My thoughts on being a vegetarian
Let me just start by saying this is not an attack on vegetarians or their opinions. I have many good friends and family who are vegetarians and I am sure they all have logically thought out their own opinion on all the topics I am going to talk about.
There seems to be a lot of conflicting information on the internet about why humans should not be eating meat. I will go through various topics that seem to get raised by various people.
1. Humans are not omnivores, we are in fact herbivores that have trained our digestive system to handle meat (badly)
I have some problems with this statement. I am yet to find reliable sources of studies done that provide any indication that humans do not consume the minerals, vitamins and proteins in meat. There are plenty of parts of meat we don't consume, but this is the same with most things that we eat, that is why things come out the other end.
To try and tell me that humans are not designed to eat meat because we don't have the same features that carnivores have, i.e. claws etc., seems a bit far fetched. Anyone else got these pointy teeth called incisors and canines??
2. We cook our meat anyway which removes all (or most) of the vitamins from the meat anyway.
Well this is just a big generalisation on "cooking" meat. If you stew everything you lose a lot more minerals out of the meat. Even with stewing for a couple of hours, the sources I have found (http://www.choose-healthy-food.com/cooking-meat.html) suggest that only 50% of minerals are lost maximum.
The reason we cook our meat is not because we can't digest it, it is because the bacteria that can be found on a piece of meat can be deadly. The technology to cook meat was one of our finest achievements as a species, as it meant we could eat with a much lower risk of serious food poisoning.
3. Animals grown for meat are treated badly while being grown and in abattoirs/slaughterhouses they are not killed humanely or with any respect for the animal.
I think this is definitely a massive factor for vegetarians to choose not to eat meat. I do however think the vast majority of vegetarians are just removing themselves from the problem, rather than finding a solution.
There are now a few organisations that aim to educate the general population about how animals are mistreated for the sake of mass production.
In my view, choosing to eat free range animals that have been killed with respect and minimal pain, is doing the same thing for the animals as choosing not to eat meat (in terms of what is going to happen to these animals)
4. The ethics of eating another sentient being, if we can survive without it, is ethically wrong.
Now this argument in one of the few I don't think anyone can argue against effectively.
Humans are superior so we should eat the animals less superior to us, just because we can? As my mother-in-law would say "mmmmm No"
[EDIT: Added 11:10am 2011-01-20]
5. The energy to produce 1kg of meat is 2-3 times more than 1kg of grain or cereal.
I think this is a very important part of how we should value the cost of eating meat. As our personal environmental affect becomes more of a priority, I hope that this sort of information is more widely known.
For me this is much more about being aware of our environmental cost in general and not just how much meat we eat.
As my cousin loves pointing out, the energy cost of using (new - not recycled) aluminium products is thousands of times more energy intensive than meat. The environmental cost of building your car is probably your lifetime's supply of eating meat.
Some stuff that relates slightly to this section, that annoys me to insanity, is the environmental impact the floods in Queensland are having. Because people have insurance, anything that has touched water is being thrown out and replacements are being claimed. As can be seen on news coverage, a lot of this stuff is new and undamaged goods, including aluminium kitchen sinks etc.
The environmental cost of the way people are behaving and the way that insurance companies are handling this, is ridiculously high.
[FINISHED EDIT]
My conclusions
Vegetarians are on the right track, reduction is the key, but completely forgoing meat doesnt seem to me as the way to fix the problem. One of my philosophies in life is "moderation, moderation, moderation", so I doubt I will ever be a vego or a vegan, but I am willing to cut my meat diet down and pay more for real free range and humanely killed meat (Added: 2011-01-20).
After reading the article above it gives idea about the cost of eating a majority meat diet. Something like twice the energy goes into producing a meat majority diet as opposed to a milk-egg-cereal based one.
Although if all the world abandoned meat and started just eating eggs, we wouldn't be in a much better position in terms of animal cruelty. Chickens are already some of the worst treated animals in the mass production food industry. (http://www.jamieoliver.com/jamiesfowldinners/)
I think that reducing meat consumed by the vast majority of people is important. But, halting consumption, unfortunately, isn't going to fix our problems, environmentally or ethically.
We need to step forward slowly, reducing consumption of meat, making sure the meat we do consume comes from animals that have died painlessly and making sure that we are consuming the nutrients our body actually requires.
Posted on Tuesday, Jan 18, 2011
7 Comments
Well i would like to see you not eating meat, that food when we travel around..... jeje, but i think meat is mostly proteins, like chiken, turkey or cow and also eggs has, but in % meat has more, and proteins are need it :).
About "Anyone else got these pointy teeth called incisors and canines??" you should meat my friend Ramon we call him Dracula, jajajaja.
Seriously though, well written article. I am in agreement with all that you have written (and I was once a vegetarian for a time).
The fact that our bodies are capable of something (such as the fact that our digestive system is capable of breaking down meat) does not give us a moral basis to do that. We all could strangle people with our hands and could kick people in the face, but we choose not to. We're also capable of eating humans. The fact that we might have evolved to have teeth that could only be for tearing apart meat can give us an idea of our history, but it says nothing about the future direction we should head. There's no moral basis to evolution.
I don't really agree with your 3rd point. I do agree that it would be better if we all ate far less meat and what we did came from truly free range sources, but with Australia's current rules on food labelling (which are promisingly undergoing a federal review at the moment), and the fact that you're never really going to know how the animal was killed, means that it's nearly impossible to make properly informed choices as a consumer as to an appropriate degree of animal welfare. So completely removing meat from your diet avoids this grey area, and incrementally contributes to less demand for animal food products and hence less animals being brought into existence who are likely to lead miserable lives. Animals that aren't 'demanded' won't graze around the paddocks like free range animals, they simply won't exist. In this way, the gradual transition that you talk about can be brought about by people gradually going vegetarian or vegan. This will be a slow enough process; I don't think individual consumers need to be gradual about their transition (unless of course it makes it easier for them to change personally).
But maybe if the food labelling laws are changed in the future (and are strictly enforced) then only buying 'free range' meat might be a serious alternative. While some organisations have been having a crack at bringing about some transparency (e.g. http://www.choice.com.au/reviews-and-tests/food-and-health/labelling-and-adve..., there is still currently no restriction on businesses putting a 'free range' label on a packet of meat bits (except the theoretical potential for the ACCC to make a claim for 'misleading and deceptive conduct' against someone).
I like your 4th point though. And the environmental point is a massive one.
Adam,
My first point was just having a go at some of the stuff on the web (searching for things like "why our body doesn't need meat"). These crap arguments exist on both sides of the fence (for and against vegetarianism). We should basically ignore this sh*t. As you said the other arguments are much more important.
I am not sure how you interpreted my third point. I meant instead of just forgoing meat and not doing anything else, we should be doing exactly what you suggest and get our sources of meat right and weaning ourselves off it slowly. This doesn't mean reading a label, it means actually knowing.
I am optimistic that this is the direction we are going. I think the story of our food is becoming increasingly important and a lot of people (for example Jamie Oliver http://www.jamieoliver.com/jamiesfowldinners/) are doing a lot more to help the cause.
I think I will add a 5th point about the sustainability of cropping and meat production as I think not having it's own dot point is side-lining an important topic.
The thing that sucks is that a lot of people aren't receptive to moral and philosophical arguments. I was having a discussion with my uncle a few months ago and his main point was that you might be right, but most people won't listen because they need personal incentives like superior tastes and health benefits for them to want to change. Selfish f#ckers we are!
But as you say, we're heading in the right direction and the youth are where it's at :)
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