vegetarianism

[Winged_Wolf]

I, too, disagree with factory farming practices...but as vegetarianism doesn't agree with my body, I eat what I can afford.

When I have land, I fully intend to grow my own meat animals (chickens, perhaps a couple of cows, etc).

Many arguments for vegetarianism cite the smaller amount of land it takes to grow crops in comparison with the amount of land it takes to grow meat animals.  This looks compelling on the surface...but as with many things, there are hidden truths that are never addressed that belie this argument.

I live on the plains....rolling shortgrass prairie, not a tree as far as the eye can see.  It's a harsh place, but it's also a unique ecosystem.  It's an ecosystem that relies on the interaction of plants and animals.
Prairie dogs eat vegetation, leaving behind nutrient rich plants that they don't favor, and fertilizing the land with their droppings.  Bison eat the nutrient rich plants, and convert them into more fertilizer.  Various predators feed on the bison and prairie dogs.  This is a simplified version of what goes on, but it addresses the most important elements of the prairie ecosystem--the grasses and forbs, and the prairie dogs and bison and their predators.
Take out one of the keystones, and the prairie DIES.  Nutrients are no longer recycled, the soil fertility drops, the grasses become more sparse, humus level drops and moisture can no longer be retained, and then you have a DESERT.
You want to grow CROPS on this?  Then you've destroyed the ecosystem.  It's dead and gone.
But what if you put cattle on it?  Bison are few....and bison predators fewer still.  There ARE no more prairie wolves...we killed them all.
Put cattle on the land, then eat the cattle.  You actually MAINTAIN the prairie ecosystem, and you eat.  You can also eat bison, and many people do--quite tasty, and even better for the environment.
There is no agriculture less disruptive to a shortgrass prairie than ranching bison properly.  Without wolves to prey on them, bison might well outstrip the land's capacity to carry them, given time and left alone there.  Without bison, or some hooved animal like them, the prairie dies.
So, we prey on the bison, and the cycle is maintained.

This goes far, FAR beyond such a simple equation as the amount of land or material used to produce food.  This is about preserving the natural balance of ecosystems.  You CANNOT do that without animals.  And to exclude humans from that part of the food chain is great waste.  In many cases, we would have to kill animals and leave them, simply to prevent overgrazing, because we've killed off the predators that once helped keep them in check.  That would be a true insanity.

Personally, I'm into permaculture.  Permaculture is utilizing the land in a balanced fashion, in a completely sustainable fashion.  By raising plants and animals together, using their inputs and outputs to compliment one another, you create a situation where soil fertility increases and increases every year, yields increase and increase every year, wildlife is still able to thrive, because your cattle will graze in pastures that are friendly to them, your plants are healthy, your animals are healthy, and above all, you are healthy.
Cattle eat the grass down, and deposit fertilizer.  Then you move the cows, and bring in the chickens.
Chickens eat weed seeds and plants, scratch up the soil, and deposit fertilizer.  They stir up and scatter the cow droppings to even out the nutrient deposit.  Throw some hay over that, and move the chickens.
Next year, plant your crops there.  They will grow better than you can imagine.  When they're done, move the cows in to clean up the leftovers....then follow with the chickens.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
You can eat the cows and get milk from them, you can eat the chickens and their eggs, and you can feed both from crops you grew on the land they fertilized, and they'll need far less of that than a factory-farmed animal because they'll mostly graze (the chickens need more grain, but convert it better anyhow.  Cows actually need NO grain, but may need hay in the winter).  You can feed yourself veggies from there as well, because every year your soil fertility increases, until it's at the absolute maximum possible.  (And believe me, "modern" agriculture can't even come close to those kinds of yields).  And where does it all come from?  The sun.  That's how nature intended it to be, IMO.

