Harriet Jean Evans takes a look at the social commentary of the past, and explains why she believes it just doesn't matter.
Our anonymous blogger reflects on her attempts to have a student Christmas... and how she came to the conclusion that home-made is always best.
Gillian Love urges you to vote 'No' to the motion to replace Women's Committee with a 'Gender Equality Committee'.
The reason why the ban may be lifted seems reasonable: the animals we eat need to be fed, and often the crop of choice is soya due to its high protein content. However, as demand for soya increases, forests are being decimated, and crop which could be used to feed people is used to fatten up livestock. Our appetite for meat is taking food out of the mouths of those we should be concerned with feeding.
So if our chickens, pigs and fish need protein-high feed, why not give them bits of other animals? Predictably, farmers and retailers are concerned about the image of the meat industry; consumers are quite happy to eat dead flesh, but to eat a chicken fed on dead flesh? Goodness, no!
Cue much hand wringing in the press: what to do, what to do ... We can’t afford to carry on this way, but can the meat industry afford the potential backlash from consumers? It’s a conundrum, and no mistake.
Except it isn’t. Here’s a radical notion: why don’t we stop eating meat?
The question is not outrageous, nor does it require a great deal of imagination. There are already an estimated 3-4 million vegetarians in the UK alone, and the number grows every year. These people know that we cannot afford to continue to fuel the world’s appetite for meat in the current fashion: the human, environmental, and for many, moral implications, are untenable. A UNEP (United Nations Environment Programme) report last June proved this, finding that to prevent the worst excesses of world hunger and of climate change, a shift towards a vegetarian (if not vegan) diet is essential: "Impacts from agriculture are expected to increase substantially due to population growth increasing consumption of animal products. Unlike fossil fuels, it is difficult to look for alternatives: people have to eat. A substantial reduction of impacts would only be possible with a substantial worldwide diet change, away from animal products."
This report told the world in no uncertain terms that consuming animal products at the current rate cannot continue. The effects cited include decimation of forests for crop-growing, carbon emissions from the processes of the meat industry and over-exploitation of fisheries.
As a university, York has taken some steps to raising these issues with its student body. This week was Vegetarian Week, with a wider choice of vegetarian meals available on campus, and we recently had Green Week which included Meat-Free Monday. Can you imagine the positive effects that just one meat-free day a week could have, if universities, schools and workplaces got behind the initiative?
Voting recently closed for York’s Environment and Ethics Officers; many of the nominees wished to introduce more vegetarian and vegan choices on campus. This should be an integral part of any ethical and environmental policy, rather than debates over what to feed the livestock that we ram full of protein and slaughter by the millions. Even if the moral questions surrounding the killing of animals and exploitation of livestock do not concern you, the effects of the meat industry certainly do: climate change affects us all (and poverty affects so many that it takes a hard heart indeed to ignore its effects).
As a student body, we can prompt our new Environment and Ethics Officers to show the university that we need to make some changes. The truth is that we don’t need meat. As a vegan, I can tell you that life without it is neither difficult nor does it deprive a human body of any essentials. With the UNEP report available for almost a year, we have had more than enough time to realise this. So get thinking about the meat you’re eating – because one day it might come back to bite you.
But meat is nice. It's ridiculous to expect people not to eat it; we are not herbivores. May I suggest you try and stop the lion from eating the gazelle?
Less meat? Fine. Making everyone a vegan? Not so much.
As I thought this argument might come up, I'd like to address it as I didn't feel there was space to in my article.
Lion = carnivore. Humans are not carnivores. We don't need meat to survive. We need a mix of certain proteins, fats, carbs etc which can be found elsewhere without the need for death, pain or exploitation of living things. Sure, 'meat is nice.' You know what? You sometimes have to sacrifice 'nice' things for what is obviously the better choice. And the UNEP report amongst others clearly shows that vegetarianism is the better choice. I would never 'make' everyone vegan - it's a question of getting the facts out there so people make a good, informed choice.
No humans are omnivores; which mean we eat MEAT and VEGETABLES. Otherwise why would we have highly developed canines and incisors? Obviously people will have to consider long-term effects of meat eating, especially in the amount of water and crops it takes to feed livestock, but to preach that the "obvious better choice"is not to eat meat in pretty hysterical language is patently not the case. And the fact is: meat tastes good. You are never going to voluntarily force large sections of the population to forego what tastes nice unless the prices becomes extraordinarily prohibitive, which it kind of is already. And all the vegetarians I know still ate fish, which probably causes more damage to the environment than a cow. And I take issue with your statement that the amount of vegetarians are growing every year. A lot of people will start for a bit and stop.
