Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
In response to my recent post about whether we could feed more people if everyone were vegetarians (I say no), a poster named Marissa wrote a heartfelt paean to Veganism.
Figure 1. Perhaps the world’s best-known adherent of a strict Vegan diet.
Vegans are a kind of fundamentalist sect of born-again vegetarians who eat exclusively vegetables, no eggs, no fish, no milk, no cheese, no insects. Merissa’s post starts off as follows:
Ok, I don’t think I have read one comment from a true vegan on this thread. Well I am Vegan and let me share with you the benefits that I have experienced …
Merissa follows with a list of the things s/he has gotten from following a Vegan diet. This stirred me to write again about why people eat meat.
Merissa, I think that it is great that you have found a way of eating that works for you. The problem is not that some people find that vegetarianism or Veganism works for them. That’s a good thing. I say more power to you. You should eat exactly what feels best for your life and your body. I ate vegetarian for three years myself.
Now perhaps it’s something in the vegetables that causes the problem, I don’t know. But all too often, recent initiates into the mysteries of some branch of Vegetableism then feel compelled to tell me how much better the world would be if every single person ate, not what works for them, but what works for the Vegetableist in question. And this is all too often accompanied by the claim that we could feed more people if humans only ate vegetables.
For the host of reasons I listed in the previous post, people around the planet have found it advantageous to domesticate and keep (and eat) animals. Perhaps some random Vegan knows more about how to scratch out a living in a hostile world than do all of the billions of poor farmers and householders around the planet, maybe they’re all wrong to keep chickens and pigs and such, maybe we might be able to feed more people if we were all vegetarians … but I doubt it very much. The farmers and the poor around the planet aren’t that stupid.
It has occasionally been my good fortune to work and spend time with very poor people, the dollar a day people, the people at the very opposite end of the economic spectrum from me, or you, or anyone rich enough to own a computer or a pair of nice shoes. There’s a lot to learn at that end of the economy, including about people’s diets. To understand the position of meat in the global diet, you need to remember that most people don’t eat the same as you and me and the folks who own computers and nice shoes. Most people on the planet are already vegetarians most of the time … only not by choice. For most people, meat is a delicacy. It is not on the menu very often.
Once when I was working in Liberia, in West Africa, they were burning a local sugar cane field. The whole village came out with clubs. They surrounded the fire in a long line. When the fire chased the cane rats out of the burning cane, they clubbed the rats and took them home and ate them. I found out that cane rat fried up in slightly over-the-hill orange colored oil palm oil (no refrigeration) tastes pretty good, although for a couple days afterwards I belched more rancid palm oil fumes than an out-of-tune biodiesel Volkwagen …
And of course cane rat is considered a good thing, meat for the family.
Here’s the reason why cane rat is a delicacy, why kids lined up to get some of the meat. The villagers that eat that meat are stronger and healthier and more resistant to disease and quicker to heal and faster growing than the villagers who don’t eat that meat. Simple as that. The chance to eat meat doesn’t come up often. When that chance comes up, those people that eat the meat improve their chances of living compared to those who don’t eat meat.
Our bodies know that and have known it since forever. You could see it in the kids’ eyes, they could smell it, they wanted it, their bodies responded without conscious thought. Meat makes you stronger, it provides a host of vitamins and minerals, it is powerful food. Which is why people eat meat, in Africa and around the planet. It increases their odds of survival in a harsh and unforgiving environment. So they ate cane rats.
Here’s another story from another time and place, with the same subject. One late afternoon, through a series of misunderstandings and coincidences, I found myself sitting in the welcome shade of some trees in a railroad yard in Mexico, waiting to hop a freight train. Two young boys came by, brothers the older one said, perhaps four and seven years old. Built on the usual blueprint of the poor, undersized and skinny. I struck up a conversation in Spanish with the seven year old. The younger boy never said a word. He just trailed a few feet behind his older brother, and watched everything with black shiny eyes.
The older boy had a slingshot made of a tree branch “Y” fork, with a dozen or more ordinary rubber bands of all sizes and colors attached to each fork of the “Y” and to the leather pouch.
