One veggie-burger at a time?

People need to take responsibility for the food they eat and the consequences of its production. As for going veggie to save the world from the perils of global warming, you can take my bacon cheeseburger when you pry it from my cold, dead hands.

Seriously though, if you really want to save the planet, you might consider the following energy-saving, pollution-reducing steps:

• Put off having children—forever. They are cute, but those little buggers create a lot of waste. Just think about all the energy and petroleum products that went into the disposable diapers, the tons of plastic toys, strollers, car seats, baby bjorns etc. And all that is nothing compared to when they become teenagers.

• In most countries in the world, a house the size of the one you live in could reasonably be expected to house 10 to 25 people. Which means you are using a lot of energy to heat and cool a lot more space than you need. You might consider moving into your garden shed. You could use your house to take in a small herd of homeless chickens or sheep.

• Recycle your car, or both of them, or all three of them. There is an amazing amount of embodied energy that just goes into the construction of each one of those polluting, gas-guzzling metal behemoths. Just think of how good a shape you’ll be in from biking to and from work every day.

• Stop buying stuff. How many thousands of dollars a year do you spend on electronics, clothes, skin-care products, sporting goods, wine, home décor etc? All of it was manufactured using vast quantities of electricity, petroleum, chemicals, water and minerals. Most of it will end up in the ground or the water eventually. Is any of that crap necessary to your survival?

I know we all want to feel like we are doing something nice to make the world a better and healthier place. Some of us even want to feel better than other people about all the nice planet-saving things [we] are doing. But the sad truth of the matter is that even if we do everything Al Gore recommends at the end of An Inconvenient Truth, the human population is still way beyond the Earth’s sustainable carrying capacity. And all those people in China and India are going to keep chasing the American Dream long after this country is a bankrupt shell of its former glory.

Deep down, we all know that the American Way of Life is destroying the world our children will inherit. Feel-good solutions [such as] going veggie or driving a hybrid do little more than give us the sense that we are entitled to be self-righteous. If this is you, get over yourself. We are all responsible to varying degrees for creating this mess, and it’s going to take a lot more than switching to veggie burgers to save us from ourselves.

— Matt Rawlings
Weaverville

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38 thoughts on “One veggie-burger at a time?

  1. Stewart David

    Matt,

    I’ve been an environmentalist for a very long time. I didn’t have children, live in a small house, drive very little (in my small car), buy little, buy used, etc. You are indeed correct, it’s going to take a lot more than “switching to veggie burgers to save us from ourselves.”

    But why shouldn’t people be more aware of all important individual actions they can take? Why is buying a Prius a bad thing? Why are you opposed to hearing about the science that conclusively links climate change to diet? My letter that you are responding to said “The official handbook for Live Earth, the global-warming concerts that Al Gore co-organized, says that “refusing meat” is the ”single most effective thing you can do to reduce your carbon footprint” (emphasis in original). Nowhere do I say that people shouldn’t do all of the things that you suggest. I guess you are so into your cravings for bacon cheesburgers that you don’t want to hear about the conclusive science explaining the damage they do to the earth. If you read my letter again, you’ll see that I am talking about science. http://www.mountainx.com/opinion/2007/pass_the_fruit_soy_and_beer

    Also, check out http://www.thechinastudy.com. You’ll see that the bacon cheesburger you love so dearly might need to be pried out of your cold, dead hands, because it so greatly increases your risk of a heart attack!

  2. Ken Hanke

    I remember something vaguely about it, but I got distracted by the circumcision wars and people being called “religious zelicks.”

  3. Stewart David

    Hey Marc,

    I guess silly little sarcastic barbs suit you better than intelligent discussion and scientific data. The planet is dying, but go ahead and turn up the volume on your DVD so you can ignore it all.

  4. Eco-Chieftan

    Yeah, go listen to your loud DVDs, Marc. Also, don’t you have children? Very un-green. Not cool, dude. It’s never too late to get rid of your children and start greening it up, though.
    Full disclosure: I live in a thimble and ride a blade of grass to work on windy days.

  5. Johnny

    Matt has written an excellent letter. Bravo.

    A rearrangement of the deck chairs is just that.

    It’s interesting to talk about, to think about, and to reduce one’s impact to something very modestly less than what we’ve been spoon-fed to consume as good Americans.

    But in the end there’s a good argument to be made
    that we’re still on the deck of a well-known ship.

    Strike up the band.

  6. if eating only rutabaga and turnips makes me lose my sense of human then I’ll forever eat meat.

    you veggie chompers, lighten up guys.

