My Confusion Continues...and Will Never End

I donned my game face and decided to read another post from "Mark's Daily Apple,"a glowing review of the book The Vegetarian Myth by Lierre Keith. As much as I find exposing oneself to opposing arguments important, it is understandably difficult to accept an argument against something which one finds fundamentally obvious. This is my situation.

I try, I really do. I hear people's arguments through. I think I have the capability to digest them in a rational manner, even if they frustrate me. But after hearing the same arguments over and over again for nearly twenty years now, I begin to get a little tired.

I assumed that, after reading this book review, I would have something novel to respond to (well, I kind of do...haha, get it? Novel. Anyway...). Unfortunately, this is not the case in the slightest. Keith's argument is exactly the same as Barbara Kingsolver's--industrial agriculture kills thousands of animals anyway, so what the hell? Let's just gorge ourselves on meat. Yes, I'm exaggerating, because I know that Kingsolver at least is a "responsible" omnivore, meaning she only eats family-farmed animals, but that's the logic. And that logic, to me, makes no sense. Yes, I am aware of the devastating effects of industrial plant agriculture. I know that I step on bugs every day without realizing it and swallow spiders in my sleep. I have accidentally hit a bird with my car. I don't abstain completely from refined sugar processed with bones. I'm willing to take a chance on datem, mono- and diglycerides, and "dough conditioners." Keith used to be vegan and knew all the same things that I do, except she couldn't handle it. She couldn't stand the thought of killing anything, so she switched her diet to one of...more killing? I'll use this graphic again because I like it.

Ah! So this is the answer to all the world's environmental problems. If this is the case...USA! USA!

Right! I forgot. More death equals less death. Brilliant! Totally against any sort of logic ever used. That takes courage.

Forgive me. I'm not trying to snort-laugh in my chair while I sit and type this post (which I am), but there are fundamental, indisputable errors in this argument. There is some sort of idea among omnivores that eating fewer or no animals means eating more plants. It does, on the surface. But, as I've stated before, animal agriculture is ridiculously unsustainable. This is a clear and proven fact. Figures are different depending on where you go for the information (The National Cattlemen's Beef Association might say 4.5 pounds of grain per pound of beef, while some vegan you meet on the street would probably say 26 pounds of grain). However, the true number, according to the USDA, is approximately 16 pounds of grain per pound of beef produced. This number is true with all factors of meat production accounted for. So let's assume that 10 animals are killed per acre in the USA due to grain harvesting. There is no actual number on this that I could find, which surely is convenient for this guy, who wrote an article quaintly titled "Veganism is Murder" (murder implies intent, by the way, which I suppose is easy to forget. Words are hard). Anyway, 10 animals are killed per acre in the US, for the sake of argument. About 61.5 million acres of grain are harvested each year in the US. So, that would be about 615 million animals killed each year as a result of grain harvesting, which would be about 395,000 animals per pound of grain. Now, the average beef consumption in the US in 2007 was about a quarter pound per day per person, which would be a little over 90 pounds per year per person. And if it takes 16 pounds of grain to produce one pound of beef, that would be 1,440 pounds of grain per year per person used to feed the cows they eat. And if we go by our initial assumption of 10 animals per acre, that's an extra 569 million small animals killed, plus the average fifth of a cow per person that Americans eat each year.

Phew.

My point is, after that long-winded series of calculations, that no matter how you slice it, omnivores still kill more animals than vegans do. I'm not saying that vegans kill no animals at all through their eating habits, but they kill far fewer (even though, as a vegan, I obviously think that I've never killed anything ever, as the stereotype goes). Keith has a valid point and obviously knows what she's talking about, but, like Mark's other argument, her argument is irrelevant. There aren't any reasons not to be being vegan or any reasons to eat meat in her argument. It's the same argument that I've always heard, just under a different name. And I will always be confused.

An Intelligent (but Irrelevant) Argument

My faithful reader Gabe recently sent me this article. It's called "In Defense of Meat Eaters." Naturally, I was interested.

Mark, the author of the blog, gives a compelling (and well-researched) argument about how humans evolved eating meat, and uses this, presumably, as a defense for modern-day meat eating. I've been hearing a lot about evolutionary stuff recently. Just yesterday, my boyfriend Eric told me about a girl in his class that used to be vegan but now follows a 'Paleo' diet, meaning she only eats things that were available to ancient man. I'm not sure what that's supposed to mean--is she hunting down sabertooth tigers? How are you supposed to know exactly what was available then anyway? As senseless as I think this is, it's interesting...sort of. It's more just something you would tell someone you're trying to pick up at a bar that's 'unique' about you. And I guess it could be kind of sexy, the whole 'primal' thing. Anyway...

