Last night, at Matt Yglesias's book party, I was chatting to a couple of friends about my recent conversion to an animal-free lifestyle. The one thing I didn't expect was that it actually reduced the amount of time I spend thinking about food. This surprised the hell out of them, and it also surprised the hell out of me, so I thought it was worth mentioning.
If you are a woman who grew up in the eating disorder culture of Manhattan (and I assume many other places), you never really get over a certain obsession with what you eat. With time and a certain amount of determination, you learn to stop berating yourself for eating fattening, unhealthy food, and hopefully you unlearn the grotesque habit of turning everything you've eaten for the last week, and everything you plan to eat for the next one, into a major conversational topic. Nonetheless, there's still a little voice in the back of your head that speaks every time you open your mouth to put food in it, saying "Should you really eat that?" Mostly, I learned to tell it to shut up. But it was there, just the same.
That question has pretty much vanished from my mind. It's not that everything I eat is healthy--I breakfast much too frequently on ice cream sandwiches or plain white bread. But while it's pretty easy to miss key nutrients, it's pretty hard to actually eat an artery-clogging diet. And there are plenty of vitamin supplements for the nutrients.
If you care about animal welfare, it similarly removes that vexing question: "Where did this come from?" Everything I eat, I eat in good conscience. (And yes, I'm aware that rats die in fields of grain, etc. I'm all about harm minimization, not absolute purity; I wouldn't hurl myself in front of a moving train to save a rat either.)
The result is that I actually spend less time worrying about what I eat, even though I spend somewhat more time figuring out where to find food I can eat. The hedonic tradeoff is, surprisingly, on the side of veganism.
What's with the random, but frequent public service announcements on vegetarianism?
The Sonic Pulse toothbrush is also pretty wonderful and leaves your teeth feeling nice and clean, just like they are when the dentist cleans them (minus the "metallic" fluoride taste). But it's not like I'd expect a bi-monthly post on it.
Ya I know, no one's forcing me to read this...just wondering.
Hm. My vegetarian girlfriend worries about everything she eats.
That doesn't sound particularly hedonistic... it sounds more like you've become less interested in hedonism. That's probably a good thing, though, but not going to convert anyone who really, really loves meat.
One of my side themes is food blogging, that's all. Plus, I thought this was interesting. The longer I'm a vegan, the less I'll find to say about it.
I'm going to have to disagree -- ice-cream sandwiches and white bread are inflammatory and potentially artery-clogging as well (in fact, I suspect that a spoonful of straight lard would be better for you than a piece of white bread), and vitamin supplements can't totally make up for what's missing in the diet (which is why several studies have found that vitamins don't make much difference).
I'd like to hear a bit more about that vegan ice cream sandwich. Is the milk fat replaced with soy somethingorother?
Of course, if a vegan just ate vegetables, nuts, and fruit (probably in that order), I could see it being a healthy diet, although I'd wonder about whether one is getting enough of the right kind of protein as well as B12. But white bread? The body needs protein and fat much more than it needs something that's the nutritional equivalent of cardboard. :)
The body needs protein and fat much more than it needs something that's the nutritional equivalent of cardboard.
I deplore the implicit cardboard bashing.
How much of what "we all know" about diet is mere superstition or junk science? Any "science" that doesn't rely on controlled experiments is terribly exposed to error.
I don't think my trim, omnivorous wife has ever berated herself for eating anything. Sounds like a problem that has little to with one's choice of diet.
Megan,
Do you find it difficult to eat at restaurants?
They're tofu based. And actually quite delicious: Tofutti Cuties. I recommend the chocolate.
Not to get too deeply into my dietary problems, but I have a rather delicate stomach, and a requirement to take morning medicine that upsets it. If I ate milk, I'd have yogurt, but since I don't, I substitute simple carbs. Anything the least bit hard to digest tends to make me sick. By mid-day, I'm digging into the tofu, nuts, and lentils.
Freddiemac: not as hard as you think. You can usually cobble together a vegan salad, and french fries are almost always vegan (though not, sadly, at McDonalds). Every convenience store and gas station carries nuts when you feel low on protein.
The hardest part is really travelling; you end up eating a hell of a lot of grilled vegetables. Luckily, I like grilled vegetables. But best to stick some soy crisps and trail mix in the suitcase.
I'm just wondering: Have you gained any weight since you went vegetarian?
Nah, lost about ten pounds, but I've had confounding medical problems, so it's hard to tell what the cause is.
But I wouldn't try veganism as a weight-loss strategy. It's a hell of a major change to make just a lose a few pounds, and if you were doing it as a diet, you probably wouldn't stick to it any longer than Atkins. Plus you *can* eat crap on a vegan diet if you want to; I just have a limited capacity for dessert and chips.
...hopefully you unlearn the grotesque habit of turning everything you've eaten for the last week, and everything you plan to eat for the next one, into a major conversational topic.
Still a bit of unlearning to do...
You can usually cobble together a vegan salad, and french fries are almost always vegan (though not, sadly, at McDonalds).
Unfortunately, this standard for "containing meat derived ingredients" outlaws the entire cuisine of Thailand. Unless, like my SF vegan friends, you for some reason believe that Thai people consider Fish Sauce non-vegetarian and somehow remove it from meals when they perceive that you are a vegetarian.
But the amount of "animal" in both McDonalds fries and an order of Pad Thai are, in comparison to the dish they are being used to *flavor*, infintesimal. It's a ratio issue for me, and "meat flavoring" is on the borderline for me in a way that, for example, soup stock is not. Stock has a much larger (perceptible, think chicken stock) proportion of animal material than McDonalds fries or Pad Thai.
There seems to be a lot of FUD about McDonalds using "beef tallow" in their French Fries (http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070407013726AAyxvpO etc) but this conflates a real fact and a technical one. Yes, there is a tiny amount of "beef flavoring" on the fries. Yes, the "beef flavoring" derives from animal fats. No, this does not mean the fries are "cooked with beef tallow," as McDonalds hasn't cooked their fries that way for almost 20 years.
IMO, if you are a religious or purist-ideological vegan the amount of beef in McDonald's french fries is relevant. If you aren't, it probably isn't. Apply the one-drop rule and sooner or later you're going to start asking if they use the same fryolater for the french fries and the chicken sandwich at every restaurant... this way lies madness! If McDonalds fries taste good to you (they do to me!) and they don't make you sick, and it makes you sad not to eat them.. I say eat them!
Of course, I'm only a vegetarian, so grains of herb salt all around. :)
=darwin
Actually, for some reason, they also contain whey--okay for thee but not for me. I don't super-stress, and if I have no access to other food I'll eat them. But if they were vegan, I'd eat them all the time.
Look, the subject is not one I bring up, but it either is ethical to kill animals, or have them killed, strictly to provide oneself with comfort, or it is not. If it is, then there is no ethical difference between having a cow killed to taste it, or having a bird killed to obtain the lumber which went into making your bed. Conversely, if it isn't ethical to have animals killed strictly to provide one with pleasure, then the furniture and a good chunk of the living space most people use has to go, along with the steaks, if one is to be ethical. You don't get any credit for conciously deciding to only cheat on your spouse when he or she is out of town, and you don't get any credit for giving up the killing of animals to provide pleasure only when you are forgoing something you find it to be not too unpleasant to forgo.
But while it's pretty easy to miss key nutrients, it's pretty hard to actually eat an artery-clogging diet.
If you buy into the PCRM/Ornish propaganda, I guess. But when it comes to promoting good health and preventing obesity, I'd rather take my chances with meat than with white bread and ice cream sandwiches.
Wow, I've been an (non-prosletyzing, ethical/environmental, not health/religion) yuppie vegan for 12 years and never thought of that aspect. Or maybe I forgot about it. All these arguments above on "the level"/this way lies madness of veganism make me (us?) yawn. Heard that lots of times.
