“Meat is necessary
for proper nutrition.” [top]
This is simply not true. Research on the health
effects of vegetarianism is generally quite positive. Nutritionists and
other health experts generally advocate that vegetarians should be careful
to get a balanced diet... but they say that about everyone. If nutrition
is important to you, consider that the majority of the evidence suggests that
the less meat you eat, the better.
The only nutritional advantage of meat is that it packs a lot
of nutrition (along with a lot of harmful substances) into an
easy-to-consume package... in other words, it can be convenient.
But mere convenience is a very poor justification for causing our
annual slaughter of billions of animals.
The Journal
of the American Dietetic Association states that,
"...appropriately planned vegetarian diets are healthful, are
nutritionally adequate, and provide health benefits in the
prevention and treatment of certain diseases." The
article then goes on to describe a variety of ways in which
vegetarianism is a healthier lifestyle, citing lower mortality
from and incidence of a variety of diseases and conditions.
Additionally, the Center
for Science in the Public Interest quotes Marion
Nestle, chair of the Nutrition & Food Studies department at New York University as
saying:
"There's no question that largely vegetarian diets are as healthy
as you can get. The evidence is so strong and overwhelming and
produced over such a long period of time that it's no longer
debatable."
A great number of other health organizations and government
agencies also support the view that vegetarian diets are either
sufficient or beneficial. Most criticisms from such organizations
apply mostly to people who have bad eating habits. For more
information, follow this link.
“I guess eating meat's
just a habit... I never really thought about it. Besides, everybody does it.” [Top]
I think this is the real reason why most people eat meat. In the past, meat
was a luxury item in most cultures and a necessity in a few others (Eskimos
really needed to eat meat to survive). It was generally eaten sparingly, and
it greatly helped supplement diets that may not have been well-balanced due
to the limited amount of plant foods available in any one region.
That was the past. In the past there may have been some reasonable justifications
for eating meat. In most modern societies, it is perfectly possible to live
a healthy, normal life without causing the deaths of animals. We still cling
to the past out of habit.
A brief examination of the morality, environmental impact, and healthiness
of eating meat easily produces the reasonable conclusion that one should probably
avoid meat as much as possible. Most people so far have simply been too lazy,
self-centered, or unthinking to consider the consequences of their actions
concerning diet. "Meat is readily available in stores, so it must be OK, right?"
Clearly, that is not very careful reasoning. Just because cigarettes are readily
available in stores does not mean they have no harmful health effects, does
it?
Other practices which we now consider immoral were once considered common
and acceptable... everyone did it. Slavery was perfectly acceptable in large
parts of the world before this century. Murdering a person outside of your
clan or tribe was fine behavior for people in many hunter-gatherer societies
(and is still accepted behavior in modern street gangs). Rape was normal behavior
for primitive humans, and retains various degrees of acceptance today. Suppressing
some or all rights of women or racial minorities was perfectly legal in the
United States until very recently, and is common in other nations. Because
these behaviors were or are generally accepted, does that make them right?
Just because a lot of people do something, is it right? (Incidentally, for
thousands of years many Buddhists have believed that eating animals is wrong.)
Regardless of what the nameless hordes do, shouldn't you consider the consequences
of your actions? Don't the thousands of animals you're going to kill deserve
at least a cursory bit of thinking on your part?
“Eating meat is natural.” [Top]
Assuming this is true, so what? Living in caves and dying of old age at 30
is natural. Murder, rape, and random violence are very natural behavior, not
just to humans, but to most animals. Just because humans have often killed
animals for meat in the past is no justification for continuing the barbaric
practice.
Yes, humans have canine teeth which are good for rending flesh, and there
is also evidence that our intestines are well-adapted to processing meat.
But, look at a gorilla picture sometime: they have huge canine teeth and do
not eat any animals except some bugs. Additionally, as noted
above, a vegetarian diet is generally acknowledged to be as healthy or
more healthy than a meat-based diet.
Historically, the majority of human cultures developed diets of
mostly plant materials, with meat as a nutritional supplement (not
as the main part of most every meal). In modern cultures that have
healthy trade with other regions, humans have access to a vast
variety of plant foods and do not require meat for good
nutrition.
