Writing in the Washington Post, Professor James E. McWilliams, author of “Just Food”, recounts giving a speech in Texas on the “environmental virtues” of a vegetarian diet. It was not well-received. One man told him, during the Q&A, “what I eat is my business — it’s personal.”
McWilliams:
I’ve been writing about food and agriculture for more than a decade. Until that evening, however, I’d never actively thought about this most basic culinary question: Is eating personal?
We know more than we’ve ever known about the innards of the global food system. We understand that food can both nourish and kill. We know that its production can both destroy and enhance our environment. We know that farming touches every aspect of our lives — the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the soil we need.
So it’s hard to avoid concluding that eating cannot be personal. What I eat influences you. What you eat influences me. Our diets are deeply, intimately and necessarily political…
Watch out – he’s making a move for your fork:
We know that something has to be done to save our food from corporate interests. But I wonder — are we ready to do what must be done? Sure, we’ve been inundated with ideas: eat local, vote with your fork, buy organic, support fair trade, etc. But these proposals all lack something that every successful environmental movement has always placed at its core: genuine sacrifice.
Until we make that leap, until we create a culinary culture in which the meat-eaters must do the apologizing, the current proposals will be nothing more than gestures that turn the fork into an empty symbol rather than a real tool for environmental change.
(emph. mine)
I didn’t claw my way to the top of the food chain top eat vegtables.
In Canada, home of the free, cosseted veal calves are fattened by attentive hand-feeding in loving, carefully selected and closely monitored foster-farming situations, the humane production of delicious, positive-karma pale meat products being an almost universal top-of-mind concern among the compassionate citizens of this septentrional nation.
Why, the photo albums – complete with ribbon-tied locks of hair – of the cherished veal calves that have passed through our house alone fill several shelves. We often, of an evening, curl up cosily in front of a crackling fire, flip through the pages of one or another of these treasured tomes, and fondly recall how dearly we loved each and every one of those sweet, tender, juicy young animals.
Overheard at a takeout-restaurant window:
“Mr. McWilliams, would you like a knife and fork in the bag?”
Do it, I say.
‘Vegetable’ eating is illogical and irrational: it simply makes no sense.
There, fixed it for you bleet.
Let me take a guess. You like to sneak into a MacDonalds now and then, don’t you. Probably sit in the corner, hands shaking as you unwrap the double cheese burger. That delicious odor causing your taste buds to salivate with expectation. Your fake moustache falling to the table. You quickly try to paste it back on, hoping no one you know sees through your disquise, sees you inside the golden arches. A crazed and demented look comes into your eyes as you take that first bite, instantly fueling the rush. Like a junkie searching for a vein, then finding the release he so needs.
Ring any bells bleet?
I have three comments.
First, as for the McWilliams, fork him!
Second, that in less-populated areas, such as, say, Newfoundland or Alaska, it is sensible to eat meat (moose for example)
that range on scrubland which can’t be farmed – the moose must be shot first, of course – they object if you just take
a bite out of their leg. As Sarah Palin noted, it’s cheaper and healthier to eat moose (or caribou) than to ship in meat from elsewhere.
Third, re the post by “gellen”: remember James Fixx and Richard Burton. James Fixx lived a healthy life style, jogged
(which he popularised), and died at age 52. Richard Burton never saw a gin bottle, nor a lady, that he didn’t fancy, and lived ’til he was 56.
[But these proposals all lack something that every successful environmental movement has always placed at its core: genuine sacrifice. ]
Hello Al ‘exec jet’ Gore and Dave ‘lotsa houses’ Suzuki.
Let’s have some fun and list the animals we have eaten. Here’s my list:
beef, moose, buffalo, deer, springbok, crocodile, kudu, pork, lamb, snake, rabbit, dog, countless types of fish, frog (legs), various game birds, and the usual farm birds of all kinds.
Lamb is still king for me.
Let’s have some fun and list the animals we have eaten. Here’s my list:
beef, moose, buffalo, deer, springbok, crocodile, kudu, pork, lamb, snake, rabbit, dog, countless types of fish, frog (legs), various game birds, and the usual farm birds of all kinds.
Lamb is still king for me.
Just a FYI for Mr. McWilliams: It’s not “sacrifice” when you make someone else do it.
As posted above there are vast land tracts in North America that are only suited to animal grazing. The soil type or climate will not support grain production.
