Quitting Meat: A Process Of Change

Mark Twain said that quitting smoking is among the easiest things one can do; he did it all the time. I would add vegetarianism to the list of easy things. In high school I became a vegetarian more times than I can now remember, most often as an effort to claim some identity in a world of people whose identities seemed to come effortlessly. I wanted a slogan to distinguish my mom's Volvo's bumper, a bake sale cause to fill the self-conscious half hour of school break, an occasion to get closer to the breasts of activist women. (And of course I did also think it was wrong to harm animals and destroy the environment.) Which isn't to say that I refrained from eating meat. Only that I refrained in public. Privately, the pendulum swung. Many dinners of those years began with my father asking, "Any dietary restrictions I need to know about tonight?"

I first became a vegetarian when I was nine, in response to an argument made by a radical babysitter. My great change---which lasted a couple of weeks---was based on the very simple instinct that it's wrong to kill animals for food. I imagine most children have some version of this instinct at some point, and while it says nothing at all about the rightness or wrongness of meat, the overcoming of it can, itself, leave a mark. Parental explanations almost always come in the form of half-truths, glossings over, or worse---"Animals live long, happy lives in the sun, and when they one day die, they share their meat with us." Kids are even better at recognizing such bullshit than adults, even if, because they need a stable world, they don't pursue it. Whether or not something is learned about food, something is learned.

My most recent shift to vegetarianism was inspired by the birth of my first child. Facing the prospect of making food choices on his behalf---and of having to come up with explanations that he would also digest---I took the questions posed by meat seriously. Instinct no longer felt like enough. And neither did information. I wanted to have a full engagement with the subject. I wanted to see it for myself, not because there isn't ample access to relevant photographs and videos, but because I was not the photographer. (Observation is easy, implication is honest.) This full engagement---which resulted in my book, Eating Animals---required me to visit factory farms in the middle of the night, dissect the emotional ingredients of meals from my childhood, and probe those instincts of right and wrong that two decades earlier made me change. The answers to some questions became very clear very quickly. Some remain cloudy.

Will this vegetarianism be the last one? It's impossible to say, of course, but with my filled-out picture of not only contemporary animal agriculture, but my own understanding of fatherhood, it feels impossible to imagine a time when I would bring such food---which is virtually always unhealthy, destructive and cruel---into our home. Our home could not be our home in the same way, given what I now know.

But perhaps there's more to it. Perhaps it took all of that previous inconsistency, all of that pendulum swinging, to bring me to this place. Perhaps "failing" was not failing but approaching, one awkward step at a time, what I always wanted.

The question, I've come to think, is not what inspires one to change, but what inspires one to remain changed. It's easy and common to learn something---through an argument or fact, image or experience---and feel compelled to make different choices. But for how long? Change is inspiring, but only rarely durable. Part of this difficulty is found exactly where you'd expect to find it: most change isn't easy. Making different choices at restaurants and supermarkets is, for most people, harder than it might seem. What's the big deal? Order something else. The big deal is we've been eating these products since we were kids, and we digested them with stories. We got over our colds with chicken soup. We celebrated the Fourth of July with grilled burgers and hot dogs. We ate our grandmother's brisket. These things matter. As do our cravings. As does convenience.

But I wonder if more of the difficulty doesn't come from the ways that we talk and think about change. When it comes to meat, change is almost always cast as an absolute. You are a vegetarian or you are not. It's a strange formulation, and it's distracting. (Those who profit from animal suffering and environmental destruction want us to think in dichotomies, rather than practical realities.) Imagine someone asking you, "Are you an environmentalist or not?" For most of us, caring about the environment isn't an on-off switch, but a set of daily choices that we try to respond to as best we can. I buy energy-efficient products, and turn off lights when leaving a room, and recycle and so on. But I also fly on airplanes. Does my occasional flying completely undermine my identity as someone who cares and tries? Should I, faced with my inability to live consistently, make no efforts to live better?

