VegNews Book Club

The Summary: Welcome to the end of Week 3 of Mad Cowboy by Howard Lyman! This week, even though our usual Book Club Hostess Lyndsay was out, the conversation was as fast and furious as always. Before she left, Lyndsay posed a couple of tough questions. One, if factory farms had never existed, would there still be a vegan movement, and would everyone participating here still be vegan, and two, will the world's population eventually consume so many resources that it will have to adopt a plant-based lifestyle out of necessity?

As you can see, these are a couple of heavy hitters, and the responses they elicited were just as thought-provoking as the questions themselves. Perhaps the most interesting insight came from an anonymous poster who grew up on a family farm. The commenter noted that even family farms use land, water, and other resources that could easily be used to feed humans directly, and in a more eco-friendly fashion at that. Paul mentioned that everyone can hope for (and work toward) a world without factory farms in efforts to lessen the suffering of animals. And, perhaps most tellingly, everyone said they'd still be vegan, even if factory farms had never existed. Personally, I agree with Nina, who said that she simply no longer considers meat to be food.

As for the world eventually going vegan out of necessity, the comments swayed toward the "yes" side. The UN recently recommended that a worldwide vegan diet might be one of the only changes that can be made that will alleviate both global hunger and the effects of climate change. I'm pretty much all for something that can remedy hunger, climate change, and animal suffering in one fell swoop! Here's hoping you're enjoying the final chapters of Mad Cowboy! Lyndsay will be back on Monday with her latest round of book-based brain teasers from chapters 8 and 9. Happy reading and have a great weekend!