
Vegetarians Who Turned into Butchers - simonsarris
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/06/dining/butchers-meat-vegetarian-vegan.html
======
PeanutNore
Eliminating factory farmed meat from my diet is an aspirational thing for me;
right now I don't have the available time or mental energy to commit to
planning my diet to actually achieve that. Taking up deer hunting certainly
helped me get closer to that goal, but mainly I just try to have no more than
one serving of meat on any given day and go completely meatless several days a
week.

~~~
abdullahkhalids
You can go and buy free range chicken meat at plenty of grocery stores - they
are still not ideal from a animal suffering point of view, but its just a
change that requires money, and rarely more.

Otherwise, look at the farmer's market at your local community center. A lot
of them have close to ethically grown chicken meat.

~~~
mattcaldwell
While most city-dwellers can get free range meat easily, it can be near
impossible in the country without driving long distances.

~~~
wool_gather
This does not match the experience of my friends and relatives who live in
rural areas. It's not like this meat is _coming from_ the city. It starts out
in the country, and it can be found there. I think it's likely that there are
more sources than you think nearby you, and not at any more of a distance
_than you already go for many other things_.

------
maximente
it's an interesting way of contributing, but, the mathematics are clear:
there's not enough space in the world to ethically raise $animals_to_slaughter
so it's not realistic for the larger problem at hand: how consuming animals is
contributing to environmental catastrophe and all it entails (factory farming
leading to pumping animals full of pesticides, runoff ruining oceans, clearing
rainforests to name some)

i think it's inevitable that lab grown meat and/or plant based alternatives
get enough economic and environmental momentum to relegate "grass fed"/ethical
whatever to a really high price niche forever, so i'd personally just focus
efforts at arriving to that point ASAP, be it working for one of these
companies, investing, or what have you.

~~~
ctdonath
I just spent 3 weeks driving the American Midwest. There is vast grasslands
uninhabited by anything but cows, and plenty of space for a great many more
thereof. The environmental impact is negligible, as they turn a small fraction
of human-inedible natural foliage into nutrients/calories/proteins with
practically no other effects.

Earth can bear a much larger livestock load than y'all give it credit for.

~~~
Kuinox
The cows have a big environmental impact. And it's far from negligble. They
generate a lot of methane.

~~~
ctdonath
What's the methane etc produced by rotting grass equivalent to bovine intake?
Plans die; everyone seems to forget this.

~~~
lccarrasco
Plants do not produce methane themselves.

[https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2009/01/methane-emissions-
do...](https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2009/01/methane-emissions-dont-blame-
plants)

------
situational87
The current factory farm system and the nearly infinite levels of suffering we
put animals through is a weird aberration we will look back on in hundreds of
years as completely insane. It's like a macabre torture machine most people
just avoid ever learning about because the don't want to know how dark it
really gets while eating their nuggets.

~~~
JohnJamesRambo
For cows at least, I’m not sure where this infinite level of suffering you
mention comes in. They grow on a ranch well taken care of and have all the
food and medical care they could want (more than most Americans can say!).
Then they are taken to a feedlot and given all the fattening grain they could
ever want (if you’ve ever owned an animal you know that unlimited food is
their nirvana) before being humanely slaughtered in an approved and as
painless as possible way.

Something else to think of is if not for being grown for food they wouldn’t
have existed at all. Is not existing better than that life they get? It’s an
interesting question.

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/26669595/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/26669595/)

That study measured fecal cortisol (indicator for stress) upon arriving at a
feedlot and after fattening and the animals seem to be within normal limits
the whole time.

~~~
ForrestN
This is a very hot take—the feed lots you describe are horrific! Not only are
they in tiny, cramped pens, these pens are filled with mud and shit! The food
they're eating is not nirvana, it's the barest possible nutrition to fatten
them up according to their warped genetic urgency to get bigger at an
unnaturally fast pace that trashes their natural health. This isn't an all you
can eat buffet and a spa—getting pumped full of antibiotics because their
environment is so toxic is hardly what I'd guess they "want."

This kind of argument relies on the idea that human beings and animals are
fundamentally different, that somehow cow suffering is unrelated to human
suffering. But most of what we feel and do every day is not actually dictated
by consciousness. If you were put into a tiny, roasting summer pen so tiny you
couldn't even walk in circles, filled with drugs, covered in your own
excrement, ravaged by hunger even though all you do is eat dirty grey hard
food, I don't think you'd respond with some kind of elegant, mathematical,
civilized emotion. You'd be out of your mind with terror, sadness and grief.
Cows can feel all those things, and they do in factory farms. It's common
sense, and I agree with those who say we will look back on this era as a
disgusting, ignominious chapter in human society.

