Join rabble.ca's Vegan Challenge!

Nope. I'm a committed carnivore.

Boom Boom: that's one of the problems with this undertaking that we'll be dealing with. Veganism is only possible for a specific socioeconomic group, usually Western, usually urban, middle class. As you point out, it's just not appropriate for northern communities. Moreover, many cultures in the world who don't eat meat or dairy don't call themselves "vegan." They just call it "dinner." This doesn't have much to do with why I am not a vegan every day--but I think it's important to take conscious stock of your diet, especially when its environmental impact is so significant.

So, I'm glad you brought that up.

This is based on the assumption that a vegan diet is better for the environment- that is 100 per cent false.  

Most bean curd and other 'vegetable protein products are made from GMO soya's (mostly under the Monsanto brand).   Other mass produced food available in your grocery store - and this includes raw veggies and fruits- will have been grown through the use of massive amounts of pesticides and herbicides.  The labour, environmental, health and sanitary regulations they are grown under are far below the standards you would expect and really belong in the factory farming category- except we seem to only reserve that grouping for livestock farming - which is wrong. Most of the comments in the quote in the opening post are factually wrong.   Just as much land is being destroyed for sugar cane and corn planting (for ethenol) as any livestock production.   In fact most of the destruction of good forested land is for the growing of crops- whose by-products are fed to livestock not the other way around- than they are for say livestock pasture.  So large scale fruit and vegetabe production is just as culpible in rainforest destruction and other bights on the land as livestock production. There are some very wrong-headed and non-factual statements in those prose.

A far better approach would be to encourage the purchase of locally, small farm raised food, including meat.   Way better for the environment, way better for your health and way better for making a statement against industrial food.  An even better alternative would be to actually get to know some of those farmers and base your views on facts, not myths.   These farmers have to compete and try and stay viable in a system that is stacked against them.   Promoting unhealthy for the environment alternatives like this promotion does is a step in a very wrong direction. 

We are an small-scale organic farm.   Like most true organic farms in it for the long term, animal agriculture is irreplaceble part of keeping our land healthy, productive and suitable to grow food for generations to come.  

I disagree. Just because it's not absolutely perfect for the environment doesn't mean that it's not relatively better and consumes less resources.

I sort of answered that in my edit.  But here goes with I hope a fuller explanation.

Truly sustainable agriculture requires a return of nutrients to the soil to keep it healthy.   Animal agriculture done on a responsible and sustainable scale is really the only way to do that in a way that will keep the soil healthy long term.  Believe me in my almost 40 years of farming experience we have tried to find ways to keep the soil healthy through plough downs and other techniques.   It just doesn't work over the long term.   In most cases the land starts to see serious problems within about 10 years.   We eventually just gave into reality and expanded into full scale livestock production (and by that I mean for more than just our own use).  Prior to that we had been mostly a vegetable and fruit farm with a few speciallty cash crops like spelt.

It is simply not true that even in relative  terms that a vegan diet is better for the environment in terms of the impact of production.   Where the diet impact dividing line gets drawn is not meat vs vegan - but industrial vs sustainable.   Most of the food vegans will be eating in most settings will have been 'grown' in just as environmentally damaging actions as industrial livestock.   The impact as well on the health of farm workers on all the herbicides and pesticides used in many of the countries' food found on our grocery store shelves is appalling.

Most organic and even bio-dynamic farmers who have been farming for any length of time will tell you that animal agriculture is essential to keeping soil healthy - and not just for the manure.   My pastures are one of the best carbon sinks around for example.  A healthy, rotated pasture system has been shown to sequester amazing amounts of carbon - so it isn't all about cow farts.

I think that Life makes some really good points. I also think that veganism for the love of animals is pretty eurocentric and given the impact that agriculture has had on animals on this land i think that it's pretty short-sighted.

I'm not sure one way or the other about environmental aspects of veganism. As people have pointed out it's not straight forward. As far as the ethical i don't get the hierarchy. Why are animals more worthy of respect than plants? Why are migrant workers and other people who produce food valued less than cows? Veganism as an ethic is plagued with conundrums.

Sorry Noreen, veganism had little to do with social or environmental justice in my eyes.

