Vegan, vegetarian, keto, paleo, omnivore: ethics & ecological realities

A brief summary of 35 years of research on the politics of food, ethics and ecology:

Black and white thinking must go. Clannish thinking must go. Refusal to question or change, must be overcome.

Factory farming must be banned. Agriculture and food must go organic. Industrial agriculture has been an ecological and public health catastrophe. Decentralization, democratization and re-localization of food, energy, water and economics are critically necessary for reasons of both justice and ecological survival. Regenerative, small scale, culturally and biologically diverse organic agriculture is the primary provider of food on Earth, and also the primary healer of the world; not biotech, petrochemicals and big business, as Bill Gates, the Rockefellers and the Davos plutocrats would have you believe. Furthermore, free range organic is a must, if you eat animal protein. These are the simple facts.

Yet, remember, GMO soy is also a public health and ecological disaster, as are GMO wheat and corn. Organc lentils, peas and beans are great; but whatever you do, do think through and research your choices. Read labels, investigate things for yourself, and choose local, free-range organic food whenever possible.

Fish is a healthier choice than other meat generally, perhaps; unless it is Pacific, in which case it is radioactive, thanks to Fukushima. Ecologically, fisheries are collapsing. We must greatly ease up on pressure on the oceans and fisheries, for decades to come. If you want fish on a regular basis, better dig a pond and stock it. Improve and heal the Earth, is what we urgently need to do, not further deplete it.

Health-wise, the China Study proves conclusively that if your diet is comprised of more than 5% animal products, rates of heart attack, stroke, cancer and other diseases skyrocket. Significant consideration, I would say. Meat-centred diets are therefore foolish, unless you live in the arctic and are chasing cariboo with a spear.

Also, unless it is 100% recycled material, synthetic fabrics, as with industrial agriculture cotton, are poison, and planetary death. Wool, hemp, bamboo, and yes, fur and leather, are ecologically far better.

Patagonia is a great company, with great environmental policies, but I’d still prefer a vintage leather jacket or trench coat, or buckskin, or oiled hemp parka, or wool sweater, to wearing even recycled plastic, no matter how pretty.

Silk, hemp, wool, bamboo, leather and fur are vastly better ecologically than cotton or synthetics, no matter what your bias may be.

To heal the forests, which are intimately interdependent with food and agriculture, we need sustainable forestry practices combined with regenerative forestry practices from permaculture, using nitrogen-fixing nut trees, green understory plants, and holistic integrated organic free range animal husbandry, using livestock such as goats, chickens and ducks. We need, above all, to shift to bamboo, hemp, hemp composites and straw bale/adobe to replace most uses of wood and paper, and virtually all metal, plastics and synthetics, and end clear cutting. Carefully managing forests and grasslands is key, and that cannot be a technocratic top-down approach, since that has utterly failed; but rather, the exact opposite: democratic, decentralized, diversified local farming and forestry, which are integrated with local cultures and locally-based economies.

Further, holistic, free-range, organic, regenerative ranching (cattle, goats, sheep, chickens, ducks, lamas…) is simply urgently necesary in order to restore grassland soils, which are two thirds of the Earth’s land. The planet will fry otherwise, and we will starve from famine before that.

Ethical, compassionate, regenerative, free range, organic, holistic animal husbandry, is simply a necessity for healing the planet. We need to cooperate with nature, and the animals, or die. We need their help, just as they need ours.

JTR,

August 27, 2020

For further info and documentation see Vandana Shiva, David Suzuki, Helena Norberg-Hodge, and The China Study