http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monoculture of annual crops already have a lot of problems: soil erosion, the "pesticide treadmill" effect, loss of soil nutrients, etc.

Modern industrial agriculture needs A LOT of inputs - synthetic fertilizer, pesticides, and water. As long as the real costs are hidden (subsidies, not taking into account the cost to the environment, cheap fuel prices for creating synthetic fertilizer, etc.), then industrial ag will continue to be the norm. Water wars are already being waged - the largest consumer of water is agriculture. Practices are starting to change among many farmers, but certainly not the huge industrial sized operations.

However, discussion of crops isn't exactly in the scope of this thread?

As for confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs): CAFOs =/= large-scale cattle operations. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confined_animal_feeding_operation.

While we're still on the subject, have you ever heard of The Three Sister growing technique?

What you call a CAFO, we call a cattle farm. A vegan's http://www.precisionnutrition.com/cattle-feedlot-visit, which is pretty much my experience.

I'll cede the water point, as I believe water will probably be the greatest challenge in the future, more so than oil. I've a lot to say about subsidies, but cannot. The rest I don't see as an enormous problem. Farmers have a vested interest in keeping their land arable.

Equal opportunity organism ingestor here.
Once was a vegetarian. Not because of political or suffrage issues, but because I didn't like the taste of incinerated meat. My dad liked his meat past well done.
I still cannot to this day stand the smell of bacon or sausage cooking.

As for the animals vs people debate, I can't give much creedence to vegetanarism as a social or political stance. Not when farming, (much of which is monocultured, seeds and products controlled by mega industries such as Monstanto) causes such problems itself as soil depletion and erosion, fertilizer runoff, hybridization/ contaminiation of heirloom varieities, and death of organisms at harvest time.
Yes, I screw up the world no matter which way I eat, and I like my shellfish. I also, once I started cooking for myself, like the taste of rare lamb, and the occasional bit of beef. Juicy poultry is divine.

I know what happens to the animals that turn into my meat before they're killed. I know what gross body parts make up a hot dog. And I know about all the other bad things the meat industry does, as well as how meat's not wonderful for my health. But honestly, I simply could not live without meat. Not counting snacks, and the side dishes I eat with my meat, I'm far, far more of a carnivore than an omnivore. Oh, sure, I eat fruits and vegetables, but it would be torture for me not to go without at least some form of meat for more than a few days. :shrug:

Problem is, they don't necessarily know/believe* the best way to do that :shrug:.

*I say 'believe' because there are plenty of farmers who do things the way their father did them, and aren't very open to change.

That was an unusually good example, but it's not exemplary of the whole industry. Why people are insistent that the cheap way is the best way is beyond me. Sure it's cheap, but at what cost?

Now there's a novel idea! :ninja:

I eat meat. Y'all can have your tofu and soybeans, I'll have the prime rib, hold the horseradish.

That's why I find picking the wild blueberry bushes around our house to be such a joy. We didn't plant them, we didn't water or fertilize them, we don't use pesticides on them. And there they are, making hundreds of blueberries, ripe for the picking. Foraging is fun. And tasty. :liplick: Same goes for all the blackberry bushes in the yard, too. Sure, the berries are small, and they aren't always perfect, but they are nature's bounty. I don't know why the birds aren't scarfing them down, but, eh, more for me and my dogs.

I disagree. The Irish Potato famine and the demise of the Cavendish banana are examples that prove that monocultured products are risky. Reducing the gene pool while other organisms (insect pests, fungi, bacteria) continue to evolve is asking for trouble. True, the green revolution make it possible, through specialized breeding and improved irrigation and fertization menthods, that enormous amounts of produce be grown. However, the costs of those gains are contaminated water systems, and polluted soils. Not to mention interbreeding of engineered plants with heirlooms via pollen that is wind or insect carried. Do you know Monsanto has copyrights on it;s product, regardless of how it was produced?
A farmer with an heirloom crop, carefully bred, can have his whole crop ruined by engineered monocultures miles away pollinating his livliehood. And if it turns out that farmer has those geneticly engineered seeds as a result, Monstanto can legally confiscate them.