It is just as natural for humans to not eat meat. Our closest cousins, chimpanzees,
hunt and eat animals, but only as a tiny minority of their mostly herbivorous
diet. Since they do not have grocery stores, they may not be able to get complete
nutrition from the plants in their area. Also, they may like the taste of
flesh. But then again, they also may not be considering the moral consequences
of their actions. The real question here is, do you have higher morals than
a chimp?
“Meat tastes
good.” [Top]
Perhaps human flesh tastes good; is that any reason to kill
people? Additionally, many vegetarian foods taste wonderful (a
huge variety of Mediterranean, Indian, Asian, and Latin American
foods are vegetarian or vegan).
The argument that you should eat meat because it tastes good is
equivalent to saying: "I want to participate in killing billions
and billions of creatures so that I can occasionally experience
the transient pleasure of something tasty. I want to kill and kill
and kill for a small amount of pleasure."
Does that little bit of pleasure outweigh the lives of the
trillions of animals that are going to be slaughtered in your
lifetime?
“A vegetarian diet is
inconvenient; a meat-based diet is convenient.” [Top]
Not killing anyone who annoys you is inconvenient too.
Restraint from killing for your own convenience or pleasure is
simply part of being a responsible human being. A minor
inconvenience is no justification for mass-killing.
In fact, once you make the minor mental effort to try to be a
vegetarian, the lifestyle is really not that inconvenient. It
requires thinking a little before ordering from a menu or grocery
shopping and it may require you to learn some new cooking habits,
but once you've adapted to those conditions, they become habits,
not inconveniences.
The only persisting inconvenience is that in some public eating
arrangements (some restaurants, parties, etc.), meat appears to be
the only option. However, the more people that become vegetarians,
the less this becomes an issue. Already, most restaurants are
prepared to serve good food to vegetarians, and the ones that
aren't are losing customers (I, for one, will not go to PoFolks
until they significantly change their menu).
Regardless, consider if you showed up at a restaurant or a
party and the host said, "Sorry I can only feed you some potato
chips and lettuce, but if you'd like, you can kill the cat and eat
some meat." What would you do? How is killing that cat any
different than killing a pig, which is much more intelligent and
more genetically similar to a human being?
Maybe being a vegetarian is somewhat more inconvenient to some
people. So what? Can you really justify a few thousand murders for
a minor convenience?
“Life's not fair.
It's survival of the fittest, and the strong kill the weak.” [Top]
There is little difference between this opinion and the idea that it is justifiable
to kill, hurt, or otherwise violate any person you want as long as you can
get away with it.
The "life's not fair" argument is the logic of such wonderful people as Fascists,
military dictators, murderers, rapists, school-yard bullies, and self-centered
people in general. If the philosophy of vegetarianism goes against the philosophy
of this sort of people, then that is just another tremendous benefit of vegetarianism.
Indeed, it is reasonable to assume that people who are willing to consider
the moral consequences of killing animals are more likely to restrain from
violence against other human beings if at all possible. Vegetarianism inherently
encourages peaceful thought and thus peaceful action. Conversely, it is not
unreasonable to assume that thoughtlessly killing creatures by the thousands
for nothing more than pleasure and convenience might lend to generally more
violent thoughts and behaviors.
“Where do you
draw the line? All ethics are arbitrary.” [Top]
That's easy: draw the line as low as you think you can, and
reevaluate it from time to time.
I would agree that all ethical statements have some arbitrary
component, but that does not mean we should abandon all ethics.
The key is to be as reasonable as possible. The most ethical
behavior probably would be to eat absolutely nothing so as to
cause no impact on your environment. This is clearly impractical.
The least ethical behavior would be to kill and eat anything you
want, including humans. Almost all people would consider this
wrong.
Everything in-between those two extremes is gray area. The best
way to settle on a spot in that gray area is to carefully consider
the issue and choose a diet which for you balances the ill of
harming or killing creatures against the necessities of your life.
Occasionally, you should evaluate your decision to see if you
should modify it one way or the other. The most important aspect
is that you give it some thought: consider the consequences of
your actions.
