Animals, Vegetables and Health

Usually the posts in this blog are in the abstract, dealing with factual information.  I try to present material for which there is evidence, rather than tell a personal story or give an editorial opinion.  Today will be different.  I want to talk about vegetarian diets.  Even though I think there are facts to shape the discussion, I also believe this issue is very personal, not one about which I want to be directive or dogmatic.

Not long ago my daughter, who is a chef by training, gave me a book about using animals for food: Jeffrey Masson's "The Face on Your Plate."  Some years ago I had read Matthew Scully's "Dominion: The Power of Man, the Suffering of Animals, and the Call to Mercy," and Eric Schlosser's "Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All American Meal."  There are many other books in this genre, but these are all quite good in making you think about the nature of our diets and how they connect with the animal world.  When you take an honest look at the evidence, it is hard to deny several compelling arguments.

I don't think vegetarianism is primarily about health.  For one thing, I don't think you can make any assumptions about the healthfulness of a person's diet because they tell you they are vegetarian.  A vegetarian's diet is healthy, not because it doesn't contain meat, but because it is rich in fruits and vegetables, whole grains, low fat diary or dairy substitutes for vegans, adequate protein and other nutrients from a variety of beans, sufficient fluid, and no more than moderate amounts of alcohol.  There are not many advantages to be gained by a totally meat free diet compared to the diet outlined above which also includes small amounts of low fat meat servings.  Nevertheless, in population studies, vegetarians often compare very favorably to those with other types of diets.

For me, the most compelling arguments in favor of a vegetarian diet are the environmental impact of diets and the impact of meat-centered diets on the animals in our food chain.  Prior to the practice of farming as a method of raising food, animals served as a convenient source of nutrition.  While not a perfect diet, eating the flesh of hunted animals or fish was enough, supplemented with wild plants, to sustain life at least into the third or fourth decade.  In those days, population was sparse enough that the impact on the ecology was not extensive.  With the massive increase in the demand for food, occasioned by the explosion of population beginning in the 19th century, it is now clear that plant farming is much more efficient than using animals for food, in terms of energy required, land use, production of waste, and toxic contamination of the environment.  Factory farming is environmentally destructive and unsustainable on a global basis.  The books above will give thorough descriptions and documentation of the environmental harm done by making animals so central to our diets.

The other main issue boils down to the treatment of animals.  I don't believe like many do, that killing animals for food is inherently immoral.  This is very much a personal belief rather than an established fact, but I think it is possible to raise and use animals for food in a humane way.  However, market forces have taken any human values out of this practice.  Skilled accountants and engineers have found ways to extract the greatest possible profit, with no regard for humane treatment of the animals, for the safety of workers in the processing plants, or for the impact of the industry on the the areas nearby their plants.  Meat processing plants (the name is so much more pleasing than slaughterhouse) are places where animals are treated in their lives with great cruelty, leading up to a brutal death.  Unfortunately, this is the predominant method of animal agriculture in our country.

The question is if there is such a thing as animal cruelty.  Some would say that animal cruelty is conceptually impossible because animals have no free will, are not thinking or feeling, cannot do formal problem solving, and have no self-awareness or sense of future.  Evidence is growing that none of this is true.  However, if someone is persuaded that cows, pigs, and chickens are no different in character from stones and clay, then perhaps it doesn't matter what happens to the animals which end up on our plates.  On the other hand, if one can visualize or admit to the possibility of animal cruelty, it is then hard to deny that what happens to our food animals in factory farms and processing plants does qualify.  The argument is similar to the argument about prisoner torture:  it is not about the terrorists, it is about us as a people.

Vegetarianism, and the even more certain veganism, are no longer oddities;  most of us know more than one person as a friend, family member or co-worker who fore swears meat in their diet.  On the other hand, there is no great social change underway to eliminate animals from the food chain.  It is a very difficult decision for people with great social consequences.  Food is central to so much of our lives, and making what is truly a radical change - no meat - is not something people are in a hurry to do.  I think the environmental consequences are going to push very hard on the prevailing dietary practices in the coming decades.  Given the violence and brutality found in so many places in our culture, it is unlikely that we'll see a groundswell of sympathy for cows, chickens and pigs any time soon.  It is something to chew on, however.