Ted Slanker Says John Robbins Is a Nut Case

For those of you unfamiliar with the world of vegetarians, John Robbins was heir to the Baskin-Robbins ice cream fortune.  He turned down the inheritance to pursue a life promoting veganism as the dietary solution to poor health and ecological disruption.  His book Diet For A New America, and film by the same name, has inspired many to adopt vegetarian or vegan diets, ostensibly to save themselves from chronic disease and "save the earth" from catastrophes that Robbins claims will occur as a result of our consuming land animal foods.   He created an organization called "EarthSave" which has the mission of promoting vegan dieting for health and supposed environmental benefits. 

Robbins wrote a blog post entitled "What About Grass-Fed Beef?"  in which he outlines why he won't eat or recommend grass-fed beef.    The post starts with these paragraphs:

Feeding grain to cattle has got to be one of the dumbest ideas in the history of western civilization.

Cows, sheep, and other grazing animals are endowed with the ability to convert grasses, which those of us who possess only one stomach cannot digest, into food that we can digest. They can do this because they are ruminants, which is to say that they possess a rumen, a 45 or so gallon (in the case of cows) fermentation tank in which resident bacteria convert cellulose into protein and fats.

Traditionally, all beef was grassfed beef, but in the United States today what is commercially available is almost all feedlot beef. The reason? It’s faster, and so more profitable.

Seventy-five years ago, steers were 4 or 5 years old at slaughter. Today, they are 14 or 16 months. You can’t take a beef calf from a birth weight of 80 pounds to 1,200 pounds in a little more than a year on grass. It takes enormous quantities of corn, protein supplements, antibiotics and other drugs, including growth hormones.

Ted Slanker, a rancher who raises grass-finished cattle, got wind of Robbins's post and published a response entitled "John Robbins is a Nut Case."   Slanker's post starts like this:
  

Recently a first-page Google search for “grass fed beef” provided a listing for a John Robbins blog.  Obviously, a lot of folks are reading his blog and for sure it directly impacts us.  One might assume his comments would be a good thing for grass-fed beef, ranchers and farmers, and the American consumer.  But, hold on there partner, that is not the case.  John’s commentary slides around between facts, myths, religious beliefs, and outright distortions.  So, unless one really knows something about nutrition, ranching, grass-fed meat, the conventional food industry, and such, they would be inclined to think John Robbins’ blog is good information.  Since that is not the case, I have responded. 

Some weeks ago I tried to leave a response on the John Robbins blog, but I cannot find its posting.  So, since I have my own forum (one of the good things about the Internet) I am going to post one of my typical straight-talk essays right here where he can’t edit me out of the picture (assuming he did). 

My response may offend many who want to believe the worst about American agriculture and the American food industry.  But those folks are beyond being idiotic because all they do is sit around and complain through their mouthful of food.  And they are so lazy they want to blame American agriculture and the American food industry for their chronic diseases instead of taking measures into their own hands by educating themselves and changing the foods they eat.  Anyone wanting to do just that, can do it.  Therefore I’ll address both parties: the nut case John Robbins and the misguided members of the American mob.

 

Slanker is a grass-rancher but he nevertheless defends grain-feeding of cattle against what he sees as sentimental misconceptions promoted by Robbins and other veg*ns.  I of course agree with Slanker.  For example, I liked these passages in Slanker's post:

John complains that ranchers "make them eat grain, primarily corn, in order to make them as fat as possible."  Then on the other hand he recommends that people eat whole grains for health?!?!  He is so out of touch that he doesn't understand that the feeding of grain to people causes obesity in people just like it does cattle. 

 Robbins wrote:  "The cruelties of modern factory farming are so severe that you don't have to be a vegetarian or an animal rights activist to find the conditions to be intolerable, and a violation of the human-animal bond."  Slanker responds:

Statements like this are designed to inflame the ignorant masses.  I would rather keep animals in their natural environment.  But in actual fact, animals in confinement are like people on welfare.  Everything is provided, they love the feed, they are protected from the cruel world, and they get to visit with their buddies.  Compare feedlots to cities where people live in high densities such as New York City with it's 26,403 people per square mile (41.25 people per acre and an acre is only 208 feet by 208 feet).

Furthermore, the idea that people who depend on the animals they raise for their livelihood routinely mistreat their charges is idiotic nonsense.  Yes, you will always be able to find stupid people doing stupid things (like John promoting a vegetarian existence) but that doesn't mean the idiots are the norm.

 In response to Robbins' claim that we don't have enough grass-land to raise the number of cattle we currently raise on corn, Ted says:

Unbeknownst to John it is estimated that the original buffalo herd numbered up to as high as 70 million head.  They ranged from the Rocky Mountains to the Mississippi River and from West Texas into Canada.  In that same area today there are about 60.35 million head of cattle.  In total area the buffalo range was comparable to about one-third of the continental United States.  If most of the land used for grain (the seed of a grass plant) production here in the United States was instead grazed for its forage, the nation's cattle herd could probably be doubled or tripled or more.

You get the gist. I like Ted's cut-to-the-chase writing style and he links to sources for his facts, unlike Robbins.  Let me know what you think.