BS: Vegan Shadow Environment Secretary

Subject: BS: Vegan Shadow Environment Secretary
From: Stanron
Date: 25 Sep 15 - 12:33 AM

Meat-eaters should be treated like smokers, says the vegan shadow environment secretary Kerry McCarthy.

Watch out Steve, they're coming for you.

Subject: RE: BS: Vegan Shadow Environment Secretary
From: Stanron
Date: 25 Sep 15 - 01:07 AM

Here's a link if you want more information.

From the Independant

Subject: RE: BS: Vegan Shadow Environment Secretary
From: Stanron
Date: 25 Sep 15 - 01:15 AM

Oops, link may not work. I did a search on 'vegan shadow minister' and the article was the first link.

Subject: RE: BS: Vegan Shadow Environment Secretary
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 25 Sep 15 - 02:12 AM

She didn't quite say what she was alleged to have said, if you check.

Subject: RE: BS: Vegan Shadow Environment Secretary
From: GUEST,HiLo
Date: 25 Sep 15 - 02:46 AM

I believe she suggested that meat consumption be regarded in much the same way as tobacco consumption in there be campaigns to vilify those who eat meat. Where DO these political nutters come from ?

Subject: RE: BS: Vegan Shadow Environment Secretary
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 25 Sep 15 - 06:28 AM

Hmm. I don't think "vilify" is quite the right word. However, she' s wrong, and, as I'm now a member off the party, I shall do my damnedest to persuade her of that. Maybe we eat too much meat, and we certainly need to make a far higher priority of animal welfare. Like a lot of carnivores, that's something I try to pay attention to in my own meat and dairy purchases. To me, quality is paramount, as I believe that in cookery you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, and I'm not going to get quality from a four quid Asda chicken, so I admit to a degree of self-interest in going for higher welfare stuff if I can (and in avoiding "ready meals" like the plague). Of course, higher-welfare meat costs more, so I buy less. That's the way to go. I think that all meat and dairy products should clearly state their provenance on the label and that welfare standards should be upgraded and rigorously applied. I think I'll send this post to her.

Subject: RE: BS: Vegan Shadow Environment Secretary
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 25 Sep 15 - 06:30 AM

Bloody iPad autocorrect being so "helpful" yet again. Grr.

Subject: RE: BS: Vegan Shadow Environment Secretary
From: DMcG
Date: 25 Sep 15 - 06:38 AM

Not yet a party member (I'm still waiting until October 1st to see how the party conference went), but agree with Steve apart from a caveat. Those who can afford it, like Steve, do well to use their purchasing power to by higher quality stuff. But by definition it is the cheaper end where the pressure on costs leads to lower animal welfare. And there is no easy way out of this because it is not really under uk control (horse meat scandal, anyone?) When it becomes cheaper to transport meat across Europe from a low lost, low welfare factory farm rather than a well regulated uk one, that's what will happen. So import regulations are a key part of this, and anathema to free marketeers.

Subject: RE: BS: Vegan Shadow Environment Secretary
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 25 Sep 15 - 06:49 AM

OK, point taken. But I did indicate that because higher welfare meat costs more, we'd buy less. That might not apply to everybody but it would to a lot of people. That would probably do us and the environment good, but I think she goes way too far with her evangelism. The only way I can afford it is to buy less. I don't know whether I come across all wrong, but I am not a wealthy man! The filthy rich are always going to be able to afford the best meat, whiskies and fine wines in unlimited quantities. We have to live with that until we lefties do summat about it!

Subject: RE: BS: Vegan Shadow Environment Secretary
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 25 Sep 15 - 07:14 AM

A lot of the downward pressure on prices, therefore welfare, comes from supermarkets. It's depressing to walk round the aisles, seeing the shelves and fridges stacked with bad food made with well-disguised processed low-quality ingredients. And it's not that cheap either in most cases. "Value-added" must be just about the most cynical of all misnomers when it comes to food products. The upshot is the epidemic of obesity. In the past, people always ate a lot of meat. I spent a week in Andalucia, just about the poorest part of Europe, in August. We were in the remotest bits of the Alpujarras, nowhere near the tourist fleshpots. Vegetarianism is unheard of and they eat pork like it's going out of fashion. There are no fat people. It's a big issue, this food malarkey. I must say, I get just as fed up with veggie evangelism as I do with, er, that other kind that don't belong in this thread. Vegetarianism/veganism is a personal choice and long may it remain so. If looking after the environment, including animal welfare, becomes a much higher priority for agriculture, the future will be a bit rosier, but farmers need the right kind of help, which means reining in the supermarkets and directing subsidies away from producing poor quality food, giving farmers more incentive to be stewards of the land instead of exploiters.

