Yum. (George Panagakis/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images)
I’ve seen the Brave New World of food prophesied in Aldous Huxley’s 1932 novel — and it doesn’t work.
Set in the World State in AF 632 (AF standing for “After Ford”, he of the Model T), Huxley’s dystopia offers nothing but synthetic nosh. At a party for the World State’s Alphas, the guests are induced to “take a carotine sandwich, a slice of vitamin A pâté, a glass of champagne-surrogate”. Even the proles get “beef-surrogate” — which these days we might call a plant-based burger.
If Huxley were to visit the tiny Dutch university town of Wageningen, he would be unnerved by the accuracy of his forecast. So would you. Wageningen, an hour by car from Amsterdam, is the capital so-called “Food Valley”. Every which way you look, there are fields burgeoning with crops, giant glasshouses, and modernist glass-and-steel labs where more than 6,500 scientists are planning the future of food. It all seems lovely — starry-eyed researchers beavering away to end global hunger and halt climate change via a revolution in food technology — until you look closely at Food Valley’s strategic “Sustainable Protein System”, or examine the list of companies investing in the “Silicon Valley of Food”.
The Sustainable Protein System is the promotion of “alt-proteins”, as opposed to the conventional proteins we might get from food, which come from farmed animals. Some of the alt-protein research in Food Valley is directed towards consuming insects (“entomophagy”); some is more focused on algae, fungi — or mycobacterial this, that and the other. But the big research bucks are flowing one way only, and that is to plant-based alternatives to meat.
More than 60 agri-food multinationals have invested in Food Valley and centred their research operations there. They include Kraft Heinz, Nestlé, Cargill, Kikkoman, and Dupont. Upfield, the giant plant-based group behind Flora and the Greek vegan cheese brand Violife, has constructed a €50 million Food Science Centre at Wageningen. This pales in comparison to Unilever’s €85 million Foods Innovation Centre, nicknamed “The Hive”, with its priority research area for “plant-based ingredients and meat alternatives”.
Multinationals love the phrase “plant-based” because it is a euphemism for the messianic, cultish, modish cause they have adopted: veganism. But the official FoodValley NL platform is less squeamish about its mission: it self-identifies as “Vegan Valley”.
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SubscribeEither deliberately or inadvertently you conflate veganism with a pro-lab-grown-food stance and attempt to discredit the cause: “the messianic, cultish, modish cause they have adopted: veganism.”
Many people who eschew products derived from animals are equally against any sort of unnatural modification of food, GMOs, pesticides, laboratoires etc. They are people who believe in the sacredness of the natural cycle of living things that shouldn’t be interfered with.
It’s good that you’re raising awareness of how food multinationals are destroying that food cycle and poisoning us in the process, but that discussion can be had without any association with individuals who make a lifestyle choice.
I suspect what is meant is that big business is very aware of the public perception of vegans, because of the activists, hence the marketing use of language.
Exactly. for example when the writer says ““alt-proteins”, as opposed to the conventional proteins we might get from food, which come from farmed animals” is he deliberately ignoring other sources of protein not derived from farmed animals – e.g. legumes, nuts. I must admit I do find “cultish” veganism off-putting, and I suspect it will eventually pass when it’s no longer the woke/cool/inthing, and we will be left with fewer, but more sensible vegans.
I think that is the point he is making. The big-agri companies are not interested in growing and selling legumes, nuts etc as it is not economically viable compared to soy and wheat. hence the drive to develop fake meat products which can be made out of large-scale crops.
But even here exists the lie. Supposedly proteins from plant sources “combine” to complete the amino acid chains and make protein equivalent to that of actual animal meat. Neurological damage among prior vegetarians — and the offspring of mothers who bought the lie — is common. I know better now, and I find ALL veg*n acolytes terribly uninformed, and participating in furthering the damage and deceptions. But truth in science? Nope, it’s all political, for profit, these days. Sold science is the norm.
We’ll, millions of observant Hindus, Bhuddists, and 7th Day Adventists belie that argument against vegetarianisms ( albeit not veganism). And throughout most of human history, if you lived in a settled community – unless you were among the elite- people were mostly vegetarian by necessity. As Tevye says, “ When a poor man eats a chicken, one of them is sick.”
true that !
Yes, and in the past the non-elite who didn’t have access to real meat also were under the power of the elites who had better everything. Effectively the working poor had nothing and they were quite handily kept in line in great part by their limited strength and capacity. This oppressive strata was in large part perpetuated by the ongoing malnutrition of the working classes.
Now the modern world elites are poised to institutionalize mass malnutrition; which will weaken the entire population except them, and presto, we are catapulted forward into a neo-middle ages dystopian feudalism.
Add to this the turning of schools into simple minded social indoctrination camps that limit thought, instead promoting and encouraging brain developing arts, humanities, and STEM, and you have illiterate, ill fed and under developed —mentally as well as physically—masses who will be easily controlled as servants and slaves of the global elites.
Two thousand years of human development and achievement on the brink of an elite flushing.
I would say the ubiquity of highly processed food in the US diet( not sure how bad it is elsewhere) has already established mass malnutrition. The working poor are so often unhealthy and overweight because the affordable “ food” is predominantly super processed wheat, corn, and potato based. As one nutritionist puts it, there’s no food in that food.
Mostly vegetarian, but not vegan, and not wholly vegetarian.
Though if you look at historical examples of principled vegetarianism, you find they are elites, and they also are not farmers. The poor got their fats and proteins where they could and even the elite vegetarians relied on farms that included animals in their ecosystem.
Actually, plenty of trials of this have already been inflicted — or self-inflicted — on humanity, and the results are not pretty. I found medical articles from the 1940s documenting the results of the diet of the Urban Bantu in South Africa, which consisted of white bread, tea and sugar. The lack of fats and proteins gave them enlarged hearts and early deaths. The very same thing happened in the 1930s to Ukrainian-German Mennonites deported to the Urals to perform heavy labor; logging in the snow, day after day in wet clothes. All they had to eat was bread, and not even enough of that; the very same results occurred. If these Big Food outfits are serious about going down this road, they better prepare for enormous lawsuits.
So what’s your alternative to science? Ignorance?
The promotion of ‘veganism’ may involve ‘science’; somewhere along the line (‘science’ of course being incapable of legitimately promoting any particular political point of view), but it itself is politics, of a particularly elitist, repressive and nasty sort. I know. I used to work with some vegans.
It’s entirely feasible to get the full range of essential amino acids from a vegetarian diet (especially from eggs, which have the full range). Vegan diet is more challenging but still possible if you stay well clear of the highly processed crap and eat a regular variety of pulses, legumes, nuts, seeds and vegetables. Even better if sprouted or fermented as this releases key enzymes and increase bioavailability. So yeah, food combining is vital for vegan diet.
That said, I don’t think strict vegan is the healthiest or most ecologically sustainable option – animals are a part of natural ecosystems and we can integrate them into regenerative agricultural systems to build soil fertility and feed them on surpluses. This does mean a LOT less animal-source foods per capita, which is fine – we’ll appreciate meat all the more for what it is – the death of an animal so that we can be nourished. That gratitude should always be in our awareness, not disconnected from this reality.