Obviously not. We don't live our lives on the inside flaps of philosophy textbooks. We live in the world. And in the world, everyone is a hypocrite. In the world, change is not a switch but a process. Being serious about changing requires a certain amount of forgiveness. I'm not suggesting that we shouldn't draw lines in the sand, or that we should be quick to accept all of our own apologies. But if animal welfare matters to us, if the air and water matter, if swine flu and E. Coli matter, if global warming matters, if biodiversity matters, if rural communities matter, if our ability to tell honest stories to ourselves and our children matters... then we shouldn't be distracted, intimidated or misled by someone else's idea of purity. We should begin at the beginning, and begin now.

 

Comments

[Blueboy1938]

There is, of course, a practical reason for not eating meat: The translation of nutrients from the original source - plants - to human consumption through eating other animals is extremely wasteful and environmentally degrading. At some point, it is going to become apparent that perfectly nutritious and tasty meat substitutes are, or can be made, available in a far more efficient use of plant products. The human population increase will overwhelm the earth's capacity to support meat production in sufficient quantities to nourish the eventual numbers, and either we will learn to cope or there will be wars and counter productive devastation in the competition for meat-raising resources. That, of course, will simply exacerbate, on a world-wide basis, what is already going on in local situations such as Somalia. There are very real health consequences for eating meat, and there are very real environmental costs in raising the animals we harvest to provide it. Those costs will eventually be recognized when scarcity/cost increase to the point meat eaters will simply have no choice but to consider the alternative.

[zwitterion]

Vegetarians look pasty and pale, small and weak. No muscle, real skinny and unfit.

[Blueboy1938]

That's not actually factual. Here's a vegetarian bodybuilder's website, and of course, since he is African American, the "pale" issue is moot:

http://www.vegetarianbodybuilder.com/index2.html

While it is harder to get the surplus protein needed for muscle mass with a vegetarian diet, I'd like to also point out that many protein supplements are used by non-vegetarian body builders that are soy-based. If red meat, for instance, were the only source of protein suitable for muscle mass, they wouldn't be wasting their time consuming such supplements, now, would they?

Oh, and gorillas - averaging 400 pounds (the males) of bone and muscle - are entirely vegetarian!

[Deftguy]

All of the Vegetarian points are well and good, but I am not hypocrite. I love meat, eggs, and chicken. I tried to go veggie, but it made me sick as heck. So I am going to eat my meat

Now where is that pig......h­e knows he is dinner tonight!

[stp1993]

thank you! i appreciate you shedding some public light on the false dichotomy of perfection, it's an argument i find myself making often.

[grumpyfarmer]

The facts are out there for those who wish to know them, a quote from one of the resident animal rights folks here. Well, I will tell you the facts of beef farming, which is what I know the most about. Fact one, nobody can afford to keep a beef cow in a confinement system, so the mama cows run pasture and rangeland. Fact two, grass doesn't grow in most parts of the country 365 days a year, so mama cows get fed hay and yes some grain during the winter or dry times. Fact 3, I think they pretty much offset that because of the fact they can turn grass and crop residue that humans cannot eat into protein. Fact 4, yes, most beef cattle are finished on grain, in some sort of feedlot, be it big or small, but I cannot see any evidence the cattle are miserable there. For the most part, cattle go to feedlots when the grass gets poor or goes dormant, and they live 3 or 4 months there. Fact 5, there is no routine animal abuse going on on beef farms. There are individuals that abuse children and pets, that doesn't mean everyone does. Fact 6, cattle go to a slaughterhouse and are killed humanely. Why would it be otherwise, do you believe more money is made if they are tortured to death? Fact 7, beef is very tasty, and good for you.

[zombie fairy]

It's not just beef, though. Beef is the most humane of the options. Chickens, pigs, and fish have it quite a bit worse.

