You can't have your meat

and your planet too. Ethical concerns aside, (see the free range chickens above) if people keep eating animal products, seeing as we number nearly seven billion, we won't have a planet on which to debate ethics, morals, or anything else. It will be a dead land. It doesn't matter if it's grass-fed, it doesn't matter how free range it is. There is not enough land to exploit, there are not enough resources to keep supplying enough animals for people to eat like they do.

   Food from animals is so resource intensive. There is no way around it.

Here is an excellent article with all sorts of facts and statistics to back these contentions up:

More and more, people are also realizing the troubling connections between human starvation and eating animal products. It takes approximately 16 pounds of grain and 2,500 gallons of water to produce 1 pound of meat (thus feeding one or two people on meat versus approximately 16 people on grain). Much of this grain is grown in developing countries, where a large percentage of their land is used for cattle-raising for export to the United States, instead of being used to grow staple crops, which could feed local people directly. In a world where a child starves to death every 2 seconds, it seems impossible to justify such waste...

These farms [organic/free range] are described as ethical because of the fact that they are small, sustainable and have kinder animal-husbandry practices. As many people have pointed out, these farms can individually produce meat in a way that is arguably just as "green" as eating vegan.

However, it is an inherent part of the ethical foundation of these farms that they cannot produce on a massive scale. As we've seen numerous times, the organic farms that do try to do this, very often become virtually no better than factory farms, despite the labels they often still get to keep.

For example, many cage-free or free-range chickens still live in devastating conditions -- they simply aren't technically kept in cages in the first case, or, in the latter case, are kept in huge, crowded and perpetually dark buildings, with a single opening leading to a few square yards of bare earth.

The question of methane pollution may also make it hard to raise animals on a massive scale, regardless of whether the farms could be sustainable in other ways.

The question is not, "are a few people eating local, sustainable, free-range pork worse environmentally than a few people eating vegan?" The question needs to be, "can we feed the world's entire growing population sustainable animal products?"...

Many people within this "new meat movement" argue that it is suffering, not killing, that is unethical. Can unnecessary killing ever be completely separated from suffering? Besides the obvious difficulty in assuring a life and death free from trauma, there are the FDA regulations, which send all larger meat animals to the same slaughterhouses that are used for factory-farmed animals -- facilities notorious for the suffering of both the animals and the employees.

Even if the animals die quickly on their home farm, what justifies this killing? Having foreknowledge of death is not a prerequisite for the right to live, or else killing an infant would not seem unethical. How are we justified in ending a life of happy contentment to satisfy a passing craving?...

Culture and tradition are never sufficient justification to continue unethical practices -- if they were, we would still have slavery and public torture. Traditions have to adapt with our changing values and ethics, although these changes may be uncomfortable and unwelcome.

Animal-human clones don't work, U.S. company finds

Once again, I give to you sick fucks trying to play god.

The best quote:

We got beautiful little hybrid embryos, but it didn't work no matter how hard we tried.

With the most dedicated sense of devotion to progress for its own sake, these scientists would not allow repeated failures to give way to questioning their actions. No, they relentlessly pursued their goals because they had imagined them.

Also, I could have told them before they spent all their money, time, and inflicted unnecessary pain on the animals who once held these eggs that their efforts would most likely be in vain.

They act like this is some kind of fucking revelation. As though, every indication showed otherwise, but for some unknowable reason, human/non-human hybrid clones just don't work.


Animal-human clones don't work, U.S. company finds

Mon Feb 2, 2009 2:47pm EST

By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Researchers who tried to use mouse, cow and rabbit eggs to make human clones said on Monday the effort failed to produce workable embryos but added that they showed human cloning should work in principle.

Mixing human and animal cells does not appear to program the egg properly, said Dr. Robert Lanza of Massachusetts-based Advanced Cell Technology.

But using human cells did reprogram the egg cell or oocyte and activate the genes needed to make a viable embryo, Lanza and colleagues reported in the journal Cloning and Stem Cells.

Several teams have tried to make animal-human hybrids as a source of embryonic stem cells, the master cells of the body. Because human eggs are scarce -- it requires a surgical procedure to get them from a woman -- some scientists came up with the idea of using animal egg cells.

The cloning technique is called somatic cell nuclear transfer. The nucleus is removed from an egg cell and replaced with the nucleus from another type of cell from the donor animal or person who is to be cloned.

Done right, the process starts the egg growing and dividing as if it had been fertilized by a sperm, but the resulting embryo carries mostly the DNA of the donor.

"The idea was to simply to plunk a patient's DNA into an empty cow or rabbit egg -- and presto -- you reprogram the DNA back into a stem cell," Lanza said in a telephone interview.

But teams that have tried to do this have always ended up with what looks like a cell dividing over and over to become an embryo, but which eventually fizzles out.

"For the last decade, we've carried out literally hundreds of experiments trying to create patient-specific stem cells using animal eggs," Lanza said.

