I’ve converted to veganism ...sort of (George Monbiot)

[robert99]

UK's Guardian's piece on sort of going vegan -
I’ve converted to veganism to reduce my impacts on the living world | George Monbiot
Last September I arranged to spend a day beside the River Culm in Devon, renowned for its wildlife and beauty. However, the stretch I intended to explore had been reduced to a stinking ditch, almost lifeless except for some sewage fungus. I traced the pollution back to a dairy farm. A local man told me the disaster had been developing for months. But his efforts to persuade the Environment Agency (the government regulator) to take action had been fruitless.
...
That did it. Why, I reasoned, should I support an industry the government refuses to regulate? Since then, I have cut almost all animal products from my diet. I’m not religious about it. If I’m at a friend’s house I might revert to vegetarianism. If I’m away from home, I will take a drop of milk in my tea. About once a fortnight I have an egg for my breakfast, perhaps once a month a fish I catch, or a herring or some anchovies (if you eat fish, take them from the bottom of the food chain). Perhaps three or four times a year, on special occasions, I will eat farmed meat: partly out of greed, partly because I don’t want to be even more of a spectre at the feast than I am already. This slight adaptation, I feel, also reduces the chances of a relapse.

 

[Second Summer]

We've had several George Monbiot threads in the past. Here's on of them:
George Monbiot on veganism vs. meat eating (again)

It sounds like he's accepted the environmental part of the vegan argument, and has implemented changes to his diet based on that. Similarly to someone who has only accepted the health benefits argument for a health-oriented vegan diet, this means a not 100% adherence to a full-fledged vegan lifestyle.

 

[robert99]

Sounds like to me, he's a "reluctant vegan" - does not like the enviro impact but he's still "loving it".

 

[AeryFairy]

Any change anyone makes to reduce their animal consumption (and carbon footprint) is good by me!

 

[Second Summer]

I was surprised to read he was eating road-kill. I didn't think any human here in the west would be that desperate for meat. I can see how road-kill could be an option for carnivorous companion animals, though there probably wouldn't be enough road-kill to sustain any significant population?

 

[Poppy]

Yum, road kill!

 

[Jamie in Chile]

Monbiot is a smart guy - I enjoyed his writings on travel some years ago- but hasn't got past the mainstream arguments on animal welfare and environment. Fundamental animal rights is too far for him. Ethically he knows or suspects veganism is ahead, but doesn't really think eating meat is bad enough to make real, complete sacrifices.

In December 2002, Monbiot came out for veganism, citing famine and sustainability: George Monbiot: Why vegans were right all along [in this article he touches on supply and demand question, you raised Indian Summer; I doubt he sees roadkill as a serious solution] "It's impossible to avoid the conclusion that the only sustainable and socially just option is for the inhabitants of the rich world to become, like most of the earth's people, broadly vegan, eating meat only on special occasions like Christmas."

In 2010, he returned to the subject, saying:
"I was wrong about veganism. Let them eat meat – but farm it properly"
Simon Fairlie: Meat, A Benign Extravagance is the book he read and based his article on
I was wrong about veganism. Let them eat meat (but farm it right) | George Monbiot
The core argument of this article is perhaps in this paragraph.
"If pigs are fed on residues and waste, and cattle on straw, stovers and grass from fallows and rangelands – food for which humans don't compete – meat becomes a very efficient means of food production. Even though it is tilted by the profligate use of grain in rich countries, the global average conversion ratio of useful plant food to useful meat is not the 5:1 or 10:1 cited by almost everyone, but less than 2:1. If we stopped feeding edible grain to animals, we could still produce around half the current global meat supply with no loss to human nutrition: in fact it's a significant net gain."

In 2013, he changed back in favour of veganism again:
Why I'm eating my words on veganism – again | George Monbiot
Saying: "Part of the problem is that while livestock could be fed on waste and rangelands, ever less of the meat we eat in the rich nations is produced this way." And adding: "I also came to see extensive livestock rearing as a lot less benign than I – or Fairlie – had assumed. The damage done to biodiversity, to water catchments and carbon stores by sheep and cattle grazing in places unsuitable for arable farming (which means, by and large, the hills) is out of all proportion to the amount of meat produced. Wasteful and destructive as feeding grain to livestock is, ranching appears to be even worse."

In this 2013 article, he says "I tried [a vegan diet] for 18 months and almost faded away. I lost two stone, went as white as a washbasin and could scarcely concentrate. I think I managed the diet badly; some people appear to thrive on it." Now then, I am assuming he tried the diet between 2002 and 2010. Perhaps this failure might have been a factor in his 2010 article? it does seem a common theme the people who decide they want to give up a vegan diet, then seek for a moral position to justify it. (See Let Them Eat Meat and other ex-vegan blogs.)