I suspect that in western Europe it won’t pass, at least as long as climate change is with us because (perhaps excepting vegans who eat a lot of meat substitutes), veganism is just way better for the environment than eating meat. Also in terms of concerns about animal welfaire, vegetarianism has been growing throughout the 20th century, and so this strand of concern over meat-eating is too long-established to be dismissed as a ‘woke/cool/inthing.’ Add to that the health damage meat eating does to us not only as a form of nutrition (children perhaps excepted) but also the increasing resistance of bacterial infections to antibiotics that are pumped into intensively farmed animals and the only answer you really have against veganism is the taste – and nothing more – of meat.
Did you read the part about the the soil being poisoned and polluted by farming?
I only purchase antibiotic free and grass fed meats. They cost more, so I serve smaller portions less often.
“The environment” does not exist in the sense that you are giving it (i.e. a pre-defined ‘thing’ which requires to be defended by brave Vegans, rather like some medieval princess by her Knight).
What we choose to call the ‘environment’ is a (variable) set of selective human choices (in the case of most ‘nature lovers’ usually life and surroundings with all the bad bits cut out, rather like the view of Heaven in the Bible). Not surprising as ‘environmentalism’ is an unacknowledged religious doctrine, based on philosophical assumptions that are never stated at the beginning or thought worthy of discussion.
I understand what you mean in that the term ‘environment’ is a dynamic concept. But when discussing nitrogen pollution in agricultural terms it has a very explicit meaning: namely the surrounding bioregional land and water courses which support living systems (economists might refer to this as “ecosystem services”). Nutrient and water cycles are super important to keep in balance. Not just for pollution causing toxicity (eg microplastic build-up in soil) and eutrophication (nitrogen run-off), but also the food we eat has up to 40x lower nutrient density than it had 80 years ago before the intensification of the green revolution which prioritised yield (quantity) over nutrient density (quality).
I do agree they environmentalism can be a bit fundamentalist in its religious fervour, but the majority of us are approaching the situation with a balance of scientific rigour and philosophical morality/ethics. Please don’t straw-man the legitimate environmental pressures behind a handful of extremists (as has been done with most religion’s from Christianity to Islam).
I have the same feedback. I’m vegetarian rather than vegan, but due to the sheer cost of dairy, I usually eat homecooked vegan meals. I find meat substitutes overly processed and sort of dystopian, as the author brings out nicely, but the slander I feel directed towards me in this article just for choosing to eat kidney bean stew is a bit much…
Although a carnivore, I’ve tried meat substitutes. I find them too “pasty” and spammy (in its original meaning!) and not fibrous enough to even begin to chew. I know they say prime meat is supposed to “melt in one’s mouth”, but somehow fake meat hasn’t cracked the texture problem.
Also, although it may sound a corny argument, I think meat eating does at least give large domestic animals a chance to live, generally in benign conditions these days in the UK, which the vast majority would not otherwise have. In their absence there would be practically no incentive to preserve pasture land, and it would all be given up to monoculture and dreary housing estates.
Completely agree.
Partially agree, but it wouldn’t have to be monocolutres and housing estates. In an ideal(istic) world we could have diverse polycultures which produce food from a mix of edible annuals, perennials and both domestic and wild animals (regenerative agroforestry which promotes on-farm biodiversity). Livestock farming is often not far from a monoculture in that it grows a relatively narrow variety of grasses to feed a very narrow variety of animals. The idea that farming is giving domesticated livestock a chance at life feels a bit distorted – livestock populations are >90% of the entire biomass of all animals on earth. They’re not the endangered ones…
yar – but that is the state of humanity at the mo – ie a rather low state of consciousness i am afraid – just look around at how ‘we’ arrogantly abuse absolutely everything ‘we’ can get our hands on – and esp each other !!!
“…the sacredness of the natural cycle of living things…”
According to whom? Are animals of prey going against nature when they also hunt for their food?
You’re not a lion mate, you’re a moral agent.
You avoided his question,
But they have to be your morals.
Agriculture is one of the most destructive ecological disasters ever to happen to planet earth. You are literally stripping the soil down to nothing.. it kills everything in it’s path. You are much better off eating pastured animals if you care about the “sacredness of the natural cycle”. No vegan societies anywhere in the world until modern and destuctive agriculture came about. Wonder why?
actually over the course of human history very few got to eat meat regularly-look it up ….
Exactly my point above, and those who did not get meat were malnourished and under the control and lived at the pleasure of elites who had meat and much better nutrition, and who were educated—which was also denied the peasant and surf classes.
Agriculture is only destructive when it is done rapaciusly. If fields are allowed to lie fallow in an appropriate multi-year cycle, growing crops becomes sustainable.
The chemicals pumped into the earth and the chemicals produced by plants grown are not sustainable, and if most of humanity is only eating farmed foods and derivatives of such those safer farming practices will not produce enough food, hence the need for franken food in the form of meat substitutes made of bastardized wheat and soy.
Wow! Well and succinctly said. Excellent point!
Not completely correct. Maybe those old fashioned vegans yes – but Gen Z is happy to call itself vegan and scoff down processed rubbish.
Exactly!
Not completely correct. Maybe those old fashioned vegans yes – but Gen Z is happy to call itself vegan and scoff down processed rubbish.
Yes, but that conversation should not be had without mentioning the hundreds of millions of people who will be starved to death by the pursuit if puritan ideology in farming
there is something dd about hiding the ‘Great Wheel’, the cycle of life and death. The un-natural breaking from the world, to finally be fully artificial, to live on what is industrial, rather than which is living living…
I have killed a lot of things; in times of my life I would kill a lot of my food, and also have been commercial fisherman, I still catch a lot of my family’s food from fishing and other natural harvesting. I did not used to kill deer because I hated them. I actually did it because I loved them.
I have talked here of the many years I lived in remote camps harvesting wild products for my living. I did that life because I am one with nature. I used to have to be in it, be part of it, be a creature, and also live the imperatives my genes drove me to. A reason I am so successful in nature is I see every bit of it, same reason I was a good hunter – I see the trails, the different feeds, the shelter, the whole ecology, the spoor, tracks and trails….I feel how the creatures respond to weather, water, plants, geology, aspect, seasons, each-other, I can feel a one-ness with nature having lived in it so extensively.
Nature is icy cold, it is hard, it is unbelievably cruel. There is no loving Mother Nature, no Benevolent Pantheism, it is all for more creatures to be born than the environment can support, and it is all soon death from want, illness, or harm. The creatures only know a brief time of plenty, otherwise their life is want and fear. It is the Hindu God Juggernaut – a wagon of huge wheels and unimaginable weight which inexorably moves forward, the great wheels crushing all life underneath it, and then behind new life springs up, to grow, reproduce, and in turn to be crushed back to the soil. This is the Great Wheel of physical existence.