BEAUTIFUL HYBRIDS

"We got beautiful little hybrid embryos, but it didn't work no matter how hard we tried."

A mouse-human hybrid petered out after just one division. The cow and rabbit human hybrids went further, but stopped at the point when maternal DNA is supposed to kick in and turn the ball of cells into a proper embryo, Lanza said.

Lanza's team used a new method called global gene expression analysis to see which genes were turned on and off as the eggs grew.

"We never had the tools before to actually look inside the cell and see what's going on," Lanza said. It appears that using the egg of another species turns off the genes needed to make an embryo instead of turning them on, he said.

But the human-human clone did turn on the right genes, although it, too stopped dividing before it could produce stem cells, Lanza said.

"We see exactly the same genes turned on in a normal embryo are actually turned on in a human clone," he said.

Ian Wilmut of the University of Edinburgh, one of the scientists who cloned the first mammal, Dolly the sheep, and editor of the journal, called the results disappointing.

"This very important paper suggests that livestock oocytes are extremely unlikely to be suitable as recipients for use in human nuclear transfer," Wilmut said in a statement.

But Lanza said it might be possible to use other methods to create "banks" of stem cells that match the several hundred tissue types found among humans.

This could include cloning humans, using a single cell from growing embryos used for fertility treatment, or a new method called induced pluripotent stem cells, made by taking a sample of skin and reprogramming the cells to act like embryonic stem cells, Lanza said.

Poisoned pigs in Ireland

Here is a video from the BBC explaining the situation. (embedding is disabled for this video)

Here's a lesson to be learned: stop eating animals.

People act like they have no choice but to eat animals.

No matter what kind of diseases, sickness and death they get from it, no matter how much raising these animals for consumption annihilates the earth, they keep looking for ways around it instead of saying "fuck this" or even "I really need to rethink this."

Ireland recalls pork over dioxin contamination

Sat Dec 6, 2008 5:28pm EST

By Andras Gergely

DUBLIN (Reuters) - The Irish government ordered the food industry on Saturday to recall all domestically-produced pork products because of contamination with cancer-causing dioxin.

Ireland exported 368 million euros ($467 million) worth of pig meat in 2007, half of it to Britain, according to industry body Food and Drink Industry Ireland.

"This recall involves retailers, the hospitality sector and the Irish pig processing sector," the government said in a statement. "Preliminary evidence indicates that the contamination problem is likely to have started in September 2008."

Ireland had almost 1.5 million pigs as of June, the Central Statistics Office said.

Bacon and sausages can be found on most Irish breakfast tables while ham is a traditional food around Christmas.

Dioxins are contaminants that may be formed during combustion processes and can be present in industrial wastes, the government said.

Laboratory results of animal feed and pork fat samples obtained on Saturday confirmed the presence of dioxins, it said, with toxins at 80-200 times the safe limits.

The Irish Farmers' Association said the few affected farms had been isolated and the recall was a precautionary measure as the vast majority of products on the market were safe.

Fresh meat products from the unaffected farms will come on the market soon, IFA President Padraig Walshe said.

"There will be perfectly safe pig meat on sale to consumers I expect from the middle of the week," Walshe told public broadcaster RTE.

Animal exploitation is killing the planet

It's not really news, but the New York Times thinks it is. They published an article today detailing the skyrocketing growth of animal-based food industries, as well as those sub-industries that serve them.

Here are some highlights:

The trillions of farm animals around the world generate 18 percent of the emissions that are raising global temperatures, according to United Nations estimates, more even than from cars, buses and airplanes...

But such fledgling proposals are part of a daunting game of catch-up. In large developing countries like China, India and Brazil, consumption of red meat has risen 33 percent in the last decade. It is expected to double globally between 2000 and 2050. While the global economic downturn may slow the globe’s appetite for meat momentarily, it is not likely to reverse a profound trend...

Indeed, scientists are still trying to define the practical, low-carbon version of a slab of bacon or a hamburger. Every step of producing meat creates emissions.

Flatus and manure from animals contain not only methane, but also nitrous oxide, an even more potent warming agent. And meat requires energy for refrigeration as it moves from farm to market to home...

Producing meat in this ever-more crowded world requires creating new pastures and planting more land for imported feeds, particularly soy, instead of relying on local grazing. That has contributed to the clearing of rain forests, particularly in South America, robbing the world of crucial “carbon sinks,” the vast tracts of trees and vegetation that absorb carbon dioxide...

“I’m not sure that the system we have for livestock can be sustainable,” said Dr. Pachauri of the United Nations. A sober scientist, he suggests that “the most attractive” near-term solution is for everyone simply to “reduce meat consumption,” a change he says would have more effect than switching to a hybrid car...

Producing a pound of beef creates 11 times as much greenhouse gas emission as a pound of chicken and 100 times more than a pound of carrots, according to Lantmannen, the Swedish group...

And this, far and away, is the best line in the article:

Meat producers have taken issue with the United Nations’ estimate of livestock-related emissions, saying the figure is inflated because it includes the deforestation in the Amazon, a phenomenon that the Brazilian producers say might have occurred anyway.

