7 ms·

I've been a vegetarian for a few years. Part of the impetus for my choice was the lack of regulation and health code standards in this country. Recent news tha

I've been a vegetarian for a few years. Part of the impetus for my choice was the lack of regulation and health code standards in this country. Recent news that the federal government is reducing inspection of meat really does scare me. How many people need to die (like in the early 1900s) before we re-realize the importance of these regulations on public life? When will the next Upton Sinclair come along?

flmontpetit 7y ago
Upton Sinclair lamented the fact that nobody really got the point of The Jungle. I think after all this time he is about to be proven right.
- prongletown 7y ago
  Well, the point of the jungle is that we need to form a socialist worker's state. Instead, everyone freaked out about sausages. He had a quote along the lines of "I aimed for the heart and hit the stomach" edit: > "I aimed for the public's heart," Sinclair later wrote, "and by accident hit it in the stomach."
- nitwit005 7y ago
  You're correct that he complained about that, but the point was supposed to be about the exploitation and abuse of laborers.
  - flmontpetit 7y ago
    That's true, but "exploitation and abuse of laborers" and "tubercular beef" were ultimately caused by the same thing.
    - jacobolus 7y ago
      Upton Sinclair’s complaint was that everyone cared about the health implications but didn’t care about the workers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jungle#Reception https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jungle#Reception
    - moate 7y ago
      Yes. And people sought to address the specific causes of tubercular beef while leaving the rest untouched because they weren't cared about the exploitation and abuse of laborers as much as their own health.
- moate 7y ago
  I mean the same thing happened to Orwell. He was a democratic socialist who literally went to war with the fascists in Spain but people think Animal Farm is meant to be a rebuke of communism generally (and not Stalinism specifically).
- zosterops 7y ago
  That point being, to promote socialism.
whenchamenia 7y ago
Its simple to get to know your local rancher. You can even voice your concerns and have them heard by the person raising your beef, while walking the ranch on a nkce day. Factory farms are the bigger problem, not just meat per-se.
- kryogen1c 7y ago
  > Its simple to get to know your local rancher. >Factory farms are the bigger problem, not just meat per-se. Not just meat farms! One thing vegans and vegetarians often gloss over is the death per calorie involved in crop fields. Those thousands of acres have animals in them, and the machines sure dont stop for every varmit that gets in the way. It is not clear what the right answer is (assuming all you care about is number of animal lives, which is an inadequate measure anyway). The best advice i know of is to only eat well raised cow meat because 1 cow provides a lot of calories, and vegetables, chickens, and pigs etc do not and kill lots of animals.
  - prongletown 7y ago
    >eat well raised cow meat It takes significantly more feed to raise a cow. The calories extracted from cow meat is extremely inefficient considering the high number of calories in (feed) and water. So, you could not use feed (vegetable death-per-calorie!) because it's something like a 8:1 calorie ratio for feed to a pound of beef. You'd have to pasture raise the cows. There is no feasible way to ensure that all food is pasture-grazing cow meat at a price point accessible to most Americans. There is currently no cruelty free-way to have cheap, accessible calories. If you really wanted the lowest death-per-calorie, one of the most feasible approaches would be consuming large amounts of rice. I don't think anyone would want to subsist exclusively on a diet of rice, beans, and dietary supplements.
    - Mikeb85 7y ago
      > There is no feasible way to ensure that all food is pasture-grazing cow meat at a price point accessible to most Americans. Maybe Americans (westerners in general actually) should simply eat less? 3 oz of meat per day is enough (5 oz of protein is recommended, but part of that can easily be filled by grains, legumes, cheese, milk, etc...). No one needs 10 oz of meat per day (current average consumption for Americans).
ddeck 7y ago
Unfortunately even fruit and vegetables aren't safe. Syphilis and TB antibiotics are being used to combat disease on orange trees in Florida: The E.P.A. has proposed allowing as much as 650,000 pounds of streptomycin to be sprayed on citrus crops each year. By comparison, Americans annually use 14,000 pounds of aminoglycosides, the class of antibiotics that includes streptomycin In its decision to approve two drugs for orange and grapefruit trees, the E.P.A. largely ignored objections from the C.D.C. and the F.D.A., which fear that expanding their use in cash crops could fuel antibiotic resistance in humans. scientists are especially worried that the drugs will cause pathogenic bacteria in the soil to become resistant to the compounds and then find their way to people through groundwater or contaminated food.[1] Several lawmakers wrote to the EPA last month to urge a rethink of the policy given legitimate scientific concerns around the issue of antimicrobial resistance. To quote the letter: Antibiotics are life-saving medicines and, except in extraordinary circumstances, should only be used to treat specific illnesses in people and animals," the lawmakers wrote. "EPA's assessments appear to ignore scientific evidence, violate the principle of judicious antibiotic use, and could create unnecessary harm to human health by authorizing an unprecedented amount of medically important antibiotics to be used for plant agriculture.[2] [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/17/health/antibiotics-oranges-florida.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/17/health/antibiotics-orange... [2] http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2019/08/lawmakers-urge-epa-rethink-use-antibiotics-citrus-trees http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2019/08/lawmakers...
- cwkoss 7y ago
  The most terrifying thing about antibiotic resistance is that bacterial will readily take up DNA fragments from dead neighbors (or via sex pillus). This means that if a benign bacteria develops resistance, that gene can easily find its way into a pathogenic one if they are both in the same environment.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

flmontpetit 7y ago

Upton Sinclair lamented the fact that nobody really got the point of The Jungle. I think after all this time he is about to be proven right.