This is Mortality, this us us except we have compassion, charity, community, even altruism, and so we aid eachother and mitigate these ills. But it is there – Death is there and we will be part of the wheel. Suffering, want, illness, harm – mitigated by human goodness and industry, but it is there always. I spent a great amount of time when young in solitude in remote places and I would think endlessly on mortality, on the ultimate, and all I knew for sure is the great wheel – but then what is our place in it – what morality and ethics? Nature gives us none. Therefore there must be some ultimate which gives us those things, and so religion and philosophy were a very great part of my thinking…. I always saw the Great Wheel, was part of it – and only seeing it can we think on Ultimate……because we know goodness exists, and nature does not know good or bad….yet we see and feel goodness in our lives, and so know there is more – we know there is an ultimate by seeing life and nature..I think many no longer see it much – they see their devices and the shallow culture of individual wants. But still – we know nature is there, but this article – it is spiritual death by removing us from the great wheel…….it is the path to the transhumanism of Yuval Noah Harari, which is evil and soul-less
Ecclesiastes 3
King James Version
3 To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
2 A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
3 A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;
4 A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
5 A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
6 A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
7 A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
8 A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.
9 What profit hath he that worketh in that wherein he laboureth?
10 I have seen the travail, which God hath given to the sons of men to be exercised in it.
11 He hath made every thing beautiful in his time: also he hath set the world in their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end.
12 I know that there is no good in them, but for a man to rejoice, and to do good in his life.
13 And also that every man should eat and drink, and enjoy the good of all his labour, it is the gift of God.
14 I know that, whatsoever God doeth, it shall be for ever: nothing can be put to it, nor any thing taken from it: and God doeth it, that men should fear before him.
15 That which hath been is now; and that which is to be hath already been; and God requireth that which is past.
Aaron, mesmerised, I held my breath praying you wouldn’t blow it. You didn’t. Please submit a post to ‘UnHerd’ for consideration. This was profound – written from the inside out.
Thank you Aaron, made me cry, God Bless.
And thanks also to John Lewis-Stempel for this informative article.
You’ll have read Gary Snyder’s ‘Four Changes’, published around 1972 I think – plus ca change, eh?
Wonderful post & reflects exactly my views on nature & mortality (I’ve been aware of my mortality from a very young age). One of the factors driving our attitude to nature is the unspoken belief in anthropocentrism, that the world was created for us; it’s at the heart of nearly all religions but doesn’t bear a moment’s scrutiny.
Something I’ve noticed lately is the sanitisation of death; adverts for fuss-free cremations, everybody smiley & happy as the person you loved most in the world disappears into oblivion.
It seems that these days we are presented with a choice between two versions of society, either Huxley’s (mostly in the West) or Orwell’s (mostly in the East).The common factor is those in charge wish to stay that way & will use the carrot or the stick (or both) against the rest of us to ensure they do. Genuine democracy, predicated on free speech, is the only way to thwart the buggers.
We missed you Galeta.
Nature is neutral; the issue is that we civilized humans want Her to be on our side, and when that doesn’t happen we see it as cruelty. We don’t aspire to be One With Nature, not completely, not if we find cruelty instead of the cycle of life and death. Love your intro — first three paragraphs rock. The fourth, to me, feels of human hubris.
Morality? Which other animal routinely slaughters without care, without consuming? It happens but the vast majority of the time it’s humans. The issue of male otters and baby seals is an outlier; humans, male humans, here are far worse, too. We have no claim to morality, we civilized, patriarchal, hierarchy-loving humans. But it is there, in the balance and the lack of wasting of lives, in Nature’s ways.
Foxes, chimpanzees and orcas in answer to your second question
Don’t forget cats! They kill for fun too!
“But it is there, in the balance and the lack of wasting of lives, in Nature’s ways.”
There is no morality in nature, if that’s what you’re suggesting.
we are kinda hoping that humans are capable of a little more morality than animals……seems not much more tho…
I think most people have a sense of right and wrong. There’s no such thing as “a little more morality” than animals. Morals are based on a sense of right and wrong. Animals don’t have that. Whether it’s right to kill animals is difficult for humans to decide, because so many animals do it. There’s nothing unnatural about it. The dilemma is probably in the reality they find hard to digest: the taking of a life, the act itself, which is hidden from them, The fact that they eat meat does not make them immoral.
Dumb as shit argument, animals rape too.
Thank you! That was absolutely perfect it made me cry.. You could not have written it better.
get a grip sally
Self praise is NO recommendation, surely you haven’t forgotten that during your long sojourn in the wilderness?
“Suffering, want, illness, harm – mitigated by human goodness and industry” – exactly the ethic on which veganism is founded.
Genesis 1:29
“Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the Earth, and every tree, in which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.”
Beautiful!
I was with you until this :
“Is it not curious how veganism, which dresses itself in the hip clothes of animal welfare, anti-climate change and eco-feminism, can’t wait to get into the blender with big business?”
This is demeaning and untrue, and about as reasoned as thinking all Christians are homophobes, or all Muslims terrorists.
You are correct – that comment reveals how much actual research the writer did – looks more like an attempt to justify his line of business rather than serious journalism. WHY IS UNHERD PAYING FOR THIS CRAP ??
Two things:
a world of 8 billion people can’t feed itself without corporate agriculture. I work for an SME and do not like Big Businesses, but I have to acknowledge that there are some large-scale things that only they can do. Subsistence farming just won’t cut it, and boutique choices like crofting and first-world veganism are for the privileged few, no matter how they view themselves.
Secondly, if your business model is being , or likely to be, disrupted by a new trend, or regulations, then you can either jump on the bandwagon or risk getting left behind. You can’t blame the corporates for doing that – look at who is setting the regulatory framework.
“a world of 8 billion people can’t feed itself without corporate agriculture. “
Why is that? If the same amount of land was farmed by smaller holdings does that mean that we would have less produce? Subsistence farming won’t cut it but I don’t imagine that most farms are subsistence farming,
I seem to recall that in the latter years of the USSR the food supply chain was utterly dependent on the highly effective production of the relatively small number of ‘allowed’ private farming co-ops, rather than the disastrously ineffective output of the state-run co-operatives. Productivity at the SME level doesn’t have to be driven by primitive technology, either.
Russia agriculture has improved enormously through private farming but it is large-scale. It was the state management , not the size, that made the big Soviet places so inefficient.
Yes. It was another confirmation of the rule that if nobody owns anything, nobody will take care of it. Adam Smith knew all about it.
What the communists tried to do (and are still doing in Cuba) was to remove all incentives in the workplace other than the desire to help the state. Hard work or ingenuity to create a more desirable product does not bring any reward to you or your family, so why bother? A Cuban friend told me that everyone finishes up trying to cheat the state just to survive. In that situation the state is the enemy not your friend, so the last remaining incentive to work hard has disappeared.
I grew up on a small farm, in Australia, so unsubsidised. At least nothing remotely near EU/UK levels. Such family farms no longer exist because the downward pressure on prices and vastly increased regulation and compliances left them with two choices: Get Big or Get Out.
Those small farms that do exist are inevitably sustained by income from elsewhere, usually middle class WFH or jobs in a nearby town.
So, in fact a world of 8 billion could actually people could be fed by small holdings, if it were not for the interference and influence of outside interests. You said there are things on a large scale that only corporate agriculture can do, which is true only because they’ve bent farming into a shape that benefits them.
It doesn’t follow – people have to be able to afford the food and world of smallholdings would be vastly more expensive, as it was before. Food is incredibly cheaper now. The shape of farming will be the shape that benefits those in it – of course. Unless you want it run like a command economy staffed by prisoners. Meanwhile, you can still have your smallholding providing quality provenanced products to high-end restaurants while filling out grant applications and writing denunciations of Big Farmer and your spouse works at the local decentralised mental health facility.