Yeah, definitely, the rain forest would just be falling down, so it's a good thing there is an industry there to take up all that space that would have been wasted.

I have no illusions that this will move any significant portion of the population towards reducing meat consumption. No, everyone will keep doing what they were doing. Perhaps some will fret over how unfortunate this all is, but as a whole, humans will keep increasing their meat, milk and egg consumption, diligently building their own demise. I mean, what can you really do, right? We are a profoundly stupid species.

So don't let science and the health of the world in which we live get in the way of what you feel like doing. Go ahead, eat your way into oblivion. Their death will one day make ours.

Thoughts of the future

The last few days, I've been taken by the thought that, if the planet survives long enough, and people survive long enough, our species will come to regard consuming animals, particularly in this current hyper-exploitative, industrialized manner, as many people now view smoking. It was not too long ago when people were inundated with advertisements and science that told them that smoking was not just safe, but could even be good for you. Watch here:






Right. Well, most people at least know now that smoking is definitely not good for you. I don't think anyone really challenges this notion. Sure, tobacco companies still lie and say that tobacco isn't addictive, but I don't think anyone really takes it seriously. People know that this happens after a while:Now about animals. There is so much information forced upon us, telling us how beneficial it is to consume animals. What does eating them do for you? Everything, they say. Energy, strong bones, nice hair, muscle mass, etc. They don't tell you that dosing hard on animal protein and animal calcium, like we're supposed to do, like the standard American diet commands, gives you osteoporosis. They don't tell you about how you couldn't have high cholesterol if you only ate plants. Cholesterol is produced in livers, and that's it. Unless you have a malfunctioning liver, you will absolutely not be able to raise your cholesterol level through a plant-based diet. It's funny, because they sell you fish oil as a natural way to lower cholesterol, but you only got it through your excessive, gluttonous consumption of flesh, milk and eggs. And that lower risk of heart disease and cancer, why were they raised in the first place? A lot of it has to do with diet.

They love telling you that all the growth hormones and antibiotics in their products are safe, that there are "no proven links" between consuming those substances by way of others and health problems, but how could this be true? Especially when people eat animal products to such a degree. The most recent USDA figures put meat intake at 195 pounds per person, per year, milk at 23 gallons per person, per year, and cheese at 30 pounds per person, per year. But no, eat on, they say. You will be fine. How? How could you possibly be eating so many extra chemicals and drugs and face no effects? It's simple - you do. However, the animal exploitation industries buy bullshit science, just like tobacco companies have, and straight up lie to people so that the people running them can rake in money. I doubt there has ever been a study to prove links between getting shot in the face and dying, but there is no need. It's obvious. Think about it.

So yeah, I've been thinking in the last few days that people will, in the not too distant future, look back upon this period of industrialized mega slaughter as a shameful one, where they were not so unwillingly duped into believing that they could eat however they like (watch that fat content!), eating whatever they like, as well as whatever shit is poured into their troughs, with no real negative outcomes. And I'm just talking about the personal health effects on individual humans. The environmental devastation, and yes, devastation is absolutely the word, wrought by these enforced practices is something I will deal with separately, even though they are wholly linked.

But then again, maybe people, as a species, are too fucking stupid to catch on, too self-destructive, too self-indulgent to really make a change. Smoking works here again. People know it degrades their lives, they know it kills them, but 45 million people in this country smoke, and over 1.3 billion worldwide. Nearly one quarter of the world chooses to do something that gives them no benefits, has no basis in nature, and produces only negative outcomes. Why should I expect them to choose differently when it comes to their diets? An industrial crash will force them, but I know not when that will come. Even this is an absurd dream, I don't care; dreams needn't be realistic.

Thanksgiving is here

Time to eat a bigger dead animal, that you had someone else kill for you so you can feel removed from the violence of it, than normal. It needn't be so.

Eat your dog

Do it. Five good reasons.

Baby turkeys

Sixty-six baby turkeys got pretty lucky recently. Someone rescued them from their torture death sentence in a factory farm and brought them instead to Farm Sanctuary, where they will be loved for the sentient beings they are, not their taste. They're just sixty-six of the 45 million who will be killed and eaten for Thanksgiving, and of the 270 million killed and eaten over the course of this year. How did they know they were from a factory farm? Easy.

When they arrived at Farm Sanctuary, Bubbles and the others had already been mutilated. Industry workers used a high-intensity infrared light to debeak the birds and microwave radiation to remove the ends of their toes. These techniques are used on today’s commercially-raised birds and delay amputation of the beak and toes until weeks later when the appendages erode and fall off. While some had already suffered the loss of these precious body parts, others still had their beaks and toes intact; however, they too fell off during the birds’ first days at the shelter, leaving wounds that caused terrible pain as they tried to eat and walk. To prevent infection, we cleansed the exposed areas daily, and thankfully, most of the poults have now begun to heal.