“Although physically hidden from view, the grim realities of the factory farm are now widely known due the pioneering work of an influential cadre of writers. Peter Singer (Animal Liberation), Anna Moore Lappe (Diet for a Small Planet), Eric Schlosser (Fast Food Nation), Michael Pollan (The Omnivore’s Dilemma), and Jonathan Safran Foer (Eating Animals), among others, have succeeded in rattling mainstream nerves with their forthright analyses of factory farming. Passively or actively, we have absorbed their messages in all their gory detail and, with good reason, declared ourselves to be disturbed–often deeply so–with factory farming. Consumers are disturbed for the simple but powerful reason that, however unexamined the sentiment might be, we believe that farm animals deserve better.  Deep down–again, however vague the notion is– we oppose factory farms because we know that animals matter enough not to be unnecessarily harmed.” read the rest >>

Here’s one Q&A from the piece:

Carnivore Justification: Because humans have incisors and stomachs that can digest meat, we must eat meat — and to raise a child in a vegetarian household is akin to child abuse.

Vegetarian Response: The human body can eat and digest lots of things. It can, for example, chew up and digest other humans. It can also eat animals while those animals are still alive. In most cases, we refrain from doing these things. Why? Because “civilization” means recognizing that just because we can do something doesn’t mean we must do something.

Sirota filled the piece with some great ammo for any vegan or vegetarian. So now go read the rest of the article >>

And if you like that you’ll probably like these articles too:

The change is there, though. We just have to keep our eyes open and recognize the progress we’ve made. It’s a slow process that will take many years. But the tide is turning.

Peter Singer has a new popular article up right now about these symbols of change. From the article:

“To seek to reduce the suffering of those who are completely under one’s domination, and unable to fight back, is truly a mark of a civilized society.”

“Charting the progress of animal-welfare legislation around the world is therefore an indication of moral progress more generally. Last month, parallel developments on opposite sides of the world gave us grounds for thinking that the world may, slowly and haltingly, be becoming a little more civilized.”

“First, the British House of Commons passed a motion directing the government to impose a ban on the use of wild animals in circuses. The motion followed the release of undercover footage, obtained by Animal Defenders International, of a circus worker repeatedly beating Anne, an elephant. [...]”

“More controversially, the lower house of the Dutch parliament passed a law giving the Jewish and Islamic communities a year to provide evidence that animals slaughtered by traditional methods do not experience greater pain than those that are stunned before they are killed. If the evidence cannot be provided, stunning before slaughter will be required in the Netherlands.”

Read the rest of “How animal welfare signals moral progress” here >>
(Emphasis added.)

And remember: when you fight for animal rights you are on the right side of history. We WILL change the world!

It has always been crucial to the gourmet’s pleasure that he eat in ways the mainstream cannot afford. For hundreds of years this meant consuming enormous quantities of meat. That of animals that had been whipped to death was more highly valued for centuries, in the belief that pain and trauma enhanced taste. “A true gastronome,” according to a British dining manual of the time, “is as insensible to suffering as is a conqueror.” But for the past several decades, factory farms have made meat ever cheaper and—as the excellent book The CAFO [Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations] Reader makes clear—the pain and trauma are thrown in for free. The contemporary gourmet reacts by voicing an ever-stronger preference for free-range meats from small local farms. He even claims to believe that well-treated animals taste better, though his heart isn’t really in it. Steingarten tells of watching four people hold down a struggling, groaning pig for a full 20 minutes as it bled to death for his dinner. He calls the animal “a filthy beast deserving its fate.”

Even if gourmets’ rejection of factory farms and fast food is largely motivated by their traditional elitism, it has left them, for the first time in the history of their community, feeling more moral, spiritual even, than the man on the street. Food writing reflects the change. Since the late 1990s, the guilty smirkiness that once marked its default style has been losing ever more ground to pomposity and sermonizing. References to cooks as “gods,” to restaurants as “temples,” to biting into “heaven,” etc., used to be meant as jokes, even if the compulsive recourse to religious language always betrayed a certain guilt about the stomach-driven life. Now the equation of eating with worship is often made with a straight face. The mood at a dinner table depends on the quality of food served; if culinary perfection is achieved, the meal becomes downright holy—as we learned from Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma (2006), in which a pork dinner is described as feeling “like a ceremony … a secular seder.”