Vegans I know of do what they're comfortable with, and don't acknowledge any external standard which must be met.
And you could extend that hedonic tradeoff into almost any other area. I bet you enjoy food more now too.
It's always good to resolve cognitive dissonance.
Darwin, there's a Thai restaurant here in Portland, ME (Pom's Thai) where they explicitly state in the menu that their "vegetarian" stuff has no fish sauce. An alternative is to tell your vegetarian acquaintances that "fish sauce" is like "duck sauce": Just a name, y'know! They never seem to fall for it, though.
You can make your own Thai curries without fish sauce anyhow. Cooking for my veg. girlfriend, I've found that green curry sans fish sauce, with tofu and a fat dose of fried onion and garlic and fresh lime juice, is actually quite tasty — and I'm a carnivore. It's different, but it eats pretty good. The only trouble is the tofu soaks up the sauce, which chicken doesn't do. The trick with vegetarian cooking, I think, is not to try to clone meat dishes using fake meat, but to respect the protein you got for its own qualities.
However, meatlessness is not at all simple when you've got a carnivore and a vegetarian eating together. It gets downright halachic: My side of the grill for meat burgers, hers for veggie burgers, two spatulas, two everything. One cheese grater for cheese with rennet, one for without; or else grate her cheese first, or wash the grater in between. It's a PITA.
Another term in the hedonic equation is the fact that vegetarian food rarely gets any better than "good enough". Rennetless cheese is generally mediocre (mozzarella's an exception) — at least what's available in remote settlements in the Great North Woods. Go vegan and cut out cheese entirely, and you can't even eat a pizza any more. I mean, lentils? Dear God! It'll sustain life, but that's about it.
But I've never been a woman from Manhattan. If the eating-disorder culture there is so out of control that you can gain a net hedonic advantage by giving up raw salmon and duck foie gras to escape from it, that's just horrifying.
In favor of vegetables, you never need the kind of biohazard safeguards that you do with, say, preparing raw poultry.
If you are a woman who grew up in the eating disorder culture of Manhattan (and I assume many other places), you never really get over a certain obsession with what you eat.
And that's it right there.
If you are a Secret Asian Man who grew up in a middle-class Secret Asian Family, you'll eat anything smaller, slower, or stupider than you.
"The eating disorder culture of Manhattan". Um, I guess if you'd been a poor Dominican gal in Washington Heights or a Chinese woman on Division St. you would've been spared this horror.
First that (a "disorder culture"), then the Jefferson Memorial oppression.
Geesh, life sure can be brutal.
(On the plus side, no one's called you a "lipstick libertatian" of late. There may be hope for humanity yet.)
Isn't this "hidden benefit" essentially a function of having removed pleasure from eating? If I wore a uniform (or camo, or a Mao suit) every day, I suspect I wouldn't think much about clothes.
"The hedonic tradeoff is, surprisingly, on the side of veganism."
The hedonic tradeoff is in the eye of the beholder. Or maybe the belly of the eater...no wait ... in the mind's eye of the...
I like thinking about food.
As long as you recognize that veganism is an affectation unmoored from healthy eating habits, that necessitates consumption of vitamin supplements -- and it sounds like you do -- then, hey, have fun with whatever works for you.
Just means that there'll be more steak for the rest of us. :)
Just a few comments, based on my many years of experience as a strict vegetarian (40) and a health-food expert.
For starters, being 'vegan' is a meaningless term. The health benefits of giving up organic milk and honey--not to mention unfertilized organic eggs--are non-existent and appeal only to the same obsessive-compulsives who acquire eating disorders in the first place. The above are 'victimless' food sources and deprive no animal of life or nutrition so long as the animals are range-fed. Without such husbandry, they would become extinct. So by all means use certified organic butter, milk, eggs, and honey in your meals--and especially desserts--and you will miss little from the 'meatworld.' Bear in mind too that the mere act of giving up meat (and cane sugar if you can) will stabilize your weight--I never 'watch what I eat', and I weigh exactly the same as I did 40 years ago as a teenager.
Here are a few other myths to be aware of: bottled water is bad for you. it isn't, unless it's on the shelf for more than a few months. The 'purest' water you can get commercially is distilled natural spring water. Avoiding tap water will reduce your risk of cancer by 50% over a lifetime.
'Natural sugar' is good for you. It isn't. It's better than oldfashioned refined sugar, which used animal bone ash and other toxins in its processing, but it has zero nutritonal value compared to honey or maple syrup.
Chocolate is good for you. It isn't. Especially the quantities that modern people eat. For your health's sake it should be avoided or cut with carob, which is extremely good for you.
Caffeine is bad for you. It isn't. Coffee, however, can be, especially in excess.
There are many more myths about lifelong vegetarianism. While it's true than you can replace meat proteins and steroids from other sources, you will definitely discover as the years go by that you become intolerant to alcohol and lactose (enjoy them while you can!) and that your youthful flat belly will never quite be the same again (veggies and grains are gassy, sorry). You will have less energy than your carnivore friends, and you will smell all kinds of gross things on their breath. So dating can suck. It's a lifestyle choice as profound as becoming a vampire--and not to be taken lightly. Oh, and after about 20 years you start to lose the enzymes that break meat down, so there's no going back at my age, unless you're into bulemia.
Good luck!
I'm pretty sure it would be the reverse for me--If I became a vegan, i think I'd pretty much constantly be worrying about whether I was eating enough protein, whether my meals were combining items properly to make a complete protein, etc.
"The above are 'victimless' food sources and deprive no animal of life or nutrition so long as the animals are range-fed."
Obtaining foods from these animals does, however, prevent the animals from living a natural life. Cows and bees function in that way to feed their young. not humans. Chickens lay eggs to house their undeveloped chicks, Not feed humans. Filling human bellies was not the original and natural purpose for a cows milk.
I loose hair from my head sometimes. If I was taken from my natural environment and forced to give that hair (however pain free and well fed I was) to another species just because they liked it, I wouldn't be happy.
But white bread? The body needs protein and fat much more than it needs something that's the nutritional equivalent of cardboard.
Speaking as someone with a great fondness for chewing through cardboard, especially if other edibles or nesting materials can be found within, I take great exception to this. Cardboard, unlike white bread, contains actual dietary fiber.
If I was taken from my natural environment and forced to give that hair (however pain free and well fed I was) to another species just because they liked it, I wouldn't be happy.
If you were a chicken, your vantagepoint might be a bit more limited. For example, if someone kept refilling a food dish for you and put up a fence capable of repelling foxes, weasels, and skunks, it might be pretty close to chicken heaven.
Nah, lost about ten pounds, but I've had confounding medical problems, so it's hard to tell what the cause is.
Good thing you deserve health insurance. Unlike all those deadbeat losers whose employers won't provide it for them.
Megan, having a "delicate" stomach has everything to do with an imbalance in the healthy bacteria in your intestines coupled with your unhealthy addiction to simple carbs (white bread/ice cream) for breakfast and a growing case of insulin resistance.
Start taking a pro-biotic/acidophilous supplement before breakfast and you can restore the balance of healthy flora in your gut that will literally cure your "delicate stomach."
Second of all, your assumptions that animal based foods clog your arteries are all politically correct lies fostered by big agricultural corporations that wanted to expand the market for vegetable oils and industrial mass produced soy beans.
Check these following links out:
Diet & Fat: A Severe Case of Mistaken Consensus
What If It's All Been a Big, Fat Lie?
The real key to dietary health is the ratio of fatty acids in your diet. The typical American diet has far too much Omega-6 fatty acids and not enough Omega-3.
