My Argument For Raising Beef or Sheep Versus A Vegan Crop of Pea or Soy Protein

Something Always Has To Die To Feed You

I know, I know, lambs are so damned cute, how could you? I never said it was an easy choice. I’m sure that there would be millions more vegetarians/vegans in the western world if they had to raise their own meat. My youngest sister wouldn’t eat meat when she came to the farm; she said it was because she knew it used to have a name. (Yes, I am guilty of naming the livestock.) But she had no problem devouring meat at home and elsewhere.

In case it isn’t obvious, I’m a rancher/farmer. I will make my money off of you one way or the other, whether it’s from a calf/lamb crop or, say, a field pea/soybean crop. I agree that factory farms are wrong, but that’s not the only way to raise animals. As long as animals are humanely cared for and provided for, I feel being carnivorous is acceptable. In all transparency, I was a vegetarian for almost ten years. Yes, I was also a livestock producer at the time. WTF? you ask. Meat just didn’t taste right anymore. But then I messed up my digestive system due to this, and now suffer from bouts of anemia, even when I do eat meat. I wasn’t meant to be entirely without meat in my diet. I eat it now, but not near as much as I once did. And just because you are vegan/vegetarian doesn’t mean you eat a healthy diet. Beer and chips are vegan. I know vegetarians that eat meat when they get drunk. Their bodies still crave it.

My daughters were taken out to the butcher shop as soon as they could walk, so they learned where their food came from. One day, my husband walked into the house with two five-gallon pails full of meat when one of my daughters, 4 years old, blocked his way. She looked into the pails, looked up at him, and asked, “Daddy, is that Smokey (our milk cow’s calf) or Wilbur (her pet pig)?”

He started sweating, and I could see the fear in his eyes. He knew there was no correct answer. He sighed heavily. “It’s Smokey, Honey.”

“Oh.” She raised a hand and waved at the pails. “Bye-bye, Smokey.” She turned on her heel and skipped off to play.

Callus, you say? Wait a minute. So you say you are vegan/vegetarian because it is cruel to raise/kill animals to survive. What if I told you chickens don’t naturally eat a vegan diet? Their favourite food are bugs. So the eggs you buy that are guaranteed to be on a vegan diet are laid by chickens kept indoors their entire lives. You likely wouldn’t recognize a true free-range laid egg if you saw one; the yolk is dark orange. But the consumers asked for the eggs from vegan-diet chickens, so there you have it.

Do you know where your food comes from?

Most people don’t even want to think about it, that’s obvious. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be in the crisis that we are. Processed and mock foods are the staple in most diets. Don’t get me started on fake meats;(okay, here I go anyway!) more chemicals are used in producing them than any other processed food(1)! Yes, it’s plant-based, and yes, it may be organic, (I think it’s safe to say fake meats are not) but that doesn’t mean animals didn’t die to feed you. How many species have gone extinct due to agriculture? Entire ecosystems are destroyed due to large-scale monoculture. The Amazon forests, anyone? And please don’t say your food comes from Safeway, not a farm! I’ve seen kids on a field trip freak out when they found out where milk comes from. And eggs. But I digress.

FoodPrint.org has an extensive study on the “FoodPrint” of fake meats,(1) which I urge you to read if you think fake meats are a healthy alternative to real meat. It doesn’t sound good from the get-go:

The products we will be discussing in this report are generally called, by those who produce and market them, “plant-based meats.” We prefer the term “ultra-processed meat alternatives”* because we feel it more accurately describes this group of products: they live in the arena of existing ultra-processed foods and carry with them the same health problems that public health experts have alerted us to with other highly processed foods.

