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ed_rexAs I think I've mentioned before, I've dropped about 30 pounds in the past six months. The process began as the silver lining to the cloud of misery that was my break-up with Laura - for once, sadness and rage led me to eat less instead of more.
When I realized what was going on, though, I started paying attention to my diet. More to the point, with how much I was eating, not what I was eating, since I have always eaten well. Living on Kraft Dinner and potato chips has never been my style.
That said, the quality of my diet has changed in a couple of significant ways since I stopped cooking for two. On the one hand, I've been eating a lot more fruits and vegetables, along with such things as granola, nuts and cheese, while on the other, I have been eating much less meat, largely because - used to cooking for two people - what I would cook would far too often go bad in the fridge.
I have by no means become a vegetarian (let alone a vegan), but having now often gone days in a row without the flesh of an animal passing through my gullet, I have come to the gut-level realization that vegetarianism is not an impossibility for me.
A couple of weeks ago, fadefromnothing posted an impassioned rant about the evils of carnivorism. From a strictly pragmatic point-of-view, I thought her piece was poor propaganda - too easy to dismiss it as "emotional" (that the argument, that basing a belief on one's feelings is "irrational" is bogus is an argument for another time) - but I had a hard time rebutting the rational arguments that underlay her feelings. In fact, I found it impossible to do so.
Getting away from the anger underlying that post, I find three basic points to Sidra's argument:
(Sidra further compared our modern willingness to torture and slaughter our fellow (thinking and feeling) animals to women's rights, slavery and concentration camps. And, though the comparisons may seem over-the-top to you, when you think about it, the idea is hard (impossible?) to rebut.)
Last Saturday, after my friend Vernski and I had talked ourselves out about Borat, I paraphrased Sidra's post, and described my discomfort in the fact I had been unable to argue against it.
Now Vernski, despite his long-term co-habitation with a vegetarian, is to my mind notoriously carnivorous. Where I make stir-fries, he broils thick, bloody steaks.
And so I was more than a little surprised when he agreed with me (and with Sidra).
Yes, he said, there is no justification for eating meat, no more than there was for the slave trade in the 18th century, or than there is now for sex tours of daycare centres in Thailand.
And yet, we both acknowledged, that this intellectual understanding of a moral fact was not going to stop either of us from frying up some bacon in the morning.
I like to think that I am a pretty good human being. I try not to lie, I make a point of not taking advantage of the weak or vulnerable and on at least a couple of occasions I have fought down fear and put my face on the line to protect a stranger from possible violence by people who could most likely have easily broken my body the way a child smashes her grand-mother's antique china tea-cup.
Long story short, Vernski and I agreed that eating meat is wrong. And yet we also agreed we will both continue to consume the flesh of what were once living, thinking and feeling creatures, into the foreseable future.
If you grant (as I do) that he and I are at the very least reasonably good people, how do you explain our willingness to engage in a practice we both agree is - in a word - evil? How is it that I am not emotionally tortured by the dichotomy between what I think and what I feel?
[Edit: According to this month's Harper's, "The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization warned that livestock such as cows, pigs, sheep and chickens are among the world's top three environmental threats:the agency said that livestock production, largely driven by the demand for meat, pollutes water, destroys biodiversity, and, when the entire production cycle is taken into account, produces more greenhouse gases than the transportation sector."]
When I realized what was going on, though, I started paying attention to my diet. More to the point, with how much I was eating, not what I was eating, since I have always eaten well. Living on Kraft Dinner and potato chips has never been my style.
That said, the quality of my diet has changed in a couple of significant ways since I stopped cooking for two. On the one hand, I've been eating a lot more fruits and vegetables, along with such things as granola, nuts and cheese, while on the other, I have been eating much less meat, largely because - used to cooking for two people - what I would cook would far too often go bad in the fridge.
I have by no means become a vegetarian (let alone a vegan), but having now often gone days in a row without the flesh of an animal passing through my gullet, I have come to the gut-level realization that vegetarianism is not an impossibility for me.
A couple of weeks ago, fadefromnothing posted an impassioned rant about the evils of carnivorism. From a strictly pragmatic point-of-view, I thought her piece was poor propaganda - too easy to dismiss it as "emotional" (that the argument, that basing a belief on one's feelings is "irrational" is bogus is an argument for another time) - but I had a hard time rebutting the rational arguments that underlay her feelings. In fact, I found it impossible to do so.
I don't care how good murder tastes. It is archaic, brutal, unecessary, and unethical. By supporting the industry, you are supporting the unecessary torture and death of innocent beings...STOP LYING TO YOURSELF. STOP KILLING PEOPLE AND ANIMALS. (fadefromnothing)
Getting away from the anger underlying that post, I find three basic points to Sidra's argument:
- (Other) animals are thinking and feeling beings;
- We in the rich world have no necessity to consume animal protein; and so,
- It is morally wrong to butcher (other) animals, whether for food, clothing or (presumably especially) for sport.