[grumpyfarmer]

I see the horror show enthusiasts have finally shown up. Nobody has claimed a slaughterhouse is pleasant, but animals are not subjected to brutality there. Once again, I will ask, how do animals die in the wild, is it a peaceful pleasant death? No. Slaughterhouses do their best to keep animals calm, because agitated animals produce meat that is not good to eat. The killing is quick and painless. I have been there, I have seen it. I have also seen hawks pick apart a rabbit until it is dead, snakes eat toads, frogs and birds alive, etc. Death isn't easy, but in a slaughterhouse it is as easy as it gets. If you don't want to eat meat don't, but don't resort to lies to keep others from it. I think most of you die hard vegans convinced that farmers torture animals daily have led very sheltered lives. Get out into nature a little more, you will find life is more cruel in the wild than it is on any farm.

[zombie fairy]

There's more to it than the slaughterhouse. For chickens and pigs, it really is a short lifetime of torture and deformity of Frankensteinian proportions.

[farmette]

In factory farming, yes. But we raise four pigs a year on whey and pasture and they are comfortable and happy. They have plenty of space and interaction with each other and our other animals.

We do not raise meat birds, but have friends who raise pastured poultry and raise heritage breeds that have not been genetically altered to gain as have the commercial breeds. This makes it necessary for them to charge a LOT more per bird, but people interested in sustainable agriculture will happily do that and just eat less birds.

I know I am not going to convert any of the fundies here, but I am just so sick of all farmers being painted with the same brush. There are great people out here doing their best to change our entire food system and even the meat farmers are happy for people to eat less meat if the meat they do buy is raised naturally and sold at a fair price.

As a long time vegetarian, I have no aspirations to get people to stop eating meat entirely, but I do hope to help them eat more responsibly and to have them vote against factory farming with every purchase they make by informing them that there are better choices out there.

[DavidMG]

I know going vegetarian is easy if you have the right tools. When my wife and I decided - as a one week New Year’s resolution 40 years to try meatless eating we never thought it would last this long. But we had the right “tools” - actually Nikki's ability as a cook. Through her, we discovered the world’s great meatless cuisine. Her recipes ended up in "American Wholefoods Cuisine" (using easily available ingredients in thoroughly tested, reliable, tasty ways). They have been making cooks happy for 26 years.

[Nguruwe]

Yep, it is easy if you have the right tools. Anything within human capability is easy if you have the right tools, in fact. Therefore, anytime we want to make a change in our lives, we have to ask ourselves: what tools do I need to make this change? And then we need to make those tools part of our life. Tools are important.­.. they empower us. A million years or so ago, we started using tools. Are we really going to sit here now, a million years later, and complain that something is too hard because we haven't the tools and therefore we should give up? This applies to everything in life. Empower yourself, tool-maker!

[Roses]

Very good article.
It is so true. Never have I met a person who actually fits comfortably inside an idealogically pure box. They are usually just trying their best.

[rpmiller]

Real good article.

[grumpyfarmer]

How come all of you "grounded" people suddenly showed up?? Where were you earlier in the week when I was fighting the good fight for farmers by myself??? PLEASE, don't leave!

[ProfessorBrooks]

Hey, I was with you! But I gotta get away from this computer and enjoy the outdoors periodically.

[smartcookienyc]

"[E]very sack of flour and every soybean based block of tofu came from a field wher countless winged and furry lives were extinguished in the plowing, cultivating and harvest ***

The ve-vangelical pamphlets showing jam-packed chickents and sick downer-cows usually declare, as their first principle, that all meat is factory-farmed. That is false, and an affront to those of us who work tor raise animals humanely, or who support such practices with our buying power. *** Meat, poultry, and eggs from animals raised on open pasture are the traditional winter fare of my grandparents, and they serve us well here in the months when it would cost a lot of fossil fuels to keep us in tofu. *** Bananas that cost a rainforest, refrigerator truck soy milk and prewashed spinach shipped two thousand miles in plastic containers do not seem cruelty free, in this context. ***"

Many of the world's poor live in marginal lands that can't support plant-based agriclture­...