~~~
wysifnwyg
>[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/26669595/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/26669595/)

>That study measured fecal cortisol (indicator for stress) upon arriving at a
feedlot and after fattening and the animals seem to be within normal limits
the whole time.

It seems like your opinion is not supported by the scientific evidence that
reflects stress levels.

~~~
throw_away
I'm not going to buy the whole paper, but this seems to be studying whether
there is additional stress in humid, tropical climates, not whether feedlots
affect stress levels. Note that there is no non-feedlot control. The fact that
it says that stress indicators were in the "normal ranges for cattle" could
mean simply that they are not more stressed than feedlot animals in non-humid,
non-tropical climates.

The one paper that cites this one is also about how temperature and climate
differences affect reproduction rates:
[https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...](https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0191961)

~~~
wysifnwyg
>That study measured fecal cortisol (indicator for stress) upon arriving at a
feedlot and after fattening and the animals seem to be within normal limits
the whole time.

Perhaps you have a different definition of what normal means?

~~~
throw_away
I think you're willfully ignoring the main intent of this paper (effects of
climate, not effects of feedlots) and instead replying with trite,
condescending responses and nitpicks, so I highly doubt anything productive
can come out of this thread.

I don't think that's normal. I think that's trolling. & I think I'm done here.

~~~
wysifnwyg
If you've got any evidence which would support the idea that they were
stressed, I would imagine you'd provide it. As you haven't, we both know what
the answer is.

------
undoware
fascinatingly, I have done this! Was vegetarian, went so far as to take a job
as a clerk at an ethical butchery.

I eventually went vegan (and returned to engineering again) but I have the
deepest respect for those who work with meat but treat the taking of a life
with reverence. It is excellent harm reduction.

Asking folks, especially indigenous folks, to abstain from a traditional food
lifeway is a hard conversation not to be an asshole in unless you are offering
something equivalent (in taste and cultural position) that does not involve
mega-scale mutilation and trauma to sentient beings. Beyond-Meat-style precise
simulation helps. Careful, farm-driven husbandry and ethical slaughter helps
enormously too, but obviously scales less well.

It's important to me to as cause as little unnecessary suffering as possible,
and to treat the taking of a life with great solemnity. Ethical butchery does
these things.

~~~
markstos
What does returning to engineering have to do with veganism?

~~~
undoware
As it happens, there kind of _is_ a non-coincidental connection, apart from
the obvious 'I was no longer a butchery clerk and needed to make money'.

As an engineer I can afford to buy meat substitutes. I can _afford_ veganism,
or at least the kind that is comfortable to someone who grew up loving meat
and cheese. One day, these substitutes will be more broadly available, but
that day isn't today.

Also, I am re-inspired by the careful meat/egg/dairy simulation work that has
been done by Beyond Meat and similar innovators, and now regard engineering as
the correct approach for solving this and other ecological crises at scale.

I once again think that my technical training can help save the world, rather
than just provide me with savings. I believe in the high-science approach
again. This might seem like the obvious solution to the HN audience, but I
assure you, lots of folks are drawn to traditional bodies of knowledge and
lifeways, and regard them as known-good, and regard the food difficulties the
world faces as symptoms of a hasty rush into the embrace of high technology,
which in turn entails finance and markets, which in turn entails global
capitalism or something like it (e.g. whatever the appropriate term is for the
hybrid approach pursued by China.) I myself found this position alluring for
quite some time -- "just keep the old ways!" \-- but it's a dead end.