  7. Stewart David

    Marc,

    If you knew me, you’d know that I’ve got a great sense of humor. I used to aspire to be a stand-up comic. (Check out my vegan and carnivore jokes on the other forum, in response to my letter “Pass the fruit, soy — and beer).

    But you and Ralph somcetimes act like 12 year olds, and it would be nice to see an intelligent conversation about the issue once in a while. I think global climate change is serious stuff.

  8. climate change is cyclic, see ‘ice ages’

    scientists are still out on global warming…

    but, which is it, should we be vegetarians because of climate change or because it is cruel to kill animals for food?

    I maintain a) Earth has gone through many periods of warming and many periods of colder weather and no one today (other than questionable theories) know what the heck is happening

    b) meat is tasty, which is good because we need it to survive and sorry about the animals but I’m not giving up my position in the food chain. … and what about VEGETABLES??? If it’s bad to kill life, how do you get away with slicing and dicing live and still screaming tomatoes just ripped from the vine?

    c) vegetarians have ABSOLUTELY no sense of humor — see all these threads for inconvertible proof.

    d) pass the bacon.

  9. solutions?

    Great, you’ve pointed out all the problems with someone else’s solutions.

    What suggestions do you have, Matt, or do we just fry with the increasing sun or drown with the melting ice bergs?

  10. travelah

    Move to the southern hemisphere where the polar icecaps are expanding.

    The basic fact is there is nothing you are going to do that is going to reverse whatever it is you think is seriously threatening your way of life. Instead, if you believe all the hype, you better figure out how you are going to adapt because it is clear China and other developing nations are not going to roll over and go along with this social economic fraud.

  11. mockeyjew

    you are sticking your head in the sand travaler. globel warming is for real. you prabably think you wont be around for it so you dont care about any one else. Shame on you. ralph I like bacon to.

  12. chalkbox

    Vegan jokes?!? Why don’t you just shove a tofu bone down my throat. Oh wait…

  13. Stewart David

    The planet belongs to all of us. Asking someone to consider using a cloth bag, energy-efficient cars and light bulbs, etc. are reasonable and responsible thing to do. It’s no different than asking them to not take a crap in the stream above your house. We all live downstream. So, of course, it follows that it’s reasonable to ask someone to follow the advice offered in the official handbook for Live Earth, the global warming concerts. The book says that “refusing meat” is the “single most effective thing you can do to reduce your carbon footprint” (emphasis in original).

    The world will always have gluttonous, self-indulgent, SUV-driving, meat-eating narcissists like Rush Limbaugh intent on destroying the environment. They science on global warming is undeniable. But some people will deny it, just like some deny the holocaust. And they’ll spend their time on blogs droning on and on, not listening to what others have to say and not giving a damn about the planet. And there’s little anyone can do to stop them.

    If anyone reading this is interested in learning how animal agriculture destroys the planet, visit http://www.GoVeg.com/eco.

  14. Your book is either wrong or, at best, not yet proven Stewart. Relax a bit and enjoy life. If eating veggies makes you this crotchety, please count me out.

    Yes, we all need to worry about the earth and doing what we can to help the environment but there are better ways than getting all kooky about it, bro. Chill a bit, sip some beef broth to bring your energy up again.

  15. travelah

    mockey, wake up … If you think this sham is real, then figure out how you are going to adapt because there is not a single thing you or any number of people are going to do to stop or reverse this. Actually, I think you better be more concerned about global cooling than warming or maybe a global balmy breeze … who knows. As for me, I will enjoy my brew and keep my potential carbon swapping dollars in my own family’s pockets. Twenty years from now, it will be something else. I recall the last two big scares were expanding ozone hole (nada) and the Global Ice Age Is On The Way scare in the early 1970s. Take your pick.

  16. travelah

    Stewart, enjoy your veggies and give lots of money to Al Gore. You will feel good.

  17. Johnny

    Ralph, you used the word “bro”.

    Hell yeah. You hipster.

    Dude.

    And just for that

    I’m gonna say

    Could you PLEASE pass the bacon?

  18. Nam Vet

    Switching to vegetarian certainly is an important first step for everyone still eating dead animal body parts. A good start because having respect for animal life will move people forward to respect everything else on earth.

    Matt, many of your generation don’t have children as it is. Cuts into fun time and the wallet too much, right? So I’d like to see what kind of a lifestyle you lead. Similar to Al Gore’s? I hope not. Walk the talk, because talk alone is always cheap and buying a lot of carbon credits is bullhockey. If we want to cut down on polution, etc, cut way back on electricity, car rides, and the such. How many are doing this? Not many. We are all spoiled with our lifestyle.