I asked what they were doing. The boy said they came to the railroad lines because there were perfectly round stones for his slingshot in the railroad bed. He showed me how hard it was to pull his slingshot. Oh, I suppose you are the grán cazador, the mighty hunter, I jested.
Si, Señor, yo soy, he explained very soberly in Spanish, yes, Sir, I am.
My skepticism must have shown in my eyes. Mira, he said, watch.
He searched around, picked up and discarded a few stones, finally settling on exactly the right one. He put it in the pouch of the slingshot, and started walking around and gazing intently up into the tree branches above us. He stopped, pulled back and let fly.
There was a “poof” sound up in the tree, and a bird the size of a small robin, that I didn’t even know was in the tree, tumbled down at my feet. He and his tiny brother both jumped on it, and he twisted its neck in an economical, practised fashion.
With my mouth hanging open, I hastened to assure him that I was wrong to doubt his word. I said he was indeed a skilled hunter. I asked what he would do with the bird. Oh, para comer, señor, it’s for food, sir, he said. I said are you going to take it home to your mamá to cook it? Oh, no, Señor, somos siete, he said … oh no, Sir … there’s seven of us kids … I nodded my understanding.
He and his short confederate scurried off. They returned with some grass and twigs. He pulled out a tattered matchbook and lit a fire. In no time he had plucked that bird, gutted it, skewered it, and had it cooking over the fire. I watched in astonishment.
I walked to the corner where an old lady was frying tacos on a dished-top tin can stove. I bought a few potato tacos the size of silver dollars. She didn’t sell meat tacos, poor people don’t buy meat tacos. She made tacos with potatoes and tacos with beans. I brought them back, and gave most of them to the midget hunter and his mini-amigo. And God damn it, he wanted me to take half the bird, but I could see their eyes caressing it.
So I told them I could only eat a small bite on account of my liver. That being the common explanation there for any physical infirmity, the older boy nodded sagely. He agreed that a man has to take care of his liver, you can’t be too careful. He said his liver was fine, thanks, and they happily polished off that bird. I bought another round of potato tacos to celebrate, which had similarly short lifetimes.
And you know, as the two of them sat there content under the tree, sucking on the bird bones and watching the sun set, somehow I just didn’t have the heart to tell that small man and his smaller brother-in-arms just how much better off he and his little bitty buddy and the rest of the world would be if only they and everyone else became vegans …
My best to all,
w.
[UPDATE] Twelve years after I wrote this, science is finally catching up with what every kid on a cattle ranch knows … see “Going Vegan Isn’t the Most Sustainable Option for Humanity“.
Actually, if you remove the microwave oven, the TV remote control, the cordless phone, and downsize the refrigerator by about half, most people would lose considerable weight.
“Each year they always run out of food before everyone is full.”
I noticed this while dining with my in-laws, many of whom are vegetarian. We started eating a light meal before dining with them so that we didn’t go hungry, there just isn’t enough food.
My niece also had difficulties with her first child because she didn’t get enough nutrition through her vegetarian diet to produce nutrient-rich breast milk and her baby was under nourished as a result.
Only the wealthy can afford to be vegetarian/vegan and get the correct balance of nutrients.
My mother’s advice? Eat a little of everything. Don’t eat a lot of any one thing.
Good advice.
“My mother’s advice? Eat a little of everything. Don’t eat a lot of any one thing.
Good advice.”
I agree. It’s not so much whether people eat meat. It’s how much they eat.
Gout was once known as “the disease of kings”. Now it’s a disease of the middle class. over-consumption of meat is a contributing factor.
Just because we live longer here than in the third world doesn’t mean we have an optimal diet. I can’t believe anyone would even put forward such an idea. Our life span is largely because we aren’t going hungry and we have good medical care. And because our diet is better than some. Certainly the world’s poor often do not get a balanced diet. That does not by any stretch of the imagination mean it’s beneficial to gorge oneself on meat. In addition, excessive sugar and processed foods consumption can’t be considered healthful, our comparative longevity notwithstanding.
