I just thought about it today.. my daughter and I eating meat twice a day. 365 days a year x 2 = 730 animals per year.
I'm so glad we went veggie and haven't looked back. I can't handle being responsible for so much slaughter.
When you think about those numbers per person, in fact more in some cases with people who also eat meat for breakfast (I could never get into that) no wonder factory farming has become such a lucrative practice. We've been trained that we have to eat meat for protein and there is no healthy way to be vegetarian.
It seems at first like how can just one person make a difference? But crunching those numbers... 730-1000 animals per year, per person. That is a HUGE difference that ONE person can make.
On the health side we eat a very balanced diet and take supplements. Both of us feel fine, if not better than before. The smell of meat makes me ill now. I had co-workers who were eating a big pile of ribs 2 feet away from me last week and it made me want to hurl. Burning flesh does not smell good...
Anyway, that was just something that weighed heavily on my mind today. Maybe a good point to make to someone who says they want to go vegetarian but just can't do it.
Well you don't eat a whole animal every time you eat a meal with meat, unless you eat a whole chicken or a whole cow, and that's a LOT of food. A single person can't eat all of the meat off of a cow, and you'd have to have a huge appetite to eat an entire chicken. And you don't eat a whole turkey every time you have a turkey sandwich, nor is it a whole pig when you have a slice or two of bacon. I don't want to burst your bubble, but no, you're not eating 730 animals per year. You're not even eating half that, most likely a fraction of it.
I was a vegetarian for 16 or so months and I eat chicken and turkey now. To be honest, I got really bored. I was eating the same bland food every day. I still don't eat beef or pork and I don't eat chicken or turkey every day.
Last edited by sunflowergirl68; 08-18-2009 at 03:50 AM.
Liza, you remind me, uncomfortably, of my hypocrisy: I only eat free-range meat, because at least it's had a natural life before slaughter; but I do have to deliberately close my mind to all the stories I've read about bad slaughter conditions, and then I feel guilty.....
I need to do some more thinking. and recipe finding.
Ok, let me first say, I thoroughly respect the choice to eat veggie for whatever reason. It can be healthier, it can be more eco-friendly, it can be more animal-friendly. (It can also be none of these things, but that depends on the individual vegetarian's choices.) I'm not a veg, but we usually eat 1-2 meatless days a week, since it can be cheaper, healthier, more "green," and more authentic (Indian recipes really taste "off" when they add meat!).
Anyhow, I figured I was better equipped than some to explain what the actual numbers are for meat-eating: I grew up on a farm, and while we ate a LOT of meat, we very rarely ate anything that wasn't homegrown. We raised and butchered our own chickens (70-100/year), received a half a cow for Christmas every year from my grandfather who milked Jerseys, and canned/preserved everything we could from the gardens and fruit trees. Every 2-3 years we would raise a pig, as well.
We still ate a lot of purchased food (bread, milk, etc), but our meat was strictly from the deep freeze in the basement.
We were a meat-heavy family of 5, and it took us a year to eat half a cow, and 50-70 chickens. The average ox (gender-neutral term for "cow") will yield 5-600 pounds of meat. Even if you ate a quarter-pound of meat at every meal, it would take a year to finish half a cow. That's 30-40 in a lifetime (if you ate only beef) - still a lot, but not a thousand a year.
Like I said, I'm not trying to downplay vegetarianism or the effect eating meat has on the world/environment/animals. The ground needed to feed that ox that you and your daughter would split on an meat-heavy diet is 2-5 acres a year - that can feed a lot of people. I just wanted to give you a better idea of how much meat (or how many animals) a person will actually eat.
In terms of being responsible for slaughter, as the original post indicates, it does not matter if she was eating an entire chicken or a drumstick. A chicken breast for lunch and another for dinner is still 2 chickens, it matters not who else ate from those same animals.
My family splits half a cow every year, and yes it does take them a while to burn through it. But your average person isn't going to stockpile 300lbs of meat to use for a year. They're going to go to the grocery and buy a package of chicken breasts, or ground turkey breast, or a few steaks. Doing it that way, if you're going to actually look at numbers (as the OP did), you really have to count individual animals - because I find it difficult to believe that the ground beef in the grocery today all came from one cow, thus the 2 packages purchased today are more realistically from 2 different animals. So while the original OP's numbers might be high, they're certainly not over the top for the majority of meat eaters, who shop in regular groceries and don't stockpile hundreds of pounds of meat.
In terms of being responsible for slaughter, as the original post indicates, it does not matter if she was eating an entire chicken or a drumstick. A chicken breast for lunch and another for dinner is still 2 chickens, it matters not who else ate from those same animals.
