Paying Off a Debt

Several weeks ago, after encouraging my HR department not to give a red cent to the American Diabetes Association until the ADA actually starts standing up for the interests of diabetics rather than those of food and drug companies, I made a promise.  My company was contributing $100 per participating employee to the ADA, and I told the HR department, as well as my blog readers, that I would contribute $100 of my own money to a charity of my choice.

I did not state this plainly, but I wanted the money to go to an organization that would help people consume nutritious, healthful diets.  I thought about this quite a bit, and I have decided that the money will go to Heifer International.  I make a contribution to Heifer every year, so this year I will add $100 to my usual amount.

If you are unfamiliar with Heifer, I encourage you to check out their website to learn more.  The basic principle is that Heifer donates culturally appropriate livestock to extremely needy families throughout the world.

Heifer International stands for a number of principles I admire - gender equity, sustainable development,  humane animal husbandry practices, and the notion that those who have been fortunate should pass their good fortune on.  These are the reasons I give them money every year.  But the reason I have chosen them for my extra $100 is that I believe that high quality animal protein and fat are a key to health.  Skeptics of the low-carb lifestyle often focus on two economic objections to high-protein, high-fat diets - they are expensive, and they are not sustainable.  I will have something detailed to say about both of these objections in the future; for now I will simply reply to the first objection that, just as ignorance is more costly than education, so too is ill health more costly than healthy food.  To the second objection, which is usually grounded in a single well-meaning but misguided book called Diet for a Small Planet, I freely admit that I agree that it is truly moronic to grow soybeans and corn to feed to cattle, especially if we rip up grassland to plant these crops.  However, grass grows well, without chemical inputs or much water, in soils that need to be irrigated and fertilized to produce food fit for humans.  And cows are geniuses, smarter than any human scientist, at turning grass, which is unfit for human consumption, into nourishing protein and fat, while leaving behind excellent organic fertilizers that help grow more grass.  Much of the earth is better suited to grazing than to growing crops.  Indeed, the authors of Nourishing Traditions estimate that three-quarters of the land in China is unsuited to raising crops, but a large portion of the same land is utterly suitable for grazing.

More to the point, though, if one is convinced, as I become convinced over the last five years, that animal protein is a vital component of the human diet, it seems to me beside the point that we can, theoretically, feed more people on soybeans than on beef.  We may keep the poor alive in the short term, but what are the long term consequences?  Do not the poor deserve the same healthy foods that the rich have access to?  Anything else is classism.