In short you've summed up what I hate most about vegetarians: shoving down our throat your moral do-goodery, implying your way of life is better than everyone else's, and that the wishes of a tiny minority of consumers should take precedence over everyone else's, cause you know better like?
P.S "Decimated" means forests are being reduced by one tenth. Except they're not; in Britain the amount of land that is forested is at its highest for centuries.
Yes, because no one is sowing soya crops in Britain. It comes from elsewhere.
"decimation of forests for crop-growing"
I'm guessing this is to feed the livestock? So if hypothetically we were all to switch to a vegetarian diet, we would have to increase our growing of crops to make up for the shortfall left by the removal of meat from our diet, and so this land would (maybe at a lesser rate) still be needed to grow crops on? It would only slow down the problem.
Also, there are many areas of land that are not suitable for arable farming. Removing meat would mean less land having to produce even more food, as the shortfall left by no meat would have to be made up.
"The truth is that we don’t need meat."
This is factually true. I could also live without a degree, a car, a computer, a house, even electricity and many other modern day essentials, but it would be a less enriched experience of life (and I don't mean money wise). I also eat meat as part of a balanced diet. Yes, you may live fine without it, but we are all different, and some of us suffer from medical conditions that do require a very wide ranging diet.
I have the utmost respect for anyone who decides to be a vegetarian based on what they feel about animals, but I think that is a completely separate argument from the sustainability or otherwise of eating meat. For that reason, if you're talking about the sustainability of meat eating, I wouldn't include phrases like "without the need for death, pain or exploitation of living things" and "what to feed the livestock that we ram full of protein and slaughter by the millions" - the second is factually true, but used to make an emotive point. I think that is what I disagree most with in this article: you'd probably be a vegetarian whether or not there was any sustainability question at all?
Number 3, almost everything in your post is erroneous and full of gross assumptions that actually force me to respond just to show how ridiculous almost everything you've typed is. In the interest of making sure no one is misled by your post:
"humans are omnivores; which mean we eat MEAT and VEGETABLES. Otherwise why would we have highly developed canines and incisors?"
These developed as an evolutionary feature because humans ate meat which they killed as an easy source of nutrition. Since this is no longer the case 99% of the time, this argument is redundant. We also weren't always carnivores; we have appendices which used to break down cellulose, so we were once herbivores. This argument frustrates me, because it doesn't actually prove anything. All it indicates is the status quo, which needs changing.
"the fact is: meat tastes good"
Let's state the obvious: semantically speaking, that is not a fact; it's an expression of taste. Meat is an acquired taste, and some people don't like it, so you can't make ridiculous assumptions such as this one and hypocritically criticise the author for doing the same. As a former meat-eater, I've actually not eaten pork for 10 years and now I'm nauseous around it. Also this doesn't act as any kind of argument for reducing the amount of meat you consume.
"You are never going to voluntarily force large sections of the population to forego what tastes nice unless the prices becomes extraordinarily prohibitive, which it kind of is already".
Firstly, meat goes on sale all the time and can still be bought incredibly cheaply, only evidenced by the growth of fast food restaurants, so where are prices "extraordinarily prohibitive"? Also, the point is not to force anyone to stop eating; it's to educate people who may not be aware of the facts. This isn't supposed to be condescending or "moral do-goodery", but hoping to make the world a better place based on hard facts about environmental damage and sustainability.
"all the vegetarians I know still ate fish, which probably causes more damage to the environment than a cow"
Firstly, just because all veggies you know eat fish doesn't mean every vegetarian does, so I don't know why you felt the need to share that. However, while fishing at current levels is unsustainable for marine habitats, factory farmed cows: 1) leads to waste of water and soya (and hence deforestation) which could go directly to humans in the third world 2) causes emissions of gases which cause global warming 3) are force-fed hormones to make them grow quicker which make humans more resistant to antibiotics. So yes, eating cows actually does cause more harm than fish in a few ways. This is off the top of my head, but other websites can give you more details.
"you've summed up what I hate most about vegetarians: shoving down our throat your moral do-goodery, implying your way of life is better than everyone else's, and that the wishes of a tiny minority of consumers should take precedence over everyone else's"
Have you ever thought that vegetarians come under a lot of scrutiny for their choice because people always *assume* that they're imposing moral choices? I've heard gay people say they're more discriminated against for being vegetarian than their sexual orientation. If this author hadn't revealed she was vegan and had said that she was a meat-eater considering a life-change, would you have made the same judgement? The fact is, everything she's written is correct and makes an excellent well-researched case to at least reduce your meat intake, if not go completely vegetarian, which EVERYONE is capable of doing. If you want to continue defending meat-eating just to spite her, then that's very low.