I'd love to read that article if you're up for it, Life.

Just askin': Wouldn't a vegan challenge make more sense when fresh local produce is in season?

First thing that came up in my head too.  Why April?

Actually, I'd love to do the vegan challenge when my backyard garden starts producing!

It would be eurocentric, I suppose, if we only cared about European animals. Historically, vegetarianism and veganism have ancient roots and none of them are European. Animals have emotional lives, intellect (not human intellect but intellect) and they feel pain - emotional and physical pain. That's the relevant difference between animals and plants. Nobody is saying migrant workers matter less than cows. Moreover, I think most of us have the sense to say that in marginal situations you eat what you can get and factory farming is one thing and hunting (for food, not for sport) is another. Some of us have actually thought about these issues and we're neither stupid nor ignorant.

Name one.  One single culture that traditionally does not eat any meat, eggs or dairy.  Please include insects in the non-vegan category.

Veganism is hipster eating.  It's all about the purity, the style, the status of "I'm more environmentally conscious than you are."  It's not especially healthful, it's not, as Life pointed out above, really about the environment.  It's about the appearance and the social and the philosophical (which is, at base, about the social).

Did you know that the prairie ecosystem cannot be preserved without animals?  Bovines, more specifically.  Since we no longer have the buffalo, Cypress Hills National Park has had to allow cattle to range on the prairie because it was dying.  They are introducing some buffalo now, but our cattle farmers have helped to preserve a rare piece of virgin prairie. 

Of course, we could just plant beans because raising cattle is just bad.  ;-)

PS:  Please note I don't have antipathy to vegetarian or even vegan dishes or vegans and vegetarians.  I don't eat a lot of meat, love beans and lentils and am heavy on the fruit and vegetables.  If I am at dinner with vegan or vegetarian friends I would never criticize their choice of meal, nor have I ever done so.  What I take issue with is an argument that is full of holes that get filled up with moral indignation or superiority - and that's just what this sort of challenge is.  A call to live up to somebody else's arbitrary moral standard.  That really irks me, given the amount of energy I put into eating responsibly and locally.

Thanks - too busy though for even much time on babble.  The greenhouses are hopping and takes up most of my energy.   Tomatoes reached the two leaves stage today - so spring will come eventually.  That post was about the longest thing I've written in a month.

Similar thing in a certain type of rangeland in the southern states and parts of Oregon. The grassland was going downhill and biologists were trying to figure out why.  At the time it was blamed on overgrazing so they removed cattle.  Didn't help.   They eventually figured out that it was the interaction between ruminants, predator behavior and the grasses that was important to make it stay healthy over the longterm.  Basic interaction works like this,  ruminants when predators (like wolves) are around tend to bunch up more and on the outset appear to wreck and tear up the grasses where they are as well as concentrate their waste.  Then they move on.  Those patches end up being more fertile and grow better.  Repeat over the larger area.    In some areas they even reintroduced wolves and ranchers allowed them to kill off a percentage without getting upset.   In other areas like Oregon farmers recreated the bunching dynamic with tighter fenced areas and moved the herd around.

It might help if you didn't treat those of us who have also thought alot about these issues and come to different conclusions as neither stupid nor ignorant.   I was quite respectful in my comments (rare indeed eh Catchfire?)   I am totally fine if someone chooses to be a raw food vegan or whatever.  We all make our peace with the damage we cause through our daily choices in life - and none of us is immune to causation.  You will never hear a comments about that choice from me.  I grow food for some of them and we get along fine and have been doing so for years.  (I do understand that glass house works both ways by the way and there is lots of ill-informed comments from non-vegan, non-vegetarians)

What I object to is the holier than thou type of comments that vegan is superior for the environment, animal health (you see mono-culture vegetable, fruit and ceral grain agriculture kills a great many animals, butterflies and insects along with habitat too) or any number of issues.   The truth is it all stinks, but it all comes down to what we chose to accept as acceptable.  The only real solution is to all move into hunter-gatherer societies and live off the land- it all went down hill with agriculture - but I am not really prepared to give up my indoor toilet in the middle of a Canadian winter.  Selfish I know, but there it is.