Being Vegetarian – Claire Schoeller

It is confronting to admit to being a vegetarian as being vegetarian is still controversial and for many people it is ‘out there’ and weird.

My commitment to vegetarianism began at university several decades ago, when I read three Craccum articles based on the book Diet for a Small Planet.

The three reasons for being a vegetarian that these articles contained have not changed – they are: first and the most important – Sustainability which means eating in a way that supports a small planet; second Animal Welfare and third your good Health.

Sustainability – how to produce enough nutritious food for a small planet with a growing population without warming and decimating oceans and destroying all the forests that are needed to keep our air clean and needed to provide habitats for all the world’s animal populations.

It is a fact that growing crops of vegetables and grains and beans to feed people is a very much more efficient use of farming acreage than growing crops to feed animals. In 2016 in New Zealand all fruit and veggies – everything we exported and everything NZ grew for its five population to eat was produced on less than 1 per cent of our land mass. http://archive.stats.govt.nz

Against that, 41 per cent of New Zealand’s total land mass is used to support the production of cows sheep and dairy.

The grass, lucerne hay, silage and maize silage grown in 2016 to make feed for beef and sheep covered 843 thousand hectares of land. (Beeflambnz.com)

NZ was self-sufficient in wheat until the end of the 1980’s when government control of the Wheat Board ended. Now most of the wheat grown in NZ goes to feed chickens and cows.

An arable farmer in south Canterbury sends 93 per cent of his harvest to animal feed and specifically chicken farming.

7 percent of the wheat grown in New Zealand is used for some of the local bread and related products (Stuff .co.nz) but the rest of our wheat for this comes from Australia.

Two hectares of lentils will feed six people for a year with no need for nitrogen or water. Whereas one 250kilo cow that needs two hectares to live on and will feed 1.4 people for a year plus requiring 50kilos of nitrogen and two hectares of 30cm deep water to be applied to the land.

The world’s beef and sheep production contributes 30 percent of the methane that is a major contributor to global warming. (Washington Post 26 August 2024).

And there appears to be a biblical reason for questioning our appetite for meat:

As Genesis chapter 1 verse 29 says God said see I have given you every plant yielding seed that is upon the face of all the earth and every tree with seed in its fruit ; you shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the air and to everything that creeps on the earth , everything that has breath of life, I have given every green plant for food ‘ and it was so.

Animal Husbandry can be cruel Grain fed beef has appeared in our shops. It is the result of the practice of grain feeding beef cattle before they are sent to the abbatoir. The cattle are fed only grain. They cannot digest the grain feed very well as they are ruminants. Apparently, the rumen can become acidic and the animal can suffer bloating, fever, diarrhea, and lethargy. Without indigestion remedies, death can occur within 24 hours of the initial grain ingestion.

The take away from this is that if you are going to keep eating beef, make sure it is grass fed. Country Calendar was the source of this information.

Research into modifying a bovine stomach to produce less methane featured in an article on 26 August in the Washington Post. Scientific research is occurring in California around the possibility of genetically modifying a bovine stomach to stop it producing methane because beef and sheep animals and dairy animals produce 30 percent of that powerful greenhouse gas – methane- that causes a third of gases causing global warming. The research would potentially wipe out the world’s largest human-made source of methane and change the trajectory of planetary warming. But what about the well-being of the animals? And those verses from Genesis?

In NZ our scientists are working on Genetic Modification of ryegrass for reducing the production of methane gas from cows and cattle.

The demand for animal protein is being met by raising chickens for the mass market in a way that has become industrial, a factory production line situation. There are farms with huge sheds housing thousands of chickens in temperature controlled, light controlled, food controlled conditions. But no cages. However these chickens do not grow proper feathers, they never go outside nor do they walk around because basically their breast meat has got so heavy they can barely stand.

If the chickens that die have an infection, antibiotics are administered in the next feed of Canterbury grown wheat.

The chickens go to be killed and processed when they are six weeks old.

Be aware that the one truly free range brand – Bostocks, have recently been bought by Inghams Chicken who promise to keep producing chicken to the Bostock’s standard. We will watch this space.

Fish – fish are biblically sound, it would seem, as we often read that Jesus and His disciples went fishing and it seems Jesus a number of times made a fire on the beach and cooked fish for them. And certainly he fed the 5,000 with two fish and five loaves of bread. To my mind this seems underline that fish is a scarce and precious food.

Fish from the sea is a sort of Kiwi right and expectation and these days fish has much touted dietary benefits and fishing vessels from all over the world want to come here to fish.

We read of the destruction of the side catch ie special creatures like albatross and dolphins and the immense damage that trawling does to marine environments and the decimation of fish stocks due to over fishing and seabed damage.

Now the warming of the oceans due to climate change is threatening not only fish but algae – one of the foundations of the food chain.

Finally Good Health is another reason that I am grateful for my long ago decision to be vegetarian.

In August 2024 a study from Cambridge University highlighted an association between developing type two diabetes and eating processed meat like ham and bacon and salami and also red meat from beef and sheep.

Red meat consumption also has been linked in this and many previous studies to increase the risk of high blood pressure and heart disease, some cancers, loss of bone strength and even respiratory illness.

A study of a large group of people over a 20 year period showed that lacto-ovo vegetarians lost 18 per cent of their bone minerals in that time whereas the omnivorous group in the study lost 35 per cent and this was attributed to meat consumption.

We may have heard about people who live in Blue zones where people tend to live healthy lives for longer and they eat predominantly vegetables and beans with very little animal based food not even fish. Their diet has demonstrably led them to live generally healthier longer lives and staying out of the health system for diseases like cancer, diabetes and heart disease. Their diet (and mine) includes butter beans, soybeans, black beans, chickpeas, lentils and products like tofu made from soy beans and more recently products made from pea protein or mushroom protein all of which have reassuringly high levels of protein, plus lots of vegetables and grains.

Blue zoners eat nuts – almonds, brazils, hazels and walnuts etc that are full of protein. And at the most basic – peanut butter which is high in protein and when eaten on a high protein bread can add several grams (10-12) to your daily protein.

People often cite insufficient protein as a reason to keep eating meat.

In fact the British Heart Foundation website suggests that most adults need 0.75 grams of protein per kilo of weight a day. In the UK this is on average 45 grams for women and 55 grams for men.

So why does anyone need to eat 250 grms of steak at dinner? I leave it to Proverbs 23:20-21 that says “Be not among drunkards or among gluttonous eaters of meat, for the drunkard and the glutton will come to poverty, and slumber will clothe them with rags” Is this a warning that our world cannot afford to sustain our over-consumption?

I suggest you read the nutrition labels on manufactured food and look for higher protein levels and low sugar and low salt content as a rule of thumb.

I hope this gives us reason to think about the ethics of our modern cuisine and the price that our planet, our animals, our health and even our wallets are required to pay to eat so much meat.

To start a journey to vegetarianism begin slowly – maybe cut your meat portion sizes first and add some bean salad to your plate if you need to.

Then second try a meatless day once a week and make something inspired by another country’s cuisine like dahl or eggplant parmigiana or an Asian stirfry (very fast and only one wok to wash). –

Vegetarian food will leave you with time to go for a walk after dinner.