Adventist Review Links Vegetarianism and Environment

We certainly do!

That’s how Adventist doctors Peter Landless and Allan Handysides responded to the question, “Do you agree that our dietary practices affect the environment?”

Landless and Handysides went on to give a good (if brief) overview of a few ways that a vegetarian diet profoundly benefits the environment in the May 22 edition of the Adventist Review.

For people who spend time considering the earth’s ecology and how to protect it, the link between vegetarianism and the environment comes as no surprise. There are tons of credible examples available on the web and elsewhere making the connection.

And yet for Seventh-day Adventists, vegetarianism has traditionally been about two things: health and legalism. Adventists have known since the days of the notorious Sanatarium at Battle Creek that a meat-free diet is good for you. The “Health Message” is as Adventisty as the Sabbath.

For others, Vegetarianism had to do with rules. Misconstrued (and perhaps a few not misconstrued) statements by Ellen White led many SDAs to the conclusion that vegetarianism = morality = law keeping = salvation issue. That many Adventists have bucked vegetarianism (no pun intended) is a testimony to the damage such a legalistic view has done to our collective psyche.

But when it comes to ecological reasons for going veg, many Adventists remain clueless. Enter Landless and Handysides in the Review (Adventism’s flagship journal). The article states in part: The consumption of animal flesh foods has a very powerful effect on the environment. Additionally, the use of irrigation and fertilizers and pesticides also has enormous impact on the environment.

“It is calculated that the production of one pound of animal protein costs multiple times more than the production of vegetable protein in resources such as water, land usage, and fertilizer. Individuals switching to vegetarian diets might seem to have little impact, but whole shifts by large populations would have much more effect. Huge industrial-type farms for poultry, pigs, and beef produce massive quantities of concentrated animal waste that are nightmares of sewage disposal. Water utilization in the production of animal food products versus that needed for plant food products is about threefold greater—2,400 versus 800 liters per person.”

The doctors go on to describe the need for personal responsibility when it comes to energy consumption. If their encouragement doesn’t do it, perhaps the cost of fuel will!

They also recommend buying produce from local growers where possible considering the vast amounts of energy required to transport produce to your local grocer from, say, Chile.

They go on to offer this helpful line:

“It is time for concerned study into how we can address these environmental issues, recognizing that our concern has to address the whole slate of our behaviors, not merely diet.”

But then botch it a bit (I feel) with an attempt at exegetical support for environmental concerns:

“The Bible plainly states that the Lord will destroy those who destroy the earth.”

This text (Revelation 11:18) is theologically problematic enough that I plan to deal with it separately in another upcoming blog entry. But for the way that the docs use sketchy biblical support to get there, they make a solid conclusion:

“As Adventists, we can argue individual issues of environmental change, but we need to be strong supporters of environmental protection and depoliticize the issue because it belongs to us all, regardless of our political persuasion or national identity. Surely the earthly future for our children is clouded, and action today impacts their tomorrow.”

Thank you, Adventist Review (and Drs. Landless and Handysides), for this helpful and generally insightful article on not only the environment, not only vegetarianism, but also on the ways that we can live faithfully in anticipation of the new creation!