The Moral Ferocity of Eating Animals

It is a rare human act that is utterly reprehensible. Some glimmer of grace, some hope for redemption shines through nearly all of our efforts.

And then, Jonathan Safran Foer reminds us in his new book, Eating Animals there is factory farming of living creatures.

Perhaps you have seen the film Food, Inc. Maybe you have read the works of Michael Pollan. You may have heard of confined veal calves pumped full of antibiotics and collapsing in their own excrement; or seen the video of bushels of baby chicks, alive and cheeping, dumped into a grinder. Almost certainly, you have heard something about the terrible ways that we now treat farm animals in America, and you didn't like what you heard.

But if you still eat meat from factories -- and, Foer reports, 99 percent of meat eaten in the U.S. is raised and/or processed in factory operations -- you have not, by definition, absorbed the reality of factory farms. If you truly understood the nightmarish brutality of what happens inside these windowless animal jails and abattoirs that dot the American ruralscape, you simply would not eat this meat. Foer makes it clear that factory farming is the exceptional human activity that debases and destroys everything it touches: land, people, communities, and most of all, the innocents at the nexus, animals.

If you protest that factory farming's saving grace is that it is produces abundant, cheap meat, consider that American meat is almost certainly too abundant and too cheap. In 2003, the average American ate 273 pounds of meat. Okinawans eat less than half as much and are the world's longest-lived people, healthier by virtually every measure. Eating more plant protein directly -- rather than inefficiently converting it via animal feed into meat -- would free up millions of acres of American farmland, boosting the healthfulness of the American diet while lowering its cost.

So to grasp factory farming fully is to reject it unconditionally. Why don't we all grasp it fully?

Corporations that own factory farms have taken pains to keep their operations secret, hidden behind marketing imagery of chickens in nests and cattle in grassy pastures, but that's no surprise. The larger concern is that, as investigative journalism gives way to bloggers rendering second and third-hand opinions, almost no one is making the effort to uncover the story of the decade in accurate, carefully sourced depth and detail. To do so requires breaking into locked barns at 3 a.m., tracking down and interviewing reluctant workers, and -- no small point -- grappling with one's own self-loathing for ever having participated in such a system as a mindless eater.

Such reportorial effort (Foer's footnotes cover 62 pages) and fearlessness is becoming scarce, yet more crucial than ever. In the Internet age, as our attention is diced into ever-tinier blog posts, blurbs, bleats and tweets, some have speculated that books are obsolete. Millions are satisfied with non sequitur eruptions. What good are works that span 300 pages? One answer is that adopting a truly life-changing idea -- like radically changing one's eating habits -- takes time and persuading. The chicks-in-the-grinder video, horrific though it is, lasts under four minutes. Any atrocity can be brain-dumped if the exposure is short.

Eating Animals carefully, deliberately, takes you through every relevant dimension of factory farming: the cruelty, the environmental destruction, the dehumanization of workers (sadism inflicted on animals for the workers' amusement is extraordinarily common in these factories). One sees it from the inside, the outside, the moral high ground, the dithering consumer level, through Foer's family stories, from slaughterhouse workers, animal behaviorists, even from defenders of the system.

One sees that it is ugly from every viewpoint, that it stinks no matter which way the wind blows. Finally, the reality sticks in the brain.

The reader is left with a moral dilemma: should I stop eating factory meat and seek out responsibly-raised beef, poultry and pork (exemplars of such farming are the stars of Foer's book), or should I simply stop eating meat altogether? Foer leaves his investigation as a committed vegetarian, but makes it clear that he sees merit in responsible farmers, and in consumers who track down and consume their products.

For my part, I continue to eat wild-caught Alaskan salmon and other fish at least twice a week, and find myself comfortable there. Others will find other places to rest on the continuum from vegan to meat-intensive "low-carb" enthusiast. Foer's aim is not to make your choice, but to inform it. He has done us all a great service, and we, and the animals, owe him our thanks.

Andrew Weil, M.D., is the founder and director of the Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine and the editorial director of www.DrWeil.com. Become a fan on Facebook and follow Dr. Weil on Twitter.

