*Originally written Sept. 9, 2009 - Imported from Facebook Notes*
This is not a lecture. I am not preaching, entreating, chastising, challenging, or encouraging. This has nothing to do with you; this is about me. This essay is explicitly my thoughts, my views, and my conclusions. The purpose is to inform those who may care about how and why I reached these conclusions and to explain my reasoning to those whose opinions I care about.
I'm going vegetarian. (Strike that. I am vegetarian. I actually wrote this weeks ago, but never finished it. If you excuse a slip-up, I'm going on three weeks.)
I take pride in being a thinking person; Socrates said “An unexamined life is not worth living” and I agree. I've had the great luxury of time this past summer, and so I've put a lot of effort into analyzing this issue. Following is a summary of the primary reasoning behind my decision to no longer eat meat. I have tried to balance specificity for the sake of clarity with respect for any readers; there are a lot of gruesome realities when contemplating this subject and while I did not like reading or watching some of the things that I did, I forced myself to do so. Facing ugly truths is necessary when the truth itself is your ultimate goal. If I tagged you in this note, don't feel obligated to read all or any of it. It's simply because I thought you might be interested to know about my decision or that you have some related interests.
(On second thought, this is really long. And I've repeatedly cut chunks of it out, too. I don't expect anyone to read it entirely, but maybe just skim it? But w/e, I'll put it out there so it's there.)
(Final thought: it took WAY too long to write this and revise it multiple times. So split it into chapters if you have to, I don't care, but at least look at it so that it's somewhat worth my inexpensive and oh-so-abundant free time)
Humanity:
There are 800 million people in this world who are starving. 40 million people die each year from starvation-related causes. A couple facts sum up the whole point: 16 lbs of grain are required (on average) to produce 1 lb of meat. 1 lb beef requires 5200 gallons of water to produce, while 1 lb wheat requires 25 gallons. Another way to look at that: 4,000 gallons water required in one day's food for a meat eater; 1200 for vegetarian (300 for vegan, if you're curious). 38% of the world's grain is fed to livestock, which in turn provide humans with less nutrition than the grains themselves (70% of grain in the U.S. goes to livestock). I simply can't knowingly live to inefficiently. I just can't.
Environment:
I'm a treehugger, duh. This was what made me starting thinking about the topic in the first place. Again, I'll try to be brief.
A 2006 UN report concludes that livestock is “one of the top two or three most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global.” Livestock is the largest anthropogenic source of methane, a greenhouse gas 20-25 times as potent as carbon dioxide. 1/3 of all fossil fuels in the U.S. Are used to raise and process livestock for food. A leading reason for rainforest destruction is for grazing space for cattle; another is for agriculture, much of which is specifically for consumption by livestock, not humans. Deep-sea trawling destroys reefs and millions of tons of unwanted sea life, “by-catch,” each year. By 2050 (some estimates say sooner), only 10% of all large fish species will remain; fisheries worldwide are expected to collapse.
Simply put, not eating meat is a hell of a lot “greener” (that word is becoming abused). And all of this harm for nothing; there is no necessity or benefit (aside from taste, of course) to eating meat, which brings me to:
Health:
No major nutritional body recommends a meat eating diet over a non-meat eating diet. The American Dietetics Association and World Health Organization both agree that vegetarian and vegan diets are perfectly healthy and if done right, can be healthier. Of course a vegetarian can still eat like shit and be unhealthy. But someone conscious of their diet can be perfectly healthy not eating any meat or animal products. Some things that helped to convince me further:
Vegetarians have less of the following: heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, cancer, cholesterol, blood lipids, and obesity.
An NIH study found that a vegan diet halted the progression of Type-II (adult-onset) diabetes and began to lessen its severity; the who stuck with it long-term eventually stopped needing medication. Basically, the adult-onset diabetes reversed. It un-onset (my term).
Dr. Esselstyn of the Cleveland Clinic has a 100% success rate in taking patients in “advanced stages of heart disease, most of whom were told by cardiologists that their condition was terminal,” and placing them on vegan diets, completely halting the progression of the disease.
A Cornell study placed local elementary students on a vegan diet. The principal reported more energy, better moods, and better grades on average.
The EPA reports 95% of dioxin exposure in humans comes from eating meat, eggs, and dairy, averaging 22-times the “acceptable” level.