I’m a bit confused by your position and consequently by your comments. Small holdings would be vastly more expensive, by which you mean the production and consequent price of produce? I don’t remember the price of food being prohibitive when most farms were small holdings. The range of produce was narrow but not prohibitive. I agree that the shape of farming will benefits those in it, but I don’t understand how or why small holdings disappeared.
Food is a far smaller proportion of household budgets these days. Many studies online will show that, e.g. random search https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2015/03/02/389578089/your-grandparents-spent-more-of-their-money-on-food-than-you-do
As long as they are still allowed to operate.
Of course, but as a means of feeding the billions, they are less efficient.
Well according to reports I’ve read this is not the case.
“many family farms outperform corporate farms, generating higher rates of return and profits over recent years.” The Australian farmer.com
In the US we tend to believe that food should be as inexpensive as possible, no matter the health consequences of that view, which we aren’t allowed to connect back to toxic foodstuffs, anyway. And it keeps getting worse! We have the possibility of searching for good food sources and supporting small family farmers who practice real farming, as opposed to pharming. But it isn’t easy, simple, already done for us, and it might cost a little more …. So we eat toxins and pay enormously in health, healthcare, and the painful consequences of living in a disease state until we die, younger than the prior generations did. And then we defend it!
“It might cost a little more” is what we like to believe, but the fact is that it costs a lot more. Which is great if you can afford it, as I can. But, you know, it’s not all about America, or me. It’s about the 7.6 billion others.
If all meat eaters consumed animal foods from “real farming,” it would take more land than exists in the USA. It’s not even remotely feasible. Meanwhile an all-plant diet would take 1/5 the amount of land to produce.
How is that plant growing land fertilized?
I
I have heard this refuted by Chris Smaje of the blog and book A Small Farm Future, and Simon Fairlie in Meat, A Benign Extravagance. They are not saying that we can carry on with business as usual but that there is in fact plenty of land for us to grow food in the small farm way. There would be less meat, but animals would be an important part of the farm systems.
Brett there are cities worldwide with unimaginably enormous populations. Subsistence / small farms literally cannot supply the needs of Mexico City or Tokyo or Delhi or Shanghai, etc.
Of course not. But subsistence farming isn’t the same as small holdings. Small holding have fed the nation I live in for any years and is responsible for the health of generations. I’m still trying to work out how small holding slowly disappeared. If they got squeezed out it was, as I suspect, the middleman who did it, the supermarkets who set the price, and consequently held them to ransom. Small holding could withstand adverse environmental conditions, but not the manipulation of prices and markets. It’s not clear to me that the disappearance of small holdings was natural attrition or destruction by corporate interests.
Maybe small holdings /small farms disappeard because suddenly anyone producing food were fed the line about “feeding the world” rather than feeding community. As soon as these enterprises attempt to attach themselves to global commodity markets they are destined to struggle /fail.
“The best and biggest family-owned farms are also as profitable as corporate farms. In fact, many family farms outperform corporate farms, generating higher rates of return and profits over recent years. Family farms have also provided most of the capital that underpins the $60 billion Australian farm sector.”
An interesting report from Theaustralianfarmer.com. So things may not be as bleak as we think.
And this: “A range of factors has supported the increased share of large farms and while smaller farms are less profitable on average than their larger counterparts they compare favourably with the average Australian household, with comparable income, lower debt and greater net wealth (Chancellor & Zhao 2020).”
Yes – “the best and BIGGEST”!
What are you suggesting?
I worked in agricultural research for many years and I concur with what you say. Subsistence farming is significantly less productive than large-scale farming. It is also backbreaking and very time-consuming which means that subsistence farmers cannot follow other careers that might pay them more and lift them out of poverty. Also, if disaster in the form of bad weather strikes, you can lose your crops which can literally be life-threatening. Moderate-sized smallholdings are a different matter and they can work well as a business model especially if they are supported by some sort of side-business or speciality product/service.
On a different but related topic, organic farming doesn’t cut the mustard either. In broad terms, it yields about 30% less than conventional farming methods. Also, if you insist on using manure as fertiliser you are limited by availability and if you were to significantly reduce the number of domestic livestock, then farmyard manure would be much harder to obtain in quantity. Organic farming is mostly about soothing wealthy middle-class consciences. So you are right, we couldn’t feed the world without “Big Business” farming.
We manage to feed 10 billion cows are you mad. Yes things will change, as they always have. No, it’s not hard to feed everyone with grains, legumes, etc. Get a grip
Redacted
Definitely written to justify someone’s desire to kill animals and eat meat. A lot of the research quoted was biased and not based on good variables, *news flash* statistics and bad studies can be manipulated to support agendas. You want good research on veganism and plant-based studies go to nutritional facts org run by Dr Greger. I for one, am a vegan and far healthier than my 400 lb bar-b-quing neighbor and will live twice as long and live happier. Plus, i have a clean conscience which feels fantastic! Also not addressed was sustainability and how much water and feed are required to produce a handful of steaks. In many parts of the world, where grain and water are in such shortage, it seems to me to be the very definition of selfishness and waste. What is truly amusing is if a superior species came to this planet and started harvesting people everyone here in this chat would have something to say about that and find it a problem… or would you defend their right to eat you due to their might?
What I don’t understand is why they go to so much trouble trying to make stuff look and taste like meat if they have an ideological problem with it.
But it reminds me of a bumper sticker I saw once that said, “If God didn’t want us to eat animals, then why did he make them out of meat?”
I think it’s probably that people who take up a vegan/vegitarian diet are, as you say, doing it for ethical reasons, but they still rather like the taste of meat which most will have been eating for many years before changing.
damn straight – nothing like the smell of BBQ – sadly no more cos it reminds me of a live meat market –
Same reason lesbians use d***o’s Jeff. We’re not against flavour.
But it’s odd that you go for a particular flavour. Why, do you think?
Well, considering even the best chefs use vegan ingredients to flavour their recipes then no. Herbs, spices etc.
The biggest concern is how the animals are treated whilst alive, not what’s on the plate.
“If God didn’t want us to eat humans, then why did he make us out of meat?”
Love it! This vegan is all for big companies investing in the future! Also are all vegans weak because we don’t eat meat? I hear this comment banded about a lot, especially from people who are weaker than me. I guess green vegetables nuts and seeds, mushrooms are not good enough.
Freedom in the kitchen? People can cook what they want or go out, or have a ready meal. Just because there’s more plant based products available doesn’t mean we can’t be creative with what we cook and eat.
Good article. It’s time to emphasize personal choice and detach it from overarching causes. I went Vegan two years ago and I do not proselytize; I just have an English thing abt fluffy mammals, which I do not expect everybody to share. I am actually sceptical abt the pace of climate change. And GM crops strike me as a good thing for the sustainable feeding of people. It is important not to infer belief in ideological packages from certain personal behaviours.
Amen.