 

Follow Dr. Andrew Weil on Twitter: www.twitter.com/DrWeil

Comments

[wolfguide]

I hope that readers of this post that livein New York State will reach out to their assemblypersons and state senators and tell them to support New York Assembly Bill 8163. The bill takes the small step of banning hen battery cages, veal crates and tethering, and pig gestation crates. For more information go to: http://www.ab8163.com.

Thank you.

[anyoneoutthere]

There is a good reason for not eating fish, even if your conscience allows it, and it is simply that soon there will be none left. Maybe there is less cruelty involved (or maybe not), but in any case, overfishing is an ecological catastrophe.

There is simply too much demand. The only way to deal with the problem is to reduce demand.

[Vickster]

Since I live in Michigan, most of the fish in my diet comes from lakes and rivers. Walleye, blue gill, muskie, yellow lake perch, largemouth bass...

[Dukedraven]

Eating healthy ain't cheap, Cassandrawept. I can attest to that. But eating unhealthy and cheap--e.g., a McDonald's diet--is expensive in the long run, in terms of the healthcare that's needed for sick bodies.

[californiacoast95073]

I don't think 3dtrix is talking about a bearded, enthroned God, but as a metaphor for creation and evolution. There is an undeniable creative force in the universe: it's not science fiction, just science.

Our family doesn't eat factory meat. Luckily, I do web work for the good folks at TLC Ranch—in exchange for pastured meat and eggs. If you want to hear a voice of the wife of the rancher (Jim Dunlop), visit Rebecca Thistlethwaite's educated, honest, and thoughtful blog:

htp://www.HonestMeat.com

Their commitment to the health and comfort of the animals they raise makes them my heroes; I've learned so much about what NOT to eat. They have integrity.

The ranchers I know who use sustainable and humane practices say, "Our animals only have one bad day in their lives." If that offends you, then don't eat animals. But if you do eat animals, it's unconscionable and deplorably unhealthy to eat meat from animals who stand in, and breathe, their own feces and urine all day. Once you get accustomed to clean meat, you can taste—quite literally—the poo in the meat.

P.S. I'm the writer/photographer of the I Heart Farms weblog:

http://www.iheartfarms.com

I know well most of the farmers and ranchers in the county. Farms are my "church," as I believe if you're doing "God's work," then you are feeding people and not scaring them.

[grumpyfarmer]

It is far too nice of a day to spend inside writing posts only hamchunk and I and maybe one or two others will honestly consider. At the end of the day, money is what controls everything in this country, including food production and to some degree it has to be that way. If you want sustainable agriculture and family farmers, you have to be willing to actually do something other than read what other people write about the issue. I can produce livestock in the most humane way possible, but if I can't sell them I can't survive. Right now, the odds are in favor of mega producers, whether they produce meat, wheat, or vegetables. You cannot believe how hard it is to sell livestock especially hogs in groups of less than a semi load. I have looked into organic niche markets, one ham sells for $150, do you think the common folks can afford that? Moreover, I could not even use treated wood in the buildings to be considered for that program. In alot of ways, organic stuff is a gimmick. You want to see family farms survive? Campaign for level playing fields in both financing and marketing. I think truthfully most family operations can produce food as cheap or cheaper per unit than corporates, but they have to be able to sell it for the same price.

[blenderphone]

Hell Yes!! Put your money where your mouth is. Check out localharvest.org find your farms and buy direct and more small sustainable farms will pop up and flourish instead of being left wasted and derelict or being transformed into subdivisions.

[californiacoast95073]

Agreed. LocalHarvest.org's founder lives here in Santa Cruz, and he is at the top of the pantheon of local food heroes I cherish. Currently they have nearly 20,000 FREE listings for farms, CSAs, restaurants, farmers markets, etc., all in service of sourcing local, healthy food.

http://www.localharvest.org

[Roguer]

You are not alone. But as a small grass fed beef farmer, who has tried, time and again, to talk about the facts of the beef industry to the point of laying out step by step how is works. Even trying to discuss issues I have with it. Also, detailing my own operation only to be countered with "I don't believe you" to being equated with a mur.der and rap.ist. I have about decided that people will believe what they want despite facts. I can see why farmers and ranchers don't bother opening dialogue with people that have no idea with how their food is produced. They rather believe a blogger or celebrity.