(Sidra further compared our modern willingness to torture and slaughter our fellow (thinking and feeling) animals to women's rights, slavery and concentration camps. And, though the comparisons may seem over-the-top to you, when you think about it, the idea is hard (impossible?) to rebut.)
Last Saturday, after my friend Vernski and I had talked ourselves out about Borat, I paraphrased Sidra's post, and described my discomfort in the fact I had been unable to argue against it.
Now Vernski, despite his long-term co-habitation with a vegetarian, is to my mind notoriously carnivorous. Where I make stir-fries, he broils thick, bloody steaks.
And so I was more than a little surprised when he agreed with me (and with Sidra).
Yes, he said, there is no justification for eating meat, no more than there was for the slave trade in the 18th century, or than there is now for sex tours of daycare centres in Thailand.
And yet, we both acknowledged, that this intellectual understanding of a moral fact was not going to stop either of us from frying up some bacon in the morning.
I like to think that I am a pretty good human being. I try not to lie, I make a point of not taking advantage of the weak or vulnerable and on at least a couple of occasions I have fought down fear and put my face on the line to protect a stranger from possible violence by people who could most likely have easily broken my body the way a child smashes her grand-mother's antique china tea-cup.
Long story short, Vernski and I agreed that eating meat is wrong. And yet we also agreed we will both continue to consume the flesh of what were once living, thinking and feeling creatures, into the foreseable future.
If you grant (as I do) that he and I are at the very least reasonably good people, how do you explain our willingness to engage in a practice we both agree is - in a word - evil? How is it that I am not emotionally tortured by the dichotomy between what I think and what I feel?
[Edit: According to this month's Harper's, "The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization warned that livestock such as cows, pigs, sheep and chickens are among the world's top three environmental threats:the agency said that livestock production, largely driven by the demand for meat, pollutes water, destroys biodiversity, and, when the entire production cycle is taken into account, produces more greenhouse gases than the transportation sector."]
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-19 03:30 am (UTC)We can prove the latter but not the former. Generally speaking, I think it's worse to kill a monkey than a chicken, worse to kill a dog than a shrimp, etc. It also depends on how desperate one is to survive.
We in the rich world have no necessity to consume animal protein; and so,
This, to my mind, is the most compelling argument, again, because it has to do with how desperate one is to survive. It's the worst kind of Western chauvinism to lecture starving people about their dietary choices, but this limits the argument to people who economically have a choice.
It is morally wrong to butcher (other) animals, whether for food, clothing or (presumably especially) for sport.
And this is where the complication arises. Is it morally wrong to butcher other animals for sport? Yes, for the most part, because it's unnecessary. Again, assuming we're talking about the First World, it also seems to be unnecessary to butcher animals for food or clothing.
But but but. That isn't looking at it holistically. How much petroleum goes into transporting and manufacturing synthetic clothing substitutes? You can certainly get by with plant-based fibres if you're living in a warmer climate, but not so much in Canada. How far do fresh fruits and vegetables have to travel to get to your table? How much pesticide does it take to sustain a soya bean farm, and what happens to the run-off, and how many animals does that kill?
To me the first question is sustainability of the ecosystem as a whole. Simply cutting meat out from your diet doesn't address that. There are ethical concerns beyond the suffering of individual animals. You could be less wrong than a lot of vegans by eating local free-range meat, for example.
And, of course, I'm a vegetarian and I frequently make less-than-sustainable dietary choices. And I wear leather. I am bad.
Worse and Worser
Date: 2007-01-19 04:29 am (UTC)Granted, on both counts. And I feel absolutely zero remorse when it comes to killing as many as I can of those little red ants that flourish around my bathroom sink.
As for survival, as I have pointed out to others, Sidra was explicit in condemning meat-eating in the rich world, not the poor.
But but but. That isn't looking at it holistically. How much petroleum goes into transporting and manufacturing synthetic clothing substitutes? You can certainly get by with plant-based fibres if you're living in a warmer climate, but not so much in Canada. How far do fresh fruits and vegetables have to travel to get to your table? How much pesticide does it take to sustain a soya bean farm, and what happens to the run-off, and how many animals does that kill?
Thank you. This is what I was trying to get at when I said that Sidra's post has vulnerable; she loves animals, but it wasn't clear whether she had thought through all of the repercussions of that feeling.
For sake of argument, let's assume it is environmentally more destructive to ship me a handful of almonds (from where? Brazil?) than it is to ship me a steak from Perth. Am I morally obligated to eat the steak, even knowing that the cow didn't have a good life?
To me the first question is sustainability of the ecosystem as a whole.
Are we still talking about morality now, or simple survival?