Thank you–my position exactly!
amen
It’s not a personal choice when something else sentient is involved. You know that; stop lying to yourself. Also yes GM is good, and you should be sceptical of the pace of climate change because it’s likely much further on than you realise.
https://www.arcticdeathspiral.org/
Spinning out again. Hope it’s not your diet.
the vegan movement is happening because most humans support the intense production of ‘meat’ – a form of production that is mostly cruel and ‘inhuman’ – many people are now very shocked by that. They have been led by this shock to reflect on homo sapien’s absolute arrogance towards the planet and all living things on that planet (including other humans) . They have decided to support that exploitation no more – and are voting with their wallets. Vegetarians do not tend to start wars or act out violence, or oppress others . There will be no peace or health on or for this planet and its inhabitants until humans realize that they do not have the right to oppress any thing or creature. Any other attempted rationalizations around this topic are self serving and cruel and reveal the perpetrator to be somewhat simple-minded. Any human that loves a pet yet happily supports concentration camps and the systematic slaughter of other animal is , in the words of Ricky Gervais , something that rhymes with ‘hunt’. !!
I don’t think the production of “alt-protein” has very much to do with vegan morals of corporations investing in its production. If the world goes vegan it won’t be because they’re “voting with their wallets” so much as their food source was controlled by corporate interests. This story is not really about vegans but the control of our source of protein and ultimately our health and future. Your personal feelings have blinded you to the point being made. That moral position you take may very well be used by corporate interests to control what we eat, where it comes from, it’s nutritional value, what it costs, who gets it, what it does to the environment, and all the consequences that go with that control. Right now you may think that’s what’s needed to stop war, violence and oppression. But eventually you may find yourself living that oppression yourself.
that is a great scenario for the poor abused animals – however most people dont give a rats arse about animal suffering so it will go on cos China for one are amping up their nasty meat production and will export to whomever, wherever at cheaper than vegan costs….
Not true, the social tipping point is 25%. Get ready. Fastest growing social movement.
25% means nothing. 25% of what nation? Fastest growing doesn’t mean anything long term.
Animal protein and fats are what enabled our encephalization as a species. We’d be far stupider without them. Slaughter is what has to happen to prepare an animal to be eaten. It’s always messy and always deadly for the animal. That’s just life. Vegetarians don’t start wars because without cholesterol (which is a vital testosterone precursor) they’re basically walking eunuchs.
what would humans looking ‘far stupider ‘ actually look like – just look at the world around you brother !!
Not true actually. Fire & carbs were the main contributors; but how we evolved plays no part in how we should act today when the science is settled.
Testosterone one is absolute nonsense I won’t even waste my time.
That seems to be contrary to what I’ve read. Could you put up a link?
Why do you think we’re omnivores?
My idea of a vegan diet contains fresh vegetables, legumes, nuts, seeds, whole grains, funghi, fresh fruits, herbs and spices, and olive, avocado or coconut oil. All whole foods. This horror version brought to you by Big Food with it’s modified and industrialised wheat and soya and processed vegetable oils with sweetners and artificial flavourings, will intensify the metabolic problems, increase obesity even further, and deprive us of real nutrition. Never mind, I’m sure Big Pharma will come up with a range of ‘medications’ to fix the consequences.
time and again transformative concepts such as veganism (renewable energy, vaping, the internet etc) are taken over by the vested interests they threaten to disrupt and blunted into a force for ‘economic growth’. now instead of a threat it is a fine new chapter in the companies portfolio. pretty savvy
I greatly appreciate someone’s choice to enjoy a plant-based diet, and wish them well. However, I get the sense that it is about to be imposed on the rest of us, forcibly.
only in Vegans dreams – the Chinese are ramping up mega meat production for all – concentration camps and mass slaaughter houses if youcan stomach that…………..
If I had my way, yes. But no. It’ll be ‘forced’ by being cheaper – as predicted.
That’s very naive. Business is not going to take a cut in profits. Why do you think it’ll be cheaper?. By the way, predictions aren’t facts.
A question for JLS, in your article you note that we will need many more fields to grow the crops for plant based food. Is that really true? If people eat plant based food rather than meat – my understanding is that we would need fewer fields if crops grown to feed livestock were eaten by humans instead.
I do feel that ‘vegan’ dominates this discussion too much and overtakes the climate positive point. I support and regularly eat plant based food alternatives not to become a vegan, but to help me reduce my meat intake. This argument doesn’t have to be so binary.
“my understanding is that we would need fewer fields if crops grown to feed livestock were eaten by humans instead.”
And all the fields that were used for livestock then used for agriculture. Though some land is cheaper than others. It may be a financial benefit for corporations to tear up existing forests in poorer countries in government deals with benefits, enabling corporations to cut costs and increase profit. I imagine poorer countries would be keen to get in on the growth, just as they have with mining. So, as you say, not binary at all
Likely from this
Carrying capacity of U.S. agricultural land: Ten diet scenarios
https://www.elementascience.org/articles/10.12952/journal.elementa.000116/
Throughout the paper they make clear that a plant-based diet requires less land than any other diet (you can see that just by looking at the graphs). What they show is that, in the US, some animal-based diets could in theory feed more people than a plant-based diet because the animal-based diets use a large amount of grazing land that is not arable and therefore not available for growing additional crops in a plant-based diet. They’re saying that the land that’s unused by a vegan diet (land not suitable for crops) could be used to feed more people, which is the main concern of the study. The environmental impact of doing so isn’t considered. More people fed = better.
However, study seems to believe that if vegan were the only diet option, than all land currently used for animal food sources and animal grazing will suddenly be left used and untouched. Some land used for grazing and the like will not be viable due to soil arability, sure, but to act as if 100% cannot be converted to cropland is erroneous. And not only that, but this study believes that 30% of cropland will be unusable for food, and up to 85% of land in general used for animal agriculture for some reason cannot be altered into any form of cropland.
“the carrying capacity of the vegan diet was lower than two of the healthy omnivore diet scenarios. Sensitivity analysis showed that carrying capacity estimates were highly influenced by starting assumptions about the proportion of cropland available for cultivated cropping. ”
Overall very misleading, cherry-picked pish that frequently pops up as ‘evidence’ vegan diets are worse than omni’s.
Look at all the big studies, science, what the worlds leading groups are saying on these matters – and they’re all pretty clear that veganism is one of the biggest, if not the biggest thing you can do to personally reduce your environmental impact.
The Impacts of Dietary Change on Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Land Use, Water Use, and Health: A Systematic Review (2016)
Our review showed that reductions above 70% of GHG emissions and land use, and 50% of water use, could be achieved by shifting typical Western diets to more environmentally sustainable dietary patterns. Medians of these impacts across all studies suggest possible reductions of between 20–30%
What is the value hierarchy that the “life-defending” vegan operates from? countless soil microorganisms, insects, or even small mammals that get eviscerated to monoculture the grains/seeds needed to sustain their diet seem to be of little/no concern to them. Are these not life?
why does a larger animal rank higher? why are there no protests against the mass slaughter of insects and organisms that leave soil dead and useless for years following a monocrop harvest?
What is it? Being able to look into the eyes of a cow? Knowing a chicken has a heartbeat and nervous system similar to you? Why are field mice expendable? Why is it OK—or maybe just less bad—to murder crickets by the millions for “cruelty free” protein bars?
Why are cricket protein producers all simultaneously performing moral gymnastics to justify their products? And why does the entire debate seem to hinge on sentience?
Why are sentient animals inherently more valuable? We act as if the answer is self evident. It’s not.
We’ve seemingly arbitrarily established *sentience* as the unit of measurement by which we calibrate our scale of morality.
