what is going to make the less impact. I really think the current place I live local beef and grain have the least impact on the planet.
I am really trying to get away from everything that uses gas in production and shipping.

It just seems to me going to the grocery store and buying vegetarian products is going to be more destructive to the environment then getting local beef. All the stuff in the grocery store has been grown in plowed up earth that has displaced animals and nature and grown with diesel tractors and shipped with diesel and packed with plastic and coal powered electric.
Buying local also lets me support small family businesses.

Where I live in Boulder there is probably more vegetarian/ heath food stores per capita then almost anywhere.
But I hate them, the packing of everything is soo small..!!! the food cost more because it is “organic” so they package it small and you have double the waste of plastic paper and all other material.
You look around the store and most everything is imported, locally packaged but imported so they package it local and print all over the packing Local produced blabla, then the companies pay yearly fees into some of the many organizations that will certify their product “green” environmentally friendly” or what ever the latest marketing term is.
It is just another marketing tool in the land of self-righteous consumerism that has the more wasteful packing and the more imported food then Wal-mart.
Sorry I kind of went on a heath food store rant.

That reminds me of a movie I saw not to long ago I can’t remember the name but they go and set cows free. It was a good movie about meat a meat packing plant and a fast food chain.

 

How about the air and water pollution from factory farms? What's worse?

Livestock pollution and public health

• California officials identify agriculture, including cows, as the major source of nitrate pollution in more than 100,000 square miles of polluted groundwater.
• In Oklahoma, nitrates from Seaboard Farms' hog operations contaminated drinking water wells, prompting the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to issue an emergency order in June 2001 requiring the company to provide safe drinking water to area residents.
• In 1996 the Centers for Disease Control established a link between spontaneous abortions and high nitrate levels in Indiana drinking water wells located close to feedlots.
• High levels of nitrates in drinking water also increase the risk of methemoglobinemia, or "blue-baby syndrome," which can kill infants.
• Animal waste contains disease-causing pathogens, such as Salmonella, E. coli, Cryptosporidium, and fecal coliform, which can be 10 to 100 times more concentrated than in human waste. More than 40 diseases can be transferred to humans through manure.
• In May 2000, 1,300 cases of gastroenteritis were reported and six people died as the result of E. coli contaminating drinking water in Walkerton, Ontario. Health authorities determined that the most likely source was cattle manure runoff.
• Manure from dairy cows is thought to have contributed to the disastrous Cryptosporidium contamination of Milwaukee's drinking water in 1993, which killed more than 100 people, made 400,000 sick and resulted in $37 million in lost wages and productivity.
• In this country, roughly 24 million pounds of antibiotics -- about 70 percent of the nation's antibiotics use in total -- are added to animal feed every year to speed livestock growth. This widespread use of antibiotics on animals contributes to the rise of resistant bacteria, making it harder to treat human illnesses.
• Large hog farms emit hydrogen sulfide, a gas that most often causes flu-like symptoms in humans, but at high concentrations can lead to brain damage. In 1998, the National Institute of Health reported that 19 people died as a result of hydrogen sulfide emissions from manure pits.

Livestock pollution and water pollution

• Huge open-air waste lagoons, often as big as several football fields, are prone to leaks and spills. In 1995 an eight-acre hog-waste lagoon in North Carolina burst, spilling 25 million gallons of manure into the New River. The spill killed about 10 million fish and closed 364,000 acres of coastal wetlands to shellfishing.
• From 1995 to 1998, 1,000 spills or pollution incidents occurred at livestock feedlots in 10 states and 200 manure-related fish kills resulted in the death of 13 million fish.
• When Hurricane Floyd hit North Carolina in 1999, at least five manure lagoons burst and approximately 47 lagoons were completely flooded.
• Runoff of chicken and hog waste from factory farms in Maryland and North Carolina is believed to have contributed to outbreaks of Pfiesteria piscicida, killing millions of fish and causing skin irritation, short-term memory loss and other cognitive problems in local people.
• Nutrients in animal waste cause algal blooms, which use up oxygen in the water, contributing to a "dead zone" in the Gulf of Mexico where there's not enough oxygen to support aquatic life. The dead zone fluctuates in size each year, extending over 5,800 square miles during the summer of 2004 and stretching over 7,700 square miles during the summer of 1999.
• Ammonia, a toxic form of nitrogen released in gas form during waste disposal, can be carried more than 300 miles through the air before being dumped back onto the ground or into the water, where it causes algal blooms and fish kills.

