Food Simplicity

31Mar09

I went to college with a lot of opinionated vegans and subsequently had a lot of conversations about food. Before that nobody in my family really “talked” about food, we just cooked and eat it.

Having read into the various claims that compromise the modern argument for veganism and vegetarianism, I have to say that environmental and animal cruelty claims hold up a lot better then the health claims. There is a whole wide body of literature that livestock production is bad for the environment in lots of ways and presence of completely avoidable animal cruelty is undeniable. But I’ve just never read anything to suggest eating animals, in and of itself, is unhealthy or certainly unnatural.

To be clear I’m not saying people don’t eat animals in unhealthy ways, but that the idea it’s unhealthy at any level of consumption isn’t based any research I’ve seen and strikes me as intrinsically implausible.

However, when reduced the weaker argument, seen in Mark Bittman’s Food Matters, that eating less animal products would be both healthier and better for the environment I think you have a pretty bullet proof and important claim.

We can’t have 6 billion people eating animal products at the rate American currently eat animal products. It’s just not sustainable and I can’t imagine even trying to get close would be advisable.

We’ve had a real big push to alter course on our national food policy and national diet over the last 3 years, and you’re going to start to see a big push back. For people that want to alter course I think the best thing that can be done is wed the movement to the strongest claims (eat less animals, more vegetables, etc.) then the more assailable claims ( Eat organic, Eat vegan, spend way more money food or food programs). Otherwise we end up arguing about if new born babies get enough nutrients from their mothers, while a plethora of undeniably bad trends are on the march.

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Tags: Food Policy, Mark Bittman, Organic, Veganism