Vegans for Humanity
vegans please feel free to add your own findings, I wrote this up on a whim and I’m sure I’m missing things
Next time you accuse an animal rights activist of “not caring about humans,” consider the following: (issues listed in no particular order)
1. Because we have overfished our oceans,, there are now rogue trawlers stealing marine resources from developing nations that cannot defend themselves. This is one of the reasons Somalia has such an “issue” with pirates; their fisherman are effectively waging war on illegal foreign trawlers in an attempt to survive.
2, The demand for beef has not only threatened the rainforest (because of expanding ranches, and soy fields to feed the animals raised on the ranches), but has also led to violent disputes over increasingly valuable land. Not to mention the conditions of the people that work there. “The government acknowledges that at least 25,000 Brazilians work under “conditions analogous to slavery,” clearing land and working for cattle ranches, soy farms, and other labor-intensive industries. Some groups say the true figure could be ten times that amount.”
3. The United States alone raises billions upon billions of animals for consumption each year, and every single animal shits. And they shit a lot; a cow poops out around 67 lbs of feces a day. So, with all these shitting animals cramped up in factory farms, we end up with shit lagoons. Suffice to say, these shit lagoons are a danger to the nation in question’s water supply, air quality, and sanitary issues. Particularly, the respiratory health of nearby populace (especially children) is at risk due to large, decomposing, full-of-antibiotics-and-ammonia shit lagoons.
4. Water is going to be the new oil and the resource-heavy meat industry is not helping. ”In industrialized countries, moving toward a vegetarian diet can reduce the food-related water footprint of people by 36%.” (keep in mind that’s vegetarian, let alone vegan). Using so much water is going to come back and bite us in the butt in the coming decades. Not to mention the shit lagoons in the last section contribute to water pollution, especially the contamination of underground water sources.
5. Speaking of resource-heavy, the meat/dairy/egg industries raise and slaughter over 150 billion animals every year while 925 million people go to bed hungry every night. “The industrial world is exporting grain to developing countries and importing the meat that is produced with it, and thus farmers who are trying to feed themselves are being driven off their land. Their efficient, plant-based agricultural model is being replaced with intensive livestock rearing, which also pollutes the air and water and renders the once-fertile land dead and barren. If this trend continues, the developing world will never be able to produce enough food to feed itself, and global hunger will continue to plague hundreds of millions of people around the globe.”
6. The industrialization of the meat/dairy/eggs industries has created one of the most exploited working groups in the industrial world: slaughterhouse workers. Being a slaughterhouse worker is listed as one of the most dangerous jobs in America; with lines moving fast and animals going through the machinery still alive and kicking, there is a great risk of injury and little to no chance of compensation. Sinclair’s The Jungle is almost tame compared to the factory farm system nowadays.
7. Because terrible conditions, incorrect diet, and genetic manipulation make farmed animals quite weak, they must be fed tons of antibiotics. Which means that their poop is full of antibiotics. Which means they’re full of antibiotics, which means, guess what, non-vegans are eating tons and tons of antibiotics.Which means that these anti-biotics will become increasingly ineffective; we might as well be inviting the spread of diseases like or more severe than H1N1.
*** disclaimer: there are obviously a lot of vegan foods that are ethically iffy, too, like non-fair trade chocolate and quinoa from bolivia. however, when it comes to ethical consumerism, veganism is a great start, and when it comes to how we treat animals, veganism is the only non-exploitive option ***
“We black people, poor people-we've not really been introduced to the injustices behind what we eat. Of course, people who have to worry about finding food, clothing, and shelter are not going to be as concerned about what they're eating. I mean, you almost have to have a record deal to shop at Whole Foods!”
—Erykah BaduIt is a privilege to be able to eat any of these types of food:
- Vegan
- Organic
- Fair trade
- Local
- GMO-Free
- Bought at a restaurant
- Prepared from scratch
- Home grown
Having transportation to/from a grocery store that sells these types of things, money to purchase these ingredients, the ability to prepare, grow, and/or cook your own meals, knowledge about food production/consumption/alternative diets, and the option to do these things are privileges.
Do not shame someone else for their eating habits just because you think they are doing something “wrong” by eating meat or buying their groceries at a big chain market. That is just rude, ignorant, and unproductive.