Artisanal & heirloom approaches to food production have a lot to teach us, but
none of those lessons are 'ok great now let's feed a couple billion new
folks'. Instead, they are best at teaching us what we've already lost. That in
turn might help us avoid the next loss -- or pursue the next restoration.

~~~
esotericn
The idea that being vegetarian or vegan is more expensive than eating meat
seems utterly absurd to me.

Meat, excepting processed barely-food bollocks like frozen chicken nuggets or
whatever, is substantially more expensive than any food item I regularly buy.

Dried pulses are like 1-2 USD per kilogram. You're eating stuff like lettuce,
cucumber etc anyway unless you're a savant, same for pasta, rice, etc.

The only place I can think of in which it's potentially more expensive is
stuff like McDonalds not having a vegan option.

I'm guessing this is either an American market distortion, or one of those
"but I work 80 hours a week so can't do anything other than the most
convenient thing ever" weird might-as-well-end-yourself-because-you-are-a-cog
things.

What gives?

------
vzidex
This reads like a hitpiece against vegetarianism/veganism to me, or a way to
assure omnivores that their current diets are OK and not completely terrible
for the environment.

> she returned to eating meat after learning that the soybean and corn
> monocultures that accounted for much of her vegan diet were wreaking havoc
> on the environment

This is patently false, even though she might have believed it. Over 70% of
soy grown in the US goes directly into animal feed [1], with some being used
for biofuel as well [2]

> After spending her high school and college years subsisting on a vegetarian
> diet of flavored yogurt, Gardenburgers, pizza pockets and mac and cheese
> with frozen vegetables mixed in ... “As soon as I started eating meat, my
> health improved,” she said. “My mental acuity stepped up, I lost weight, my
> acne cleared up, my hair got better. I felt like a fog lifted.”

It should be obvious that if you go from a diet heavy in processed foods to
one based on whole foods (plant-based or otherwise) your health will improve,
but this wording makes me feel like it's trying to show that an omnivorous
diet is healthier than a vegetarian/vegan one.

The article does raise a good thought though, being the following:

> The system’s advocates say it can regenerate vast swaths of grassland, which
> has the potential to sequester carbon rather than emitting it as factory
> farm operations do.

I haven't yet seen good analysis on whether the grassland tended by grazing
livestock does good than the livestock themselves (in the form of methane
emissions), but it would be wonderful if it did.

Finally, the article thankfully acknowledges the elephant in the room:

> Critics of the alternative approach say that not all studies show improved
> carbon sequestration on grazed grassland, and that the system can’t produce
> enough meat to meet current demand

Regardless of whether or not meat raised in this way is better for the
environment and/or peoples' health, there is no way enough meat could ever be
raised this way to meet the modern demand for it. The demand for meat
worldwide is going _up_, and the typical Western diet that is heavy in meat
will continue to be a hugely destructive force on our environment until we
_all_ slash our consumption of animal products.

[1]
[https://www.usda.gov/sites/default/files/documents/coexisten...](https://www.usda.gov/sites/default/files/documents/coexistence-
soybeans-factsheet.pdf) (PDF warning)

[2]
[https://www.canr.msu.edu/news/where_do_all_these_soybeans_go](https://www.canr.msu.edu/news/where_do_all_these_soybeans_go)

~~~
maximente
agreed re: processed stuff. i've about had it with "vegetarians" who eat
frozen pizza 3x a day whining about being unhealthy. also agreed that the
framing about "rediscovering meat" is misleading as hell.

> “It can be hard to balance your diet as a vegetarian, especially when you’re
> younger, and I wasn’t doing it right,” he said.

i really don't understand this - there's no justification given, nor is there
a reason why it's harder when younger.

~~~
inapis
1\. Changing your diet is not so easy when the society around you has
optimised for something else.

2\. Culture - if your family has historically relied on meat for sustenance,
you can't exactly go vegetarian with the flip of a switch. It requires a shit
ton of planning, asking questions, identifying what you like, resetting your
taste palate and expectations meanwhile still entailing a fair bit of
confusion. OTOH, Grandma taught Mom who taught her children on how to cook
meat.

3\. Younger ages are tough since you would probably be living with family and
decisions regarding what is bought and cooked are probably being made by
parents who might not exactly share your inclinations to go meat-free.

------
inflatableDodo
I'm a vegetarian butcher, but in a different vein. These days I only eat meat
I personally catch and then kill, having sworn off farmed meat entirely.

