Survey: Have Your Meat Eating Habits Changed?

This poll bugs me. The slanted options--exemplified in the fact that the only option not demonizing meat portrays the poll-taker as a stoic fast-food consuming slob--shows the relative ignorance and anti-meat ethic that this site dwells on far too much.

Don't get me wrong, I totally agree with the outrage at the wasteful and unhealthful nature of the FACTORY farm production system. But healthy, pastured and wild animals have fed healthy traditional cultures for ages, while nourishing and protecting the planet. Think of the American Indians, whose subsistence depended greatly on animal foods. Were they ecologically-minded?

The third option down goes so far as to suggest meat is not "real food." This is absurd. Meat, especially organ meats, are an incredibly nutrient-dense food source, so much so that ALL traditional cultures (who cherished the earth with great passion) often would go to great lengths to secure animal and seafoods to provide nourishment. The Inuit, who subsist primarily on raw meat, are one of the most hearty cultures in history.

The option about not being able to afford sustainably-raised meat is also nonsense. I am no rich man, but I can afford to buy an organic chicken once a week, cut off the breasts and thighs, make stock of the carcass, and pick it clean afterwards. This provides, easily, a week's worth of meat and a hearty, mineral-rich broth to use in cooking rice or making soups. Or you could pay twice as much per week to keep your family rich with MSG-laden Campbell's soup and hormone-burgers (or soy-burgers, if you've fallen for the ad campaigns demonizing animal products).

Keep in mind that it's primarily the soybean and vegetable oil conglomerates who continue to rape our planet and the health of the Western world, not the animals who have given their lives to feed generations past. Next time, please try to leave the personal opinions out of at least a few of the poll options.

LA: Oscar wilde wrote "all criticism is autobiography"- every writer has biases that come out in what they write. but you are missing a few points here-

1) the "real food" line includes meat, it is a direct quote from pollan separating processed food from naturally raised and processed food.

2) the next option about eating less is also a reflection of this. I eat meat but Pollan's point is that we should perhaps eat a bit less of it.

3) where we live the factory stuff is half the price of the sustainably raised stuff.

I used to eat a lot more meat for dinner (my lunch habit of a sandwich from home with deli-sliced still stands), but it hasn't been my reading of Michael Pollan, but rather my exposure to other types of cuisine, such as East African and Caribbean, with their expanded use of lentils and beans, items my mother never really prepared for us when we were growing up.

Since then, I've diversified my meal selections by preparing these different kinds of food items, which interestingly enough is cheaper (yay bulk items from the co-op!) and better for the environment.

Vegetarian I will never truly be, but I do like the idea of a diverse and wide range of food choices, and thereby cutting down my consumption of one to eat a little bit from another is a lot more fulfilling.

I was vegan, now I eat organic free-range roadkill, and organic meat, eggs, and dairy products occasionally. So I eat more meat than I used to.

I've never commented here, but I felt so strongly about this poll that I had to say something. I completely agree with DJB, and am upset that a site I normally enjoy so much sees fit to make such a broad judgment of meat-eaters.

I am a huge Pollan fan and I think that his words on real food pretty much sum up my eating philosophy. But I am also a huge fan of meat! I'm not a 24oz steak for breakfast girl, but I do eat a reasonable portion of meat at least once a day, usually twice, as part of a balanced diet.

For my health, I almost entirely avoid processed foods. I try my hardest to eat entirely fresh produce, dairy, legumes and grains from healthy, sustainable sources. In addition, I depend on meat to provide the protein I need to build muscle, and to bring variety to my palate. Naturally raised animals provide many important fats and amino acids that human bodies need.

In terms of ethics, I've raised animals for meat, and butchered them, and this experienced has made me comfortable with my role in the food chain as an omnivore and, to a certain extent, predator of other animals. I deplore the methods used in factory farms, but not all meat-producing animals are mistreated.

As far as environmental concerns go, I buy entirely sustainably raised meat, most of it now from a local CSA. I also try to make the most of meat - I use as much of the animal as possible, and then make stock from what I can't chew.

I resent that with all this effort, all of which is on a reasonable budget, I am still labeled as a lazy whopper-eater.

I respect the rights of every individual to make their own food choices. I choose to eat meat in a healthy and environmentally-responsible way, and I refuse to be demonized for it. I expect better from Treehuger.

Count me as someone who's eating a lot less meat as a direct result of Pollan, Nestle et. al. I didn't change much directly after reading THE OMNIVORE'S DILEMMA, but over the ensuing months, I've greatly reduced the amount of meat I eat. What meat we do consume is purchased through the co-op or the local health food store, which both sell meat only from local producers.

I also find I'm just eating LESS, and being more concerned about total calorie consumption than macronutrient balance. Both changes - eating less, eating more vegetarian - go a long way toward making organic produce and organic, humane meat affordable.

