the myths (or just misinformation) in the vegetarian myth
posted by molly under vegan living | permalink | | leave a comment | 16 comments
OK OK OK. I was going to stay out of the whole Lierre Keith getting a pie in the face thing because (1) Lierre Keith is probably (and hopefully, gawd) at 14:54 in terms of her 15 minutes of fame, and prolonging that seems like a disservice to critical thought and also the world as a whole; (2) I’ve admittedly only read of her book what’s available free on the internet and/or been quoted on the PPK; (3) I’m not entirely convinced the whole thing wasn’t simply a publicity stunt and, finally, (3) I have a reasonable suspicion she has Google Alerts set up for herself and in case she’s a reader of FM/thinking about purchasing Running with the Pack I wouldn’t want to discourage her. Don’t second-guess yourself, Lierre! The werewolf story I wrote has an ex-vegetarian as a character! You’d love it!
But! A member of the PPK has put up a .pdf of an elegant, devastating critique of some of the silliest claims in Lierre Keith’s junk-science manifesto, The Vegetarian Myth, and I couldn’t resist plugging it. Here’s a sample:
The Claim: “Understand: agriculture was the beginning of global warming. Ten thousand years of destroying the carbon sinks of perennial polycultures has added almost as much carbon to the atmosphere as industrialization, an indictment that you, vegetarians, need to answer. No one has told you this before, but that is what your food—those oh so eco-peaceful grains and beans—has done.” (P. 250)
The Reality: Much of Lierre’s book is borrowed from Richard Manning, a well-respected environmentalist and author. Manning understands that human dependence on grain monoculture is not a result of the small percentage of concerned people who decide to be vegetarian, but is rather a historical mistake of which we all share the burden of repairing. Despite Lierre’s insistence, vegans do not need to eat grains nor any sort of annual crop. Why did she target vegans when compared to average corn-fed Americans, vegans consume much less grain?
On the topic of climate change, Lierre fails to address that regardless of type of feed or forage, ruminant animals emit an abundance of methane. She, along with other grass-fed proponents, point out that growing pasture sequesters carbon in the subsoil and claim that farms like Polyface are carbon-neutral. However, she ignores the fact that soil only retains a limited quantity of carbon—once pasture is healthy, it is carbon stable. Any pasture-based livestock production contributes, pound-for-pound of meat, to climate change as much (if not more) than conventional livestock production—an indictment that you, Lierre, need to answer.
Yeah. I think the best part is how reasonable the authors are while discussing the outrageous misinformation presented as fact in Lierre’s Weston Price-sanctioned screed (a “fair and balanced” source to be sure, coo-coo-claiming as they do that the ideal diet contains such things like brains ground up into your casseroles and adding heavy cream to infant formula, no joke). So check out the link above of the first chapter of her book. Read it for yourself. There’s all sorts of wisdom-nuggets like:
Despite what you’ve been told, and despite the earnestness of the tellers, eating soybeans isn’t going to bring [chinooks, bison, grasshopper sparrows, grey wolves] back. Ninety-eight percent of the American prairie is gone, turned into a monocrop of annual grains.
Shit. Pretty much every single vegan site promotes that fundamental tenant of veganism: eating soy brings back extinct/endangered species! With such a devastating critique of “the vegetarian myth” I think I’ll go right out and eat a burger! See, before I discovered Lierre Keith, I thought that a ton of the grains grown in America fed livestock, not people. . . oh, wait, that’s actually true. But who cares? Moving on:
By turning from adult knowledge, the knowledge that death is embedded in every creature’s sustenance, from bacteria to grizzly bears, they [vegans] would never be able to feed the emotional and spiritual hunger that ached in me from accepting that knowledge. Maybe in the end this book is an attempt to soothe that ache myself.
Probably so, Lierre. In the meantime, I’ll remain here in childlike-reasoning-land, where I make a distinction between living creatures who cannot feel pain (bacteria) and living creatures who can (um, grizzly bears), and make informed decisions based on that infantile assumption. Actually, why am I even still talking about this? The folks who wrote the above .pdf already covered it:
The Claim: “I built my whole identity on the idea that my life did not require death…Did the lives of nematodes and fungi matter? Why not? Because they were too small for me to see?” (P. 18, discussed throughout the book)
In Reality: This is a straw man argument. These views are not held by most vegans. The goal of veganism is to eliminate direct, unnecessary suffering at the hands of humans–not to magically end all death. Why shouldn’t the cow with its undeniable ability to suffer take precedence over plants and organisms with limited or non-existent nervous systems such as the nematodes Keith frets about in this book?
Yeah, well, so. ‘Nuff said.
12:10 pm, 16 March 2010
Speaking on behalf of rational, non-asshole omnivores (an oxymoron? jklolz) everywhere, I’m sorry that veg*ism is constantly being inexplicably attacked by bizarro extremists like Keith. It is always an unpleasant affirmation of the stupidity of our species to see people like Keith behave in such a fashion instead of, you know, privately changing her diet for whatever reason she wants. It’s so…weird to see people vocally concocting elaborate justifications for the actions they take when no one would give a single shit about said action if they didn’t insist on climbing atop of a soapbox and showing their ass to anyone who will look.