As for where to draw the line, there are a few natural lines
that make sense and are relatively un-arbitrary. Choose one of
these lines and see how it works for you:
-
Don't eat humans. That shouldn't be too hard to do, as it's illegal
anyway. Most everyone follows this standard without giving it any thought.
-
Don't eat primates. Well, most Westerners don't do this, but some
people eat monkeys and even Chimpanzees. I'm hoping you don't.
-
Don't eat any mammals, as they are very closely-related to humans.
Also, mammals experience a broad range of feeling and many are quite intelligent.
Despite the derogatory connotations associated with their name, pigs are
some of the most intelligent animals on this planet.
-
Don't eat any vertebrates because they experience high-order pain
and other nervous responses in basically the same way that humans do.
Some of them are quite intelligent, too.
-
Don't eat any animals (Vegetarian, a.k.a. Ovo-Lacto Vegetarian).
This is one of the least arbitrary standards, as there's a fairly clear
line between animals and non-animals. All animals are sensate, react to
pain, and are arguably a higher form of life than plants, fungi, etc..
Even some invertebrate animals, such as octopuses, can be extremely intelligent.
-
Don't eat any animals or animal products (Vegan). This is also
very un-arbitrary. Products such as milk and eggs come from enslaving
animals in sometimes horrendous conditions. It makes sense that if you're
trying not to kill animals, you also should try to avoid inflicting other
forms of violence on them.
-
Don't eat things which result in animal death when they are harvested.
Mass-harvesting of grains, for example, causes the deaths of many creatures,
including a variety of mammals, which are caught in the farm equipment.
Meeting this standard is extremely difficult in modern societies as it
basically requires that you eat only food you grow yourself or that come
from a source you know to be safe. Over time, this may become more feasible.
Consider however, that eating only meat certainly wouldn't help prevent
animal deaths from grain harvesting. Meat animals eat huge quantities
of harvested grain, and they also displace enormous numbers of animals
from their natural habitats.
-
Don't eat anything that is killed to become food (Fruitarian)
- It may be possible to live without eating any dead things, including
plants. Eating things such as nuts, fruits, and many vegetables does not
directly cause any deaths. Personally, I see this as a somewhat unreasonable
standard both because it sounds nutritionally near-impossible and because
just taking a shower causes the deaths of countless microorganisms. I
don't think it's reasonable to expect to be a human being and not cause
some other things to die... I only look to minimize it. However, if you
think you can live a Fruitarian life, more power to you.
-
Don't eat the products of any living thing. I'm pretty sure this
is impossible (at least in today's society), because it doesn't leave
much to eat besides salt. However, it may be possible in the future that
we could grow our food in enclosed environments (thus avoiding killing
animals during harvesting), and that that food could be replicated through
advanced cloning techniques, thus meeting at least the Fruitarian standard
of not causing deaths. Right now, I'm not going to worry about it... but
it is something to think about for the future.
In all of the above definitions, understand that not eating
something also refers to not using it. Non-cannibals generally
don't use human skin for ornamentation, and vegetarians generally
avoid leather.
“God put animals here
for our use.” [Top]
Various people will use various religions to make this claim,
but it doesn't really make sense. Supposing that God said in
scripture that animals can be used for human purposes, does that
mean that they must be used? Does any god demand that
people kill animals? I know that some gods require animal
sacrifice, but most religions have abandoned that practice. (Also,
if you're looking at the Bible, consider that God says that
animals are for human use, but plants are for human food. Try
reading Genesis
1:29)
In other words, God does demand animal sacrifice, but you don't
do that. On the other hand, God does not require that you
kill animals for your use... how can you use God's word to justify
your killing?
If you accept any notion of spirituality, doesn't it make sense
that all life has at least some intrinsic meaning? If you
can live a healthy, normal life without killing God's creatures,
why should you?
Besides, meat is a very environmentally-destructive food. If
God doesn't outright require you to eat meat, shouldn't you avoid
it at least to help the Earth be a less deadly place for your
children?
Finally, if you believe in the right to life, you have
no excuse for killing animals.
“Meat gives me energy.” [Top]
I've heard people make that claim as much as I've heard
vegetarians claim that they had more energy once they stopped
eating meat. I've also heard people claim that they tried to stop
eating meat and found that they always felt lethargic.