It’s truly disgusting how warped the foodie ethic is. They simply have no respect for others.

Later, Myers comments:

Note that the foodies’ pride in eating “nose to tail” is no different from factory-farm boasts of “using everything but the oink.” As if such token frugality could make up for the caloric wastefulness and environmental damage that result from meat farming!

The emphasis here is mine.

Lastly, one final quote:

We have already seen that the foodie respects only those customs, traditions, beliefs, cultures—old and new, domestic and foreign—that call on him to eat more, not less. But the foodie is even more insatiable in regard to variety than quantity. Johnston and Baumann note that “eating unusual foods is part of what generates foodie status,” and indeed, there appears to be no greater point of pride in this set than to eat with the indiscriminate omnivorousness of a rat in a zoo dumpster.

The more lives sacrificed for a dinner, the more impressive the eater. Dana Goodyear: “Thirty duck hearts in curry … The ethos of this kind of cooking is undeniably macho.” Amorality as ethos, callousness as bravery, queenly self-absorption as machismo: no small perversion of language is needed to spin heroism out of an evening spent in a chair.

Again, my bolding.

You can, and should, read the entire thing online here >>

And/or listen to it read aloud by Colleen Patrick Goudreau here >>

First, what is hedonism?

Here is the description from Wikipedia below. (Admittedly, this definition is a bit simplistic. But for our purposes today, it will do just fine).

Hedonism is a school which argues that pleasure is the only intrinsic good. This is often used as a justification for evaluating actions in terms of how much pleasure and how little pain (i.e. suffering) they produce. In very simple terms, a hedonist strives to maximize this net pleasure (pleasure minus pain).

Looking a little deeper into the Wikipedia entry, lo and behold, I found this:

hedonism is not necessarily related to egoism. The utilitarianism of John Stuart Mill is sometimes classified as a type of hedonism, as it judges the morality of actions by their consequent contributions to the greater good and happiness of all. This is altruistic hedonism. Whereas some hedonistic doctrines propose doing whatever makes an individual happiest (over the long run), Mill promotes actions which make everyone happy. [...] It is true that Epicurus recommends for us to pursue our own pleasure, but he never suggests we should live a selfish life which impedes others from getting to that same objective.

Utilitarianism is the philosophy used by Peter Singer to necessitate a version of animal rights that promotes veganism in his book Animal Liberation. And what Jack Norris suggests in the interview at Let Them Eat Meat sounds a lot like a kind of utilitarianism, which promotes a hedonism for both the individual and the collective:

Animals’ lives matter to themselves and they matter to me. [...] I suffer knowing that right now there are warehouses with tens of thousands of chickens scrambling frantically to escape from wire cages that are digging into their bodies, or pigs who have not been allowed to turn around or walk in months.

Suffering:

The anti-vegan response is “I suffer trying to be vegan. It’s too much of a sacrifice.” Indeed,the anti-vegan who interviewed Norris said as much”

“Suffering reduction is one way to improve the world, but increasing pleasure might be another way. Does the pleasure humans get from animal products, and the sacrifices vegans make to be vegan, figure into the calculation of suffering? If so, could that make a lifestyle that includes humanely raised animal products more appealing than veganism, which requires a larger sacrifice for its reduction in suffering?”

Setting aside the issue of rights versus welfare or utilitarianism, now let’s consider the issue of sacrifice. Is veganism a sacrifice?

1. Any lifestyle change requires some discomfort. Veganism is no different. Since when did starting an exercise routine feel like anything other than sacrifice? But after your strength grows or your fat shrinks the exercise program feels like a sacrifice that’s well worth the effort.