But it’s not arbitrary. It’s anthropomorphism.
The closer an animal’s biological system is to a human’s, the more value we assign it. Which when filtered through the vegan’s own canon that claims all animal life is valuable, is rendered a total contradiction.
How do we know microorganisms and insects don’t have some other system of perception that we havent discovered yet?
I mean, we’ve only recently discovered that trees talk.
A cricket’s nervous system is different than ours, but why does that make it *less* cruel to kill and eat?
There *is* no such thing as vegan.
There *is* no “cruelty free”.
Your own body turns itself over on a cellular level constantly, killing off the old, giving birth to the new.
Vegan doesn’t exist.
It’s a thin cloak covering the reality that life requires death.
I eat regeneratively raised meat *because* I value life, not the opposite. I’d rather eat a cow that has spent a long life grazing fields, fertilizing the earth, and creating natural carbon sinks, than choking down a cricket burger because I *feel* like less of a meanie.
I *know* the cow has greater value than the cricket. I can say this out loud.
The vegan won’t admit this—but acts it out as they selectively protect the “rights” of certain portions of the animal kingdom based on its biological proximity to humans.
The very thing they seek to dismantle—i.e. the notion that there is a hierarchy to the animal kingdom—is exactly what underpins the system by which they unconsciously ascribe value to different species.
They act out human species exceptionalism and don’t realize it.
I choose to embrace that humans are at the top, and exercise this responsibility with gratitude and regenerative principles.
But the vegan runs from this reality, largely delegating this responsibility to corporations who leverage the delusion that one can eat in a way that causes no death. As if you can tell me with a straight face that Burger King’s Beyond Whopper isn’t causing a cascade of harm along its very long, chemically-infused, mechanically-driven, pesticide-demanding, monoculture-requiring supply chain.
Very well said
Was it? I think commenting on veganism whilst demonstrably highlighting that one has no clue as to what veganism actually is doesn’t qualify as well said.
um – if you eat processed anything you are silly. Most vegans do not eat processed food for your info – certainly not pretend meat -they is no need to because in 2022 there is plenty of simple unadulterated food blends around – but you have to give a damn to find that out ! Again – MOST VEGANS DO NOT EAT PROCESSED FOOD in case you did not get it the first time !
Any actual statistics?
Most is 51% and above.
Surely all the meat substitutes exist only because vegans and vegetarians buy them?
If you travel on business or pleasure in Europe you quickly find out that being vegetarian never mind vegan in Prague or Munich is difficult and expensive unless you want to survive on pizza or pasta.
being a vegan i notice that many newbies start off with the ‘not meat’ , realize that its actually not that nice and move on to more home based cooking…. Dont have numbers but i dont know vegans who eat ‘not meat’.
“MOST VEGANS DO NOT EAT PROCESSED FOOD”
Reference required.
I hear from a family member in the food industry that a lot of food manufacturing companies have jumped on this particular fashionable band wagon but are finding it’s not the success it was hoped to be, most people don’t want the plant based meals or inferior tasting vegan alternatives . Meat free sausages are perhaps the exception because they most closely resemble meaty sausages, as often the meaty ones don’t contain much meat.
“What is the value hierarchy that the “life-defending” vegan operates from? countless soil microorganisms, insects, or even small mammals that get eviscerated to monoculture the grains/seeds needed to sustain their diet seem to be of little/no concern to them. Are these not life?”
Yes. Hierarchy of morals. But that’s moralistic individuals for you.
Nail, head, hit
Many thanks for this piece, JLS.
One way to think of the matter is that Big Meat is making a defensive move to preserve its long-term options: get a foothold in this fad and that fad; these footholds are all just bets and hedges. As uncertainty is resolved over time, shed certain holdings and move more aggressively into others …
Indeed-it is quite simple really – called ‘hedging your investments’.
I wish all writers including you would send the expression “ad nauseum” to a distant museum, inaccessible to the public. The correct Latin term is “ad nauseam”, which should be easy to remember, especially if this admonition gives you nausea ad infinitum.
As a courtesy my wife and I joined some vegans at a vegan restaurant. The vegetables were fine but the meat substitute was disgusting. Why bother making somethong revolting that pretends to be meat when nuts, seeds and vegetables can be delicious and nutritious?
MOST VEGANS DO NOT EAT MEAT SUBSTITUTES !! when will the carnivore masses get that !
“MOST VEGANS DO NOT EAT MEAT SUBSTITUTES”
”Most”, not “all”. Maybe the people Michael was with did eat meat substitute.
brett ! of course they did – not the point – do get with the programme here…
Can you back up your “most vegans” comment? And, please, not in caps. It doesn’t make it any more factual.
Michael was commenting on meat substitute. He wasn’t making any reference to numbers. You’re getting a bit strident.
“In June last year the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that children on vegan diets were, on average, 1.2 inches shorter and had up to 6% lower bone mineral content than meat-eating peers.”
Add to that sort of disaster the burgeoning obesity that has crept up on many in the West who have swallowed the “cholesterol is bad for you” myth and consumed vast quanities of doctored low fat “natural” foods of all varieties which have added sugar, artificial sugars, and goodness knows what chemical flavourings added to improve their palatability, we are brewing a perfect health storm.
Given that, and the present societal madness, the words lemmings and cliff seem apposite.
Unsurprising that vegan children are shorter than non-vegan children. Presumably because the vegan kids don’t drink cow’s milk which has has a growth promoting effect.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/357666493_The_endocrine_and_epigenetic_impact_of_persistent_cow_milk_consumption_on_prostate_carcinogenesis
I am pretty close to being fully vegan, for ethical reasons. However I think we need to be aware of the nutrional deficiences that can arise, and how they can be remedied. For example, check out this article:
Should Vegans Take DHA to Preserve Brain Function
It points out that a deficiency in long-chain omega-3s, like DHA, can be detrimental to brain function as we age. Fortunately, it seems there is a straightforward supplement solution to the problem, as described in the article.
I’d love to know what the solution is, bar a world-wide revolution against the Taker mindset. It’s as old a story and any, but how to get past it? I scratch my head but I can’t think of anything. The greed and stupidity graphs are so intertwined, back, front, up, down, everywhere you look.
You forgot Soylent Green and “In the year 2525”
And, of course, a carb-induced obesity epidemic would be just up Big Pharma’s street. So that is all the vested interests involved.
I’m not a vegetarian, but at least those people are making a moral point that I can understand. Veganism, on the other hand, looks to me more as a religious dietary regimen, like kashrut or halal, that hipsters pursue because it is hard. As such, it has nothing to do with saving animals from slaughter, which we will shortly accomplish by growing meat from cells, or reducing the environmental footprint of farming, which GMO technology is coming to be superb at doing.
I think of veganism as the vinyl record culture of human nutrition. You can impress your social media friends by sticking to a pointless ritual of personal discipline.
This is the best response. Technology will eventually render these arguments moot, though there will still be people that refuse to eat the cell produced meat or GMO foods because the nature fetishism that drives veganism will remain long after discussions about food scarcity and cow farts are relegated to historical and sociological journals.
Care to explain the moral superiority of vegetarians over vegans? And I’m referring to those of both labels that are driven by an ethical stance.
