Last weekend was the deadline for an essay contest held by the New York Times, which asked readers to answer in 600 words, "Why it's ethical to eat meat." I didn't enter the contest, because I couldn't articulate the reasons I thought it was possible for meat-eating to be ethical, though not necessarily... (Just that sentence alone underscores the murkiness of the topic to me.) Then it came to me. And it goes in theory with my Reason For Not Eating Out #50: To Do More Good.
Eating -- anything -- is an act of taking. By sustaining our lives we are taking life from plants, animals, people, or energy from the sun. And just by living, especially in modern civilization, we are constantly taking and demanding of nature and other human beings -- to clothe ourselves, to type on a laptop, or to transport ourselves from place to place. When we die, we will be placed back into the earth to replenish it, but until then, life is a series of karmic spending.
Except when we do good. This can be planting a tree or something as simple as making someone else smile. Because the good circulates, and inspires others to do good as well. This is how we lift ourselves from the karmic debt we have accumulated. We may never reach a point of equilibrium -- never do enough good to overcome the bad karma in our lives -- but it is a necessary routine and helps us continue taking and demanding as we live.
I don't eat meat very often, mostly because I know that I can satisfy myself without it and won't have to carry the extra burdens of creating so much suffering, albeit inadvertently, for another creature as a consumer of meat. I ask myself, did I do enough good to justify a bit of meat today? Most of the times, I'd say no. Some people may believe that no measure of their actions can justify killing an animal, and they become vegetarians.
What is "doing good"? The concept has been embraced by most religions in some fashion or another, but according to Buddhism, is not defined by any strict rules. In my understanding, it essentially means putting out good vibes. It happens when we give of ourselves selflessly for the benefit of some good. Like taking care of an animal, or another person; taking care of plants or the land. It's simply a show of love, kindness, and respect for all things. I believe there is a wealth of opportunity to both alleviate suffering and create more good in our food choices. You can choose meat from a more ethically sound producer that tries hard to do genuine good to its animals, the earth, its employees and its customers. You can also grow the plants or animals you eat with the utmost respect, or show another man, as the proverb goes, to fish. Try to accept that all beings, even those fish in the sea, may need to create suffering as a necessary part of being alive. But if we're all in it together, trying harder to do good, the less suffering on us all will result.
So does this mean that if one donates to the Sierra Club for their whole life, they can eat as much meat as they want in good conscience? How great a donation does it take to enjoy a pork chop? Sadly, these markers do not exist. But good exists, all around, and even if it can't be measured we can challenge ourselves to do more and more each day. To one who enjoys food as an utmost pleasure, it means being more cognizant of the ramifications of what I'm eating, and extra effort to bring about more good in doing so.
So as the Buddha preached in his Five Contemplations Before Eating, prepare food thoughtfully after you've stripped its life. Eat with gratitude and mindfulness, too. And herein, the opportunity: share the joys that you're receiving with others as well. Make food that will make someone else's day, not just yours, and without regard to any self-serving gain. If you can do this, with a giving heart and an accepting vision of the ways we all try to reduce suffering, then, maybe, you can eat meat in good, ethical conscience. Or maybe, you can simply eat, and live, in a better world.
cross-posted from Not Eating Out In New York
Follow Cathy Erway on Twitter: www.twitter.com/cathyerway
Then there’s Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma which openly critiques modern agribusiness. In his most recent book Food Rules: An Eaters Manual, Pollan’s principal is Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.
Mark Bittman is also a judge, an food journalist and author of the book Food Matters which covers environmental challenges, lifestyle diseases, overproduction and over consumption of meat.
Are you seeing a pattern here?
Next is Jonathan Safran Foer, writer and author of Eating Animals. In it he explores the topics of factory farming, commercial fisheries, and slaughterhouse conditions and said that in American slaughterhouses, cows are consistently bled, dismembered, and skinned while conscious. He also analyzes the risks in the health of human consumption of meat.
Andrew Light rounds out the panel of judges, a philosopher at George Mason University, specializing in environmental ethics and policy. He edited, with Erin McKenna, a collection of essays, Animal Pragmatism: Rethinking Human-Nonhuman Relationships.