Mmmmm…. Food animals cannot take part to this discussion for obvious reasons, though being involuntarily fully involved. For those who’d like to have an idea about how the modern food chain looks like from an animal perspective (especially the initial phase of the burger/steak preparation), a good place to start is here:
http://www.earthlings.com/
You may find the chapter about farms/slaughterhouses quite appetizing.
A couple of personal considerations:
Veganism, today and in our opulent society, is a viable and for many aspects a preferable option, some of you willing/believing or not. Some take the red pill, while some others take the blue one: In rich Countries it’s simply a matter of choice.
But it hasn’t been always so.
When I started my path towards veganism, some 15 years ago, vegetarianism was the extreme stuff, veganism was out of discussion. Scientifically, culturally, socially. Nowadays, the American Dietary Association states that “appropriately planned vegetarian diets, including total vegetarian or vegan diets, are healthful, nutritionally adequate, and may provide health benefits in the prevention and treatment of certain diseases. Well-planned vegetarian diets are appropriate for individuals during all stages of the life cycle, including pregnancy, lactation, infancy, childhood, and adolescence, and for athletes. (http://www.vrg.org/nutrition/2009_ADA_position_paper.pdf)”. Are they part of a conspiring lobby? or simply crazy? Unlikely… today there is plenty of easily accessible information on veganism by many sources, generally pointing to the benefits of a balanced vegan diet rather than to associated problems. For instance, side issues such as the B12 or the omega3 are today easily managed. All required nutrients can be easily prepared in deliciously balanced meals. A vegan usually knows how to make plant-based Fe more bio-available and certified supplementary products are anyway there on the market for any need. If you want to go vegan, you just need to keep informed!
Things are today quite different from 15 years ago. What was then defined dangerous is today defined appropriate and healthy. Is it so unexpected that scientific fields other than climatology deny the “settled science” paradigm (in this case the need of meat or animal products)?
Still, some “evidence” popped up here about disastrous effects inherent the vegan diet (did you read any book or consult any serious dietitian before going vegan? of course eating carrots alone or pasta alone won’t bring you far…), about veganism being a sort of a denial of our origin as omnivores (the canine teethes! oh please….). Well, there are very likely far more pathologies or general diseases linked to an unbalanced “omnivore” diet than the sum of the individual episodes of an unsuccessful vegan diet reported here.
Not to mention that to my experience the vast majority of the vegans/vegetarians are deeply conscious of the motivations beneath their choice to be vegan/vegetarian, well informed, extremely careful in balancing their diet as they are in many other aspects concerning their health and living habits. Carnivores/omnivores are generally much less conscious of what’s behind the meal they’re consuming, reluctant to get informed, resilient towards managing a balanced diet as their nutrition mostly consists of whatever fits the desire from their rumbling stomach (as widely exemplified above).
Whether a vegan world would be feasible or maybe even more sustainable than the one we live on today is of course a different matter of discussion. Which remains widely open. Especially since both parties (pro-vegan and pro-meat) have been providing us with analysis and graphs, plenty of data and estimates, and especially bites of convincing evidence. So easy it really sounds like the pro-AGW vs skeptics debate!
It’s strange anyway that in this case the climate skeptics sing the mainstream song and stay promptly shielded against alternative visions (as a matter of fact veggie is the alternative, meat is the mainstream). So, when some of you refer to vegans as to a clan of ideological self-flagellating fanatics or puppets mastered by wheat & cereal lobbies, well you may be right, of course, but let me say it sounds somehow odd 🙂
Sorry for the intrusion.
Regards,
Davide
@ur momisugly stumpy re: rabbits & chickens
Ah, the good old days. During the summer of my youth when school was not in session, my sister and I would spend our days at my grandparents farm (both parents worked). Now they had a small “truck” garden, about 50-75 chickens (depending on how many chicks hatched that spring), and 15-20 rabbits. Generally, my sister and I got to spend our summers doing fun chores such as weeding the garden, gathering eggs, and shoveling rabbit droppings.
