Mark Bittman writes for the New York Times and is a big proponent of changing the way people think about food, by explaining that there are many things wrong with the overproduction and overconsumption of beef and junk food, from not just a personal health perspective, but from an global health perspective as well.
He makes an interesting point in “Re-Thinking the Meat Guzzler:”
But consider: an estimated 30 percent of the earth’s ice-free land is directly or indirectly involved in livestock production, according to the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization, which also estimates that livestock production generates nearly a fifth of the world’s greenhouse gases — more than transportation.
Vegetarians, you have to watch the video that I’ve included in this post, so you can tell your “meat guzzling” friends that you are greener than them. Everyone else, watch the video because it’s very interesting to think about how your consumption of mass produced meat impacts not just animal feelings, but also the environment.
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Tagged as: beef, eat, Food, green, junk, mass, production
To quote a bumper sticker ” If god didn’t want us to eat animals, why did he/she make them so darn tasty”
dieter, I think this is about the huge portions of meat Americans consume.
I consume less than a pound of red meat a week. That’s 1 burger or a steak somewhere.
@2 yeah I can’t eat that much meat either but there wasn’t a bumper sticker for the occasional “meat coma”.
@2 so what’s OVERconsumption? 2 burger/steaks? 5? 10?
it says in the presentation
@5 sorry, at starbucks, can’t listen.
@2: THIS! People used to sit down on Sunday nights with their family and have a nice roast or chicken and it was special and they appreciated the meat. Nowadays you can eat low quality meat-topped meat 3x a day 7x a week and it no longer is something you appreciate. It’s disgusting.
meat-topped meat
Like bacon wrapped chicken livers from Boheme? They are way better than the tartare.
I can’t believe people eat chicken livers. That’s cat food. Blech.
@9 hey that’s a great idea- get rid of the cheap meat problem by getting rid of all cats.
Brilliant!
Joking aside, Feline AIDs is already on top of that.
@8,9 seriously! do cats like bacon too?
Dogs love bacon, cats are not nearly as exicted by it.
Another reason dogs are man’s best friend.
Ok, enough cat-bashing. Back to making fun of meat-eaters for killing the world.
fortunately for meat-eaters, we’ll all die of heart disease before the world does. it’ll be you vegetarians who’ll have to suffer.
@15: Touché!
@14 Cats cannot be trusted.
Now all you carnivores look just as bad as the SUV drivers. Haha.
@18 nice fight in the other thread but I think you right on the money with the SUV hatin’
Really when you look at how much metal and gas those things use for a trip to Starbucks it’s just criminal
see you over in the fight thread
Gas guzzler, meat guzzler, they all = ASSHOLE
@18, 19 ooh now you’re talking!
/walked to starbucks.
I think we’re missing the real issue here, like the fact that he’s using the term ‘meat guzzler’.
I think that term is quite fitting.
@11, actually FeLV is way more common in Albemarle/Charlottesville, kills cats quicker and is really brutal to watch progress. FIV cats can live a long time, relatively, 5 sometimes 7 years, but FeLV cats are usually dead in a year or two. Lesions in their mouths, eyes, fungal infections, worms, respiratory infections that become chronic and if those don’t whittle your kitty down to nothing and kill it, then the systemic shut down that shortly follows the lack of functioning bone marrow soon will. But I digress. Eat whatever you want. But blood filters(kidey, liver) that doesnt sound smart.
Gosh Rose… you’re a ray of sunshine tonight…. I’ve come over all emo and I don’t even like bloody cats.
Every scientist agrees on global warming? Please. Dude’s a pinko, just like most of the global warming truthers.
Before you jump all over me, I’m sickened by unnecessary consumption, very much including my own. But there exists a rational argument in favor of conservation, and people like this automatically make most everyone glaze over.
@26 Oh how I love you. I also feel quite the same. Watch out though they attack anyone who isn’t hugging a tree. Quick reuse some toilet paper!
I ate a whole Blooming Onion back in 1999 and still feel guilty. I am deadly serious by the way. 2500 Calories in an appetizer dude…. that is just wrong.
@25 You don’t like cats? Why? That’s cool, i’m not gonna excoriate you, but it’s weird how people can have a general dislike or fear of dogs and just be fine around them, but cats cause this visceral, violent reaction in people (especially guys) who don’t like them. Anyone else ever observed this, or just me?
And @28 you ate the whole blooming onion as training for our time of famine, now you know you can horde 2500 calories in a sitting. Just look at it that way. You’re prepared for the zombie revolution.
@24: You’re right. I have an FIV cat so I focus on that usually. It’s sad though, because its overpopulation that has led to the species getting these diseases.
