Mozart, The Marriage of Figaro

I can feel the winds of change in the atmosphere. Omnivore, locavore, retrovore, flexitarian, vegetarian, vegan, nutritarians, fruitarians, primativists, hunter-gatherers, paleos, backyard chickens, free range eggs, happy meat that is desperately unhappy, homegrown, butcher your own, farmer’s markets, food co ops and a host of other food fads and frauds are on the horizon.  Even Walmart is getting into the action, promising to make their food healthier and to provide heatlhy fresh foods to what they call food deserts, parts of the globe that are underserved communities. Of course, this would mean more WalMarts, too. What is sustainable and what is pure faddist? What is an honest attempt at ethics at what is just a fraud? How can a vegan advocate respond to these many distractions from what we already know works in the areas of morality, health, sustainability, global warming, and nonviolence? This podcast will look at a few of these food fads and see how they impact human and nonhuman animals, and how they impact the forward momentum of the abolitionist vegan movement.

We all learned not long ago that Omnivore’s have a Dilemma, thanks to Michael Pollan. Looking at the source of the few foods upon which we have become dependent, Pollan researches the genesis of our diets from food science labs to factory farms, from organic growers to foragers and hunters. Pollan has noted that Americans eat about two hundred pounds of animal flesh each year – twice the global average. That’s a lot of animals….

Shift in the Winds by Keith Hintons

Michael Pollan speaks at UC Davis

Flexitarians and Meat-Free Mondays

Then there is Mark Bittman, foodie and cookbook author who believes in flexitarianism. Despite the fact that detrimental impact of animal agriculture on the environment is well accepted at this point, Bittman, rather than espousing a healthy vegan diet, moves to promoting his “Vegan til  Six” idea. He was quoted in a NY Times article,

I decided to do this sort of “vegan till 6” plan. I didn’t have huge thoughts or plans about it. I just thought it was worth a try. Within three or four months, I lost 35 pounds, my blood sugar was normal, cholesterol levels were again normal … and my sleep apnea indeed went away. All these good things happened, and it wasn’t as if I was suffering so I stayed with it…. The animals he consumes are still suffering.Those who go vegan for other than ethical reasons often do not stay with it and do not even follow the advice of their physicians to eat a vegan diet. The problem with these campaigns is that they seem to spend precious time and resources on things that won’t significantly help nonhuman animals and help the human animals feel better about condemning animals to brief horrific lives and torturous deaths. Worse yet, when so-called animal protection organizations jump on the band wagon, they give credence to those who commodify animals and spread the very false notion that these campaigns are morally significant or will allow people to continue consuming animals with a clear conscience. There has recently been a spate of people returning to eating more meat due to the humane certification allowing them feel they are doing something ethical when they are not. Be wary of such deception.

Along with this philosophically weak idea of reducing meat consumption came Paul McCartney and the Meat Free Mondays campaigns. Time to give up those animal products Sir Paul, they seem to be clouding your judgment!

Jordan Wyatt of Coexisting With Nonhuman Animals; Paul McCartney singing Meat Free Monday

Nutritarians and Locavores

Dr. Joel Fuhrman’s book, Eat for Health, works towards achieving a diet of densely nutritious foods in every bite. While it does limit animal products to the very top of their food pyramid, it still leaves a good amount of blood and suffering, violence and domination, as part of the equation.  “..A nutritarian is a person who strives for more micronutrients per calorie in their diet-style.” Brendan Brazier has also looked at incorporating densely nutritious foods into diets for endurance athletes like himself and others, but he was able to do so with a vegan diet.

Another eating fad are those who believe optimal health can be achieved and the planet saved with a return to the hunter-gatherer state of being. Lierre Keith mentions this in her book, The Vegetarian Myth, as she looks at the importance of the grasslands.  Of course,consuming grass-fed beef has a couple of major problems – one, it kills animals and there is no humane way to murder; and two, it is unsustainable on a scale necessary to feed the people now living on the earth. Lierre Keith suggests that the earth could only support about 300 million people optimally. Who is going to be first to volunteer jumping off?

The Future by Leonard Cohen

A significant movement started just a few years ago is the Locavore movement, who advocate for eating what is possible to be grown within 100 miles of where you live in order to reduce the carbon footprint of our food. From the website Locavore:

Our food now travels an average of 1,500 miles before ending up on our plates. This globalization of the food supply has serious consequences for the environment, our health, our communities and our tastebuds. Much of the food grown in the breadbasket surrounding us must be shipped across the country to distribution centers before it makes its way back to our supermarket shelves. Because uncounted costs of this long distance journey (air pollution and global warming, the ecological costs of large scale monoculture, the loss of family farms and local community dollars) are not paid for at the checkout counter, many of us do not think about them at all.