Subject: RE: BS: Vegan Shadow Environment Secretary
From: GUEST
Date: 25 Sep 15 - 10:25 AM

I am not sure that any politician has any business telling anyone what they should eat - anymore than they should presume to interfere in any other aspect of private life. When politicians start down that road they are moving towards totalitarianism. Then again, I am not interested in reading diatribes from Mudcat contributors telling me how to shop and eat.   
On a related issue I read recently about the likely growth of eating insects as a source of protein. (Provided they're not butterflies obviously, because that would be a sin for which there can be no forgiveness.)

Subject: RE: BS: Vegan Shadow Environment Secretary
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 25 Sep 15 - 10:37 AM

ahhh.. yes.. long ago days of living in terror of upsetting those cool hip vegan feminist student girls you fancied..

here's one from my old 7" single record collection..


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czRsdzCBF1Y

Subject: RE: BS: Vegan Shadow Environment Secretary
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 25 Sep 15 - 12:34 PM

Well I haven't read any diatribes to that effect here as yet. Perhaps, anonymous critic, you've had a nerve tweaked because you live on ready meals, four quid Asda chickens and are morbidly obese in consequence. But don't worry, we won't let anyone tell you what to eat.

Great song, PFR. Touch of the Roald Dahl naughtiness poking through there!

Subject: RE: BS: Vegan Shadow Environment Secretary
From: Penny S.
Date: 25 Sep 15 - 01:30 PM

I'm not very impressed with veganism. I don't think it fits with UK land use, where grazing can make use of land unsuitable for crops (It raises questions about all the flipping horses, though.) We don't do too well with pulses and nuts, and soya is imported from places where it shoouldn't be grown and should probably feed the locals. Further north it definitely doesn't fit as grains are on the edge of their range, or not there at all. (I went to Iceland, Norway and the Faroes this year. Grass, lichens, meat and sea foods. some of which would offend non-vegans. (Though there were some odd veggies in the traditional Sami reindeer meal. Potatoes, carrots, tomatoes, sweetcorn.))
Vegetarianism, yes. Low meat diets, yes. But we are omnivores. I think this was a bad choice by Corbyn. Either he knew, and thought it a good idea; knew and thought it didn't matter; didn't know until she told him, and thought it irrelevant; or didn't know and didn't care. Or thought it was a good idea. In which case, I've gone right off him.

Subject: RE: BS: Vegan Shadow Environment Secretary
From: Stanron
Date: 25 Sep 15 - 02:08 PM

Possibly the most veggie place on earth is India, and it's got the climate for it. Plenty of sunlight and plenty of water. The farther from the wet and sunny middle zones the more flesh you need to eat. Think of the Eskimo diet, all that blubber!

Which is best? Use more land for agriculture and get rid of whatever lived there before, or raise animals for food, having got rid of what was there before anyway, and then kill the animals we grow so we can eat them? Lots of people are coming round to the idea that there are simply too many humans. I've not heard any political acceptance of that though. Most economies are based on growth, and that includes population growth. Depressing.

Subject: RE: BS: Vegan Shadow Environment Secretary
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 25 Sep 15 - 02:56 PM

Well there's the massive issue of food waste. Supermarkets dumping tons of out of date stuff every day. I think I read somewhere (yeah, I know, weasel words) that the average household throws away a third of all the fresh food it buys. I think that the agricultural land of the planet can still support the population if wisely used. That could mean our eating less meat. But not no meat. Good post from Penny S above.

Subject: RE: BS: Vegan Shadow Environment Secretary
From: Penny S.
Date: 25 Sep 15 - 03:19 PM

Thank you, Steve.

You would have a serious problem with rabbits, if you abandoned the large domestic herbivores. There was a farmer near here growing grain for animal feed, and back in my twenties I went to help harvest - he had old bales that I could lift! A third of the field had no crop because of a warren on the neighbour's land along the hedge. The neighbour didn't seem to be farming at all, just had grass. With poppies. Apparently there was nothing my farmer could do about it. I know there were people who went lamping around, but there wouldn't have been a market for the flesh, or the fur, as it was a huge establishment.

