Re: GRAZE-L digest 165 (fwd)

Andy Richker (lamu@wt.net)
Wed, 18 Dec 1996 17:11:21 -0600

>Andy,
>You stretch things too much to associate animal husbandry with capitalist
>exploitation.. Go to any nomadic cattle herding tribe in Africa (say the
>Fulani in West Africa) and see the care and the devotion given to their
>animals, only to butcher them for a wedding or to meet daily needs. This
>practice is thousands of years old--and predates anyone's conception of
>capitalism. It is not strange. It is daily survival.
On this point I can acknowledge your point. Survival is one thing. I was
not clear in my post in applying it mainly to our cattle raising techniques
of the Developed (I don't necessarily like this description, so if anyone
can recommend a better word please enlighten me) Countries.

However on the same note look at the Masai, as I have travelled extensively
in East Africa, and they consider their cattle a symbol of wealth
(curiously capitalistic) and never consider killing them but they do drain
the blood to mix with milk.

>Live there for a
while and see all of the nutritional diseases that result from a lack of
>protein in their diet. An egg a day could save thousands of children, but
>its too expensive for them to purchase it. Nuts and legumes are a partial
>solution, but not the only one--depending on the local environment. Cattle
>raising converts scrub into protein.

This is an interesting arguement. It is always interesting how we in the
west seem to have all the health answers for the world but have an
extensive list of disease which are only common in our society ie Heart
Disease, Mental Illness Etc... but still the bigger question is what did
they use to have in their diet that supplied this protein and did it
disappear? I think there can be an improvement here but I think it should
be approached from the correct perspective. If they need eggs it seems the
solution would be to get a chicken. This seems simple but maybe it is an
economic problem.

>You have a right to your beliefs, but don't paint everything you disagree
>with the same brush.
Again you are right here. I apologize for the broad generalization.

Andy