Costs of a non-vegan world

Happy World Vegan Day!

Every day is vegan day for me, but I would like to use this day to list some economic problems of consuming animal produce.

Some of the first lessons in microeconomics is that under the assumptions of a rational, all-knowing consumer and a market with full competition and no externalities (econ-lingo defined by Wikipedia as “[…]a cost or benefit that is not transmitted through prices and is incurred by a party who was not involved as either a buyer or seller of the goods or services causing the cost or benefit.”, markets will clear efficient(economists like efficiency).

 Externalities can be many things, I am for instance causing a negative externality on the people in the rooms close to me when I play loud music, but on the other hand I cause a positive externality on the people I share kitchen with when I clean the floor.

Those assumptions are all great when you want to understand basic microeconomics, but often we have situations with externalities, monopolies and irrational, not all knowing consumers, and that is where economist would like to interfere (in an optimal way, not causing more damage!) to make the market efficient.

So anyway, to make a long story short, I think that markets might not be working efficient when dealing with world consumption of animal produce, and I want to investigate what is going wrong (just to be clear – even though I am vegan I would like to stay objective so any critique is welcome!).

Here are some of the indirect cost of eating animal products

Health

Many lifestyle diseases could be avoided by eating a plant based diet (shown be research - I shall make references in another post). Several kinds of cancer, heart diseases, obesity, kidney stones and diabetes has been linked to the consumption of animal products and evidence has shown that it is indeed possible to prevent and reverse these diseases by switching to a plant based diet.

Heavy metals, which are very unhealthy to humans, are dissolved in fats. Therefore many poisons up concentrate when passing steps in the food chain – approximately x5-x10. Fertility problems and mutations in fetuses can therefore also be seen as a cost of eating meat. Hormones used to fasten growth of animals seems to affect humans negative as well and diseases such as swineflu develops and causes risks for world wide pandemics - also costs.

• Costs of bad health as result of meat eating: direct cost from medical aide and drugs.

•  Indirect costs: lost working time, loss in joy of life – not fun to be hospitalized, taking drugs, having bad health and dying early. Experience and research also suggest that people have higher energy levels when eating a plat based diet, which would improve their output at work (and at home) – these gains are then foregone when eating a diet with animal products.

• Perhaps also indirect cost: cost of artificial insemination, loss of happiness due to childlessness, increased risk of pandemics.

• Gains: People die faster meaning less expenses in pensions and nursing. A lot of people enjoy eating animal products

Environment

Animal production contributes a lot to the production of greenhouse gasses as well as it consumes a large share of the world’s freshwater. Locally, the high production of manure is hard for the ecosystem and causes genes for people living close to the stables.  

Much more land is needed for the production of energy in the form of animal products that for energy from plants so possibly the deforestation of for instance the Amazonas can be attributed to the production of animal products.

I have listed several of the environmental cost under health, but the costs above should also be taken into consideration.

Equality

Consuming animal products seems to be a general normal good – that is, a higher income seems to make us consume more animal products. The rise in wealth for large countries such as China subsequently raises the demand for animal products and therefore the demand for inputs such as corn and soy. It could be that the raised demand makes the prices for the basic sources of carbohydrate and plant protein go up. These are basic foods for most of the poor part of the world, for which food must be assumed to take a large part of the income. This part of the world will therefore be more vulnerable to malnutrition as well as having harder to pay for school etc. Could consumption of animal products then make the world more unequal?

The food market is of great interest to me and it has many complications - tax barriers, harvest, speculation in futures etc. all have a share in the development of prizes, so it might take a while (!) to get some proper understading of that.

Why do consume so many animal products if the costs are so big? There can be several answers:

-we do not fully grasp the consequences in health and happiness when eating animal products

- we are not able/do not have the political will to proper internalize the costs of animal production in food prizes

-we simply value consuming animal products much higher than the costs above

I will try to dig deeper into the economic facts and solutions of these problems. If you have something to add please write!

By the way, you have probably noticed how I did not talk about animal rights at all – I simply do not know how to account for ethics yet!

Turkish Lentil Soup

I've been abroad twice this year - two weeks in Istanbul this summer and two weeks in Brazil in October. Since Istanbul was the farthest away from Denmark I've ever been this has been quite a year travel wise.
Brazil was a study trip with 29 other students from my study so naturally I couldn't be very choosy about places to eat. Brazil, or at least Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, is in my experince not a very vegan friendly country. The diet contains incredible amounts of meat and dairy - but I somehow managed, though my diet wasn't very healthy.

I was in Istanbul with a friend of mine, and only being two persons made it a lot easier to find something to my taste plus the turkish diet is much more vegan friendly. Of course, at first the waiter will tell you that they can't give you anything without meat, fish, poultry, eggs or milk, but when you ask to the ingredients in a couple of dishes, you'll find out that there's no problem.
The picture on the left is the view from a tiny restaurant on top of a hill on Büyükada ("Big Island") just outside Istanbul. I did not have lentil soup but the food was great and the view over the Asian side of Istanbul was priceless.