Barbarak Kingsolver, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle.

[AnimalLover6]

Almost all meat IS factory-farmed. There is no "affront" here--merely a fact.

The problem is that Americans want to find a way to eat animal products and feel good about it. Sorry, but no. "Meat, poultry, and eggs from animals raised on open pasture. . ." What kind of nonsense is this? The world cannot be fed from humanely raised animals--there isn't enough land available to accomplish this.

"Bananas that cost a rainforest. . . " Got any idea how much rainforest has been destroyed to accommodate livestock?

And we're not talking about "the world's poor." We're talking about the holocaust against the animals in the U.S.

Barbara Kingsolver teaches her children to lovingly raise animals, and then kill them. And teaches them that this is okay. It's not. It's a psychological violence perpetrated against the young. See Gary Francione's concept of "moral schizophre­nia."

[glockman]

Almost is the key. I get my families meats from our neighbors farm. We buy whole sides of beef that my neighbor's aunt cuts to our specifications. She uses no hormones or factory methods in producing her meats, and she only sells to friends and family.

Perhaps we are lucky, but it can be done.

[farmette]

I have been a happy, healthy vegetarian for 17 years, but recently have added a few animals to my diet.

Being a dairy farmer whose emphasis is on sustainability and humane husbandry, I have met other small farmers who raise their animals in ways I approve.We have even raised a few "meat animals" naturally, ourselves.

I now call myself a "friendata­rian." I will eat animals I raised or who were raised humanely and sustainably by friends of mine.I am comfortable eating the flesh of animals I have raised, knowing they ate what they evolved to eat, roamed freely on our small farm and were treated well for the time they were with us. I don't eat a lot of meat, but will enjoy the heritage breed turkey we raised this year for Thanksgiving.

It is nice to see people realize that meat eating is not necessarily a problem, but that factory farming always is. It is nice to see people beginning to understand that it does not have to be all or nothing and that each time they buy and eat meat, eggs or dairy products raised in a natural, sustainable, humane way, they increase the odds that more meat, eggs and dairy animals will be raised this way.

The world is not black and white and meat is not inherently good or evil. Put thought into your choices and vote with your pocketbook.

[towre]

Since when did it become "friendly" and "humane" to blow the brains out of a healthy, conscious being at close range? Meat production involves harming and killing others for your own pleasure. That is plain wrong.

[glockman]

Since mankind has been doing it for millenia, and since some cultures absolutely rely on meat as sustenance.

[AnimalLover6]

"It is nice to see people beginning to understand that it does not have to be all or nothing and that each time they buy and eat meat, eggs or dairy products raised in a natural, sustainable, humane way, they increase the odds that more meat, eggs and dairy animals will be raised this way."

This is merely willful blindness. If all animals were raised "humanely," there would be no land left, and the planet would be dead.

"Humanely raised" animals do not die "humanely.­" Ever been to a slaughterhouse?

Yes, actually, it does have to be all or nothing. People are such self-involved jerks.

[farmette]

If all animals were raised "humanely," there would be no land left, and the planet would be dead. -- Hm. Conveniently you cut out the word "sustainably" in your selective reply. Sustainably means there would, by necessity, be fewer animals raised for food. Only what the land they were raised on could support.

"Humanely raised" animals do not die "humanely.­" Ever been to a slaughterhouse?
--yes. I have. Have you?

BTW-- everything dies. Everything. And a quick ending is infinitely more humane than letting an animal suffer a painful death by disease or a natural death at the hands of a predator who does not make a clean kill. We have had to put down animals left to die after predator attacks. Mice, insects, abandoned animals who have been struck by cars - whatever. It is a hard thing to do, but it is absolutely more humane then letting them suffer.