The standard American Vegan/Vegetarian diet is founded on so many myths - and the biggest thing is that most Vegans think nothing of eating the unhealthy oils and sugars, and an absolutely unhealthy ratio of Omega 6 and Omega 3 fatty acids. And this imbalance is the cause of so much health problems suffered today.
The Queen of Fats: An Author’s Quest to Restore Omega-3 to the Western Diet
Vegan's also believe the absolute LIE that Soy Beans are a healthy source of protein...
The Truth about Soy
Finally, understand that the natural human condition is predicated on an Omnivorous diet. We were created/or evolved (whatever you choose to believe) to digest animal protein. That is why we have incisors in our dentistry and why our stomach's produce hydrochloric acid. We do NOT have the diet physiology of herbivores.
The real key here is understanding just how corrupted our national food supply has become. Ruminants were designed to eat grass. We put them in feed lots and feed them corn, soy and other grains. But you can buy free-range, organic, grass fed beef, which is rich in Omega 3 fatty acids and CLA...as well as other essential nutrients like carnotine and vitamins like B12. These are all vital nutrients that are severely deficient in our feedlot/fast food/cheap food paradigm cattle.
Militant vegetarians will argue that meat is bad for you. The truth is that meat raised badly is bad for you...meat raised naturally as they were intended to, is true "health" food, as well as being truly humane.
The true problem is that factory industrialization to leverage economies of scale produce cheap meats pumped full of chemicals and preservatives to allow them to be shipped nationwide all sacrifice nutritional quality for profit.
I eat meat daily...but I do care about animal mistreatment and suffering caused by the mass production methods of US agriculture...which is why I pay double what the average shopper pays for meat - because free range, grass fed beef costs 7-8 dollars a pound here in Hawaii.
Anyhow, vegetarians eat too much grain, usually bad oils, too much Omega-6 fatty acids and not enough Omega 3...and usually a severely deficient in proteins and healthy fats.
Whether meat tastes good (as it obviously does to many) is pretty well irrelevant to the moral argument. First, what tastes good to us is largely a matter of what we're used to. But more importantly, if subjecting others to serious harm (suffering and/or death) is something to avoid where possible, then the fact that one would find it inconvenient to give up meat cuts no ice. It's what you'd say to a cannibal: "I don't care what they taste like. Stop eating them."
Of course, one can avoid the injunction to give up meat by denying that non-human animals are "others" in the relevant sense. The corollary, however, is that one is then logically committed (absent a great deal of intricate and dubious argumentative gymnastics) to endorsing eating mentally handicapped orphans or grinding up the unwanted senile elderly for dog food.
And what, really, would be wrong with that? After all, it's a jungle out there. And just look at these great, big, sharp teeth we have. We didn't claw our way to the top of the food chain just to eat tofu.
Whether meat tastes good (as it obviously does to many) is pretty well irrelevant to the moral argument. First, what tastes good to us is largely a matter of what we're used to.
Actually, meat tastes good because it provides nutrition the body needs, nutrition that is hard to get from vegetables, grains and fruits...namely fatty acids and protein.
Eating meat is not an act of cruelty. The industrial/factory farming methods to mass produce meat is. Vegans/Vegetarians point to the obvious cruelty of the factory/industrial meat production practices and use that to say all meat consumption is bad, that all meat is cruel and inhumane.
No...all CHEAP meat is inhumane, because the methods used to mass produce it at a central location is cruel and inhumane.
Megan, you might want to do some empirical evaluation before you get too confident about it *not* being an artery clogging diet. See, for example, Gary Taubes' book Good Calories, bad Calories; what you describe is nearly pessimal for glycemic stress, and there's pretty good evidence for that raising the icky lipid profile. The people who eat lots of, say, white rice while having long lives also have tended to have long periods of semi-starvation.
My experience (yes, n=1) is that by giving up all high glycemic foods (well, nearly all, and exceptions only in small amounts) is that my total lipids went down by 35 percent which the lipid fractions improved fairly dramatically. (I also lost about 15 pct of my starting body weight.) Since I'm doing this eating lots of meat, eggs, and butter, this is not the expected result according to the standard model. But, again, n=1.
Oh, and I don't think ice cream sandwiches count as "animal free", unless someone has reclassified cows as vegetables.
Charlie, Megan eats soy-based ice "cream."
The people who eat lots of, say, white rice while having long lives also have tended to have long periods of semi-starvation.
More like they also eat a proper ratio of Omega 3 and Omega 6 fatty acids...lots of vegetables and meats.
"Actually, meat tastes good because it provides nutrition the body needs, nutrition that is hard to get from vegetables, grains and fruits...namely fatty acids and protein."
Oh...so THATS why things taste good.
My vegan chocolate bar must be really, really good for me.
mijnheer, lemme know when you give up the furniture you use to give yourself comfort, at the expense of the critters that had to die to provide it, and you better not be living in an abode that takes up much more than 100-200 square feet, lest you needlessly contribute to the death of some creature for no other reason than to give yourself some elbow room in which to relax. Hope you're not grabbing a refreshment at Starbucks, either, given that plenty of creatures had to die to give you a place to get some caffeine.
From what I've read, Gandhi may have come close to that sort of ethical standard, except, if the movie was acsurate, his living spaces far exceeded what was needed, so unless each furry little creature was gently moved to other areas when the post holes were dug, or lumber cut, or roofing material obtained, etc., even ol' mahatma was kiling animals that didn't need to be killed in order for Gandhi to survive. When it gets to the point that an ethic can or will only be followed by a microscopically small percentage of the human race, if by anyone at all, that's an ethic mostly designed to allow pseudo-followers of the ethic to feel good, when they don't find
following it too uncomfortable.
Will Allen: It's quite true that it's basically impossible to live without doing harm to others. In our daily lives and in our patterns of consumption, all of us are involved at least indirectly in the exploitation of humans and other animals. In my view, that's no excuse for not trying to minimize that harm. Giving up meat is a significant step that most people can take without harm to their own health (despite what Dave from Hawaii believes). Meat-based diets typically result in significantly more suffering and death in total than do meatless diets, in part because much more land has to be used to grow the crops to feed livestock. Free-range meat would not be able to sustain anything like the present level of world meat consumption, and large-scale hunting would soon wipe out wildlife. For its part, industrial meat production is possibly the biggest single ecological catastrophe affecting the planet. (If you're sceptical, start by googling "Rethinking the Meat-Guzzler".)
By the way, I love all your posts on food, recipes, diets, obesity, etc. They're my favorites by far.
No, mijnheer, giving up meat is something that some people do, and some of them do it to allow themselves to feel good about their own rectitude, because they don't find that giving up killing animals for meat is a terrible hardship, whereas, say, giving up having animals killed for furniture manufactuting or coffee consumption would be. They are kinda' like serial adulterers who say they only cheat on their spouse when they are lonely, being away on business. The ethics, or lack thereof, of an act are not dependent on the degree of discomfort an actor would have by forgoing the act. Otherwise, lying would be perfectly acceptable when telling the truth would provide a result one didn't like.
The fact that you don't obtain as much pleasure as some other folks from eating a steak, or that you would consider life without furniture to be more unpleasant than life without meat consumption, says exactly nothing about the ethics of killing animals, or having then killed, strictly for the provision of human pleasure, be it to provide a strip of bacon, or a sofa.
Now, having said that, I really don't normally wish to explore others' dietary habits, with the exception of discussions pertaining to culinary techniques. It really is none of my affair, and discussions of personal habits among strangers are entirely too common for my comfort. However, once someone makes or implies an ethical claim for behavior x, that necessarily implies a statement about the ethics of behavior not-x, which is when I join the topic.
Meat-based diets typically result in significantly more suffering and death in total than do meatless diets, in part because much more land has to be used to grow the crops to feed livestock. Free-range meat would not be able to sustain anything like the present level of world meat consumption, and large-scale hunting would soon wipe out wildlife.
