Vote With Your Fork

I became a vegetarian around 1997 and stayed that way for three years. My reasons weren't ethical or environmental, mainly health. For those who don't eat meat for health reasons, or because they don't believe in killing conscious creatures, this article is not for you.

When I became a vegetarian, I read Frances Moore Lappe's Diet for a Small Planet (still a great read, if you keep in mind that some of the info is dated). Its grain-and-bean combining amino acid theories have influenced vegetarian eating for decades. She also brings to light the fact that eating vegetarian is more resource-friendly - essentially, you have to feed (and water) the animal you're eating a lot more than you would have to eat to sustain yourself on purely vegetable matter. So one person consumes less acreage if they eat vegetarian. It's worth thinking about, and it's still true. Interestingly, Ms. Lappe is not a vegetarian herself. I haven't read her new book yet, but plan to.

Time magazine this week has an extremely intriguing article that I recommend any sustainable foodies out there pick up. It's entitled Save the Planet: Eat More Beef* (asterisk reads: Grass feeding required). In essence, free range beef is putting more carbon into the soil than it is taking out by consumption (whoa, the way nature is supposed to work!) Not only that but grass fed beef is much lower in fat and higher in omega-3's. An interesting quote from the article: "A vegetarian eating tofu made in a factory from soybeans grown in Brazil is responsible for a lot more CO2 than I am [by eating grass fed beef]."

I'd be willing to bet that, unless you're a vegetarian, you could stand to eat LESS meat than you already do, and that's a step in the right direction wherever your meat comes from. But on an environmental scale, and a world hunger scale, eating some meat makes sense - an animal can graze on a hillside planted with human-inedible grass, over land that nothing could be planted and farmed for human consumption. That's just wise resource use. From a world hunger perspective, many of the places people are going hungry are not places where there are amber waves of grain - the scrubby grass that grows there isn't good for much but livestock.

So, from an environmental standpoint, some things you can do to make a difference in your environmentally conscious omnivorism:
1) Eat less meat.
2) Eat free range meat.
3) Eat local organic meat.

Fact. A new International Journal of biological sciences studied the effects of genetically modified (GM) corn on rats. They linked it to organ damage. Here's your Huffington Post link, and here's the text of the actual study.

Fact. The only study on the effects of GM foods done prior to this was a 90-day study done by Monsanto (the company that has patents on most GM seeds) for FDA approval (that wasn't skewed, I'm sure). Most chronic conditions will not show up in 90 days. The above study concludes: "These substances have never before been an integral part of the human or animal diet and therefore their health consequences for those who consume them, especially over long time periods are currently unknown."

Fact. These genetically modified seeds, now in use for a decade, are being used to grow 95% of soy crops and 80% of corn crops in the US, and a host of other crops grown in large quantities. In fact, if a farmer wanted to find non-GM seeds, they might have difficulty even finding them. Consider: how many of the products you consume use US corn oil, corn syrup, soybean oil, soy and corn flour? Most things you eat, I'm guessing. And a lot of that produce is probably GM, too, but, here's the real problem.

Fact. There is currently no legislation demanding that a product be identified as having been grown from GM seeds, or containing crop products grown from GM seeds. Therefore, even if you wanted to completely eliminate GM products from your diet and your home, you would be unable to do so, UNLESS you buy absolutely everything organic, as anything with the organic label is not permitted by law to be genetically modified.

GM crops can cross-pollinate with crops that aren't, so even if some people chose to grow non-GM crops, the neighbor's field might "infect" theirs. Worse, Monsanto crops now carry a "terminator" gene that kills embryonic seed, so that the farmer can't save seed for the next year - that's right, the crop is rendered incapable of reproducing - so they have to buy more seed from Monsanto the next year. What happens when THAT spreads by cross-pollination? And I haven't even gone into the fact that most of the above genetic modification is done so that crops can be mass-sprayed with herbicides. That's an entirely different rant.

I think you should vote with your dollars - buy organic, for now - and also write your congressman, because I think this is a huge threat to health and safety. GM products MUST be labeled as such.

I'm on a crusade here. If this disturbs you, pass the info on, please.

More links, more info.

Can that Terminator gene really cross-pollinate?
If so, is that a threat to world food supply?

And finally, a documentary on what Monsanto is doing for YOU.