I’d like to add to AnonyMouse’s second point. I’m not anti-vegetarianism either but I am against vegetarians who claim vegetarianism is *the* only morally acceptable choice. If we are supposedly equal in importance to non-human animals (as I also believe) then by denying ourselves of our omnivorousness, isn’t that claiming a moral superiority over non-human carnivores and omnivores?

I just want to live in a way that I am as harmless as a spider or spider monkey. I don’t need to be more harmless. I’m not that special.

Apparently my spell check says “omnivorousness” is a word. Imagine that!

Oh, wait, never mind, that’s absolute bullshit.

Don’t get me wrong. If “But everyone does it!” is the best excuse someone has for eating meat, that’s pretty pathetic. But those are far from the only arguments against vegetarianism.

Now here’s where it gets a bit tricky. See, while I eat meat, I am not against vegetarianism in the least. I do not believe that everyone should do it because it’s a natural behavior, any more than I believe that we should all screw like rabbits. I have no interest in talking a vegetarian out of eating meat unless (1) it is having a negative impact on his/her health or (2) he/she has decided to become a vegetarian on some shallow and poorly-researched lark.

But here’s why I eat meat:

1: Health. Yes, I know, it’s widely held that humans do not need to eat meat; we can get all the nutrients we need from supplements, yadda yadda yadda. Isn’t this a bit like saying that we don’t need green vegetables because we can just take folate supplements? Thank you, but as far as nutrition goes, I will get mine from a natural source. In addition, while your body may have equipped you quite well to run on beans and vegetables, mine does not seem to have been so generous. It reacts in an incredibly hyperactive manner to many sources of carbohydrates, and rather than using them as fuel like it should, it tends to store them as fat. Naughty little metabolism.

Meat is not nearly unhealthy as many animal rights vegetarian proponents would have you believe. Compared to processed grains and sugars, it’s actually a remarkably benign addition to the human diet.

2: Ethics? I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but you can’t exactly go on living without killing something. If you eat nothing but plants, you must still kill all the small animals that would have invaded the field and ruin the crop. Even if you can somehow avoid this, you are still depriving another animal of a potential food source. If I really wanted to avoid harming other beasties for my own benefit, I would have no choice but to kill myself.

Which isn’t to say that I support wanton killing of animals or excessive meat consumption “just because”. I believe that living is equal parts cooperation and competition, and to that end I will try and minimize my impact on the world in general. I would much rather eat “industrial waste” meat (like the beef we have in our freezer) or hunted meat than the mass-farmed, impact-intensive stuff you get in the store. I wholly plan on looking into that as soon as I am responsible for my own groceries.

3: Mmmmmm.

Dan D Lion wrote: Animal agriculture is not in the business of provide happy fun lives for their animals

Strange – I grew up working on farms, and every farmer I met had the utmost concern for the well being of their stocks. The reason is simple – stressed animals do not produce – no milk, no eggs, poor growth; all of that equals no profit.

Why eat cows and not dogs or cats?

Dogs and cats are consumed in many countries around the world. But generally speaking, it is not a good idea to eat the flesh of carnivorous as they have high parasite burdens.

Humans–who enslave, castrate, experiment on, and fillet other animals–have had an understandable penchant for pretending animals do not feel pain

Statements like these are quite insulting, and completely false. Its also taken out of context – animal activists love to use this quote, but strangely never quote the following paragraph. Maybe pick up the book that quote is from – “Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors” and see why what your quoted is taken so far out of context as to be laughable.

Of course, the above tactic is what I’ve come to expect from the animal-rights lobby. Forget reality, twist any fact or quote to serve the cause…

More to the point I’ve been involved in medical research for over a decade, and yes, I have used animals as research subjects (and, if anyone cares, I began this type of research while I was still a vegetarian).

Pain control and a happy life are quintessential to producing useful and accurate scientific results. We are fully aware of the pain they experience, and the hugely detrimental effect it has on their biology. The “john q publics” who sit on our ethics boards tend to be rather overwhelmed at what we go through to ensure minimal suffering and a happy life. More than once I’ve heard “we don’t even do that for our pets/kids/parents” when we discuss our pain-control and environment enrichment programs.