Unfortunately, following this comment site goes on to equate chickens and onions both as food sources. This movement started in the San Francisco Bay area of Northern California in the US – an area that has a wide array of food sources available. The idea of limiting the transport of our fruits, vegetables and legumes or grains makes perfect sense, but to speak of sustainability without addressing the environmental impact of any form of animal agriculture seems less reasonable.If all people tried to become Locavores, they would soon start scurrying to those areas with good soil – hard to find as we deplete the topsoil at seventeen times the rate at which we regenerate it.  While eating produce grown locally is a good idea, it is not possible for all people, nor is it likely to become so. By the way, Locavore was the word of the year for 2007; guess what it was for 2006?  Yup, Podcast!

Backyard Chickens and Farmer’s Markets

An offshoot of the locavore movement is the backyard chicken movement..  But many people are discovering that there is more to chickens than they knew. There are several sites online to assist the hopeful tender of chickens.  One of the recommendations I read in one of their forums is do NOT name the chickens; it makes it too hard to “harvest” them — and we all know what that kind of harvesting looks like. In case you don’t, they even offer photos of the bloody process of separating a chicken from his or her life and his or her head. People think this is a good lesson for the kiddies? Of course the children are objecting to the pending murder of their chicken friends; if only the adults would really understand what the children recognize – that they are chicken persons, not a thing or plant to be harvested. May I suggest a cashew dal? Quite delicious, simply rice, lentils, spices with toasty cashews added in. And no one gets hurt. And rescued chickens that have names and are allowed to live like chickens – that, too is another matter altogether.

The growth of local farmer’s markets has been taking off in certain parts of the globe. These markets allow local producers to sell some of their produce to their own community. Some Farmer’s Markets include music, baked goods, nuts, jams, and an assortment of other offerings. Unfortunately, some now offer grass fed beef, lamb, honey, chickens and free range eggs. Often these goods are more expensive than the mass produced type of vegetables and fruits, but they are often of a superior quality as well. Some cities even have community gardens to allow local residents to farm their own produce on shared land.  Los Angeles had quite a wonderful community garden several years ago, until the city’s financial needs trumped the needs of the community and the land was sold. A film was even made about the meaning it had and the improvement in people’s diets that this small bit of land impacted. The land in question was laying fallow and overgrown – it was an industrial lot that was not being used and was eventually sold. Sadly, with governments of every size and stripe being over budgeted, it would be hard to maintain many of these programs when governmental entities are busy selling off things like their own parking meters to foreign enterpreneurs for a quick dollar.

Paleos, Hunter-Gatherers, and Neo Butchers

In a sentimental look backwards to our ancient ancestors, a group of adults are reverting to primativism and the Paleo diets. These diets are meant to mimic what our ancestors ate before the agricultural transformation — they are part of the hunter-gatherer movement. I don’t know about you, but I do not want to mimic ancient ancestors – their sense of fashion was pretty limited, and have you seen their dental hygiene? Dentists are really important to me. Also, they only lived a few years from what I have heard. This is a diet that relies heavily on meat, fish and produce, with no grains whatsoever. In one segment I heard on one of their podcasts, a devotee was asking why his libido was so down and this guy was only in his early thirties.  Another caller mentioned having difficulty with low energy – she was feeling like she was going to drop over all the time. Other mentioned having problems with their breath from ketosis. Not too enticing to me. On the positive, these grain free, high protein diets reportedly get rid of many diseases and induce weight loss. Might also be good for birth control from what I was hearing. Robb Wolf, a research biochemist, is the author of the Paleo Solution; his website is filled with photos of bodybuilders and rock hard abs. The health of the environment or her various life forms is ominously absent. One Paleo conversion could easily wipe out the benefit of one vegan – luckily, this is not yet a very large part of the recent crop of food fads. Let’s check back and see how their kidneys and hearts are doing a few years down the road. They are having an impact on some vegetarians, though. Here is a clip from The Paleo Solution:aa

The Paleo Solution – Robb Wolf and Andy Dees

Along with the Paleos, are people who want to butcher their own meat. Some folks believe that being part of the process of death somehow excuses them from responsibility for unnecessary death.  Whether an animal is killed in an abattoir or in the back of the barn on a small farm, death is death and killing is killing; it is never anything but despicable when it comes to the unnecessary deaths of other beings. We all know that eating animals and using their body parts is damaging our health and our planet, not to mention what it does to the force of violence in the world. Let’s move forward in our evolution. This elevating the killing of animals to some sort of time honored tradition becomes just another excuse to keep the blood flowing. Traditions are important, but the times, they are a changin’.

Bob Dylan – The Times The Are A Changin’

Heritage Foods and the Slow Food Movement (Terra Madre)

Heritage foods are another trending topic.  With massive agricultural industries taking over from smaller producers, the biological diversity that once kept the world safe has been pretty well eradicated. Some folks are working hard to bring back some of these so-called Heritage breeds, whether from seeds or animals.  It has been estimated that 1500 breeds of farm animals are now near extinction. Many of us vegans would like to see all animals freed from the term “farm” unless it is coupled with the term “sanctuary.” When it comes to produce, many plants and trees have been hybridized to increase shelf life and transportability; in other words, to maximize profit. There now exists seed conservancies, seed banks, and seed exchanges.  There are also well protected underground seed storage facilities, created in an attempt to protect some biodiversity should the world undergo any possible nuclear or other catastrophe.

