BTW, the Vietnamese place at Five Corners/Eden Center that does all tofu (Thanh Son Tofu) is quite good.
I like food which happens to be vegetarian. I really dislike US all-vegetarian (especially vegan) restaurants, because I get the feeling that they want to punish me or themselves. (Perhaps the lack of butter and other things at the vegan places, combined with attempt to compensate with overseasoning makes it worse.) But vegetarian Thai, Vietnamese, whatever? No problem, eat it all the time.
There are aspects of the eating experience that vegetarianism simply cannot reproduce. There's not a vegetable in the world that can develop a decent fond, there's no decent way to make a soup rich besides gelatin from stock, and I've never had a vegetarian dish that could match the depth that the addition of even a small amount of meat could bring.
In my experience vegetarianism means a life of bland, salty food. I recognize the intellectual heft of the arguments for it, and we could all stand to eat less meat considering the grain it takes to raise it; but optimally, marginal land that can't support significant grain crops can be seeded with feed for animals, and in that way meat production can actually be something that improves, instead of harms, the food/land use situation.
I don't begrudge anyone who opts for vegetarianism, I'm simply relating my personal obstacle to it. From the way vegetarians talk about it, vegetarian cooking seems like a constant effort to overcome what you lose from giving up meat - see efforts like vegetarian "bacon" and "tofurkey" - and as someone who enjoys food I can't bring myself to make every meal a struggle.
Although I am an omnivore, I spent a couple of too well fed months in India eating only vegetarian food, and it wasn't overly salty or bland. Because of the number of vegetarians there, including Jain vegetarians who won't eat root vegetables such as onions, carrots, potatoes and the like, the Indians have developed an outstanding veg cuisine with as much flavor as you could want, and without resorting to textured soy hot dogs, faux hamburger, etc., or those damn alfalfa sprouts. Try veg thalis, dosas, and the like. Buddhist cuisine too produces great veg dishes; I had veg shark fin soup in Singapore, and no sharks were harmed in the process. Iagree with you though that it is often hard to get good veg dishes in most US/European restaurants, even top ones. The chefs generally just can't get behind the idea.
In re fake meat, I actually agree with you; most of it is dreadful. I like things that taste like themselves, not something else.
On the meat question, we'll just have to agree to disagree. There are a number of things that offer a rich flavor--roasted red peppers, for example. But to each his own.
1) It doesn't sound like you've made much of an effort to sample the variety of veggie food that's out there. Cookbooks from Robin Robertson or Isa Chandra Moskowitz are a great place to start. You do own at least one great vegetarian cookbook, don't you?
If somebody told you that beef tastes revolting, since they once had a hamburger from Dairy Queen, you would probably think that person's argument is, well, flawed. It's hard not to feel the same way about your take on veggie food.
2) Your analysis of environmental issues related to meat is fundamentally off. The appendices of my book _Meat Market: Animals, Ethics, & Money_ cover this in detail.
Even if 10 million Americans are vegetarian, as the article says, that's only 3 percent of the population. There may be more natural redheads in the US than vegetarians, and that's a small demographic. Vegetarianism is still way out of the mainstream.
That said, my boyfriend, another good friend, and several coworkers are vegetarians, so I'm not fazed by the lifestyle. I've been eating less meat lately because my boyfriend cooks a lot, and I think my health has improved. On the downside, a lot of restaurants are now off-limits because there's not enough for him to eat there.
And I'm sorry Megan, but despite your many posts about the benefits of veganism, why anyone would turn their back on milk, cheese, and eggs (and millenia of natural selection in favor of lactose tolerance) is beyond me. Then again, I'd never join a convent or keep kosher, either, and no one would call those choices crazy, so to each her own.
I don't want to start up one of this debates again, but I still just fundamentally don't buy the line that says "I'm a vegetarian because it's immoral to eat animals, but I'm not judging you." That doesn't make any sense. If you think it's immoral, it can't possibly be nonjudgmental. That's the most basic meaning of morality, if I'm not mistaken. I just think it's too socially awkward to admit that there is judgment there, thus the assertion that there isn't.
Great essay. I love the "nothing that once had eyes" bit -- I wish I'd had that phrase available when I was a vegetarian. I often went through (usually with my family, and more than once) the conversation that starts with "but you do eat chicken, right?"
And the inevitable discovery when Mom promises "vegetable soup," it'll be in a very rich, hearty beef stock.
I'm not a vegetarian any more (I made it to just under 3 years), but the tasty-eyeless-food-quest is something that I'm still interested in. And yes, faux meat products are usually awful -- but I found a local restaurant that made a tempeh burger so awesome that I continued to order it every time I went there for years after I started eating meat again (until they took it off the menu last year). But they key there wasn't that it was fake meat, but that it was very tasty as its own thing -- it just happened to work great in burger format.
Far too often I seem to run into the evangelizing bobo who JUST WON'T SHUT UP and is constantly riding the moral high horse....
When I run into those people, I just make a point of loudly ordering a quadruple patty meat burger with extra meat, meat sauce, and a side of meat. Then I lustily suck at the dead animal juices as I consume it. It tends to shut them up.
Great essay. I love the "nothing that once had eyes" bit -- I wish I'd had that phrase available when I was a vegetarian.
Oysters, clams, etc. don't have eyes, nor do various other animals which people consume for food. Is it okay to eat cows that were born without eyes due to congenital birth defects?
I've had some tasty vegetarian food in my time (most of it, as has been noted, non-American in origin), and admit that I like tofu and even seitan. I respect the choice of people who decide not to eat meat. And I do think the American diet is a bit too carni-centric, culinarily, ecologically, and morally.
