People produce plenty of food to feed everyone in the world.  But don’t try to tell a preachy vegan that.

Some will always come back with articles and info-graphics relaying how meat is “murdering the planet” and causing starvation. It’s a popular theme from a lot of writers and media.  But it’s mostly bullshit.

I had a whole twitter spat about it… when I copied a vegan’s tweet and changed a few words — mostly animals to plants.

https://twitter.com/KieranBullshit/status/1198761421607071745

I’ll save you the time in reading twitter shit.  Let’s just say, “jesus these people are exhausting…”

I just wanted to make a point about morality.  Something has to die, so we can live.  You are not better than me because you only kill plants.

It very quickly spiraled into a fight over world hunger.

I’ll grant that our current factory farming system sucks.  Meat should be expensive.  Stacking animals in pens or yards so they shit all over each other is not the answer.

I’ll concede that we spend far too much land, money and water to create meat.

I agree that too much of our “food” goes to feeding animals.  Sure, it’s wasteful and can be done better.

Meat shop
Delicious… stole the image from here — a sustainable butcher.

But bacon, steak, chicken and ham are delicious.  We just murdered 50 million tukeys for Thanksgiving for fuck’s sake.  And we are going to do it again for Christmas.  Meat may be “murder” in your eyes, but it’s worth it.

For years, humans have produced more than enough food for everyone.  Starvation is usually the ugly byproduct of war, poverty and poor distribution.  Not eating meat won’t fix those problems.

Your choice to eat chicken-flavored tofu is not “feeding” someone who is starving.  It might be better for you, and it might be better for the environment, but stop trying to tell us you are solving world hunger.  You are not.

If every American stopped eating meat today, that would not feed the people of Yemen tomorrow.  The war has to end before those people will get to eat again (at least on a regular basis).

The Meat Problem

I do agree there are tons of problems with the way we raise meat.  It is unsustainable. But so is the way we grow corn, soy beans and lettuce.  But there are solutions that are good for everyone.  Here are three of my favorites:

  1. Let’s grow meat cells in the lab.  Same great taste — less murder.
  2. Let’s graze animals where they can eat the “fuel” before it becomes fire (California, Arizona — Australia).
  3. Let’s hunt wild hogs and deer.  Better to hunt and eat them than kill them with our cars.

Like energy, transportation and politics, how we grow our food is pretty fucked up.  But we don’t have to give up meat to make it better. Some of these militant Vegans will never believe it, but the idea that people are starving right now because we eat meat — is certified Grade A Bullshit.