The first part of your statement is in actual agreement with what I'm trying to impart here...WE SHOULD NOT BE FEEDING RUMINANTS CROPS OF GRAIN! It is not their natural foods...free range grassland!
And I positively refute the notion that free range meat is not sustainable...it most certainly is. Because ruminants can graze on vast tracts of land that are otherwise unusable for any other agricultural purposes. Rocky, hilly grasslands...the great plains alone used to sustain millions upon millions of buffalo for millenia - until they were indiscriminately slaughtered into near extinction for the commercial exploitation of their skins.
The difference is that free range, 100% grass fed cattle is a lot more expensive than what people are used to paying for their meat. They are leaner, not as fat, and require a lot more work herding, rounding up and such versus thousands of cattle confined on a feed lot.
You would NEVER see a $.99 quarter pound hamburger where it not for the mass production, grain fed cattle industry.
"The corollary, however, is that one is then logically committed (absent a great deal of intricate and dubious argumentative gymnastics) to endorsing eating mentally handicapped orphans or grinding up the unwanted senile elderly for dog food."
Only if you're into strawmen.
The natural human diet is omnivorous and humans have long established, institutionalized predator prey relationships with certain species (different species for different groups of people). And before the advent of industrial meat production this was probably overall a good thing for the prey species involved. They were protected and looked after and when the time came given a death that was almost certainly less traumatic and painful than they would suffer in the wild from predators, disease or starvation.
But commerce has corrupted many wholesome practices and meat consumption is certainly one of them.
But humans aren't evolved (unlike some species) to favor cannibalism and when that practice has occurred it's either the result of starvation conditions or invested with ideological/religious overtones. In other words cannibalism is rather like vegetarian/veganism (and anorexia for that matter) in that it is a more or less conscious modification of established human nutrition, often undertaken specifically to make an impression on others.
I'm all in favor of humane animal husbandry and slaughter and if I had my way many factory farming technologies would be illegal (and meat would be more expensive and most people would eat less of it). But I'm okay with the human status as partial predators. It beats the alternatives (prey and scavengers).
Michael Farris: You think that eating and otherwise exploiting animals is not "invested with ideological/religious overtones"? I beg to differ. I think it is very much invested with such overtones. See, for example, Meat: A Natural Symbol, by Nick Fiddes; The Sexual Politics of Meat, by Carol J. Adams; or Brutal: Manhood and the Exploitation of Animals, by Brian Luke. I believe that for many or most meat-eaters, the practice manifests a pathology of desire for domination over the other, a desire rooted in existential dread about humanity's supposed privileged place in the universe and the possibility of salvation. This fact helps explain why even the mention of vegetarianism provokes the kind of hostile and frenzied response that it often does. (I am not necessarily including you or any specific other poster here in the category of the existentially challenged. But it is remarkable how vegetarianism gets under people's skin.)
What's really weird is that I'd recently read your old 'why I eat meat' article, and (not knowing you'd since become vegan) spent a good 5-10 paragraphs respectfully disagreeing.
Another thing that's weird is that vegetarianism or veganism, when mentioned even in passing, illicits these kinds of 'boo-hiss' dummy spits. Imagine for a moment you wrote about the 'Hidden Benefit of Going To Church' being that you get to see that guy from the coffee shop, and then internet erupted into a Christopher Hitchens style god-hate psycho-fest. You'd think, 'what a bunch of nuts'.
Rule of thumb everyone: if an article has 'Vegan' in the title, and it's not a kind of manifesto (at least, not a serious one), you can be pretty sure it's not a judgement on your views nor an invitation to try and enforce them. I see this all the time and it's infuriating. Once, I witnessed some hapless veggo on a web forum ask about non-leather bicycle saddles - what followed was like a reenactment of the crucifixion.
Yeah, nthing the Gary Taubes suggestion. It's a good book about politics and relevant even to vegans and vegetarians. Why? Well, I myself gained massive amounts of weight eating Tofutti Cuties and their ilk. I know enough vegans that I know obese vegans and vegans who have had heart attacks.
The sugar-cutting article in Slate reminded me that the real villain is refined carbs.
I guess my point is, nutritionally, almost any whole food, including meat, is better than white bread.
I believe that for many or most meat-eaters, the practice manifests a pathology of desire for domination over the other, a desire rooted in existential dread about humanity's supposed privileged place in the universe and the possibility of salvation.
Bullshit. I eat meat because I recognize that I am a part of the universe...one that is based on a cycle of life that involves predation. Life feeds on life is a fact of life. Participating in the very process every other living thing does is just simply existing as we were meant to.
This fact
Ummmm, you just stated your opinion, than called it a "fact."
helps explain why even the mention of vegetarianism provokes the kind of hostile and frenzied response that it often does. (I am not necessarily including you or any specific other poster here in the category of the existentially challenged. But it is remarkable how vegetarianism gets under people's skin.)
More like the self-righteous, condescending tone many vegans/vegetarian's take such as the one demonstrated by your post is what provokes "hostile" responses.
While I was not being hostile in the least bit, I am tired of the total demonization of meat eating per say, when in fact the true problem is the modern industrial farming methods employed to produce maximum profits with minimal and/or detrimental nutritional value.
So many vegan's/vegetarians have the pretense that they are somehow enlightened and superior to meat eaters.
Sorry...but denying your bodies natural dietary structure does not impart any kind of superiority - it just means your nutritionally deficient and fooling yourself into thinking you're healthier.
Also, Will Allen, I've never met a vegetarian so stupid that they believed wearing/using leather was less cruel than eating meat.
It's the biggest straw man argument there is - that vegetarians are either a) complete idiots who don't know about the origins of leather, or b) secretly and shamefully subverting their own morals because they love to talk about respect for life but are in fact weak, spineless, blowhards.
My shoes are microfibre, my couches fabric, my toiletries not tested on animals, my jacket vinyl. Is that everything? No, but I try. The emulsion layer of film is gelatin based, so watching one is technically out. Do most go this far? Probably not. The logic is simple, however: if vegetarianism became the norm and gelatin grew to be prohibitively expensive, alternatives would be sought. Animal friendly change driven by the free market.
Short version: Only expensive meat is ethical.
Short version: It's wrong that poor people can afford to eat the way I do.
What was the remark I saw once? Rich white people invented "food ethics" once poor people could afford the same foods they could?
If the way to be more ethical is to do exactly what you and everyone else is doing now, only pay more for it, then I do not think that word means what you think it means.
Short version: Only expensive meat is ethical.
Short version: It's wrong that poor people can afford to eat the way I do.
Short version: This argument is vacuous and stupid.
The mass, industrialized production of animal flesh has resulted in cheap meat. But the process results in meat products that are nutritionally deficient, and can be factors in health problems, as well as incredibly destructive to the natural environment.
This is not a class based argument. It's an either or: either you allow the means of cheap, mass production that are unhealthy and environmentally degrading, or you don't. If you don't, than the price of meat HAS to be more expensive because the costs of producing natural, healthy meat are much more to begin with.
It has nothing to do with rich people trying to keep good food from the lower classes.
America USED to be a farm based economy. Meat was expensive, but even the poor folks ate locally grown produce regularly.
Simon, if you have no wood, plastic, metal or other hard object in your furniture, congratulations. Otherwise, you are having animals killed to produce something, furniture, which serves no other function than to give you pleasure. I've lived for weeks at a time without furniture; you don't need it at all, absent a somewhat unusual medical condition. Frankly, the odds of the cloth used in your furniture being produced without the killing of animals is pretty damned small; I doubt if even Gandhi ahieved that. Live in an abode of more than a couple hundred square feet, at most? Sorry, but you are having animals killed for no other reason but to give you pleasure. The fact that you don't like steak as much as other people doesn't tell us much.