Does anyone really think this collection of judges could pick a winning essay that says anything positive about the eating of meat? Not a chance.
If we really needed proof that this whole contest was phony, that it was just another reason to put the vegetarian, anti-meat agenda in the limelight, The Times announced its six finalists last Sunday.
Here’s a sampling of the first sentences from four of those entries.
Those don’t sound like endorsements for the livestock industries to me, and it doesn’t sound like the authors are carnivores.
Why bother? It’s obvious TNYT doesn’t want to hear our story. What they wanted was another opp to call for an end to meat production – my livelihood.
Soon they’ll announce a winner to this phony essay contest and we can all go back to ignoring the NYT.
Tell us I-US, if there was a contest for the best arguments for the ethics of vegetarianism, and it was presided over by a panel of judges who all had strong anti-vegetarian biases, and in the end, chose 6 finalists, one of which said that vegetarianism is never acceptable unless the vegetables are actually vegetable analogues created by bioengineers in a laboratory, two of which said that it might technically be ethical in some cases, but it is always wrong, and three of which that said that it is only acceptable under certain conditions if practiced infrequently... you would be okay with that?!? Yeah, sure you would. And that is exactly what the NY Times contest did!
MyResponsibility said nothing about preaching to the choir. All he asked for was a balanced panel of judges, rather than a veritable who's who of the anti-meat brigade. There is NO situation where an intentionally biased panel of judges is ethical. The contest was a sham, and the Times should be absolutely ashamed of that unconscionable debacle.
The whole thing was reminiscent of the infamous Stalin show trials. The judges were a veritable who's who of the anti-meat brigade, and there was no attempt whatsoever to balance it out, making the entire endeavor a sham. There is no situation where a biased panel of judges is ethical. The contest was truly unconscionable.
Of course the judges were going to be ridiculously biased in their selection, by I was genuinely shocked by just how extreme it was in the end. They didn't even make an effort to appear impartial. In a contest for the best arguments for the ethics of eating meat,:
One of the six finalists claimed that meat isn't ever ethical, but they would consider eating a bio-engineered meat-like substance grown in a lab!
Two of the other choices claimed that eating meat may not technically be unethical in some situations, but it is always wrong!
Of the remaining three, all three said that meat consumption was only ethical in small quantities under special circumstances!
There was not one single finalist who argued that there is nothing unethical about eating meat!
Carry on.
Anyway, deep-seeded must habits aside, "true omnivores" are primarily those without a choice. Considering our long, violent past, having a choice, esp. TODAY, is such a beautiful gift, wouldn’t you agree?
One may say that any killing is a bad killing, but once again - humans are omnivores.
your plate, so according to your own reasoning, you are
responsible for the inhumane killing of many animals.
you claim that no matter how well the animals life they still die [ unlike in nature where they all live the full span of their lives, a presume ]
but the diet you promote kills a hundred times as many , often cruelly and painfully and destroys habitat directly and indirectly by increasing climate change as so much of a plant diet doesn't grow in most places and needs to be shipped there. very little land is suitable for crop growing and where there's arable land and sun there might not be water.
YOU are contributing greatly to animal suffering and the destruction of the planet and thereby human lives as well.
at least acknowledge that instead of playing he holier than thou card.
Aside from you, others constantly attacking/minimizing an array of innate attributes that non-humans most certainly share while continuously making excuses for raising/killing them for personal gain, you must purposefully disguise and/or ignore the inevitable fact that the terrible inconsistency, subjectivity, and the utter nonsense behind a pathological human supremacy delusion will always open the door to further intentional bloodshed and violence for humanity.
No matter how you slice it, "unnecessary" violence is a lie. And the justification, long habit to cause further bloodshed (i.e. might-makes-right) will always manifest/extend into other forms of exploitation and abuse; inevitably, those who participate in such routine, violent acts become so conditioned/desensitized by all the horrors that go into taking a life that they usually tend to ignore other forms of exploitation and abuse as well. There should be no doubt whatsoever that the routine killing of any creature must have a corresponding effect on the heart/psychological state of the person who so regularly commits such acts.