prongletown 7y ago
Well, the point of the jungle is that we need to form a socialist worker's state. Instead, everyone freaked out about sausages. He had a quote along the lines of "I aimed for the heart and hit the stomach" edit: > "I aimed for the public's heart," Sinclair later wrote, "and by accident hit it in the stomach."
nitwit005 7y ago
You're correct that he complained about that, but the point was supposed to be about the exploitation and abuse of laborers.
- flmontpetit 7y ago
  That's true, but "exploitation and abuse of laborers" and "tubercular beef" were ultimately caused by the same thing.
  - jacobolus 7y ago
    Upton Sinclair’s complaint was that everyone cared about the health implications but didn’t care about the workers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jungle#Reception https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jungle#Reception
  - moate 7y ago
    Yes. And people sought to address the specific causes of tubercular beef while leaving the rest untouched because they weren't cared about the exploitation and abuse of laborers as much as their own health.
moate 7y ago
I mean the same thing happened to Orwell. He was a democratic socialist who literally went to war with the fascists in Spain but people think Animal Farm is meant to be a rebuke of communism generally (and not Stalinism specifically).
zosterops 7y ago
That point being, to promote socialism.

whenchamenia 7y ago

Its simple to get to know your local rancher. You can even voice your concerns and have them heard by the person raising your beef, while walking the ranch on a nkce day. Factory farms are the bigger problem, not just meat per-se.

kryogen1c 7y ago
> Its simple to get to know your local rancher. >Factory farms are the bigger problem, not just meat per-se. Not just meat farms! One thing vegans and vegetarians often gloss over is the death per calorie involved in crop fields. Those thousands of acres have animals in them, and the machines sure dont stop for every varmit that gets in the way. It is not clear what the right answer is (assuming all you care about is number of animal lives, which is an inadequate measure anyway). The best advice i know of is to only eat well raised cow meat because 1 cow provides a lot of calories, and vegetables, chickens, and pigs etc do not and kill lots of animals.
- prongletown 7y ago
  >eat well raised cow meat It takes significantly more feed to raise a cow. The calories extracted from cow meat is extremely inefficient considering the high number of calories in (feed) and water. So, you could not use feed (vegetable death-per-calorie!) because it's something like a 8:1 calorie ratio for feed to a pound of beef. You'd have to pasture raise the cows. There is no feasible way to ensure that all food is pasture-grazing cow meat at a price point accessible to most Americans. There is currently no cruelty free-way to have cheap, accessible calories. If you really wanted the lowest death-per-calorie, one of the most feasible approaches would be consuming large amounts of rice. I don't think anyone would want to subsist exclusively on a diet of rice, beans, and dietary supplements.
  - Mikeb85 7y ago
    > There is no feasible way to ensure that all food is pasture-grazing cow meat at a price point accessible to most Americans. Maybe Americans (westerners in general actually) should simply eat less? 3 oz of meat per day is enough (5 oz of protein is recommended, but part of that can easily be filled by grains, legumes, cheese, milk, etc...). No one needs 10 oz of meat per day (current average consumption for Americans).

ddeck 7y ago

Unfortunately even fruit and vegetables aren't safe. Syphilis and TB antibiotics are being used to combat disease on orange trees in Florida: The E.P.A. has proposed allowing as much as 650,000 pounds of streptomycin to be sprayed on citrus crops each year. By comparison, Americans annually use 14,000 pounds of aminoglycosides, the class of antibiotics that includes streptomycin In its decision to approve two drugs for orange and grapefruit trees, the E.P.A. largely ignored objections from the C.D.C. and the F.D.A., which fear that expanding their use in cash crops could fuel antibiotic resistance in humans. scientists are especially worried that the drugs will cause pathogenic bacteria in the soil to become resistant to the compounds and then find their way to people through groundwater or contaminated food.[1] Several lawmakers wrote to the EPA last month to urge a rethink of the policy given legitimate scientific concerns around the issue of antimicrobial resistance. To quote the letter: Antibiotics are life-saving medicines and, except in extraordinary circumstances, should only be used to treat specific illnesses in people and animals," the lawmakers wrote. "EPA's assessments appear to ignore scientific evidence, violate the principle of judicious antibiotic use, and could create unnecessary harm to human health by authorizing an unprecedented amount of medically important antibiotics to be used for plant agriculture.[2] [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/17/health/antibiotics-oranges-florida.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/17/health/antibiotics-orange... [2] http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2019/08/lawmakers-urge-epa-rethink-use-antibiotics-citrus-trees http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2019/08/lawmakers...

cwkoss 7y ago
The most terrifying thing about antibiotic resistance is that bacterial will readily take up DNA fragments from dead neighbors (or via sex pillus). This means that if a benign bacteria develops resistance, that gene can easily find its way into a pathogenic one if they are both in the same environment.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]