Drop that hamburger & come out with your mind open!

We’re hearing it more and more often: “Plant-based meat products are not only less harmful to the climate but also better for our health.”  When that claim comes from the founder and CEO of “Beyond Meat,” we want to know more.  

A vegetarian since high school, Ethan Brown started Beyond Meat in 2009 and took the company public 10 years later -- an arc that coincides with the soaring growth rate of plant-based meat.  His company produces burgers, sausages and more for supermarkets and fast-food outlets like McDonald’s.

Beyond more predictable reasons for plant-based meat, Brown “would rather not be responsible for the deaths of animals,” according to a full-page profile of him in the NYTimes business section last month.  

The article includes a series of Q&As that should put many pro-animal meat arguments to rest: everyone else eats meat so why shouldn’t humans; how is a Beyond Burger healthier for me than a hamburger; is Beyond Meat’s meat loaded with chemicals; how does Beyond Meat differ from Impossible Foods; how do you reconcile your emphasis on health with your partnerships with fast-food partnerships . . .  . ?

An accompanying graphic shows how Beyond Meat's footprint is smaller than that of a quarter-pound beef burger.  For instance, Brown’s product is responsible for 90% less greenhouse gas emissions and uses 46% less energy.    https://tinyurl.com/3b5r36b7

Poor butterfly

A sad sight from earlier this month: As I stood outside, a single monarch butterfly fluttered by me, flying in slow, low swoops down the street, as if looking for something.  Had the insect fallen far behind in the mass migration (if there was  one)?  Was s/he hoping to come upon a long-lived milkweed plant?    

I soon lost sight of the orange beauty, and felt sad because I couldn’t help. Our milkweed bush had long since given up, after attracting too few butterflies.  I wondered how far this one would get, without nourishment and with predators all around.

Monarch 

Then yesterday, I saw Margaret Renkl’s column, this time about “a troubling summer in the yard,” including the dearth of butterflies there in Tennessee, where she lives.  It’s not a happy picture, even though Renkl tries hard to make the most of it.     https://tinyurl.com/5cw39tbm

Bruce the handybird

Online animal sites often run stories about how people help animals walk or fly again after injury,  overcome fear or shyness, and even search for food.  

But Bruce, a New Zealand kea (parrot) with a broken beak, said in effect, “I’d rather do it myself,” and proceeded to devise a new way to preen his feathers.   

Rather than beak surgery that would allow him to perform the necessary feather job, Bruce has chosen to comb himself with the point of a pebble between his tongue and lower beak.  His system effectively rids him of parasites and dirt.

Kea bird

All it takes is careful selection of the right size pebble, then getting to work.  No surgery needed.  The researcher who studied and wrote about Bruce said he doesn’t need a prosthesis – he has his own.  

https://tinyurl.com/54j29wfk 

 

#

 

Your comments are welcome at 1moreonce.blogspot.com.