I do not condone cruel inhumane treatment of animals or humans for that matter. Honestly I have seen situations that I deem questionable. But the best way to change the system, and the cattle industry would be easy to change (no hormones and feed high quality forage instead of grain), is for the consumer to speak with their dollar. Simply put buy from a local butcher or farmer.

But a majority of the posts appearing here are calling for an end to livestock production as a whole. Which is unconscionable and undeserved.

For a farmer to post here is like jumping into a tank of raving, starving piranhas. You have my respect for attempting to tread the waters of this misguided tank.

It would be interesting if all farmers went on strike for a year.

[onwisconsin]

I agree with you. We contract directly with a farmer to provide certain meats because I have systemic allergies that are connected to how the animals are fed. Milk we get from our local farmer's co-op, keeping the money local, but any poulty I eat has to be fed on a corn-free diet. I'm allergic to beef, corn, shellfish, (and most legumes - along with many, many other things) and finding a protein source is a difficult proposition. I also have hypoglycemia and protein is very important to my diet. Without my contacts with the local farmers and organic producers of cheese and other goods, I don't really know what I would do.

There are farmers out there like you who try to raise animals humanely. There are those of us who eat animal protein in moderation who seek out people who raise animals humanely. These small farmers are in no way the moral equivalent of factory farms.

[Vickster]

If only American farmers would emulate French farmers, huh? Don't like current farm policies? Then use your tractors and trucks to block highways and close down international borders.

In a perfect world...

[Mort]

"Wild caught" fish go through a pretty nasty process, too. If you knew how painful it is for them to be yanked out of the water, expose their tender gills to the air and thrown into huge bins on top of each other to either die slowly or be clubbed, would you stop eating salmon or still find yourself "comfortable there"?

No animals, including the author's beloved farmer kind, are treated entirely humanely. To do that, they'd have to be allowed total freedom on the range, be fed more expensive foods, and at the end be brought into a cozy room, cuddled and caressed as they received a local injection to numb the pain and finally a shot to put them to sleep comfortably and permanently. Can you imagine how much a pound of beef would cost?

For the millions who refuse to become vegans there has to be a compromise between humane and supply, between suggesting that they eat less meat and trying to guilt them into eating none, and between campaigning for processing reform and advocating breaking into plants go get evidence and ruin businesses.

[Dukedraven]

The article was criticizing the practices of the mega factory farms, grumpyfarmer. Please review the video below. The cruelty of these farms is ipso facto. There are more humane ways of handling the slaughtering process, as the video points out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rpbtBgLfl90&feature=related

[Cassandrawept]

All these doctors, so rich, so pious. Doctors spend nine times what others spend per meal. Why not They make more money. Doctors have a subculture that promotes dieting, because, since the time of the Egyptians, they have had the money to buy as much food as they want.

So, the doctor eats wild caught salmon twice a week. How nice.
How many others can afford it? How much wild caught salmon is out there? Enough for all the other people in America? In the world?

[Mort]

Fanned!

[tb92]

By the same logic, I can guarantee that you spend more money on food than most of the people in the world. Should you give up everything but bug infested rice because that's all others can afford? Dr. Weil has given a lot of his time and money to help other people through the education of holistic doctors and the public. Have you done as much?

Eating in a healthy way is considerably cheaper than eating the way most people in this country do. But you have to be willing to give up convenience and familiarity to do it.

[Vickster]

I eat wild-caught deer. Does that count?

[Dukedraven]

I think many of us would become vegetarians if we knew the truth about our slaughterhouses.

