Are we being led like sheep to an unnatural diet for humans?
This is an essay submitted to a recent New York Times writing contest. The question the newspaper asked was, “Why is it Ethical to Eat Meat?” This is how a writer from the United Kingdom responded.
by Guest Blogger, Robert Elliott
What am I to make of this request? Is it a trap set by some vegetarian Witchfinder to catch an unwary omnivore in a heads-I-win-tails-you-lose equivalent of the ducking stool? Or is it an attempt to enter into serious debate? If the latter, the invitation is still booby-trapped through its lack of contextual reference. Thus the response from a hungry Pirahã or a Kalahari bushman will not be that of an overfed Westerner spoilt for choice by supermarket abundance.
Then of course there is that troublesome word, ‘ethical.’ In common with so many words used in relation to the politics of food, it has undergone something of a transformation into a handy catch-all, bandied about by those who use it to justify personal food choices. It is not to be trusted. It has a touch of the weasel about it. Words are indeed weapons, and can be dangerous in the hands of an increasingly solipsistic species. The formal concept of ethics enjoys an elevated status, yet is essentially little more than an intellectual distraction, almost an esoteric irrelevance in a society that has become dysfunctional, divided and disconnected from the natural order of the universe. An obsolete them-and-us attitude ensures that Homo arrogans still struts his puerile stuff, believing he can live outside natural laws.
It is time we grew up. We must abandon our ivory towers, climb down from our moralizing and look at the world around us. An absence of hubris will enable us to contemplate the damage we have done, much of it through the massively destructive application of chemically supported industrial agriculture that has laid waste to millions of acres of fertile soils across our planet. Contrition might also be appropriate, allowing a clearer view of our relationship with our food, defining the word ‘ethical’ and giving it a valid frame of reference.
In this materialistic world in which love itself has been commoditised, the politics of food is about fear, peddled by those who have lost touch with the spirituality of eating. Love opens the door to an understanding of how we move from rapacious exploitation to nursing our soils – and our souls – back to health. Domesticated farm animals will play a major part in this future, as a return to true pasture farming is an essential component of land regeneration, underpinning a localised system of permanent polyculture. Industrialised grain and cereal production is insane, and all the arguments for ‘more of the same’ collapse into farce in the face of the evidence provided by those engaged in the planet-friendly alternative.
Thus we come at last to the question of whether it is ethical to eat meat, and the answer is surely a qualified ‘yes’ – qualified by the understanding that there is no place in our future for feedlot cattle, pig factories, grain-fed Holstein milk monsters or battery hens. Love rejects such unmitigated cruelty but accepts the highest principles of good husbandry. All living things, including us and our farm animals, are part of the food cycle. We have domesticated plant and animal alike, and we have responsibility to both, but it is well nurtured animals on managed grassland that hold the key to a healthy future. We must value their ability to convert vegetation into essential manure to help us grow plant food, but we must also accept the clear understanding that farming is management and necessitates the control of animal numbers. The meat from those animals is too precious and nutrient-dense to be wasted, but love and respectful husbandry are an essential input. Then, and only then, is it ethical to eat meat.
Robert Elliott is a British author, blogger. He and his partner, Sally, operate Aspen House, a real food Bed & Breakfast Inn in the Herefordshire Village of Hoarworthy. They are on a mission to share information with others to help them make the right health/food/life choices and plan to launch a Weston A. Price Foundation Chapter in their area.
Love, love, love this response!!
First, let me say I eat meat. Second, if this makes me a hypocrite, I accept that. Anyway, the entire thesis (which is entirely contained in the final paragraph) can be boiled down to “if you treat them well before you slaughter them, then everything’s peachy.” It completely ignores the ethics of the act of slaughter. I have never once seen a convincing ethical defense of animal slaughter that doesn’t also allow for human cultivation and slaughter.
Unfortunately there is the practical reality that we find ourselves evolved on a planet full of creatures that feed on other creatures. Our physiology and cultures reflect that. The only reasons I eat meat are because it tastes good and I get cramps when I go vegetarian. Mostly the former.
I guess you could call me a regretful omnivore. I honestly value my pleasure and my lack of gastro-intestinal discomfort over the lives of other animals.
It’s either that or I’d have to accept that willing humans should be on store shelves.