This conversation must become positive, rather than negative. No one be shamed or guilted for their eating habits, and the current social and political factors cannot be ignored.
Yes, we can make change, but not without first recognizing the inherent privileges and oppressions relating to the consumption of food.
Vegan Privilege
Choosing to have a vegan diet is privileged for numerous reasons:
- It is a privilege to have access to information about alternative diets; this includes knowing what recipes to use, what foods to purchase, and how to make things that taste good.
- Depending on where you live, you may or may not have access to a wide range of vegan foods. Being able to go to the grocery stores requires transportation to/from; the closest store may not be vegan-friendly and you may have to drive for many miles to find a store where you can get all your shopping done. This is further complicated if you rely on public transportation or rides from others, in that you are only able to go to the specific stores on their routes, which may or may not have a range of vegan foods.
- Subsequently, vegan food is often very expensive. For example: fresh produce, dairy-alternatives, olive oil, spices, tofu, etc.
- Having the time and energy to prepare your own vegan food is a privilege. If you are working many hours a week and/or doing intense labor, spending time preparing meals at home may not be feasible and/or desirable, especially for a big family.
- If you do go out to eat, vegan foods are not usually marked as such on menus (again this depends a lot on where you live). Therefore, you are likely to have to know enough about vegan foods to ask questions and understand the different ingredients.
- Many people cannot be vegan for health reasons, such as allergies, anemia, food intolerances, etc.
- Choosing to be vegan implies that you have a choice over what foods you can and do eat. If the food you eat is prepared by family members, friends, a partner, or a school that does not serve vegan food, it is a privilege to be able to supplement those meals on your own.
- In many religions and cultures, it is custom to eat meat and/or dairy products, as well as sacrifice animals. If one chooses to be vegan, they would therefore not participate in these same activities and [potentially] face negative consequences from family members, friends, etc.
“Ms. Magazine: How does your feminist identity influence the way you think about food/food politics? Dr. Amie "Breeze" Harper: I am always looking through the lenses of black feminism, critical race feminism and decolonial feminist world-systems analysis when I try to understand food in every aspect. I simply cannot look at food as an “everyday mundane object.” I understand the meanings applied to food as something that represents an entire culture’s ideologies around everything. For example, food can tell me a society’s expectations about sexuality, gender roles, racial hierarchies of power and ability. Ms. Magazine: Why should people consider food a feminist issue? Dr. Harper: Oh, that’s a great one. First, I think feminism is really broad, so I’m coming from the perspectives of black feminism and decolonial feminist world-systems analysis. So, that is how I define “my” feminisms, for now at least. I think one cannot understand structural oppression within the food system without understanding how structural sexism shapes one’s relationship within the food system, from seed to plate. For example, what does it mean that tomatoes coming out of Mexico since NAFTA have come to North Americans “cheaply” due to the exploitation of indigenous Mexican women and the myth that indigenous women are “more tolerant” of harsh chemicals and sun exposure than light-skinned mestizas who are usually found working in the tomato packing plants? Check out Deborah Barndt’s work on that.”
—Avital Norman Nathman, “The Femisphere: Foodies and Food Politics,” Ms. Magazine 3/12/13
“The skyrocketing cost of food has resurrected the specter of the 'food riot.' The World Bank reports that global food prices rose 83% over the last three years and the FAO cites a 45% increase in their world food price index during just the past nine months. The Economist’s comparable index stands at its highest point since it was originally formulated in 1845. As of March 2008, average world wheat prices were 130% above their level a year earlier, soy prices were 87% higher, rice had climbed 74%, and maize was up 31%. Not surprisingly, people have taken to the streets in Mexico, Italy, Morocco, Mauritania, Senegal, Indonesia, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Yemen, Egypt, and Haiti. Over 100 people have been killed and many more injured. In Haiti, the poorest country in the western hemisphere, with food prices increases of 50-100%, driving the poor to eat biscuits made of mud and vegetable oil, angry protestors forced the Prime Minister out of office. The food crisis will get worse before it gets better. Without massive, immediate injections of food aid, 100 million people in the Global South will join the swelling ranks of the word’s hungry. But the protests are not simply crazed “riots” by hungry masses. Rather they are angry demonstrations against high food prices in countries that formerly had food surpluses, and where government and industry are unresponsive. They reflect demands for food sovereignty: people’s political and economic right to determine the course of their own food systems. The food crisis appeared to explode overnight, reinforcing fears that there are just too many people in the world. But according to the FAO, with record grain harvests in 2007, there is more than enough food in the world to feed everyone—at least 1.5 times current demand. In fact, over the last 20 years, food production has risen steadily at over 2.0% a year, while the rate of population growth has dropped to 1.14% a year. Population is not outstripping food supply. 'We’re seeing more people hungry and at greater numbers than before,' says World Hunger Program’s executive director Josette Sheeran, 'There is food on the shelves but people are priced out of the market.'”