Simply cutting meat out from your diet doesn't address that. There are ethical concerns beyond the suffering of individual animals. You could be less wrong than a lot of vegans by eating local free-range meat, for example.
I don't remember the figures off-hand, but it takes a lot of pounds of grain to produce a pound of meat. I'm sceptical about your implicit suggestion that an animal-based food-and-clothing regime is less ecologically destabalizing than one based strictly on vegetables.
Re: Worse and Worser
Date: 2007-01-19 04:53 am (UTC)Re: Worse and Worser
Date: 2007-01-19 04:55 am (UTC)Re: Worse and Worser
Date: 2007-01-19 04:53 am (UTC)That depends on whether you believe in moral absolutes. ;) And how you weigh the needs of the many against the needs of the few.
Are we still talking about morality now, or simple survival?
The two are intertwined. It's not ethical to consume more than the planet can sustain.
I don't remember the figures off-hand, but it takes a lot of pounds of grain to produce a pound of meat. I'm sceptical about your implicit suggestion that an animal-based food-and-clothing regime is less ecologically destabalizing than one based strictly on vegetables.
I probably wasn't clear—I'm not saying that animal-based food and clothing is always more sustainable, just that it could potentially be. All other things being equal, it's less wasteful the lower down on the food chain you are, so plants are more sustainable than animals, herbivores more sustainable than omnivores.
Where it gets complicated is when you have to factor in transportaton (fuel), pesticides, preservatives, production, labour (at least with plants that are labour-intensive to cultivate). These factors currently affect meat as well, though, so in general it's still better to be vegetarian. The ideal, I guess, would be vegetarian, local, and organic, but who can afford that?
Re: Worse and Worser
Date: 2007-01-19 04:55 am (UTC)I could, if I didn't spend so much money on luxuries like department-store clothing, a comfortable automobile, and the latest CDs on iTunes.
It's about priorities.
Re: Worse and Worser
Date: 2007-01-19 04:58 am (UTC)Conscientious consuming is a tricky business.
Re: Worse and Worser
Date: 2007-01-19 03:50 pm (UTC)It is, and that's why we ought to view it skeptically. I've been vegetarian for half my life, and for someone living in the First World, I probably have an impressively low ecological footprint (no car, medium-density neighbourhood, a lot of second-hand clothing that I keep for ever, etc.). This said, in the greater scheme of things, I'm not saving the world with my dietary or lifestyle choices. What we need is broader collective action to stop factory farming and develop sustainable agricultural processes.
Re: Worse and Worser
Date: 2007-01-19 01:28 pm (UTC)Well, I can, for starters. :)
There are a lot of good, established organic brands around Toronto right now (I dunno if you are from Toronto - but maybe you are so here you go):
For Dairy, Organic Meadow is good. The only thing I can't afford to buy organic is their butter.
For Meat, Beretta Farms (http://www.berettaorganics.com/) are good. If you are careful about what you buy and how much you eat, it's perfectly affordable.
Produce is a no brainer, this is clearly labled at the market.
Grains are tougher, I like Nature's Path but they are north-america-wide so they may not be "local", though they are organic.
Food costs more, and you'll change the amounts of things that you can eat, but this is As It Should Be. Pinapples in January are just not a Canadian food, suck it up. :)
Re: Worse and Worser
Date: 2007-01-19 03:52 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-19 06:40 am (UTC)I try my best to eat locally grown and organic plants, and yes, GMO or non-organic soy is out of the question for me because of how sensitive the plant is to any tampering.
Being vegan for me, is about making the best choice possible. When I lived with my parents, being a strict vegetarian was the best option for me under the circumstances I was. I encourage people (my own boyfriend, for example) to eat organic, healthy and lean meats, because I know that a dramatic lifestlye change is not nearly as plausable for some people as it was for me.
Again, best decision peossible, and it's a good idea to look into the health benefits of cutting dairy and meat to a minimum and increasing your intake of plant-based foods - we're all aware that it's good for us. :)
Lastly, no one has the right to tell you whether you're a bad or a good vegetarian/vegan. It is YOUR personal decision and you are to make the decisions you are comfortable with.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-01-19 03:58 pm (UTC)It's odd, because I didn't have a hard time going vegetarian at all. A lot of that is living in Toronto and generally preferring food from places where meat is scarce—even when I ate meat, I was more into stirfries than steaks. But a lot of people seem to find it hard, so you just encourage them to do what they can.
I'm mostly joking about the bad vegetarian thing. I'm pretty conscious given the other demands on my time and energy, but I also recognize the limits of individual choices.
Addendum
Date: 2007-01-20 12:50 am (UTC)And some people deny even that. Historically, a lot of people have denied even that. And I still hear people claim that, for instance, fish don't feel pain when they're battling to escape the hook.