In Denial About Meat

Yeah, not gonna cut out meat. However I will continue to buy from my local Halal grocery that gets their meat and eggs from local farms, not feedlots.

A vegan version of that same hot dog place would be just as tasty. Seattle is chock full of great vegan food, including pizza (http://www.pizza-pi.net/) and donuts (mightyo.com). All you have to do is go there! It really is easy being vegan, and you'll feel a whole lot better about everything, I promise.

Could you be more specific about the facts upon which you base your comment that “meat production is heavily subsidized”? I'm not denying the conclusion that there's a subsidy, but the nature of the subsidies specific to meat production is not obvious to me, nor is, of course, the heaviness. Thanks.

“meat production is heavily subsidized”

As opposed to soybeans, from which the veggie dog would be made?

Look, it's just like trying to say there should be no cars. shifting from over reliance on cars to an appropriate level of use of cars is doable and easy, my god they've already done it all over europe.

simmilarly, shifting from excess meat to appropriate meat is fairly easy.

you do this by stopping having a burger 3x a week and having a burger once every two months. stoppng having a chunk of meat in nearly every meal and shifting to a mix of salads for dinner, pasta for dinner (maybe with just some meat in it — adds lots of flavor), having Chinese or thai food in which there's tons of veggies and just some few bits of meat, having more fish, etc. Cutting your meat intake down by 80% has been surprisingly easy for me.

What's intolerable is the intolerable smugness of those who say you can't have any meat. Not ever. Not one bite. not even two little discs of sausage in a huge pasta dish full of pasta and veggies…you can't even use a frying pan, if it had meat in it, you can't use any animal based stock, etc. etc. etc.

It's the ultra rigidity that blocks progress here, same with the notion that all cars are bad and to get to urban and walkable we have to ban cars, ban parking, dream of a car free world, etc.

Same with flying airplanes and having dogs. Hey, I would like to fly an airplane once a year. I am willing to cut it down from 6x a year, but we must build better train service to Vancouver and even a high speed train to SF or LA. Same with dogs. Hopefully, we can figure out how to make dog food and dog poop more eco friendly but right now owning a dog is very bad for the environment. I would recommend a shift not a ban on dogs. Same with mpg, just getting people to drop the very low mpg cars (8-13 mpg) is the easiest quickest way to reduce GHG.

But hey, have a hot dog once in a while. Or better yet, cut it up and use one dog to serve three kids in a nice …oh say in a chile con carne with tons of beans and vegetables, too. Because once you change your habints three bites of meat in one meal is plenty and you start to think eating 8 ounces of burger at a time is just gross.

Dan's battling Alex Steffen for “Seattle's most tiresome pontificating nanny bore.”

Number one choice people make to pollute the world: having kids.

Second biggest choice of the upper class: flying.

Moving away from your home town and having kids probably causes more pollution per capita than any other pattern of living.

I would like the kings of green to tell us how many airplane seat miles they are responsible for. This would include people from back home that fly out to see them.

Half the Cascade Bicycle Club's staff seems to be from Connecticut. Want to bet whether or not they are responsible for way more GHG from travel than they save by biking?

“owning a dog is very bad for the environment.”

Is anyone else seeing the obvious solution here? A hot dog stand that would solve everything?
We'll need very little startup money.

Funny!

Plant based agriculture can also be bad for the environment, if not more so. The real problem is capitalism and the industrialization of food production-
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/31/opinion/31nim…

It comes from the heavy subsidization of corn, which is the major component of livestock feed.

Ya know, you *can* order the Field Roast dog.

The comments thus far are no surprise, even in–no especially in–Seattle. Don't touch my meat. Your soy sucks, too! I hear it all the time. And denial about this issue is deeper than the stink in a pile of cow dung.
But since you asked,
“So then, what the hell is wrong with all of us? Why is it so hard to make a simple dietary change?”
It's not. I did it 20 years ago. But if you've got the money, I admit it too – it's probably just easier to buy a Prius and sport a greenie T-shirt.

for the record, @ Costco hot dogs (or a “polish” dog) cost $1.50 plus tax with a cup you can fill (and refill) with soda OR water.

Too bad your parents didn't make the choice that models your mantra.

Cow Dung isn't deep. Due to it being mostly liquid, it forms a relatively thin round paddy.

And for the record the only person that has said keep your hands off my meat (me) is not from Seattle but a small farming town in South Alabama.

Lastly, as someone else has pointed out, meat itself isn't the problem, the industrialization of our food supply is. Back home my family gets almost all of their meat from either our farm or from hunting. Much more environmentally friendly than buying organic veggies shipped in from across the nation (or the world).

