Press Action

Direct Action on February 15: Go Vegan

Posted 02/11 |

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“On a planet where a child starves to death every two seconds, fourteen times as many people could be fed by using the same land currently reserved for livestock grazing.”

This particular argument is good populist outcry, but is somewhat deflated by the fact that the world produces enough food to feed everybody: the problem is distribution, which could be afforded for pennies on a small fraction of the dollars spent on raising beef, which is why it’s more a problem of political will than economy.

Posted by buermann from on 02/11 at 08:51 PM

While the statement you cite was not presented solely in terms of economics, I’m curious why you’d single out those few lines for comment.

Posted by Mickey Z. from on 02/12 at 08:34 PM

I otherwise largely agree with the rest of the argument, I just don’t think that that particular statement makes any sense if children aren’t starving because people eat meat. If children aren’t starving because precious resources are wasted growing meat, then child starvation doesn’t have anything to do with going vegan, unless you’re going to save your hypothetical meat budget to help pay for food distribution to starving children. My vegan friends don’t do that, because they’re vegan largely for health reasons, and end up saving their hypothetical meat budget for buying from expensive health food stores. A lot of them do work with FNB, on the otherhand, and more power to them.

Children starving and the amount of food and grazing land it takes to grow meat are irrelevant points of fact, and the implication that people are prone to jumping to - that eating meat starves other people - doesn’t help people who are starving because they are excluded from the distrubution system.

Posted by buermann from on 02/19 at 03:09 PM

I don’t believe eating eggs is going to greatly affect your cholesterol. I eat 2/day and my cholesterol is fine. Eggs yolks are actually good for you. Genetics plays a far larger role.

Posted by Mark from on 02/19 at 06:31 PM

Mickey: Excellent article. I’ve recently begun moving toward veganism. I’m not there yet, but that’s my goal. I’m trying to learn more about it every day. Keep up the excellent work. I’ve read many of your essays on CounterPunch.

Posted by josh from on 02/27 at 03:18 PM

This is a very eye opening article. After the initial disgust at facts I never really wanted to know there was the realization of responsibility. Since childhood a meal consisted of meat, starch and vegetable. I’ve always been considered an excellent cook. Now I feel guilty for every meal I’ve cooked. Well, for my part, there will be less and less meat until I collect enough recipies and info to cook healthy vegan meals. Thank you for the integrity to post truth, yet again.

Posted by charli from on 03/06 at 08:26 PM