Vegetarianism
Why are we so picky about eating animals. Many vegetarians are veggy by choice not because eating meat causes them problems but because they are picky about the fact that animals are killed and eaten by us humans. Some wrap it up by saying that it’s not right to eat animals that suffer. Other say that it healthier not to eat meat of any form at all.
But why are we so picky about eating animals. We have evolved to eat meat which is why we have canine teeth. Yes we can eat vegetables, fruit and berries too so we are omnivores. But we are designed to eat meat as part of our diet. Not just our teeth but our bodies require the proteins and fats in meat. To go against eating meat is to go against nature. All around animals eat each other to survive. We are animals. So we eat other animals to survive. To say that we are a special type of animal and that we shouldn’t eat meat is to be snobby and deny our evolution. A Lion doesn’t make an ethical decisions when chasing an Impala and stop when the Impala has suffered too much.
Morals don’t come into eating to live and survive. As if it makes a difference which is more moral, eating a potato or eating a shrimp. Both are living things. Religion tries to make eating a moral act but mostly this is either to do with denying something (like smoking or drinking) to show you belong to the group or because in the long distant past the food was not safe or was needed for other reasons.
In the past farm workers eat less meat than the modern office worker who sits at their desk 10 hours a day but they still survived the hard work of farming. The majority of the meat was not the rump steaks and prime cuts but the cheaper but still nutritious other cuts.
We don’t need to have the majority of our diet as meat. We are omnivores but we can survive and thrive on a diet of pulses, cereals and vegetables with only the odd bit of meat. We don’t need to eat a piece of meat every day. Two or three times a week is adequate but it can be cut down to 10% or less of our overall diet if we are to compare ourselves with other primates.
Animals are cute and fluffy yes, but should we eat just ugly looking animals just because we don’t like to kill the cute ones? Should we stop people eating cats (sacred to women the world over) when we have people eating cows (sacred to Hindus).
SBML
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January 13, 2011 at 16:12 -
A good basic rule is to eat only vegetarian animals, which is why cats & dogs are not on the menu in the West.
The BSE debacle clearly demonstrated that feeding meat to exclusively vegetarian aminals is a very bad idea. (This was done to speed up muscle growth, for profit not health. I wonder what new & potentially dangerous tricks the unscrupulous agribusiness have now developed?) -
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January 13, 2011 at 16:12 -
I went veggie once, as an experiment, for three months. I put on a stone and felt distinctly unhealthy. Never again.
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January 13, 2011 at 16:21 -
Nothing quite like sitting down to a plate of dead animal…
Do you know why the Jews and the Muslims are forbidden the joys of bacon? To leave more for the rest of us.
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January 13, 2011 at 16:23 -
Canines (vestigial in man) is irrelevant; geladas & giant pandas have bigguns. Sikhs and Shaolin monks, as veggies, were notable for their robust fierceness. If you abstain for ethical reasons (I don’t) a potato can’t suffer pain or jdistress and eating one wouldn’t be equal to eating a dog.
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January 13, 2011 at 16:32 -
I could murder a fluffy kitten. (No, really, it’s a joke. A JOKE!) Wrinkled Weasel does not condone cruelty to animals in any form and would not seriously recommend the murdering of fluffy kittens. Of course If I were to say a prayer before cutting its little throat, that would be ok, wouldn’t it?
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January 13, 2011 at 16:39 -
Hmmmm …. if humans are not special what would be the problem in killing and eating other humans? There are many examples of cannabalism in nature so if we are taking nature as an example there should be no problem with that.
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January 13, 2011 at 17:28 -
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January 13, 2011 at 17:43 -
Not sure SBML was saying humans are not special so much as he just didn’t think being special was a reason to not eat meat. That you and I can reason and independently arrive at moral values, possibly the same and possibly not, is undeniably special and should put us off from eating each other, but there’s no reason to apply that to species that are not just not our own but have actually been part of our diet for many, many generations. Perhaps I’m just interpreting it the way I want to so maybe SBML can clarify. I feel your point about taking nature as an example leading to cannibalism does not follow. Cannibalism might be common among some creatures but I think it’s pretty unusual among mammals, and if most mammals were cannibalistic it still wouldn’t follow that we should be. It’s not about following nature’s example but just being true to our own nature. Eating meat is in our nature, cannibalism generally is not.
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January 13, 2011 at 17:15 -
re: “saying a prayer” the slaughterman in Islam is meant to keep the animal from seeing the knife. So if the animal is astute enough to get frightened when it sees a knife, a veggie might conclude that there is an ethical protblem in taking the life of a sentient being.
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January 13, 2011 at 17:43 -
…but should we eat just ugly looking animals just because we don’t like to kill the cute ones?