Jeez, you really think furry and feathered creatures aren't killed to make vinyl? What, do you think viny asteroids plummet form the heavens, and are then carved up to make coats? I mean, I'll give you a pass, since unless you live in a pretty hot climate, you really do need clothes to live, but gosh, the notions some people have!
Will, I agree that nothing is created in a cruelty free vaccuum, but let's apply your logic to something else; the environment, say.
"You're not living a carbon-neutral, wasteless lifestyle. You are in fact selectively wasting because it gives you pleasure in certain instances, or at least, pleasure outweighing the ethical cost. I for one, defecate in the street."
The problem is that you are talking about apparent inconsistency of logic, and I am talking about harm minimisation WITHIN society. If there is a movement toward a nudist, chairless society then fine, I can dig it. More likely however, there will be a move toward less harmful farming and manufacture. I'm taking steps toward a goal that you disagree with, and that's fine. If I accepted your premise as a viable way to live, I'd give your thoughts the serious consideration that would merit. But I don't, and so I don't.
I understand that it is not your motivation, but it is a necessary result of your preferences that we return to a state where income is much more of a factor than it is now in determining what kinds of foods people get to eat. I believe it's a good thing that we have progressed from a civilization where only the richest 5% can afford to eat meat regularly to one where 95% can afford it. And you say it's not because cows aren't happy eating corn? It's not as healthy for us as it theoretically could be? You are free to buy whatever you wish, but most people think these are worthwhile tradeoffs.
Yes, and it used to be a place, not all that long ago, where life expectancy at birth was 40, many lived in pain throughout their lives from conditions that are treatable now, and most did exhausting manual labor 365 days a year from dawn to dusk until they died. I don't think we miss that.
Simon, you can do anything you wish. The only time I get involved in this debate is if someone makes a claim, overt or implied, that killing animals, or having them killed, for no other prupose than to provide a human with pleasure, is unethical. I've been around the world several times, and lived on multiple continents. I've yet to meet anyone who actually believes this; the closest I've met were a few people in very acetic religious orders, and even they fell short by a large margin. In contrast, I've met tons of people who lie exceedingly rarely, maintain sexual loyalty or abstinence, and adhere to all manner of other ethical standards.
I thus conclude that the ethical standard which prohibits the killing of animals, if the killing only serves the purpose of giving a human being pleasure, is largely a phony one in which people are actually saying "It is unethical to kill or have animals killed solely to give me pleasure, except if it is something that I really, really, really want." Sorry, I just don't see how it is that your not enjoying going to Morton's nearly as much as someone else is ethically significant.
Will Allen: Your very generous notion of what constitutes killing strictly for pleasure allows you to prove beyond a shadow of doubt that black is white and up is down. I take my hat off to you and throw in the towel.
Because absolutism is technically impossible, for anything, and so we are left with 'less of a bad thing is better than more of one'. You said it yourself - 'lie exceedingly rarely'. 'Never' would be, strictly speaking, a lie.
The cheating analogy is an example based on a localised phenomenon under your direct control - within certain parameters. Expand your definition of cheating to include touching, looking at, thinking about someone else, and your options are reduced to, essentially, hermitage. Factor in atomic exchange (just for fun) and you'll find you're currently cheating on your partner with everyone living and most of everyone dead.
Suggesting that the validity of a stance is determined by the likelihood of success is to suggest that 'I will never kill ducks at 2:35PM on a Tuesday' is 'ethically relevant'.
In order to affect change, it has to be something the majority of people are able to do while going about their daily lives. If you're out protesting animal rights every day and building huts out of dung when you're supposed to be running the local power plant, or policing the streets, or whatever, well, that's going to cause problems. But you try because you hope for a day when the impossible becomes merely difficult, and the difficult mundane. I refer again to the environment analogy.
Simon, if you can't tell the difference between a lie, told in a moment of failure to adhere to an ethical standard, and a premeditated concious decision to violate an ethical standard on a daily basis, well, there is little point in discussing ethics with you. If deriving pleasure from something which was obtained by the killing of an animal is wrong, because the something was sought purely for pleasure, then don't seek to derive pleasure from something which was obtained by the killing of an animal on a daily basis in a premeditated fashion, purely for the attainment of pleasure. This is only complicated by your desire for pleasure. Either go for the pleasure or don't; I really don't care. Just don't go for the pleasure while claiming to be in pursuit of an ethical standard which prohibits that which you voluntarily seek on a daily basis. Your daily actions reveal your true preference, rendering your words meaningless.
Will - it's a moment of failure to find a viable alternative, for both lying and animal ethics. You could tell the truth in these situations - if you choose not to it is because you made a determination based on an effort versus value equation. Sadly, I am not immune to this reasoning - I exert effort where I feel the return is 'ethically significant'. I have never pretended to be or do anything else. I am at heart an ever hopeful pragmatist. The environment issue, for me, is the same.
If you purchase anything made from anything, I could accuse you of ruining the environment for your own pleasure.
If you do not spend every waking moment serving humanity, I could argue that you are a misanthrope.
The truth is that as market demand for vegan lifestyle goods increases, it becomes the norm and the original suppliers of these goods move on to tackle the next thing, and the next. Vegan toothpaste, for god's sake. I'm under no illusion that I will transcend my corporeal state, but I strongly believe in the power of a well placed dollar to prod the market where I want it to go.
My words and my actions are the same Will, the difference is that you are arguing 'person as the ethical construct', whereas I am arguing 'person as agent for ethical change'.
Simon, I'm not making any claims with regard to the environment or serving humanity, therefore your accusations and arguments would be utterly pointless. When one decides, on a premediated, daily basis, to engage in action x, while arguing that x is unethical, your words are utterly empty. Making ethical claims which on a continuous basis you don't adhere to means you aren't taking your ethical claims seriously. This is the poseur's stance, and there is no reason for anyone else to take your ethical claims seriously either.
You're repeating yourself Will.
If 'Vegan' in your mind means 'never hurts an animal ever', then unfortunately that is not what I am. But if you reread everything I've said, you'll find I never gave that definition.
You have not directly stated that you care for the environment or people, but just because you're not talking about them doesn't mean the issue is off the table. In fact, your silence on these issues doesn't lend your argument much credence. You are suggesting a model for ethical living, and I am disputing the validity of that model.
Just assume for a second that what I'm saying can't be so casually dismissed as 'utterly pointless' and rebut something.
But you can buy free-range, organic, grass fed beef, which is rich in Omega 3 fatty acids...
No it isn't. While grass-fed beef has a higher n3:n6 ratio than grain-fed beef, the overall PUFA content of beef is very low, so even grass-fed beef doesn't have much in the way of omega-3 fatty acids.
Well, first, simon, I never claimed you asserted a vegan never hurts an animal, ever. If you are going to just make stuff up, what's the point? I disputed the notion that it is unethical to kill animals, or have them killed, purely for purpose of giving a human pleasure, and further stated that there aren't actually any people, or so few they can barely be indentified, who believe this to be the case, as revealed by what behavior people actually engage in on continuous, premeditated basis. If no person in the world abstained form alcohol, I'd conclude that no person in the world really believed that abstaining from alcohol was really ethically demanded.
Look, you think killing animals, or having them killed, purely to provide you pleasure, is to be avoided, except when it is a pleasure you really want to have. Thus, "yes" to furniture, "no" to steaks. Hey, it's a (mostly) free country, and I like it that way for he most part. However, there is no reason for a person who enjoys steaks and furniture as much as you enjoy furniture to view your choices as ethically significant, because your hierarchy of pleasures sought via the killing of animals has no ethical significance.