My family splits half a cow every year, and yes it does take them a while to burn through it. But your average person isn't going to stockpile 300lbs of meat to use for a year. They're going to go to the grocery and buy a package of chicken breasts, or ground turkey breast, or a few steaks. Doing it that way, if you're going to actually look at numbers (as the OP did), you really have to count individual animals - because I find it difficult to believe that the ground beef in the grocery today all came from one cow, thus the 2 packages purchased today are more realistically from 2 different animals. So while the original OP's numbers might be high, they're certainly not over the top for the majority of meat eaters, who shop in regular groceries and don't stockpile hundreds of pounds of meat.
Thank you, that was exactly my point.
I grew up in the country too and lived in the day when families split a cow that lasted the summer or hunted. Things are different now as most don't live that way and every package of meat you buy is most likely a new animal.
I'm not preaching that everyone should go veggie but at least look at where your food comes from and maybe make a decision that would put factory farmers out of business. Even if people think it's fine and don't care about suffering of animals (I know a lot of people who think it's stupid to pass a law demanding chickens can stretch their wings) then at least look at the health risks to themselves from such conditions.
Liza, you remind me, uncomfortably, of my hypocrisy: I only eat free-range meat, because at least it's had a natural life before slaughter; but I do have to deliberately close my mind to all the stories I've read about bad slaughter conditions, and then I feel guilty.....
I need to do some more thinking. and recipe finding.
Actually, that is not a bad thing and that is how I started. I wanted to go vegetarian two years ago but my daughter absolutely didn't want to (yet). Buying meat for one person (who weighs 98 lbs) doesn't work very well. So I made a choice that we would eat organic, free-range, etc. until the day came that we would both give it up. We could at least feel better about that and not supporting factory farming. That does make a HUGE difference!
If you do want to try some recipes, I found this website and bought the cookbook. Unbelievable what this guy can come up with! http://vegandad.blogspot.com/
Unfortunately a lot of meat goes to waste in its production. I was just reading how unsold meat gets burned for energy and it isn't a small number. Also, dairy and egg production also contributes to animal deaths. Factory dairy cows have a fairly short lifespan and then they are sold for meat.
So I think giving up meat (and dairy/eggs) can have a fairly large impact over time. For me, it was my husband and I went vegan. Also, I have influenced my inlaws and my mom has been following a mostly vegan diet for the past couple months due to my influence.
I feed my dogs mostly vegetarian and I am supplementing some of the meat based food they are eating with vegetarian foods.
Also, the cows used for leather aren't the same cows used for meat so by saying I don't buy leather anymore, then I am contributing even a bit more.
I still cook meat for my dog and it's free-range chicken. I buy the whole chicken and steam it with brown rice, broccoli, carrots and green beans with a clove of garlic for fleas.
We don't do leather anything either. Grosses me out when I think about wearing skin that isn't mine!
One comment I'd say is 'free range' doesn't always mean what you may think it does. Many companies use 'free range' to describe chickens that were raised from hatchlings in a building at at 8 weeks (I believe) they open a door to allow them to go outside to a small yard. The chickens actually never go outside to the yard because it is the unknown. As a result, they never get to see sunlight and they never get to touch the ground. So free range is a bit misleading but not all companies are the same.
I would have trouble cooking any meat product for my dogs although I have started them recently on eggs. I found a local supplier of pasture raised chickens where the chickens actually get to see sunlight and touch grass/dirt. The first time I cooked a batch of eggs for them, it was difficult but I figure if I'm reducing their meat consumption, it is ok. I also cook them rice/other grains and give them veggies.
I could go for months eating vegetarian and never, ever get bored. Gosh, way too many possibilities. I am a fish eater though--rarely, any other flesh passes my lips nowadays. I also eat egg whites which is disagreeable to some true vegetarians as well.
Food boredom only comes to me when I've failed to plan. If I don't have a dinner planned out, my "go-to" meal is broccoli. Last week, I was very lazy, didn't want to plan out meals, and ate a plate of broccoli for dinner every night. The same goes for DH though, if he doesn't have a plan and I don't have a plan, he'd eat hot dogs for dinner every night and get bored.
I plan out our meals a week in advance, to make sure I've got everything I need to make them. Then when I get home from work, DH gets to pick what's for dinner that night from the planned menus, and lunch the next day is the leftovers. We have a few repeated meals each week usually, because they're our favorites (mmm curried lentils and rice and bean salad), but I plan for at least 1 recipe per week that we haven't tried yet.
On a side note, Nelie, you are my hero. A few weeks ago you mentioned mock tuna salad with chickpeas. It was good, but I thought I'd try and recreate my favorite chicken salad with chickpeas and oh my goodness! DH thought something was wrong with me when he took a bite of my pita, he swore it was chicken!
I certainly wouldn't consider my food boring. I made a moroccan style dish last night, the night prior to that I was eating a french style dish. I make wonderfully delicious foods.
One of the reason I started going towards vegetarian was because I was tired of eating meat. I think my food tastes better now than it ever did when I ate meat.
Sad number crunching