Oh, and higher nutritional value and lower calorie content mean I can eat more without feeling guilty. : )
Religion:
I've heard the occasional religious argument, that God gave man dominion over animals, etc. I can't speak to this specifically, but does any religion say we have to eat animals? Or even that we can or should? Honest question, I don't know. However, “dominion” does not imply exploitation and abuse, which sadly is reality. Religion teaches compassion and mercy, does it not? So religion allows the consumption of meat, but what religion requires it? Numerous religions exist, such as Buddhism and Sikhism that forbid the consumption of animals. Also, on the idea that God places humanity in situations to test our goodness, perhaps God wishes humans to “rise above” the act of eating meat, to discover that it's morally wrong? If there is a reference in a religious text that explicitly declares it wrong to be vegetarian or vegan, I will immediately concede. In any case, we do not live in Biblical times. We do not stone adulterers. But to me the whole argument of religion is moot: maybe religion is not a reason to go vegetarian, but it certainly is not a reason not to. Oh, and Pope Benedict XVI condemns factory farming. (Funny thought: Christianity ironically does support cannibalism, in the form of eating your savior's flesh. And vampirism. Yes, it's symbolic, I'm only joking. But Jesus did say bread, coulda said T-bone steak)
Animal Welfare, Humane Behavior, and Morality:
The issue gets more difficult here. While in regards to my health, world hunger, and the environment the answer is clear to me, the issue of animal rights is more open. Humans are conscious beings, fully capable of thinking through everything we do. As we are highly intelligent, I believe we have a moral responsibility to attempt to decide what is right and act by that. We are thus obliged to do what is right if we can. The curse and blessing of our intelligence is that we get to decide what is morally acceptable behavior. So I must consider the ethics of eating meat.
Focusing solely on the argument of morality towards animals, if, for example, a chicken were born, lived a happy and healthy life, and was killed in a painless and humane manner for my consumption, I may have to reconsider my position. However this is not the case, so it is a moot point. What practices do take place are far from this. Animals, including fish, feel both pain and fear. This is not an idea, it is scientific fact demonstrated in legitimate studies. Furthermore, some of these animals are surprisingly intelligent. Cattle have sophisticated social structures and social interactions, pigs perform better on cognitive tests than 3 year old humans, chickens perform better than cats and dogs. But intelligence aside, these animals do suffer from pain and fear, and the following are a few exemplary practices that regularly occur:
castration and mutilation (such as grinding and searing beaks to minimize fighting and of course branding) without any sort of painkillers
animals being entirely conscious and able to feel pain while slaughtered, which is typically done by slitting the throat.
Workers and veterinarians have testified that many animals are fully conscious when the process of butchering is begun, including cutting off limbs and beginning to remove their skin from their body.
Pigs are routinely forced into scalding water to hair their hair burned off; similarly chickens are subjected to the same process to de-feather them.
In the dairy industry, male calfs are often used for veal, which consists of tying the calf down so it cannot move
Most dairy cows are forced to stand in stalls for the entirely of their life
In the egg industry, male chicks too small for meat are discarded. This process is often done by tossing them, still alive and conscious, into grinders.
Most chickens are kept in battery cages, so that they cannot move; after two years they are typically too poor quality to be used for meat and so are killed and discarded.
The abuse of antibiotics contributes to bacterial resistance; the unnaturally close-quartered conditions of factory farms breed viruses and diseases. While still contentious, there is respectable support for the theory that factory farming may have led to the H1N1 virus (aka swine flu) having mutated and spread.
Many animals are bred and injected with hormones to be unnaturally large in a very short time—including animals that are so large they cannot walk.
Fish, which can also feel pain and suffering, are surprisingly intelligent with complex social structures and a long-term memory (not the 3-second myth) typically die by decompression, crushed by the weight of other fish, or suffocation. Decompression's a fancy word, think about what it means.
These methods do not always occur, they do not represent every single animal that is raised and killed for consumption. But they do represent the majority. And I cannot be entirely certain where my meat comes from and whether the animals were subjected to behaviors such as this. Which brings me to a convincing argument to me: I could not take part in any part of the process of preparing meat and if I had to in order to eat it, I would not. Denial is a greater sin than ignorance. Turning a blind eye and allowing others to do things for me that I would not do myself for unnecessary convenience is a mark on my integrity. And Integrity is the last thing a man has.