~~~
PeanutNore
When I have a freezer full of venison backstrap I don't really want to eat
anything else anyway

~~~
inflatableDodo
By far the nicest thing I have ever eaten was impala. This was from a
restaurant, before I started restricting my diet, but I would love to go and
hunt me some of those.

------
paulluuk
I realize that most people will read this and go "haha, see that triggered
vegan", but please take a moment to honestly consider how horribly bad this
article is.

The article (besides being about vegetarians and vegans who turned butcher,
for some self-contradictory reasons) is about the benefits of grass-fed,
expensive meat versus soy- and corn- fed meat. The main benefit is that it's
healthier for the animal, and therefore "nicer" for the animal, and also more
environmentally friendly.

However, it is not at all more environmentally friendly. The impact on the
environment is actually a lot higher, because now you need to dedicate large
portions of land to grass-fed animals. And yes, there are plenty of areas that
don't seem to grow any proper food but do grow grass, which makes it sound
like it's a perfectly valid plan. But even if you cut down every forest on
earth and use every arible piece of land for grass-fed animals, you would
still not have enough space on earth to support our current demand for meat in
such a way.

They hint towards this a little bit, and suggest that people can
counterbalance this by only eating a little piece of meat. But then that is
the "real" solution here: to severely reduce your meat consumption. The whole
part about grass-fed vs corn-fed is not at all relevant to the story after
this point, it's all about reducing consumption. After all, if you only ate a
little bit of meat, it would STILL be more sustainable to eat corn/soy-fed
meat instead of grass-fed meat.

Of course, that's exactly what vegetarians and vegans are doing: they're
reducing the amount of meat they eat.. but instead of stopping at, say, 10% of
what the average person eats normally, they stop at 0%. And they are often
demonized because of that last 10%, whereas stopping at 10% apparently makes
you some kind of noble hero.

Also, there are some pretty insane lines in this article:

> [...] a vegan for five years <attended a> “Kill Your Own Thanksgiving
> Dinner” event at a local farm. > “It was really morbid. I was the only one
> who signed up,” she said.

If you're a vegan, and you care about animals, why were you signing up for a
"kill your own turkey" event? That sounds like one of the least vegan thing
you could do.

> After spending her high school and college years subsisting on a vegetarian
> diet of flavored yogurt, Gardenburgers, pizza pockets and mac and cheese
> with frozen vegetables mixed in, she began eating meat again in Europe,
> where she worked on farms for a few years. >“As soon as I started eating
> meat, my health improved,” she said.

So she stopped eating junkfood and her health improved. This is framed as if
it's somehow bad to be vegetarian/vegan for your health, but I hope any
skeptical reader will see her problem was a horrible junkfood diet, not that
she was vegetarians. How many meat-eaters can be healthy on only eating
pizzapockets, yoghurt and hamburgers?

> “I have a business based on the fact that I’m sad about the way animals are
> being treated,” he said.

No, you have a business making a profit from the death of animals.

> “Since I became a butcher I’ve been called some horrible things on the
> internet, and it doesn’t seem right,” [...] “There’s a larger problem here:
> the problem with concentrated feedlots, and with animals being commodities.
> That’s what we should be attacking, not each other. ”

That's like saying "Hey, I treat my slaves really well! We should be fighting
the bad slave-holders, not the good ones." No, (ethical) vegans are against
using animals as products, and that's what they're commenting on. Not whether
or not your meat is healthy.

~~~
orbifold
Regarding grass feeding: There are a lot of areas were cattle are raised
naturally on a grass diet for milk production and meat (think Bavaria,
Austria, Switzerland). In those areas growing corn or soy beans would be
impossible. There are humane and sustainable ways of raising cattle for
slaughter / milk production and people have been practicing them for a long
time in such regions. Apart from the moral question whether killing animals
for food is ok, I see nothing objectionable to consuming such locally produced
products. At the same time there are plenty of ways that parts of the current
western lifestyle could not be scaled up to the whole planet (meat eating
habits being just one of them).

In terms of environmental impact vegans / vegetarians avidly consume coconut
oil, soy beans, nuts etc. All things that are typically produced far away and
sometimes not sustainably produced at all (think the meat ersatz burger being
rolled out right now). If you stick to regionally produced products, you are
much more likely to have a positive environmental impact.

~~~
paulluuk
I think the moral question of whether raising and killing animals for
slaughter is a bit too hard for me to just set aside, to be honest.

And saying vegans are not being sustainable for eating "exotic" food seems
absurd to me, hardly any meat eater eats local food, especially if you
consider animal feed of the meat, milk and leather you use. That's not an
argument against vegans or vegetarians, but an argument against people who
don't eat locally produced products (on both sides).

------
jdietrich
Grass-fed beef is worse for the environment than feedlot beef, which is
already pretty damned terrible. You need more cows to produce the same amount
of beef, which means more methane emissions. There isn't enough pasture land
available to meet our demand for beef; cattle farming is already the primary
cause of deforestation, which would only be exacerbated by a shift away from
feedlots.

There is no ethical way to eat beef.

[https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aad401](https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aad401)

[https://www.ucsusa.org/global-warming/stop-
deforestation/wha...](https://www.ucsusa.org/global-warming/stop-
deforestation/whats-driving-deforestation)

[https://www.fcrn.org.uk/sites/default/files/project-
files/fc...](https://www.fcrn.org.uk/sites/default/files/project-
files/fcrn_gnc_report.pdf)

~~~
nerdile
The higher cost of grass-fed, free-range, etc. meat and poultry serves to
internalize the externalities and disincentivizes frequent consumption. So no,
it's not worse in and of itself, if it replaced feedlot farming, then we'd see
prices spike, consumption plummet, and ideally we'd also see antibiotic and
feed corn use sharply drop as well. We could all wish for such a world.

------
conjectures
TL&DR: a few vegans became meat hipsters. The author thinks being a meat
hipster is a very good thing.