  19. MattR

    Sometimes I understand why Republicans get such a kick out of teasing us liberals. The point of my letter was not to suggest that the well-intentioned efforts of my fellow treehuggers and the gentle-spirited vegetarians are useless because too many other people don’t give a damn. Unfortunately, that’s probably mostly true, but there is still a point to trying to do the right thing. I was merely trying to inject some humor and maybe a little perspective into a debate that too often seems to lack both.

    As a student of history, I have long been pondering the fate of human kind in this our modern era. No one can know for certain what the future holds for us. But with a reasonable expectation of another 60 years on this planet I need not know for certain when and how life as we know it will be drastically and tragically altered, but only if. I have at times felt helpless, as I have watched this nation squander precious years and vast wealth that could have been employed in efforts to save the world. But if I was once optimistic that we might be saved by well-intentioned public servants; I can now see which way the wind is blowing and I’ve decided to start spitting in the opposite direction.

    It is now abundantly clear that we have indeed sowed the seeds of our own destruction and they are already bearing strange fruit. Our sins by both omission and commission will be visited upon our sons and daughters for however many more generations that mankind will be able to sustain itself upon the earth. And yet life goes on here in the Homeland, as though nothing aside from this terrible, wasteful war is wrong. Even among those I know who should by all light of reason have cause to foresee the imminent dangers facing our civilization, a certain faith prohibits them from accepting that the steady march of human progress teeters on the brink of an abrupt and devastating halt.

    I recognize that predictions of doom have continually been espoused by modern and latter-day Cassandras. From Nostradamus to Hubert, a host of wise (sometimes mad) men and women have long pointed out the logical and inevitable dire consequences facing mankind. Through our ingenuity, adaptation and persistence (as well as our willingness to brutally exploit the 3rd world) we continue to surmount the challenges that have arisen. This has given us modern (read Western industrialized) humans a false sense of security in the face of ever more rapidly developing dangers. I believe however that the speed of change and the scale upon which these changes are carried out globally represent a geometric increase in the rate of negative effects of human activities.

    We blindly hurtle towards the antithesis that quietly awaits the arrival of this train of human progress (though some might say that our antithesis ain’t so quiet of late).

    Biologists who study ecosystems will tell us that homeostasis exists in ecosystems in a state of dynamic tension. The various organisms live, thrive, die off, and thrive again in a mind-bogglingly complex (and often delicate) balance. We describe such systems as webs and cycles. We use the words balance, harmony, and equilibrium to define a healthy such system. And yet we also know that this system has winners and losers. Evolution, with its survival of the fittest has long guided this process in ways that we might conceive of as violent and cruel; or perhaps nasty, brutish and short. This has been the persistent pattern of the natural world for billions of years, as life struggles to survive and progress in complexity. Thus life continues, always briefly to defy the law of entropy.

    But we humans whether out of arrogance or superstition conceive of ourselves as existing outside of these constructs. We are different from the animals (or so we keep insisting). “We are capable of rational thought”, we say. Though I could provide a fair argument against such a notion.

    How soon we forget nearly 200,000 years of history. We consider ourselves separate from the natural world, and yet think we reside within it as one might live in a house or a city. And this is a problem because we can’t just slap a new coat of paint on this one; we can’t simply throw some new shingles on the roof. It is readily apparent that the health of the global ecosystem is in poor and rapidly worsening shape. We see: the declining health of the oceans; global warming; the extinction of species at more than 100 times the normal rate; the decreasing availability of fresh water- I could go on and on. The rate of population growth coupled with industrialization has transformed our planet in ways beyond parallel in only a few short generations.

    Our rise has been stunning, and we can take pride in many of our accomplishments. Until recently our future had never seemed brighter, but a planet with finite resources and a limited capacity to absorb the byproducts of our activities now belies our seemingly limitless potential.

    In my line of work, it is a well-known and all-too-common pitfall to grow too big, too fast- to get overextended and then go bankrupt. A man can lose his business, his home. His employees lose their jobs; his clients are left out in the cold (so to speak). This happens everyday. This is unfortunately an apt metaphor for the fate that may well befall human civilization (as we know it), though the consequences would be far worse. Billions of lives depend on the physical, financial and commercial infrastructure that now stretches to all corners of the globe. And for this reason we should have long ago (at least a few decades) paused to consider how we might seek to promote a balance that might sustain us all in some reasonable level of comfort, peace, prosperity and health.