I’m not saying you’re wrong, per se, only that you haven’t sufficiently demonstrated your point. You have only tackled the ethics of husbandry. I’d love to hear your thoughts on the ethics of slaughter itself.
Hi Cogwheel,
Please don’t be a regretful omnivore. Our species is omnivorous – that’s the way it is. So let’s work with that and see if we can’t make a better job of it as our future unfolds. I agree that I’ve hardly touched on the question of ethics, but it was my best shot given only 600 words to work with. I also agree that there is a big ethical question mark over the act of slaughter.
The industrialisation of our food supply system into an interlinked global conglomerate of giant corporations has seen the centralisation of all processes, including the killing of animals. I don’t agree with this, but it is what we are faced with at present. At least we can identify this as one of the things we need to change.
Accepting also that all change is a process, perhaps you can take comfort in the fact that the pendulum is now swinging away from global ideology towards localised economies. Within that context, there is hope that we might one day get back to food production ruled by heart and not by head. By way of illustration, let me tell you about the local butcher whose son I went to school with.
To supply his village shop, he would buy animals from the nearest market and bring them back to the field he owned adjacent to his shop. There the animals would rest for up to a week until they were totally relaxed and, when their time came, they would be kept indoors overnight in the cattle shed, to be despatched quietly and without fuss by a specialist slaughterman. Having watched this process myself, all I can say is that, if one is going to kill animal for food, there is probably no better way of doing it. And it can be done only on a localised basis (and, yes, it is possible to supply the needs of cities on this basis).
I know we are a long way from this ideal, but the truth is we are a long way from everything. Our disconnection from nature is so complete that we have only our angst-driven arguments to steer us through the choppy waters of isolation. But let’s take heart from the evidence that we are at last beginning to wake up. The future, one way or another, will provide answers to all the questions we have dreamed up whilst asleep.
Yes, Cogwheel, I feel you have been cowed into submission by the shrill voices of those who judge us for eating a natural, species appropriate diet for the human race.
By and large, these folks know nothing about farming or nutrition (except that factory farming is heinous). If they truly cared about animals, they wouldn’t insist people not eat meat. Livestock would soon go extinct with nobody to tend to them.
Dr. Weston A. Price discovered that animal fat is vital to human health. I believe it is more important that we wrestle with that idea!
Kimberly: My position is simply that we shouldn’t take lives if they don’t want to be taken, except to protect other lives. This really has nothing to do with vegetarianism directly, but it applies to vegetarianism once you consider the capacity of certain animals to have wants.
My guilt is basically in proportion to how “conscious” a given animal is, based on our current understanding. For example, I have no qualms about eating shrimp, but
Your idea that I’ve been “cowed into submission” completely ignores most of what I wrote, and is quite frankly rude. I still eat meat. I accept the nutritional benefits of animal fat (the part about our physiology). If anything, your comment indicates such a deep attachment to your existing belief you’re willing to defend it with ridicule and dismissiveness. I can’t blame you for it, given positions I’ve held in the past, but a little self-reflection goes a long way.
Rob, thanks for the thoughtful response. I honestly wasn’t expecting it, given similar comments I’ve made elsewhere. Sorry for any stirred up drama
Woops… accidentally cut out a line:
My guilt is basically in proportion to how “conscious” a given animal is, based on our current understanding. For example, I have no qualms about eating shrimp, but when you start getting into the higher mammals, I get a bit more hesitant.
Cogwheel,
What I say is, if I am prepared to commit my opinions to writing, I am inviting commentary, and I welcome participation in any discussion of this sort. We are all struggling to find answers here, and I hope that we can help each other in the quest. We are moving from an industrial age to a people age (albeit technologically supported!) and I believe the art of conversation will stir from its grave and play its part in what might be a future version of the old oral traditions that we have lost.
Cogwheel, I apologize for insulting you. I am very concerned about the vegan agenda and the guilt they try to heap on people for animal consumption.
I think if you get to know more humane livestock farmers like Joel Salatin, you may start to feel more comfortable that this is the role these animals are meant to play on earth. But, I do agree that how we farm and slaughter is of the utmost importance. I don’t think industrial agribusiness is doing it ethically.
Kimberly
Every person have own ideas about to eating meet, some people are vegetarian and don’t like any thing chicken related food. But some have different point of view.
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I remember reading your post and thinking that I wasn’t alone as well. It’s a very hard subject to talk about.