That said, I've never seriously considered vegetarianism, and never would. I find all the arguments against eating meat unpersuasive, as least as pertains to me. Ecologically unfriendly? Not if, as noted, it's raised in an environmentally conscious way and consumed in moderation. Bad for one's health? On the contrary, I've found that when I don't eat any meat (it once happened as I lived with a vegetarian), I feel anemic and get intense protein cravings, and no, eating lots of nuts and the like does not sate them. Not really that limiting in terms of culinary options? Au contraire. There are good vegetarian dishes, for sure, but the number pales in comparison to the number of good meat dishes out there. Much as I like miso soup, chickpea curry, and the like, I'd get sick of them if I ate them all the time.
Immoral? Pretty dependent on where you draw arbitrary ethical lines. You'd have to subsist on fruit that fell off the vine if you wanted to live without causing other organisms pain (plants feel distress too). As to the argument that you shouldn't eat what you won't kill yourself, there's something to it, but I was gutting fish when I was four years old and have gone from there. I feel neither guilt nor disgust at the thought of killing an animal for food. I think that the native Americans had the right idea about meat - it's okay to consume it, but you should try to avoid causing animals unnecessary pain, respect the sacrifice that they make to become your dinner, and never waste it.
I do think that vegetarians who wear leather are hypocrites, though. There is such a thing as synthetic leather these days. Sure, it's not as comfortable or stylish as the real thing, but then tofurkey isn't as juicy or flavorful as the real thing. That's a sacrifice you should be willing to make if you feel strongly about animal rights.
I was once eating at a BBQ with a whole bunch of your run-of-the-mill college aged alpha male jackoffs, with the predictable amount of beer. There was one kid that wasn't really eating anything, and when asked he informed he was a vegetarian. Everyone started ragging on the kid, but he deflected all of it brilliantly. I'll never forget this. He said, "I'm not a vegetarian because I especially like animals. I just f***ing HATE plants."
Now, granted, this explaination doesn't make much sense, but it sure seemed to do for a much of drunken frat guys.
I don't want to start up one of this debates again, but I still just fundamentally don't buy the line that says "I'm a vegetarian because it's immoral to eat animals, but I'm not judging you." That doesn't make any sense. If you think it's immoral, it can't possibly be nonjudgmental. That's the most basic meaning of morality, if I'm not mistaken. I just think it's too socially awkward to admit that there is judgment there, thus the assertion that there isn't.
Well, I don't assert it is "immoral" to eat animals. The idea of eating animals is uncomfortable to me. I make no claims whether other people find it immoral or uncomfortable and make no judgments about them.
I'm sort of a de facto vegetarian. Ever since seeing the Hallmark beef videos, I've given up any meat that isn't wild or humanly raised. I don't have a problem eating meet (after all, we are omnivores - most of is anyway), but if I can't watch my food being grown from farm to fork without gagging, I won't eat it. I can no more support Tyson's chicken industrial practices than I could grab road kill off the beltway and fry it up for dinner.
A friend asked me if I was so concerned with animal welfare, why I ate any meat at all. To which I replied that it isn't like a cow going to a slaughterhouse is dead man walking. It has no concept of a death sentence, but it does understand the difference between a good cow life and being horribly abused. So its all free range for me.
Fortunately, this also means the meat I do eat tends to be of much higher quality.
I'm curious, does the "no eyes" rule preclude potatoes?
I've dated an abnormally large percentage of vegetarians (based on my dating history, rather than 3% of the population, they'd be more like 70%) which is odd as I don't seek them out in any way, shape or form and have no desire to become so myself. On the other hand, I have no problem with them and little problem making accomodations for each other: ie. the great veg. indian place we discovered is awesome but the occassional trip to the fantastic new bbq place must also be accomodated.
On the morality, I def. think there's something to the idea of modern people getting too separated from where their food comes from. I could see a "I won't eat what I wouldn't kill" rule making sense but I join Xeynon in having no problem killing my own food and have done so periodically since I was a child.
Still, Megan's recent arguments against meat have me mulling. I don't think I could ever go fully veg. (I'd probably die of malnutrition before I could figure out good protein sources and a proper nutritional balance) but cutting down is seeming like more and more of a good idea...
I think part of the problem is that, I suspect (but have no data to back this up), that vegetarianism is much more a choice among younger people. That might explain both why the national average is so small, but you encounter so many women who are vegetarians.
If I think about my peer group, the number is more like 10 percent. I've also noticed more women are vegetarians than men among my peers. Obviously, I don't know if that perception matches up with the broader reality, but I would be interested in finding out.
Having read a number of behind the scenes books on cooking and the mindset of chefs, I have the answer to one of the author's requests: Every vegetarian is used to slim pickings when dining out, so we're not asking for much—just for something you'd like to eat.
It's called: the rest of the menu. Seriously.
Most chefs are dedicated omnivores and will go out of the way to eat stuff that most of the Western world's population would reject: recognizable organ meats, really stinky cheeses, marrow, etc. One of the go-to places for chefs is St. John in London, which specializes in the like.
The "I won't eat what I wouldn't/couldn't/didn't kill argument is pretty silly. Do you live in a house you would have/could have built? Do you drive a car that you would have/could have built? Can you perform all of the service on your vehicle? Do you wear only clothes that you would have/could have made yourself? What about only getting hair cuts you would have/could have gotten? And then there's medical care... do you only get medical care that you could have done yourself?
In our modern society, we specialize. That's a good thing and brings tremendous benefits to everyone. Personally, I have no interest in learning how to make my own clothes. And frankly, my time is better spent doing other things. Same goes for growing my own food, purifying my own water, teaching my children (though that one I do participate in), etc...
Moral vegetarians are also pretty silly... if it's immoral for us to kill and eat animals, then it's immoral for animals to kill and eat other animals. And that's just silly.
Moral vegetarians who are only concerned about animal treatment while they are alive are more reasonable, but they would be able to eat free range meat, I presume.