*highlighting is mine

Primarily plant-based lifestyles are touted as being healthier, and I won’t argue that, but that’s in reference to whole foods, not processed, or ultra-processed. Foodprint.org continues with:

While the companies marketing this new generation of ultra-processed alternative meat products are eager to capitalize on the idea that any shift towards plant-based eating can deliver huge wins for animals, people and the environment, some of these promises are unproven, and some clearly untrue. With pundits going so far as to suggest that meat alternatives merit government investment, it is important to move past the hype and ask whether they can really change the food system, or if they are yet another avenue for the food industry to sell unhealthy food, make money, consolidate power and avoid regulation.*

*highlighting is mine

I read in an industry magazine the other day that the production of field peas in Southern Alberta (where I reside) is due to explode in the next 5 to 10 years due to the growth in plant-based meats. Not only that, but scientists are looking at increasing the protein in field peas,(2) soybeans, and canola (all used in plant-based meats) by introducing gene editing, and moving away from GMOs. I was a science major, but I’m not sure myself what the difference is, from splicing in DNA from other plants, animals, or insects, to tweaking the genes already there. I’m old school, and not sure of anything that isn’t an heirloom seed for my garden, even if the hybrids have shorter growing seasons.

I’ve done some research on growing peas and I have to admit, the amount of chemicals needed makes me pause. Often, fungicides need to be applied to the seed so it can germinate in wet, cool soils, and may still need another application later in the growing cycle. Inoculants help the seed access the nitrogen in the soil, so at least one doesn’t need to apply nitrogen. There are few insects that threaten them, but those that do can cause severe damage quickly, so insecticides are necessary. Most pulses don’t grow very tall, so are easily taken over by weeds, making herbicides a must. But there are few that can be used on peas, and even residual herbicides in the soil must be taken into consideration when planting peas/pulses. ( Yes, some chemicals don’t become inert for years. That’s why it takes many years to be able to even try and become an organic farmer.) Then last, but not least, in order for the crop to be harvested all at one time, desiccants and/or glyphosate (a component of Round-up) are used to dry out the crop all at once.

Let’s not forget that each chemical applied relies on a tractor to pass over the entire crop. You can only imagine what my diesel fuel bill comes to for a season.

This looks much better to me than a field of grain

Now, let me bring you to my pasture. Allow yourself to see past the grazing livestock. Listen to the birds as well as the buzzing of the bees. There is a diversity of native plants growing here, many that flower for the bees to make their honey. Believe it or not, many monoculture crops are harvested before they flower, so bees are SOL when it comes to them. Some crops require bees for pollination, but the herbicides/insecticides used are not to their advantage. Bees are fairing better in cities than in the country. (3) And the wildlife is evident here. Gophers are running and playing, while rabbits, skunks, raccoons, weasels, and other rodents (mice, moles, voles) all going about their daily business until the badger, fox, or coyote shows up, or one of the eagles, hawks, owls or even the odd turkey vulture flies overhead. I have a video of the sky over my pasture full of birds of prey, with over 40 birds at a time. It was breathtaking, I assure you. You won’t see that over a monoculture crop. But you will see a swarm of seagulls behind a tractor plowing/cultivating a field because all kinds of worms, earth crawlers, bugs, and rodents nests are being brought up out of the soil to be exposed to them. Most of the other animals are gone, their dens plowed over. And at harvest, fawns are sometimes caught up by swathers or combines because mama thought the tall crop would hide her baby until she got back.

What about global warming, you ask? Aren’t cows the #1 agricultural source of greenhouse gases? Doesn’t that make the beef industry unsustainable? But as the studies at the University of California, Davis,(4) show:

Mitloehner has openly challenged this view, writing in a recent commentary for The Conversation(5) that “forgoing meat is not the environmental panacea many would have us believe.” Cows and other ruminants account for just 4 percent of all greenhouse gases produced in the United States, he said, and beef cattle just 2 percent of direct emissions.

The U of C Davis article also mentions how we can offset carbon emissions with proper management of grasslands;

“One of the best and most simple things we can do on rangelands to help mitigate climate change is to conserve rangeland ecosystems and keep the carbon that’s already stored in rangeland soils safely stored there,” said Ken Tate, a UC Davis rangeland watershed management extension specialist. California is at particular risk of rangelands being converted to housing and other developments, he said.