Therein lies a familiar theme: is veganism/vegetarian only suitable for most, but not all? Is there a minority who can't be healthy on it? Or is there something about nutrition we haven't discovered yet that affects a minority on a vegan diet? Or are ALL the people who say veganism failed them explainable because they weren't truly committed to it and were just looking for any excuse to get back to meat? Now that would make an interesting Monbiot article. Maybe I should write to him.

He concludes the article saying: "So can I follow Al Gore, and do it better than I did before? Well, I intend at least to keep cutting my consumption of animal products, and to see how far I can go. It's not easy, especially for a person as greedy and impetuous as I am, but there has to be a way."

Which is brings us on to this week's article, the one already posted above in the OP
I’ve converted to veganism to reduce my impact on the living world | George Monbiot
So now he's mostly vegan. ie not actually vegan.
And what's this
"After almost a year on this diet, I have dropped from 12 stone to 11. I feel better than I’ve done for years."
Hm that's a contradiction to his previous experience of "almost faded away". OK, that is what I need to ask him about!

 

[robert99]

Thanks for the post Jamie in Chile and all the info. Hope you write to him to get some answers.

 

[Jamie in Chile]

I did write to him already, but I doubt I'll get a response as I am sure people like that get tons of emails.

 

[@rno]

I see more (Unilever?) cars on the road to create some road kill.

 

[robert99]

I did write to him already, but I doubt I'll get a response as I am sure people like that get tons of emails.

Thanks anyway for trying

 

[Andy_T]

I was surprised to read he was eating road-kill.

So is he what is called a "Freegan" then? (Sigh)

 

[Second Summer]

So is he what is called a "Freegan" then? (Sigh)

Sounds like it, I guess?

 

[Andy_T]

I guess it makes sense if one is motivated solely by ecological concerns.

Mind you, I don't think that roadkill is any worse than animals "normally" killed in the meat industry, but I don't like that it continues the idea of "animals as food".

My answer to that argument (the animal was already dead, so why let it "go to waste") normally is "well, when my grandmother died, that idea did not cross our minds, so why now?"

 

[AeryFairy]

So is he what is called a "Freegan" then? (Sigh)

I'd say more like a flexitarian - it sounds like he's still purchasing the odd thing (eggs for breakfast, milk in tea) rather than just taking advantage where things would otherwise go to waste (dumpster diving and leftovers).

 

[Jamie in Chile]

There is a similarity between his views and those of another well known food writer Michael Pollan. In his entertaining book, the Omnivore's Dilemna (I wouldn't recommend this to vegans though, parts of it may annoy) he at one points says that meat should be a once a year affair, or for special occasions, or words to that effect, which is close to what Monbiot believes. I don't suspect Pollan actually practices such as low meat consumption, it is more of a wistful idea on his part.

Michael Pollan says that morality is an artefact of human culture. I don't agree with that and I think that could be the real reason why I became a vegetarian after assessing meat industry and thinking about ethics, although he didn't.

In its simplest form Pollan and Monbiot understand and agree with the mainstream opinion that we shouldn't take all the fish out of the lake so that there are not left, and then sh1t in the lake. But they don't think there's anything fundamentally wrong with killing one fish.

 

[robert99]

I think you've just about nailed it there.

 

[Jamie in Chile]

Note: rebooting an old thread.

I never did get a response from George Monbiot on this topic.

However this week he has come out with a blog that arguably represents another shift in his position towards a more vegan position, focusing more on ethics than just the environment.

"What will future generations, looking back on our age, see as its monstrosities? We think of slavery, the subjugation of women, judicial torture, the murder of heretics, imperial conquest and genocide, the first world war and the rise of fascism, and ask ourselves how people could have failed to see the horror of what they did. What madness of our times will revolt our descendants?

There are plenty to choose from. But one of them, I believe, will be the mass incarceration of animals, to enable us to eat their flesh or eggs or drink their milk. While we call ourselves animal lovers, and lavish kindness on our dogs and cats, we inflict brutal deprivations on billions of animals that are just as capable of suffering. The hypocrisy is so rank that future generations will marvel at how we could have failed to see it."

The above is spot on.

The article continues to talk more about artifical meat and environmental considerations, but concludes as follows:

"It’s time to abandon the excuses, the fake facts and false comforts. It is time to see our moral choices as our descendants will."

Goodbye – and good riddance – to livestock farming | George Monbiot