The absolute best utilization of that land is to turn the grass into beef (meat)…that humans can consume.
And as an added note there is alot of grain that does not make the grade for human consumption. For one reason or another people can’t eat it. But animals can. Would it suit the environnuts better to waste that feed grain or is it better to convert it into a nutrious foodstuff namely meat? The answer is easy.
Hey TJ, you can add kangaroo, elk, caribou, bear, alligator and beaver to your list for me. No jokes about the last item though:-)
I wonder if someone is keeping a list of all the things that we need to sacrifice to ‘save the world for the sake of your children and grandchildren’.
First, ironically, you must sacrifice children by having have fewer or none at all. Then give up the following: meat, cars, suburban homes, full flush toilets, air travel, reliable and affordable electricity, staying at a comfortable room temp all year round and most important…more of your paycheck to fund social and environmental justice.
So, basically, the worst of the pre-industrial lifestyle combined with the modern welfare state. All accomplished by simply submitting to the unending dictates of control-freak nannycrats. I can’t imagine why any self-respecting adult would reject this wonderfully planned utopia.
Good additions Texas Canuck.
I feel like I’ve left some off my list, but cannot remember what they are.
Dog was awful, ate that in Korea, don’t need it again. Everything else I’d eat again, although frogs legs are overrated – had them in Paris years ago, tasted like chicken.
Some wild African game is very good indeed if it is prepared right.
This whole business about consumption of meat being bad for the environment is never properly explained.
It’s got nothing to do with those of us who like to put a good quality steak on the grill once in a while.
It’s about companies like McDonald’s who want to sell an unhealthy greasy burger for a few bucks to a million people a day.
This is was gets me annoyed with people like McWilliams. They oversimplify things, and they paint everyone as evil in order to get attention.
I have to wonder if we have enough high end agricultural land, in North America, to grow enough grain and vegetables, to feed everyone. The reason you see all those cows out there, is because the land is not suitable for cultivation. Do you suppose these nutjobs even care about that?
TJ: dolphin, spotted owl, koala, chimpanzee (the hands only), chihuahua, flamingo, goldfish, shetland pony, bald eagle, cockatiel, and baby panda.
All were quite tasty, with the notable exception of the chihuahua, which had too many bones.
Nevermind the dairy cattle, past their milking years, ya think we’ve been burying them in the back 40?
Seriously the only thing that concerns me is these wankers _JUST _NEVER _ STOP_ It sounds ridiculous now, but in 20 years of incrementalism it’ll become recieved wisdom amongst the great and good, and thus legislation for the rest of us weenies.
Ya don’t think Great Britain become the gun hostile paranoid stuper stupid soft facist state it is today overnight, right? Took a 100 years of whack jobs like that slowly pushing their agendas one comma at a time.
I ate chili for supper this evening. The only thing I apologise for is that there wasn’t enough to go around.
If you want “responsible eating”, ect, encourage eating fruit, paying a proper price for chocolate, coffee, sugar and tea and stop paying illegal migrant workers crappy wages for doing dirty work (better yet, encourage Canadian teen-agers to do that work or at least get migrants to become legal residents so then they could be treated properly).
Just my thoughts.
I am astonished at the reaction to this gentle saint of a man trying in his own way to improve the health and social environment for all mankind. Do you not know that eating meat protein has been shown to heighten aggressive tendencies in most omnivorous and carnivorous animal species, including humans?
It was clearly demonstrated by “experts” during an episode on either Law and Order or that other lefty soap opera Boston Legal, so it must be true.
Scratch a an ecco-veg and you’ll find a fascist bastard.
Sgt. Lejaune, if he was a “gentle saint of a man”, then why isn’t he asking others to eat bulgogi with rice and kimchi? After, all that goes into that food is grown locally and the preparation has little changed over the centuries. It’s also extremely good and culturally diverse. I thought all those eco-guys were about “diverse”!
I could comment that I’ve got something the Dear Professor can feast on…
…but Kate might spank me for it.
Uhmmmm. No…I better not go there either.
Welcome to our world!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Don’t all you non-vegetarians know that it is the new politically correct world order. Only THEY get to decide how you live your life. And don’t say, “oh but smoking is bad, it is different, so you SHOULD quit – we can ban it cause it smells bad” or I will be laughing with YOU when they ban outdoor bbqs because the smoke wafts into your vegetarian neighbour’s back yard. Don’t forget steak uses more carbon to make the meat too (so one should feel guilty), just like we cost the health care system more by dying of lung cancer vs. death by wasting away in a nursing home for 10 years or complications from competitive sports injuries.
