Tuesday, July 17, 2012

Why I Am a Vegetarian

I get asked this quite a bit, so I thought I would write all this out for anyone who is interested in reading. I recently attended a talk given by Colleen Patrick-Goudreau, who talked about veganism, and the moral reasons for that. I will address the veganism/vegetarian issue later, but it’s something worth considering.

I’ll start out by giving reasons I think vegetarianism is a good idea. Basically, I’ll give all the reasons I might give if I were asked “Why are you a vegetarian?” Next, I’ll go into common arguments against vegetarianism that I have heard, and my responses to those arguments.



Reasons



Health


The original reason I became a vegetarian was for this reason. Not necessarily because I was eating unhealthy food constantly, but there are a lot of health problems associated with eating meat. Cancer and heart disease, are big problems - http://huff.to/pPSfmA. For me, the reason I started was because I was getting bad stomach aches after consuming large amounts of meat, and I had a good friend who was a vegetarian, so it seemed easy enough to try. I stopped eating meat, and I felt better, and to this day, I’ve continued the trend.



Ethics


Here’s one with which most people will disagree. I think it’s wrong to kill animals for food. It’s not super cut and dried with me, though, so let me elaborate. I think that, in our modern society, we give people the opportunity to avoid an ethically dubious dilemma, considering how easy it is to not eat meat. That dilemma is as follows: if you are not willing to personally kill an animal, then you shouldn’t eat the meat that comes from someone else doing it. While I’m aware it’s a worse offense, ethically speaking, eating meat is to killing an animal as paying an assassin to murder someone is to murdering that person yourself. Again, I’m not comparing murder of people to murder of animals, but eating meat is essentially like hiring an animal assassin. Someone has to kill it, even if it isn’t you. Hunters are, of course, exempt from this argument. Hunters do indeed kill their own food, and they are ethically fine with killing an animal, which is fine. I wouldn’t want to kill a cow, a chicken, or a pig, so I don’t want someone else to do it for me. I think that if you eat meat, you have to be able to kill the animal yourself. If you couldn’t bring yourself to do that (like I can’t), then you shouldn’t be eating meat.



Farming in America


The farming situation in the United States is bad. Even if you’re okay with killing an animal (see above, Ethics) you have to make sure you’re okay with subjecting an animal to awful conditions, crowded stables and pens, disease runs rampant and the animals are given antibiotics (which gives humans resistance to antibiotics, by the way), and the conditions are generally reprehensible. Cows and chickens are forced to sit in a cage and are unable to move for their entire lives, and a lot of times, chickens are given hormones to plump them up, so that there will be more meat, although a lot of times, there is just more water in it. 



Also, cows are often fed corn, which their stomachs are not equipped to process. Cows are supposed to eat grass. Corn makes cows sick. Mad cow disease, as is my understanding, started with cows being fed the brains and other parts of of other cows - http://bit.ly/NiwBe5. What it boils down to is that we are actively hurting animals, and that is wrong.



Greenhouse Gases


Global warming is probably real. A lot of people don’t think so, and they’re probably wrong. I’ll grant the possibility that global warming isn’t real, but it’s a slim possibility. The vast majority of scientists in the climate field agree that global warming is a serious problem, and even if it isn’t, the overwhelming evidence that it is real is a good enough reason to try to do something about it. Eating meat is a serious contributor. I’ll only briefly mention that cow flatulence is causing more greenhouse gases to be emitted, which is true. 



A problem which I think is bigger, is transportation. With plant based food products, the only time they need to be transported is from the farm to the grocery store. Meat, on the other hand, comes from animals, who need food of their own. Thus, more greenhouse gases are emitted by vehicles which transport food from farms to other farms for the animals there. Then, of course, the animals, once slaughtered, have to be transported from that farm to the grocery store, and meat is more easily perishable than plant based foods, so it has to be refrigerated, and that takes even more energy. It’s a very arguable possibility that the huge amount of meat we eat in the US is a significant contributor to global warming.



Religious Reasons


Here’s a reason with which I wouldn’t agree, but I’ll include it because it is a reason that some people have. Interestingly enough, I suspect that, despite the fact that this is the reason in this list which is by far the least logical (I don’t want to eat meat because I want to impress my magical invisible friends), it is the one that, in polite discourse, would be met with the least counter-argument. However, I won’t argue too much with it, because although it’s a silly reason for doing the right thing, it is still the right thing. 



If you ever get the opportunity, and you know of a Hare Krishna place of worship, a lot of them give away free vegetarian food on Sundays, to promote vegetarianism and celebrate their religion. A little silly, but it sounds awesome to me, so who am I to judge?



Arguments I Have Heard



Protein


No one knows what protein is. Yet, somehow, we all seem to think that without it, our bodies will wither and die like an unwatered plant. I recently had to learn about the process of RNA synthesis, which involves RNA coding to create proteins, which naturally occur in your body, and then serve some biological function. I was talking to my biology-majoring roommate about this, and I asked him what is the difference between RNA-synthesized protein and dietary protein. He had no clue. He was a BIOLOGY major. Yet, somehow, everyone is convinced that we humans absolutely CRAVE protein.

As someone who has been a vegetarian for three years, I assure you that protein is no problem. Rice and beans, soy products, wheat gluten, and quinoa are excellent sources of vegan protein, and they are not super hard to come by. Also, it’s worth it to mention that people in this country generally eat quite a bit more protein than they really need. Of course we need protein, but we don’t need a huge amount of it, and we can easily get adequate amounts of protein from plant-based foods.

