Being married to Rob, I have become much more likely to seek out and
purchase free range this or organic that with a good smattering of
locally grown food, especially produce.  I find that typically the
environmentally friendly options available are typically 1.5 to 3
times as expensive as the "traditional" versions, though good finds
are occasionally even cheaper than the factory farmed alternatives.  I
would propose if people wanted to participate in such a scheme, they
use numbers something like this.  And I'm not sure I would limit it to
animal consumption...

Every time I have been or tried to be vegetarian or vegan, I have
gained weight.	I'm just curious if anyone else has had this
experience.  I know Rob lost weight when he shifted his diet away from
meat.  Any other changes people notice when eating fewer animals or
animal products?

On 1/25/07, Joshua J Estelle   wrote:
> > The text of this article is about how mass farming of meat is bad
> > for the environment, not that eating meat is bad for the
> > environment. If eating meat alone was bad for the environment, then
> > eradicating all carnivores would solve our global warming problem, no?
>
> It is true that locally raised meet likely has negligible negative
> impact and that the real problem is mass farming of meat, but I think
> even very environmentally conscious meat eaters are unlikely to
> always eat "good" meat.
>
> > To change the topic slightly, your article reminded me of a very
> > interesting essay by Jared Diamond (the "Guns, Germs, and Steel"
> > guy) claiming that farming was the worst mistake humanity ever made:
>
> While farming may not also be perfect, it is by far the lesser evil
> to eating meat.  Consider we have to feed 10 people for 1 year.  Then
> think about how much land and resources you would need to feed them a
> meat eating diet.  Each animal they eat will need a tremendous amount
> of resources to raise that animal to be eaten.  Then consider if
> those 10 people were vegetarians.  The amount of land and resources
> needed to feed them would be drastically smaller.
>
> It's just more efficient to be vegetarian.
>
> I think I just discovered my short answer to when people ask me why
> I'm vegetarian, "It's just more efficient."
>
> Best,
> Josh
>
>
>
>
>
> > On Wed, 24 Jan 2007, Robert Felty wrote:
> >
> >> Really great article about how eating meat is bad for the
> >> environment. Thanks to Clare for pointing it out to me.
> >> You can read it at:
> >> http://www.commondreams.org/views07/0120-20.htm
> >>
>
>