Deleted
vegans take the ‘next step’ nothing milk based, animal skins , testing etc
Vegetarians are all about not killing animals. Traditional vegetarian societies, like the Hindu, conscript the animal to work in exchange for protection. The cow prospers, while producing dairy products for its keeper. Kept bees thrive in security from their natural enemies, while being ‘taxed’ a portion of their honey.
Whenever I’ve asked a vegan why he eschews farm products that don’t involve killing the animals that produce them, I get a handwavey ‘because animal cruelty.’ So why not promote a set of ethical standards for animal husbandry? Swiss dairy cows live better lives than their keepers. Vegans should be happy to eat products from happy bees and contented cows.
No. Veganism is compassion for animals – it’s really that simple and coherent.
It’s not clear to me what moral point vegetarianism makes given the suffering caused to cows by taking their milk.
You do understand that if cows, sheep, pigs and hens are not farmed for food they will have to be destroyed and will quickly become extinct ?
Far better to support Compassion in World Farming than to campaign for veganism, which would lead to all sorts of problems, environmental and human health, not just the extinction of our beloved domesticated animals.
No sensible vegan thinks a transition would be feasible overnight.
How can a creature be beloved – human or otherwise – if you steal its life and body?
Well strangely enough they can. Strange but true.
Oh yes, lets keep the chickens covered in shit collapsing under the artificial weight going to preserve their genetic heritage (that we bred into them over hundreds of years).
for the most part you are incorrect – vege/veganism is very hard work and only the few virtue signalling w*******ers would suffer that for self beatification – the rest of us veges just have higher stress -‘what wll we do for dinner’ – it used to be soooo easy !!
Vegetarians aren’t making a moral point they just want to add a degree or separation, usually because they find it a bit gross. The milk industry is the cattle industry.
This is a throwaway account, who am I trying to impress? f**k your social norms and mental gymnastics. I’m vegan because it’s easy.
Actually you’re aggressive and easily set off. I hope it’s not your diet.
There’s an old West African saying, “A hungry man is an angry man”.
They know a thing or two.
Vegans like to cite all sorts of science, just not economics. A simple understanding of economic realities would reveal the utter ridiculousness of their main argument, food scarcity. A simple Google search reveals that a significant portion of farmed grains go to livestock production. Indeed, that is one of vegans chief complaints, but economics tells us that if the meat industry suddenly vanished, the price of most grains would immediately collapse because farms already produce WAY more than we need of some crops. It’s simply not true that we don’t have enough food to feed the world. We already have more than enough and then some. We have so much excess that we can afford to feed it to other animals and then slaughter and eat those to diversify our diet and make us healthier than our peasant bread subsisting ancestors. If sustenance were well and truly scarce, economics dictates that the price would be too high for industrial farming which uses large quantities of animal feed. No one would build chicken houses or cattle ranches because it would not be profitable. The entire industrial meat farming industry is completely dependent on the low prices of staple grains. It literally could not exist if people were subsisting on crusts of bread like some Dickensian orphan. The fact is farms produce too much grain for the level of demand. There is an excess, and there still would be even if one could somehow wave a magic wand and build good roads, houses, sanitation systems, and governments for all the starving African children. I submit that producing enough food to feed the world is not our problem at the moment, and given global demographic trends, is unlikely to become a problem in the foreseeable future. I further submit that where hunger exists, the problem is more attributable to lack of distribution, infrastructure, and general poverty, none of which are likely to be affected in any way by any of this. Whether all that extra corn goes through a factory to be turned into fake meat or through a cow’s gut to be turned into actual meat, the economic result is the same, and the companies funding all this stuff are well aware of that. If they can produce fake meat more cheaply than actual meat, it could theoretically replace actual meat, and whichever company does that first will have a tremendous market advantage. Even if, as I suspect, there’s no way this will ever be cheaper than natural meat, there’s still plenty of money to be made by selling a niche product to urbanites who worship nature while having no concept of what nature actually is.
THEIR MAIN ARGUMENT HAS NEVER BEEN FOOD SCARCITY – it has been that ‘we’ have no right to cause pain to other creatures – all else is attempted leverage (and actually that is a bad idea). Keep it simple – you are either an animal exploiter or you are not – that is it – and whatever corporations may do they are just following YOU and hedging their bets !! All the rest is bullswool.
“THEIR MAIN ARGUMENT HAS NEVER BEEN FOOD SCARCITY – it has been that ‘we’ have no right to cause pain to other creatures”
Well you lose the argument, because as much as I don’t like to cause pain it’s a fact of life. I don’t know how any animal kills another without inflicting pain. My parents died in pain, my wife gave birth in pain. If your issues is about pain then you have a big task ahead of you, because you should be against all pain. Corporations are not following us at all. They take advantage of who we are and what we need.
She said you have no right to cause it, not that it doesn’t exist.
Did you kill your parents? No? Then wtf are you on about?
Thats a fair point, but you avoided the matter of the pain caused by one animal to another,
It is about choice and arrogant entitlement brother – and if you dont understand that best keep quiet or everyone will know for sure that you are a twit
( actually a pregnant bird i think but kinda apposite)
Keep it up, brother. We love it when you spin out.
I concede the obvious. I am an animal exploiter. So are you and so is nearly every other animal as they prey upon, parasitize, outcompete, domesticate, or otherwise interact with other animals. Even plants exploit animals as the decaying organic matter is necessary for their survival. This is how the ecosystem works. Thank for vividly illustrating my point about nature worshippers who have no real understanding of nature. That said, one can be against industrial farming without being against all farming or all meat. That is a more reasonable position and one I sympathize with. Industrial farming is highly unnatural. I don’t know anyone that would dispute that. However, industrial farming, plant or animal, is also necessary to feed our population at reasonable cost. I submit that one is not better or worse than, but some combination of them is necessary and I personally see no viable solution that eliminates the need for one, the other, or both. The best we can do is set reasonable limits and pass laws based on science that minimize the damage caused by industrial farming of any sort. We already do that through animal cruelty laws and farming regulations like those the government is attempting to enforce in the Netherlands. Reasonable, sane people can disagree about what lines to draw and where. Speaking and thinking in terms of black and white, good and evil, “you’re either with us or against us.” is never helpful in political discourse. The fact that this attitude is commonplace speaks to the problems with our political discourse in general.
I think it’s great that people eat less meat. Other people obviously – not me, because I like eating meat, so I’ll carry on as I am.
And another reason I’ll carry on is that I don’t like being lied to about “climate change” by imbeciles.
But they can eat flowers, If they want to. No skin off my nose.
“ad nauseum”
That should be ‘ad nauseam’. If unsure how to spell something, check.
Everywhere I look, all I see is “the grift.”
COVID policies, both hyping the suspect vaccines and teh effects of the lockdowns on small bsuiness and our own social fabric.
Provoking and then how we responded to Russia attacking Ukraine.
Climate policy in every respect, from energy production to distribution to use, and the food policies described here are closely aligned with cllimate.
The news media, no longer even a pretense of trying to find and report the truth, but totally in thrall to moneyed and institutional elites and happily cooperating in spreading false consciousness across the public, making them easier to control and exploit.
Social media tearing apart our societies and causing great harm among our young.
Critical race and gender theories and measures, adopted by almost all large amd many medium-sized corporations, almost every government and NGO worth noticing.
