Beautiful essay on grassfed beef as the most "vegan" thing you can buy, and agricultural literacy

food-justice
grassfed
ecology
regeneration
permaculture
#1

"More people on the planet means more resources being extracted from the earth, regardless of whether or not we are vegan. Avocado producing countries are feeling the avocado squeeze because of American’s high demand for guacamole. Acres of rainforest are being bulldozed to plant more avocado trees. Demand is so high that Mexico, which produces about half of the world’s supply, is thinking about importing avocados, while an average Mexican can’t even afford to buy them to eat.

Farmers in Mexico are cutting down pine forests in order to grow the lucrative crop and may threaten the habitat of Monarch butterflies.

All this to say, having your vegan raw food avocado chocolate cake isn’t as harmless as you may think.

If we really do take a true audit of the death and destruction our lifestyles wreak upon the natural world, we would all be surprised. We all leave a trail of devastation as we go through each day, because all life consumes life in order to thrive- -this is the natural way of things, as far as I know."

(Joy) #2

Good points raised, but someone needs to wax poetic and scientific to convey to the general public the value of America’s prairie grasslands which once sustained … I think the number was … hundreds of thousands of grazing animals. Environmentally healthy and stunningly beautiful, traditional grasslands are unfamiliar to the modern citizen’s consciousness. On the smallest of scales, I’ve tinkered with restoring native grasses and flowers to private yards, with glancing involvement in larger scale prairie restoration since the 1970s. It is apparent to me that the virtues of ecological landscaping and grass-fed cattle, goats, sheep, deer, elk, buffalo would heal us and the land.

(Jo O) #3

It’s actually worse than you think regarding avocados, like drug cartels. Unintended consequences.

Search: avocado cartel

#4

Thank you, Mary! I saw this article linked last month but only read it now. You’re right: it’s beautiful.

(Ken) #5

America’s grasslands were much more extensive than people realize. There were Bison coast to coast, with the exception of the desert Southwest. There was much less forest, and Man has prevented the normal one or two year burns. There’s evidence that nearly all grasslands were regularly burned, either naturally or with the help of the AmerIndians, all with the intent of creating more Bison habitat. Back in those pre horse days, they were typically hunted by spampeding them over a “Buffalo Jump”. This one is my favorite.

(ANNE ) #6

Just about an hour south of where I live! You look at the diet of the First Nations described at Head Smashed In, it was entirely keto. They knew a thing or two about sustainable living.