Health vegetarians are a mixed bag... it can be very unhealthy to be a vegetarian but isn't always. The most healthy human diet would have at least some meat, though not nearly as much as most Americans eat.
The discomfort/dislike vegetarians are probably the most reasonable folks... they just don't want to or don't like eating meat.
There is one obstacle that would prevent me from ever becoming a vegetarian... bacon. Mmmmm... bacon.
The above is all my own opinion, of course, I'm not claiming to speak from any sort of moral authority.
I hope I didn't imply that it was a "problem" as it's most certainly not. To each their own, variety is the spice of life and all that.
As to your analysis of the probable causes of the skewed cross-section of society that my dating history represents, I think you are spot on. Interestingly, I don't believe I indicated my age or sex-preference of potential dates. Guess I'm easy to read though: I'm young-ish and date women. I've also always lived in large East Coast cities where I imagine you are likely to run into a higher percentage of vegetarians than you are in, say, rural Iowa.
I'd have to concur as well on your observation of more female than male vegetarians. (And I'm not just talking about my dating history anymore, fwiw.) I wonder why that is? Socialization of men as masculine meat-eaters? Testosterone-fueled meat mania? Or perhaps there's an equal distribution but we've just happened to run into more veg. women than men?
My ostracism went further; I decided to keep kosher and eliminating meat from my house & diet made it simpler (much). So all my secular Jewish friends thought I was crazy squared.
The problem is we're trying to have a discussion about this giant category as though that's a productive thing to do. Different people are different.
You can't write an article about how "We know meat tastes good" 'cause there's no "we" here. I know vegetarians who don't believe meat tastes good. Who respond to bacon or steak not with "oh man, I miss that, it smells great, but I'm sticking to my choice", but with "ew, gross, get that away from me". Both reactions exist.
There are vegetarians who are vegan and those who aren't. Ones who are judgmental and ones who aren't. People who eat no meat but fish, who aren't technically vegetarians, but almost. It's a label for one behavior, and that behavior doesn't necessarily tell you about their other behaviors.
This is not meant to be confrontational, just a legitimate curiosity that I've had and I can't seem to get answered.
Would you eat a mollusk?
Don't tell me you just don't like them; I just want to know if it's okay to eat them because, as I see it, they really have no more cognition than a carrot.
Oysters and clams have photosensitive tissue spots and scallops have recognizable eyes. Whether they have more cognition than carrots depends on how one defines cognition. While I don't know the literature about the mollusks we typically eat, they certainly have behavior that is different from a carrot...clams try to get away when you dig them up; carrots don't.
The "I won't eat what I wouldn't/couldn't/didn't kill argument is pretty silly. Do you live in a house you would have/could have built? Do you drive a car that you would have/could have built? Can you perform all of the service on your vehicle? Do you wear only clothes that you would have/could have made yourself? What about only getting hair cuts you would have/could have gotten? And then there's medical care... do you only get medical care that you could have done yourself?
Could, yes, and often do (perform routine and some specialized auto maintenance, familiar with basic construction techniques including plumbing and electrical, sew buttons back onto clothes, etc.). On the medical side, I do make an attempt to understand and attempt a preliminary diagnosis when some health ailment comes up, with the notable exception of my appendectomy. First, I was three years old. Second, it's a little hard to wield a scalpel correctly when one is violently ill and under excruciating pain (or so I am told, the memories are a bit foggy).
In our modern society, we specialize. That's a good thing and brings tremendous benefits to everyone. Personally, I have no interest in learning how to make my own clothes. And frankly, my time is better spent doing other things. Same goes for growing my own food, purifying my own water, teaching my children (though that one I do participate in), etc...
Specializing is not a moral seperation from the activity. The question is, do you understand what has to be done and could you do it if necessity absolutely demanded your intervention? I have no interest in cleaning septic tanks and would much rather pay someone else to do it, but if the latrine is moving turds in the wrong direction and I was literally the only one available to deal with it before a small disaster occurs, then hand me the rubber gloves and shovel, and let's go see what the problem is.
There once was a time when this was a standard trait of Americans in general. The danger of specialization is that it gives people the default option of never developing a broad range of basic skills, and if such a person is ever confronted with a "You're the last one standing, now do something" situation, s/he would be completely helpless.
For health reasons I've been eating Macrobiotic for the past two months, a diet that is heavily grain oriented but allows fish a few times a week. Some of my meals have been spectacular and other practically inedible...it's certainly been an adventure.
I had always limited meat consumption to a few days a week, and my rules were: (1) it couldn't resemble what it was, and (2) I cannot have known it while it was alive. But as the late, great Joseph Campbell said, the horrendous truth is that life lives on life...when you eat a vegetable you're simply eating something that can't run away.
Personally I feel that what most people eat cannot be considered food in any healthful or true sense of the word, and that the American diet is the leading cause of most of our major illnesses - cancer, heart disease, diabetes. That being said, it's none of my business what anyone else chooses to eat or not eat...it's their life, not mine.
I agree with Mouse on the silliness of making the specialization that is the hallmark of a modern economy into a moral and all-encompassing separation of some from certain activities.
Beyond that, I'm perfectly happy to extend my "don't eat it if you wouldn't kill it" rule to other occupations. If I were to learn that my getting a haircut necessitated the barber torturing a small child then I would not get haircuts. I certainly wouldn't keep getting them and assume that it's fine because although I wouldn't torture a small child, I also don't know the first thing about making a really good souffle so not getting haircuts to stop the torture of children is just as silly as not eating souffles because I can't make one myself.
