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When you're over half a century old like me, you've had a lot of time to think about certain trends. Vegetarianism and veganism are nothing new to somebody like me. I've tried both of them, at times. Currently I'm an omnivore, however. It's just more convenient, easier to get along with others.
I'm cool with vegetarians and vegans. If I'm hanging out with one, I'm happy to eat as they do. I made a vegetarian dinner last night, it might even have been vegan (but I didn't read all the labels to make sure). I don't require meat with every meal, or every day.
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My current take on avoiding meat is this:
From an ecological footprint perspective -- we'll wear out the planet less quickly if we cut back on or avoid eating meat.
From a personal nutrition/health perspective -- eating more vegetables and less meat is probably good for you, but keep in mind humans evolved to be omnivores and have specific nutritional requirements. If you want to cut out animal products entirely, you should read a mainstream book on nutrition (like Nutrition for Dummies) to make sure you're getting all your essential nutrients from your diet.
From a moral perspective -- I'm not sure eating plants is a better moral choice than eating meat, because in both cases you're consuming something that used to be alive, something that was likely grown and killed so humans could eat it, or caught and killed so humans could eat it. Whether an herbivore or a carnivore, animals cannot derive their energy from the sun, they have to consume other life forms to survive and reproduce.
I know that most people privilege animals over plants, and think less of killing plants than of killing animals. But I'm not convinced that killing one life form is better than killing another life form. I'm not convinced that plants are not conscious. We humans have brains, so we assume that consciousness is lodged in the brain, such that only animals with brains have consciousness. But this is a human-centric (brain-centric) viewpoint. When you spend your entire life as a human with a brain-lodged consciousness, you may have difficulty imagining other kinds of consciousness or sentience, and you may privilege life forms that are similar to your own. Brain privilege, LOL.
I'm simply saying, we don't know much about the interior life of plants, so I'm not making assumptions or value judgments that privilege animals over plants.
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To survive and reproduce, animals must consume other life forms. It's just a fact. A brutal fact. How many plants and animals have I consumed over the course of my life? As a US resident, I found an estimate that on average I consume 30 animals per year, which is less than I'd have guessed (this estimate doesn't include seafood; I love cooked shrimp, especially as an ingredient with fried rice). But how many plants? I found an estimate of 130 plants per person per year, which I think is also low. Let's round it all up and assume I'm consuming at least 200 life forms per year, but it could be hundreds more.
Whether you're an herbivore or an omnivore, you're probably consuming hundreds of other life forms each year to survive.
It's just what we do, as apex predators. Humans are apex predators, whether we hunt and gather wild species, farm and ranch domestic species, or intensively produce genetically modified species. There's over 7 billion humans, and together we're consuming trillions of other life forms each year. That's what we do to survive.
In the US most of us are quite removed from the production of food, almost everything we eat comes out of a box, can, or wrapper, or is handed over to us pre-cooked. So it is easy to forget that we're consuming trillions of other life forms each year. If you worked on a farm, you'd be used to the fact that we're consuming other life forms -- that's the point.
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Is there a way to consume other life forms in an ethical way? I'm gonna say no. But some people try pretty hard to come up with rigorously ethical solutions, such as eating only fruit --> you aren't killing the plant if you eat only the fruit, for example.
Hmmm. As with carbon offsets, does this solution scale up? Could all of us survive if we only ate fruit? No, our children will die on a fruit-only diet. Fruits don't contain enough protein.
There's something else about agriculture that most people don't think about. Farming requires killing your competitors. If you're growing food in the open air, you're going to attract insects and birds and other animals. To keep them from eating "your" food you're gonna have to do something. Such as using pesticides and animal traps. I learned this from my grandfather when I was young -- gotta stop those birds, rabbits, and insects from chewing up your garden.
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What about, OK, admitting eating cannot be 100% ethical, but can we make it as ethical as we can? Sure, go for it. For example, I've heard people argue it is better to eat beef than to eat chicken, because we can get more food per cow than per chicken. I've heard people argue that we use fewer resources when we eat a plant-based diet, because meat is more costly in many ways. There are ways to grow food that are more ecologically sound. Whether so-called "organic" food products are better is a topic for a separate post.
But this stuff is always going to be on a continuum where one end is unethical, and the other end is also unethical.
The human race must kill trillions of other life forms each year to survive. This is only one part of an ongoing holocaust caused by the exponential growth of human population and economic activity, along with catastrophic climate change, and the sixth mass extinction. I think solving the ecological problems we cause requires first admitting that we are terrible creatures, and then deciding to do less harm. But as a US resident, trying to get down to zero harm, trying to live an "ethical" life ... damn near impossible, and even then it won't scale up, there's too many of us, and we consume too much stuff.