For that matter, the last research animals I used (rats) used to come up to the edge of their cages to be petted and held whenever I entered the room – clearly I wasn’t bothering them much. You might even go so far as to say they liked me…

Likewise, when I worked on the farm, every reasonable attempt was used to minimize pain when working with the animals. From using a spray-on local aesthetic during castrations, to switching from branding to ear tags for ID.

Had you any experience in either field you would know the above. But you’ve swallowed PETA’s lies hook, line and sinker.

Ever wonder why all of their anti-research videos are so grainy, and have such poor colour? Its because they were all filmed in the 50′s and 60′s. Guess what – things have changed a lot since then…

Animal agriculture is monoculture too

Depends on how its conducted. Free-range farming (the main form of cattle farming, btw) is not monoculture, as it does not require the replacement of natural fauna with a single crop. As I mentioned in an earlier post, cattle farming has been managed in western Canada to actually restore natural grasslands – the cows were used in place of the near-extinct buffalo.

it’s a false dilemma to claim it’s all or nothing.

And since I never claimed that, your point would be what? In fact I clearly stated:

“I’m not pretending that animal farming is impact-free”.

The “take home point” was simply that the moral high ground that vegetarians pretend to have is a lie. Plant monoculture has killed far more animals, in the most horrific manner imaginable (starvation, poisoning and trapping), than any other form of farming humans engage in.

And no, I’m not exaggerating. You should read up on the number of rodents each year in the name of soy production (there is an article on that in ingenta). In the US alone more rodents die per year in the name of soy (around 3 billion) than there are cows in the world (about 900 million).

Bryan

PS: I used to believe all the PETA pro-veg crap that you seem to. It was when I started thinking for myself, and actually researching (and looking back at childhood experiences) that I realized most of those “facts” so readily put forward by the animal rights and pro-veg lobbies are lies. Maybe you should do a little research yourself; I’m sure if you do you’ll come to the same conclusions I did.

Bryan says: So from an ethical point of view, if animal suffering is a major concern then domestication is the key to limiting animals suffering. Nature is a far harsher mistress than human kind.

With the numbers of animals being raised there is too much opportunity for suffering. Animal agriculture is not in the business of provide happy fun lives for their animals. The horrorshow they abscond has been well documented and witnessed. Animals do suffer and they are treated horribly. Animals in the wild maybe just as much or worse but at least they have the chance to feel the sun, run, play, eat and live their lives in the horrible harsh natural bosom of freedom. (this leans into animal rights territory but i thought it pertinent)

Bryan says: The cutoffs used by some vegetarians are rather arbitrary; the cortex argument for example. IMO, these cutoffs are due more to the Disney effect (i.e. don’t hurt the cute fuzzy ones, damn the rest), rather than any rational reason.

Actually it is the population of animal eaters (in the U.S.) who adhere to the “Disney effect”. Why eat cows and not dogs or cats? I don’t know any vegetarians that eat only the non-cute animals. They in fact eat no animals and draw the line where sentience begins and focus upon the animals that are in the most dire circumstance. Just because we can’t save every animal doesn’t mean we can’t save some.

Oh here’s a quote:
Humans–who enslave, castrate, experiment on, and fillet other animals–have had an understandable penchant for pretending animals do not feel pain. A sharp distinction between humans and “animals” is essential if we are to bend them to our will, make them work for us, wear them, eat them–without any disquieting tinges of guilt or regret. It is unseemly of us, who often behave so unfeeling toward other animals, to contend that only humans can suffer. The behavior of other animals renders such pretensions specious. They are just too much like us.
-Carl Sagan

Bryan says:
I would also like to make one last comment on the “ethical vegetarians”, in regards to limiting animal pain. I feel that the arguments of the “animal pain” vegetarians are very one sided and ignore the huge and entirely detrimental impact that plant farming has on animals.

Animal agriculture is monoculture too don’t forget and the effects upon the population of flora and fauna can also take a devastating toll. Soy and corn grown for animal agriculture compounds the toll. We could go on all day cherry picking the best form of agriculture against the worst form of another but again it’s a false dilemma to claim it’s all or nothing.

Does anyone know anything about this?

I’ve always had to laugh at these types of arguments. Factory farming aside – which thankfully is not widely used outside the USA – farm animals live in paradise compared to animals in the wild.

Yes, but in the US, factory farming IS a significant factor, which unfortunately complicates the issue a great deal. It’s naive to assume that farm animals spend all their time suffering, while wild animals prance around the meadows, but it’s also rather naive to assume those in large farms are properly cared for. Those in large farms are, unfortunately, the most profitable, so their numbers increase while the amount spent on them is, in general, whatever amount creates maximum gross profits.