These facts come from the NRDC...Natural Resource Defense Council.

 

I have a small chest-freezer. It sits in the corner of my laundry hall, and is currently stuffed with the last of the organic apple slices from my mom's mini-orchard, some organic soybeans from a friend/local farmer, and a giant bag of organic broccoli from Costco.

Not that long ago I saw someone take a freezer that looked to be the same size as mine & put a tablecloth on it and use it near their front door as a catch-all table. It looked REALLY good, and you'd have never known what it was. I could see this working as an end-table or a behind-the-sofa (isn't that called a console?) table too. Heck, do you need a bedside table? Our home is just over 1300 square feet and we have no basement or garage for storage... so getting creative with furniture is somewhat second nature to me

The one thing I keep thinking as I read your arguments is that I can grow enough veggies on my 6'x12' deck to keep my family of four in organic salad for three months... with less than 100 growing days every year. No cow I know of can exist in a footprint that small, nor does it mature as quickly as a radish or pumpkin
love,
mom

 

To me Zighers is making goodpoints about buying food from local sources while erroneously thinking that everyone buys all the vegetarian-branded stuff from the local supermarket.

 

The reason I started this thread was to try to make a discussion about food/living on environmentally friendly sources.
Most vegetarians have made an educated choice to eat a environmentally friendly food sources, so I was hoping to dig up some good info on the subject. Right now the debate in my head is I think in some places eating meat in a lot of environments might have less negative impact on the world then trying to live on a pure vegetarian diet.
So I’m just trying to kick that idea around and get some feed back from some educated people. And thanks for the quality info homeschoolmama and drummingmama and others that have contributed useful info I appreciate info like that.
I think all of us are trying to make educated choices and it takes info to do that and on subjects that aren’t mainstream some times real unbiased info is a lot harder to find.

Danceranie that info you posted is just copy pasted vegan propaganda junk. Seriously I could go around and copy paste junk about major farm pollution all week long it is just junk. Yes ranching pollutes the environment and so does farming, but it is really a waste to run around and post warped statistics about it.
But I think this is a good example of typical vegetarian consumer marketing propaganda all one sided and selected and isolated out of a big report so it loses it original scope.


homeschoolmama Thanks for all of your good info. I have access to a small garden plot my one of my neighbors is trying to get me to grow in one of them, but it is just a lot of work and commitment, mostly the commitment I like to take vacations when ever I can in the summer. I really do love homegrown stuff!!! when you where talking about canning earlier it brought back some memories of people opening a mason jar of fruit or veggies in the middle of the winter. That stuff is so good so much better then a can. If I did have more space I would do some bottling this fall.
I have a lot of friends and relatives that are Mormon and some of then bottles stuff and have plenty of fruit and veggies all winter. They also grow certain potatoes and green apples that will keep all winter in a root cellars. It is pretty cool they have some really good systems for preserving fruits and veggies all winter. It is really a treat to go eat dinner with them in the middle of the winter.
The best preservation methods I have seen in northern climate were Mormons and ranchers mostly they used root cellars and canning. But I have never seen a set up in the northern climates that could be truly self sufficient without meat.
I would love to have a deep freezer and canning set up but I just don’t have the space.

For me the meat dilemma comes down to climate I wouldn’t consider importing beef every week to Hawaii just like I wouldn’t import papayas every week to Texas. All the import stuff is just destructive.
So I live in a northern climate and beef and grain are all around I just seems destructive to be importing rice beans and avocadoes just to replace a native food source that is right a my door step.
The most costly and effective way I could see for me to replace meat at this point would be nuts and beans which both need to be imported. It just seems from all the info I can come up with the local beef and chicken is the least destructive on the environment. I just don’t think that you can beat going local.

 

Actually, that came from the Natural Resource Defense Council...it's not a vegetarian or vegan website...check it out for yourself...it's an environmental group...not vegan propoganda
http://www.nrdc.org/water/pollution/ffarms.asp

Also...
http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/food/agricultural-policy/biofuel/factory-farms

 

WHat can I say? The veggies I buy are brought on sale to the market or supermarkets anyway... I don't know about the way they bring them there, though... maybe you're right about that, in a way...