Farming is not easy, and urban sprawl has made it so that the small farmer can't compete with big factory farms.




Hee-hee Alais, I went hiking and blackberry picking on my brother's property a few weeks back.
Came home with half a gallon of delicious, unsprayed, un fertilized, all wild blackberries, we have plenty of jelly as a result.

Monsanto, its story reads like a rap sheet of general douchebaggery.

This

We're Omnivores. We're supposed to eat meat. I mean, you wouldn't expect a lion to go around chomping on plants, would you? It's nature. I'm also pretty sure it's bad for you to never eat meat. We need meat to keep strong and to have certain nutrients. Fatty meats, such as bacon aren't even bad. If I ate bacon every 10 minutes, it'd be bad, but once a day/week is fine. Also, we need fat.

I'm not ranting, I just don't get it :shrug:


Oh, and fish is meat. Who came up with that?

I'm not a vegetarian but I don't eat meat very often because I'm a food snob, and it's hard to get good meat without paying out your ass for it.
When I started eating only good meat, and a lot more fruit and veg I felt much healthier, so I presume that vegetarians who get their proteins and stuff like they should feel the same. Really, it's not a bad way of doing things even if you eat meat occasionally.

I do love a nice rare steak, but usually I'll only eat meat maybe weekly, and even then it's not always red. Moderation in everything.

Also, for the record: no-one should a crap about what anyone else eats unless you're a parent, a chef or a nutritionist, and anyone else who does has too much free time. Preachy vegetarians and preachy meat eaters are equally annoying.

I find it funny, because people eat vegetables and fruit because they don't want anything to die, but plants are alive too and they can actually feel pain, so you really arn't doing anything, but killing something else to eat

I don't mind vegetarianism. If you are a vegetarian/vegan good for you.

I don't like being preached to, though, or care how many days its been since you last had a burger.

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and I already miss it :sadvaultboy:

What use would a plant have for pain?

Animals feel pain because it stops them from touching painful things and makes us cautious of dangerous things. A plant can't move apart from basic growing, and feeling pain wouldn't do anything. Doesn't seem to make sense to evolve to feel pain when you can do nothing about it. Then again, I don't get why childbirth hurts mammals, either.

Why does everyone keep saying this.

I know many vegetarians and a couple of them are on the extreme end of the scale (raw foodests). Never have they preached to anyone, unless prompted into a discussion about it by someone else, and even then its always been more about how much healthier they feel/are than how long they have gone without meat or how horrible the conditions for farm animals is or [censored] like that.

have you ever noticed that plants move towards sun or water, it is the same for painful object they will move away, just more slowly. And blame childbirth on eve.

I've know a vegetarian who didn't force her views on anyone, she did it because she didn't like the though of killing animals. That lasted 2 years and now she's a meat eater.

And I've known a vegan who did nothing but flaunt it in people's faces. You couldn't have her over for dinner even if you made her an alternate because she spent the whole meal telling you how it's cruel to bees getting honey for that dressing, and how that cow had feelings. I eventually just quit having her over at all because I couldn't offer her anything without getting crap from it, how the hell do I know what you do and don't eat, I'm not a vegan. Anyways she's downgraded from being such a pain in the ass to a regular vegetarian. I'm still not having her over lol.

I eat what I want, you can do the same....I try not to judge...just don't come tell me about what my cow felt as I inhale a steak!

I really do hate people that think that just because they eat vegetables they know everything

It doesn't hurt them to be away from water or sun, it's instinct. And mammals cover more than humans

it is also instinct to move away from pain, if you have ever noticed some highways with high growing plants look a little square where trucks have hit it, it has been hit but it grows back into that shape to avoid being hurt again. And maybe eve screwed it up for every female period