You'd have to eat them. Possibly sold as soylent beige. Since others than vegans and vegetarians wouldn't want to eat the dear little bunnies.

Subject: RE: BS: Vegan Shadow Environment Secretary
From: Penny S.
Date: 25 Sep 15 - 03:19 PM

Thank you, Steve.

You would have a serious problem with rabbits, if you abandoned the large domestic herbivores. There was a farmer near here growing grain for animal feed, and back in my twenties I went to help harvest - he had old bales that I could lift! A third of the field had no crop because of a warren on the neighbour's land along the hedge. The neighbour didn't seem to be farming at all, just had grass. With poppies. Apparently there was nothing my farmer could do about it. I know there were people who went lamping around, but there wouldn't have been a market for the flesh, or the fur, as it was a huge establishment.

You'd have to eat them. Possibly sold as soylent beige. Since others than vegans and vegetarians wouldn't want to eat the dear little bunnies.

Subject: RE: BS: Vegan Shadow Environment Secretary
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 25 Sep 15 - 03:19 PM

I tried being a veggie for a bit in my 20s

Lack of enough cash for meat, plus the influence of 'hot' dominant hairy arm-pitted braless student veggie feminists

[just the thought of them now.... ooer... I think I need a sit down...]

I also flat shared with a very stunning, but completely bonkers vegan girl - she walked barefoot for most of the year..
can't remember what she wore on her feet in winter.. or if she even left the flat between autumn and spring
[maybe she got her boyfriend too bring her food parcels...???]..

But that was back in my Stokes Croft vicinity Bristol days..

Good times... I got down to living off about 20 pence per day / or meal.. can't recall which now..
anyway I was as thin as a rake and about 7 stone lighter than I am now.

Subject: RE: BS: Vegan Shadow Environment Secretary
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 25 Sep 15 - 03:20 PM

I tried being a veggie for a bit in my 20s

Lack of enough cash for meat, plus the influence of 'hot' dominant hairy arm-pitted braless student veggie feminists

[just the thought of them now.... ooer... I think I need a sit down...]

I also flat shared with a very stunning, but completely bonkers vegan girl - she walked barefoot for most of the year..
and kept a rat in her cardigan pocket - it pissed everywhere..
can't remember what she wore on her feet in winter.. or if she even left the flat between autumn and spring
[maybe she got her boyfriend too bring her food parcels...???]..

But that was back in my Stokes Croft vicinity Bristol days..

Good times... I got down to living off about 20 pence per day / or meal.. can't recall which now..
anyway I was as thin as a rake and about 7 stone lighter than I am now.

Subject: RE: BS: Vegan Shadow Environment Secretary
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 25 Sep 15 - 03:23 PM

mods - I was waiting so long for this to post - it froze and hung for ages..

so I ammended as more memories came back and posted again..

so please delete the first version without the rat.

Subject: RE: BS: Vegan Shadow Environment Secretary
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 25 Sep 15 - 04:39 PM

Ignore him, mods. The posts are so bloody funny that I don't mind reading 'em twice! :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Vegan Shadow Environment Secretary
From: Stanron
Date: 25 Sep 15 - 05:24 PM

here's another laugh.

At the end of the 60s, it might have been right at the start of the 70s, I was able, for a short time, to live off 11/6 a week (57.5 post decimal pennies). The details have faded now but the diet included porrige, sardines, milk and one or more oranges. I too weighed half of what I do now. The things we did for art!

Subject: RE: BS: Vegan Shadow Environment Secretary
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 25 Sep 15 - 05:36 PM

Aye, but we 'ad it tough...

Subject: RE: BS: Vegan Shadow Environment Secretary
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 25 Sep 15 - 05:46 PM

Thinking some more.. technically.. I might have actually been vegan for a while...

though more from stupidity than well informed diet lifestyle choice...

When I was 20 [before I went back to education from my gap 4 years] I lived off a tin of tomato soup and dried peas per day
while saving my wages for a bloody good HI FI stereo system.
[Dual turntable, NAD amp, Heybrook speakers..]

I was working as a hospital porter for a pittance [something like 30 quid a week]..

Luckily one of the nurses noticed the state of me, signs of malnutrition..
[I was sneaking off at intervals during the working day to hide in the disabled bogs
whenever I felt I might black out]
so she persuaded the old lady charity volunteers give me the left over sandwiches from their stall at the end of each day

Character building .. eh... young kids today... etc iphones.. ipads... hoodies.. etc...