I've heard it said that no one person knows how to make a pencil or even could know how as the variety of specialized bits of knowledge used in the various stages of turning graphite ore and trees into a Faber #2 are too varied and intricate for one person to master them all sufficiently to create a pencil. I don't know if that's necessarily true, but there are clearly products we can all benefit from for which it is indisputibly true and so thank god for specialization, cooperation and organization. Using that fact to excuse yourself from all moral judgements because, though you might benefit from them, you are not the one committing the transgressions is just stupid.
In an important sense, plants have eyes, in that they have photosensitive tissues [other than their photosynthesizing tissues] that detect sunlight and secrete hormones in a pattern that tends to make the plant grow towards the sunlight.
I could see a "I won't eat what I wouldn't kill" rule making sense
This is why I don't order the quail at fancy restaurants. They're just too cute to shoot. It's also why I hunt when I can.
Suffice it to say that one day, I suddenly realized that I could never look a cow in the eyes, press a knocking gun to her temple, and pull the trigger without feeling I'd done something cruel and unnecessary.
And her we come to the flip side: I hate cattle. No problem.
Sprite made a good point above: that lots of restaurants she loves are off the list bc her boyfriend is vegetarian and doesn't like anything on their menu.
If you have one vegetarian in a group going out to lunch, that person often controls where the group goes. It's a bit like having the one smoker in the group requiring the group to sit in the smoking section so he could light up.
The other people in the group would prefer to go to some other place, but the one person with a strong preference in favor of a certain place (or against certain places) tends to win out.
While people will try to accomodate the restaurant likes and dislikes of their friends, a vegetarian in the group seems to place lots of restaurants off the list.
Larry, when I was a vegetarian, about the only restaurant I would veto was a steakhouse. Scratch that--I've eaten in a steakhouse several times since becoming a vegan.
My friends are nice enough to accomodate me by skewing our dining towards Asian or Ethiopian or Vegetarian places, but if that's not possible, I just order a salad. The person with the outlying preferences is the one who has to adjust--unless those preferences are religious or allergic.
I'm a vegetarian who wears leather shoes. I rationalize this several ways.
1) It's like being a Christian or a member of any other religious or moral group. I'm not a "perfect" vegetarian, I'm just doing the best I can. If you're a "perfect" Christian or a vegan, feel free to look down on me.
2) I know there are substitutes, but they are not comfortable for my feet.
3) Everyone else is eating so many hamburgers, there is leftover leather--in other words, no ADDITIONAL cows are being killed to make my shoes. I avoid kidskin or calfskin. Okay, I know that's really lame.
My friends are nice enough to accomodate me by skewing our dining towards Asian or Ethiopian or Vegetarian places, but if that's not possible, I just order a salad.
Ethiopian's great too. In their case, the amount of great vegetarian dishes is related to the how seriously they take Lent.
I still don't understand how you can eat at just plain "Vegetarian" places, though. Those places, while run by vegans or vegetarians presumably, still seem to hate their clientele and produce bad food.
Xeynon: And I do think the American diet is a bit too carni-centric, culinarily, ecologically, and morally.
"Carni-centric" is not an accurate adjective to apply to the typical American diet. According to the USDA (see the Calories/Total spreadsheet here), there are about 380 loss-adjusted calories worth of meat per day per capita available for consumption in the US. This is compared to 280 for dairy products, 80 for fruit, 130 for vegetables, 610 for grains, 480 for added sugars, and 640 for added fats (mostly seed oils).
It would be more accurate describe the typical American diet as "grano-centric," or even "sucro-centric," than as "carni-centric."
if it's immoral for us to kill and eat animals, then it's immoral for animals to kill and eat other animals. And that's just silly.
Hmm, let's try substituting other common animal behaviors:
* If it's immoral for us to abandon or kill our weakest babies, then it's immoral for animals to abandon or kill their weakest offspring. And that's just silly.
* If it's immoral for us to attack and sometimes kill others to acquire more territory for ourselves, then it's immoral for animals to attack and sometimes kill others to acquire more territory for themselves. And that's just silly.
"Carni-centric" is not an accurate adjective to apply to the typical American diet.
Perhaps what I should have said is that American cuisine is carni-centric. What I meant is not that the American diet consists primarily of meat, but rather that it tends to rely overmuch on meat, and specifically red meat, as its primary source of protein. In addition to the U.S., I've lived in both Korea and Japan. Both countries, I would guess, have far fewer vegetarians than the U.S. does (vegetarianism seems to be considered somewhere between eccentric and actually mentally aberrant here unless you're a Buddhist monk), yet the typical Korean or Japanese eats red meat maybe once a week, as opposed to three or four times. Furthermore, many more Japanese and Korean meals use no meat at all, but rather fish, tofu, beans, or other protein sources. Not coincidentally, Japanese and Koreans both have far lower incidences of heart disease, high cholesterol, stroke, etc. And personally I find I enjoy beef a lot more when I don't eat it every other day. Variety is the spice of life and all that.
One of my great joys in life is throwing parties, particularly dinner parties. Having a vegetarian at the table is a burden, no matter how much I may like that person. Vegetarian cooking is not in my skill set and there are still hundreds of skills ahead of that one on my life list. Having a vegetarian at the table constipates my joy and my cooking. It makes me angry. I don't like angry.
Still, I love your writing and learn more about economics than I ever did in class.
BTW, the Vietnamese place at Five Corners/Eden Center that does all tofu (Thanh Son Tofu) is quite good.
I like food which happens to be vegetarian. I really dislike US all-vegetarian (especially vegan) restaurants, because I get the feeling that they want to punish me or themselves. (Perhaps the lack of butter and other things at the vegan places, combined with attempt to compensate with overseasoning makes it worse.) But vegetarian Thai, Vietnamese, whatever? No problem, eat it all the time.
There are aspects of the eating experience that vegetarianism simply cannot reproduce. There's not a vegetable in the world that can develop a decent fond, there's no decent way to make a soup rich besides gelatin from stock, and I've never had a vegetarian dish that could match the depth that the addition of even a small amount of meat could bring.
