Post by Joann on Nov 9, 2012 12:37:07 GMT -5
The NYT Mag held an essay contest, submissions to be entitled Why it is Ethical to Eat Meat. My essay was rejected. Here it is:
In the 1950’s, nutritionists, reflecting the anti-breastfeeding zeitgeist, assured us that formula was fully equal to mother’s milk. In fact one prominent Berkeley expert theorized that cows’ milk was superior because human milk was too low in calcium. Mothers were made to feel guilty for breastfeeding, hearing “You’re starving that child!”
Mother’s milk and meat are two foods upon which humankind has flourished since the year Dot. As with breast milk, the fact that we now need defend the ethics of eating meat presupposes that there is a fully reliable, even superior, alternative. If there is, vegans may safely invite meat eaters to join their party, enticing them not merely with a cleaner conscience but with better health. If meat does not support better health, then meat eaters must make their ethical case under the vegan threat of meat-induced illness, perhaps maintaining that damaged health is the price for expressing solidarity with the habits of ancestors.
There is plenty of precedent for such self sacrifice. Many people have chosen to pay a high price for sticking with an awkward ethical position. Often children must bear the shibboleth for parents’ ethics, be it nudism, free love, political or religious extremism, veganism or for purposes of this example the gratifications of eating meat. Shall I compel my children to eat meat when vegans have declared it a stain on the soul, a threat to personal and planetary survival and lacking in dietary importance? Or is it vegans who are injuring their children by imposing their dietary choices? If either group is injuring their children the ethical position must be reconsidered. As someone who has observed first hand the effects of the above listed enthusiasms, I wish to defend the children.
Take it as a given that children should be nourished in a manner that optimizes their chances of reaching their potential for growth. While nobody is tracking overall outcomes, vegan kids are clearly under stress. What else am I to think after 50 years of observing the dear things’ pale skin, easy fatigue and often desperate craving for meat? Compare this with the rosy cheeks, cold hardiness, strength and stamina of children on a diet of milk, eggs and meat.
The environmental impact of meat raises an equally compelling ethical concern. If any of the accusations against meat, that it causes ill health, unbalances CO2 or methane, competes unfairly for finite resources, had the smallest basis in Natural Law, herbivorous mammals would have been Darwined out long ago. Yet the allegations against meat perpetually pile on and are believed by people so innocent of biological reality that if we were discussing babies, they’d be seeking them under cabbage leaves.
Now that we have killed the buffalos, the patient cow at the bottom of the food chain living on grass has become the indispensable converter of cellulose, Earth’s largest crop, into food digestible by humans. Do we allow them to die and leave them to vultures or do we eat their uniquely valuable meat? The ethical choice for ourselves and our children is to eat it and thrive.
There is an additional consideration. We know that a diet founded on animal protein is successful. Historically, we do not find any long term breeding population of vegans. Veganism as practiced today remains experimental. By definition, the burden of proof is on the experimenter. If a vegan diet can neither support reproduction nor prove sustainable, as is doubtful (see Holy sh*t by Gene Logsdon), it must resign its claims to ethical sovereignty; eating meat will take its place by default.
Joann S Grohman
In the 1950’s, nutritionists, reflecting the anti-breastfeeding zeitgeist, assured us that formula was fully equal to mother’s milk. In fact one prominent Berkeley expert theorized that cows’ milk was superior because human milk was too low in calcium. Mothers were made to feel guilty for breastfeeding, hearing “You’re starving that child!”
Mother’s milk and meat are two foods upon which humankind has flourished since the year Dot. As with breast milk, the fact that we now need defend the ethics of eating meat presupposes that there is a fully reliable, even superior, alternative. If there is, vegans may safely invite meat eaters to join their party, enticing them not merely with a cleaner conscience but with better health. If meat does not support better health, then meat eaters must make their ethical case under the vegan threat of meat-induced illness, perhaps maintaining that damaged health is the price for expressing solidarity with the habits of ancestors.
There is plenty of precedent for such self sacrifice. Many people have chosen to pay a high price for sticking with an awkward ethical position. Often children must bear the shibboleth for parents’ ethics, be it nudism, free love, political or religious extremism, veganism or for purposes of this example the gratifications of eating meat. Shall I compel my children to eat meat when vegans have declared it a stain on the soul, a threat to personal and planetary survival and lacking in dietary importance? Or is it vegans who are injuring their children by imposing their dietary choices? If either group is injuring their children the ethical position must be reconsidered. As someone who has observed first hand the effects of the above listed enthusiasms, I wish to defend the children.
Take it as a given that children should be nourished in a manner that optimizes their chances of reaching their potential for growth. While nobody is tracking overall outcomes, vegan kids are clearly under stress. What else am I to think after 50 years of observing the dear things’ pale skin, easy fatigue and often desperate craving for meat? Compare this with the rosy cheeks, cold hardiness, strength and stamina of children on a diet of milk, eggs and meat.
The environmental impact of meat raises an equally compelling ethical concern. If any of the accusations against meat, that it causes ill health, unbalances CO2 or methane, competes unfairly for finite resources, had the smallest basis in Natural Law, herbivorous mammals would have been Darwined out long ago. Yet the allegations against meat perpetually pile on and are believed by people so innocent of biological reality that if we were discussing babies, they’d be seeking them under cabbage leaves.
Now that we have killed the buffalos, the patient cow at the bottom of the food chain living on grass has become the indispensable converter of cellulose, Earth’s largest crop, into food digestible by humans. Do we allow them to die and leave them to vultures or do we eat their uniquely valuable meat? The ethical choice for ourselves and our children is to eat it and thrive.
There is an additional consideration. We know that a diet founded on animal protein is successful. Historically, we do not find any long term breeding population of vegans. Veganism as practiced today remains experimental. By definition, the burden of proof is on the experimenter. If a vegan diet can neither support reproduction nor prove sustainable, as is doubtful (see Holy sh*t by Gene Logsdon), it must resign its claims to ethical sovereignty; eating meat will take its place by default.
Joann S Grohman