The reason for all of these claims is most likely a matter of
proper or improper nutrition. If you become a vegetarian and find
you have more energy, it's probably because you are giving more
attention to your diet, eating better, and thus feeling better. If
you stop eating meat and feel lethargic, it is probably because
you are not eating right.
A vegetarian diet is not simply a meat-based diet minus the
meat. You can't live off salads and french fries. It does take a
little thought to be a vegetarian. If you change your diet and it
makes you feel worse, just take a look at your nutritional intake
and reevaluate.
If you find that eating meat gives you energy, that's most
likely because meat is an excellent source of B vitamins, which
make many people feel energetic. You can get all of these vitamins
from a vegetarian diet, but it may take a little effort. Mostly it
is determined by your metabolism. If you feel that meat gives you
energy, then you probably have an imbalanced diet and are often
starved for B vitamins. In that case, reevaluating your diet is in
order anyway.
Now, weigh your unthinking statement about energy against the
lives of a few thousand animals.
“The meat's already
there. The animal's already dead. I can't make a difference.” [Top]
When a human dies, we do not slaughter and eat them simply
because "the meat is already there." Why treat animals
differently?
If you eat meat, you contribute to the demand for meat and thus
spur more killings at the slaughterhouse. Although your
consumption of a particular piece of meat does not directly cause
the death of the animal that it came from, it does directly
contribute to the demand to kill another animal. Meat
industries kill billions of animals each year. If you eat
meat, you participate in and condone this process, and thus share
some of the responsibility for every one of those billions of
deaths. The only way to fully remove yourself from the
responsibility of killing meat-creatures is to not eat them.
And your ceasing to eat meat does make a significant difference in many ways.
First, it decreases the demand. Although in a huge economy your decision might
not directly save any animal's life, it does make a significant contribution
to the decrease in demand. If you consider how many steer,
pigs, chickens, etc. you will eat in your lifetime, consider that becoming
a vegetarian removes the demand for that many animals' deaths. Consider if
all vegetarians were to suddenly become meat-eaters: that would certainly
cause the meat industries to kill more animals. A recent poll concludes that
there are 4.8
million vegetarians just in the United States. If they all ate the average
amount of pork, manufacturers would have to kill
another 1.25 million pigs each year. So your opting out of the meat trade
does help save animals' lives.
Additionally, your being a vegetarian increases the demand for
non-meat foods at the restaurants you frequent. The more times you
order vegetarian dishes from a restaurant, the more likely it is
that the management will expand their vegetarian offerings. This
helps both because it makes it easier for other people to be
vegetarians, and because it may cause some people who would
normally eat meat to sometimes eat a vegetarian dish instead (even
meat eaters are known to eat spaghetti with garlic sauce or egg
foo young). Oh, and you can also simply ask restaurant management
to add more vegetarian dishes to their menu. Many of them
listen.
Also, being a vegetarian sets an example to the people around
you. Personally, I try never to preach to my friends and
colleagues about being vegetarian. I don't even mention it until
people ask why I'm not having the steak, or whatever. The simple,
quiet fact that I am a vegetarian (and obviously healthy and fit)
makes the people around me consider that vegetarianism is possible
and that it is worth considering.
If they were already considering vegetarianism; seeing that
I've lived well without meat gives them the additional impetus
toward making the choice. If they have not really considered it,
then my absolute refusal to eat meat may make them start to
consider the consequences of their actions. And thus, by being a
vegetarian, in this way you can significantly help reduce the
demand for meat by helping propagate the idea to others.
In sum, saying "I can't make a difference" is equivalent to
saying, "I am worthless." Think about it.
“What about all those
poor little plants you eat? Don't they count?” [top]
First, you eat plants too; you have no moral ground on which to
stand and criticize vegetarians' eating of plants.
I see the morality of what we kill as a sliding scale. Most
everyone agrees that killing other humans is wrong. Almost no one
thinks that killing malignant bacteria is wrong. So there's a line
in-between the two somewhere.