In my experience vegetarianism means a life of bland, salty food. I recognize the intellectual heft of the arguments for it, and we could all stand to eat less meat considering the grain it takes to raise it; but optimally, marginal land that can't support significant grain crops can be seeded with feed for animals, and in that way meat production can actually be something that improves, instead of harms, the food/land use situation.
I don't begrudge anyone who opts for vegetarianism, I'm simply relating my personal obstacle to it. From the way vegetarians talk about it, vegetarian cooking seems like a constant effort to overcome what you lose from giving up meat - see efforts like vegetarian "bacon" and "tofurkey" - and as someone who enjoys food I can't bring myself to make every meal a struggle.
Although I am an omnivore, I spent a couple of too well fed months in India eating only vegetarian food, and it wasn't overly salty or bland. Because of the number of vegetarians there, including Jain vegetarians who won't eat root vegetables such as onions, carrots, potatoes and the like, the Indians have developed an outstanding veg cuisine with as much flavor as you could want, and without resorting to textured soy hot dogs, faux hamburger, etc., or those damn alfalfa sprouts. Try veg thalis, dosas, and the like. Buddhist cuisine too produces great veg dishes; I had veg shark fin soup in Singapore, and no sharks were harmed in the process. Iagree with you though that it is often hard to get good veg dishes in most US/European restaurants, even top ones. The chefs generally just can't get behind the idea.
In re fake meat, I actually agree with you; most of it is dreadful. I like things that taste like themselves, not something else.
On the meat question, we'll just have to agree to disagree. There are a number of things that offer a rich flavor--roasted red peppers, for example. But to each his own.
Chet, two things:
1) It doesn't sound like you've made much of an effort to sample the variety of veggie food that's out there. Cookbooks from Robin Robertson or Isa Chandra Moskowitz are a great place to start. You do own at least one great vegetarian cookbook, don't you?
If somebody told you that beef tastes revolting, since they once had a hamburger from Dairy Queen, you would probably think that person's argument is, well, flawed. It's hard not to feel the same way about your take on veggie food.
2) Your analysis of environmental issues related to meat is fundamentally off. The appendices of my book _Meat Market: Animals, Ethics, & Money_ cover this in detail.
Even if 10 million Americans are vegetarian, as the article says, that's only 3 percent of the population. There may be more natural redheads in the US than vegetarians, and that's a small demographic. Vegetarianism is still way out of the mainstream.
That said, my boyfriend, another good friend, and several coworkers are vegetarians, so I'm not fazed by the lifestyle. I've been eating less meat lately because my boyfriend cooks a lot, and I think my health has improved. On the downside, a lot of restaurants are now off-limits because there's not enough for him to eat there.
And I'm sorry Megan, but despite your many posts about the benefits of veganism, why anyone would turn their back on milk, cheese, and eggs (and millenia of natural selection in favor of lactose tolerance) is beyond me. Then again, I'd never join a convent or keep kosher, either, and no one would call those choices crazy, so to each her own.
I don't want to start up one of this debates again, but I still just fundamentally don't buy the line that says "I'm a vegetarian because it's immoral to eat animals, but I'm not judging you." That doesn't make any sense. If you think it's immoral, it can't possibly be nonjudgmental. That's the most basic meaning of morality, if I'm not mistaken. I just think it's too socially awkward to admit that there is judgment there, thus the assertion that there isn't.
I have enough trouble keeping my principles myself. I don't have time to worry about what other people are putting in their mouth.
Obviously I would like more people to become vegans for various reasons, but I don't think they're bad people for not doing so.
If only a lot of vegetarians were like the author of the article.
Far too often I seem to run into the evangelizing bobo who JUST WON'T SHUT UP and is constantly riding the moral high horse....
Great essay. I love the "nothing that once had eyes" bit -- I wish I'd had that phrase available when I was a vegetarian. I often went through (usually with my family, and more than once) the conversation that starts with "but you do eat chicken, right?"
And the inevitable discovery when Mom promises "vegetable soup," it'll be in a very rich, hearty beef stock.
I'm not a vegetarian any more (I made it to just under 3 years), but the tasty-eyeless-food-quest is something that I'm still interested in. And yes, faux meat products are usually awful -- but I found a local restaurant that made a tempeh burger so awesome that I continued to order it every time I went there for years after I started eating meat again (until they took it off the menu last year). But they key there wasn't that it was fake meat, but that it was very tasty as its own thing -- it just happened to work great in burger format.
Far too often I seem to run into the evangelizing bobo who JUST WON'T SHUT UP and is constantly riding the moral high horse....
When I run into those people, I just make a point of loudly ordering a quadruple patty meat burger with extra meat, meat sauce, and a side of meat. Then I lustily suck at the dead animal juices as I consume it. It tends to shut them up.
Great essay. I love the "nothing that once had eyes" bit -- I wish I'd had that phrase available when I was a vegetarian.
Oysters, clams, etc. don't have eyes, nor do various other animals which people consume for food. Is it okay to eat cows that were born without eyes due to congenital birth defects?
I've had some tasty vegetarian food in my time (most of it, as has been noted, non-American in origin), and admit that I like tofu and even seitan. I respect the choice of people who decide not to eat meat. And I do think the American diet is a bit too carni-centric, culinarily, ecologically, and morally.
That said, I've never seriously considered vegetarianism, and never would. I find all the arguments against eating meat unpersuasive, as least as pertains to me. Ecologically unfriendly? Not if, as noted, it's raised in an environmentally conscious way and consumed in moderation. Bad for one's health? On the contrary, I've found that when I don't eat any meat (it once happened as I lived with a vegetarian), I feel anemic and get intense protein cravings, and no, eating lots of nuts and the like does not sate them. Not really that limiting in terms of culinary options? Au contraire. There are good vegetarian dishes, for sure, but the number pales in comparison to the number of good meat dishes out there. Much as I like miso soup, chickpea curry, and the like, I'd get sick of them if I ate them all the time.