When exactly, simon, did I put forth a model for ethical living? I merely disputed an ethical contention.
For the record, I make no blanket statement regarding the badness of polluting, and I neither confirm or deny that I am a misanthrope. If you feel better by asserting that I am, you just go right ahead.
"You think that eating ... animals is not "invested with ideological/religious overtones"?"
I would agree that meat has a ... spiritual element that fruits or grains lack (why slaughter has often been tied to religious rights especially for larger, more charismatic mammals, though not so much for less appealing non-mammals). But these are not really like those of cannibalism.
Short version: humans on the whole are hardwired to eat some non-human animals and to not eat each other. Reworking that wiring takes more effort than following it.
"a desire rooted in existential dread about humanity's supposed privileged place in the universe and the possibility of salvation."
I'd say it's more a result of human consciousness of the fact that humans are not apex predators. Short version: Human meat eating probably evolved from opportunistic predatation but human ancestors were also prey and humans still are natural prey for a number of species (crocodiles, bears, big cats, arguably sharks). Humans know that other animals can do to us what we do to our prey species. Other midline predator-prey species are spared that conscious knowledge.
"This fact helps explain why even the mention of vegetarianism provokes the kind of hostile and frenzied response that it often does."
I'd say the reaction (which does exist) is maybe more similar to homophobia: a majority recoiling at what's seen as a deviant minority.
Which raises the question whether vegian (new cover term) preferences are genetic. One thing I've noticed among the more successful vegians I've known is how many of them have never really much liked meat; going vegian for them was mostly avoiding a food they didn't much like (like me avoiding okra or most fish).
This can be contrasted with the profile (more common IME) of someone who goes vegian for a time (often a couple of years or more) and then backslides.
While humans as a species are omnivores the balance between more herbivorous and carnivorous preferences can vary a lot between individuals and those that go vegian (new cover term) are probably mostly naturally inclined that way.
Vegian preferences are perfectly normal and reasonable but cloaking it in terms of morality is probably counter-productive.
Will Allen believes that he is making airtight logical arguments. In a limited (and boring) sense, he is. Which is why he keeps repeating them.
Unfortunately, as mijnheer quickly detected and Simon elaborated, his mechanistic approach isn't particularly relevant. Unless I've missed the memo, blog comments are for feedback and trash talking, not formal logic wanking.
Look, you think killing animals, or having them killed, purely to provide you pleasure, is to be avoided, except when it is a pleasure you really want to have. Thus, "yes" to furniture, "no" to steaks.
The end result of Will's reasoning chain seems to be that ultimately no decision can be more or less ethical because human life necessarily negatively affects animals. He does allow that some human *could* meet the absolute ethical standard professed (?) by vegetarians, perhaps who could match the standard of the "tons of people who lie exceedingly rarely" by some private definition of "lie" and "rarely." Because, I guess, lying "rarely" is different from engaging in acts which cause harm to animals "rarely." Also per Will, no intermediate action which causes harm but in lesser degree has any ethical meaning if all other such actions are not themselves taken. Ok.
Isn't all of human existence "purely for the purpose of giving a human pleasure," specifically the pleasure of NOT DYING? What exactly *does* have "ethical relevance" in a world where bacteria and animals (and other humans?) are one undifferentiated continuum of things to which it is impossible to do lesser harm?
Everything is nothing. QED.
Yes, Will Allen, I know you know how to parse logical constructs. I'm sure that you'll seize upon some misunderstanding I've made of your brilliant and obvious insight. Bully for you.
You also appear to believe in an absolute ethics ("it is unethical"). Yawn. I don't care. People usually have the courtesy to masturbate in private.
=darwin
darwin, apparently logic is not the only thing missing from your mental diet, as it appears literacy also is also off the menu. As I've already written, ya' ol' moral reasoning titan, you, there is a difference, to anyone who has achieved a room temperature I.Q., between a violation of an ethical standard without premeditation, and only then very rarely, if at all (I used the phrase "very rarely" because I can't be sure if any person has avoided lying completely), and a concious, premediatated decison to violate an ethical standard on a continual basis. The former happens because people aren't perfect, whereas the latter happens when people, underneath all their empty rhetoric, really don't think the ethical standard they espouse is something they intend to adhere to.
Look, if someone doesn't want to eat meat or wear leather, it isn't any of my business. I. don't. care. Got it? If someone, however, is going to claim that there is an ethical standard which they think is important, that of not having animals killed purely for the purpose of giving a human being pleasure (by the way, people kill themselves every day when not dying is found to be not very pleasurable. No, all of human existence is not for the purpose of giving a human pleasure), then that is something that is reasonably subjected to logical scrutiny. If people claim that there is an ethical standard to be followed, while the continually violate that standard on a premeditated basis, it is reasonably concluded that they don't mean what they say.
I know you believe it discourteous to examine ethical claims. Here's the solution, Socrates; stop making ethical claims, and then you won't be subjected to the discourtesy of having them examined. Does everything need to be explained to you?
michael farris: That was I (mijnheer) whose comment about existential dread you responded to. I have no idea how your name got attached to the bottom of my comment. In any case, thanks for responding.
Hume made the point that we cannot derive what ought to be directly from what is. But I have some sympathy with Aristotle's idea that connects human flourishing with what is natural. This means that we cannot neatly divorce morality from our biological and cognitive capacities. But that still leaves a lot of room for choosing, and arguing about, how best to pursue our better natures.
The traditional belief that all humans are essentially different from other creatures has been undermined by Darwinian theory, by animal studies, and by philosophical argument. It is still widespread in the public arena, but increasingly the moral (if that's what it is) justification for human dominance is being made on grounds of natural predation and ecological balance -- i.e., we are top predators (at least once you include our technological enhancements) and tough luck for everything else.
We have the choice to view other animals either as our kin, to be included in the moral community, or as prey, to be subordinated and exploited. I don't think that any appeal to the way things just naturally are will decide that one.
"The traditional belief that all humans are essentially different from other creatures has been undermined by Darwinian theory, by animal studies, and by philosophical argument."
We actually agree. I think that humans aren't that different from other animals and acting in way consistent with our evolutionary history (including omnivorism) is not bad. I think of my omnivore diet as a direct expression of my animal nature. That's not to say I have no concern for other species or don't want the animals that people eat to be treated well before the most humane slaughter possible.
And of course omnivorism is not the only possible appropriate human diet. Vegianism is a perfectly fine option for those inclined for whatever reason and it doesn't need any justification. But claiming that it's inherently morally superior to the natural human diet is pushing things too far.
"we are top predators (at least once you include our technological enhancements)"
No humans aren't apex predators, we're close to the top but not quite there. We've just found more efficient ways of keeping our predators at bay. But humans mostly don't eat the animals that can treat us like prey, our main concern is usually preventing them from predating us or our prey animals. (I really don't want to get sidetracked onto hunting issues, but I will say that I think recreational trophy hunting is morally wrong and that food hunting and/or culling herds that don't have predators or other population inhibitors are justifiable).
Oops, I forgot this.
"We have the choice to view other animals either as our kin, to be included in the moral community, or as prey, to be subordinated and exploited."
Well, my choice is to recognize that animals are not moral agents.
That doesn't mean I think it's okay for people to do anything they want to them.
You're not a vegan if you eat ice cream.
David in Hawaii you are calling veg*ns condecending yet you are the ones using words like "stupid" to describe other posters. Is that not condescending? Or is it ok for omnis to condescend but not veggies? I don't like prosthelitizing, holier-than-thou types either, but you will find it on both sides of the argument if you bother to look.
Will Allen....hmm. You are just regurgitating the same argument over and over again about elbow room and furniture. Why don't you actually try participating in the conversation rather than yelling from atop your soap box with your fingers in your ears?