Anywhere you draw the line, it will be arbitrary to some
degree. What I've done is to make what I hope is the least
arbitrary ranking of living
things, and try to keep my killing as low on that list as
possible. The least arbitrary place to draw a line on almost any
hierarchical ranking of life forms is between plants and animals.
But I'm also open to the idea of making a gray-area near that
line. Mussels are extremely simplistic, plant-like creatures, and
it's hard to argue that they belong on the same plane as
humans.
On the other hand, pigs feel pain in pretty-much exactly the
same way we do. They also experience complex emotions and can
exhibit a high level of intelligence. Killing a pig seems to me
very similar to killing a human being. Killing a spinach plant
just doesn't seem to rank on the same level. I certainly can't
empathize as much with the nearly-inanimate spinach plant as I can
with the pig that is screaming and trying to get away as people
are trying to kill it.
Is empathy a good basis for determining morality? I don't see
why not... it's a lot less arbitrary than reading some book
written by a bunch of primitive desert nomads a few thousand years
ago.
Is the scale I reference above with humans on top and plants on bottom correct?
No, I don't think anything is absolutely right or wrong, but that scale is
as UN-arbitrary as a human can get, to date. I don't see anyone offering any
alternative except: "Kill anything which is weaker than you for any reason
whatsoever (and maybe don't kill humans because you might go to jail)." I
think the vegetarian mentality is blatantly more moral.
“Animals are raised
to be killed for meat, so it’s OK.” [top]
This is hardly a good reason to kill animals, but I hear it all the time.
How does the location in which a creature is raised have any impact on whether
or not killing it is good or bad? By this sort of reasoning, it would be perfectly
acceptable to eat humans if we raised them for food.
What is the difference between a pig raised on a farm and a pig raised as
a pet? What is the difference between a human hypothetically raised on a farm
and a human raised in society?
I’m having trouble writing a lot in response to this argument, because
it just doesn’t make sense. People used to be raised to be slaves...
was that OK?
“Why shouldn't I eat meat?” [top]
Why should you? There is no compelling reason to eat meat, while morality,
health, and the environment are all reasons not to kill animals for your pleasure
and convenience.
Additionally, vegetarianism is a non-action. It takes no real
effort to not eat meat. Being a vegetarian is one of the most dramatic ethical
improvements you can make in your life compared to the amount of effort it
takes. All you have to do is eat a healthy diet, and you are suddenly leading
a more healthy, moral, eco-friendly life.
If you disagree, feel free to send me
an e-mail containing a cogent reason why you should blithely kill animals.
For More Information...
When this web page was first written, there were few resources on the internet
about vegetarianism. Now that the web has matured somewhat and vegetarianism
has become more mainstream, the number of resources for vegetarians and
for going vegetarian are rather complete.
If you are considering becoming a vegetarian and want to know
more about what's involved, check out “New
Veggies” by
the Vegetarian Society of the United Kingdom and/or the “Vegetarian
Nutrition Resource List” from the National Agricultural Library of the
U.S. Department of Labor. And iVillage has a nice article entitled “Guidelines
for Proper Nutrtion for Vegetarian Kids.”
Great general resource pages can be found at VegWeb.com,
the Vegetarian
Resource Group, GoVeg.com (from
PETA), and the Vegetarian
Society of the United Kingdom.
The Vegetarian Society of
Colorado has produced a
report which I think is a summary of data from the book Diet
for a New America, and provides detailed statistics of the environmental
reasons for vegetarianism.
For another rational explanation of reasons to be a vegetarian
(and related vegetarian resources), try Brett Garrett's "Why
Vegetarian?" page.
For a good, web-based commercial source of cruelty-free
products, check out Pangea.
To understand just how many animals you are killing if you are eating meat,
go to my page on Animals Killed for Meat.
I got a letter from a meat-packing company trying to convince me to discontinue
my site! Click here to read it.
A host of links to specific topics about vegetarianism can be
found at both The Vegetarian
Pages and VegSource.
A plethora of other pages can be found on Yahoo's
Vegetarian index or in any search engine, of course.
Copyright ©
1998-2007 by Ed Pastore. All rights
reserved. Excerpts from this document may be quoted with proper reference
to the URL, the author, and the modification date listed below.
modified
October 2, 2007
