From: L' Ermit (lhermit@hotmail.com)
Date: Mon Feb 25 2002 - 13:33:35 MST
La, la Mermaid, such emotionalism. You are quite devoid of meat to beat.. So
few facts. And the few “facts” presented are wrong. Cannibalism is very
common in animals. It is a good source of cheap protein, although it carries
rather nasty risks of infection (see BSD/CJS etc.).
Do you know why piglets need to have their teeth cut? If it is not done,
they bite their mothers nipples and then the other pigs will cannibalize
them - usually while alive. The pigs don't mind the smell of blood. They
like it, because they recognize what you apparently do not. That it is not
the “stench of death”, it is the smell of life. Carefully refined from
plants at great cost (it takes upwards of 7 Joules of plant energy to
produce 1 Joule of protein energy).
Next, chickens. Aside from doves, chickens are probably the most vicious
birds - and the most cannibalistic. Any poultry farmer will tell you that
most roosters will break any eggs that were not fertilized by him, or that
contain another rooster - or will kill any chicks unless kept carefully
separately. And all of the chickens that can get to the remains will eat the
contents of the eggs or the bodies of the chicks.
Most animals, don't even have to think about the implications of
cannibalism, they realize that meat is just meat; quite a sensible attitude
if you think about it. Visualize eating your mother. Shades of Monty Python.
Now let's deal with the rest of your “lesson” in animal husbandry.
Do you know how organic pork is grown? “Organic” pigs are distributed in
small high-density groups, and are not given antibiotics or high-protein
feed. Which means that they live much less comfortable lives than those in
the industrialized farms. Then, should a pig become sick, the entire barn is
put onto antibiotics - and that entire batch is sent down the “non-organic”
processing track as fast as possible. When they don't get sick, they go down
the "organic" track.
The large cattle raising operations are doing the same. Keeping them
"organic" and off antibiotics until they develop a disease (often mastitis)
and then you butcher them and push the next batch through. Which results in
more diseased animals, and lower production. But while there are nuts
prepared to pay a couple of dollars a pound more for "organic meat" the
policy returns handsome dividends (about $800 to $1000 more per head).
Do I approve? Only partially. I wish that we reserved our most effective
antibiotics for humans, for it sometimes seems to me that we are creating a
Darwinian environment which ensures that only the most lethal bacteria
survive. But animals - and humans - in high density conditions require
careful management to prevent the spread of disease. And antibiotics are one
of the cheapest management practices. Given how much people do not wish to
pay for food, I don't blame the agricultural industry for trying to find the
most bang-for-the-buck - or the pharmaceutical industry for supplying their
largest clients - who buy antibiotics by the ton, rather than the pill.
Which is why the better antibiotics tend to hit the farms at about the same
time as they hit the hospitals.
Now to milk.
Extolling the virtues of "organic milk" drunk warm from the cow is
completely unrealistic. Imagining that "organic" implies a bucolic heaven
where cows are carefully milked by caring cowmen, who call them by name, is
a fantasy. The cost of hand-milking would lead to a price in excess of $5
per gallon, and the bacteria counts would go through the roof... along with
far more bovine mastitis - which is a major reason why farmers use milking
machines even where labor is cheaper - it cuts down on bovine disease and
cross-infection.
As for the ridiculous idea of selling whole-fat milk straight from the cow,
I doubt many consumers would know what to do with it or how to handle it.
The human stomach cannot handle whole milk except in miniscule quantities
(which won't provide you enough calcium to avoid osteoporosis).
Traditionally milk would have been chilled (while breeding bacteria) and
separated before being used. And if not pasteurized and homogenized milk
sours in a day (or why ghee is popular in a certain warm country lacking in
refrigeration facilities and having a vast excess of cows) - which would
greatly increase consumption, and lead to more cows being required. A lot
more cows. Which would need more feed. A lot more feed. Which would take
more water. A lot more water. And land. A lot more land. And fuel,
fertilizer, pesticide, etc. All of which are expensive and not particularly
good for the environment. Which is why we don't do it that way any more.
In addition to bacterial risks, about 60% of the US (and Northern European)
population is not very good at handling saturated fats. Which, in those who
appear to be as uneducated as you in these matters, would lead to obesity
and cholesterol problems. Put them on anything more than 4% milk, and you
would probably reduce their lives by 20% or more. Not a particularly “nice”
kind of an idea.
These are the reasons, not really based on human health (except in so far as
it modifies buying habits), but economics and a desire not to cause
uneccessary harm (which come into most farming decisions), which have lead
to industrialized agriculture becoming dominant. The result is that more
humans live a better and longer life than ever before - and there are more
cows (and pigs, and chickens) alive than ever before too. And these are all
healthier than ever before (except in southern Asia perhaps), as well. You
could say that they have done as well for themselves as a prey species can.
Hermit
PS, the reason that at least some meat is essential to a healthy diet is
that there are essential acids (and minerals) that we cannot absorb except
in the presence of animal protein. Taking supplements is generally speaking
a futile exercise as we tend to shit/piss most of it straight out again - as
we have spent millenia developing a digestive system capable of extracting
what we need from plants and animal tissue. When we take it in the form of a
supplement, our body doesn’t recognize it – unless in the presence of
material which would normally supply us with those particular substances
anyway. The end result is that long-term “vegan vegetarians” tend to live
shorter lives (actuarial studies), become scatterbrained as they age (known
factor in geriatric medicine) and often develop very bad tempers (personal
and shared observation). These consequences can be staved off, but
apparently not evaded, by taking supplements at the same time as eating
appropriate high protein plant material (beans and nuts). Of course, the
last is not a particularly healthy dietary regime… and the fact that humans
are relatively long lived, but with great variance in life expectancy,
disguises how very unhealthy a vegetarian lifestyle really is.
_________________________________________________________________
Chat with friends online, try MSN Messenger: http://messenger.msn.com
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Wed Sep 25 2002 - 13:28:43 MDT