Would you rather they drive a gaz guzzler? give you Styrofoam cups? Environmental changes, not matter how small, eventually will impact the environment for the good if enough people made these changes. Just be happy that people are trying.

I really like books such as:
Diet for a Small Planet
Laurel's Kitchen
In Defence of Food

And I like the local/non-industrial thing, too.
But with a world population such as it is, how would we feed everyone without chemicals and genetic engineering of plants? It's not good. It's not sustainable. But what's the alternative besides just looking out for ourselves?

I mean, I can go to the farmer's market. But can everyone?

Amy: Plant based agriculture can also be bad for the environment, if not more so.

Amy, much of the environmental problem with Americans' meat-centric diet comes from–drum roll, please–the plant-based agriculture it's based on. Livestock have to eat. And there lies the fundamental problem. Take meat vs. the equivalent plant-based food and, even while accounting for the need for protein, you'll find that it takes several times more energy (literally, several times more food) to produce the meat. Even with factory farming and the intensive breeding of livestock, fattening a bovine or a pig for slaughter takes a lot of food.

So what's the answer? On an individual, consumer basis, ideally you'd become a vegetarian or vegan. But really, as “omnivoracious & omnimodal” suggests, just eating a lot less meat works too. It's a matter of degree, the same as with transportation. It's not like you need to give up your car; you'd do wonders for your carbon footprint just by driving a lot less.

That said, I'm always leery of viewing climate change as a matter of individual, consumer choices. By eating less meat and driving less, aren't we just making those activities cheaper for the glutton who has no utilitarian use for his Ford F-350 and his beef-n-ham-heavy diet? Ultimately, these are political, societal problems, and I say problems, plural, because we're doomed if we view climate change as a standalone problem to be focused on to the neglect of the other economic and environmental and security problems being exacerbated by our dependence on fossil fuels.

For anyone who wants to learn more about how government subsidies have perverted the price of food, I suggest taking a look at the wonderful documentary, Food, Inc., as featured on Oprah and recently aired in its entirety on PBS. I see Amazon still has it on sale for 10 bucks:
http://www.amazon.com/Food-Inc-Eric-Schlosser/d…

I've got to warn you, though. Food, Inc. is eye-opening in a distressing, disturbing way. Watching that movie gives a whole new meaning to the idea “ignorance is bliss.”

The simple answer is cost. When there is a price on carbon – or as higher oil prices drive up the costs of everything else – behavior will change accordingly. The strongest driver of change in our transportation sector is also the strongest in our eating habits, and most everything else.

Change through education is slow and piecemeal; change through economics is fast and comprehensive.

I find it really amusing that you spend so much time reading Dan & Alex Steffen so you can comment on how much you dislike them. Such a masochist…

So is it your position then that, simply by virtue of being vegetarian or vegan, that smugness is automatically inherited, regardless of whether or not the veg person throws it in your face? That their mere existence as someone who doesn't eat meat automatically makes them smug? Because I'd have to disagree with you there if that's the crux of your argument. Most of the vegetarians I know don't even like telling people that they're vegetarian unless the situation comes up (i.e., someone ordering lunch at the office, going out to dinner with a group), largely because it gets tiresome responding to the same questions/comments over and over again. Nowadays, with so many veggie options on most menus, it almost never has to even come up.
So unless you know some unbelievably dickish vegetarians, I'm just not seeing a valid justification for the position that all vegetarians are inherently smug.

Actually, you d-s, they did make that choice by having only one child and being conscious of energy, recycling etc. Dad could have driven whatever he wanted, but he drove VWs in the 50s.

Over population is the real issue.

I submitted a comment that was in moderation (new for me here) and am requesting feedback on the posting rules. Mostly…was it something I said?

I was using a dead email address that was near and dear to my heart, so I wouldn't forget it. I didn't know if I would fit in, or would decide this wasn't for me, or would keep the moniker. Didn't want to invest.

But here's my real one, if that matters.

You know I was just thinking about the economics of the Costco dog for $1.50 (tasty and big) PLUS a LARGE drink — versus a Capitol Hill dog (“stripped” — not even mustard?) for $5.

I sure wish there was a Costco on Capitol Hill. A huge one with thousands of LARGE parking spaces. (You know — or maybe some of you you wouldn't know — that Costco spaces are particularly capacious.)

as dan's spokesperson I would like to thank you for doing his work of fact checking and support of his recent post on the ills of hotdogs. Please join him for a lettuce and tomato sandwich at Volunteer Park next tuesday at 12:30pm. Dan will, there, publicly thank you for the hard work you did to supplement his post with facts.

Sincerely,

Doey.

I mostly just feel sorry for Dan's kid…

What, the night shift is on now?