Immoral? Pretty dependent on where you draw arbitrary ethical lines. You'd have to subsist on fruit that fell off the vine if you wanted to live without causing other organisms pain (plants feel distress too). As to the argument that you shouldn't eat what you won't kill yourself, there's something to it, but I was gutting fish when I was four years old and have gone from there. I feel neither guilt nor disgust at the thought of killing an animal for food. I think that the native Americans had the right idea about meat - it's okay to consume it, but you should try to avoid causing animals unnecessary pain, respect the sacrifice that they make to become your dinner, and never waste it.
I do think that vegetarians who wear leather are hypocrites, though. There is such a thing as synthetic leather these days. Sure, it's not as comfortable or stylish as the real thing, but then tofurkey isn't as juicy or flavorful as the real thing. That's a sacrifice you should be willing to make if you feel strongly about animal rights.
I was once eating at a BBQ with a whole bunch of your run-of-the-mill college aged alpha male jackoffs, with the predictable amount of beer. There was one kid that wasn't really eating anything, and when asked he informed he was a vegetarian. Everyone started ragging on the kid, but he deflected all of it brilliantly. I'll never forget this. He said, "I'm not a vegetarian because I especially like animals. I just f***ing HATE plants."
Now, granted, this explaination doesn't make much sense, but it sure seemed to do for a much of drunken frat guys.
I don't want to start up one of this debates again, but I still just fundamentally don't buy the line that says "I'm a vegetarian because it's immoral to eat animals, but I'm not judging you." That doesn't make any sense. If you think it's immoral, it can't possibly be nonjudgmental. That's the most basic meaning of morality, if I'm not mistaken. I just think it's too socially awkward to admit that there is judgment there, thus the assertion that there isn't.
Well, I don't assert it is "immoral" to eat animals. The idea of eating animals is uncomfortable to me. I make no claims whether other people find it immoral or uncomfortable and make no judgments about them.
I'm sort of a de facto vegetarian. Ever since seeing the Hallmark beef videos, I've given up any meat that isn't wild or humanly raised. I don't have a problem eating meet (after all, we are omnivores - most of is anyway), but if I can't watch my food being grown from farm to fork without gagging, I won't eat it. I can no more support Tyson's chicken industrial practices than I could grab road kill off the beltway and fry it up for dinner.
A friend asked me if I was so concerned with animal welfare, why I ate any meat at all. To which I replied that it isn't like a cow going to a slaughterhouse is dead man walking. It has no concept of a death sentence, but it does understand the difference between a good cow life and being horribly abused. So its all free range for me.
Fortunately, this also means the meat I do eat tends to be of much higher quality.
I'm curious, does the "no eyes" rule preclude potatoes?
I've dated an abnormally large percentage of vegetarians (based on my dating history, rather than 3% of the population, they'd be more like 70%) which is odd as I don't seek them out in any way, shape or form and have no desire to become so myself. On the other hand, I have no problem with them and little problem making accomodations for each other: ie. the great veg. indian place we discovered is awesome but the occassional trip to the fantastic new bbq place must also be accomodated.
On the morality, I def. think there's something to the idea of modern people getting too separated from where their food comes from. I could see a "I won't eat what I wouldn't kill" rule making sense but I join Xeynon in having no problem killing my own food and have done so periodically since I was a child.
Still, Megan's recent arguments against meat have me mulling. I don't think I could ever go fully veg. (I'd probably die of malnutrition before I could figure out good protein sources and a proper nutritional balance) but cutting down is seeming like more and more of a good idea...
Hi Bob:
I think part of the problem is that, I suspect (but have no data to back this up), that vegetarianism is much more a choice among younger people. That might explain both why the national average is so small, but you encounter so many women who are vegetarians.
If I think about my peer group, the number is more like 10 percent. I've also noticed more women are vegetarians than men among my peers. Obviously, I don't know if that perception matches up with the broader reality, but I would be interested in finding out.
Having read a number of behind the scenes books on cooking and the mindset of chefs, I have the answer to one of the author's requests:
Every vegetarian is used to slim pickings when dining out, so we're not asking for much—just for something you'd like to eat.
It's called: the rest of the menu. Seriously.
Most chefs are dedicated omnivores and will go out of the way to eat stuff that most of the Western world's population would reject: recognizable organ meats, really stinky cheeses, marrow, etc. One of the go-to places for chefs is St. John in London, which specializes in the like.
The "I won't eat what I wouldn't/couldn't/didn't kill argument is pretty silly. Do you live in a house you would have/could have built? Do you drive a car that you would have/could have built? Can you perform all of the service on your vehicle? Do you wear only clothes that you would have/could have made yourself? What about only getting hair cuts you would have/could have gotten? And then there's medical care... do you only get medical care that you could have done yourself?
In our modern society, we specialize. That's a good thing and brings tremendous benefits to everyone. Personally, I have no interest in learning how to make my own clothes. And frankly, my time is better spent doing other things. Same goes for growing my own food, purifying my own water, teaching my children (though that one I do participate in), etc...
Moral vegetarians are also pretty silly... if it's immoral for us to kill and eat animals, then it's immoral for animals to kill and eat other animals. And that's just silly.
Moral vegetarians who are only concerned about animal treatment while they are alive are more reasonable, but they would be able to eat free range meat, I presume.
Health vegetarians are a mixed bag... it can be very unhealthy to be a vegetarian but isn't always. The most healthy human diet would have at least some meat, though not nearly as much as most Americans eat.
