3/16/2017 7:03:28 PM
(shared with permission from the March 2017 newsletter of Healthy World Sedona)
In Wendell Berry’s book of essays, The Gift of Good Land (North Point Press, 1981), the essay “Solving for Pattern” is one I have returned to multiple times in the past 35 years. While the book is about agriculture, it is equally about culture in general. Berry says industrial farming solutions to food production “destroy, first, the health of the soil and, finally, the health of human communities,” and that he “could just as easily be talking about sanitation systems that pollute, school systems that graduate illiterate students, medical cures that cause disease .... This is the kind of surprise that is characteristic of our time: the cure proves incurable....” He goes on to say “it is only when it is understood that our agricultural dilemma is characteristic not of our agriculture but of our time that we can begin to understand why these surprises happen, and to work out standards of judgment that may prevent them.”
Berry describes three kinds of solutions to problems:
- The solution that causes a ramifying series of new problems, in which the new problems can’t be solved by the expertise that produced the initial solution. He uses the example of cattle feed lots that produce a factory-like order and efficiency, but this mechanical order immediately produces biological disorder in damaging the health of the animals, the surrounding land and watershed, adjoining ecosystems, and the economic and physical health of human communities.
- The solution which immediately worsens the problem it was intended to solve – as when the problem of soil compaction is “solved” by a bigger tractor, which further compacts the soil, which makes a need for a still bigger tractor. We see similar results with drug treatments that create side effects requiring additional drugs to counteract these effects, each drug adding still more side effects, ultimately destroying the health of the person seeking a cure.
These two kinds of solutions are obviously bad, serving “one good at the expense of another” and leaving the original problem unsolved.
- 3. It is when “health is set down as the aim” that the third kind of solution becomes evident – a solution that causes a ramifying series of solutions, and takes into account the larger pattern or patterns within which the problem exists. In other words, the solution takes a systemic view of the world. This is the move away from reductionism that T. Colin Campbell describes in his book Whole.
As Berry says, “A bad solution is bad, then, because it acts destructively upon the larger patterns in which it is contained ... most likely, because it is formed in ignorance or disregard of them. A bad solution solves for a single purpose or goal, such as increased production. And it is typical of such solutions that they achieve stupendous increases in production at exorbitant biological and social costs.
A good solution is good because it is in harmony with those larger patterns ... the way a healthy organ acts within the body.”
When I think about the benefits of plant-based nutrition, what I see is a “good solution,” in harmony with larger patterns. It is a solution that promotes health and prevents disease. It is a solution that preserves rainforests, allows oceans to recover from animal agriculture pollutants, and fish to recover from human harvesting. It is a solution that saves animals from cruel and inhumane lives and deaths, and saves the land from the impact of industrial livestock production. It is a solution that doesn’t just stop the increase in human-caused greenhouse gas emissions, but significantly reduces those emissions. And with 18% of our GDP going to healthcare spending, it is a solution that heals our economy and frees up resources for infrastructure, education and other development.
To be sure, societal change to plant-based nutrition will cause other problems, particularly for the individuals and industries that make their livings from the production of animal products, or for those whose business is to attempt to mitigate the negative effects of these products (e.g. the pharmaceutical and sickness care industries). But these are the problems of transition, as we move away from unhealthy practices. These are problems like that of the obese person who must buy new clothes when he or she achieves a healthy weight. They are still problems that must be addressed, and they will cause difficulty, but they are ones we should welcome. As we trade harmful and unsustainable practices for those in harmony with nature (both our own nature and that of the larger world), we find solutions that build on each other, reinforcing the pattern of systemic health – in our bodies, our communities, and the natural world.
Beverly Ann Bow, co-founder, Healthy World Sedona,
Sponsor of Sedona VegFest
3/15/2017 10:01:46 AM
Do you love gardens? I sure do and I spend a lot of my unscheduled time puttering out with the plants.
You can't do that and not eventually see that our Earth itself is a vast garden of millions of beautiful species and gorgeous designs in the form of mountains, hills, valleys and rivers. And these days we most need to tend our garden planet. We can no longer ignore the serious threats facing her soils, her waters, and her natural places, indeed her very ability to produce the essential food that we and our children must have.
No doubt we need to reduce our numbers and our consumerism, and we can certainly tend our own organic gardens, support farmer's markets and organic growers and environmental organizations. But I now believe that the greatest good we each of us and all of us can do for our lovely world is not only simple, but healthy, tasty and the most loving: to take animal products off our plates. That’s because it takes 10-20 times more resources to get the same nutrients indirectly from animals instead of directly from plants.
However, if, instead, we continue eating so much meat, dairy, fish and eggs, experts warn us this is what will happen unless we wake up soon:
- We will soon reach a dangerous tipping point of climate change, a huge threat to our food supply and social order, due to droughts, mega storms, floods, unstable weather and wars and conflict from resulting migration pressures. As much as 51% of greenhouse gases are due to livestock, due to the potency of methane. That’s more than all transportation combined.
- We may lose the Amazon by 2025. 91% of clearance is for crops and grazing for livestock.
- By 2048 we could empty the oceans of fish.Trawlers destroy whole ecosystems every day, yet, despite reform, fish are so depleted now that many hold that there is no such thing as sustainable fishing. Most of the catch is by kill, much tossed out. Half is fed to livestock and farmed fish. Runoff from countless factory farms and fields that supply them causes huge ocean dead zones. What will this mean? Seas are major carbon sinks and oxygen generators.