And also, for those who may not be aware, there is no need to "combine foods" in order for a vegan to get all the essential amino acids that we need through food. The only thing lacking in the vegan diet is B-12. Not because meat is some amazing B-12 powerhouse, but because B-12 comes from bacteria and meat happens to be a breeding ground for bacteria. Gross.
Will, let me be blunt. I did not claim the following;
"there is an ethical standard which [I] think is important, that of not having animals killed purely for the purpose of giving a human being pleasure"
What I actually claimed was;
- that I believe less harm is better than more, and I try to avoid acts that have a meaningful and positive correlation to animal cruelty, graded on a curve against other acts not-specifically yet still possibly resulting in some measure of animal cruelty
- that it is relevant/important to me
- that its importance to others is largely irrelevant to me, except where they misrepresent it to bolster their opposing argument
- that your logic is flawed in that it cannot be applied to other scenarios successfully
I made no claim of monogamy, and yet you have applied your logic to that scenario. Why not allow me to do the same? I suspect, and it seems I am not alone in this, that we have reached the limit of your argument. You have gone so far as to claim misanthropy as a pastime, and yet you claim to have ethical credentials? Strange.
I've given you every chance to expand upon your original point - the pay off for me being that I am able to enjoy a good debate, strengthen some thoughts, abandon others. Open my mind a bit. Then words like 'poseur' crept in, and the air of lively, cordial debate evaporated. You may wish to continue this, but I think it best we don't. Darwin is right, it's getting old.
It's an effort/value equation, after all.
No Simon, I specifically made no claim with regard to misanthropy. What has happened to your brain, which causes you to read words to have their opposite meaning? Strange.
Gosh, if your entire point was that you try to avoid acts that have a meaningful and positve correlation to animal cruelty, except when you don't, in which case you'll say you've graded on a curve against other acts not-specifically yet still possibly resulting in some measure of animal cruelty, as a means of rationalizing the cruelty you'll tolerate which provides the things you really, really, want, we really could have saved some time.
Look, I've met at least several hundred vegans in my life. Not once have I ever inquired as to the reason for their decision, for the simple reason that I have enough manners to not nose around in people's personal habits. Unfortunately, I occasionally run into folks who for some strange reason think that their ethical contentions about what they put in their mouth or on their back are of interest to me. I consider ethical contentions to be serious matters, so when people choose to share theirs with me, I respond. If I never spoke or wrote again to another person regarding their eating or clothing habits, with regard to their views of animals, that would be fine by me.
Kristyn, when people fail to respond to an arguemnt, and instead misrepresent what was written, then repeating the argument is perfectly resonable. Why don't you go away, intead of engaging in fatuous rhetoric?
Will Allen - Look, the subject is not one I bring up, but it either is ethical to kill animals, or have them killed, strictly to provide oneself with comfort, or it is not. If it is, then there is no ethical difference between having a cow killed to taste it, or having a bird killed to obtain the lumber which went into making your bed.
Well, there are several issues here.
What is a person responsible for doing, ethically?
We cannot say;
"There is no difference whatsoever between refusing to give all your money to starving third worlders and murdering your neighbor next door."
The law would see a difference. People would see a difference. And there is a reason that they would.
People tend to understand that difference when considering other people, but not animals. Liberals who believe in positive rights may not, though.
Also, there are fair objections to practices like factory farming.
Also, it is really not obligatory to kill a bird in order to build a house.
Also, animal populations adjust naturally and permanently to deforestation, while farming for meat perpetuates itself indefinitely.
This is not to say "Go Veg!" or anything like that. I'm not trying whatsoever to 'convert' anyone here. I'm simply saying that the situations which you describe are not, in any way, morally equivalent.
I've run into a few folks who seem to have an extreme reaction to the fact that vegetarianism might be ethically consistent. The notion that vegetarians may not all be hypocrites who can be outright disregarded on that basis seems extremely threatening to some people.
Well, yes, Ryan, and we can wait for cattle to keel over from old age before we carve them up and eat them. The reality is that people who want their steaks aren't going to wait for that, just like it is a reality that people who want their houses and Starbucks aren't going to pay to gently relocate every mole, shrew, chipmunk, baby birds, etc., which is in the way when Mr. Bulldozer comes to the meadow. People object to factory farming because others have done a good job of making sure that the suffering of those animals is witnessed. When baby duckie gets dismembered by the blade of the bulldozer, to build a house, or a Starbucks to sell vegans their coffee, there ain't any witnesses. Also, some species have permenantly adjusted themsleves into extinction, as a response to habitat destruction.
Your analogy between failure to give to the starving vs. murder, and paying people to kill cattle for steaks vs. killing moles for homes, fails. Giving to the starving is a positive act to relieve human suffering, whereas murder is a poitive act to induce suffering. Killing cows for steaks and killing moles for homes are both positive acts which induce suffering.
Personally, I do try to consume meat which I know belonged to an animal which lived in pleasant conditions, and was killed quickly with as little pain as possible. I do it because it makes me feel good aesthetically, not because I really think I am accomplishing anything ethically significant.
Why don't I go away? Why, because I make sense? Let's use your logic and apply it to different situations, shall we? Ok, well since we can't possibly stop all murder then we would be giant hypocrites for saying we don't approve of murder and we should try and lesson it as much as possible. Or how about child molestation? There is no way we can permanently stop it or prevent it from happening so I guess we just shouldn't try. All or nothing, black or white. Nothing in between.
And exactly which of my comments were fatuous and rhetorical?
Hi Kristyn: You're quite right, but you're wasting your time here. You're talking to a brick wall. You'd probably find your time better spent at a site like "Animal Person".
Your analogy between failure to give to the starving vs. murder, and paying people to kill cattle for steaks vs. killing moles for homes, fails. Giving to the starving is a positive act to relieve human suffering, whereas murder is a poitive act to induce suffering. Killing cows for steaks and killing moles for homes are both positive acts which induce suffering.
Well, I was trying to address the assumption that the animals were passively killed by loss of habitat. Are you only considering active deaths via building equipment? Most animals are much faster than bulldozers. I'd be willing to believe healthy animals are killed by the building of a Starbucks if I saw some kind of evidence to back up this assertion. Do you have any?
When baby duckie gets dismembered by the blade of the bulldozer, to build a house, or a Starbucks to sell vegans their coffee, there ain't any witnesses.
Perhaps there are not any witnesses because it is a rare event? I welcome some kind of statistic which says building a Starbucks involves a significant death toll, especially relative to the life of the Starbucks.
There are exceptions to this kind of thing of course. Cane fires for producing sugar cane and so forth. But I'm dealing only with the claim that building equipment kills massive amounts of animals.
Also, some species have permenantly adjusted themsleves into extinction, as a response to habitat destruction.
True, and this is a problem. But that is different than cruelty. Which is why I say that vegetarians are not automatically hypocritical.
p.s. I'd also note that, in the case where business owners attempt to remove animals from their property;
1. The purpose is typically sanitation, not culinary delight. Human health is a stronger rationale.
2. Most people would be content simply to exclude the animal from the property (spikes on overhangs, etc) The purpose isn't killing.
3. In the instances where animals are killed needlessly for this purpose, most vegetarians would oppose this if possible. (You could probably find a market for 'cruelty free' malls,etc.) Vegetarians are often people who are doing their best to live by their beliefs, given the tools that they have. Even though I oppose Chinese slave labor, for instance, I can't totally avoid buying or using produce made from that country. But that doesn't automatically make me a hypocrite. Slight social improvements are better than no improvements. at all People pursuing their moral goals to the limits of their capacity should not be held totally accountable for the actions of others carried out against their will.
Again, I'm not trying to change your life at all. I'm simply trying to say; vegetarians are not hypocrites.
