The Vegetarian Myth – Lierre Keith – Zo. Or, as Lierre Keith suggests, should we be drawing a circle and not a line? This is a review of The Vegetarian Myth and the Amazon reviews confirm that it is the marmite of the book world – people love it or hate it. I will quote Keith verbatim where possible – her writing style is quite beautiful and should be read first hand. Gary Taubes has his critics on the internet, but they pale into insignificance compared to those queuing up to attack Lierre Keith. In Chapter 1 she says: “I got hate mail before I’d barely started this book. And no, thank you, I don’t need any more.” There are many similar . It took me back to my days at Cambridge when I saw an article written by the Student Union president referring to . Why does this only apply to women, I wondered? And then, of course – silly me – this article does apply to both genders, but then so does every article talking about . Keith uses the female third personal singular a couple of times – just to keep you on your toes. She also gets (appropriately in my view) angry with those who think it has been OK to trash the planet during their infinitesimally small time as guests here – for their own greed and personal gain. They tend to be male (CEO’s, world leaders, lawyers etc) and they are certainly . Go girl! Attacking the vegetarian. In Chapter 1, Keith notes exactly why her book has attracted the anger and outrage that it has. I’m threatening a vegetarian’s sense of self.”Keith herself was vegan for 2. She still suffers nausea and serious digestive problems and pain, which make it difficult for her to eat in the evening (if she plans on sleeping that night). Keith explains the chosen route was an obvious one made by her and friends when young: “All the friends of my youth were radical, righteous, intense. Vegetarianism was the obvious path, with veganism the high road alongside it.”She pleads in the opening chapter: “You don’t have to try this for yourself. You’re allowed to learn from my mistakes. Best Way To Lose Weight Cycling. Cycling at a medium pace primarily targets fat cells for energy; therefore, people say it is the “fat burning zone” and is the. Find out what diet myth puts your health in danger, as well as the link between obesity-related diseases and metabolic dysfunction.
Especially if you have children or want to. I’m not too proud to beg.”Keith ends this introduction with the humble statement: “Ultimately I would rather be helpful than right.” I was very little way into the book before I realised she is both. The three arguments for (and against) vegetarianism(Please note – the terms vegan/vegetarian can be used virtually interchangeably throughout the book – Keith applies the same arguments to both views. One just draws the line in the sand in a different place). The book is perfectly structured. There are three arguments that vegetarians make as to why we should all be vegetarian and Keith structures the book in three parts to reflect this: 1) The moral argument – we should not kill; 2) The political argument – we can only feed the world if everyone is vegetarian; 3) The nutritional argument – it is healthier to be vegetarian. The only thing that I won’t be able to answer, while writing this review, is how I would have responded reading it, had I still been vegetarian at the time. It would be wonderful if any vegetarians could try this and share their views. I know that there would have been a time when I would have been as angry as many vegetarian and vegan readers of the book have been. I don’t know, however, how I could have countered Keith’s arguments. I do know that I never believed that there was a nutritional argument for being vegetarian. I have known enough about nutrition, for long enough, to know that liver, meat and fish are incomparably nutritious. My recent analysis of Harley Johnston’s (30 Bananas a day) aka DurianriderThis is why I never considered becoming vegan. I could not think how I could get vitamin A, B1. D, iron, zinc etc in anywhere close to sufficient amounts without supplements and it never felt right to be taking nutrients in a tablet when food could provide them. I became vegetarian for the moral argument. I subsequently strengthened my belief by adopting the political argument. The essence of my belief was that I could be healthy enough without eating animals and animals would be better for this decision. I knew that I could not be optimally healthy, but felt that I was making a moral sacrifice in an age when humans were in a position to . Even though the Barry Groves and Sally Fallon Morell presentations at the Weston A Price Foundation conference in March 2. I still believed that there was a clear line in the sand on . Oh boy! In a nutshell the moral vegetarian argument is “we should not kill”. Keith’s response is: a) There is absolutely nothing, nothing at all, that even a vegan can eat that something has not died for (several living things in fact); b) Man is not at the top of a food chain – that is an arrogant view that only . All humans are part of the circle of life. Our bodies end up as food for the soil, just as every other animal that dies (ideally on the prairie) leaves their