- With this habitat destruction, we will destroy half of all species by 2050. On our watch, we now wipe out 137 species a day, the greatest mass extinction since the dinosaurs.
- This threatens our future also. By 2050, 2/3 of us will be short of water. A third of global aquifers are already depleting, including those under California and the Great Plains. Most fresh water is squandered not on lawns but on animal agriculture; it takes 100 times more to produce animal vs. plant protein. Just one burger can consume 600 gallons of water.
- By 2100 our agricultural soils may be largely gone, due to erosion, industrial farming practices, drought and high demand. Yet, vegan diets use 15-20x less land than omni diets.
- We are also wasting precious fossil fuels, the basis for our society: agriculture, transportation, communications, heating, cooling, medicines, sewage treatment, goods and plastics. A vegan diet saves enough fuel to drive 45.6 miles a day, buying precious time to develop renewables.
The good news is we that can each make a huge difference and together we can shift everything. “Cowspiracy: the Sustainabilty Solution” (Netflix) shows how we don’t have to change government policy so much as the way we eat. Right now, every day, each of us can save this much simply by eating a healthy, tasty plant based diet:
- 1100 gallons of water
- 30 square feet of rainforest
- 45 pounds of grain (that could be fed to hungry humans)
- 20 pounds of CO2 equivalents
- enough fossil fuel to drive some 45.8 miles
- and one animal’s life (plus untold numbers of wildlife)
Based on that, just two people eating plant-based for 10 years saves: 8 million gallons of fresh water, 5 acres of rain forest (about 15 suburban lots),164 tons of grains to feed hungry humans (a billion are currently malnourished or starving), 73 tons of CO2 equivalents, enough fuel to drive around the earth 14 times, and 7300 animals’ lives. Analyses may vary, but clearly our diets have a huge impact on our garden planet and its disappearing water, soil and species. Altogether, humanity already uses the resources of 1.5 Earths. Estimates are that, if everyone lived like Americans, it would take 3 Earths. Paleo diets for all could take up to ten Earths. Clearly, “low-carb” fad diets and our culturally conditioned choices endanger our children’s future, and very possibly their survival.
Much of my life I have worried about the fate of our planet. I've tried to do as much as I can to help out, but all else pales in comparison to the simple act of changing our diets. To me this is such empowering and actionable information.
Incalculable: Living By Our Values of Compassion
Add to this enormous toll on our planet the incalculable, but entirely needless, suffering which our diets cause to billions of farmed animals a year (some 90-99% in intense factory farm conditions we would not wish on our worst enemies). In the US, that’s 30 million chickens, turkeys, cows, sheep, pigs and rabbits every single day, 45 million marine animals, and countless wildlife displaced by feed crops and ranching (including predator and wild horse eradication). Tail docking, dehorning, castration and beak trims are all done without anesthesia, even on organic farms. Dairy cows grieve deeply over calves dragged off to cruel veal crates. Bars force sows to lie for weeks in small crates nursing piglets. Male chicks are ground alive or tossed into dumpsters to suffocate. Chickens are utterly crammed, even cage-free. Pastured/free-range labels are mostly deceptive. In the end, nearly all go to the same USDA slaughter houses, where workers testify that line speeds mean as many as 25% of cows are skinned, and countless pigs and chickens are scalded, while still conscious.
As Paul McCartney points outs, “If slaughterhouses had glass walls, everyone would be vegetarian.” (more accurately, “vegan,” since dairy cows and layer chickens endure the most suffering for the longest time).
How can this happen? First, marketing and social conditioning falsely tell us we need to eat animal products to be healthy. We demand low prices and if we will pay a bit more, we are willing to believe the happy farm images printed on labels. Yet, few would do to animals what we pay others to do out of our sight to put that meat and dairy on our plates. It matters hugely to those animals, however, and ultimately to us as well, for we are all connected. It also matters to one billion hungry humans who are unable to afford grains; most are fed to livestock in order to feed another billion of us who suffer epidemic levels of heart disease, cancer, diabetes and obesity on rich diets of animal and processed foods (see Food Choices, What the Health? and Forks Over Knives on Netflix).
Garden plates, garden world: Humans naturally love the beauty, peace and bounty of a lush garden. We love unspoiled nature, we love animals and we love our children. That is who we are and how we wish to live. And yet, the unintended consequences of our food choices not only deplete our garden planet, but also the very light of hearts and souls, as they threaten our hopes for the future we are meant to create.
But what if, instead of a dark future, we choose to create a bright one? Instead of destruction, violence and suffering, every day we can foster beauty, peace and bounty, starting on our own plates. In doing so, we express our deepest human values of caring and compassion. On top of that, it is delicious and we are likely to live longer and healthier lives (read the inspiring stories of those already doing so in the books, Healthy at 100 and The Blue Zones)
We can do this. The plant-based movement is growing fast. If we make this shift and inspire at least one other person a year to do the same, America would be a vegan nation in less than a decade. Better yet, if all humanity goes plant based (sooner, rather than the inevitable later), we could feed 12-15 billion humans on current farmlands (or, better yet, return much land to nature). We would all live longer and in greater health and harmony. That’s the world I choose, and if you agree, I believe it is within our reach. The choice is ours, the time is now.
