ok, it's been a long time, and I've had nothing really to say. I keep listening to my favorite Compassionate Cooks' podcast, and figure she explains everything better than I could, so I'll just send along her link every now and then, and you'll get all the info you could ever need on vegan issues. Two recent ones I loved were about Native blessing of meat (very interesting take on this popular argument), and " diseases of civilization"-eating to prevent illness and such. Both quite informative podcasts, an very thought provoking. I highly recommend them.
However, I just had to say something about a "story" I saw on Yahoo. It seems that the Australian answer to global warming is to eat camels and kangaroos. I am not kidding.
They feel since sheep and cows emit a lot of methane, and take up a lot of space, as well as the fact that kangaroos are overabundant lately, people should just go back to eating them.
Ok two things: first off, according to one site, the reason kangaroos are running rampant is that fencing was put up to keep dingos from eating sheep-side note: neither sheep or dingos are native to Australia, but brought by people-which in turn, prevented predators of kangaroos getting to them as well. So again, we cause these problems, and are willing to do MORE harm to "fix" it. I learned this in the same article about a protest over the use of the roos for Adidas sneakers. ick. For more, read here. Or here.-though that last site had a lot of dumb arguments too-but anyway....
Second: How would this help? If demand goes up, there is profit to be made. This means keeping the population up, adding to the problem. Where would the incentive be then to look at alternatives, like sterilization?
In other places, overpopulation of animals can be subsided a bit by catching, sterilizing, and then releasing large numbers of animals. Yes, this might be expensive, but far more humane, and effective.
Also, I would argue that simply adding another meat to the menu won't curb anyones' taste for cow and sheep flesh. Sadly, when I ate steak, I also ate chicken, and fish, and an occasional duck..I ate everything! I never thought :'oh, I've had my animal quota for the week, so I'll pass on that tonight'. Not once. If anything, you develop a taste for it and eat more. So that's just a bad argument.
What about going veg? Would it kill people to simply not eat the cows and sheep either? All that land (which is used for the grazing etc) could be used for crops. or trees. or animal rescues. or people rescues! I don't discriminate, I'll help people too!)-Orrrrrrrrrrr
!gasp! you could just let it be-let nature take over and do her thing-
Nah, clearly crazy talk.
Anyway, why can't more people (read:columnists) even fathom this as a good suggestion? It's no longer a difficult choice for most people (ie;it's accessible and diverse foods are easier than ever to prepare and find), and would just be kinder overall-to the planet, the Roos, the cows, the sheep, your digestive tract......etc...worth looking into I'd say.
Well, I'm off, and I didn't even get to the poor camels.....maybe next time.
thanks for reading. Oh! and boycott Adidas! I mean really-blech.
Happy New Year!! and peace to all.
-LeAnne
