I'm not a big fan of the “everything is so complicated, therefore lets just forget the whole thing and do what we want” approach, which is what your argument aims at. Becoming vegetarian is kindest to living creatures (plants, animals, & humans) and kindest to the environment. Period.

But, please don't let the facts get in the way.

Dr. J i come from a ranching family and many of my family continue to ranch and run feedlots.

I can only wish that modern day rancher are thinking as deeply and sincerely about your good will as you are for them.

Here are some random considerations;

Range Fed Cattle to Industrial Grain Feed lots is less than 5%. It is very unlikely that you are not eating much Range fed beef. . .

Industrial productions systems differ from (Range) grazing systems by the great increase of various substances such as veterinary drugs, growth hormones, feed additives or nutraceuticals to improve livestock production effectiveness.

Use of growth stimulants:
Antibiotics are routinely added to grain feed as a growth stimulant. Cattle consume 70% of the antibiotics in the United States.[6] This practice widely contributes to the rise of antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

Implantation of Growth Hormones which is highly controversial.
The benefits of using growth hormones includes improved feed efficiency, carcass quality, and rate of muscle development. It is argued that with the use of growth hormones, more plentiful quality meats can be sold for affordable prices. Recent studies have also found elevated levels of synthetic growth hormones in feedlot wastes; these persistent chemicals eventually wind up in the waterways downstream of feedlots, where scientists have found fish exhibiting abnormal sex characteristics.[8]

The F.D.A. is opening an inquiry into the problem, but for now, implanting hormones in beef cattle is legal and financially irresistible: an implant costs $1.50 and adds between 40 and 50 pounds to the weight of a steer at slaughter, for a return of at least $25.”

Artificial Hormone Use in Cattle

“Recombinant bovine somatotropin (rBST) or recombinant bovine growth hormone (rBGH) is an artificial growth hormone produced using recombinant DNA technology (biotechnology) . When injected into cows, rBGH increases milk production 10-15 percent and even up to 40 percent in some cases . It is approved in the United States since 1993; however, its use has been controversial since farmers have started using it. Recent studies have shown that rBGH use in animal production cause problems including an alarming rise in the number of deformed calves and dramatic increases in mastitis, a painful bacterial infection of the udder which causes inflammation, swelling, and pus and blood secretions into milk. Studies have also shown that the presence of rBGH in the cow's blood stimulates production of Insulin-Like Growth Factor-1 (IGF-1) in the cow. An increase level of IGF-1 in human has been linked to colon and breast cancer . The European Union, Japan, Australia and Canada have all outlawed the use of rBST in animal production due to the animal and human health concerns.”

BLV

Bovine Leukemia virus is insect-borne and found in 20% of US cows, and 60% of US herds. Studies in Sweden and the Soviet Union have linked BLV outbreaks and increases in human leukemia. BLV and HTLV-1 share a common gene, HTLV-1 is the first human retrovirus ever shown to cause cancer.

E. Coli
Feeding grain to cattle makes their digestive tract abnormally acidic; over time, the pathogenic E. coli becomes acid-resistant.[24] If humans ingest this acid-resistant E. coli via grain-feed beef, a large number of them may survive past the stomach, causing an infection.[25] A study by the USDA Meat and Animal Research Center in Lincoln Nebraska (2000) has confirmed the Cornell research

Mad Cow Disease

Meat and bone meal can be a risk factor for bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), when healthy animals consume tainted tissues from infected animals. People concerned about Creutzfeld-Jacob disease (CJD), which is also a spongiform encephalopathy, may favor grass-fed cattle for this reason. In the United States, this risk is relatively low as feeding of protein sources from any ruminant to another ruminant has been banned since 1997. But many other countries do not have the restriction of not feeding other animal parts to cattle.

Dr. J this one may look like good news, but recently i heard on NPR that one hamburger patty from MacDonalds can contain meat product from up to 60 different cattle from all over the world.

Dr. J when was the last time you took a trip to a Feed lot? Where it would not be unusual for there can be as many as one-hundred cattle, weighing from 700-1200 pounds, living in one pen the size of a basketball court.

Greenpeace Brazil has released a report at the World Social Forum in Belém showing that up to 80 percent of deforestation in the Amazon rainforest is due to an increase in raising cattle for human consumption.

“Brazil has quickly become the largest exporter of beef in the world, but they are not satisfied with their current market share and plan to increase production. The plan flies in the face of their supposed commitment to tackle climate change. The country is currently the fourth biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, 75% of which stem from deforestation.”

These are just a few considerations to ponder Dr. J.

And DLS i have really appreciated your comments on agricultural subsidizes for that one truly has world impact.

Oh my god, Marybeth. That is an incredibly smart and elegant argument, and I never thought of it before. I am grateful to you for giving it to us.

One assumes that struggling cattle ranchers will have to do what other economically displaced populations in the U.S. have had to do: accept that this is how life is, and adapt their skill set to the new economic climate.