Shrink and share, stop having kids, ban fossil fuels, reduce meat consumption ... it's probably all too little too late, but,
I'm cool with vegetarians and vegans. If I'm hanging out with one, I'm happy to eat as they do. I made a vegetarian dinner last night, it might even have been vegan (but I didn't read all the labels to make sure). I don't require meat with every meal, or every day.
-----
My current take on avoiding meat is this:
From an ecological footprint perspective -- we'll wear out the planet less quickly if we cut back on or avoid eating meat.
From a personal nutrition/health perspective -- eating more vegetables and less meat is probably good for you, but keep in mind humans evolved to be omnivores and have specific nutritional requirements. If you want to cut out animal products entirely, you should read a mainstream book on nutrition (like Nutrition for Dummies) to make sure you're getting all your essential nutrients from your diet.
From a moral perspective -- I'm not sure eating plants is a better moral choice than eating meat, because in both cases you're consuming something that used to be alive, something that was likely grown and killed so humans could eat it, or caught and killed so humans could eat it. Whether an herbivore or a carnivore, animals cannot derive their energy from the sun, they have to consume other life forms to survive and reproduce.
I know that most people privilege animals over plants, and think less of killing plants than of killing animals. But I'm not convinced that killing one life form is better than killing another life form. I'm not convinced that plants are not conscious. We humans have brains, so we assume that consciousness is lodged in the brain, such that only animals with brains have consciousness. But this is a human-centric (brain-centric) viewpoint. When you spend your entire life as a human with a brain-lodged consciousness, you may have difficulty imagining other kinds of consciousness or sentience, and you may privilege life forms that are similar to your own. Brain privilege, LOL.
I'm simply saying, we don't know much about the interior life of plants, so I'm not making assumptions or value judgments that privilege animals over plants.
-----
To survive and reproduce, animals must consume other life forms. It's just a fact. A brutal fact. How many plants and animals have I consumed over the course of my life? As a US resident, I found an estimate that on average I consume 30 animals per year, which is less than I'd have guessed (this estimate doesn't include seafood; I love cooked shrimp, especially as an ingredient with fried rice). But how many plants? I found an estimate of 130 plants per person per year, which I think is also low. Let's round it all up and assume I'm consuming at least 200 life forms per year, but it could be hundreds more.
Whether you're an herbivore or an omnivore, you're probably consuming hundreds of other life forms each year to survive.
It's just what we do, as apex predators. Humans are apex predators, whether we hunt and gather wild species, farm and ranch domestic species, or intensively produce genetically modified species. There's over 7 billion humans, and together we're consuming trillions of other life forms each year. That's what we do to survive.
In the US most of us are quite removed from the production of food, almost everything we eat comes out of a box, can, or wrapper, or is handed over to us pre-cooked. So it is easy to forget that we're consuming trillions of other life forms each year. If you worked on a farm, you'd be used to the fact that we're consuming other life forms -- that's the point.
-----
Is there a way to consume other life forms in an ethical way? I'm gonna say no. But some people try pretty hard to come up with rigorously ethical solutions, such as eating only fruit --> you aren't killing the plant if you eat only the fruit, for example.
Hmmm. As with carbon offsets, does this solution scale up? Could all of us survive if we only ate fruit? No, our children will die on a fruit-only diet. Fruits don't contain enough protein.
There's something else about agriculture that most people don't think about. Farming requires killing your competitors. If you're growing food in the open air, you're going to attract insects and birds and other animals. To keep them from eating "your" food you're gonna have to do something. Such as using pesticides and animal traps. I learned this from my grandfather when I was young -- gotta stop those birds, rabbits, and insects from chewing up your garden.
-----
What about, OK, admitting eating cannot be 100% ethical, but can we make it as ethical as we can? Sure, go for it. For example, I've heard people argue it is better to eat beef than to eat chicken, because we can get more food per cow than per chicken. I've heard people argue that we use fewer resources when we eat a plant-based diet, because meat is more costly in many ways. There are ways to grow food that are more ecologically sound. Whether so-called "organic" food products are better is a topic for a separate post.
But this stuff is always going to be on a continuum where one end is unethical, and the other end is also unethical.
The human race must kill trillions of other life forms each year to survive. This is only one part of an ongoing holocaust caused by the exponential growth of human population and economic activity, along with catastrophic climate change, and the sixth mass extinction. I think solving the ecological problems we cause requires first admitting that we are terrible creatures, and then deciding to do less harm. But as a US resident, trying to get down to zero harm, trying to live an "ethical" life ... damn near impossible, and even then it won't scale up, there's too many of us, and we consume too much stuff.
Shrink and share, stop having kids, ban fossil fuels, reduce meat consumption ... it's probably all too little too late, but,
