[davep]

http://journeytoforever.org/farm_library/ley/leyToC.html#pref

http://journeytoforever.org/farm_library/ley/ley4.html

Info on the ley system. Micro-ley is just smaller scale.

[dohboi]

SM, I am already familiar with it. It gets trotted out every time someone brings up ethical vegetarianism (which, by the way, I did not). It has been thoroughly debunked. I trust that anyone who wants to can find these debunkings without needing me to hold their hand. Those who don't want to look are not going to be convinced by anything I find for them, anyway.

Davep, thanks for the links. Good additions to the conversation. Much to ponder.

Managing soil health is really the whole issue. But there is no way to sustainably manage soil health if you are extracting nutrients that go to humans but that are never returned. So one way or the other you have to return human poop (humanure) back to the land. These are not things people want to talk about in 'polite society.' We are in deep denial that we are in a cyclical system--either we return our waste and our bodies to the soil and then eat the produce nourished by these 'wastes,' or we inevitably degrade the soil over the long term.

You can certainly add a step in the middle with grazing animals. But if you are eating those grazing animals, at some point, you still have to return the nutrients from human wastes back to the land.

In general, we will definitely have meat eaters in the future. But with 7-9 billion people (or even a few billion less), we can't have a sustainable system where all of them eat meat at US levels. So unless the meat eaters care nothing about sustainability, committed meat eaters should be at the forefront of promotion of vegetarian and vegan diets--after all, the less the rest of us consume, the more is available for them to devour!

[Pops]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('dohboi', 'Y')ou can certainly add a step in the middle with grazing animals. But if you are eating those grazing animals, at some point, you still have to return the nutrients from human wastes back to the land.

[dohboi]

"much of the fertility is recycled"

Much, but not all. It's not a closed system, unless you are just raising the animals as poop producers and never using their meat or milk.

This isn't rocket science, people. If you are extracting something from a system, it is no longer there (unless you manufacture it artificially using ff's or some other input, but those are ultimately non-sustainable so you're back where you started...).

[Pops]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('dohboi', '&')quot;much of the fertility is recycled"

Much, but not all. It's not a closed system, unless you are just raising the animals as poop producers and never using their meat or milk.

This isn't rocket science, people. If you are extracting something from a system, it is no longer there (unless you manufacture it artificially using ff's or some other input, but those are ultimately non-sustainable so you're back where you started...).

[dohboi]

The fast majority of 'steers' consumed in the US are finished (at least) on grains and legumes. So they are taking many more nutrients off the 'farm' than any vegan would. In any case, the whole point is that whether vegan or meat eating, if we don't return the nutrients to the land, we are not going to have a sustainable system.

People seem to be resorting to sophistry of various sorts, here. Not the most valuable way to conduct a discussion. I'm pretty convinced that there is nothing that can break through the wall of defensiveness this topic seems to generate. Maybe I'll come back to it again after a while. But it seems to have pretty well run its course. Best wishes to all with whatever choices they decide to make.

[Pops]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('dohboi', 'I')n any case, the whole point is that whether vegan or meat eating, if we don't return the nutrients to the land, we are not going to have a sustainable system.

People seem to be resorting to sophistry of various sorts, here.

[dohboi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '&')quot;if you're not with me your against me"

[Tanada]

Dohboi if you want real sustainable protein you should use these things, I hear they are wonderfully tasty and nutritious!

https://www.exoprotein.com/

[Shaved Monkey]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'F')eeding meat and bone meal to cows was insane.
Feeding it to pigs, whose natural diet incorporates a fair bit of meat, makes sense, as long as it is rendered properly.
The same goes for swill.
Giving sterilised scraps to pigs solves two problems at once: waste disposal and the diversion of grain.
Instead we now dump or incinerate millions of tonnes of possible pig food and replace it with soya whose production trashes the Amazon.
Waste food in the UK, Fairlie calculates, could make 800,000 tonnes of pork, or one sixth of our total meat consumption.

[Shaved Monkey]

Its a bit of a shame we gave up the hunting, birth control, animal prints dresses and regular barbeques for a tofu burger and ipad

[dohboi]

"If pigs are fed..."

If.

"In pre-modern times..."

In premodern times, large portions of the population were essentially vegetarian or vegan, especially in the most populated areas: China and India (actually, that was pretty much true up to the '60s).

Nearly everyone in pre-modern times in Europe and elsewhere either became completely vegan or abstained from eating red meat for a good number of weeks of the year.

"Fasting during Lent was more severe in ancient times than today. Socrates Scholasticus reports that in some places, all animal products were strictly forbidden, while others will permit fish, others permit fish and fowl, others prohibit fruit and eggs, and still others eat only bread."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lent#Fasti ... abstinence

And it was recognized that if you cared about being good (or holy or blessed), your would refrain more frequently; in fact, entire holy orders, in the West and the East, did just that.

Vegetarianism and veganism are not some kind of new-fangled fad. They have been fundamental parts of world culture for millennia.

[Shaved Monkey]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('dohboi', '&')quot;If pigs are fed..."

If.

[Shaved Monkey]

Vegetarianism even in Buddhism is not strictly followed except by certain franchises.
Tibetan Monks eat meat because they cant get enough nutrition from plants grown in the mountains
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '
')Some suggest that the rise of monasteries in Mahayana tradition to be a contributing factor in the emphasis on vegetarianism.
In the monastery, food was prepared specifically for monks.
In this context, large quantities of meat would have been specifically prepared (killed) for monks.
Henceforth, when monks from the Indian geographical sphere of influence migrated to China from the year 65 CE on, they met followers who provided them with money instead of food.
From those days onwards Chinese monastics, and others who came to inhabit northern countries, cultivated their own vegetable plots and bought food in the market.
This remains the dominant practice in China, Vietnam and part of Korean Mahayanan temples.

[dohboi]

O h M y F' ng G o d d e s s!

If you want to dismiss every instance of veganism and vegetarianism in history because it didn't match up to some bizarre notion of 'purity,' that just proves beyond a shadow of anyone's idiotic doubt that you are desperately plugging your ears, covering your eyes, and screamingly singing LALALALALALALALALALA "I DON"T WANT TO HEAR ANYTHING THAT DOESN'T CONFORM TO MY RIGIDLY PRECONCEIVED NOTIONS"...

all to avoid facing the reality that the past was NOT some constant, totally carnivorous bloodfest of your innermost fantasy.

Grow up and take an honest view for at least one brief moment in your sad pathetic little so-called lives at what the history books and mere basic simple morality is telling you....

Oh, f it.

Never mind.

No one is ever going to convince you of anything since your narrow little minds are already utterly and impermeably closed off to any other notion than the ones that society has already carefully fashioned for you.

Good luck with your sad little lives and your self affirming little circular logics.

[Shaved Monkey]

Can you grow your total vegan diet within your local environment or do you require food to be grown in a monoculture or different climate and imported ?
Avocados,fruit ,veg, soy,nuts, grains ?

as a low GI omnivore I can get all the nutrition I need in my community in a collapse.