I prefer the older, “live and let live”, “mind your own business” world. Activism is very stressful for those involved (as we don’t change), as well as those whom they torture.
Anyone remember Ule Gibbons, back in the 60’s he would walk through the woods saying this is edible and so is that, he would say we all should live healthy lives.
Well, all that healthy eating resulted in a fatal heart attack…Rip Ule Gibbons…56 years young.
It’s NOT your life style thats to blame…it’s your genetics that will decide if you are going to live to a ripe old age or not!
Sad, but true, William. I have high cholesterol, and there’s not a damn thing I can do about it. I can’t control it with diet, and I can’t tolerate the medications. I’ve tried 3 different medicines, and all them started to dissolve my liver. My only preventative medicine is aspirin.
I tried a strict diet, and nothing changed. I’ve always been fit, but just like Jim Fixx, the genes don’t care how far I run. I have no idea how long I’ll last, but I’d hate to tip over after a big meal of tofu, and soy milk. I want to go down with a gut full of good food.
I’ve been busy eating all day…didn’t have time to read all the comments.I’m sure the topic has been covered but when I read this:
“What I eat influences you”
my first response was:
Only when you fart in the same room Buddy.
Hey Terry anderson-
If McDonald’s is your idea of high cuisine, more power to ya! Go for it!
Our poor kids.
Those of us 60 and over have had the world as our oyster; we’ve lived the life of Riley, overindulging in every luxury imaginable: education, health care, housing, clothing, entertainment, travel, food, drink, etc. We have eaten, drunk, and been merry without much thought for tomorrow and now, in our guilt (thanks, Gore and Suzuki et al. — you who indulge more than most) are telling our young people “YOU have to be frugal now, to make up for OUR profligate lifestyles.”
Then, what riles more than anything, is the food fascists, that advocate we eschew meat, are attempting to make money off their propaganda by making the rest of us feel guilty.
Let them eat turnips.
So the Inuit who lived mainly or only on meat/fish for thousands of years are what to these enlightened and overeducated cranks?
Is feeble mindedness a sign of malnutrition these days?
As a human I am genetically an omnivore, anything edible I can eat and I benefit from eating a variety. I am neither carnivore or vegetarian and I accept and celebrate the diversity of my diet as both healthy and overall not bad for the world I live in. And if someone wants to stick their nose in what I choose to eat and dictate that choice I think I would only be willing to discuss it over a course of seal steak tartar.
So much to say..
Just returned from a birthday banquet for my younger daughter. It was held at a Chinese restaurant. Now, the Chinese have been civilized longer than any other group on Earth. What did we eat?
Fish maw and crab soup, cold appetizer platter (jellyfish, duck feet, beef heart, pickled cucumber, steamed chicken), shrimp and scallops with snow peas, pork in lemon sauce, shrimp with dried scallops and bok choy in crab sauce, wok-fried lobster, steamed chicken, steamed fish, rice, noodles, and dessert. One might notice the almost complete concentration on meat, fish, and poultry, with vegetables as adornment only.
I’m diabetic. The type of diet the dear professor proclaims would probably kill me – too high in carbs, not enough protein. Also, almost every strict vegan I know (no eggs, no fish, etc.) has to take vitamin supplements to stay healthy. I don’t know how any sane person can insist others eat a diet that would kill them without supplements.
Finally, for EBD: A T-shirt store in downtown Toronto, on trendy Queen Street West no less, had a sign out front this summer: “If God didn’t want us to eat animals, why did he make them so damn tasty?”.
(with apologies to Texas Canuuck…this has to be said)
A true story:
My younger brother moved from Canada to Australia about three years ago when he married an Aussie woman with two teenaged boys.
When I went to visit him, he was determined to get some kangaroo steak for me to try. Unfortunately, it was out of season, so he wasn’t able to find any. But his younger teenaged stepson, about 13 years old, was upset that he was even looking for it. He’d said “The kangaroo is our national animal. I won’t eat our national animal. Would you eat yours?”
My younger brother replied “Sure, I eat it all the time…ask your Mom!”