David in Hawaii you are calling veg*ns condecending yet you are the ones using words like "stupid" to describe other posters.
Reading comprehension, my dear. I wrote "This argument is vacuous and stupid."
Ryan, tell me, when a commercial strip mall is built is a previously rural meadow, in the spring, just what the heck do you think what happens with the small infant animals which teem in such an environment? They call their nanny? Do you have any idea how painful a death can be when it's prime factor is habitat destruction? Passive, indeed.
Kristyn the proper analogy would be if you were denouncing child molestation and murder, while engaging in those acts yourself. Yes, that would make listening to you as silly as listening to O.J. Simpson denounce domestic violence.
Back to logic class, Kristyn! Also, since your fatuous intellect still hasn't grasped it, it is fatuous to castigate another for repeating an argument, when that person was repeating it in response to people who had misstated it.
Are you honestly prepared to argue that vegetarianism is WORSE for animals than eating meat? Yes or no? The perfect, as they say, is the enemy of the good.
Ryan, tell me, when a commercial strip mall is built is a previously rural meadow, in the spring, just what the heck do you think what happens with the small infant animals which teem in such an environment?
Do you have any idea how painful a death can be when it's prime factor is habitat destruction?
Because you've died from habitat destruction so you know? Useless sarcasm aside (both mine and yours) habitats are typically not destroyed all at once. If a portion of a meadow is destroyed, animals move to a different area if they're capable of doing so. Population control is a part of nature even when humans are not involved. There's evidence that competition for food isn't indicative of species survival, which suggests some other method of population control. There's also evidence that some species naturally reduce their birthrate when population densities get too high. Raup has some detail on the first part of this in his book "Extinction." I can provide references for the second if it would make any difference to you. This is not to say that extinction of species is a good thing at all. And human-animal interaction inevitably results in some violent mortality for the animal. But if we're going to ask a question, it seems like a good idea to look for an honest answer about what really happens based on the best observable data that we can get. Also, trying to take responsibility for things that humans do not do directly (animal to animal pain in nature) leads to tremendous headaches. If we're concerned about such pain, we should level the forests as soon as possible and replace them with strip malls to end the cycle of violence. Or, we could restrict our responsibility to the land that we control, and things are much saner.
You seem to be proposing that vegetarianism is counterproductive, but haven't put forward a quantifiably better alternative. Or are you just saying that all consumption is animal cruelty? If so, some kinds would be crueler than others and we should be able to quantify them. I'd wager that land use is one of the less harmful activities, since you could amortize any pain caused over decades or centuries of human civilization.
Would it would be better if everyone just killed themselves and let animals fight things out between themselves? Where are you going here? Do you just want to feel better about your own choices? You seem to have some kind of tremendously strong emotion driving you here, as best as I can tell. What's the source? Where are you going?
Are you arguing that eating meat is better for animals than vegetarianism? If not, why be so tremendously attached to this argument? I'm still trying to nail down what your perfect world would look like.
Ryan, when I see animals starving, which I have, in part due their food sources being destroyed by development, I come the remarkable conclusion that it is suffering, due to actions that humans have taken. If humans are inducing animal suffering because humans really like to live in houses or apartments that at are larger than they need for survival, well, we're right back where we started, which is my request that someone explain how it is ethically significant that one person really likes to live in a 2 bedroom condo but doesn't really mind giving up steaks, while another person likes 2 bedroom condos and steaks equally as well.
No, Ryan, I never claimed that vegetarianism is worse for animals, not did I imply it. I'm not going anywhere. At the risk of offending people by repeating myself again, I will, yes repeat myself. I'm merely observing that the overwhelming, overwhelming, majority of people, if not all people, who say they refrain from eating meat or wearing animal products because they think it is wrong to induce animal suffering for those purposes are perfectly willing to induce animal suffering when doing so will produce a pleasure that these folks really want to have.
Also, yes, Ryan all human consumption induces suffering in animals. Logically, then, the question is raised as to whether there are forms of consumption that are worse than others, in terms of inducing suffering for unethical consumption, or whether all consumption is unethical (in which case I guess we need to all die to be ethical, which isn't too far from what I've seens some nuts advocate), or whether we are animals who exploit other animals, period, like cats exploit mice, and there is no ethical content.
Now, if eating a steak is unethical, because of the type of consumption which is producing the suffering, then I am merely observing that the pleasure one derives from using furniture, the production of which inevitably produces suffering in animals, is not diffeent in kind fom the pleasure one derives from eating a steak. A vegan furniture user is no more ethical than a steak eater, just like Sirhan Sirhan was no more moral than Osama Bin Laden, because he only had one person killed.
I don't have any easy calculations to present here, but I get tired of self serving ethical contentions which ignore behaviors which produce suffering, for reasons no more significant than the reason people eat steaks; because the person having the suffering induced receives something they find pleasurable.
Reading comprehension, my dear. I wrote "This argument is vacuous and stupid."
Ok,Dave,I see your point, but do you not think you sound condescending? I am honestly not trying to be a jerk, I am merely curious.
"Back to logic class, Kristyn! Also, since your fatuous intellect still hasn't grasped it, it is fatuous to castigate another for repeating an argument, when that person was repeating it in response to people who had misstated it."
Wow, first of all fatuous intellect dosen't even make sense. Also, I came nowhere close to casigating you, so perhaps you should re-check your word a day calendar and relearn the definitions of the words you like to hurl around.
Ok,Dave,I see your point, but do you not think you sound condescending? I am honestly not trying to be a jerk, I am merely curious.
No, I don't think I sound condescending. Re-reading my comments from two days ago, I reckon I was a tad bit irritated, but my tone or even the tone of the persons I was rebutting (or your own tone) are really irrelevant.
What really matters is the facts. Even if you were trying to be a jerk, if you posted relevant, factual information to back your opinion, that is all that really matters in a forum such as this.
But the substance of your argument appears to rest solely on your own opinions and feelings of the tone of the debate. Online anonymity renders such concerns moot.
I made the contention that meat raised in the natural manner they are physiologically designed to - free range pastures - is food that is nutritionally beneficial to the human body. I posted several links to sites that contain a wealth of information backing up my contention.
So far, not a person on this thread has chosen to dispute my factual contentions, or dispute the links I provided to back up my argument. Those that bothered to respond to me, such as yourself, sought to sidestep my points by focusing on the issue of condescension, attitudes and tone of the debate.
Brandon Berg...you wrote: No it isn't. While grass-fed beef has a higher n3:n6 ratio than grain-fed beef, the overall PUFA content of beef is very low, so even grass-fed beef doesn't have much in the way of omega-3 fatty acids.
Sorry, I believe you are mistaken. Read this.
Kristyn, this was in your opening post to me....
"You are just regurgitating the same argument over and over again about elbow room and furniture. Why don't you actually try participating in the conversation rather than yelling from atop your soap box with your fingers in your ears?"
...now, perhaps in your insipid little mind, telling someone they are "regurgitating" is not a form of castigation. Fine. Go post another stupidly illogical analogy, will you?
Also....
fatuous: foolish or inane, esp. in an unconscious, complacent manner; silly.
intellect:a particular mind or intelligence
To help you out Kristyn, your mind is foolish and silly. Got it?
Guys, I love you all, vegans, vegetarians, and meat eaters alike. Please be nice to each other.
The cruelties of meat production ought to turn anyone into a vegetarian. Check this out:
meat.org
Dave:
The page you linked to supports my claim. According to the charts there, grass-fed beef has 2g fat per 100g serving, of which about 2% is omega-3 fat. 2% of 2g is 40mg. This is trivial. If you eat half a pound of grass-fed beef every day for two weeks, you'll end up having consumed about 1.25g of omega-3 fatty acids, less than you'd get from a single three-ounce serving of farmed Atlantic salmon.