All of this Guilt is Making Hungry

Um, pardon me Mr. Darwin, I just want to clarify a few things, well really just one in particular. Upon completion of your wonderful book, The Decent of Man, I see you have come to the conclusion that us humans are really just an extant group of the hominid genera. On top of this, you also say we evolved from a common ancestor...could this be true?!

If we are in fact merely an extant group of the hominid genera, and we share a common ancestor with modern apes, is it safe to assume that our ancestors ate similarly? And if this is the case, what did our ancestors eat? Even more, should we still be abiding by these evolutionary grandfather clauses? Or should we create some sort of omnivorous diet that consists of many different types of food?

So where am I going with all of this? We need a nice backdrop for our discussion, or really just me talking at you, on what we humans are supposed to be eating. If we want to go the route of evolution, which I would like to, we can discuss the purposes of our anatomy and how it interacts with regard to our diet. If we want to just forget about our possible ancestors, or if you are a creationist (Weldon), let's just talk about contemporary problems with the diet most Americans have adopted. I warn you, I will be discussing three of the most debated items in the public's scientific field right now. Evolution, global warming, and vegetarianism (because everyone hates a pretentious, I'm-better-than-you, I only eat non mobile food vegetarian)... Which brings me to the campaign put out by Wendy's to combat this evil vegetarian fad that is quietly taking over our youth: The Meatatarian Campaign


An historical account for the reasons of
my choice to abstain from red meat and pork

or

Pig Slaughter and Cow Farts

The truth is, I don't really hate vegetarians, nor do I think it is a completely terrible idea. Personally I abstain from pork and red meat, but I still take pleasure in eating one form of poultry or another. In a strange twist of fate, while traveling throughout Guatemala my diet went through a transformation. My reasons for staying away from pork is somewhat ethical. The relatedness of a pig to human is uncanny, especially its scream, and if you have ever heard a pig scream during the final moments of its life you might feel the same way as I. Ashley and I were stuck in a desolate "beach town" on the pacific coast of Guatemala. The place was a ghost town, save for the 3 employees and their animal companions who were working to treat us to a less-than-mediocre lunch. During our wonderfully awful meal we were treated to the slaughter of a pig. Thankfully this act was not portrayed in the open, instead it was hidden by a shoddy wooden post fence; all we witnessed was the sound.

That was the day I stopped eating pork.

The cow story is not so traumatic. Ashley and I had made it to a little island town in the northern jungle area of Guatemala, where we stayed in a European-run Hostel. This particular hostel only served vegetarian and vegan friendly meals. Speaking with the owner, I found out the reason for his commitment to not eating meat, and in particular beef...

Where's the Beef (from)?!

The larger farms that most Americans and other westerners get their food from tend to sometimes exploit their opportunities. In the case of the cattle farms, the byproducts of the cattle industry are effecting our environment. "Globally, ruminant livestock produce about 80 million metric tons of methane annually, accounting for about 28% of global methane emissions from human-related activities."
In case you were unfamiliar with methane: "Methane (CH4) is a greenhouse gas that remains in the atmosphere for approximately 9-15 years. Methane is over 20 times more effective in trapping heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide (CO2) over a 100-year period..."




Cow farts can be a real pain, but considering only about 4-6% of greenhouse gases are related to Methane production, I will let that fact slide (even though if we did some simple math we would come to find that because of its effect on the atmosphere, even a little methane is more dangerous than a larger amount of CO2). I won't attack the cattle farmers for having WAYY too many cows hanging out in one area. After all, they are only meeting the demand of their customers, who are eating progressively more and more meat. What is slightly more disturbing comes from the products needed for production of such meats. Would you ever give someone a 10 dollar bill so that he could give you 5 dollars in exchange? I didn't think so, but this is exactly what happens in cattle farming, with relation to energy input versus output. In order to raise a cow unto maturity, that cow needs to eat, as well as drink. "...Beef cattle production requires an energy input to protein output ratio of 54:1." In other words, for every fifty pounds of energy producing food that could benefit humans, only one pound of red meat is produced. Not only is food in the form of grain misused, water is too. "Every kilogram of beef produced takes 100,000 liters of water." It is as if we have a really leaky faucet that starts out with a ton of water but only ends up with a few drops when it reaches its destination. There are far too many useful resources being misused on the production of cattle for consumption. The website I have linked above is quite scary, and it is a glaring reminder that we are taking agriculture too far, after all it isn't only cattle and their needs that are causing harm, it is also the crops themselves.

