From: Barbara Lamar (altamiratexas@earthlink.net)
Date: Tue Jun 12 2001 - 14:08:20 MDT
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-extropians@extropy.org
[mailto:owner-extropians@extropy.org]On Behalf Of Russell Blackford
<Okay, I've been lurking on the list for a few days now. Time to take the
plunge and start posting.>
Hi Russell! Good to see you posting to the list.
<On Samantha's comments, I don't doubt she's right about the US.>
I can speak with first-hand knowledge about the cattle industry in Texas.
The cattle raised on my ranch are born in early spring and grazed on VERY
marginal dryland for a year. They consume native grasses such as Little
Bluestem and well adapted exotics such as Coastal Bermuda. There's no way
anyone would even THINK of growing grains or any other kind of plant crop on
this land on a commercial scale. After a year, some of the cattle are sold,
while some of the cows are kept as breeding stock.
The cattle that are sold for beef are usually taken to feed lots and
fattened. At this stage of their lives they DO consume grain and also live
under disgusting, filthy, overcrowded conditions. In addition to grains,
feedlot cattle are fed bloodmeal and other byproducts from the
slaughterhouse. But this is certainly not the only way one can buy beef
here. You can buy a whole pasture-raised steer on the hoof and have it
butchered to suit you so you know what you're getting. In this case, the
steer will likely never have consumed grain. These days, health food stores
are selling free range beef at premium prices.
More on meat eating in general: Some of the most efficient food animals for
this land are goats, rabbits, chickens, and fish all of which I raise for my
own consumption. The cattle aren't mine. A neighbor runs his cattle here at
certain times of the year so I can get the agricultural appraisal for tax
purposes. The goats browse yaupon holly, which is one of the few plants that
thrive on their own in deep sand. Rabbits, too, prefer yaupon holly and
other weeds over grass. All of these grow readily here with no fertilizer or
pesticides. The chickens eat various kinds of insects and turn them into
meat and eggs. Theoretically, I could eat the insects directly, but aside
from the fact that I was raised to regard insects as unpalatable, the
chickens are far more effective at harvesting them and love nothing better
than to spend all day scratching for them.
I'd go so far as to say that on this particular land (and much of the land
inhabited by humans), it would be impossible for humans to live off the
land without having meat in the diet.
On the morality of eating animals, it seems as though the division of
species into edible and non-edible, sacred or whatever, is always going to
be arbitrary (with the exception of cases where certain species are clearly
inedible because they're toxic). Vegetarians may not be aware that the
production of dairy products depends on killing most of the male calves or
kids or lambs or whatever. Dairy herds consist of females which must produce
babies at least once a year in order to make milk. Since about half the
offspring are males, only a very few of which will be kept for breeding
purposes, you end up with a surplus of males which must be dealt with. The
usual way of dealing with them is to eat them.
When eggs are incubated for the egg industry, about half the chicks are
males. These are sorted out as soon as they hatch. I eat my surplus
cockerels, but commercial breeders dump them since meat and egg producers
are generally separate breeds. The way I've seen it done is like this: the
cockerels were thrown into boxes, the lower chicks being smothered by the
upper ones as more are thrown onto the pile. At the end of the day, the
whole box is tossed into a dumpster.
Even vegans are responsible for the deaths of animals. Where grain is
stored, there's always plenty of poison around to kill mice. Often squirrels
and grain eating birds also get hold of poisoned grain. Poison is usually
sprayed on crops such as broccoli and lettuce to kill animals such as
butterfly and moth larvae (or the GM stuff has built-in killers).
And so forth.
Barbara
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sat Nov 02 2002 - 08:08:06 MST