[grumpyfarmer]

What is that truth exactly? Expand please. This morning one of our barn cats had a rat. He played with it for quite sometime, it was rather cruel. Eventually the rat bit the cat, the cat responded by more or less eating it alive. That is rather cruel. My dad gave me a half a sack of dog food yesterday because last week the coyotes killed and ate his dog. That is the way nature works. Then the vegetarians try to sell the idea that animals killed with one shot, bang, instantly in slaughterhouses are subjected to cruelty. After reading most of the "whats wrong with our food" blogs on the Huff post for the last several weeks, I am finally figuring out why hardly any farmers post here with the facts.. because no one on here cares what the facts are. None of you farm, I doubt many of you have ever been in a slaughterhouse, yet you just "know" how things are, and what must be done differently. Not like any of us farmers know what we are doing. So, by all means continue posting figures you can't back up about circumstances and an industry you know nothing about. Meanwhile, the families who do farm the land will continue to struggle, and the smaller farms will continue to be gobbled up by big ones, in 10 or 20 years then when a blogger claims "99% of meat is produced on factory farms" it will indeed be a fact.

[hamchunk]

You are never going to change the minds of many on here. They "know" best because all their facts come from other bloggers, who themselves get their facts from other unsubstantiated internet resources. Its so much easier to just spout some inane thought as opposed to researching anything.

BTW, no one will respond to your posts because you are a subject-matter expert in your field (no pun intended). Keep fighting the good fight, you are not alone.

[writer10027]

From their living environment through brutal transport through to being beaten and shoved through chutes the process of factory farming and its assembly-line slaughter is nightmarishly cruel.

If you are not aware of that, then watch Food, Inc. or watch/read any of the other well-informed documentation.

[LooseEnds]

Grumpy, if you would actually read the book in question--and Dr. Weill's comments--you would discover that the family farmer is not the target here. As Dr. Weill mentions in the blog above, they--and you, if I read your comments correctly--are Jonathan Safran Foer's heros. It's the industrialized, corporatized farming which with they are taking issue. Not sure why you're so angry. I'm a vegetarian and I have a bumper sticker on my car from American Farmland Trust that says "No Farms. No Food." I think we're on the same side here. I live by Paul McCartney's statement: "If a slaughterhouse had glass walls, everyone would be a vegetarian."

[anyoneoutthere]

Good god, grumpyfarmer, by what logic do you equate natural processes such as fights between wild animals with factory farming?

If a lion eats a gazelle, that means you can raise animals pumped with antibiotics that cannot move for most of their lives?

Words fail me.

[3dtrix]

Repost from a related thread:

If you want to know what God wants you to eat - go to the nearest mirror and open your mouth. The instructions are written in your teeth - you have cutters in the front for meat, and grinders in the back for fruits, nuts, berries, and vegetables. Been this way for two million years. No overlay of morality or neurotic obsession is implied or endorsed by human dentition. God wants you to eat a balanced diet, and has fine-tuned your body to digest and utilize it.

If you want to formulate a theory or religion, and eat according to your musings - no one will stop you. If you imagine that doing so makes you some kind of enlightened or higher being - that's just being silly, and no one looks sillier than someone making grave and earnest pronouncements based on nothing at all.

Yes - fresh, local, and organic foods are better and better for you than factory-farmed and industrially-raised foods - for many reasons. Yes - the diets of most citizens of most developed nations could be better - in many ways - too much of ANYTHING is bad for you. Yes - sustainable agricultural practices are imperative as we rush headlong into an era of overpopulation and diminishing resources.

But about the basic guidelines for our diets - we've already got our instructions...

[Dots]

I reject your "what God wants" theories.

[don quixote12]

God would have given us wings if he wanted us to fly (sarcasm)

Actually there is solid evidence that humans are naturally plant eaters.
"A fair look at the evidence shows that humans are optimized for eating plant foods, and not meat."
http://michaelbluejay.com/veg/natural.html

If you want to go the route of evoking God to support your habits, there is Biblkical support for vegetarianism.
"Carnivorism represents just as much of a fall from Grace as does any other sin."
http://www.newsfinder.org/site/more/the_biblical_basis_of_vegetarianism/

[3dtrix]

I am not a religious man - I use the term "God " strictly metaphorically. That being said, it is obvious to me that God did indeed give us wings to fly, gills to breathe underwater, the speed to run down any prey, and the ability to manipulate our environment to find and produce food anywhere on the planet - through our intellect and language skills.

