Mother Jones - Comments for "Vegetarian Diet Prevents Disease"

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Julia, get informed...

What are these "planned vegetarian diets" compared to? The general populace? I would contest that ANYONE who makes informed decisions about their diet will be healthier than the general populace, whether they are eating meat or not. To make the claim that vegetarian diets are better, you must compare "planned vegetarian diets" to "planned omnivore diets".

There is growing evidence that a human being cannot live without acquiring some nutrition from animals. Michael Pollan discusses this at length in his book "In Defense of Food". He also goes on to talk about how all sorts of traditional diets are perfectly healthy for people to consume. He even points out that Inuit diets, which are almost entirely consumed of meat, do not promote the modern dietary diseases: heart disease, obesity, and diabetes. The fact that entire populations of people exist in the world that eat traditional diets that contain meat, yet remain far healthier than the average American diet, clearly demonstrates that meat is not the problem, but the so-called "Western diet."

Meat cannot be sustainable? This is a terribly ignorant statement. Again, Michael Pollan describes numerous scenarios of sustainable meat in his book. For example, the beef industry in Argentina uses an 8-year rotation that raises beef for 5 years and grain for three, which uses virtually no chemical fertilizers, pesticides, or herbicides. This sounds sustainable to me.

In "Everything I Want to Do is Illegal", Joel Salatin (featured in Pollan's "Omnivore's Dilemma") describes, in detail, some very clever farming methods that are perfectly sustainable. He describes a composting method of handling winter-time manure that is not only incredibly brilliant, but also provides its own heat for his animals and springtime fertilizer for his crops. This is the absolute opposite of CAFOs and the vast amount of energy used to handle all the manure waste. Salatin actually turned those "wastes" into increased production.

He also describes how grazed fields of grass actually sequester more carbon from the atmosphere than any other crop. The grazing cows not only keep the grass healthy by "mowing" it, but they fertilize the soil as they go. Environmentally speaking, these animals are an essential component to the healthy ecosystem.

To be honest, I have been a vegetarian for two years because I refuse to eat industrial meat and don't have access to alternatives, but I have to disagree with your claim that vegetarianism as fundamentally better than consuming meat. With a little research, you will find that beneath the industrial behemoths, there are plenty of sustainable farming practices - in use today - that raise high-quality meat.

umm.. i think our expanding

umm.. i think our expanding lifespans has alot to do with our great leap in medical research and advancement, i also believe that that person was talking about how our food production has been perverted by corporations in it for the profit with a complete disregard for the consumers health and the enviroments well being

The operative term in my

The operative term in my post was "planned vegetarian diet." That doesn't mean fast crap food. Or any of the other ills of modern gluttony. But, yes, I can honestly say with a straight face that whole, organic, humanely and sustainably produced vegetables, fruit, grains, and even dairy are better for individuals and for the world than any amount of sustainably (how?), organic (how much?) meat and fish (it's mostly wildlife). Julia Whitty, Environmental Correspondent, Mother Jones

Not quite . . .

While I don't disagree with you totally the latter part of your argument is purely false. It's very typically of the ancestor romance that a lot of people seem to develop. True, early humans did not evolve eating Big Macs and drinking Coke. They also didn't brush their teeth, build sewer systems or ship their food to people who don't have any. Modern humans do those things. People now do many of the things they do because they are genuinely productive and helpful. We've extended our lifespans well past what nature afforded us because of advances in food production and sanitation. We probably should be eating a diet that more closely resemble what we evolved with but we would also be foolish not to take advantage of the processes that our ancestors didn't have. Natural water isn't healthy if it has cholera, organic vegetables can develop toxic fungi and organic meat can be infected with parasites and bacteria. Even salt would be much less valuable if it were not iodized. So let's stop the ancestor worship and be a bit more reasonable.

Processed industrial food is the real enemy; not meat

Can you honestly say with a straight face that whole, organic, humanely and sustainably produced meat, fish, eggs etc are better for the world than mass produced, processed, pesticide-laden, GMO vegetarian meals?

It seems to me that your argument is deeply flawed as it compares a whole food vegetarian diet with a processed food meat heavy diet. As millions of year of human evolution have shown us, humans thrive eating nuts, veggies, fruit, meat, fish, game and eggs. In other words, real unprocessed whole foods. The processed crap that many people ingest is the real enemy to human health and ecological sustainability, not meat.