The discomfort/dislike vegetarians are probably the most reasonable folks... they just don't want to or don't like eating meat.
There is one obstacle that would prevent me from ever becoming a vegetarian... bacon. Mmmmm... bacon.
The above is all my own opinion, of course, I'm not claiming to speak from any sort of moral authority.
szr,
I hope I didn't imply that it was a "problem" as it's most certainly not. To each their own, variety is the spice of life and all that.
As to your analysis of the probable causes of the skewed cross-section of society that my dating history represents, I think you are spot on. Interestingly, I don't believe I indicated my age or sex-preference of potential dates. Guess I'm easy to read though: I'm young-ish and date women. I've also always lived in large East Coast cities where I imagine you are likely to run into a higher percentage of vegetarians than you are in, say, rural Iowa.
I'd have to concur as well on your observation of more female than male vegetarians. (And I'm not just talking about my dating history anymore, fwiw.) I wonder why that is? Socialization of men as masculine meat-eaters? Testosterone-fueled meat mania? Or perhaps there's an equal distribution but we've just happened to run into more veg. women than men?
My ostracism went further; I decided to keep kosher and eliminating meat from my house & diet made it simpler (much). So all my secular Jewish friends thought I was crazy squared.
The problem is we're trying to have a discussion about this giant category as though that's a productive thing to do. Different people are different.
You can't write an article about how "We know meat tastes good" 'cause there's no "we" here. I know vegetarians who don't believe meat tastes good. Who respond to bacon or steak not with "oh man, I miss that, it smells great, but I'm sticking to my choice", but with "ew, gross, get that away from me". Both reactions exist.
There are vegetarians who are vegan and those who aren't. Ones who are judgmental and ones who aren't. People who eat no meat but fish, who aren't technically vegetarians, but almost. It's a label for one behavior, and that behavior doesn't necessarily tell you about their other behaviors.
Ethical Vegetarians,
This is not meant to be confrontational, just a legitimate curiosity that I've had and I can't seem to get answered.
Would you eat a mollusk?
Don't tell me you just don't like them; I just want to know if it's okay to eat them because, as I see it, they really have no more cognition than a carrot.
Oysters and clams have photosensitive tissue spots and scallops have recognizable eyes. Whether they have more cognition than carrots depends on how one defines cognition. While I don't know the literature about the mollusks we typically eat, they certainly have behavior that is different from a carrot...clams try to get away when you dig them up; carrots don't.
p.s. cephalopods (squid, octopus) are molusks, but I assume you meant shellfish.
The "I won't eat what I wouldn't/couldn't/didn't kill argument is pretty silly. Do you live in a house you would have/could have built? Do you drive a car that you would have/could have built? Can you perform all of the service on your vehicle? Do you wear only clothes that you would have/could have made yourself? What about only getting hair cuts you would have/could have gotten? And then there's medical care... do you only get medical care that you could have done yourself?
Could, yes, and often do (perform routine and some specialized auto maintenance, familiar with basic construction techniques including plumbing and electrical, sew buttons back onto clothes, etc.). On the medical side, I do make an attempt to understand and attempt a preliminary diagnosis when some health ailment comes up, with the notable exception of my appendectomy. First, I was three years old. Second, it's a little hard to wield a scalpel correctly when one is violently ill and under excruciating pain (or so I am told, the memories are a bit foggy).
In our modern society, we specialize. That's a good thing and brings tremendous benefits to everyone. Personally, I have no interest in learning how to make my own clothes. And frankly, my time is better spent doing other things. Same goes for growing my own food, purifying my own water, teaching my children (though that one I do participate in), etc...
Specializing is not a moral seperation from the activity. The question is, do you understand what has to be done and could you do it if necessity absolutely demanded your intervention? I have no interest in cleaning septic tanks and would much rather pay someone else to do it, but if the latrine is moving turds in the wrong direction and I was literally the only one available to deal with it before a small disaster occurs, then hand me the rubber gloves and shovel, and let's go see what the problem is.
There once was a time when this was a standard trait of Americans in general. The danger of specialization is that it gives people the default option of never developing a broad range of basic skills, and if such a person is ever confronted with a "You're the last one standing, now do something" situation, s/he would be completely helpless.
For health reasons I've been eating Macrobiotic for the past two months, a diet that is heavily grain oriented but allows fish a few times a week. Some of my meals have been spectacular and other practically inedible...it's certainly been an adventure.
I had always limited meat consumption to a few days a week, and my rules were: (1) it couldn't resemble what it was, and (2) I cannot have known it while it was alive. But as the late, great Joseph Campbell said, the horrendous truth is that life lives on life...when you eat a vegetable you're simply eating something that can't run away.
Personally I feel that what most people eat cannot be considered food in any healthful or true sense of the word, and that the American diet is the leading cause of most of our major illnesses - cancer, heart disease, diabetes. That being said, it's none of my business what anyone else chooses to eat or not eat...it's their life, not mine.
I agree with Mouse on the silliness of making the specialization that is the hallmark of a modern economy into a moral and all-encompassing separation of some from certain activities.
Beyond that, I'm perfectly happy to extend my "don't eat it if you wouldn't kill it" rule to other occupations. If I were to learn that my getting a haircut necessitated the barber torturing a small child then I would not get haircuts. I certainly wouldn't keep getting them and assume that it's fine because although I wouldn't torture a small child, I also don't know the first thing about making a really good souffle so not getting haircuts to stop the torture of children is just as silly as not eating souffles because I can't make one myself.
I've heard it said that no one person knows how to make a pencil or even could know how as the variety of specialized bits of knowledge used in the various stages of turning graphite ore and trees into a Faber #2 are too varied and intricate for one person to master them all sufficiently to create a pencil. I don't know if that's necessarily true, but there are clearly products we can all benefit from for which it is indisputibly true and so thank god for specialization, cooperation and organization. Using that fact to excuse yourself from all moral judgements because, though you might benefit from them, you are not the one committing the transgressions is just stupid.
