Halve meat consumption, scientists urge rich world

[Gorp]

37. Eliminate it. Meat is not a necessary dietary component.

The majority of what's served now is factory farmed fodder. It is full of antibiotics and toxic chemicals, destroys vast areas with waste and waterway pollution, and (animal abuse issues aside) is killing our agricultural system with GMO feed and herbicides to keep the fodder fed.

For every protein a creature provides, the plant matter necessary to produce it far outweighs the meat value. Beef has a 16:1 ratio. Pigs are generally in the 10:1 range. Chicken is the head of the class with a 5:1 ratio. Lentils have a solid 1:1 ratio. Soy, 1:1. Other legumes, 1:1. Grains, 1:1. The math really isn't this hard here.

We are structurally omnivours but we have no need for meat. Vegetarian societies rarely if ever have obese individuals. The US is swamped with them.

Okay, back to the animal abuse issues I set aside. Chickens are debeaked and stacked in cages six or so high to defecate on the ones below. The males chicks are tossed into trash bags while still alive. Pigs are raised in pens so small that they can't even turn around. They sleep in their shit. Cows are hoisted by one back leg to be put on "the rack" to be killed. Turkeys are put in a Palin funnel to have their necks chopped off and drain the blood.

Veal is a calf that's been deprived of all forms of iron, all movement, and all types of what could be considered a life. Foie gras is the liver of a goose that was deprived of a normal diet, one replaced by corn and other fatty substances.

None of this is necessary. Humans have lived on vegetarian diets since the beginning of time. I have no problem with hunters. At least they take responsibility for what they kill to eat. That's actually natural and I'm fine with that. But when you buy a package of mystery meat or whatever the fuck they put in "hamburger" patties at a fat food joint, you're not in harmony with nature or the natural way.

If there is a god, I seriously doubt that's what he had in mind for us. As I seem to recall, there's something about humans being the sheperds of our flocks in the Bible. Again, I'm not religeous, but I'm damn certain there's no way a god of any type would endorse eating animals when there are far better sources of nutrients available.