The way Mark started the argument was a huge turn-off. Vegans are always stereotyped as being sentimentalists, and Mark makes the same accusation. If a vegan can control his or her palate for the sake of reason, fairness, and compassion, but an omnivore eats whatever he or she feels like at the moment, who is the sentimentalist? Some of the world's greatest thinkers were vegetarian, such as Albert Einstein and Mohandas Ghandi. Are they overemotional whiners?

From there on, however, Mark makes excellent points. I have to say that I don't know so much about the evolution of man, but he cites his sources and I find him credible. I respect his opinion in that sense.

However, is that really a defense for eating meat today? Ancient humans lived much shorter lives than we do today. Why on Earth should we ever follow their ways of doing things? Should we then abolish hospitals and modern medicine, televisions and credit cards? I doubt anyone would make the same argument that we should revert to ancient human methods for other modern necessities and conveniences in the same way they do about diet.

And, of course, there's no evidence that humans still need to eat meat. In fact, according to the American Dietetic Association, those who lead a meat-free life are at lower risks for certain cancers and other diseases, and tend to have lower body mass index. They also state that a vegetarian diet is completely nutritionally adequate. You can check out their entire position statement here.

I totally respect Mark's argument, and I wouldn't say I oppose him on the evolutionary facts he provides (though I do think the scientific community is quite divided over whether humans were meant to eat meat, based on the research I've done). However, I don't think there is any decent defense for modern, developed-world meat consumption. We can talk all we want about evolution, and people in developing countries (as Kingsolver did), but ultimately everyone is merely trying to justify that whatever they do is morally right. I don't think there can ever be a moral argument for meat consumption in the modern, developed world, whether that meat is from a factory farm or a small farm. There is something inherently wrong with needlessly killing other living beings. As judgmental as that sounds, just think about it for a second. All the justifications might stop making sense.

Factory Farming in the Developing World

I recently wrote a research paper for my composition class on the presence of factory farming in the developing world. I used an article by Danielle Nierenberg of the World Watch Institute for this paper called "Factory Farming in the Developing World: In some critical views, this is not progress at all." This is Nierenberg's account of her time in the Philippines spent investigating animal farming.

Most of us vegans know the problems associated with animal farming in the US—from Farm Sanctuary to PETA, we have plenty of sources keeping us up to date on what’s going in the horrific world of factory farming. However, few of us (and few people in general, for that matter) are aware of animal farming practices in less developed countries. This is something I had thought mildly about before, mostly taking the position that less developed countries just didn’t have the same food options that we have in the US, so I would never judge them for the way they ate. But at some point I wondered, just how do developing countries farm their animals? I had assumed that their practices were strictly small farms closer to the seemingly unattainable farming ideals of the US. However, Nierenberg's article turned that idea on its head, showing how factory farming has taken over developing countries such as the Philippines nearly to the extent that it rules American animal farming. The article was shocking, to say the least. 


Currently, the Philippines has three domestic corporations who produce animal foods, and several US corporations manufacture and/or sell animal foods in the Philippines. These corporations include Tyson Foods and Purina Mills, two western supergiants of factory farming. Both the US and Filipino corporations have bought out numerous small farms in the Philippines, destroying not only the lives of these farmers, but also destroying the traditional farming methods that have been passed down for so many generations. In addition, while producing cheaper meats, factory farming reduces food security for rural villagers because so many of them relied on the local meat of other family farmers in the community, farmers that are now out of business.


The environmental effects of factory farming are as apparent to Filipino villagers as they are to those living near Smithfield's pig shit lagoons, if not more so. One major river in the Philippines has become so polluted that nearby villagers refer to it as the River Stink. In another village, factory farm waste was piled into a huge hill that at one point collapsed, killing over 200 villagers.


If that's not enough, the increase in animal food consumption in the Philippines has led to higher rates of obesity and the appearance of more fast food establishments. In the developing world, eating a lot of meat is equated with status and wealth because of our ridiculously high meat consumption in the developed world. But there is nothing high-class or glamorous about factory farming, as the Filipinos are finding out.


So if you're one of those people who is genuinely concerned with what happens to others in the developing world, if those commercials about starving children in South America, Africa, or Asia make you cry, consider reducing your meat consumption. Contributing to the factory farming industry is allowing money to be taken out of the pockets of families in the developing world and food away from children. 


Source used: 
Nierenberg, Danielle. "Factory Farming in the Developing World." World Watch 16.3 (2003): 10-19. 360 Link. Web. 31 Oct. 2011.