Subject: RE: BS: Vegan Shadow Environment Secretary
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 25 Sep 15 - 05:59 PM

"Gap 4 years" - I bloody love it! :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Vegan Shadow Environment Secretary
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 25 Sep 15 - 07:31 PM

From Kerry McCarthy's website: Although I have been vegan for many years, this will not affect Labour policy in relation to the farming industry, although I am of course keen to see farmers adopt the highest welfare standards, and keen to develop policies which promote a move away from intensive, industrialised farming. The dairy industry - Britain's largest agricultural sector - has been facing considerable pressures. I will no doubt be meeting with farmer's representatives soon, and when the new Shadow Minister for Farming and Food is confirmed in post, this will be one of his/ her first tasks, to look into the urgent need for farmers to get a fair deal for their milk.

Animal welfare is an important priority for me. I am a Vice-President of the League Against Cruel Sports, and will continue with the long-established Labour policy of opposing any attempts to overturn the ban on fox-hunting. It is also Labour policy to oppose the badger culls, as both ineffective and inhumane, and I will continue with that policy, particularly in opposing the Government's attempts to roll out the culls in Dorset.

Every word of that hunkydory with me! I'll 'ave a word about the vegan evangelism though...

Subject: RE: BS: Vegan Shadow Environment Secretary
From: Penny S.
Date: 26 Sep 15 - 01:48 PM

They had a vegan personage on Any Answers this afternoon. I find that as soon as someone starts on about people not accepting the truth about something my BS detector starts up. (I have just examined myself to see if this works when people are accused of not recognising the truth about climate change, and decided that there must be another factor involved as well, such as stating that the other side knows the truth but is lying.) Anyway, the vegan's contentions, which included the effect of meat on climate change, were mostly based on feedlot ranching practices and not on what happens in the UK, to the meat I am going to eat.

I recently heard a farmer talk about the pleasure of watching the cattle get out onto grass again after the winter. I can't remember if it was on the radio here, or someone in Iceland, the Faroes or Orkney, but whoever it was, his sense of the personhood of the cattle was transparent. Farmers like that are not the ones described in the Guardian today, where a piece going on about the treatment of domesticated animals was taking the vegan line, and they need to be encouraged. We need the domesticated beasts on the steep pastures to feed people. There isn't going to be enough nutmilk or soya milk (and the beans use rainforest land) for everyone.

The end of vegan policies isn't just going to be the hecatombs of the domestic beasts, it'd be a lot of us, too. Only occupying the warm flat lands, with the rest of Earth rewilded.

Subject: RE: BS: Vegan Shadow Environment Secretary
From: Ebbie
Date: 26 Sep 15 - 02:15 PM

Stanron: "...kill the animals we grow so we can eat them? Lots of people are coming round to the idea that there are simply too many humans. I've not heard any political acceptance of that though. Most economies are based on growth, and that includes population growth. Depressing."

Is that along the lines of a 'Modest Proposal'?

More seriously, I don't understand the concept of veganism. Vegetarianism, yes- for a couple of reasons, like it takes more land to grow the grains and grasses that we feed our animals so we can eat them instead of eating the grains ourselves besides which is the issue of killing sentient beings. But veganism? It doesn't hurt a cow to utilize her milk or a chicken to eat its eggs. So what is a vegan's valid argument?

Subject: RE: BS: Vegan Shadow Environment Secretary
From: Stanron
Date: 26 Sep 15 - 05:05 PM

Long before we had genetic species modification we has modification through selective breeding. The modern dairy cow can no longer exist without mankind to milk it daily. It troubles me that if mankind ceased to exist tomorrow the modern dairy cow would be extinct within a couple of days, and in the most horrible way.

I've said elsewhere that I'm not vegan, I'm not even vegetarian, but I've been bovine abstinent for about 20 years. One of these days I might manage cheap chicken free and my doctor thinks I should be alcohol free but I won't miss mechanically extracted meat substances or bovine meat, milk and cheese.

Sorry if this is all a bit too grim for a Saturday night.

Subject: RE: BS: Vegan Shadow Environment Secretary
From: GUEST,Ed
Date: 26 Sep 15 - 06:20 PM

But veganism? It doesn't hurt a cow to utilize her milk or a chicken to eat its eggs. So what is a vegan's valid argument?

