The Meat We Eat: Part Two

The first part of this post I talked about a vegetarian who was consuming meat for the first time.  Our farm sells meat to a lot of converted vegetarians.  While this irks many diehard vegetarians and vegans, they should remember that people make their food choices based on many different factors.  Many choose vegetarianism due to perceived health benefits, desired weight loss, or food allergies.  Some choose this lifestyle due to the negative environmental affects of some forms of animal husbandry.  Still other choose vegetarianism because they are against killing animals, or at least against the poor treatment of the majority of our food animals.  Most of these reasons can be overturned when access to nutrient-dense, ethically-raised, organically-fed, pasture-produced meat, eggs, and dairy products becomes more commonplace.

As I read you the first part of Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's River Cottage Meat Book, I will now cover the next section of his "Meat and Right" chapter.

"The Limits of a Vegetarian Utopia

So why do I not simply embrace this view (the commitment to eliminate the pain and suffering of animals at the hands of humans has to be morally superior to the commitment to ignore it, from previous section) and become a vegetarian?  Because in the end I feel this position also turns out to be simplistic.  To maintain that we can live in complete harmony with the rest of animal kind is naive.  It misunderstands the nature of our connections with other species and amounts to another form of denial of our shared moral sphere, albeit better intentioned than the Cartesian one.
    The undeniable fact is that any species' pursuit of its interests will always have an impact on the rest of the planet's life- the fox impacting on the chicken population, the flea on the cat, the beaver on the forest, and the sheep on the grass.  Living in a bubble, where one's individual actions (let alone those of one's entire species) have only a benign effect, or none at all, on other living things, is not an option.  Such moral purity simply doesn't exist.
    It is true that all species, humans exert the biggest, and scariest, influence on the rest of the planet.  There is barely another species that is unaffected by our presence.  But we must be clear that vegetarian humans are no exception.  In pursuit of their goals they, too, affect the balance of nature.  They may claim they affect it for the better, that their relationship with the rest of the world's animals is morally superior to the meat eater's.  But the truth of such a claim is not self-evident; it needs examination.
    Of all the creatures whose lives we affect, none are more deeply dependent on us- for their success as species and for their individual health and well-being- than the animals we raise to kill for meat.  I'm talking about common domestic livestock- poultry, pigs, cows, sheep, and goats.  We control almost every aspect of their lives: their feeding, their breeding, their health, their pain, or freedom from it, and finally the timing and manner of their death.  We have done so for many thousands of years, to the point where their dependence on us is in their nature- evolutionarily hard-wired.  With these physical controls come moral responsibilities.  Their suffering, or lack of it, their animal happiness, or animal misery, are down to us.
    This dependency would not be suspended if we all became vegetarians.  If we ceased to kill the domesticated meat species for food, then these animals would not revert to the wild (even assuming, if "the wild" means "land unaffected by man", that there is still such a place to be found on the planet).  The nature of our relationship would change, but the relationship would not end.  We would remain their custodians, with full moral responsibility for their welfare.
    So what happens to these animals in a vegetarian Utopia?  We are not going to eat them, but they remain in our charge.  We could consign them to "reservations"- wildlife parks where the wildlife isn't wild.  Tamelife parks, perhaps?  But we could hardly abandon them to their own fates- at least not if we are genuinely concerned about their welfare.  If we are not to be guilty of great cruelty, we would still have to manage the populations, by veterinary means for their good health and by culling to avoid population booms and consequent starvation.  And wouldn't the managers of these parks want to minimize the suffering of old and diseased animals by "putting them down" humanely?  Then what happens to the corpses of the deceased?  Do we bury them?  Are we allowed to feed them to our cats and dogs, or have they become vegetarian, too?  Or should they just be composted to produce fertilizer for the vegetarian agriculture that is now feeding us?  But then wouldn't we sort of end up eating them anyway?
    Meanwhile, how does our new food-growing landscape look and feel?  An agriculture that cultivated only fruit and vegetables would create intense pressures on the environment.  The organic system of farming, which depends for its success on an integration of arable and livestock systems, and the use of natural animal manures to replenish the soil, would be among the first casualties.  The hedgerows and coppices that define our landscape and support the biodiversity of the countryside are integral to a mixed farming economy but would soon become redundant in the vegetarian landscape.  And why should farmers, who will always (and rightly) expect some profit for their toils, preserve the redundant?
    The hard-line proposal for a vegetarian future rejects such questions as beside the point.  It accepts the inevitability of the population crash in domesticated livestock, and the radical realignment of the landscape, as necessities for the good of the cause.  Better to have no animals than animals we kill for food.  But what does this really mean?  Better to be indirectly responsible for their death than directly?  Better to have their blood on our hands only metaphorically, not literally?"

Read the next post in this series where I share Hugh's thoughts on "The Morality of Killing Animals".  Photo above of our beloved sow "Manchita" was taken by Tana Butler.

Comments

[Josh Gubser]

This is actually very poorly argued. The author posits a vegetarian "utopia" against a meat eating "utopia," where animals area treated humanely, but the fact is that they are not. It would be better for all if they were (compared to our current way of raising animals for food), but it is just as utopian as the vegetarian vision.

