In a spate of past writing zeal I pontificated on the question on human diet and the consumption of meat. I had written a series on' the politics of eating' and came up with a POV (circa 1993) thus:
But how time, like poultry, flies. In the intervening years the debate about what you should put in your mouth has shifted and the locus is now very much about environment, meat eating and climate change.
Nonetheless, back then that attribute was not absent from the polemic and in works such as Jeremy Rivkin's Beyond Beef: The Rise and Fall of the Cattle Culture the ecological consequences of beef production was dissected.
I reviewed that book at the time:
However, in an accompanying exchange, I think I missed out on some cogent detail that in the light of the time since has become the pre-eminent challenge advanced by the vegetarian -- esp vegan -- message.
Can we afford to eat meat if it is environmentally hazardous to do so?
Well is it? That brings me to my present interest which I'll address here soon enough.
For those who think I had sidestepped the ethical challenge posed by not killing animals, in that past life I did address that topic -- albeit sharply. For example:
But as I say, a review is warranted -- one while focused on the question of sustainable agriculture and global warming -- also, in the light of the recent live beef export scandal has to scrutinize not simply what we put in our mouths but how 'ethically' that food is produced.