If and when the young guy figures it out and remembers, I’m sure it will be an ‘EEWWWUU, Mother?’ moment.
“So it’s hard to avoid concluding that eating cannot be personal. What I eat influences you. What you eat influences me. Our diets are deeply, intimately and necessarily political.”
This has been done already. Twice. First time was 1932/33, in the Ukraine. Second time was 1958 in China. The Ukrainian famine and the Great Leap Forward. It didn’t turn out well either time.
But I’m ever so sure that the good professor has figured out a way to make the whole world strict vegetarians which will make life a fun and exciting adventure in culinary wonderfulness.
I also observe that this man is why the USA was founded with the Second Amendment as part of the Constitution.
Save the world, eat an environmentalist for lunch.
One aspect of this guy’s rant that does not concern meat-eating has always been a sore spot for me. And that is the morally superior stance of “organic” activists. Eat organic all you want, i don’t really care, but what I do care about is the degree of misinformation about its supposed superiority to more “industrial” or larger scale operations. They should realize, among other things, that if all farms converted to organic methods of production you would have a serious global famine on your hands in a hurry. These Cargills and Monsantos that they despise so much are one of several “industrial” reasons there aren’t billions more hungry humans on this planet.
And that’s just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to everything wrong with what this man represents.
If you are what you eat, I now realize why my friends call me a pussy.
Oh, and keep stayin’ real angry, guys. That, along with your artery-clogging diet will ensure more arable land for us to grow more veggies.
The Vegetarian Myth: Food, Justice and Sustainability by Lierre Keith. Pretty good book by a reformed vegan after her health failed as a direct result of her vegan dietary restrictions. Vegan and/or vegitarian choices are lifestyle choices. They are demonstrably harmful to health of the individual and to the planet.
Posted by: Iain
[…As a human I am genetically an omnivore, anything edible I can eat and I benefit from eating a variety. I am neither carnivore or vegetarian and I accept and celebrate the diversity of my diet as both healthy and overall not bad for the world I live in. And if someone wants to stick their nose in what I choose to eat and dictate that choice I think I would only be willing to discuss it over a course of seal steak tartar.]
Agreed but I’ll skip the seal steak tartar…
Kevin B
[..I’m diabetic. The type of diet the dear professor proclaims would probably kill me – too high in carbs, not enough protein. Also, almost every strict vegan I know (no eggs, no fish, etc.) has to take vitamin supplements to stay healthy. ]
How true. On of the inconvenient truths is that 3 of the ESSENTIAL amino acids, we humans need to survive can only be derived from animal sources….usually a just a glass of whole milk and/or an egg per day.
Whenever I encounter one of these vegans I inform them of that…and they insist they do this without supplements—-To which I declare they are either crazy or lying. BTW—those health store supplements are derived from animal sources—it’s the only source—unless you for example can eat a ton of barley/day.
Animal Nutrition 101.
I can only assume the dear professor is quite mad.
It is indeed true that vegans don’t generally get the necessary nutrients in their diet.
We have friends whose teenage daughter won’t eat meat and the girl always looks deathly pale and has far less energy than most kids her age.
If we are what we eat – then deer, moose and cows are vegetables.
What’s the nutty professor’s problem again?
First of all, “The Personal is Political” is (possibly among other things) a feminist slogan. The rationale of course is to expand government power by bringing all kinds of things under the heading of “politics” where they don’t belong. This clown McWilliams is merely branching it out in another direction. And aren`t clowns evil? This one certainly is.
Re: “Genuine sacrifice”
Here we see why altruism is immoral: because it means sacrifice for its own sake. As Ayn Rand said, when you hear people preaching sacrifice, run in the opposite direction.
Re: … create a culinary culture in which “the meat-eaters must do the apologizing”
This is an attempt to foster unearned guilt. It won’t work on thoughtful, rationial people. Ayn Rand wrote about this trick too.
rabbit (paraphrasing the evil clown): “If you do something that – directly or indirectly – effects all of us then the state has the right, nay the duty, to control it.”
That`s another way of sizing it up. L C Bennett at 8:26 understands too.
bleet: “Meat eating is illogical and irrational: it simply makes no sense”
It makes sense if the meat sustains you and is tasty. That’s all the reason you need.
Ahem…
http://img40.imageshack.us/img40/5770/eatgreensclrthmb.jpg
Biggest load of BS that I’ve seen in years; Phantom was correct in noting the role of the US 2nd Amendment in protecting us from stupidity of the magnitude exhibited by McWilliams.