The entertainment industry, including the makers and purveyors of high-, mid-, and popular culture.
Just on and on, fabulosly rich people working with government and cultural elites to foist upon the people things that are not helpful or even benign, but create real harm and destroy real value, as the people at the top grow richer and more powerful.
And all working synergistically, reinforcing each other as they impoverish and damage the middle and working classes, and lock the poor into perpetual, generation-after-generation misery.
Please tell me where I have missed a major field where this is NOT happening.
We already know the result of the veg*n push: damaged bodies, including diabetes and Hashimoto’s. We know that when people moved to grain-based diets, post hunter-gatherer, they grew shorter, weaker, with brittle bones and bad dentition (rotten teeth). This is about control of the populace, a step further down in human health than the advent of ag!
But please stop blaming feminists. We have been among the most vocal in fighting this — read Lierre Keith’s excellent book, The Vegetarian Myth, for more on the deceptions and the damages wreaked by this sadistic push.
Do we actually “know” that these bad effects happened due to moving to a grain-based diet? And did our ancestors ever deliberately stop eating meat when it was available to them?
And in terms of “sadism”–the cruelty involved in the slaughter of animals would certainly rank higher in sadism than the harvesting of vegetables.
Ummm ‘sadistic ?? have you ever looked inside a chook factory or pig factory – Diana you truly sound like you dont think or explore too much about things….
Interesting take. Some new details on the food industry.
An excellent resource for this discussion: Meat, A Benign Extravagance by Simon Fairlie.
An interesting piece, however there’s a rather large fly in the ointment for the corporates who want to promote this stuff & it’s twofold.
Firstly all they’ve been able to do so far is replace junk food like cheap burgers & chicken nuggets.
Secondly, there’s massive gold between making this stuff in a lab & being able to make it profitably in the marketplace.
Two of the biggest names Oatly & Impossible Foods have never made a profit & while they’ve had corporate backers, this will only last so long.
I often tease Oatly on Twitter. Thery can’t even take a cheap product like oats, mix in some seed oil & a bit of sugar and make it profitably.
Oliver Twist had the right description though. 😉
There is no such thing as the meat industry – there is a livestock industry, which supplies a whole and massive range of other products and by products besides food.
When the debate embraces this vital fact, looks seriously at how we will replace all these other products by manufacturing, and faces up to the fact that the environmental impact of that will far outweigh any harm livestock farming does, then and only then will we begin to think seriously about going vegan en masse.
The fact that the global food industry is hedging by investing in some vegan products is not a signifier of any real threat.
Science is in becks, it’s way better for the environment.
Has anyone ever heard of a happy vegan? Let’s look at the comments to find out!
I am happy – but i miss cheese a lot – tho must say the vegan attempts are getting better – and in NZ nearly the same price of (overpriced ) cheese ! likewise mayonaisse…miss bacon tho – but can sleep better at night having seen what happens on the inside of pork factories……….
I love being vegan. I eat healthier and feel healthier then I ever have in my life. Plus I have the added sense of well being that comes from knowing no animals suffered as a result.
There is a person who is no more important than any of you who has the legitimate real world experience of talking with more people about not needlessly harming the animals than anyone alive. That person is me and this what I have to say on the matter.
“Life is Most Important in Life is The Most Important Truth in Life”
That truth is the truth that all other truths depend on always being true to then be true themselves. That truth is the truth that defines who we each are and why, and how important we each are and why. It has always been true, is always true, and can only ever be true. It is a truth that we all share in common. It is the truthful reason to live, love and care for life. It is also the Testament Life Witness if the man many call Jesus, and it is also the very truth that is the cure and prevention of all needless and preventable suffering and death. As needless and preventable suffering and death can only occur after someone has dismissed, stifled and surpressed the truth that life is most important.
First, you who have read these words have now been freely shared the truth that is the cure. What you choose to do with that knowledge is your judgement to make. A person who is shared this truth who does not care about this truth cannot possibly honestly care about life. A person who has been shared this truth who takes any sort of issue with it whatsoever and then claims to represent life’s truthful interests anyway before responsibly publicly affirming it is correct will loose and possibility of having heart, soul and integrity going forward forever. That person cannot ever be properly trusted with life of any kind ever again. That includes their own and even a bug it is an act of absolute soullessness to get shared the truth that is the cure and stifle it and then claim to represent life’s truthful interests anyway. Indeed, it is the only unforgivable sin. It is an act pure wicked soulless evil and it worst evil that has ever occurred in the entire history of the human race.
You have been freely shared the cure. It does exist and it is very real and must choose and there are no do-overs possible.
Veganism is a sick and twisted control freak cult abusing the valid life cause of the animals to trick people into replacing the truth of the importance of life itself with the nonsense of veganism: a belief that has no defined reason as for how, why, and how much life is truthfully important and is not and nor will ever be a truthful reason to live, love and care for life. As such, veganism is completely void of any truthful foundation whatsoever.
Veganism was publicly excorcised in the name of Jesus Christ on 8/13/20.
Love the animals for sure. Do not enslave them and harm them needlessly. If you do not need to eat them to live, then don’t do it. Doing that when it is really unnecessary is not upholding The Most Important Truth in Life as true. e.g. it is lying and causing needless harm. That part is correct. It is just that veganism has absolutely nothing at all to do with why it is wrong to needlessly harm animals.
Blue Horizon was already shared this truth.They did not share it with you and did so without ever once anyone, anywhere, ever presenting a vaild reason to do that stifling of the very truth of the importance of life itself and the cure.
David Wishengrad
Exorcist, 1st class
crikey
The dismissal of basic commonsense truth is the hallmark of cult mind control and brainwashing. Look it up. I see 16 negative likes and not a single truthfully substantiated logical reason presented here for that very stifling of the very truth that all other truths depend on to be true themselves.
They care more about “vegansim” than the truth of the importance of life itself and the truth that is the actual cure and prevention of all needless and preventable suffering and death.
That’s what happens when a person is tricked into replacing the truth of the importance of life itself with nonsense as a reason to care about life.
They don’t really care about the animals or you. They know it would be a contradiction to use life to say anything that even suggests that the truth “Life is Most Important in Life is The Most Important Truth in Life”, may not be true or possibly may not always be true. So, they pretend and lie with the dislike in an attempt to trick you into making the same soul sucking mistake.
All those children that have been murdered in the schools recently were insisted on and thus caused by the very people who had already been shared this truth and who thennchose to stifle it. Thos horrific events are their causing by the choice to withhold their knowledge of the truth that is the cure without a single substantiated logical reason to do that ever being presented by anyone anywhere, ever.
how does this crap get by our sifters of crap ?
The person currently living who is considered the best with logic wrote to me, “I wholeheartedly agree”, regarding the truth I shared here.
If there is a flaw, then point it out. Using life to make a claim that life being truthfully most important is, “crap”, is a contradiction (a lie) on your part. You will need to provide evidence of your claim of, “crap”, without ever using life in the process of making that claim in order to not contradict yourself.
You will never know the feeling of having your heart touched ever again. That’s not some joke. You lost any possibility of having heart, soul and integrity going forward, forever. You have judged yourself guilty of eternal soullessness in full public witness.
Spinning out again. Hope it’s not your diet.
I bet you circle words in books.