Make Meat Eaters Pay

[Matt Cricchio]

http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2009/10/25/2009-10-25_make_meateaters_pay_ethicist_proposes_radical_t ax_says_theyre_killing_themselves.html

"First, eating red meat is likely to kill you. Large studies have shown that the daily consumption of red meat increases the risk that you will die prematurely of heart disease or bowel cancer. This is now beyond serious scientific dispute."



Discuss.

[Steven Low]

lol, there's nothing to discuss. It's just flat out wrong.

I think Michael Eades had some good posts on red meat and cancer on his blog. Here ya go:

http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/c...-and-red-meat/
http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/b...-colon-cancer/
http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/f...and-mortality/
http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/u...reatic-cancer/

[Allen Yeh]

Addressing some of the points in the article:

First, eating red meat is likely to kill you. Large studies have shown that the daily consumption of red meat increases the risk that you will die prematurely of heart disease or bowel cancer. This is now beyond serious scientific dispute. When the beef industry tries to deny the evidence, it is just repeating what the tobacco industry did 30 years ago.

Beyond scientific dispute? Really? Ok eating the type of red meat that is churned out in a normal meat facoty maybe not the greatest for you but this type of statement smacks of ignorance.

Second, we have laws that ban cruelty to animals. Unfortunately in the states in which most animals are raised for meat, the agribusiness lobby is so powerful that it has carved out exemptions to the usual laws against cruelty.

I can't say that I disagree with this point here. I do find the way the "mass meat" industry does things somewhat nasty.

Third, industrial meat production wastes food – we feed the animals vast quantities of grains and soybeans, and they burn up most of the nutritional value of these crops just living and breathing and developing bones and other unpalatable body parts. We get back only a fraction of the food value we put into them.

Ok so this point is once again aimed at the "mass meat" market, the solution here would be to stop feeding them this crap and move back to grass and the such.

Fourth, agricultural runoff — much of it from livestock production, or from the fertilizers used to grow the grain fed to the livestock — is the biggest single source of pollution of the nation’s rivers and streams, according to the EPA. A meat tax would be an important step towards cleaner rivers. By reducing the amount of nitrogen that runs off fields in the Midwest into the Mississippi, it would also stop the vast ?dead zone? that forms in the Gulf of Mexico each year.

I really have no clue about this one here.

Meat-eaters impose costs on others, and the more meat they eat, the greater the costs.

They push up our health insurance premiums, increase Medicare and Medicaid costs for taxpayers, pollute our rivers, threaten the survival of fishing communities in the Gulf of Mexico, push up food prices for the world’s poor, and accelerate climate change.

Wow.

[Matt Cricchio]

Originally Posted by Steven Low

lol, there's nothing to discuss. It's just flat out wrong.

Oh there are some things to discuss: the weird nexus of primal/paleo/whatever people and militant veganism when it comes to sustainable agriculture practices, sesonal eating, and the general badness of big Agra.

[Steven Low]

Originally Posted by Matt Cricchio

Oh there are some things to discuss: the weird nexus of primal/paleo/whatever people and militant veganism when it comes to sustainable agriculture practices, sesonal eating, and the general badness of big Agra.

Well, no one said everything was right in the world. -_-

[Paul Epstein]

some of the comments posted after the article are hilarious

i fear this kind of militant vegetarianism, meat eaters outcast, omnivore refugees applying for entry into france etc

[Paul Epstein]

i wonder why the article doesnt mention the damage that government subsidised mono culture farms do to the environment or the economy.

citing bad (meat) farming practices as a reason to discourage all (meat) farming practices is absurd.

[Dominic Sirianni]

I generally seem to feel better eating red meat about once a week and sticking to leaner types of meat the rest of the time.