The increasing control of multinational corporations like Monsanto poses a danger to our food supply and our farmlands. They have GMOs that do not need to be identified to the consumer and have formulated seeds that, even if only carried by the wind, they can then lay claim to on other people’s lands. Many farmers have gone out of business due to lawsuits by these major agricultural industries. In truth, we are nearly all under their collective umbrella and are becoming increasingly dependent on their disturbing practices. Their chosen mono crops are limiting our safety and our options.

Terra Madre and the slow food movement – 1300 chapters in 153 countries. Their missions is to support preservation of traditional foods and ways of eating. While this is a noble goal in many areas, in some ways it flies in the face of practical veganism. Some cultlures have cruelly used animals as a food source. Even now when doing so is counterproductive and unsustainable, tradition is often given as an excuse to continue these types of practices. If the Terra Madreans would take the good and extract it from the unreasonable and immoral, they would have much to commend them. They are an alternative voice that is definitely gaining momentum and quietly trying to effect a revolution in how we eat and live. From a Slow Food website:

A non-profit member-supported association, Slow Food was founded in 1989 to counter the rise of fast food and fast life, the disappearance of local food traditions and people’s dwindling interest in the food they eat, where it comes from, how it tastes and how our food choices affect the rest of the world.

The official economic arrangements and the laws that enforce them ensure that hungry and homeless people will be plentiful amid plenty. The shadow system provides soup kitchens, food pantries, and giveaways, takes in the unemployed, evicted, and foreclosed upon, defends the indigent, tutors the poorly schooled, comforts the neglected, provides loans, gifts, donations, and a thousand other forms of practical solidarity, as well as emotional support. In the meantime, others seek to reform or transform the system from the inside and out, and in this way, inch by inch, inroads have been made on many fronts over the past half century.

I love what that says about the shadow system.  Sounds a bit more hopeful than the system that is blocking the sun. Here is a clip from the Terra Madreans:

BBC episode – Terra Madre (DocArchive)

Looking Forward: Veganism is the Answer!

We often hear that with one pending crisis after another, people will return to primitive methods of survival and will fight one another in brutal fashion. Maybe, but that is not what recent history has shown us. During the Katrina catastrophe here in the States, there were few such incidents, and hundreds of incidents of people reaching out to help their neighbors.  Here is a quote from the Slow Food site by Rebecca Solnit:

Here’s the surprise though: in such situations, most of us fend for each other most of the time — and beautifully at that. Perhaps this, rather than (human) nature red in tooth and claw, is our original nature. At least, the evidence is clear that people not only behave well, but take deep pleasure in doing so, a pleasure so intense it suggests that an unspoken, unmet appetite for meaningful work and vibrant solidarities lives powerfully within us. Those appetites can be found reflected almost nowhere in the mainstream media, and we are normally told that the world in which such appetites might be satisfied is “utopian,” impossible to reach because of our savage competitiveness, and so should be left to the most hopeless of dreamers.

It seems a positive that this slow food movement is looking to the shadow side, the hidden parts of human behavior, to forge a new order. It rails against being called hopeless, because it keeps finding evidence for just the contrary. Those of us who care deeply about the lives of animals are part of this move. Maybe all of us contrarians should join forces. What is a contrarian? In common usage, it means someone who invests in stocks when others are selling and sells when others are buying. Vegans are somewhat like those contrarians — we do not buy into the values of the macroculture and really believe in the very best of human nature despite knowing better than anyone else the very worst that such a nature might produce in the realm of cruelty and domination.

As you can tell from this show, some of these food movements are deceptive; some offer ideas that may indeed help preserve food sourcing that has integrity and sustainability in part. One thing, though, no one can really dispute if they read or listen to what is happening in the world: the best single thing you can do for all the beings on this earth is to go vegan. Not one of these other fads can make the same claim.

We have two choices: one is to do nothing, stick our collective heads in the sand and enjoy our lives while we may.  The other is to take action, become a radical realist and quit raping the earth and her animals. The choice is ours. Don’t be distracted by the foodies, the fads or the frauds. Vegan is the real deal, based on an ethical philosophy of nonviolence. Veganism is not about a dietary principle, though; it is about a fundamental belief in respect for other beings and the need for justice for all, and that includes all other animals, too.

One thing seems apparent after researching all the new food fads – people are searching for something new when it comes to food production and lifestyle, and that is good news. The way most of us have been eating and living has not been enhancing healthy lives or a healthy planet. The good news is that veganism provides a simple, clear answer to saving the planet, our health, and our fellow beings. Once you see what has been happening in the world to other forms of life, it is an easy decision to make. Embrace veganism, practice peace.

Everybody’s Changing – Keane

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Part-Time Vegetarians – Flexitarians

Vegan Before Dinnertime – Mark Bittman

Coexisting With Nonhuman Animals

Dr. Furhman and Nutritarianism

Slow Food article by Robin Solnit

Hippy-Dippy Soft-Brained Butchery

Paleo Solution