Lierre Keith was a vegan for twenty years, suffered severe health problems then started researching. She wrote a book about what she discovered, called “The Vegetarian Myth”.
I haven’t read Lierre Keith’s book (only found out about it today) but this television interview is very interesting. Lierre explains how being vegan “becomes who you are” and that vegans close their ears to any evidence put in front of them that doesn’t fit in with the beliefs they’ve adopted. This is of course a classic human trait – denial – something most of us do when we want to continue believing we’ve made the right choices in life, despite mounting evidence to the contrary. When someone comes along with facts pointing out we are wrong, there is a tendency to want to shoot the messenger; especially when we’ve invested a lot of ourselves.
Lierre explains the human body adapted to be dependent on nutrients obtained from meat over millions of years of evolution, and that not eating any meat can have severe health consequences. Of which she can speak from first-hand experience. She is against factory farming and in the 24th minute of the above interview describes cattle grazing on native grasses, in harmony with native animals and birds, as an ideal and permanently sustainable food production environment. Lierre doesn’t know it, but she’s described the average cattle station in northern/inland Australia perfectly.
During the interview the term ‘agriculture’ is used to describe crop growing; and America’s corn industry and relationship with feedlotting features quite a bit. This is quite different to the Australian situation, where feedlotting is relatively new and not a huge part of Australian livestock production. Especially in Australia, (due to limited soil fertility and unreliable rainfall) there are very good reasons for not growing grain specifically to feed to cattle (as distinct from feeding livestock underweight or grain otherwise unsuitable for human consumption for whatever reason, or hay to feed out in times of drought).
What is the same worldwide, however, is that crops are usually grown as monocultures. By necessity, no native flora or fauna can be found existing amongst crops. This is something consistently ignored by those who keep saying meat eating hurts animals whereas eating only plants does not. The latter negatively affects animals, it’s just that most aren’t cute and cuddly domestic species, and they’re killed or displaced indirectly.
Lierre doesn’t mention how crops should be grown – and we do need to grow them. Crops should be done on a rotational basis and amongst belts of preserved native flora – home for native species.
Oddly, permaculture isn’t mentioned at all in the interview though permaculture principles fit in perfectly with what Lierre Keith believes. Permaculture principles are what we all should be aiming to follow as much as possible, for our own survival and that of the environment.
Unsurprisingly, the internet is filled with vitriolic, derisive comments from vegans about Lierre’s book and beliefs. No doubt why her twitter account is dormant.
Tags: Australian meat industry, Conservation and the environment, Australian agriculture, Vegans & Vegos