@26: Gud point. A very wise friend of mine once said, “Be the change you want to see in the world, and others will begin to understand through experience! Convincing people about things just causes them to strengthen their resolve against whatever you’re saying”
@28: OMFG.
@29 Rose… never used to care one way or the other about them, and then I rented a house where you had to look after the house cat. That was cool until I was stroking it one day and it flipped over on it’s back, wrapped its 4 legs around my forearm and proceeded to maul my wrist resulting in 4 stitches and a passionate dislike of all felines.
You have my permission to donkey-punch them when they do that.
Are you supposed to get permission before donkey-punching? That kinda takes the fun out of it.
You have to get my permission before abusing animals, E.
@31 - one of the cats i’m currently looking after did that to my ankle, which caused me to reflexively jump and shake my leg to try to get her off. she skittered away unharmed, but i kept kicking, and rammed my ankle into the corner of the kitchen island that was just behind me. after i was done spewing curses at her, i swear i heard her laughing at me. and this was AFTER she’d already buried my watch in the litterbox. little twerp.
Try being in a small room with a feral. That thing climbed the CEMENT walls and flew around the room like a killer cactus tornado. I let the the other girls try to net it while I hid behind a cage door, covered my face and prayed to Jesus.
@36 LMAO yeah there’s nothing better than cat wrangling. All the little slights they’ve received just accumulate and they let go all at once. That’s good shit.
I would rather deal with any crazy ass giant dog (any kind-pit bull, pug-anything ) than 1 pissed off domestic housecat.
yeah, i can see why everybody likes cats so much. not only are they unfriendly, they’re violent, and sharp!
@30 Sometimes I think shelters would be better off if they had a giant pneumatic press that they put the lil fuzzy animals in and then squashed them and had it up front so people could see a good reason to spay and neuter and properly care for their pets. Then I think about all the people this would not even faze. Then I think about putting those people in a giant press and Im happy again.
39: Like a duck press? (Caveat: image not for the faint of heart/stomac.)
@38: Anything that lives with you and has sharp teeth and/or claws has to be given a little bit of respect. I pet my cats cautiously, feed them good food, give them lots of things to climb on and scratch and in return, they don’t eat my face while I’m sleeping.
Feeling left out/pleased that I don’t have a cat story to share here.
@39: Or just make them work at the animal shelter for one day
“Anything that…has sharp teeth and/or claws has to be given a little bit of respect.”
like me!
No orchid. It only gets respect if it lives with you. You can’t ellipse out the most important part.
ok, don’t respect strange wildcats. see what happens.
@45: She’s right. You gotta watch out for housecats, wildcats, dogs & polar bears.
just be careful of any animal that is pointy or otherwise sharp in any way.
and don’t do drugs.
i still have to write a bit about high-fructose corn syrup that will likely put you all to sleep.
preview= industrial agriculture, nitrogen raping corn, dust bowl(part 2), obesity, consumerism, go green, go yellow.
it’s definately a handful and a soapbox.
i saw a fox cross McIntire wednesday.
@49 I saw a bald eagle flying through riverside park last week.
@48 true, respect even lil birdies cuz they’ll peck your eyes out. No joke, bird rehabbers have to wear face shields/goggles.
Do you carrot all for me?
My heart beets for you
With you radish face
And your turnip nose
You are a peach
If we cantaloupe
Lettuce marry
Weed make a swell pear.
/playing with my food
I cannot seem to get Consolidated’s Meat Kills song out of my head.
And now, fun facts for the kiddies:
More than half of all the water consumed in the US whole purpose is to raise animals for food. It takes 2500 gallons of water to produce a pound of meat, but only 25 gallons to produce a pound of wheat. A totally vegetarian diet requires 300 gallons of water per day, while a meat-eating diet requires more than 4000 gallons of water per day.
Raising animals for food causes more water pollution than any other industry in the US because animals raised for food produce one hundred thirty times the excrement of the entire human population. It means 87,000 pounds per second.(Oh shit!)
Each vegetarian can save one acre of trees per year. More than 260 million acres of US forests have been cleared to grow crops to feed animals raised for meat. And another acre of trees disappears every eight seconds.
In the US, animals raised for food are fed more than eighty percent of the corn we grow and more than ninety-five percent of the oats. We are eating our country, we are eating our earth, we are eating our children.
We, the ever-hungry proprietors of an obese nation, shoveling fat-laden-sugar-covered garbage in our expanding maws, in hopes of drowning out the cries of sanity as our bodies plead for a little exercise and healthy nourishment.
Don’t get me started.
/wait, what/