Summary

The web content discusses the ethical and environmental implications of meat consumption, advocating for veganism by highlighting the inefficiency of raising livestock for food compared to plant-based agriculture.

Abstract

The article titled "Killing Food" delves into the author's personal journey as a vegan and the conversations had with a non-vegan friend over a meal. It underscores the stark contrast in land use efficiency between producing meat and growing plant-based foods, citing that one acre can feed four times as many people with plants than with livestock. The author, Wolfstuff, uses the example of the Harris Ranch, nicknamed "Cowschwitz," to illustrate the massive scale of animal slaughter for beef consumption in California. The piece argues that meat consumption is a form of "killing by distant proxy," distancing consumers from the reality of the animals' lives and deaths. Wolfstuff suggests that if individuals choose to eat meat, they should be willing to kill the animal themselves, questioning the morality of delegating this task to others.

Opinions

The author is a devout vegan and has been for nearly four decades, implying a strong personal conviction about the ethical implications of dietary choices.
There is a critique of the inefficiency of meat production, with the claim that plant-based agriculture can feed significantly more people on the same amount of land.
The author expresses a sense of futility in trying to persuade others, particularly close family members, to adopt a vegan lifestyle, as evidenced by the ineffective attempt to dissuade his daughters from eating meat.
The term "Beef Nazis" is used to describe those involved in the industrial slaughter of animals, suggesting a strong disapproval of the meat industry and its practices.
Wolfstuff believes that meat-eaters should take personal responsibility for their food choices by being willing to kill the animals they consume, reflecting a stance on the importance of personal accountability in the food chain.

Killing Food

Eat Meat — Kill by Proxy

To eat what has bled to feed you is a killing by distant proxy

Yes, I am a pretty devout vegan — if those two words go together — and I have been for going on almost forty years now (gosh, how time flies).

As a freshly turned vegan, 1984 or so if memory serves, I was having dinner with a good non-vegan friend of mine. A tall Texan no less.

While I made quite a production of ordering a very vegan salad, he ordered a mammoth T-bone steak with all the trimmings, which he then attacked with all the vigor of a starving tiger.

After a while I ventured: “Did you know?”

“Huh?”

“Did you know,” I re-ventured.

“Did I know what?” between bites.

“Did you know that if you grew, say rice or wheat or beans, instead of grazing cattle on the land, you can feed four times as many persons on the same acreage that it takes to feed one person via, say — case in point,” indicating his plate, “beef?”

“Is that a fact?”

“Yes, it is.”

He cut off and took another great bite of his bleeding T-bone, chewed for a while then looked up, “It’s great to be an American, isn’t it?”

I had no answer to that. Had to laugh, actually.

Then I returned to my salad.

Heading north on Interstate 5, somewhere between Los Angeles and San Francisco, on your right (you can smell it before you see it) lies Cowschwitz, aka The Harris Ranch.

This end of the road for whole nations of cows produces 150,000,000 (i.e. 150 million) pounds of consumer-ready beef annually: that is a lot of dying.

If you live in California and pass the meat section of your supermarket, chances are that you are walking past cows that have been slaughtered at Cowschwitz.

And this still holds true: A meat eater would need one full acre to graze livestock to feed him- or herself over a year — while a vegan could survive quite well on one quarter of that acre: or that one acre could indeed feed four people.

And rice does not bleed.

In a (lame) effort to get my daughters to stop eating meat I’d refer to their hamburgers and franks as “dead animal tissue” for a few weeks.

Ineffectively.

Bottom line, though: If you insist on eating meat, I think you should be man (or woman) enough to kill it yourself, with your bare hands, and not leave it up to the Beef Nazis.

Wolfstuff

So, who am I? Really really. I could tell you that I was born in northern Sweden during a snow storm, and subsequently…

wolfstuff.com