I am the last person to endorse a meat-heavy diet, but as far as the "optimization" of the human body is concerned, we are closest in physiology to the great apes, and in-habitat research shows that even species once thought to be strictly vegetarian, occasionally supplement their diets with meat. That's all I'm sayin'...

Believe what you want to believe, and eat what you want to eat, for whatever reasons you conjure - but remember, Jesus did not divide the loaves and tofu...

[don quixote12]

3dtrix you are going by what you want to believe and that's okay but yours is not an expert opinion.


Is your mind open enough to absorb data & analysis from those who are experts?

Try reading a fine article that was posted on the Huffington Post about human physiology and the clear indications to be derived from same.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kathy-freston/shattering-the-meat-myth_b_214390.html

[pcuvie]

If you are taking about the Judeo/Christian God then it is clear that God wanted humans to be Vegan: "I give you all plants that bear seed everywhere on Earth, and every tree bearing fruit which yields seed; they shall be yours for food."

[grumpyfarmer]

Some generic comments about farming, in the middle of this nation at least. Most farms are indeed family operations of various sizes. Most family farms now rely on outside jobs to subsidise farm income, that in itself is a problem. Most have been around for several generations, I am the sixth generation of my family to farm this land, at least part of it. My great grandparents were able to raise a family on 250 acres and a dozen milk cows in the teens and 20s of the 1900s, it took grandpa 900 acres to raise 3 kids and send them to college. I farm 3500 now with my dad and it is a fairly poor way to make a living. Whether you grow crops, livestock or both margins are tight and expenses high. Land prices are sky high, driven there not by what can be produced by the land, but what can be built on it. Larger farmers have better access to money. Chances are, I will be the last generation of active farmers in our family, because of the cost of increased regulations and ever tighter profit margins. The huge corporates manage to operate at losses year after year, I can't. It will probably be easier for the next generation of our family to rent to a larger farmer or simply sell the land and pocket the money rather than farm it. Articles like this help drive prices down, and contribute to that phenomenon.

[hamchunk]

You are absolutely right, but your explanations will fall on deaf ears for the most part. I farm in NE Colorado (cow/calf and baled forage) and it amazes me how little the American public understands where their food comes from. Most Americans are only one or two generations off the farm and yet have little understanding or concerns of food production. They just know it is always there when they need it but put no thought to the sweat, blood and toil it took to get there. Also, to those on this site that swear if all farmers grew hemp, it would solve the earth's woes. Get off that idea.

I feel your plight and wish you and your family the best of luck in all you decide to do. And for my two cents, if possible, do not sell all the land, keep some because you will miss it. Trust me.

[grumpyfarmer]

Finally hamchunk, a comrade in my lonely battle to spread a little truth to the far left. Don't worry, our farm is not in any immediate danger of selling. I simply was trying to point out, as you already know, what an uphill battle farming is,and how most of us could sell our land and sit on our bottoms doing nothing and make more money. If you read through my comments you will find a reply about me being concerned about my bottom line, as if that makes me Satan. Chances are, the next generation of our family(part of which is still in diapers) will have a hard choice to make, do they continue to try to work the land and cope with every increasing regulations crafted by people like most of those posting here, who haven't a clue about the realities of farming, or make a living some other way. I hope the next generation will want to farm, but they may not be able to. I don't know what you think hamchunk, but I think standing in breadlines a while might be the cure most need to jolt them into reality about how good the consumers in this nation actually have it regarding food.

