My Heretofore Implicit Thoughts on Meat Eating
I don’t eat a lot of meat—maybe once or twice a week. It has been a semi-deliberate change over a long time, but I never fully thought through my entire justification for it. (I used to cite my unpleasant experience of driving through a gigantic industrial ranch in Kettleman City, California, off I-5 as one of the key reasons.) Now I can rely on someone else who has put in the time to write down his thoughts on the issue, which almost perfectly captures what has until now been implicit and amorphous in my mind.
The author—Marco—works at Tumblr (the platform I’m using for this log) and he’s the programmer of a great web app-iPhone app combo Instapaper.
I’ve made a dramatic shift in my diet over the last few weeks: eating almost no meat. (update: thoughts on fish.)
There are plenty of good reasons not to eat meat, including:
- The treatment of the animals is awful. The more you know about industrialized meat production, the less you want to support it. (And it’s not just for cows. Chickens and turkeys aren’t much better, and pigs are probably the worst.)
- High-volume meat production creates a large environmental burden, usually as a result of having to feed the animals so much and figure out what to do with their waste.
- Meat is more calorie-dense than many alternative foods, and red meat in particular is unhealthy to eat frequently. Non-meat-heavy diets can generally be much healthier.
Michael Pollan’s In Defense of Food makes a great argument for low-meat diets. (You should really read it regardless of your thoughts on meat. Do you eat? Then it’s relevant to you.)
Wait, so are you a vegetarian now?
No.
I’m not big on all-or-nothing obsessiveness. I’m not a recovering hamburger addict who will sink back into meat abuse if I ever have another taste again. All things in moderation.
The problem isn’t eating animals. It’s a lot of people eating a lot of animals. If demand was reduced to 25% or less of its current level, we’d see massive environmental and health improvements. Humane animal treatment is trickier, since you’re still killing and eating them, but it could be improved if less meat was needed and it could command a higher price. For instance, actual free-range (not the bullshit kind) and grass-fed animals would become more practical.
A few weeks ago, I decided to significantly reduce my meat consumption. To start, I went all-vegetarian for one week to force myself to broaden my horizons a bit (especially for office lunches) and try new non-meat options. It worked, and was much easier than I expected.
Now, I’ve lowered my overall meat consumption to approximately these levels that I intend to maintain:
- Chicken or turkey: 1-2 meals per week.
- Beef: 0-1 meal per month.
- Pork: Almost never. Occasionally as a minor ingredient in something else.
With such a severe reduction, I’ll achieve most of the benefits of vegetarianism, but without many of the inconveniences. It’s still ridiculously easy to get good meals at restaurants or while traveling. I don’t even like tofu or giant mushrooms, and it’s still much easier than I expected to avoid meat most of the time and still eat healthy, satisfying, widely available meals.
Try it.
If a lot of people made this change, we could make a big difference on many important fronts.
Do the vegetarian week, then see how little meat you really need to eat. You may be pleasantly surprised at how easy and practical it is.
T-Mobile Comes Through!
Someone that Susanne talks to almost everyday just switched over to AT&T to get the iPhone. Since we are with T-Mobile, this meant that we no longer got free mobile-to-mobile with this person. This would have been an expensive problem.
I tried to explore some options last week and decided that T-Mobile’s “myFaves” plan—allowing each line to specify five numbers, wireless or landline, regardless of the carrier for unlimited calls—was the way to go. When I called customer service last week to switch over the plan, I found out that the phones we have were not myFaves capable. I told the rep that I would call back once I figured out what to do.
I toyed with the idea of switching carriers, although that would have meant that we could not keep our 415 numbers. I called T-Mobile back to see how much time was left in my contract. Naturally, the rep asked me why I was inquiring about my contract term, and I explained to him the situation. (Honestly, I had no intention of extracting a deal from them, as that possibility had completely slipped my mind.)
Noticing how we had been T-Mobile customers since 2002, the rep proceeded to offer us three new myFaves capable phones! The phones arrived yesterday, and I am very happy with both—Motorola W490 and Motorola RAZR v3.
