Another week and Republican state legislators stuck in my craw. Why do they hate plant-based food? In the end, all our food is based on plant life, including beef, hogs, and sheep which all eat plants.

Ty Rushing of Iowa Starting Line reported the following from Republican Rep. Mike Sexton: “If it was up to me, I believe I would outlaw fake meat in the state of Iowa, and I would make it illegal to transport it across the state of Iowa.” Perhaps someone should inform Rep. Sexton many fake meats are made from soybeans, which is a major Iowa crop. Sexton is like the guy in a bar, who two hours after the game finished is telling wait staff clearing tables his opinion about a long past and obscure referee call. Legislators are not serious people when they raise issues like this.

Diners who converted to a plant-based diet sometimes want the home-cooked flavor of a burger like those offered by Morningstar Farms and Beyond Meat. People with common sense know processed food is not particularly good for us. If the choice is eating a fast food meal or going hungry, there is no choice: stave off hunger until we can improve our diet. The traditional wisdom is “all things in moderation.” We should take it easy on processed food.

The point missing in this excerpt from life in late stage Republicanism is we, as a society, should be cutting the size of our livestock herds. In her book Not the End of the World, author Hannah Ritchie explains her beef with beef and other livestock.

Raising cattle is a very resource-intensive way to make food. Cows need a lot of food, water, emit a lot of greenhouse gases, and need a lot of land. When it comes to how much land is needed to produce a kilogram of food, beef and lamb are miles ahead of any other food.

Not the End of the World: How We Can Be the First Generation to Build a Sustainable Planet by Hannah Ritchie.

Globally, we don’t need to use so much land for food production, Ritchie asserts. While not impacting overall food availability, reducing livestock herds could significantly reduce the amount of agricultural production needed to feed everyone on the planet. Take away livestock, and more soy produced as animal feed could be converted to human foodstuffs. We could reduce deforestation and let some land used for livestock grazing revert to forest, grassland or other wilderness. We would all be better for this.

The thing about late stage Republicanism is it is not about logic and common sense. This is about the GOP Culture Wars. I visited our public library last week and there is an entire 30-foot row of shelves containing books about health, diet and cooking in a city of 3,000 people. The culture of food is all around us. When it becomes politicized, like Sexton made it, there are no winners. What? You want me to make my own fake meat burgers? Well fine. They will be better than tolerating the sh*t show Republicans put on every day as their party is grasping at straws. Democrats are on the cusp of something big when drones like Sexton have their say.

If you want to learn about the bigger picture of sustainability, I recommend Hannah Ritchie’s new book, which can be found here. In the meanwhile, the dithering Republicans in the State House haven’t banned your recipe crumbles… yet.