First off, we do not depend on eating flesh in any biological or ecological way. 70% of grains produced in the US got to feed livestock. If we all became vegetarians, we couls consume those grains directly. Since it takes 17 lbs of grain to produce a single pound of cow flesh, we could actually produce less grain than we are now ans still feed everyone. These cereal crops are also less regulated since they are not consumed by humans, and account for much higher rate of pesticide use as well. Animals also produce a lot of methane, so much so that eatig animal flesh is as polluting as driving a sports car.

As one commenter above noted, we don't need to meddle so much in nature. The natural order has a way if working things out. That's not to say we wouldn't have to do anything. It may take some activity to offset our negative influence in other ways.

Eating crops grown where animals have died and turned back into earth is not the same as eating them. We come from the earth and go back to it—that's the cycle of life. At this point, some might say that eat or be eaten is also part of that cycle, which is true to a point. Many creatures eat one another to survive, but many do not. There are many herbivores today, and there have been many in the past, even some dinosaurs.

As far as health, it took me a while to adjust to veganism as well. I didn't replace protein with protein, but carbs. American diets are so nutrient deficient that even taking out the little we get from meat takes a toll. However, once I started studying nutrition (on my own, not through school) and eating a whole food diet full of vegetables, fruits, nuts, beans, and grains, that changed. As a weight lifter, I even weighed a slender 225 lbs (I'm 6'4”) and did reps with 250 lbs on bench and over 1000 lbs on leg press. I say this not to gloat, but to show that it is not unhealthy when done correctly.

The truth is that we do not need to eat meat, that even if we do so “ethically” we still deprive another creature of life even though we don't need to; there are more health risks associated with all the bacteria and other crap of eating meat; mass raising of animals produces a lot of pollution, unless all they eat is grass, feeding animals that will be raised for food is not a responsible use of crops (and even then, grazing land, where suitable, could be used for planting food).

[Kristen McCormick]

I think you raise some excellent points about how animals are treated during the human feeding frenzy. I also think you forgot a major, although very popular, yet less advertised part of vegetarianism and veganism. If you subscribe to the idea that we are all energetic creatures and the food we ingest also contains energy used to sustain us. The suffering and cruelty of modern day big ag businesses is enough to turn anyone off. Some people of this same belief feel that animals that are treated lovingly and cared for properly do not carry negative energy if they are killed in a respectful, humane way. However, there are others who argue that being killed is enough to leave some ugly energy behind. This idea is becoming more and more popular among Western vegetarians and Buddists have believed this forever.
Second, why do humans think we have to control every aspect of mother nature? Animals still provide alot of resources to us as vegetarians, like eggs, cheese, milk....also, there was s study done a while ago about rabbit populations. The research observed an outrageous reproduction rate of this particular group of rabbits. It got to the point where it looked like it might affect the balance of the area. Then, to his amazement, a huge percentage of the rabbits randomly died...whether by an influx of hunters like coyotes, or some other sort of natural selection, the researcher never figured it out. My point is that, we do not need to put everything on a tracking list in a fenced reserve. We too are guests here on planet earth and when we have over stayed our welcome, she will let us know too.

Until that happens, keep up the good work and providing meat eaters with the best possible option to nourish their bodies. I thank you.

Also, it might be worth checking into what is going on in Illinois with the farming community there as it could affect your family soon.
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/natural-solutions-food-and-farming/message/9

[leslie herger]

I grew up on a farm in rural Maine. We had cows, pigs and chickens. My parents felt it was necessary that we know that the animals we were raising weren't pets but food. We still named them and treated them well, but didn't treat them as pets. They were treated with humane and ethical care and respect. When I went away to college I began reading more about where the animal products I was eating came from , far from the family farms of old and about as far from the farm raised animals I had been eating as a child. I became a vegetarian, though I loved meat of all kinds. It just didn't taste the same. The ingredients were low quality and lacked something.

It was years later after college when I again started to eat meat again. Still little that I find now is as good as what I had as a kid but some comes close.

It's sad to me that many kids can't identify where their food comes from. While not all kids would be able to handle what my parents felt was needed- we helped to clean the chickens after slaughter and butcher the cows a dose of reality might be nice.

[Chris]

Wonderful post! I love the questions it poses. People forget that even if all the people on the planet stop eating meat, the lion is not going to start lying down with the lamb. It really seems to be a case of the farther people get from the reality of food supply, the more they miss the reality of the food supply picture.

To Sean: When I was a vegetarian I got sick much more often than I do now as a conscientious omnivore.

[Greg Turner]

I love this post. Well thought and right on. Ironically, my daughter just became a vegetarian. I'm using it as an excuse to be more mindful about the meat my wife and I eat because I believe mindfulness trumps any ism, even vegetarianism.

[Sean Kelly]

This winter I noticed it has been ages since any sniffles, colds, sore throats etc bothered me. They were common during my vegetarian and low meat years.
Has anyone else had similar observations?