12:15 pm, 16 March 2010
I personally am a firm believer in both the human ability to defeat death and the awesomeness of grizzly bears. Tell me that an immortal grizzly bear would not be awesome. Oh wait, you can’t!
12:48 pm, 16 March 2010
You guys are the best. Both of you! It’s not about being an omnivore or a vegan, it’s about critical thought. This is where my reasoning brought me; I respect people’s right to make different choices. What I don’t respect is using junk-science to smear a choice that is ultimately about compassion and is completely healthy according to, you know, actual nutritionists and stuff.
3:05 pm, 16 March 2010
From a concerned omnivore/scientist perspective; it takes 2-7 Kg of grains to produce 1 Kg of calories. Rainforests are being cut down to plant feed for beef cattle, not feed for vegetarians. Just a couple of quick thoughts.
7:30 am, 18 March 2010
Why would anyone publish a book so full of misinformation? Is Keith truly as stupid as these and other excerpts I have read imply? I’m happy someone has read and so eloquently debunked her bullshit, and I thank you for blogging about this.
9:38 pm, 3 June 2010
What a lovely blog! And how additionally awesome to read some SANE responses to Liere Keith’s balderdash!
I care about the attention the Vegetarian Myth is getting, precisely because the last thing the world needs is any more excuses not to get on with the important work of not only eliminating animal products wherever possible, but moving toward stockfree farming techniques as well.
/www.veganorganic.net/
Just yesterday, a UN report was published advocating the urgency of switching to a vegan diet. Here’s the link to the article about it in the UK Gaurdian….
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jun/02/un-report-meat-free-diet?showallcomments=true#comment-
Unfortunately, almost every discussion list online to do with eating fewer animal products these days includes a proponent of Keith’s Vegetarian Myth pushing her book as a ‘must read’.
Liere even alleges on her website that the author Alice Walker has endorsed her book…yes, the same Alice Walker famous for the awesome quote:
“The animals of the world are not meant for humans any more than blacks were made for whites, or women for men”. (I’m paraphrasing…)
So in my opinion Keith’s work does need to be taken seriously and efforts made to circulate succinct rebuttals. it’s not those of who know better than I worry about, it’s all the gullible peple we need on side to get on with actually meeting the challenges of peak oil and global warming…
Johnathon Maxson of Maine, USA over on http://www.permavegan.blogspot.com
has begun some important efforts in this arena.
Thanks again!
9:48 pm, 3 June 2010
Ummm….sorry about the typos in my former post! Hopefully it was obvious that what I really meant when refering to ‘gullible’ people, is those who have bought into Keith’s work instead of learning sound nutritional and environmental case for veganism from credible sources.
Again, you may be interested in visiting
http://www.permavegan.blogspot.com
4:13 am, 8 June 2010
I hope to include a link to this when I do a blog post on anti-veg*ns.
11:03 am, 17 June 2010
“Here’s the link to the article about it in the UK Gaurdian…”
The Guardian also runs articles on the urgent need to subject preschoolers and even infants to “sensitivity training” to make them better adult multiculturalists. In fine, The Guardian is full of shit.
11:13 am, 17 June 2010
Huh? What?
2:10 pm, 12 August 2010
I don’t know about the other arguments but I heavily dislike this one:
Who are you to assume that plants do not feel pain? What sort of evidence do you have on that?
2:36 pm, 12 August 2010
There’s plenty of information on nervous systems out there on the internets, Xanath, so I’ll let you do the googling. . . but seriously, even if plants did experience pain, livestock animals eat plants (most folks don’t chow down on grizzly bear), so fewer plants would be hurt on a vegan diet anyway! Everybody wins!
12:16 pm, 12 August 2012
Stopping herbivore’s from eating plants is not compassion, it is insanity and the opposite of a life-affirming worldview. Ending all pain is ending all life.
Life is a cycle of eating and being eaten.
2:28 pm, 20 August 2012
INDEED.
5:29 am, 23 November 2010
Opt for a vegetarian diet for a healthier lifestyle is no longer a myth anymore. It’s a fact! Besides, being a vegetarian could possibly save our earth!
What Maria mentioned above is absolutely true! It takes a a lot of resources such as land, water and food to raise cattles. These resources are more productive if they are utilized to raise crops instead.
7:37 am, 1 February 2011
Debunking vegetarianism as a myth suggests that it is a general practice and uncritical belief that needs debunking like say the myth that all carbs are fattening-
Though it may be a personal issue for the author, I have a problem being disturbed about the threat posed by vegetarians.
It makes its case in such a strange mix of histrionic rants and disconnected citations of ‘fact’, I don’t feel the least bit cornered into having to accept its incontrivertible conclusion. I am more confused by the logic and lack of organized and unified empirical data.
The pandemic of obesity and diabetes is hardly due to abstaining from meat and more likely due to the average American diet – meat pizza, burgers and soft drinks. Fat Sugar, Salt and more Fat Sugar and Salt.
The fact that most slaughered animals are pumped with anti-biotics and blended with an ‘acceptable’ proportion of waste product deserves no attention of course.
This debunking is too biased and emotionally filtered to be taken seriously.