My opinion is that veganism should be a psychiatric diagnosis in the DSMV or DSMVI. Some of the most pathetic patient pathologies I’ve seen have been in vegans with iron deficiency anemia and B12 deficiency who refuse to take supplements because they don’t want to put any “chemicals” into their bodies. Of course the patient with one of the lowest B12 levels I’ve ever seen blamed “pollution” for his loss of sensation in his feet and loss of balance. That was when I was practicing in Vancouver and now that I practice in the BC interior in a location with an abundance of ranches close by I’m surrounded by healthy carnivores. It’s very refreshing.
We are genetically programmed to eat meat and the effects of a high carbohydrate diet can be all too frequently seen in native Americans who balloon to impressive sizes on a high carb diet. Many of my obese native patients with diabetes have responded wonderfully when they switched to a diet of game meat and salmon cutting out the carbs. The Atkins diet works very well and I know I’ve driven the dieticians at one of the lipid clinic crazy when obese patients whose triglycerides refused to go down on their “balanced” diets suddenly dropped to normal when I put them on an all meat diet.
I can survive on a diet of steak every day but carbs are addictive for a lot of people and the main reason that the Atkins diet fails is that people sneak more and more carbs and regain the weight they have lost.
There are a few things to keep in mind. If you go to an all meat diet, chose either wild game or free range beef. Wild meat is a lot leaner than grain fed beef and has a much healthier ratio of omega3/omega6 fatty acids. Feeding cattle grain to fatten them jacks up the omega6 fatty acids in the meat which have to be balanced with large doses of omega-3 supplements. Buffalo is great as it is low fat and almost all of it is grass fed. The only problem is that it is hard to get fresh buffalo and the last time I asked how to get some I was told to bring a large enough caliber rifle to the ranch, pick out a buffalo and shoot it and they’d butcher it for me. Not enough room in my freezer for that as it’s full of free range lamb.
To quote an unnamed Kzin from one of Larry Niven’s novels: “How much intelligence does it take to stalk a blade of grass?”
So, how come people who don’t eat meat, and insist they’re healthier than the rest of us, always look grey around the gills?
‘Go into any health food store and you think you’ve walked onto the set of Night of the Living Dead.
I’ll start apologizing for eating meat and drinking Guinness when vegetarians and tee-totallers start apologizing for Adolf Hitler.
I offer http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmK0bZl4ILM
Carrot Juice is Murder, by the Arrogant Worms. (I’ve heard the screams of the vegetables…scream scream scream….)
There are three major macronutrients, not including vitamins and minerals.
1) Protein
2) Fat
3) Carbohydrates
You can live a long and complete life eating only the first two, but avoiding the first 2 means an early death. In fact a no fat diet leads to rabbit Fever (try living on lean rabbit meat for a month and see just how sick you get)
While you can obtain some protein from Veggies, and we probably should eat more of them for lots of reasons, avoidance of meat is not a good thing for the human race. A vegan diet requires supplements. I have no trouble with people who choose vegan diets, their choice, but it is not morally superior….it is biologically dangerous if not done right (quite likely if you scale it).
I apologize for nothing in being an omnivore its in the genes. If genetic pre disporition is good enough to justify alternative sexual proclivities then it definitiely applies to feeding habits.
Hmm I think I better lodge a human rights complaint, I can’t help it if my genes drive me this way and I demand millions of dollars in compensation for the discrimination I suffer at the hands of tut tutting vegans
For those of you that so desire some vension, buffalo, emu or other so-called “exotic” meat you may want to visit a farmers market in your city…or travel outside the city to a more rural community. With some luck you may actually get some fresh meat and worst case scenario have to settle for frozen. Chances are someone at one of these markets can put you in touch with a producer to supply you with the desired cuts of meat if they aren’t available at the market location. Some deer farmers also sell from the farm gate…so you may want to google “deer farmers” in your province to find a producer somewhere in your vicinity.
The last I read on the reasons for supermarkets not carrying wild game meat (although raised in a domestic fashion) had to do with food safety. There are those that fear a harvest of wild game could end up in store coolers instead. Which I seriously doubt could happen.
Bon appetit!
Stephen:
Exactly. Rabbit meat is toxic. Everyone remember that.