[grumpyfarmer]

I am restating an earlier post that is now buried, but I feel it worth drawing attention too. I attempted to explain the various methods I had tried over the years as a happy medium to total confinement of sows, and explain the problem of crushing pigs. Another poster posted a snide remark about my being concerned with my bottom line...well, yes, I am concerned with my bottom line. Maybe this nation has forgotten about the need for each of us to pay our bills? Farming isn't my hobby, it is my job. At any rate, I also mentioned I am in the process of selling all my pigs and will not longer raise hogs as part of our farming operation...my sows spent 90% of their lives in groups with access to the outdoors. Chalk one up for the vegans, or, is it really a victory? Now, instead of my farm producing 500-1000 pigs annually in a non-factory farm type setting, my production will simply be absorbed by larger corporates, because they can raise hogs for 35 cents a pound and I can't. So you got rid of one pig farmer, but probably didn't improve the plight of any pigs, they will still be raised, killed and eaten, just not by me.

[jcwtts1]

What no one is talking about is that all of the vegan food being discussed, all of the eating meat is bad, is a socio-economic construct. Yeah, factory farms are bad. But they feed tons of people who can't afford to eat grass fed meat, or free range chicken. Every supermarket that I have been to has much more expensive organic non antibiotic meat but if you are working two jobs and barely making it, the corn fed meat is significantly cheaper. You want people to eat more organic foods, more health diets? Make that food cheap and make bad food expensive. You think people are going out and saying... let me get the meat that was tortured the most? They are saying let me get the cheapest meat so that my family can eat. It is something for people with lots of disposable income to play with while we have real problems in the real world. They spent millions saving that fing manatee in nj while kids go to sleep hungry every night while schools don't have books. You guys are talking about food when PEOPLE ARE STARVING right here. Not in some far away place. Kids are going hungry today. Give me a break. Instead of worrying about animals worry about kids. When every kid in America is well fed and safe then talk to me about animals. Until then... yeah factories are bad, so are ghettos.

J

[David Rozgonyi]

I understand what you're saying, but what the MD said in his letter is true: Americans are eating themselves to death chiefly on excess meat. Meat (preferably lean and white, and/or fish) is a fine part of our diets as humans, but just because we can eat it twice daily doesn't mean we should. Once or twice a week is all we need. And if you want amazing, healthy vegetarian choices for the other meals, may I suggest getting a good Hari Krishna or Indian cookbook? Those guys and girls know how to cook veggies!

[blenderphone]

It's best to find the good farms in your area and buy direct from the farmer, maybe fill up the freezer because buying in bulk tends to bring cost to around the levels of that toxic commodity stuff. A great website is localharvest.org because you can punch in your zip code and it will pull up on an interactive google map every sustainable farm nearby with links to their websites.

As far as the corn fed is cheaper... it is if you don't factor in taxpayer subsidies and the real cost of environmental and personal health destruction. But if you think about it for a second, which do you think has a higher cost inputs; a factory setting that trucks in corn (grown with fossil fuel based fertilizer) to cows and has to dispose of thier wasted manure; or a traditional system that lets the cow harvest it's own food (grass) and fertilizes the grass field with it's manure all by itself. If you have not figured it out traditional cattle farming has much lower input cost... subsidies tip the scale.

[grumpyfarmer]

I am curious too in the perfect vegan world with no meat consumption what so ever, what will happen to the millions of acres of grassland, and the people who currently make their living from it? The 1500 acres I graze my cattle on is thin, hilly, and rocky, not only would plowing it be impossible, if it were done it would be a disaster in terms of soil erosion. I suppose since I have raised meat animals for a living justice would be for my land to be confiscated by the government and me put out in the streets, but then what? It certainly can't be stocked with grass eating large animals like deer or buffalo, they too produce methane. What about the taxes I pay on it? Rural schools are supported by property taxes, what then? Folks will be hard pressed to pay taxes on land they can't derive income from, and the government can't pay taxes to itself. In reality, as propaganda like this pushes down prices, smaller operators like me sell out to larger operators with deeper pockets, and developers..is that the way to solve the problem??

[hamchunk]

Most on here, because they have no idea about farming/ ranching, think all farms are full of trees and greenery, like some postcard from a farm in PA. They do not realize that some farmland will never be able to produce row crops or vegetables due to thin soils, rain amounts, etc.. I farm in NE CO and this area will never support vegetable production, no matter how much one could irrigate. So, I run what the farm can support, which is a cow/calf and (some) baled forage. That is all that this farm, on the high prairie or "Pawnee", will ever produce.

