Eating Like You Give A Damn
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This Mark Bittman article about meat reduction is worth a read. Here’s a segment:
“I had (and still have) no intention of becoming a vegetarian, but I could see the writing on the wall: Industrial meat production had gone beyond distasteful and alienating to become disgusting and dangerous (its link to global warming didn’t help); traditional, natural ingredients were becoming rare; and respectable scientific studies pointed toward the health benefits of eating more plant-based foods and fewer meat-based foods.” [...]
“Today I eat about one third as much meat, dairy, and even fish as I did a few years ago. (Farmed fish has many of the same issues as farmed land animals, including antibiotic use and environmental damage.) I eat few refined carbs. But if there’s good white bread at dinner, I attack it, and I still have pasta a couple of times a week. I eat almost no junk food. I eat about three or four times as many plant foods (like green leafy vegetables) as before; probably 50 percent or more of my calories come from nonanimal sources.”
You may then want to send the link to a loved one who may not be ready to go vegan but who might eat fewer animals if they hear it the right way. For some, this is the way they need to hear it. It’s not my style, but if it works to get people to kill and eat fewer animals – if it saves some animals’ lives – I’m for it.
And as I’ve said before, if you have no idea what you’d eat if you went vegan, you’re in trouble. ANY healthy diet ought to contain at least 50% vegan food. Since that’s what Bittman suggests, I agree with him.
Now I’d never go as far as he does. I don’t consider dead animal flesh to be food. I don’t think it’s morally acceptable to kill animals when you don’t need to. I don’t think sane, non-starving humans should eat “meat.” But Bittman and I can agree that a diet that’s at least 50% vegan is a good thing – for animals, for people, and for the planet.
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