    But have we done so? Has no voice of reason tried to convince us that we are destroying the planet and the future of our children for the sake of instant gratification of our desires? If they did, I don’t think I remember any mention of it on Fox News, or even NPR for that matter.

    The same capitalism that is responsible for all the growth and prosperity that has made it possible for so many of us to live in relative luxury is undermining our survival in the future. The last two hundred years of out of control economic progress and innovation appears to have generated some nasty unanticipated side effects. Still, we know that these side effects were not entirely unanticipated. Like the dangers of smoking, the “theory” of global warming and soon Peak Oil, we awaken to the dangers of our own actions only when we can’t possibly deny them any longer and usually too late. I’m afraid that our vast technology is pathetically unfit for the challenge of saving us. We don’t have the power to create ecosystems, we can barely repair them on a small scale.

    I am afraid that what we see happening around us is the natural inviolable pattern that seeks always to enforce balance. That dynamic tension between creation and inevitable destruction, like the string on a bow, can only be stretched so far before it returns to equilibrium or breaks. We are bound by the same laws of nature that govern the terrible violent beauty that is found in jungles of the Amazon or the Great Barrier Reef. We fool ourselves at our own peril to think the laws of nature do not apply to us as well.

    Now all this might seem terribly depressing and fatalistic, and that is one way to look at it. But I’m inclined to cheerfully accept that the world will keep on spinning long after we humans are gone. The plants and the critters will find a way to flourish again; life goes on. I’m at peace with this. I know that I’m going to die, as will we all. But that won’t stop me from living; or recycling; or having fun; or bearing children; or chopping down a few trees to build a house; or driving a car; or eating meat.

    It seems to me that consciousness too often gives us humans the notion that we are somehow the center of the universe. We struggle and strive to create (or adopt) some mytho-poetic narrative that makes us feel justified in our own self-importance. Don’t get me wrong, humans are great, and I like the vast majority of them, but we are just really smart primates (maybe too smart for out own good). And there are six and a half billion of us. That’s a lot of people.

    About six billion of those people are poorer than you and I. Most of them live in a level of poverty, pollution and deprivation that you and I can only begin to imagine. Do you really believe that these people are going to forgo their opportunity to pursue the same kind of standard of living that we here in America enjoy just because we rich Americans are jumping up and down about the consequences of the very behaviors that have made us so rich and comfortable?

    We can’t even fix poverty and pollution in this country. Why? Because these things are inherent byproducts of our socioeconomic structures. These structures will never change until humans have no other choice, at which time we’ll be in such dire straights just trying to avoid starvation we aren’t going to have much in the way of time and money left for hydrogen fuel cells and monorails, and solar-powered dishwashing machines.

    So irritating though I may be, foolish I am not. Twenty years from now when I am living in a solar-powered, energy efficient house I built myself out of cordwood on 30 acres in the mountains with an organic garden, some chickens, a few goats and a couple of pigs, where will you be? In the meantime I encourage you to do all you can to stave off the inevitable, as I cannot yet afford the 30 acres in the mountains.

  20. Jess

    I think the person who needs to get over himself is you. You are oversimplifying the argument to an absurd level.

    No, eating a veggie burger will not save the planet. No, one person recycling a plastic bottle instead of trashing it won’t counteract the millions being thrown away by others.

    You are neglecting the important fact that MANY PEOPLE ENGAGED IN THE SAME ACTIVITY CAN HAVE A LARGE IMPACT.

    Educate yourself next time before you write a half-baked “article” on a subject you clearly don’t understand.

  21. Johnny

    The over-simplification here is to run out the old saw of how everyone can make a difference, when there’s simply no evidence or numbers or models to suggest that modest curtailing of a first world lifestyle by a majority of those who have one will make a sizable dent in the juggernaut we are facing.

    While he needs no defense from me, Matt’s pondering over this is just that. Shall we all push on this string together, and get blind to the grander issues? I dunno.

    Yes, yes, let’s all do our part, Jess, but keep our heads out of the sand regarding a course we are on that is unlikely to be largely affected by “modesty”.

    Deck chairs.

    Untreated wood.

  22. Nam Vet

    I am all for one person “lighting a candle in the darkness”. If we just assume we cannot make a difference from the getgo, nothing will ever be done. Ghandi and Martin Luther King strived to make a difference, and look what they accomplished. So, each person: BE THE BEAUTY THAT YOU LOVE. Whatever that is, just DO IT! For me it is not eating dead animal parts. It is looking each person I meet in the eye and giving a smile. My own version of the Kindness Campaign. We can all make a difference. Love alone conquers the seriousness of the “world”.