We use more heavy equipment to farm the land than we do to care for cattle on the pasture. Yes, a tractor is needed to bring hay and straw to the pasture in the winter months, that’s a given. But working the land uses tons more diesel fuel. And cattle can graze in areas that are not suitable for farming, due to slopes, rocky soil, or low, wet areas, where the plant life can only be broken down by ruminants.

The Vegetarian Myth

In an article in Mother Earth News, The Vegetarian Myth (6) by Lierre Keith, he mentions he was a vegan for almost 20 years but understands now that he had bought into the vegetarian myth — to save the planet. But agriculture isn’t the answer.

“Agriculture is the most destructive thing that humans have done to the planet, and more of the same won’t save us.”

He speaks on how cattle can be fed grain, but it’s not what their bodies are designed to eat. (Which also may contribute to the methane gas they burp). Grass is their natural feed. We don’t have to compete with them for a food source. We don’t have to wipe out ecosystems to grow their food or produce other monoculture crops.

But at this telling (2010),

“ninety-eight percent of American prairie is gone, turned into a monocrop for annual grains. Plowcropping in Canada has destroyed 99 percent of the land’s original humus.”

Nowadays, there are a lot more no-till fields, but the damage is done. Fertilizers are applied every year. I haven’t seen a fallow field in I don’t know how long. Farming practices are no longer sustainable. Becoming vegan isn’t going to save us or any other species. We need more sustainable practices.

FoodPrint.org (1) ranks alternative protein sources as follows:

Researchers comparing the costs, benefits and feasibility of different sustainable proteins have ranked ultra-processed meat alternatives below options like beans and even insects when it comes to sustainability.55 Whole food sources of protein, like beans and other legumes, generally have smaller footprints than their ultra-processed counterparts, with beans ranking as one of the best protein sources in terms of land use, water consumption and greenhouse gas emissions.56 These whole food options are also easier to source from farms that practice organic and regenerative methods, which drive their impact far lower than products made with conventionally produced crops.

Grass-fed beef is becoming more popular, by demand. Remember, what the consumer wants, the industries will provide. Find a rancher nearby where you can get your grass-fed beef/lamb. Maybe you can find one at a Farmer’s Market. We need to cooperate more with mother nature rather than fighting to dominate it. Perhaps growing our own food and becoming more conscious of where it is coming from may start to make a difference. Most people are too far removed from the production of their own sustenance (remember those kids on the field trip to the farm?)

The Key Word is Sustainability

It’s really not about veganism versus carnivorism. As Anita Head comments in her article, The Key Word is Sustainability,(7)

“Mexico now makes more money from exporting avocados than it does from petroleum. The popularity of avocado has encouraged illegal deforestation to enable the plantation of more avocado trees. Is this environmentally friendly? Is this sustainable?”

It seems to be about mankind destroying the planet one ecosystem at a time. If the demand is there, the industry will provide. But at what cost?

I encourage you to read The Vegetarian Myth by Lierre Keith regardless of your chosen lifestyle. The more conscious we are of the circumstances, the more educated choices we can all make.

(*There are no affiliate links in this post.*)

Bibliography:

(1) Foodprint.org. The FoodPrint of Fake Meat

(2) Alberta Seed Guide -online version of magazine not yet available at time of writing

(3) Quartz — Urban Bees are Living Healthier Lives Than Rural Bees

(4) ucdavis.edu — Cows and climate change; Making cattle more sustainable

(5) The Conversation — Yes, eating meat affects the environment, but cows are not killing the climate

(6) Mother Earth News — The Vegetarian Myth

(7) South East Farmer — The Key Word is Sustainability

If you would like to read more of my posts:

Would you like unlimited access to Medium.com? Use my affiliate link below. Not only will a portion of your membership support my writing, but also many other writers you choose to read on this platform.