Quote:
Originally Posted by Sightseek
This was in interesting article in the latest edition of National Geographic. Primarily as it points out that the conversation of grass fed beef vs. feed lot beef is not that cut and dry. When it comes down to the two choices, one is actually less taxing on the environment, while the other is better for your health. If you do eat meat and your primary concern is for the health and humane treatment of the animals, eating feed lot beef is actually more humane than conventional chicken farming.
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/foodfeatures/meat/ |
The article actually presents a case that grass-fed may be at least as ecologically sound as feedlot:
"The guru of the movement is a Zimbabwean scientist named Allan Savory, who says that managed grazing can draw huge amounts of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere—a controversial claim. But the ranchers I met all swore that managed grazing had transformed their pastures. The beef they’re producing is less economically efficient than feedlot beef, but in some ways it’s better ecologically. They aren’t using pharmaceuticals in feed. They aren’t extracting nutrients in the form of corn from heavily fertilized soil in Iowa, shipping them up to a thousand miles on 110-car trains, and piling them up as manure in Texas. Instead their cattle are building and maintaining a landscape."
Absolutely grass-fed is less economically efficient and also absolutely the best choice, from an environmental perspective, is to eat less meat in general, but there's an ecological argument to be made for grass-fed, also.
That was a fascinating article; thank you so much for linking to it!
And it's been no secret about how chickens are kept in factory farms. Whenever someone starts to talk to me about cruelty in horse racing, if they're very obnoxious, I inquire if they are vegetarian, because, even at its worst, the treatment of equine sport athletes doesn't come close to the cruelties inflicted on food animals. Pigs are also treated atrociously.