These leads to a major point about those “donate an animal” charities. They’ve come under some fire lately (past couple years) for the “devastation” that animals cause to the “environment/Gaia/Mother Earth”. Goats in particular have been singled out in some cases, as goats are EXTREMELY adaptable, going so far as actually climbing trees to get to fresh foilage. But for converting vegetable matter to protein (and milk and wool/leather), a goat is also extremely EFFICIENT. Cows on the other hand aren’t as quite as efficient. The big advantage of a cow/bison/ox is if you also use it for brute force horsepower for plowing or other tasks. I support Oxfam and these other charities because they do offer more than just a food handout, they actually offer a way for people in Africa and Asia to take control of their own lives.
So I support Oxfam, Sendacow, and other charities which offer others the opportunity to take control of their own situation.
I eat vegans.
Dave says: jorgekafkazar says – October 20, 2010 at 10:17 am: “Source?”
“Hard to prove a negative – it’s one of those well-known myths that still get endlessly repeated: . Robert Payne: The Life and Death of Adolph Hitler (1973):”
Acceptable. The accounts vary, though. It was a criminal offense to discuss Hitler’s private life, so the stories must be taken cum gran salis. Hitler was not a big meat eater, but he apparently indulged in an occasional slice of ham or a bit of sausage, according to some. If so, he wasn’t very different from many ordinary ‘vegetarians.’ in that respect. But he considered himself a vegetarian. forbade meat on the table, and endorsed meat-free diets in his writings. [Wankapedia] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Hitler's_vegetarianism
Hitler said that eggs were all right, though. He may have defined his diet according to what was expedient as well as what would minimize harm to animals. I guess you could say he was a vegetaryan.
Kannenberg was an interesting character. IIRC, he played the accordion, too. [Speer.] According to Kberg, Hitler wouldn’t eat much of anything that hadn’t been personally prepared by the cook and his wife. This would rule out some of the anecdotes about Hitler eating meat.
I was taught a long time ago that there are a few amino acids that the human body needs, and which can only come from meat or animal products. So for example, eggs, cheese, etc. Or meat.
But cutting out ALL of those is actually not very good for your health. Tofu and soybeans and all that don’t make a suitable replacement. Maybe by use of modern supplements the problems can be avoided.
Me, I’ll eat as nature intended, thanks.
One thing that I learned, when working in those primative back countries is — when a plate or bowl of food is given to you, don’t ask what’s in it. Just eat, and if something in it looks like it’s wiggling, jsut shut your eyes and eat. Most of it was pretty good tasting. The one thing they were never able to get me to eat was a live rice beetle.
Willis: One winter I read all Hemingway’s short stories and novelettes. Your little tale about the hunters in Mexico might have been one of them. Kudos on a wonderful sad gut-wrenching but truthful story.
The comments, unfortunately, are egotism run rampant.
Thanks for your efforts.
Willis,
Wonderful post. As usual, there is more than one layer to what you are saying.
As a kid I had a wrist rocket for fun, so I bought my son one. We enjoy flinging rocks at high speed toward inanimate targets. I have mixed feelings about looking at what to me is simple fun and comparing that to what you witnessed as a need for survival.
I am a vegan. My wife and children are omnivores who understand my avoidance of meat and dairy. I do confess that maybe two or three times a year, I pig out on seafood (no farm raised fish or shrimp). Some might say that makes me a hypocrite. I disagree. My pig-outs are more cheating.
I didn’t become a vegan because I have any qualms about eating tasty animals, which I genuinely enjoyed back in the day. I became a vegan after being diagnosed with cancer. The growth hormones and other additives in meat and dairy products provide a source of hormones the cancer needs to grow, working against the hormone deprivation drugs I take. On my vegan diet and hormone deprivation therapy, the cancer has been suspended and kicked to the corner (not cured) and I can expect another 20-30 years which will put me well into old age.