  23. Johnny

    Nam Vet, why do you continue to use the phrase “dead animal parts” — intentionally being a mean spirit about it — yet now profess your kindness campaign, the be the beauty campaign, your smile to each one of us, and a belief in love?

    Instead of being those things, you are trying to be derogatory, or so it appears to me.

    Can you say, “I honor the food choices you have made as a meat eater, but if you are interested and ask me about mine I will tell you”?

  24. Nam Vet

    Johnny, how is being opposed to the killing and eating of animals “mean spirited”? I don’t get your point at all. Drive out in the country and view some cows and pigs in their pastures. I defy you to look into their eyes and not recognize they are living beings, like you and I,and deserve to LIVE. Eating dead animal body parts is mean spirited. We have been enculturated to go into a supermarket and buy nicely packaged “meat’. Yet this meat is actually “dead animal body parts”, in reality. I do a service by reminding us all of that. Now perhaps you could say I eat dead vegetable matter…fine. I do. But no crying out in pain, no blood was spilled in the process. I also use dairy products, gotten from small organic farms where no cruelty is used. Notice no killing of an animal is involved. That is my standard. Raising and killing warm blooded animals to satisfy our taste for dead animal body parts is wrong, in my opinion. Consider joining us, and the world will live as one.

  25. Johnny

    Well, so much for the love then….

    I was just pointing out the irony of your love-talk compared to using the obvious attempt at being derogatory and unaccepting. I’m fine with you being derogatory, just don’t toss it into your kindness campaign. I’m not jabbing a stick in your eye for being a vegetarian, so why must be so intolerant and mean-spirited…. yet claim otherwise?

    Also, quit kidding yourself about dairy animal death. You support their death by eating dairy products. Duh.

  26. dave

    I will personally take anyone to a slaughterhouse for a visit. Unfortunately most of them won’t allow cameras, mainly because the meat industry fears losing customers when people see animals being slaughtered that any biologist or anyone who works with cats and dogs or owns them as pets, would have to admit, have close if not the same feelings and emotional bonds to themselves and their young. According to many reports, the methane released from the backend and mouths of just the cattle raised for meat eating produces more destructive gases than all of the cars in the world combined. As a veggie head for over 30 years and a very healthy kale eater, I know humans really don’t need to eat meat to stay healthy, and perhaps cutting down even 10% on their meat eating would benefit the environment, let them continue eating meat so they are happy and stop some of this slaughter and consequently save a lot of land that could be used to grow other food. I do have a sense of humor. Am I a vegetarian because I love animals? No, because I hate vegetables. Hey, you can live without drinking blood that’s been sitting around for a long time.

  27. Nam Vet

    Johnny that is bullhockey. That eating dairy products supports your dead animal body part life style. You are just trying to justify your cold-hearted consumption of animals. I knew a guy who worked in a slaughterhouse in East St Louis. He was second in line, right behind the guy who shot the cows and pigs. Their bodies were hung upsidedown so he could cut their throats to “bleed them”. He said often the animals were not dead yet and cried out in pain. He came home every day from work covered in blood. His mom finally got him to quit because she couldn’t wash all the blood out.

    Also, consider this. If you eat hotdogs, vienna sausage, spam, lunch meat…you are consuming the parts of the animal that cannot be sold for what they are on face value. That means: penises, vaginas, anuses, alimentary canals, livers, testicles, gall bladders, tongues, brains…and so on. It’s a nasty business…killing, selling…and eating dead animals. Try to justify it all you want. You just can’t. It’s mean spirited and barbaric. Period.

  28. Nam Vet

    Using dairy is not contributing to the killing and eating of the cows. Being a dead animal body part eater probably isn’t mean spirited for most people because they just don’t think about what they are eating. If they do, then they are mean spirited. The killing of animals for food is wrong, and unhealthy.