2. For many vegans, particularly those who have been vegan for many years or who have grown up vegan, avoiding animal products does not require any sacrifice at all. It’s so natural and normal for them that it’s just another everyday thing. You can count me as one of those vegans.  There may have been an initial learning period where vegans felt like it was a sacrifice to be vegan, but many vegans are long over that transition period. Now it’s just another part of life, like brushing one’s teeth and checking email.

3. Likewise, for vegans who enjoy cooking or baking, veganism has challenged their skills and excited their palates. Many vegans says they eat a wider variety of foods after going vegan because avoiding animal products forced them to try new cuisines. The pleasure they’ve experienced as vegans far outweighs any real or perceived sacrifices.

4. Even if veganism is a sacrifice today, it won’t be one tomorrow. The more vegans there are in existence, the easier it will be to be vegan. The difficulties with veganism simply evaporate when society has a large vegan population.

Can you think of more reasons why veganism is not a sacrifice?

I know that I may have gone about my animal advocacy the wrong way at times and I may have even given meat eaters the impression that I think they are immoral or even “evil.” But when I look at people who eat meat, I don’t see evil. I see myself. I see someone who would want to know what I know. More importantly, I see someone who deserves to know what I know.

I admit that I have made my fair share of mistakes. And we all know I am far from perfect. I grew up eating animals, loving the taste of meat and even making fun of vegans for being “squeamish” or for not understanding “the food chain.” Contrary to the common idea that we vegans refuse to “consider the other side,” most of us lived the other side for a good portion of our lives. Yet, somehow, it is often difficult for us to remember what it was like to be a meat eater. We sometimes forget how we felt when others accused us, directly or implicitly, of being cruel for eating meat.

It is important to remember that most of us, meat eaters and vegans alike, consider ourselves to be good people. And we are good people, most of the time. The problem with many vegans is that we forget this simple truth and we sometimes treat meat eaters as the enemy rather than as potential allies. And a problem with many meat eaters is that they often spend too much time trying to rationalize their behaviors or defend themselves against the perceived attacks of vegans rather than hearing what we are actually saying.

For me, and I assume for many vegans, it can be difficult not to become frustrated when meat eaters fail to “get it.” Similarly, it is difficult for many meat eaters not to become defensive when we vegans say that eating meat supports needless cruelty. So, in the interest of helping meat eaters “get it” and also in helping vegans to understand that meat eaters aren’t evil, please consider the following:

Let’s start by making sure we are all on the same page. I’ll assume that most people reading this blog are opposed to blatant cruelty to animals. We would never stand by and let our neighbors kick their dog or set their cat on fire. We simply don’t tolerate needless cruelty to animals.

Most people reading this will probably also agree that crush videos are blatantly and needlessly cruel. One might even describe them as “evil”. For those who don’t know about crush videos, I am talking about violent animal porn. Yes, there is such a thing. For momentary sexual gratification, some people will pay to watch small animals crushed to death by women in high heels. Here is a brief description of a typical scene from a crush video. If you are squeamish, feel free to skip past the following paragraph.

“A kitten, secured to the ground, watches and shrieks in pain as a woman thrusts her high-heeled shoe into his body, slams her heel into the kitten’s eye socket and mouth loudly fracturing his skull, and stomps repeatedly on the animal’s head. The kitten hemorrhages blood, screams blindly in pain, and is ultimately left dead in a moist pile of blood-soaked hair and bone.”

Of course, meat eaters and vegans alike can agree that what was just described is blatantly and needlessly cruel and the people who would pay for this type of thing could be called “evil”. But… is there really much difference between someone who would pay to have an animal hurt and killed for their own momentary sexual gratification and someone who pays to have animals hurt and killed for their own momentary gustatory pleasure?

The answer to that question is an emphatic YES. There is a BIG DIFFERENCE between someone who would pay for a crush video and someone who eats animals because they like the taste of meat. People who eat meat do not intend for animals to be tortured to death. They don’t want animals to suffer. They just like eating meat. And there is nothing wrong with that, in and of itself.

