Vegetarian Star

Dan Barber, executive chef and co-owner of NY’s touted as sustainable Blue Hill restaurant, has written a piece for the Wall Street Journal, criticizing vegetarians and vegans who automatically presume their diets are more environmentally conscious.

“I’d like some to explain the phenomenon of the self-righteous vegetarian to me,” Barber wrote.

“I’m not here to say I don’t eat vegetables—I do, a lot of them—but, from a soil perspective, they’re actually more costly than a cow grazing on grass. Vegetables deplete soil. They’re extractive. If soil has a bank account, vegetables make the largest withdrawals. So without animal manure, where are you going to get your soil fertility for all those vegetables in an organic system? You are, by some measures, forcing crops into a kind of imbalance.”

It’s generally been accepted that grains, legumes and vegetable take less energy to produce. And most believe a carrot doesn’t cry out in pain, so the same welfare issues that apply to animals don’t exist. But Barber does make an important point about the intensive energy that goes into processed vegetarian foods.

It’s good that he admits to not being an “environmentalist, or a doctor, or a nutritionist” or a “community activist” or an “evangelist” because even a flexitarian who’s not willing to give up meat is unlikely to agree with him that harvesting vegetables is, “more costly than a cow grazing on grass.”

And while animal waste is sometimes useful in restoring the balance of the ecosystem, in the case of farming, it’s often associated with the pollution of drinking water and bad air quality. And farmers can use plant-based fertilizer alternatives.

Do most vegetarians think the diet is “the kind you can actually feel a little smug about?” Probably not. But most are probably informed enough to know that each meal they consume is generally less harmful to animals and the environment that it warrants occasional bragging rights.

More at Wall Street Journal.

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