Vegging Out

No Meat for Mother Earth? No Way

By Matt Singer, 5-11-05

Apparently some of the folks at Gristmill think enviros should give up meat. Let me just say that I'd give up environmentalism first. But, really, there's no reason we can't have both. Richard Manning, a Missoula writer, makes the case for eating locally (including wild game) in "The Oil We Eat," an article that appeared in Harper's Magazine a little over a year ago.

Manning discusses the impacts of food that travels long distances or requires large, unnatural energy inputs to be created and he concludes:

"Food is politics. That being the case, I voted twice in 2002. The day after Election Day, in a truly dismal mood, I climbed the mountain behind my house and found a small herd of elk grazing native grasses in the morning sunlight. My respect for these creatures over the years has become great enough that on that morning I did not hesitate but went straight to my job, which was to rack a shell and drop one cow elk, my household’s annual protein supply. I voted with my weapon of choice—an act not all that uncommon in this world, largely, I think, as a result of the way we grow food. I can see why it is catching on. Such a vote has a certain satisfying heft and finality about it. My particular bit of violence, though, is more satisfying, I think, than the rest of the globe’s ordinary political mayhem. I used a rifle to opt out of an insane system. I killed, but then so did you when you bought that package of burger, even when you bought that package of tofu burger. I killed, then the rest of those elk went on, as did the grasses, the birds, the trees, the coyotes, mountain lions, and bugs, the fundamental productivity of an intact natural system, all of it went on."

Wild game and local markets are the real route for environmental eating. Vegetarianism has very little to do with it.

Like this story? Get more! Sign up for our free newsletters.