"Millions of people are starving to feed animals"

(note: this is posted by Melissa Danielle, the other Sistah Vegan blogger who rarely makes an appearance 😉 This is not by A. Breeze Harper. )

said the 50something-year-old woman soliciting for PETA on the 6 train yesterday.

Yes, a considerable amount of land is being used to produce feed for animal consumption.

But that ain’t why folks are starving and it’s disingenuous to use that as an argument to promote veganism.

The so-called food deserts of US American cities (and rural areas) and food access have nothing to do with how much food is being produced for animal consumption. Policy, redlining, and structural racism, terminator seeds, cash crop subsidies (welfare), commodity crops, monoculture, and Global South subsistence farmers growing for First World consumers (and not themselves) are why people are starving here, and all over the world.

I’m so sick of this nonsense.

In NYC, incentives intended to spur job creation in low-income neighborhoods paved the way for food access inequities, because they went specifically to fast food eateries. Groceries and supermarkets were not included in the zoning. So there’s a fast food or Chinese takeout joint within a five minute walking radius, but not a green grocer or supermarket.

The money being allocated now to improve fresh food access in NYC is geared towards large-scale supermarket chains, and not for the possible development and improvement of independent convenience stores that make up the 7 out of 10 stores in neighborhoods like the one I live in.

She also said that human bodies are not intended to be graveyards for dead animals.

I find that interesting, considering that plants are living things. Is my stomach not a graveyard for kale?

What I most wanted to ask her, but didn’t, was how many trees went into producing the brochure she was handing out and if she was aware of how toxic color ink is to produce?

Oh well.