I’ve always had to laugh at these types of arguments. Factory farming aside – which thankfully is not widely used outside the USA – farm animals live in paradise compared to animals in the wild.

Few mammals born in the wild reach adulthood – depending on the species, upto 2/3rds will die during childhood as a result of predation, disease and starvation. Those lucky enough to reach adulthood get to spend most of the rest of their lives hungry, chronically infected with a broad range of parasites, and under constant threat of predation. And when it comes time to die, the end is never easy – no slipping quietly into the night. Instead they get a pain filled end – starving to death, and/or wracked with disease, and if really unlucky, torn asunder by the fangs of a predator.

In contrast, farm animals (or for that matter, lab animals) have it easy – most survive to adulthood, infections and parasitism are rare and controlled, average lifespans on farms exceed those in the wild, farmers make great efforts to avoid suffering (stressed animals don’t produce), and when it comes time to die, death is quick and as painless as possible.

So from an ethical point of view, if animal suffering is a major concern then domestication is the key to limiting animals suffering. Nature is a far harsher mistress than human kind.

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But I wonder why the suffering of farm animals is of such consequence as opposed to the suffering of microscopic organisms, or insects, or plants.

Scientifically speaking, there are marked differences in the way different species experience pain. Plants, insects, even microbes respond to damage – i.e. respond to stimuli which humans perceive as pain.

The difference is in the way that pain is experienced. Plants and microbes are not self-aware; “pain” responses are generally limited to activating pathways which repair damage, limit the spread of damage, and in the case of motile microbes, cause the microbes to move away from the damaging stimuli.

In “higher” animals (I hate that term, but that’s another post) damaging stimuli take on another level. Even in the simplest animals with a centralized nervous system (insects, for example) painful stimuli induce more then simple repair/avoid responses. The “higher” you get up in the animal kingdom, the broader and broader those effects are on the biology of the organism.

When you get into urocordates on upwards (tunicates to man) painful stimuli affect nearly every part of the animals biology – from the immune system, to the circulatory system, to the digestive tract. Basically, damage signals go from being triggers of self-preservation pathways to more generic “lets stress out everything” signals.

At some yet-to-be-defined point (jawed fish is the likely site) animals become aware of pain at an “intellectual” level. By which I mean they can anticipate pain, and even experience stress (and even pain) at the threat of pain. Scientifically, this threshold is what we use to determine if we use pain-management measures during research – from fish on up we use anaesthetics and analgesics to minimize pain.

The cutoffs used by some vegetarians are rather arbitrary; the cortex argument for example. IMO, these cutoffs are due more to the Disney effect (i.e. don’t hurt the cute fuzzy ones, damn the rest), rather than any rational reason.

========

I would also like to make one last comment on the “ethical vegetarians”, in regards to limiting animal pain. I feel that the arguments of the “animal pain” vegetarians are very one sided and ignore the huge and entirely detrimental impact that plant farming has on animals.

Plant farming is very damaging to the environment – you need to clear fields of all native plants to grow your crops (a procedure called monoculture). Toxic pesticides and herbicides are widely used, as it trapping of larger “pests”. This form of farming causes unimaginable pain for the indigenous species in the area. Indeed, plant monoculture is single-handedly responsible for more extinctions than any other human activity. And all those deaths were through starvation, poisoning and trapping.

I’m not exactly sure how that gets construed as ethical – IMO its pretty horrific.

Now once again, I’m not pretending that animal farming is impact-free, but keep in mind that conventional free-range farming is preformed without replacing indigenous plants, using pesticides or fertilizers, or trapping pests. Meaning that unlike plant farming, animal farming can co-exist with nature.

Bryan

5. Why would anyone create a blog comments program that doesn’t number the posts? :[

Here, here.

A lot of vegetarians seem to know a lot about ethics, and I don’t. But I wonder why the suffering of farm animals is of such consequence as opposed to the suffering of microscopic organisms, or insects, or plants. Hypocrites…

I don’t know about you, but I don’t know many people who honestly believe that microscopic organisms suffer, or even feel pain. I’m pretty sure nothing without a CNS suffers in any sense we can understand. Do you really consider kicking a dog and washing your hands similar in their immorality?