Several traditional turkish dishes are vegan, and this lentil soup is very common and can be eaten at all times of the day. The soup seem so simple that you might think that its boring but the last zing from the lemon juice and the red pepper flakes makes it very delicious. On top of that it's super cheap, easy, quick and just as good on the second day. What more can you ask for?
The pictures are still horrible, sorry!

Turkish lentil soup
4 servings
2,5 dl (or 1 cup) red lentils
1 medium sized or 2 small potatoes, peeled and cut into small cubes
1 medium carrot, cubed
½ medium onion, finely chopped
1 liter (or 4 cups) vegetable broth
Oil for frying
Salt to taste (if needed - I didn't need it)
Fresh lemon juice and red pepper flakes

Carefully sauté the onions in a casserole (with room for 1,5-2 liters) - they should not brown. Add carrots and potatoes and let it fry for a few minutes. Add broth and lentils and let it simmer with the lit on for 15-20 minutes, or until the vegetables are  done. Take the soup off the heat and blend it untill the soup is complely fluid. If needed, add some salt, otherwise just serve in a bowl with sprinkles of red pepper and fresh lemon juice with some good bread. Enjoy!

Autumn mushrooms and buckwheat pancakes

This evening two friends came over for dinner. We were all a part of the BASS2012 staff which was an international double bass convention held this summer in Copenhagen. Neither of them play bass or are vegan but they are great company and Melissa brought wine so that made quite a good Tuesday!

For now you'll have to do with the recipe, thoughs on economic problems will follow on Thursday.

I've wanted to copy a mushroom dish my mum made a month ago. She made it with chanterelles and that is probably the best but I think they're out of season, at least at my local grocery store. I've also wanted to make buckwheat pancakes for a while, I like their taste for savory food plus I haven't made pancakes yet on our fantastic new non-stick pans we got at the kitchen I share with 13 other people at my dorm.
People who have shared kitchens in dorms will know that unscratched pans in dorm kitchens are rare!

So anyway, here is the result! You could eat the pancakes or the mushrooms with anything, but I think they are a good match. I served them with avokado, parsley and a green salad.
 

Buckwheat pancakes

3 dl(300 ml) buckwheat flour

2 dl wheat flout

6 dl water

½ tsp baking powder

A pinch of salt

Oil for frying

Mix the dry ingredients in a bowl, and slowly whisk in the water (I make a hole in the center and add the water there, slowly whisking in small circles so I get a minimal amount of flour in all the time to avoid clumps). Then fry the pancakes on a good non-stick pan with as little oil as possible.

It is my experience that vegan pancakes can only be made in non-stick pans. No matter how much oil you add it just keeps sticking on regular pans.

Mushrooms in red wine

500 gr of mushrooms (I used cremini, but chanterelles are fantastic! In that case I’d skip the red wine and add a bit of sherry instead). Clean the mushrooms and chop them roughly.

1 big onion, finely chopped

1 medium sized zucchini, cut in bite size

2 dl cooked beluga lentils (about 2/3 dl uncooked)

100 gr walnuts, roughly chopped

2 dl red wine

2 bay leaves

½ tsp dried thyme

Salt and pepper to taste

 

Take a big pan and sauté the onion in a bit of oil at medium heat. When they start to brown, add the zucchini, sauté until they are starting to brown, and then add the mushrooms.

Let the mushrooms fry for 3-5 minutes and then add the wine, bay leaves and thyme, and simmer for 5-10 mins. Add the cooked lentils and the walnuts and simmer ‘till the taste has blended together but the zucchini and mushrooms still have some bite. Add salt and pepper to taste and serve!

Maybe not the most inspirational picture - must improve food photo skills!

The very first post

Hi all! 

I don’t know who’ll be reading this, maybe my siblings? Anyway, I’ll keep the blog in English since we as far as I am informed do not have any Danish vegan blogs in English. I am planning on writing something on vegan survival in Copenhagen why writing in English might have some advantages…

So, what’s this blog about? I want it to be a place where I can share some recipes, travelling experiences, articles, and hopefully at some point some thoughts on veganism and economics – mostly macroeconomics, I guess. 

I am by the way planning on writing my bachelors project (some sort of minor’s thesis) on either economic consequences of a vegan diet OR something on world food prices (impacts from harvest, speculation, raised demand for animal products from countries such as China and so on), so if you have an idea, bring it on!

About me

I am 23 years old, allergic to milk fat, vegetarian since I was 17, vegan since I was 20. I became vegan because of environmental and health issues but later on the idea of making animals suffer unnecessarily became just as good a reason to become vegan as any other.

I currently study economics at The University of Copenhagen and I LOVE it. It is super interesting and I get new perspectives all the time. I used to study classical double bass at The Royal Danish Academy of Music, I might write something about that later.

Uhm, ok, now for the first goals for the blog:

• Get a proper design!
• Posts on vegan options in Copenhagen – restaurants, cafes, and shops
•  Posts on some of my vegan travel experiences
• The usual vegan blog stuff – recipes!

Since English is my second language, corrections are welcome, as well as comments and input in general!