In an important sense, plants have eyes, in that they have photosensitive tissues [other than their photosynthesizing tissues] that detect sunlight and secrete hormones in a pattern that tends to make the plant grow towards the sunlight.
-dk
I could see a "I won't eat what I wouldn't kill" rule making sense
This is why I don't order the quail at fancy restaurants. They're just too cute to shoot. It's also why I hunt when I can.
Suffice it to say that one day, I suddenly realized that I could never look a cow in the eyes, press a knocking gun to her temple, and pull the trigger without feeling I'd done something cruel and unnecessary.
And her we come to the flip side: I hate cattle. No problem.
"Hot dogs? You know what's in that?"
Well, since I buy kosher dogs, yes - very good beef, and nothing much else.
Rejecting meat because you couldn't kill a cow is, in my experience, unique to people who haven't spent much time around cows.
Rejecting meat because you couldn't kill a cow is, in my experience, unique to people who haven't spent much time around cows.
Pigs and chickens, even more so. Trouble is, some people take Charlotte's Web literally.
Sprite made a good point above: that lots of restaurants she loves are off the list bc her boyfriend is vegetarian and doesn't like anything on their menu.
If you have one vegetarian in a group going out to lunch, that person often controls where the group goes. It's a bit like having the one smoker in the group requiring the group to sit in the smoking section so he could light up.
The other people in the group would prefer to go to some other place, but the one person with a strong preference in favor of a certain place (or against certain places) tends to win out.
While people will try to accomodate the restaurant likes and dislikes of their friends, a vegetarian in the group seems to place lots of restaurants off the list.
Xeynon:
Fruitarianism
Just in case veganism isn't hardcore enough for you.
(Yes, I realize there are several wildly-varying reasons detailed in Wikipedia for the above lifestyle.)
Larry, when I was a vegetarian, about the only restaurant I would veto was a steakhouse. Scratch that--I've eaten in a steakhouse several times since becoming a vegan.
My friends are nice enough to accomodate me by skewing our dining towards Asian or Ethiopian or Vegetarian places, but if that's not possible, I just order a salad. The person with the outlying preferences is the one who has to adjust--unless those preferences are religious or allergic.
I'm a vegetarian who wears leather shoes. I rationalize this several ways.
1) It's like being a Christian or a member of any other religious or moral group. I'm not a "perfect" vegetarian, I'm just doing the best I can. If you're a "perfect" Christian or a vegan, feel free to look down on me.
2) I know there are substitutes, but they are not comfortable for my feet.
3) Everyone else is eating so many hamburgers, there is leftover leather--in other words, no ADDITIONAL cows are being killed to make my shoes. I avoid kidskin or calfskin. Okay, I know that's really lame.
My friends are nice enough to accomodate me by skewing our dining towards Asian or Ethiopian or Vegetarian places, but if that's not possible, I just order a salad.
Ethiopian's great too. In their case, the amount of great vegetarian dishes is related to the how seriously they take Lent.
I still don't understand how you can eat at just plain "Vegetarian" places, though. Those places, while run by vegans or vegetarians presumably, still seem to hate their clientele and produce bad food.
Xeynon:
And I do think the American diet is a bit too carni-centric, culinarily, ecologically, and morally.
"Carni-centric" is not an accurate adjective to apply to the typical American diet. According to the USDA (see the Calories/Total spreadsheet here), there are about 380 loss-adjusted calories worth of meat per day per capita available for consumption in the US. This is compared to 280 for dairy products, 80 for fruit, 130 for vegetables, 610 for grains, 480 for added sugars, and 640 for added fats (mostly seed oils).
It would be more accurate describe the typical American diet as "grano-centric," or even "sucro-centric," than as "carni-centric."
if it's immoral for us to kill and eat animals, then it's immoral for animals to kill and eat other animals. And that's just silly.
Hmm, let's try substituting other common animal behaviors:
* If it's immoral for us to abandon or kill our weakest babies, then it's immoral for animals to abandon or kill their weakest offspring. And that's just silly.
* If it's immoral for us to attack and sometimes kill others to acquire more territory for ourselves, then it's immoral for animals to attack and sometimes kill others to acquire more territory for themselves. And that's just silly.
Yup, that makes perfect sense to me.
"Carni-centric" is not an accurate adjective to apply to the typical American diet.
Perhaps what I should have said is that American cuisine is carni-centric. What I meant is not that the American diet consists primarily of meat, but rather that it tends to rely overmuch on meat, and specifically red meat, as its primary source of protein. In addition to the U.S., I've lived in both Korea and Japan. Both countries, I would guess, have far fewer vegetarians than the U.S. does (vegetarianism seems to be considered somewhere between eccentric and actually mentally aberrant here unless you're a Buddhist monk), yet the typical Korean or Japanese eats red meat maybe once a week, as opposed to three or four times. Furthermore, many more Japanese and Korean meals use no meat at all, but rather fish, tofu, beans, or other protein sources. Not coincidentally, Japanese and Koreans both have far lower incidences of heart disease, high cholesterol, stroke, etc. And personally I find I enjoy beef a lot more when I don't eat it every other day. Variety is the spice of life and all that.
Responding to something way upthread, but:
there's no decent way to make a soup rich besides gelatin from stock
is just empirically false.
One of my great joys in life is throwing parties, particularly dinner parties. Having a vegetarian at the table is a burden, no matter how much I may like that person. Vegetarian cooking is not in my skill set and there are still hundreds of skills ahead of that one on my life list. Having a vegetarian at the table constipates my joy and my cooking. It makes me angry. I don't like angry.
Still, I love your writing and learn more about economics than I ever did in class.