—Eric Holt-Giménez and Loren Peabody, “From Food Rebellions to Food Sovereignty: Urgent call to fix a broken food system.” Institute for Food and Development Policy, May 16, 2008
^ (in reference to the 2008 food crisis, in which many peoples all over the Global South rioted and protested over high food prices).
Usually, there’s a misconception in the Western world that famines and food crises are caused by overpopulation and not enough food to go around to feed people. In truth, this can be an offensive notion for the global south (third world) nations, as if to imply that there’s too many of us (non-white, non-western folks), so there’s not enough food to feed all of us. Wrong. Hunger and food crises are usually tied to poverty, high food prices, and cash crops being imported out of their homelands.
read more (in PDF)
State Sen. Campfield to TN kids: "The beatings will continue until morale improves!"
witch-words.blogspot.comOr rather, in this case, “The starvings will continue until your grades improve!”
By which I mean, he has proposed a bill to punish the families of underachieving children on public assistance by decreasing their TANF allotment (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, ie, food and living subsidies).
“How are your grades, little Timmy? Well, no pressure or anything, but we could get kicked out of our apartment and end up in a shelter if your grades aren’t up to snuff! Have a great day at school, kiddo.” Because as we all know, children learn best under pressure and threats of starving their whole family. It’s a motivation thing.
And the whole ugly affair gets even grosser, if you read his own words on the subject:
First of all, ”If the children don’t produce”? Produce? Are we talking about schools here, or child labor factories? Come on, Mr. Campfield, let that ill-fitting compassion mask slip a little further and show us the full extent of your disdain for poor children and how you’re already seeing them as future disposable worker-commodities.One of the top tickets to break the chain of poverty is education. To achieve a quality education is like a three legged stool. The state has put a lot of responsibility on schools and teachers to improve student performance. If the children don’t produce, it could impact the pay of the teacher and the standing of the school with the state. We have pushed two of the three legs of the student performance (teachers and schools) to improve, and they are. … The third leg of the stool (probably the most important leg) is the parents. We have done little to hold them accountable for their child’s performance. What my bill would do is put some responsibility on parents for their child’s performance.
Secondly, are you just completely unaware of the fact that children are dependent upon their parents to provide food/shelter/etc.? Children don’t exist in a vacuum. Putting “responsibility” and “accountability” - ie, punishments - on the parents transfers those effects directly to the kids, who are relying on their parents to be able to care for them. So you can cloak it in “parental responsibility” language all you like, but it still comes out to punishing children for bad grades by TAKING THEIR FUCKING FOOD AND HOUSING AWAY. And there is absolutely no possible circumstance in which that is anything but a hideously, grossly unethical and immoral thing to do. (But of course, Stacey Campfield has a 100% rating with Tennessee Right to Life, and sponsored a bill in 2007 to issue death certificates to aborted fetuses. He’s very consistent that way. All about caring for the lives of children, amirite?)
Thirdly and most importantly, this completely and utterly fails to take into account the sorts of structural barriers to excelling at school that poor children ALREADY FACE. Kids are already under stress when their family is struggling with poverty, both stress within the family - especially if there are issues of food scarcity, which has effects on a child both physiologically and psychologically - and from the fact that kids are evil, nasty, bullying little shits sometimes, and poor kids make a great target for that kind of bully. Additionally, children who have learning disabilities or illnesses - mental or physical - that make school more difficult are less likely than their economically well-off peers to receive the interventions and accommodations they need, which further sabotages their ability to do well in school. Then you have older - teenage - kids in poverty-level households who may well be trying to hold down jobs in order to help their families get by, which takes time away from schoolwork.