[wallyone]

I have no quarrel with vegetarians, but I do have a huge problem with the figures that are quoted for the environmental effects of livestock farming. For example, it does not require nearly as much fossil fuel and concentrate (mostly grain) feeding as the armchair experts would have us believe. By far most of the ruminant diet consists of cellulose in the form of grass, hay, corn stalks and leaves, and byproducts of other food processing that we humans cannot digest. In many ways the system is incredibly efficient and sustainable. If farming consumed resources the way its critics assume, its products would be priced beyond what the market would bear. If it were unsustainable, farmers would not still be doing it. Right?

[SuperCanuck]

Its a bit of a loaded question, is true that most beef cattle would only a relatively small amount of grain for finishing while dairy cattle need larger grain amounts for milk production. Ruminant animals utilize land that could not be used for grain production and can provide meat and milk

[grumpyfarmer]

Fact one. The figure that 99% of beef cattle are raised on factory farms is false. Fact two. Most animals that walk through the door of a slaughterhouse are killed immediately, quickly, and painlessly. Probably a much more painless death than most of us will experience, and certainly a much more painless death than most wild animals experience. Fact three. Sustainable agriculture will need to include animal agriculture. Of course, I don't expect anyone to believe me, I am just a farmer.

[riona]

Most meat on the market came from some type of factory farm. Those companies don't want anyone to see exactly how they handle the animals before and after slaughter. I agree that we cannot eliminate all animal agriculture, but it is true that plant-based diets are healthier. The human body is closer to that of a herbivore than a carnivore. I think locally-grown produce is essential to sustainable living. However, that threatens huge corporate interests and a portion of the US GDP. And, animal agriculture is a huge part of our culture heritage. I get that. But, I live in a farm state, and today's farming is largely unsustainable and destructive-in the big picture. Industrializing agriculture benefits a few rich people and the costs outweigh the benefits.

[AnimalLover6]

False. In fact, a lie.

Almost all the animals consumed by Americans are raised on factory farms.

Most animals that walk through the door of a slaughterhouse are NOT killed immediately, quickly, and painlessly.

Sustainable agriculture will not "need" to include animal agriculture. You just want it to include animals, because you make your living off their bodies.

[grumpyfarmer]

No, they are not. You are the one telling the blatant lie, most beef cattle in this nation are raised on rangeland, and finish the final 3 months of their lives in a feedlot of some type. You may disagree with feeding cattle in a lot, but most of the time cattle are in the lot when grass is past its prime. The overwhelming majority of beef cows(that produce the calves) are owned by family farmers and live their lives on some sort of range/pasture.

So genius, how are animals killed in a slaughterhouse? Don't post some link, give me your first hand observation.

[SuperCanuck]

I have a Bsc in Agriculture with a major in animal science. Obviously I have a different take on food animals.

Farm animals, in general, have a better life on the farm than they would ever have in the wild where their life would be hard and probably short. Farm animals (again in general) live a better quallty of life because it helps them grow.

Beef is a package that contain a strong assortment of protein and minerals, which is not always easy to put together in a vegetarian meal.

Not to be disrepectful, but animal agriculture is not the evil villian it is portrayed

[grumpyfarmer]

Well of course you are right Super, but the truth doesn't play well to most of this crowd. They have been indoctrinated that making money raising animals must involve unspeakable cruelty. The truth just does not matter regarding this subject in this venue.

[SuperCanuck]

I can respect their decision if they want to vegetarian but its unfair to paint all those in the animal industry with a broad brush.

Yes its true that in like any industry there are cruel people who treat their animals badly but it should also be said that the vast majority realize that these are living creatures like themselves that have feelings, feel pain, and are just trying to survive. I know farmers who actually get emotional when their animals are shipped away.

[towre]

Often unspeakeable cruelty (since the factory farming industries try to ban footage and reporting of their activities). And always, always harming and killing.

[AnimalLover6]

You're lying. Factory farming and slaughterhouse do involve unspeakable cruelty. The facts are out there for those who wish to know them.