Are you saying that IYHO cutie cows, piggies and lambkins etc are ugly?
…a potato can’t suffer pain or jdistress …[sic]
In your opinion richard!
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January 14, 2011 at 04:09 -
And the dog’s opinion too, no doubt – potatoes aren’t very likely to object to being killed and eaten, being bereft of a central nervous system.
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January 13, 2011 at 17:46 -
P.S. I quite like Ed P’s first comment: “A good basic rule is to eat only vegetarian animals, which is why cats & dogs are not on the menu in the West.
What about fish? Most fish eat other fish or organisms of some sort, in fact all/most farmed fish has fishmeal as a key ingredient.
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January 13, 2011 at 17:50 -
P.P.S….and finally: “But why are we so picky about eating animals.”
Because now, more than ever, most people are far,faaaaar removed from food production. It’s the technification and intensification needing very few farm workers and the rest of the population moving to/ living in cities and buying all their stuff from plastic vacuum sealed packs. etc…plus the old “Disneyfication” argument.
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January 13, 2011 at 18:25 -
Good point. When kids don’t understand that eggs come from chickens that their steak comes from cows then you know why people are less connected with their food. I suspect that they don’t even understand that most food is seasonal.
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January 13, 2011 at 18:05 -
Kill ‘em, skin ‘em, eat ‘em and wear ‘em
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January 13, 2011 at 18:16 -
I’ve been veggie for 40 years. Not vegan, I eat milk and eggs. I’m slim, fit and healthy.
I don’t preach it, it’s just an instinct for me, I never enjoyed real meat as a kid, just sausages and processed stuff.
There’s no morality involved. I wear leather, and I’m not against vivisection.
There’s a lot of amusing nonsense spoken by both veggies and carnies.
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January 13, 2011 at 19:28 -
If only they were all like you Zaphod.
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January 13, 2011 at 19:49 -
Veggies are rather a po-faced lot. I’ve actually got more in common with most carnivores.
Eating meat is clearly natural. It’s not actually necessary, but so what?
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January 14, 2011 at 00:52 -
Same here. I’m not keen on the “vegetarian” label though. Too many connotations.
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January 13, 2011 at 18:28 -
I think veggies become veggies just so they can nag the rest of us about how unhealthy our diet is. Perhaps they develop whiney voices and pasty complexions for the same reason.
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January 13, 2011 at 20:20 -
“To go against eating meat is to go against nature.”
To shit on a flush toilet is to go against nature. I’m not a veggie, but I don’t find the natural argument convincing. Our existence, our lifestyle, is based on our surpassing of nature.
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January 13, 2011 at 22:06
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January 13, 2011 at 20:33 -
…and all this on the day that we bought the latest slow cooker…
The vitamin deficiencies of a vegan diet are well recorded, but I won’t shout them too loud, as we live a few villages awy from Paul McCartney!
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January 13, 2011 at 21:30 -
I am not a vegetarian because I love animals, I am a vegetarian because I hate plants.
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January 14, 2011 at 00:46 -
I do quite honestly think it is possible to have a respect for, and sometimes even affection for, the species of animal one eats. I know farmers who quite geniunely do care for and have some respect for their livestock, not just as financial assets but as fellow beings.
I must admit on the other hand, I do not to my knowledge know any farmers that willingly sell animals to be, erm, slaughtered while fully aware, in a certain religious fashion. I myself try to avoid eating such meat, and try to ask where appropriate.
I am partial to a bit of venison sometimes. Yet I think deer are beautiful and stags in full rut are magnificent. Yet if left to breed as they would, the countryside would not be as pleasant and they would become unmanageable.
With livestock in general, I do think being stunned before slaughter is one of the better and appropriate uses of modern technology. If I were one of those animals, I’d certainly choose that option if asked. Admittedly they cannot effectively be asked.
In the past all our ancestors slaughtered livestock in the time honoured way of sharp blade without any stunning.
Killing an animal by blade is also still done today in certain religious ceremonies, in many parts of the world, but it is done, if the operator knows at all what they’re role is, in as quick and humane fashion as possible, in most instances.
I find I have less of a horror of it than I used to many years ago as a maudlin, naive and inappropriately sentimental teenager. I don’t think I’ve become colder as a person, I think I’ve just learned to look at things differently.
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January 14, 2011 at 01:21 -
Clarification:
By “religious ceremonies” in the penultimate paragraph above, I in fact refer to rites for religio-magical transcendence or power, such as in the Vodoun, Santeria or Palo traditions. The instances are usually one, or a very few in bigger community rites, animals being killed, as quickly and reverentially as possible, in most cases, and as offerings to the Spirits, not en masse for fiscal gain.