Our current state of agriculture is kind of like losing a hockey game in overtime:

you get a point but you still lose

The Meatatarians are not the only ones to blame for our current situation, anyone who eats any sort of agriculturally grown product also wreaks havoc on our environmental systems (indirectly, of course). When land is constantly being used to grow large amounts of crops, it gets drained of its usefulness. This is where crop rotation comes in handy, the only problem is that not all farms adhere to this theory, and even if they do they lose sight of just how much damage they are doing to the land they hold so close to their heart for survival. We take over large areas of land to grow the crops necessary to meet the demands of humans, however we forget that this land is not ours for the taking. Other animals inhabit this land just as we would like to. I am not saying that we bow down to the bull weevil, but I am saying let us use a little restraint when it comes to Totalitarian Agriculture. Needless to say, land is not ours for the taking, but even if it is we must be responsible. Rachel Carson was a wonderful science writer who got the attention necessary to change things in our world. Like Upton Sinclair and Harriet Beecher Stowe, Carson was able to attract the attention of the public and unleash a firestorm of information that led to huge changes within her country. She confronted the issue of pesticides and their effect on birds and insects within the environment. Because of her efforts, DDT was banned in the USA and eventually banned worldwide for agricultural use. This was a step in the right direction, however just with vaccines, pesticides create newer more resistant insects that require different types of chemicals to be manufactured and released into the crop fields. So before I get too crazy on this whole agriculture thing, just keep one thing in mind: we produce more than we need, we eat more than we need, and we throw away more of what we did not need.

Diets based on global location and access to foods

We are the only animal that is able to live in and exploit every single environment on the Earth. We live in the coldest and highest altitudes, the most dry deserts, the hottest savannas, the temperate zones and the tropics, and we even have the ability to live out at sea for months and even years at a time. We live on coastlines, in rural countrysides, atop mountains, in valleys, and metropolitan cities. There is skeletal evidence of the current human being dating back 160,000 years ago, but we find tools that date back even further. Tools that could have been used by some other hominid, which date back to 2.6 million years ago. Of course, if you are a creationist (Weldon) you don't believe a word I just typed, and you know very well that the earth is only 6,000 years old, after all the Bible told you so. But, putting all biases aside, we take the evidence for the existence of hominids and run with it. If Humans have been around all this time, they must have had changing diets to cope with their constant migrations and environmental changes. Before the current modes of food transport, we were limited to what kinds of food we had surrounding us to feed our appetites.

Home is where the Food is

Just take a step back from your comfortable life where all food is essentially provided for you so long as you have the means to purchase it. Let us imagine a world where we have to go out on a daily basis and search for food. Chances are, had it not been for animal domestication and agriculture, we would not have spread out as we did throughout the world in all different directions. Think about the first humans, then think about what they must have eaten (it definitely was not corn nuts, gushers, and tofurkey). If they lived near the coast they most likely had a diet that was heavy in fish. If humans lived more inland they may have been more of terrestrial-animal hunters or gatherers of some other form of nutrition. Actually, humans were big fans of nuts, root vegetables, and insects based on skeletal remains of our first ancestors. What about fruit? What about large amounts of meat? Our current diet is one that is related to our large pallet of experience founded by the exporting of foods from many different countries. Before the age of enlightenment, the industrial revolution, and even the age of travel and exploration, humans were largely food-slaves to our immediate surroundings. It was only when we met one another, from lands not like our own, that we were able to exchange diets and recipes and agricultural techniques. Humans are a wonderful example of societal evolution and cultural transmission. Even though we are genetically bottlenecked, humans have been able to adapt to a number of situations, especially those that require us to change our diets, which may be why we have been such a successful species.

Sooooo...

The most important thing to take away is that no matter what we eat we need to be conscious of the process of its production. We can also remember that our bodies are made for a wide array of diets that include fruits, vegetables, nuts, meats, numerous liquids, and bad things like cupcakes. This site explains the differences in herbivores, carnivores, and omnivores and stakes the claim that humans are built for an herbivorous life, however I think because we can take advantage of such a large variety of diets, we will. It is because of this advantageous adaptation that we are able to live in such different places and eat such varying foods.

So what is your diet?

(I expect only sarcastic and witty comments, if any)

check this out for more information:

http://www.thevegetariansite.com/env_animalfarming.htm