It’s really amusing when I get into conversations with other vegans or vegetarians when they start with their self righteous political and social views and realize I’m politically conservative, a gun owner, a research scientist, a believer in capitalism and free market enterprise, an entrepreneur, and I don’t paint cute pandas or polar bears on my gas guzzling Land Rover which I use mainly for my remote research office. I also get interesting remarks when non-vegitarians find out I’m a vegan – most of them snide but I understand. Contrary to misunderstandings found in some of the previous comments, I feel great, have plenty of energy, rarely get sick, and I don’t take supplements to augment any dietary deficiencies.
Oh, and I live in Vegas!
Willis,
You are a very good writer. Not only do you make excellent points…you make them excellently! A rare talent!
Willis, this is one of the most beautiful articles on any topic I have ever read.
Thank you for your humanity, your ability to describe the wonderful people you met, and your logic and reason in understanding the importance of meat to the human diet.
Great writing.
Vegetables are what food eats.
Hank Hancock :
October 20, 2010 at 7:28 pm
A sobering story, to keep in mind when judgmental.
Some years ago I read a case study about a little girl in Italy who only ate pasta, nevertheless was not malnourished at al. I could not find a link searching on the internet. This at the time led me to conclude that the human body is a factory that can produce what is needed if triggered. ( That would explain st. Teresa who lived on the etheric energy supposedly 🙂 ). Evidently your desire to live a healthy life is triggering the necessary orders so that you can state :
Contrary to misunderstandings found in some of the previous comments, I feel great, have plenty of energy, rarely get sick, and I don’t take supplements to augment any dietary deficiencies. .
I do not know if comparative health studies have been done among vegetarians, vegans and omnivores as far as physical condition goes. All we get is anecdotal stories, as is the pasta girl story. Maybe the majority of adults and children are healthy. I do know that up to my generation in Greece where animal protein was scarce and fasting common people were stunted in growth. Our children, grown on plenty of milk and other protein, are a head taller than we are.
It is possible that the problems are psychological: people who deny the body become vegan, and use concern for animals as an excuse, as monks do for religious reasons.
All cookies contain eggs. Therefore, I could never be a vegan.
Mr. Eschenbach:
I’m no vegetarian, but if your argument is supposed to show that there’s something wrong with vegetarianism in a technologically advanced society, it fails. For all the reader knows, people in backward societies need meat only because their production of non-meat foods is inadequate. I don’t believe that, but your argument does not exclude it or even weigh against it.
Hi Stefan, Some years ago I discovered that almost every ‘great’ human being, meaning the great teachers to whom millions look up for inspiration, salvation, wisdom, you name it, taught or clearly believed a moral principle that is in contradiction to the ‘common’ ethics of “the greater good” – otherwise known as utilitarianism. I summarised this common teaching and called it the Principle of Goodness. You’ll find it described at http://principleofgoodness.net and at http://peacelegacy.org.
In brief: Don’t intentionally harm an innocent, and always attempt to benefit everyone.
This is a principle of conscious intention, not one of practical outcome. This means that what counts is my intention. If I eat meat, I intended the death of the innocent animal. Therefore it is wrong. Someone else who sees things differently might not have that intention, so it might not be wrong for them to do it, but it would for me because in my mind I make those linkages. I would not kill an animal even if it meant starving to death, but that’s just me. To each his own.
OTOH, if an animal attacked me, I would unhesitatingly defend myself to the extent necessary, because this moral principle is not altruistic – I don’t have to suffer attacks from others in a case where I myself am an innocent. Also failure is an option – the principle merely states that I must attempt, not that I must succeed. This is the key reason utilitarianism fails as a moral principle. It says I must succeed in maximising happiness. Logically then, under utilitarianism, I might have to consider committing suicide as you imply. That is why utilitarianism is a great ethic for people who are not involved. The Greens who condemned 40 million Africans to a malarial death because of the greater benefit of not having DDT in the environment could only do so because they themselves were not amongst the 40 million. Put them there and see how fast they would change their tune!
