I just got back from a screening of this documentary, and it was pretty good, even though it covered familiar ground. It took making the case for veganism from an environmental standpoint, citing the WHO study about the greenhouse gases from factory farmed animals and the devastation of the rainforests due to grazing and growing feed to feed the global demand for meat.
Here are the main points I got from this film:
--The big environmental groups (Greenpeace, Sierra Club, for example) won't address animal agriculture, even though this business is responsible for the bulk of destroyed habitats, pollution and rainforest devastation, for fear of choking their fund-raising sources by pissing off their non-veggie members. Once again, it always comes down to money and/or greed.
--You really can't call yourself an environmentalist and continue to consume meat and dairy.
-- Sustainable food practices can't include any kind of meat or dairy consumption, be it factory farming, free-range or grass-fed operations. The bottom line is that too many resources go to meat and dairy production, small and large scale, to make it sustainable in the long run.
--Cows' milk is not meant for humans (a funny, but to-the-point interview of a doctor who grew up on a diary farm and went vegan in his 40s), and you can thrive health-wise on a vegan diet.
--The animal agriculture industry wields immense power and influence with its wealth both in the U.S. and globally (the film touched on the murders of a number of activists who fought the cattle industry in Brazil and how the FBI has many animal rights activists/groups on their radar in the U.S.) and noted how in bed the U.S. government is with ranchers using public land for grazing. The film addressed the culling of wild horses and foxes to make room for cattle to graze on public land for a fraction of the true cost.
There was an interesting interview of the guy who spoke against the cattle industry on the Oprah show and got sued. He said it took him five years to extricate himself from the legal battles and cited the laws regarding food disparagement, which I hadn't known all that much about. That **** is scary. Again, this goes back to the power/wealth issue. He basically said that telling the truth can still get you in a lot of hot water.
The movie also was billed as non-violent, but it did touch on the savagery of killing animals for food with a scene involving the slaughter of two ducks by a backyard farmer. That scene made me cry. I couldn't watch the whole thing. It also killed whatever appetite I had, as I went right after work to see this film and hadn't eaten dinner.
The brief discussion afterward was pretty interesting, too. There were three panelists: a professor of sustainability from a local college, a Green Party candidate for Connecticut Attorney General and a sociology professor who was the lone vegan of the group. The sustainability professor tried in vain to make a distinction between hunting for food and consuming commercially produced meat, and it almost turned ugly, as a couple of people in the audience called him out on that one. He said that even after seeing the film, he doubted he would go vegan and felt he was being judged by the two people who called him out. He said he was raised in the Appalachian Mountains and grew up hunting for food. He did say his eldest son was vegan.
The film also pointed out that you can escape your upbringing, even in the most meat-centric situations.
The candidate said he would have a hard time calling himself an environmentalist after seeing the film but didn't commit to going vegan.
The other professor, a female, noted that most of the vegan experts interviewed for the film were male.
What was frustrating to me was the lack of real, practical solutions for getting people to actually stop eating meat and dairy in large numbers, either in the film or during the discussion afterward. The sociology professor touted education as the key for change, but the minute a vegan starts to talk about why people should stop eating meat and dairy, he or she is deemed judgmental and attacking. It happened during the discussion with the sustainability professor. He ended up being the perfect example of people, who even when presented with a mountain of evidence of the evils of meat and dairy consumption, stick their heads in the sand and refuse to change and get completely defensive. The two people who called him out were not rude or discourteous, either. I just wanted to scream.
Here are the main points I got from this film:
--The big environmental groups (Greenpeace, Sierra Club, for example) won't address animal agriculture, even though this business is responsible for the bulk of destroyed habitats, pollution and rainforest devastation, for fear of choking their fund-raising sources by pissing off their non-veggie members. Once again, it always comes down to money and/or greed.
--You really can't call yourself an environmentalist and continue to consume meat and dairy.
-- Sustainable food practices can't include any kind of meat or dairy consumption, be it factory farming, free-range or grass-fed operations. The bottom line is that too many resources go to meat and dairy production, small and large scale, to make it sustainable in the long run.
--Cows' milk is not meant for humans (a funny, but to-the-point interview of a doctor who grew up on a diary farm and went vegan in his 40s), and you can thrive health-wise on a vegan diet.
--The animal agriculture industry wields immense power and influence with its wealth both in the U.S. and globally (the film touched on the murders of a number of activists who fought the cattle industry in Brazil and how the FBI has many animal rights activists/groups on their radar in the U.S.) and noted how in bed the U.S. government is with ranchers using public land for grazing. The film addressed the culling of wild horses and foxes to make room for cattle to graze on public land for a fraction of the true cost.
There was an interesting interview of the guy who spoke against the cattle industry on the Oprah show and got sued. He said it took him five years to extricate himself from the legal battles and cited the laws regarding food disparagement, which I hadn't known all that much about. That **** is scary. Again, this goes back to the power/wealth issue. He basically said that telling the truth can still get you in a lot of hot water.
The movie also was billed as non-violent, but it did touch on the savagery of killing animals for food with a scene involving the slaughter of two ducks by a backyard farmer. That scene made me cry. I couldn't watch the whole thing. It also killed whatever appetite I had, as I went right after work to see this film and hadn't eaten dinner.
The brief discussion afterward was pretty interesting, too. There were three panelists: a professor of sustainability from a local college, a Green Party candidate for Connecticut Attorney General and a sociology professor who was the lone vegan of the group. The sustainability professor tried in vain to make a distinction between hunting for food and consuming commercially produced meat, and it almost turned ugly, as a couple of people in the audience called him out on that one. He said that even after seeing the film, he doubted he would go vegan and felt he was being judged by the two people who called him out. He said he was raised in the Appalachian Mountains and grew up hunting for food. He did say his eldest son was vegan.
The film also pointed out that you can escape your upbringing, even in the most meat-centric situations.The candidate said he would have a hard time calling himself an environmentalist after seeing the film but didn't commit to going vegan.
The other professor, a female, noted that most of the vegan experts interviewed for the film were male.
What was frustrating to me was the lack of real, practical solutions for getting people to actually stop eating meat and dairy in large numbers, either in the film or during the discussion afterward. The sociology professor touted education as the key for change, but the minute a vegan starts to talk about why people should stop eating meat and dairy, he or she is deemed judgmental and attacking. It happened during the discussion with the sustainability professor. He ended up being the perfect example of people, who even when presented with a mountain of evidence of the evils of meat and dairy consumption, stick their heads in the sand and refuse to change and get completely defensive. The two people who called him out were not rude or discourteous, either. I just wanted to scream.