But, I am preaching to the choir on this one. You already know, and those that don't will never be convinced otherwise. Good luck.

[grumpyfarmer]

Being a new poster I guess Sunday morning must be the time when we do the one-two punch on the Huffington post, I see the Natalie Portman anti-meat article is up with this one. Too all those reading who are not commited veggies but want to eat meat and are concerned about how it is raised, have you ever stopped to consider that this unsubstantiated propaganda about meat does indeed lower the demand, and in turn lowers the livestock prices, which in turn hurts the very folks you supposedly love, the family farmer? The companies raising thousands of head can live with a profit of $5-$10 per head, I cannot make a living that way. So, each time prices tank, there are less family farmers and more corporates. If anyone really believes the world will go vegan anytime soon you are dreaming, but what articles like this will do is drive more small operations out of business, because in spite of what I read here, in the real world I have found very few people willing to pay more money for food "naturally raised". Net result of this article and Portmans, more veggie ammunition, and more factory farms.

[Giacomo Jack]

The vegan sanctimoniousness in this comment stack smacks exactly of Evangelical sanctimoniousness. It's the same species of self-righteous, do-gooder, save-the-i­diots-from­-themselve­s moralizing that (a) kills its own argument (b) ensures that no one is paying attention.

You aren't saving the world. You're saving your worldview.

And, just like Evangelical busy bodies, you fail to take note of the real world.

Although it is supremely amusing to read vegan crusader screeds in a country where the working poor struggle for enough food to eat.

A vegan lifestyle is for the posh, not for those who actually produce. It's for guilty capitalists, not for the rest of us proles.

[3dtrix]

I agree with your attitude assessment, but not your financial - veganism and vegetarianism can be successfully pursued on a shoestring budget. It generally can't - as you note - be pursued, however, without baseless and obnoxious intimations of moral superiority - must be something in the mung beans...

[ThoughtShaman]

The attitude of superirity of which, you speak has nothing to do with being vegan. It is a much broader phenomenon of how our civilization has evolved.

I fight against fellow vegans but am as yet unsuccessful in preventing them from creating a "vegan identity." It needs to remain an idea, a concept not a group identity much like those of the evangelicals.

[Giacomo Jack]

Agreed, 3d. Our family of three lived on whole foods, whole grains for about a year. It was feasible, but both my wife and I worked, had excellent salaries, and considerable disposable income.

I live in the Northeast, where food is very expensive.

When my wife left work off to mother our latest edition, we were down to a single salary - and our food 'choices' became less voluntary.

When I lost my job (went from management to grinding twelve hour days at a chain), a year later, we found ourselves dollar store shopping, and buffing our food choices with cheap meats, because that's what the budget allowed. No more $6.19 a pound organic beans. No more soy milk that costs at a half gallon what a gallon of milk costs. No more trips to the organic grocery.

It's not ignorance, as some of the moralizing vegans preach. My bookshelf has Toxic Sludge is Good For You, Diet for a Dead Planet, Fast Food Nation, etc.

It's money.

And we're still fairly well off - we stashed a buffer nest egg that lasted us a long time, have a large extended family which doesn't conform to suburban nuclear isolation, and healthy children.

Instead of sneering and telling the world to wave the magic wand, perhaps those recommending massive eating changes should put their monies where their mouths are, set up food clinics, food banks, food exchanges, greenhouses, greentops and free healthcare clinics, and spread their love with deeds, not sneers.

[don quixote12]

Actually, veganism and vegetarianism is cheaper than meat eating. You just have to be informed.

Anytime someone is confronted with the reality behind what they consume, they either appreciate knowing the truth or they find some perjorative term with wich to invalidate the information or the messenger of it.

While some "messengers" can seem preachy at times, that does not discount the validity of teh message, teh facts, the reality that is so very inconvenient.

[Vickster]

In my opinion diet should be determined by the region one lives in, not by some perceived "validity of the message".