Ebbie,

The arguements that I've heard (not mine, I'm a confirmed omnivore) are basically these:

In order to keep a cow in milk, it must bear a calf every year. This is apparently cruel. Male calves have no use in the system, so are killed at birth. Again cruel.

With chickens it's largely down to the conditions in which 'battery hens' are kept, which is cruel. Again male chicks are useless, so are killed. Quite how they manage to argue against people who keep thier own free range hens is beyond me.

Subject: RE: BS: Vegan Shadow Environment Secretary
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 26 Sep 15 - 07:06 PM

A few things. As animals ourselves, it isn't hard to relate emotionally to other animals. I've had half a dozen or more cats and I've loved them all to bits and grieved when the day came when I had to bury them in my garden. But, without predation, there would be no food chains and no life on earth. My teeth and guts are adapted for a diet that could include animal flesh. That beautiful peregrine that flew over my house the other day has talons and a beak designed to kill. It can't eat grass. If a vegan of the evangelical sort could force his version of morality on peregrines, one of the finest animals in all creation would cease to exist. And that would be just the start.

Suppose the whole world turned vegan. No, let's go back a hundred years first, and imagined the pre-WW1 world had turned vegan. All agricultural land that could be used would be used for growing crops. There would be no manure. Chemical fertilisers as we know them today had yet to be invented. Ploughing in stubble and composting plant waste would be the only means of maintaining fertility. There would have to be a drive even greater than today's towards monoculture. Plant diseases and soil micronutrient deficits would be rife. The means of controlling those diseases that we have today were not available. Marginal land that, today, is used for animal husbandry would be left to go to wilderness. I can assure you that that is not a small amount of land. In many countries, it is almost all the agricultural land that is currently used. In many countries which have seasonal extremes, especially with long dry seasons, crop growing can be difficult or impossible. Of course, we could have them all growing poppies. Animal husbandry can involve the flexibility of moving herds to high ground in summer, where pastures are watered, and back to low ground when the winter rains arrive. Evangelical veganism, if implemented, would see hundreds of thousands of people who live this way doomed. It's wrong-headed, it's unbiological, it's western-centric and it's just plain barmy.

Having said all that, using land to grow barley to produce feed for cattle is insane. There's good land for cattle and there's good land for growing food, and, if we use the later for growing animal food, we are abusing the environment. It shouldn't be made possible for that to be economical.

I've prattled on about animal welfare before so I'll shut up now about that. Just to say that, in my opinion, if we up our game apropos of welfare, and use good arable land only for human food, then we'll end up eating less meat and better meat. But not NO meat!

Subject: RE: BS: Vegan Shadow Environment Secretary
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 26 Sep 15 - 08:07 PM

One point I think is in danger of being missed. Kerry McCarthy wasn't talking about any Labour Party policy. She was talking in a personal capacity as a backbencher, expressing personal opinions. This was well before she had any official shadow ministerial job, or even any notion she might get one.

So it's an interesting suggestion, but no more than that.

Subject: RE: BS: Vegan Shadow Environment Secretary
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 26 Sep 15 - 08:11 PM

I eat a kebab tonight and it was bloody lovely.

The meat could have been one of the donkeys off weston super mare beach for all I care right now

it tasted beautiful.

It was an exquisite treat.

Then again it could have been soya or quorn - still don't care.. it tasted fantastic...

About to crack open the 4th bottle of wine, [2 bottles dissapeared during the england wales rugby]
make a cheese sandwich and watch another rubbish horror movie...


I'm not that far off 60 and free to say what I like now..

Far different to 35 years ago when we lived under a regime of terror,
when mad furious vegans were waiting to pounce on every last least intended ideologically incorrect utterance...

Subject: RE: BS: Vegan Shadow Environment Secretary
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 26 Sep 15 - 08:37 PM

I admire your capacity, PFR. But, as with with Jehovah's Witnesses, give the buggers an argument. You can't lose.

Subject: RE: BS: Vegan Shadow Environment Secretary
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 26 Sep 15 - 08:48 PM

nah.. I'm not that superhuman...

The wife did her best with the first 3 bottles before she collapsed giggling and singing into bed

- her team won !!!...

I can finally sit down quiet and relaxed............

now what shall it be tonight.. Kung Fu Zombies !!???

