Study: Too much red meat may shorten lifespan

[jsmirman]

60. Your post is terrible, in virtually all ways

I would call you selfish, destructive, anti-environment, pro-cruelty, and a bunch of other things.

Your argument about existing cattle, pigs, etc. is stupid. It's not a serious argument. The absurd excess of numbers in animals that exists and is sustained by the food industry is a product of massive over-breeding via torture devices like gestation crates. What scenario your ridiculous "oh noes, escaped pigs rampaging around the world!!!" contemplates, it is hard to pinpoint. The world isn't all going to universally and suddenly go vegan, 100%. At best, meat eating is being phased down, and in certain cases phased out. Perhaps, with less demand, the incentive for Big Ag to over-breed, destroy the earth, and indulge in cruelty will similarly be reduced.

As to why everything you said is terrible, here are a few paragraphs that don't so much contain arguments as they contain facts. Well, there are a few opinions thrown in there:

The environmental case for eating less meat is overwhelming. Factory farmed animals consume enormous quantities of crops, metabolizing and excreting most of what they eat as environment-polluting waste. Direct consumption by human beings (a non-meat diet) feeds more humans with fewer crops, using less land. Factory farms require extraordinary amounts of water and fossil fuels, and methane emissions and water pollution are inescapable byproducts of these operations. Animals are penned in without freedom of movement, fresh air or sunlight, living in conditions that few among us could bear for a single afternoon. But one thing will escape from those barns – excrement. Massive, ghastly lagoons of pig and cattle waste regularly leak into rivers and water tables. Operations that spray “fertilizer” pollute the earth more directly, saturating, not fertilizing the land.

Regularly eating meat supports an inefficient food industry built on cruelty. For many of us who transitioned to vegetarianism and veganism there was an inescapable conclusion – if you eat pork, beef, or chicken, the odds are overwhelming that an animal was tortured on a factory farm to satisfy your craving. By 2007, four U.S. pork producers – all practitioners of factory farming – controlled 66% of the entire market for pig products. Four companies control more than 75% of the cattle market. The top two poultry companies kill more than 4 billion chickens each year, sending them off to cruel mechanical death after short, miserable lives spent in cages as wide as half an 8.5 x 11 sheet of paper.

Now for something really scary: exploding pig waste foam. In Minnesota, home of ag giant, Cargill, slush like foam has been found on top of manure pits and congealed under the eaves of factory barns. The foam traps gases like methane, which has caused entire barns to explode, killing thousands of pigs and causing millions of dollars in damages. The Minnesota Pork Producers Association, among others, is funding research at the University of Minnesota to solve the foam problem.


So in short, you support more starvation, destruction of the Earth, horrifying cruelty, and exploding pig shit. Congratulations, that's quite a slate.