Dan is one of the reasons I tune in here.
The post was about the contrast between what we say and what we do. Doey.

The difference is location, location.
I'm sure you could get a dog for 15 cents in North Dakota if you were willing to take the trip, especially in the off-season.
Mustard would be free.

Speaking of Costco dogs, I ate two of them for lunch today. My new theory is that Costco can sell them so cheaply because they off-load the condiment labor time onto their customers. They'd have to staff up to provide people with dogs loaded with their chosen condiments.

J lee: whoa amigo. I said those who SAY you can't have ANY meat are smug. That's two qualifiers. One, the folk has to be saying to me something. Two, what they are saying is you can't have ANY meat. IOW 99 percent meat free is woefully not meat free enuf.

That be smug.

“So is it your position then that, simply by virtue of being vegetarian or vegan, that smugness is automatically inherited, regardless of whether or not the veg person throws it in your face?”
ahem, no it's not, and I was very clear w the two express qualifiers.

“So unless you know some unbelievably dickish vegetarians,”

no the smugness thing is more pussyish than dickish, like your huffy reaction using all big words.

“I'm just not seeing a valid justification for the position that all vegetarians are inherently smug.”
more v. big words — we get it, you disagree.

Noted.

I suggest to calm down you should eat a half pound beef burger and meditate on each bite, chewing slowly, being aware of the changes taking place in the animal flesh in your mouth, the animal flesh going down your throat and into digestive tract, aka your tummy, tasting and savoring it with all your senses, tongue, nose, mouth, and contemplating how you will be uniting with this meat to make it into more meat, to wit, you.

thus you may achive inner unity and peace.

Bon apetite!

I had to actually squirt my own meat into the casings last time.
This has got to stop, unless the pop refills are still free.

Scored on a portable hard drive though. 1T

You should have just gotten their vegetarian hot dog! They are delicious. You should totally become a vegetarian. You'll feel healthier and trust me, you'll find new and better comfort food. Palak paneer, tofu curries, veggie pho, beany cheesy burritos, so many delicious soups…I could go on and on. The point is, you're not sacrificing, you're just opening yourself up to a whole lot of new cuisine. Of course, vegans could say the same to me. You could always cut your meat consumption by 90% and make it an occasional treat–that would accomplish much the same ecologically.

I think many single people are willing to give it a go. But if they have carnivourous partners or spawn it gets to be a religious thing almost.

“Don't let your wacky thoughts impede on your bringing home the bacon.”
That takes leadership, and that's hard to find in the average home these days. Especially mine.

I had to eat my asparagas in the closet the other day, snaping them along the green/white zone blindfolded. Good thing it's spring, and it was on sale. $25/lb at PCC.

I read everything that Dan Bertolet and Alex Steffen write, because it feels so good when I stop.

I'd prefer to look forward to a carbon-neutral future for my kids, and work toward human rights in the developing world. This is barely related, but your comment reminded me of this disturbing trend: “Gendercide: Killed, aborted or neglected, at least 100m girls have disappeared—and the number is rising”
http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.c…

This is why access to education and jobs are so important.

I'm surprised no one's mentioned our hunter-gatherer roots which are clearly responsible for our love of meat. The good news is that humans evolve fairly quickly, so in a just a few thousand years we'll have adjusted to a modern lifestyle.

Consider yourself yelled at.

I've been a vegarian for 3 years and I find that like any diet choice one needs an occasional release. Does some meat once every month or two make me a hypocrite or just human? In the long run I think its better to be a vegetarian who occasionally eats meet (or a meat eater who eats meat very infrequently) then to make the perfect the enemy of the good. Commit to both meat substitution and to finding new vegetarian foods. Personally I'm a big fan of quinoia mixed with couscous. It has protein and starches and can be done up with any seasoning you want.

I'd like to see what your Food Nerd has to say about this…

I don't know if you could it mustard for free,but this is the most logical comment on here.

Thanks for proving j lee's point.

Watch “Food Inc” or “King Corn” for some good education (and entertainment) on this subject

No, the difference is quality. Even the buns are superdelicious at PoDog

Yeah, but the dogs themselves are generic and weak – especially at that price point.

I seem to remember my college anthropology professor saying that something like 90% of the hunter-gatherers' diet was roots and berries gathered by the women, with the remaining 10% being the occassional meat scored by the men. Meat was hardly a staple of our diet.

The alternative to eating mass produced meat umm, product, doesn't necessarily have to be a vegan or vegetarian diet (not that there's anything wrong with those latter two options). I think hunting & fishing should be considered an option between eating 'whatever meat' and 'no meat'.