Pollan is an excellent writer, and his essays are even better than his books in my opinion.

Google Power Steer or When a Crop Was King and enjoy. Much shorter and very pithy.

@Erica if you haven't noticed, ALL of the treehugger polls display high levels of inherent bias.

REVISED SURVEY due to extremely poor design of original (tsk tsk)

Have Your Meat Eating Habits Changed?

1. Yes, I started out life not eating or needing meat and then started at some point.√

2. No, I started out life not eating or needing meat and that's the way I still live.

This is meant to be humourous. Maybe your poll is too?

Hoenstly I normally skip the polls on Treehugger because they tend to come across as overly biased and the snarkiness of the writing generally fails at entertaining.

I am in the middle of reading Pollan's "In Defense of Food" and feel that it should be read by everybody. I have to admit that only about half of what I eat at the moment is "real food", but I'm in the middle of a big transition and just trying to survive it.

Well, this is great that people are stopping eating meat, but I fear that they will go back to eating it again only because it's an addictive ...well I won't say food since IMO, it's not, it's just flesh, but I know how some people are and they will eventually go back to eating it once this blows over; well until there is another meat recall.

I have to say that eating meat even if it's organic, will not make you an enviromentalist. This does not mean that the animals are treated better or in better conditions, it's what they may be fed that makes it that way; even then it's hard to say if that would even be true. An animal will always do their duties and that will always get in to the water systems and destroy land.

At this point, since i've been vegan now for half a yr, I've learned a lot - mostly when I was just veg though but the human body is so different than a meat eaters. People will ask me "Then why do I have canines?" Well to answer that would be the fact that we have those to bite in to certain types of fruits and vegtables, we would need bigger teeth to rip flesh - hence why people use knives and forks. Plus people have to cook it before they eat it and back then when the cave men and whatever else was around that is related to humans, was eating meat, you have to remember that first, they had no logical ways of really knowing what type of food they could eat. If you put a baby, which i've heard this tons of times, in to a crib with a rabbit and an apple, it will never go for the rabbit to eat - always the apple. So I truly believe that we were not born to eat meat, it's only continuing because of the fact that there were some people that were not very logical or did not know better. I mean, seriously, would you eat your dog?? It's the same thing, cow dog, pig or cat, feel the same exact things. I think that if a cow or pig did not feel any pain at all or emotional tendancies, maybe they were put here to be eaten but really...I don't think so.

There's always going to be the war on animals with this and people that will agree and not agree but what I have to say is that if we were meant to eat meat, why do we get ill from it? Why does it cause heart attacks? Heart disease? Why would so many people be obsese and unhealthy? Think about it.

One more thing, with the "cave men", how come we never developed different types of teeth to eat these foods? The teeth that we grow now in this day of age are not needed because they were for nuts, not meats. So really...there's so much that can go on with this type of subject but all in all, i'm glad about the recall; not that the animals were treated bad and there are still more farms right now that are doing it, I'm just glad that it's stopped more people from giving money to one of the cruelist industries ever made: The Factory Farms that have over taken the Family Farm. There are NO animal welfare laws for farm animals, especially the chickens. And I was surprised that this company was slapped with an animal cruelty lawsuit because that type of cruelty goes on every.single.day.

What a shitty narrow minded pole.

Are you a mindless faddist

yes
yes
yep

Come on treehugger. Give your readers at least a smidgeon of respect instead of this.

You've missed the most important choice that will lead us towards a sustainable future -

I have given up all factory-farmed meat, eggs and dairy products. I only eat, and greatly enjoy, milk, eggs, butter, cheese and meats from local, organic farmers who are raising free-range animals in natural, cruelty-free conditions.

Get with it, TH.

Tao

My household is not exactly vegetarian, but since as far as I remember, the six of us do with only two pounds of meat and six of fish and and thirty eggs every month. And about a dozen half-p0und tins of corned beef and fish.

This is because we are Filipinos, and we regard all other foods as just viands, to flavor our rice with (rice we consume at about a hundred pounds a month). We also have the benefit of soy sauce, fish sauce and paste, and coconut milk for extending and enhancing our foods' flavors.

I don't know if the poll is biased or not, but it seems like you've touched a nerve with a lot of readers who are more attached to their happy-shiny-farmers-holding-hands meat than Charlton Heston is to his Smith&Wesson.

Yeah, you can eat a little meat and still be healthy. Yeah, you can have limited traditional animal agriculture without ruining the planet. But you can't eat meat without making the self-centered judgement that another sentient animal who is powerless against you has less right to keep living than you have to a particular menu choice you've grown accustomed to having. Never mind what native americans or cave men did; they didn't have a reliable system of plant based agriculture to sustain themselves; we do! So if you can live without shooting a pig in the head (or having your hip back-to-the-land farmer do it for you), why would you? That pig likes being alive.