He frames it as ”Parents are responsible to make sure their kids are ready for school and that they get an education.” Which, again, shows stunning ignorance of what families in poverty are having to do to get by. Parents who are struggling to make ends meet often just don’t have time to do the suburban-middle-class “make sure your kids have a nutritious breakfast, drop them off at school, pick them up after school, and help them with their homework” thing. That takes time and energy that the parents are already expending just trying to make ends meet.
So to sum up, this absurdity of a proposal specifically targets those children who are already struggling the most with school, sets up a hard-line target that doesn’t take any variance in circumstances into account, then threatens to punish those who don’t meet the requirement by pushing their whole fucking family even further into poverty.
What part of that sounded like a good idea to you, Senator?
And is it just me, or is there a “welfare queens” sort of dogwhistle in there, too? The whole thing, especially the fact that it hinges on rhetoric of “parental responsibility” and parents “not doing their job [of making sure their kids do well in school]”, seems designed to evoke the image of lazy welfare-dependent adults who are just not bothering to help their kids out of apathy or spite.
See, class, here we have a truly stunning shitshow of ignorance, arrogance, classism, racism, and paternalism, held together with BOOTSTRAPS GODDAMNIT.
Congratulations, Mr. Campfield. You are officially the douchiest Republican I’ve seen in the last few days. Which, considering the state of your party, is actually kind of an accomplishment. I hope you can look back fondly on this experience from your post-political career in the very near future after the people you claim to represent toss you out on your ass.
Obama signs H.R. 933 into law
whitehouse.govThe US House of Representatives quietly passed a last-minute addition to the Agricultural Appropriations Bill for 2013 last week - including a provision protecting genetically modified seeds from litigation in the face of health risks.
The rider, which is officially known as the Farmer Assurance Provision, has been derided by opponents of biotech lobbying as the “Monsanto Protection Act,” as it would strip federal courts of the authority to immediately halt the planting and sale of genetically modified (GMO) seed crop regardless of any consumer health concerns. (Russia Today)
My mom is having fried potatoes and nachos for dinner.
My mom is thin.
She has always been thin.
And it’s totally okay that she wants to eat those things.
But if I ate them, she would be ~*~concerned~*~
Just like strangers would be ~*~concerned~*~
Because I’m fat. And my mother and strangers think being fat is bad and unhealthy and gross. And as such, they believe they should police what fat people eat and think and wear and feel.
My mom and strangers are wrong.
I’m gonna have a slice of cake and put my middle finger to the air.
Quinoa’s Global Success Creates Quandary in Bolivia - NYTimes.com
nytimes.comLA PAZ, Bolivia — When NASA scientists were searching decades ago for an ideal food for long-term human space missions, they came across an Andean plant called quinoa. With an exceptional balance of amino acids, quinoa, they declared, is virtually unrivaled in the plant or animal kingdom for its life-sustaining nutrients.
But while Bolivians have lived off it for centuries, quinoa remained little more than a curiosity outside the Andes for years, found in health food shops and studied by researchers — until recently.
Now demand for quinoa (pronounced KEE-no-ah) is soaring in rich countries, as American and European consumers discover the “lost crop” of the Incas. The surge has helped raise farmers’ incomes here in one of the hemisphere’s poorest countries. But there has been a notable trade-off: Fewer Bolivians can now afford it, hastening their embrace of cheaper, processed foods and raising fears of malnutrition in a country that has long struggled with it.
The shift offers a glimpse into the consequences of rising global food prices and changing eating habits in both prosperous and developing nations. While quinoa prices have almost tripled over the past five years, Bolivia’s consumption of the staple fell 34 percent over the same period, according to the country’s agricultural ministry.
The resulting quandary — local farmers earn more, but fewer Bolivians reap quinoa’s nutritional rewards — has nutritionists and public officials grasping for solutions.
“As it’s exported, quinoa is now very expensive,” said María Julia Cabrerizo, a nutritionist at the Hospital de Clínicas, a public hospital here. “It’s not a food of mass consumption, like noodles or rice.”