The meat from one elk or even one deer in the freezer can go a long ways towards providing the meat wants of a family for a good portion of a year. The fillets of a few good sized salmon can last quite a while too when it's used thoughtfully in dishes instead of just added to every plate that comes out of the cupboard.

Wow, I feel sorry for anyone that has to endure your, what must be constant, judgment…especially those with kids. Tip to avoid getting punched in the face: don't judge someone's parenting.

Field Roast dogs don't have any soy or corn, and are locally made at 15th and S Jackson. They sell them at Po Dog, are the same price, and taste much better than the crappy pork alternatives.

Feedlots have about half the environmental footprint of local “free range” farms. If you buy “free range” livestock it causes more than twice the amount of land to be bulldozed for pasture. The United Nations noted that if poorer countries adopted feedlot technologies they would halve their environmental footprint (although it would still be the #1 environmental problem in most of those countries).

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=20772 (follow links for full report)

I don't support factory livestock farms because they're still awful for the environment, as well as animal cruelty and health reasons, but they're still preferable to “free range” local livestock for environmental reasons.

Also, not all meat is the same – chicken farms are notoriously cruel but they are almost neutral for the environment and for health. Livestock bred for food (cows, pigs, horses, lamb) is the real environmental enemy.

First off all cattle start off on pasture, they only go to feedlots for the final fattening up before slaughter.

Also all pasture is not created equal. Rotational Grazing (popularized by Joel Salatin's Polyface Farms) results in a pasture that can sequester as much carbon as a forest occupying the same footprint.

http://www.pa.nrcs.usda.gov/technical/Air_Quali…

Then you gotta recognize that land usage and carbon sequestering isn't the only impact of feedlots. Tons of waste is produced in a very small area, and instead of being a natural fertilizer, this waste is collected in giant pools. When a pool leaks (or in the case of hog farms in North Carolina in Hurricane Floyd, break) this toxic waste flows into our rivers and oceans, causing great environmental damage.

http://www.soc.duke.edu/NC_GlobalEconomy/hog/ov…

There's a book I like called “The Paleolithic Prescription” that compares what we're genetically designed for, what nutritionists recommend, and what we actually eat now.
It doesn't say what we should or shouldn't eat, just what we did and do.

There are other books on this subject, always an interesting topic to me. They also look at exercise, meds and other lifestyle things that are out of sync with our genes.
We are designed quite nicely, whether that was by evolutionary means or otherwise.

I pretty much think this is the most ridiculous post. You use computers – all of which are made from metal which has to be mined and plastic parts that are manufactured in plants. Pull your head out of your ass and take a look around. You contribute to the downfall of the environment just as much as those kids and their parents eating a hot dog. Want to make less of an environmental impact? – Stop farting and go live in the Atacama Desert or the rainforests of Brazil WITH NOTHING but the natural surroundings. Bet you'll be longing for that hot dog day two.

As a 15-year vegi I could (and may later) go on at length about this subject. But for now I have a pressing concern:

Duh. Cyberdogs. (vegetarian hot dogs next to the convention center – pretty darn close to Cap Hill)

I've found it pretty hard to find vegan food in a restaurant that tastes as good as non-vegan food. I don't think it's the veganism, per se; it's that vegans put ideology front and center, and I like to have flavor front and center. You would think someone would be able to do both well, but I've been surprised to not find much. Except mighty-o. I'll sign on to that.

I am vegan for the animals, and in contrast to what some commenters think, I in no way think I am better than anyone. We all have faults, but I do what I can, and I choose to help animals by being vegan and promoting vegainsm. The truth is though, a true environmentalist, that is, one who is genuinely concerned and active in helping the environment, would be vegan. Animal agriculture takes a devastating toll on the earth. It is an inefficient way of producing food, since feed for farm animals requires land, water, fertilizer, and other resources that could otherwise have been used directly for producing human food.

Today, it's easier than ever to be vegan… try it, you might just like it.

Not true. 'Conventional' (ie Industrial) meat production does great harm to the environment. So is 'conventional' agriculture though.

Intensive grazing however can actually be beneficial to the environment.

I won't yell at you to be veggie, but I will say that after hearing baby goats cry because they were weaned too early from their moms so as to get more milk, and seeing photos of pigs posing just like my dog, I went vegetarian about a year ago. It was the best decision I've ever made. I miss bacon a lot, but the soy bacon works okay if you get the right brands. For all of you who think that eating local meat is better, it's really not much. We still genetically modified our livestock to such a point that there are only unhealthy, unnatural animals left in our country (especially with chickens). I highly recommend reading the book, Eating Animals, for more info on animal treatment as well as the environmental impact, and no judgements. Forget Michael Pollan…..