I also disagree with the need for centralized abbatoirs.  Compost the byproducts of slaughter, and put them back on the land, instead.  They're good for the soil.  (Plus, they're inhumane...animals are seriously terrified by being transported to such places).  Disease?  Disease happens when you put too much of something in one place.  Overcrowding, stress, poor diet....overloaded immune systems.  That's what causes disease.  Fresh air, clean water and healthy food....those prevent disease.  Beneficial microbes in abudance prevent harmful ones from gaining a foothold.  
This is all well-proven.
Like eggs?  Raise a few hens in your backyard, and move their pen over your garden plots every day (chicken tractor).  Alternate beds every year--chickens on one section, crops on the other, then switch.  MUCH better than it would be without the chickens.  Plants and animals need one another.
We cut ourselves out of the food chain, but worse than that, we cut ourselves out of the nutrient cycle.  We take from the land and don't give it back what it needs.  Ok, there are arguments against using HUMAN waste to fertilize crops....but if we can get an animal/plant cycle going well, the little taken out by that ommission won't matter.  That cycle isn't just self-perpetuating, it increases over time--higher yields, richer soil, healthier animals that produce more, and on and on.

And that's why the strictly vegan view of growing food just doesn't work.




--Winged Wolf
"I will stare at the sun until its light doesn't blind me, and I will walk into the fire, 'til its heat doesn't burn me, and I will feed the fire...."

[Mobius]

G,day Winged Wolf! great post!

Sounds like you are very familiarized with the land & how it all
works,I hope to do something like what you have talked about too!
So it looks like if & when I ever get to that stage I will have to
get some tips off you as most of our land is fairly dry & most of
my life I've been a city boy.

As a kid I lived in Sydney & thought that this is how life is &
never really knew any other reality until my stepfather got
transfered to Katoomba & mountainous bushland.It changed me forever
& now I have moved away from there I cannot imagine going back to
the city to live.Even though I,m only 25km from the city I am
surrounded by bushland on the side of a smaller mountain now,if I
look to the right of my computer there is national park & no-one to
look through my windows,if I look to the left of me I have a 180
degree 80km view & you would need a high power telescope to see in.

While I have not much experience on the land,I have done a lot of
work for people on the land as a plumber/drainer/gasfitter.
I have seen & installed some incredible stuff & believe as well that
we now have the capabilities to have self sufficient houses.
Free energy through solar or one of the new technologies,water supply
from tanks,bores & water catching technologies which can be hidden,a
bio-sewerage system which either recycles waste water & makes the
rest fertile or a dry toilet which can also be used as fertilizer.
Then we have what winged wolf allready mentioned the natural cycle
of the food chain & your personal vege patch & you basically don't
need to have cities,well you still need them for all the other products but their size & rate of consumption & waste can be greatly
reduced.

By the way winged wolf did the USA have to import dung beetles like
us in Australia? or where there allready some there from the Bison
which could keep up with cows?.Here in Oz we never had any hoofed animals,they were all imported,but only now have they realized that
they have been wasting the land as there was no dung beetle to
process that amount of cow paddies back into the ground,so it just
used to sit there & fertilize about a square foot.

Some good thoughts there.
All the best on your journeys

Mobius

[SteppenWolf]

Excellent article on vegetarianism back there!  A friend's family is vegetarian and they all feel they have to take supplements to keep healthy.  My girlfriend has been vegetarian for over ten years, but she doesn't feel she needs to and seems pretty healthy.

What ticked me off about meat is that when eating out at restaurants it was really hard to get a balanced meal - like the standard thing tended to be lots of meat and some carbohydrate and stuff-all veges or salad.  Which ends up being rather rough on the old internals!  Now I can eat lots of fruit & veges and hardly any meat my tummy is much happier!  And it's good that restaurants have change in the last 10 years - now we are spoiled for choice whether we want meat or not.  

[A-M]

Hello everybody,
I am a vegetarian and do not intend to change that for ANY reason, but I'm interested in your experiences/opninions on this issue related to energy development and obe's.
According to some people (book author's!) you need animal protein to build up the energy needed for ap's.
I guess for people with a natural ability to project it doesn't matter either way, but what about a person without this natural tendency?
I'm looking forward to your reactions!!
A-M

ps I haven't read all Robert's material yet: does he have an opninion on this?