I do not there refer to Halal meat, which I am not happy to be sold or given, certainly not without my explicit consent, despite the fact I’ve no doubt consumed it more than once if the reports on it’s prevalence in the West are true.
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January 14, 2011 at 07:04 -
It’s all about kids knowing what they eat and where it comes from. My 2-year-old was in the butcher’s last week (not on his own, I was there too, before you call Child Services), and there were various whole de-feathered ducks and geese on show, heads and all. I was intrigued to see how he would react, but we had a chat about it and he totally got the idea that they were for eating and even asked if we could have one (he is quite the young carnivore).
He knows the duck in the butcher’s is the same as the duck on the lake that we feed bread, and that’s OK with him. I think people worry far too much about the sensitivities of kids. Not sure I’d want him to see an animal being slaughtered quite yet, but it’s a start!
Vegans by the way are utterly mental. Not eating cheese in vast quantities IS a crime against nature.
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January 14, 2011 at 12:08 -
Spot on. My three year old is totally relaxed about meat, and fully aware it was once part of a living, breathing animal. Artificially hiding or obfuscating the origins of meat is, to my mind, a deceitful thing to do to a child (don’t get me started on ‘The Big Santa Lie’!).
Just because our chilren tend to grow up in urban areas does not mean they are fundamentally different to the millions of children elsewhere in the world who commonly witness animals being slaughtered (or the thousands in the UK who live on farms for that matter). I don’t believe any of them suffer damage to their ‘fragile little minds’ in the process.
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January 14, 2011 at 10:53 -
AE …. I certainly did not intend to imply that if nature is taken as an example that will definitely lead to cannabalism, it might or it might not, you are quite correct it does not necessarily follow, but then it does not necessarily not follow either!
How about looking at it like this …. if it is ok to breed and kill for food cows, pigs, aligators, ducks, geese etc. why would anybody have any problem if I wanted to breed humans and kill them for food? It may not be common but if that is my nature why would I be instantly arrested and locked up forever with common consent? Would you be demanding my instant release as I’m only following my nature and eating all meat is absulutely fine, or would you consent to my being locked up?
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January 14, 2011 at 12:50 -
I would throw away the key
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January 14, 2011 at 19:08 -
Used to work with big cats and had to kill animals and chickens to feed to my charges, got quite good at it too. And it made me feel sick every time. So I reasoned that if I wasn’t comfortable killing them, I shouldn’t eat them. Once the mental switch had been thrown it was easy after that. Just gave up eating meat and haven’t done since (nearly 40 years ago). Packed in working at the zoo too which was a bit of a wrench – made some very good friends there… tigers, chimps, pumas. Ho hum
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January 15, 2011 at 01:28 -
You know, even if not much else, – which is in itself not fully valid, as postings here say huge amounts, –
I think I rather like those that have posted here. Dare I even say that I have eaten duck, more than once, yet on a picnic day out with the wife, I feel like two inches tall when a little mallard or what not, waddles up to me cheekily, expecting food. I nowadays make sure of a big bag of appropriate RSPCA approved, feed, to fill their bellies. Helps to assuage my guilt at eating their distant brethren.
Turns out, it seems, Elvis himself grew up very poor and used to go out shooting squirrels for food. That’s what I’ve read. In my case I feed the local squirrels ’till they’re burying the nuts, but at least I can sleep knowing they’ve got full bellies. -
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January 15, 2011 at 10:56 -
Every single argument for eating meat in this article is only applicable to hunter gatherer societies where eating meat is necessitated by lifestyle and is still in uniform with our evolutionary omnivorous nature. However, the very very large majority of people eating meat in the world today are buying into a meat market which is not only incredibly destructive to the environment but is also way more against our evolutionary nature than being vegetarian. Going to a butcher or supermarket to buy meat doesn’t exactly equate to hunting animals for food to survive. We have evolved in such a way that we are adapted to eating meat but also in such a way that we don’t need to eat meat to survive. Criticizing vegetarianism with the “what’s more natural” argument completely nullifies one’s arguemnt if even 1% of the meat one eats is sourced from the global meat market and not hunted on a basis of necessity.
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January 20, 2011 at 06:17 -
I am not against eating meat ,but how the process is covered up and hidden from consumers about how their piece of steak gets there. The rearing with growth promoters , the transportation, handling, stunning and killing of animals so the consumer buys a sealed bloodless piece of flesh that has no relation to the living animal and the farce that is food labelling . Unless the supermarket or restaurant can say truthfully that this animal has been treated humanely from birth to death i for one am not interested. And we are going backwards in society if we allow animals to be killed unstunned and i do not give a shit what your sky pixie friend says , it is cruel.
{ 42 comments }