Subject: RE: BS: Vegan Shadow Environment Secretary
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 27 Sep 15 - 04:15 PM

Meat's a nice ingredient sometimes. I wouldn't like it as a main course.

But I wouldn't really miss it.

Subject: RE: BS: Vegan Shadow Environment Secretary
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 27 Sep 15 - 05:41 PM

Well we went for a walk round Pentire Point this afternoon and I happened upon a colony of parasol toadstools in perfect condition. I chopped them up bite size and did them for ten minutes in the oven with butter, salt and pepper. Olive oil instead of butter would have been just as good and vegan to boot. What a feast. Mrs Steve wouldn't eat any because she thinks I'm trying to murder her. Shop fungi are so boring. You haven't lived until you've eaten the real thing. I also consume shaggy ink caps, horse mushrooms, field mushrooms, ceps if can ever find 'em and giant puffballs. I must get my head round some of the others.

Subject: RE: BS: Vegan Shadow Environment Secretary
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 27 Sep 15 - 06:34 PM

Dammit. I've just checked and discovered that in America, but not in the UK, parasols can be confused with the green-spored parasol Chlorophyllum molybdites, which is poisonous. They are easy enough to tell apart once past the button stage, so go carefully!

Subject: RE: BS: Vegan Shadow Environment Secretary
From: GUEST,HiLo
Date: 27 Sep 15 - 08:13 PM

I take a few mushrooms to sing arounds...every party needs a fungi. I'm off then !

Subject: RE: BS: Vegan Shadow Environment Secretary
From: Penny S.
Date: 28 Sep 15 - 11:15 AM

I went off fungal foraging when I was shown a yellow staining mushroom by an expert. It looked like a mushroom, it smelled like a mushroom, it didn't grow in the same environment as a mushroom, but the key to not eating it (it having nasty effects) was to spot the yellow stain at the base of the stipe, and I couldn't see it at all.
Further confirmation of the necessity of avoiding non-normal mushrooms was when my niece gave me a kit for oyster mushrooms. Lovely they were. It turns out a few people have reactions to oyster mushrooms. I am one of them. Projectile....you don't want to know.

Subject: RE: BS: Vegan Shadow Environment Secretary
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 28 Sep 15 - 01:27 PM

Yellow stainers do look a bit like horse mushrooms, unfortunately, and they occasionally grow together. If in doubt scratch the stem and have a sniff. Horse mushrooms always have a pleasant aniseed aroma. The smell of yellow stainers is sort of blotting paper-inky. The yellow stain is very marked if you cut the stem base. Unfortunately, horse mushrooms can also show yellow staining when bruised, but never as distinctly as the yellow stainer. They both grow in the field next to my house and I've got them sorted. The smell is a good indicator. I've never cooked a yellow stainer (why would I!) but I'm told that they smell horrible if you do. You probably won't die if you eat one by accident, but if you have a sense of smell it shouldn't happen!

Subject: RE: BS: Vegan Shadow Environment Secretary
From: sciencegeek
Date: 29 Sep 15 - 11:48 AM

once again, the baby is tossed along with the bath water by folks with little or no hands on experience with agriculture and husbandry.... reminds me of what irked me about teenage hippies... no working BS filter.

if there is a villain to be found, go no further than agribusiness - run by bean counters, not farmers- in search of big money and the same disregard to the environment held by the same big business that fought the environmental movement- and continues to try to destroy environmental regulation in favor of quick wealth.   

there is a finite amount of arable land on this planet and climate change is going to have a major effect in the coming years... take a look at the natural world around us and you will see many strategies for obtaining nourishment... only humans have the perverse habit of making cultural taboos about their diet. Food is food and there are way too many folks out there not getting enough of it and some getting too much or not eating sensibly. diet fads and food obsessions are absurd and miss the point too many times...   

there's too many out there making pronouncements on "proper eating habits" that would starve to death if they actually had to feed themselves and their families by raising and preserving their own food... much less feed a large population of hungry people.... why the heck is anyone listening to them???

Subject: RE: BS: Vegan Shadow Environment Secretary
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 29 Sep 15 - 11:51 AM

Not everybody reacts adversely to yellow stainers. I don't. Talking about funghi here.

Subject: RE: BS: Vegan Shadow Environment Secretary
From: GUEST,Allan Conn
Date: 29 Sep 15 - 12:39 PM

My son went veggie, under the influence of a female friend, but when the weekend came round and we had a chinese take away he buckled!