RE: meat, forced vegetarianism, etc.
From: TR Ruddick (truddickearthlink.net)
Date: Mon, 22 Sep 2003 14:01:10 -0600 (MDT)
> Message: 7
> From: racheli [at] sonoracohousing.com (Racheli Gai)

> Hey TR,
> 
> Here is my personal perspective:
> 
> "Wives tales wisdom"??  - I could do without this one.

I'm just a bitter old man who wishes he had said "carbo-load THIS" when the
nice dietician told him to consume lots and lots of pasta and grain
products.  So I'm making up for it by denigrating dietary science at every
opportunity.

> 
> As to your juicy steaks and such: There are good reasons to cut down on
> eating meat, other than how it might affect one's health. This is
> especially true with beef: Raising one pound of beef utilizes at least
> 2,000 gallons of water.  Depending on how the animals are raised, there is
> reason to worry about their well being, as well as about other forms of
> environmental damage (overgrazing and such). If we go back to the health
> issue - unless you buy organic meat, or grow your own, there are issues to
> do with hormones, traces of antibiotic drugs (given to animals to make
> them grow faster), traces of biocides, and more.

Sure are lots of questions there.  Then again, I have no comparison about
how many gallons of water it takes to raise free-range organic poultry, or
apples, or corn--and I'm pretty certain that thousands of gallons of water
go into irrigation for those veggies (hey, you're in California, right? 
Where the entire Colorado River is siphoned off mostly for farm use?).  And
while we may be concerned about hormones in the meat, it's also true that
most of the pesticides don't wash off of the wheat kernels.

Better farming practice could improve all of our foods.  Since I'm a person
of limited means and less political influence, I suppose I'll just have to
put it out of my mind and choke down my lamb chops.

BTW, Dr. Atkins ate red meat daily and would probably have lived well into
his 90s if he hadn't fallen on the ice.  I have heard the "don't eat red
meat" advice before, of course--once from that same dietician who my health
coverage dollars were mis-spent on.  Until I hear that same recommendation
repeated for the same reasons by almost all health care professionals for
more than a decade, I ain't believing it!

TR Ruddick
Dayton Cohousing



_______________________________________________
Cohousing-L mailing list
Cohousing-L [at] cohousing.org  Unsubscribe  and other info:
http://www.cohousing.org/cohousing-L

Results generated by Tiger Technologies Web hosting using MHonArc.