I have the ability to get all the nutrients my body and mind need, to be entirely healthful, without consuming meat, which makes killing an animal for consumption entirely unnecessary. And in another's words: “intentionally inflicting suffering because of tradition, custom, convenience, or a palate preference is unethical.”
I had to ask myself: instead of wondering why not to eat meat, why should I eat it in the first place? There is no nutritional need to eat meat. The argument that it is 'natural' is fallacious on several levels (in brief: humans do not do much of that is “natural” and we do many things that are not natural--this argument is illogical and a double-standard on the basis of convenience). As a tradition, there is more sense in the Masai custom of a young man killing a lion as rite-of-passage than there is in for the sake of taste or pleasure.
Role Models:
What's more, I look to others for influence and guidance. I can turn to those I admire to learn from them. Don't give me some list of of pointless celebrities of actors (Brad Pitt's a vegetarian? Whoopdie-fucking-do), athletes (last I checked, I'm not good at sports anyway), and singers (and their opinion is worth more than someone else's because...). I don't give a damn if Alec Baldwin is a vegetarian. I do give a damn that Natalie Portman is a vegetarian (recently converted to vegan, as a matter of fact), because she's Natalie Portman, simple as that. So here are some of the people I've come across who were either vegetarian or vegan, and whose opinions and views I can legitimately respect:
Superman / Clark Kent (yeah, he counts)
Abraham Lincoln
Charles Darin, Issac Newton, Albert Einstein, Carl Sagan
Leonardo da Vinci
Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Deepak Chopra, Rousseau, Kant, Pythagoras, Voltaire.
Trevor Allen (just saying)
In fact, Albert Einstein said the following: “Our task must be to free ourselves... by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and its beauty. Nothing will benefit human health and increase chances of survival for life on earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet.” One of his primary reasons was feeding the world's hungry.
Conclusion:
So for me, there are a ton of reasons not to eat meat. There's one to eat meat: taste. Will I miss it? Yes. Will I relapse? Almost certainly. A cheeseburger will come my way one day. In fact, I grabbed a turkey sandwich from Grab-It purely our of habit. But I strongly support that anything effort is better than none; going meatless just one day a week was easy. And I cut out red meat, and then pork, months ago. It was a slow process, and taking it a step at a time made it pretty easy, actually. The hardest part was the getting past the turkey sandwich... my turkey sandwich's are glorious and I've eaten them for years (the one-time fetus sandwich was not such a hit). But fact of the matter is, tastes are entirely changeable, and I have no shortage of options without meat.
Quickly, I have to touch on veganism. It has a bad reputation. Sometimes deservedly, sometimes not. I fully support medical and scientific animal testing, and I mean wholeheartedly. I think the default punishment for crazy people raiding animal labs needs to make those nuts be the guinea pigs instead—mandatory sentence. And as a scientist, I can tell you that even things that don't sound like they make sense, in fact do—basic research is hard to understand unless you in the field itself. Green-glowing fluorescent monkeys, cats, and mice seem senseless until you realize they've led to some of the most promising methods of fighting cancer. GMO's too. Fucking brilliant stuff. (Note: The military uses animals for medical training, but in the worst ways: as in take a goat and break its leg just so Random Soldier can make a splint. Same for burns, gunshot wounds, etc. That's just stupid and wrong. Shoot a Chinese government official instead, they're worth far less than goat. Or a televangelist, but that's another story for another time.)
There are also holier-than-thou vegans and vegetarians; and they're assholes. If I ever get arrogant about being all “eco friendly” and shit, smack me, seriously. I know I do it, but it's not cool and I need someone to call me out on it. But before you do, just make sure I'm not right.
One day, I'd like to say I'm vegan. Maybe it's something I'll work towards, I don't know right now. Or a reasonable vegan, maybe. I don't think I'll ever give up honey (it's honey, wtf?). I'm not sure how I'd ever move past eggs.... I gave up cheese months ago, though, and that was pretty easy. Now I eat it on occasion, sure. Milk? Replaceable. Milkshake? Irreplaceable.
To sum up: you just spent (how long?) reading this when you coulda done a million better things. Or I coulda just said “I'm going veg. I got my reasons.” But I didn't say that and you chose to read this. Because I think my reasons are valid and important and want them to be out there for anyone to question. And you read this because you give a damn. Something made you interested enough to at least listen to my rambling. I welcome all comments, criticisms, questions, praise and scorn. Be it public or be it private. But I'd like to end on an important and pleasurable note: milkshakes.
Thank you.
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