Yes, but since carnivores are following their instincts, they haven’t formed the intention to harm (in a moral sense), and so they are not evil. My best animal friends are carnivores – see http://wingedhearts.org. And although we humans like to think we above instincts, they still control us to a marked extent. So I don’t see any problem with others eating meat. If you suspect I think I am superior to them for ‘seeing through’ my instincts, not so, because for all I know, others may have seen through things that I am still misled by, as the human brain is a remarkable, variable, and flexible organ. (In fact it would be highly surprising if that were not so.) So I (think I) understand one truth, but I know others understand other truths of which I am unaware. So all we can do is try to help each other and not be judgmental. We can strive to live the best life as we understand it, and have strong moral views, and not see anything amiss in others living in accord with a different understanding.
I’ve heard of “jokes” somewhere – don’t they involve blowing up children?
– Just joking, just joking!
And since all I was doing was telling a similar anecdote to yours, “Back at ya!” 😉
Ron House:
Utilitarianism doesn’t say that you “must succeed in maximizing happiness.” You’re confusing the good with efforts to bring about the good.
Of your own moral philosophy, you say, “This is a principle of conscious intention, not one of practical outcome.” That ignores the question of what constitutes benefit or harm to others. Your intention does not determine what constitutes them, nor does it constitute them. It is an intention to bring about what you consider to be benefit to others, and to avoid bringing about what you consider to be harm to others.
Hi Smoking,
It says you must bring about the maximum possible happiness. “Possible” includes taking account of your knowledge, skills, and whatever. In other words, according to utilitarianism, if there are two outcomes that you can bring about, you should bring about the one with the best outcome (as far as you know). It is outcome-oriented.
If you look back at the comments above, you’ll see this is how ethics is almost universally understood. The fact that a vegetarian must eat something else and that something could have been the food for another animal was used as a criticism of vegetarianism. That is because (it assumes) the vegetarian can see the possible outcomes and is not choosing the optimum one by choosing to eat to stay alive. The outcome is the standard by which the action is judged. Yes, if one isn’t aware of relevant facts etc., and the outcome goes bust, your ignorance will excuse the mistake, but it is considered a mistake.
It doesn’t ignore it. Sometimes you will decide that the other person’s own opinion should determine your judgment of benefit for them, sometimes not. For example, if an adult wants to play a dangerous sport, and I think the sport is crazy but I have the means of giving that person what they want, I might defer to their judgement of what benefits them. But if a child is ill and needs an injection but doesn’t want it because it hurts, I might still decide the child should get the injection (putting my judgement of benefit ahead of the child’s).
Exactly right. That is why, unlike utilitarianism, it is a principle of intention, not of outcome. The kinds of moral critique that present unsolvable conundrums to a utilitarian don’t have the same effect here. To explain: utilitarianism involves an infinite regress. Example: Eat an animal or not? We have seen above that long-distance arguments about ultimate benefit to the world have been used. Kill this animal right or wrong? Willis’s entire article only has a point if we assume utilitarian ethics and a far-reaching argument about worldwide consequences. But for me: Am I trying to harm an innocent? Yes? Then don’t do it. End of argument. This difference is the reason why utilitarianism seems obviously right, and it is also why it is fatally wrong.
Rancid palm oil? Palm oil doesn’t oxidize very easily, it’s one of the most saturated fats out there.
What a fascinating story! Yes, do write a book. I would love to read it.
While we are waiting for that book, I *highly* recommend “Nutrition and Physical Degeneration” by Dr. Weston A. Price. Once you’ve read that book and studied its many pictures, you will not be able to look at human faces the same way anymore.
BTW, my ex thought we should be able to survive on beans when times were tough and money was scarce. Not beans-and-rice, not beans-and-cornbread, etc. He didn’t like rice or cornbread. Just beans. So that was our protein source for several weeks. Eventually, I got one of those little turkey roasts that makes its own gravy when you bake it. Scrumptious! He asked why he felt so much better, brighter, and had more energy when he had the turkey. I knew it was because the turkey had complete protein (and fat), but I knew I would be wasting my breath if I tried to explain it to him. 😉