Of course there are other nutrients. Iron (leafy greens), calcium (also leafy greens, plus it’s in OJ and soy milk these days), omega 3 fatty acids (walnuts, flax seeds). Colleen Patrick-Goudreau came up with a good argument. Apparently farmers are supplementing the diets of cows with calcium so that there is more of it in milk. Well, you can supplement your diet with calcium. Why go through a cow? For that matter, we all want these nutrients that are found in the meat of these animals, and the animals are herbivores. Where do you think they get these nutrients? Their food. You can be an herbivore, and much like a cow, you’ll have iron in your blood.



Vegetarian vs. Vegan


This is an argument I hear a lot. Essentially, the argument is that if I don’t want to eat animal meat, it’s hypocritical of me to eat dairy and eggs. One aspect of this argument which I’ve heard is that eggs are meat. Well, no, they’re not. It would even be easy to convince a dogmatic pro-lifer of this, since life begins at conception, and I’m fairly sure I’ve never eaten a fertilized egg. Eggs are not meat, they are just an animal byproduct. 



The one part of this argument that is hard to get around is that I am against cruelty to animals when they are being used for meat, but by eating dairy and eggs, I am supporting cruelty. In the United States, this is true, but there’s no reason it has to be. It would be possible to harvest milk and eggs from chickens and cows without killing them and still guaranteeing that they live a life without pain and discomfort. The costs would be high, but I would be willing to pay for those higher costs. In the talk I recently attended, the speaker, Colleen Patrick-Goudreau, brought up the point that in order to harvest milk from cows, one has to get the cow pregnant. It’s then common practice to murder the cow’s offspring if it is a male (because it can’t make milk) and keep it alive for milk if it’s female. Also, cows that are used for milk are eventually killed and made into meat. Ms. Patrick-Goudreau made a remark which was akin to “There’s no retirement home for these cows.” Obviously I don’t know if these claims are true, and I’ve found it’s pretty tough to find out exactly what goes on at these factory farms on the internet (I guess they must not want you to know, for some reason). Even so, these are still good arguments to cut down on milk and eggs.



Natural Order


It’s the natural order of things for us to eat meat! This is my favorite argument, because it’s the easiest to refute. Not that I’ve ever had the chance, but it would be great if a creationist presented me with this argument. Someone who thinks science is made up by God to fool us into thinking He isn’t real arguing for natural order would be the height of absurdity, in my opinion. Interestingly, vegetarianism is condemned in the Bible: 



For one believeth that he may eat all things: another, who is weak, eateth herbs.” -Romans 14:2. Take that, heathens! In my opinion, just another great reason to consider vegetarianism. But, I digress. 


Arguing that eating meat is the natural order of things and therefore we should do it is tantamount to arguing that we shouldn’t be wearing clothes because it’s the natural order of things to be naked. Of course, you’re welcome to flaunt your nudity if you want to, but if you like wearing clothes, go ahead. As humans we have the capacity to do things like refrain from eating meat, wear clothes, and defecate directly into toilets. Talk about unnatural! Not to mention that, if you are talking about eating meat because it’s the natural order of things, you should be hunting your own meat (see above, Ethics). Lions don’t have grocery stores, refrigerators, or chicken nuggets.



Dogs, Cats, and Horses


This is something that doesn’t really fall under either category here, but it’s something that I’d like to mention. People in the United States (not, interestingly enough, in some other countries) don’t eat dogs, cats, or horses. I’ve brought this point up to many people, and their counter-argument is that they are out pets, and that’s why we don’t eat them. This argument would only make sense if you are talking about your own pet. 



Basically, the argument is that a large number of people have cats and dogs as their pets, so that species is safe from the grill. Well, how large of a number does it have to be? Plenty of people have chickens and pigs as pets. There are probably even people who have a cow that they love. Why don’t these people stop you from eating those animals? Keep in mind here that I am not arguing for eating cats, dogs, and horses, I’m just saying that morally there is no difference between that and eating cows, pigs, and chickens. So basically, if you eat meat but you would never ever eat a dog, then you are a hypocrite. I will grant you the right to not eat your own dog, but that’s it. 


Recently there was a lot of press when people found out that Obama ate a dog when he was in Indonesia, and it also came out that Romney put his dog in a cage on top of his car and drove around. Different people were pissed at different candidates, but in a society where we habitually kill animals and eat them, Obama's actions are essentially the norm. Obama eating an animal that was killed in order to be eaten is hardly a capital offense. Romney, on the other hand, was treating very poorly an animal that he’d taken on the responsibility of taking care of, so his offense was greater, as far as society should be concerned. If Obama had eaten his own dog, that would be different. Of course, killing and eating a dog is worse than forcing it to partake in a very unpleasant and windy car ride, but Obama (and, presumably Romney) eat animals that have been killed for the purpose of eating all the time. What difference does it make if it isn’t a dog?

Conclusion


Hopefully anyone who reads this won’t take it as me telling you that you have to be a vegetarian. At best, I hope I have convinced any readers to consider vegetarianism, or at the very least, trying not to eat very much meat. At worst, I hope I’ve convinced people to be more tolerant of vegetarians, and if you own a restaurant, (unlikely), throw some more veggie options, and maybe even a vegan option. I’ve been pretty fortunate in that all the meat eaters in my life have been totally tolerant of my vegetarianism, with one exception who will remain nameless, but he’s gotten over it since I’ve been veggie for like 3 years. I, in turn, am tolerant of meat eating, in that, I don’t think that eating meat translates to a desire to torture animals. I do, however, think that it’s wrong to eat meat, but it isn’t my place to judge. I’m always happy to tell you how I feel about it if you ask me, or if you happen to want to read any of this, but I won’t shove the fact that I won’t shove meat down my throat down your throat.

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