nutrients and minerals to go back into the soil for new life. When Keith expanded upon the first point, I was kicking myself within seconds. How could I have been so naive? Keith shared her original vegan view: “I wanted to believe that my life – my physical existence – was possible without killing, without death. It’s not.”Before long, the examples came thick and fast and became irrefutable. How many slugs are killed for a lettuce? How many millions of species in a tablespoon of top soil are trashed every second by Cargill? How many rabbits and mice are killed in cultivated fields by industrial size farming equipment? How many fish die, so that rivers can be diverted to irrigate the vegan’s grains? How many wolves and bison have been killed because we turned their homeland into farmland – for grains and plant food? Keith answers the last one: “There were somewhere between 6. United States in 1. Now there are 3. 50,0. The land held between 4. The North American prairie has been reduced to 2% of its original size and the topsoil, once twelve feet deep, can now only be measured in inches.”b) Point (b) is so integrally linked to (a) – one of the reasons that no life is possible without death is that the soil upon which life depends relies upon death to return nutrients to the land. Keith explains her first hand experience of trying (and failing) to grow her own food without anything needing to die. Keith tried it and then some! The full story is funny and powerful at the same time). Organic Gardening magazine soon explained to Keith that the first commandment of organic growing was “feed the soil, not the plant.” She learned that Nitrogen, Phosphorus and Potassium was the “triple Goddess of gardeners.” All three are minerals given back to the land when animals (including humans) die. We can get nitrogen from fossil fuels, or nitrogen can be given back to the land by the circle of life and death. We are not far from the time (peak oil and all that) when we have the stark choice – use fossil fuels for fertiliser for food or for running the power upon which modern life has come to depend. What do we do when the oil runs out? Manure and carcasses or fossil fuel for fertiliser? If you live in Vermont or California and eat vegan brown rice – this is what you’re eating: dead fish and dead birds from a dying river.”– “We’re out of topsoil, out of water, out of species, and out of space in the atmosphere for the carbon we can’t seem to stop burning.”You come to realise that the ultimate role that we (humans) can play in this universe is to continue to be a part of the universe when we die. Whatever happens to our soul, our body is food for worms, which are food for birds, which are food for cats, which are food for their predators and so on. Humans often look for significance – for a sense of purpose in life. Our purpose is as part of the whole circle of life. All of us have this part to play. Keith continues, “The native prairie is now 9. There is no place left for the buffalo to roam. There’s only corn, wheat and soy.” With all that land cultivated for vegetarian food, which was once home to free roaming animals, there is also no natural process by which the top soil can be rejuvenated. There is only so much that fossil fuel fertiliser can do to repair the damage being done by overworking our scarce land in the name of profit. No wonder (GM) Genetically Modified crops became a necessity – we have to modify crops when we have destroyed the earth to the point that it cannot yield . What about a buffalo?” asks Keith. It requires wholesale extermination of ecosystems – the land has to be cleared of all life.” We use 5. I found elsewhere) – pesticides being designed to kill any living thing that also wants to feed on (our) growing food. I realised in this part of the book that it comes down to black and white and shades of grey. To the vegan, the world is black and white – “meat is murder.” Keith describes this as “a simple ethical code. I was far more black and white in my 2. Things were right and wrong. The simple world of a child is right and wrong. The more mature world of the adult has many shades of grey. The shades of grey in this killing debate are inescapable – you may draw the line at eating cows, but not dogs; you may draw the line at eating chicken, but not red meat; you may draw the line at eating fish, but not meat; you may draw the line at eating eggs, but not the flesh of animals; you may draw the line by wearing leather shoes, but eating nothing from an animal; you may have a vegan diet and wardrobe – but bison, birds, fish, rabbits, mice and thousands of living creatures in top soil have died for your soya burger and lettuce. It’s not that vegans are right and vegetarians are wrong, or vegetarians are right and omnivores are wrong, or omnivores are right and carnivores are wrong – it’s about where we each choose to draw our line. Better still, to return to the arrogant view that . I’m going to draw a circle.” We are part of the circle of life, just as any other animal is. They and we need to live and die to give back to the land, so that birth and death can continue.
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