And can I also add that, as a minority in a number of ways which I prefer not to disclose, your view that the minority is "getting in the way" of your happy majority living reminds me of arguments I hear used against the LGBT community, non-whites and non-Christians, so if I were you I'd refrain from using it in the future.
Whether it's healthy to eat animals is an area in which I'm a massive geek. I'm hesitant about joining this debate because there's clearly too much emotion on both sides for it to be reasonable. But I want to bring up a really important side point.
The questions of eating meat being healthy, being environmentally sustainable, and being ethical are entirely separate. Too often people make their minds up about one (e.g. whether it's ethical to eat animals) and let this dictate what they think about the other 2.
My personal opinions: 1. Eating grass-fed meat (as opposed to grain-fed) is certainly good for you.
2. Humanity being able to use meat as a major food source is completely unsustainable.
3. Ethically - I really don't know. I don't feel good about the way we buy meat all packaged up nicely from the supermarket which makes it all too easy to forget about the fact it's a dead animal. But on the other hand if I had to kill animals to survive I think I could do it.
Questions about whether we're carnivores, herbivores, or omnivores are a bit stupid in my opinion. They forget that for the majority of evolution what we were was hungry. We ate whatever we could get our hands on and adapted as such. Plain and simple.
Please don't expect a reply if you start yelling at me with CAPITAL LETTERS.
I wasn't going to pitch in on this one but I suppose I'll have a go. It's very tricky. The public are now generally aware of the shocking lies that have been told by 'scientists' about man-made global warming and are generally able to see that a frightening number of scientists have been politically motivated and have found their preferred conclusions first and then scratched together some 'evidence' to support it. These people are often well-meaning and, of course, predicate their 'findings' on a great deal of otherwise worthy professional experience. So it all SOUNDS very convincing.
I find that the problem is a psychological one. Quite august people approach topics such as global warming, vegetarianism, sustainablility and the God question with an EMOTIONAL NEED for a particular outcome. That need drives all of their research and 'findings'. They find what they want to find. There is no place in science for emotional need and it saddens me that so many drama queens in the scientific community try to guide debate and present opinion as fact.
I regret that I am now unable to sort the wheat from the chaff. I simply can't believe many arguments about sustainability these days because possibly excellent research has been so besmerched by some of the rubbish that has preceded it.
In the meantime, I agree with the writer that freedom to choose is the best way forward, although I am sceptical about her trust in our being properly informed before we make that choice. There are very few hard, dependable facts on this page, and those that exist are very well cloaked by the opinions.
6 - (3 here) IComparing vegetarians to LGBT people? Pathetic. Vegetarians are not executed in other countries and persecuted for their beliefs. They do not have to hide their culinary desires in order to gain employment, they are not shunned as evil, religious preachers don't call for the stoning of vegetarians! The very idea that you have chosen to equate them is symptomatic of the martyr complex and hysterical language vegetarians often use. I have never met a vegetarian who is shy about revealing their culinary habits; on the contrary they shout it from the rooftops
The price of meat HAS risen, to the extent that I, on my measly student budget, can afford to eat it once or twice a week, if I'm lucky, such is the rise in inflation. Fast food restaurants AREN'T cheap, yes you can get a cheeseburger relatively cheap, but for that money I can make a whole meal. Which probably is good for you, at this rate I might become a vegetarian by default. Perhaps we could exchange budgets for a week?
If it is not condescending or moral do-goodery, why use the word 'flesh'? I have never heard anyone describe meat as flesh apart from PETA activists. If the article is so desperate for a balanced conversation,it should have used a language that does not so overtly display its prejudices. And my point about fish was that sustained overfishing of stock is far closer to a natural disaster than farting cows (to which solutions are on the way!). You have seen the predictions have you? they're rather grim and this is a policy carnivores and vegetarians should be addressing.
#6... uhhh meat is definitely expensive, I'm not a veg but I don't buy or cook meat in my day to day life, partly because it's too expensive.
My god, some of these comments are almost as long as the actual article. If people are so passionate, join the Yorker and write an article response. PEACE OUT Y'ALL.
You must log in to submit a comment.
Report