Page 73 - Fall2011

Soy Alert!

NOT TAKING THE EWG PLEDGE
By Kaayla T. Daniel, PhD

The Environmental Working Group has gests they actually understand these problems,
asked Americans to go meatless once per week but the overriding message is to stop eating meat
and “Take the pledge to eat less and greener of any type. As for all that climate warming
meat!” Chef Mario Batali and other celebrities gas, animals emit far less when they eat natural,
have gone on board to help EWG enlist one hun- grass-based diets and not unnatural, hard-to-
dred thousand people who will sign the pledge, digest feeds manufactured from soybeans, corn
commit to eating a more “veg centric” diet, and and other grains.
“build awareness” of how much our food choices
impact the planet. NOT SUSTAINABLE
I personally am not about to take that pledge Plowing pastures and rangeland to plant
though EWG’s slogan “Reduce your impact, crops is not a sustainable way to feed the hungry
improve your health” sounds like a “win-win.” and save the environment. In fact, only about
EWG tells us, for example, that Americans who eleven percent of the land on planet earth can be
skip meat and cheese just one day a week—such farmed, a percentage that cannot be increased
as with a “Meatless Monday”—can cut carbon without deforestation, irrigation, chemical fertil-
emissions equal to taking over seven million cars izers, and other destructive ecological practices.
off the road. And it promises that reducing meat Old-fashioned organic mixed-use farms are the
consumption will lower our risk of obesity, heart answer. And animals are essential, not optional,
disease, stroke and cancer. for healthy farms.
Sadly, EWG’s proposal will do very little
for the environment. Worse, it will encourage SAVING TOP SOIL
people to “feel good” about their growing green America’s top soil has been devastated by
consciousness while distracting them from mono cropping, “perfect” green lawns and other
exploring and adopting genuine, sustainable unsustainable practices. While the process of
solutions. While it is certainly good that EWG mixing, rotating and composting plants is a start,
recommends “greener” meat and not just “less land cannot be restored without the help of ani-
meat” or even “no meat,” the catchy “Meatless mals. They are needed not only for their rich ma-
Monday” slogan perpetuates the myth that meat nure but for rotational grazing. Animal waste is While the
is evil and that plant-based diets are the key to truly a horrific problem with factory farming, but process of
personal and planetary health. is valuable and collectible on small, mixed-use
Here’s why I will not take the EWG pledge: farms. Overgrazing has certainly damaged much mixing,
of America’s land, but the solution is sustainable rotating and
THE TRUE ENVIRONMENTAL THREAT grazing practices. And that solution, properly composting
The true threat to our environment is not handled, serves the land far better than leaving
animals—which have been covering the earth it alone for “conservation.” As Joel Salatin has plants is a
with manure and emissions for tens of thousands described so well in The Sheer Ecstasy of Being start, land
of years—but the globalization and industrial- a Lunatic Farmer, Everything I Want to Do is cannot be
ization of agriculture with its unconscionable, Illegal and other books, diversity and interde-
factory-farming practices, toxic use of pesticides, pendence are the keys to honoring and restoring restored
herbicides and commercial fertilizers, plundering our land. Salatin also argues cogently for putting without the
of natural resources, draining of the water table, our trust in local farmers and not in the official help of
and bankrupting of small farmers and cottage certification programs EWG recommends. How
industries. EWG’s nod to “greener meat” sug- many more exposés of pseudo organic does the animals.
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