Again, it’s all in the attitude, sabelmouse. One day, a tidal wave of consciousness will sweep across the land. Indeed, it's already begun. Until then, however, things will continue to improve for humans (and non-humans), alike, AS ALWAYS, despite the simple fact that you've clearly embraced a long list of self-serving excuses and looked the other way.
When the NY Times put forth this challenge, I really wanted to see if anybody had any valid ethical reasons. I completely disagree that there is anything ethical about eating meat.
When I have to be around somebody eating meat, I will continue to apologize to the animal that they call their meal -- good or not good - certainly never ethical.
Now that’s the truth.
It is what it is, Cathy. You hit the nail on the head. If a show of love, kindness, and respect works so well for humans, the effort alone should speak volumes. Smoke and mirror tactics aside, the intent to kill certainly means everything for humans, doesn’t it?
You hit the nail on the head, Cathy. If it works so well for humans, the effort alone speaks volumes. After all, INTENT means everything in life, doesn't it?
http://www.mercyforanimals.org/caslaughter/
The main mistake that Erway makes is the faulty assumption that vegetable production doesn't take the lives of animals. In reality, nothing could be farther from the truth. When you make a choice between whether or not you are going to eat meat at any meal, you are not choosing between good and bad, and you are not choosing between killing or not killing. Whatever you choose to eat, animals will die for your meal.
More than a million creatures can live on a single acre of perennial grassland. When you plow that acre for rows of the shallow-rooted annuals of plant ag, you obliterate the habitat for all of those creatures, and many of them die absolutely horrific deaths in the process. In fact, in many cases, far more animals will die for an all-plant diet. One recent study, by a world-renowned environmental scientist, found that for every kilo of protein produced, 25 times more sentient creatures die in plant ag than in pasturing ruminants!
http://theconversation.edu.au/ordering-the-vegetarian-meal-theres-more-animal-blood-on-your-hands-4659?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=tweetbutton&utm_campaign=article-top
http://www.animalvisuals.org/projects/data/1mc/
That said, there are definitely many real problems with industrial animal agriculture. The thing is, there are very real problems with industrial plant agriculture as well, and false dichotomies make it worse, and silly vegan propaganda doesn't help.
In reality, virtually all of the commercially produced plant foods on the planet are either grown with animal inputs (organic ag) or toxic and completely unsustainable chemical inputs (industrial ag). Food animals are essential to every major form of sustainable agriculture. The notion that a plant diet that does not use animal inputs is healthier for the earth is complete and utter nonsense.
I do think that we should be feeding livestock a whole lot less grain than we do currently. Cows don't need any at all. Your argument is an argument for feeding less grain to animals, which I agree with, but it doesn't really have any bearing on grassfed meat or wild seafood.
“About 5.9 billion bushels of corn were used for animal feed last year [2010]; 2.4 billion were exported; and about 4.9 billion were used for ethanol, up from about 630 million bushels in 2000, according to the National Corn Growers Association. About 1 billion bushels were eaten by humans in products such as cereal, sweeteners, and beverages.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/23/farmers-complain-corn-ethanol_n_1109823.html
"Soybean meal is the most valuable component obtained from processing soybeans, ranging from 50-75 percent of its value (depending on relative prices of soybean oil and meal). By far, soybean meal is the world's most important protein feed, accounting for more than two-thirds of world supplies. Livestock feeds account for 98 percent of soybean meal consumption, with the remainder used in human foods such as bakery ingredients and meat substitutes.
Soybean oil generally has a smaller contribution to soybean value, as it constitutes just 18-19 percent of soybean weight."
http://www.ers.usda.gov/Briefing/SoybeansOilcrops/background.htm
A very weak argument to defend the ethical consumption of meat, in my opinion. I defend and practice the pleasures of food every day. It is a fundamental part of who we are, who we were and who we will be. But "preparing food thoughtfully after you've stripped its life", does not justify the act of killing an animal. Making food that "will make someone else's day, not just yours", is without a doubt a fundamental premise for renewing the approach that (big generalization here) the majority of people nowadays have with food but, once again, it cannot be an ethic or a justification for eating meat!