  29. Nam Vet

    Found an interesting article on Christian vegetarianism:

    The Christian Argument for Vegetarianism

    It is well known that during the last thirty years or more, farmers have been under increasing pressure to tailor traditional farming
    methods to the needs of cost-effective production. Farming animals intensively has become the norm.
    It seems to me the only satisfactory basis on which we can oppose systems of close confinement is by recourse to the argument
    drawn from theos-rights. To put it at its most basic: animals have the right to be animals. The natural life of a Spirit-filled creature
    is a gift from God. When we take over the life of an animal to the extent of distorting its natural life for no other purpose than our
    own gain, we fall into sin. There is no clearer blasphemy before God than the perversion of his creatures.
    To the question: ‘Why is it wrong to deny chickens the rudimentary requirements of their natural life, such as freedom of
    movement or association?’ there is, therefore, only one satisfactory answer: Since an animal’s natural life is a gift from God, it
    follows that God’s right is violated when the natural life of his creatures is perverted. Those who, in contrast, opt for the welfarist
    approach to intensive farming are inevitably involved in speculating how far such and such may or may not suffer in what are
    plainly unnatural conditions. But unless animals are judged to have some right to their natural life, from what standpoint can we
    judge abnormalities, mutilations or adjustments? Confining a de-beaked hen in a battery cage is more than a moral crime; it is a
    living sign of our failure to recognize the blessing of God in creation.
    What makes this situation all the more lamentable is the realization that the use to which animals are put in intensive farming goes
    far beyond even the most generous interpretation of need. It will be obvious that humans can live healthy, stimulating and
    rewarding lives without white veal, pate’ de foie gras, or the ever-increasing quantities of cheap eggs. The truth is that we can
    afford to be much more generous to farm animals than is frequently the case today.
    Churches need to reflect in their own collective actions the sensitivity they frequently hope for in others. [In England], under
    present legislation, animals can be subject to intensive farming and are so on Church land. It is anomalous that the Church of
    England should allow on its land farming practices which many senior ecclesiastics oppose and which one bishop recently likened
    to an Auschwitz for animals.

    The Christian argument for vegetarianism then is simple: since animals belong to God, have value to God and live for God, then
    their needless destruction is sinful. In short: animals have some right to their life, all circumstances being equal. That it has taken
    Christians so long to grasp this need not worry us. There were doubtless good reasons, partly theological, partly cultural and
    partly economic, why Christians in the past have found vegetarianism unfeasible. We do well not to judge too hastily, if at all. We
    cannot relive others’ lives, or think their thoughts, or enter their consciences. But what we can be sure about is that living without
    what Clark calls “avoidable ill” has a strong moral claim upon us now.
    Some will surely question the limits of the vegetarian world here envisaged. Will large-scale vegetarianism work in practice? I
    confess I am agnostic, surely legitimately, about the possibility of a world-transforming vegetarianism. But clairvoyance is not an
    essential prerequisite of the vegetarian option, and what the future may hold, and its consequences, cannot easily be determined
    from any perspective. What I think is important to hold on to is the notion that the God who provides moral opportunities is the
    same God who enables the world, slowly but surely, to respond to them. >From a theological perspective, no moral endeavor is
    wasted so long as it coheres with God’s purpose for his cosmos.

    Excerpted from the book:
    Christianity and the Rights of Animals, (Crossroad Publ. Co., NY)
    Rev. Dr. Andrew Linzey
    Director of Studies
    Center for the Study of Theology
    University of Essex

  30. Traveleh

    Namvet, I’m a meat eater and that’s the way god made me. Are you going against god with your absurd theories and ad-hominica attacks? If god did not want us to eat meat, he would not have given us guns. Pigs, lambs, cows, rabbits, etc. I love to hear them scream as they die for my dietary satisfaction. God gave us permission to rape everything, PERIOD!

  31. Nam Vet

    Travelah, God did not “make” you a dead animal flesh eater. God made you with “free will” to be an omnivore,or a vegetarian. God also gave you the free will to be a respecter of life, or a killer. Our teeth and digestion system are very similar to vegetarian animals, such as horses and cows.

    And if you are a walk-your-talk “meat” eater, I would say you should do your own killing, bleeding, dissection of the animal for your dinner table. Going down to Ingles and buying the dead animal body parts someone else has killed, bleed , and cut up, is not very genuine. Of course, you can change course and honor animals, let them live in peace, and consume only veggies, fruit, grain, nuts, dairy products and live a good and guilt free life. :)

  32. quotequeen

    Everyone’s values are defined by what they will tolerate when it is done to others.
    ~ William Greider

  33. Nam Vet

    “Everyone’s values are defined by how the most vulnerable amongst us are treated. The doe-eyed calf murdered in a stockyard so some yuppie can have it as a restaurant meal. The growing baby whose beating heart is stopped when it is ripped from the womb of his mother during an abortion. Let us reclaim our humanity by not tolerating killing.”
    ~NM

  34. quotequeen

    “There is no sincerer love than the love of food.”
    – George Bernard Shaw

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