“There aren't two sides, there are surely dozens of sides [...]“

I wasn't trying to present a false dichotomy or make any other kind of mistaken argument (such as that anybody who defends subsidies is against ranching on public lands, or against ranching, or meat).  Just showing (using an extreme example) land (ab)use (as described by a lefty activist ranching critic — you'd like the cartoon in the book of someone using bolt cutters on fencing — he's no ranching fan).

“Anyone decrying the wicked drumstick and exalting the righteous salad oversimplifies.”

Yes, as with coal and substituting wind and solar power for it to generate electricity for us.

* * *

A diet low in moralizing”

Actually, there are moral, logical, environmental, financial issues of all kinds associated with meat production and with vegetarianism.  I'm not writing this as a lefty, but as an interested observer (and moral, logical, environmental, financial-minded guy).

Although I'm sure there must be at least one struggling cattle rancher out there, I have no love for agricultural subsidies, which inevitably bleed the middle class and fatten mostly big agribusiness. So if we eat less meat, are those subsidies likely to go up or down? Is that good or bad?

There aren't two sides, there are surely dozens of sides amid the complexities of our food supply chain, our metabolisms, our ecosystem, our energy economics, and the other issues tied into what we eat. Anyone decrying the wicked drumstick and exalting the righteous salad oversimplifies.

When it comes to food, Dr. J prescribes a diet low in moralizing.

Happy Holidays to you too! (and everyone else here of course

Note: Happy holidays to all of you.  That includes all libs and Dems who can Savor (hiya, Peggy Noonan) their health care victory, no matter how hard-won.  That's your Christmas present this year, even if final passage isn't until next.

This post was mentioned on Twitter by TMV: Are Vegetarians And Vegans Biased Against Plants?: This might sound like a bit of a needling post, but that is not … http://bit.ly/4NA150...

Merry Christmas or whatever you may celebrate. Best to you and those you love.

Edit: Now that I've seen your other two posts, I guess we still have one or two items to discuss after the New Year.

Add loggers and you have the reality that advocates need to face about the dream of Cascadia.

It still makes sense, but you need to face the rest of the people who live there and will live there.

(Chefs in the liberal cities, at least)

I don't believe in rash measures, but there are two sides to this. No, I'm not a hard-core meat-basher or ALF inductee, but I understand a bit of both sides to the story.

“struggling ranchers”:

Many would look at it the other way –

I've already been visiting used book stores (gold mines) around here, and I got a copy of this:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-media/product…

(I may be sending this to someone who finds the West awful because it is arid, relatively lifeless, as well as far too conservative for her to withstand — kind of like going south of DC into Virginia or other Red Nation foreign territory.)

Now, in addition to ending agricultural subsidies, I also look at those public lands, but it should make you feel better to know that I would want first and foremost for Washington to end its colonialism in the West (even if the arbitrary remote-colonialist-style straight-line Western state boundaries might be harder to resolve) in the form of locking up so much land in its hands. There's no excuse for lockup of so much vast territory in the West by the federal government.

There are many ways in which the term I used, which is an old view, applies — meat is a premium food — and you illustrate the rational basis for in, in listing the benefits we would realize by reducing all that's associated with meat as well as with consumption of meat itself in our diet.

It also is amusing to note a related starting point that addresses some of these things. No, not banning meat or laying ridiculous sin taxes on it. No perverse “food policy” idiocy and totalitarianism need apply. Rather, why not consider something that's festered in the background? Why not at least reduce (pun not intended) subsidies and government promotion in other ways of meat production? Now many may say that subsidies are neither good nor bad, but depend on their objects and their objectives. (Those who view health care as desireable or as a fundamental “right,” or at least see benefits in healthy, more-productive people have no problem with subsidizing the affordability of health care, for example, as they view education, say.) But many of us view subsidies as inherently bad in and of themselves because of their distortive effects, and their facility for abuse of power and trying to make people behave unnaturally or wrongly just to satisfy others' desires or whims. While it is too extreme (and un-American) to ban meat or treat it in a punitive manner (in fact, that is mentally ill as well as wrongful), there's certainly nothing wrong with abolishing subsidies and other means by which government promotes meat production beyond that which is voluntarily supported and sought (i.e., in the “free market,” true economic democracy). Perhaps pricing it right would at least treat things in an economically (and morally) transparent and honest manner. (The same goes for water, for example!)

Like others, I was fascinated by Ms. Wosko's responses in the prior article as well as Mikkel's treatment of the subject here…though I am not yet convinced that one should endow carrots with sensient status.

Perhaps there is common thread upon which many of us might agree: we, meaning American society, too often fail to reflect upon our reliance on fast food, prepared food and the inherent health risks, environmental damage and unnecessary cruelty brought about by the factory meat production industry which lurks behind our too easy, too selfish, taste driven habits. To the extent that we put convenience ahead of health, environment and cruelity, we would do well to re-examine. In that regard, I take some exception with Mikkel, though perhaps the difference is more semantic than substantive. Health, environmental stewardship and unnecessary cruelty are, in my view, moral issues.