Most people who like the taste of meat are simply disconnected, physically, emotionally and mentally, from the animals who suffer and die for their momentary pleasures. If the suffering of animals is brought up, it is usually quickly dismissed or joked about. Our culturally and biologically engrained defense mechanisms kick in. If we laugh about it, it’s not so serious. If we mock the messenger, we don’t have to take him/her seriously. If we don’t think about it too deeply, well then, we don’t have to think about it too deeply.

In the end, when we eat animals, our uncomfortable thoughts about how they may have needlessly suffered are pushed out of mind. In most cases, whether willfully ignorant or not, most people simply do not understand that animals on modern farms suffer at least as much, if not much more, than animals used in crush videos – and for similarly trivial reasons. Unlike many vegans, meat eaters simply do not consider the idea that they are supporting crush-video-level cruelty to animals every time they sit down to eat meat, dairy or eggs – all for the sake of their taste buds.

If you don’t believe me that animals on modern farms suffer more than animals used in crush videos, please take a moment to compare the description of a crush video above with the fate of more than 27 billion animals a year in the United States alone. http://www.meat.org/ Warning. If you are squeamish, please watch this beautiful and non-graphic video instead. http://www.nonviolenceunited.org/veganvideo.html But please consider this: if you can’t bare to watch how animals are raised and killed for food, can you justify paying for it?

So the question is this: how can a person who considers himself or herself to be a good person (a person who would never condone needless cruelty) be confronted with the notion that they are supporting crush-video-level cruelty to animals 3 times a day and not become instantly defensive? Of course they are defensive. I was defensive too the first time I considered this idea. Had it not been my newly vegan wife who exposed me to this reality, I may still be a defensive meat eater today. But because I knew Tammy thought I was a good person, I didn’t become defensive. I listened. And I allowed myself to consider the facts beyond what would help me to justify my own behaviors.

Sure, I went through the litany of questions about “humane” meat and local farms.

“There just has to be some way I can continue eating meat without supporting cruelty to animals” I thought!

But ultimately, it was Tammy’s patience and the fact that she treated me like I was a good person that helped me to “get it.”

She said, “Look into (our dog) Tessa’s eyes. You know you would do anything to keep people from hurting or killing Tessa, yet you are willing to pay people to hurt and kill other animals, who are really no different from Tessa, just so you can keep eating meat?”

When I really stopped thinking about myself, or about those self-righteous vegans, or about the dozens of excuses I could come up with to continue eating meat – when I really stopped and thought about the animals – I got it. And others will “get it” too, if we just give them the benefit of the doubt and have some patience.

In closing, my point is this… as far as the animals who suffer and die are concerned, there may be no difference between someone who pays to have them tortured and killed for momentary sexual gratification and someone who pays to have them tortured and killed for momentary gustatory satisfaction. Either way, the animals suffer extreme cruelty and die needlessly to satisfy desires for fleeting pleasures. But I know there is a big difference between crush video viewers and meat eaters. And as long as I know that difference I can continue to hold out hope for a more compassionate world – if only we vegans can just start treating meat eaters as potential allies instead of as enemies.

Thanks for reading.

P.S. If you haven’t already, please consider going vegan (or mostly vegan) for a month and see how you like it. http://www.chooseveg.com/vegan-substitutes.asp It’s easy, it’s healthy, it’s the good thing to do.

—
The Author: Matt Rice
This article was originally published with the title: “In Defense of Meat Eaters.”

The reality is that “sustainable meat,” “humane meat,” “happy meat,” “ethical meat” or whatever you want to call it isn’t even the issue! If nonvegans had a real choice and were able to buy that kind of meat, then maybe an “animal welfarism versus animal rights” debate would be worth our time. But that’s not even relevant today, as perfectly illustrated by Jonathan Safran Foer’s book, Eating Animals:

“We shouldn’t kid ourselves about the number of ethical eating options available to most of us. There isn’t enough nonfactory chicken produced in America to feed the population of Staten Island and not enough nonfactory pork to serve New York City, let alone the country. Ethical meat is a promissory note, not a reality. Any ethical-meat advocate who is serious is going to be eating a lot of vegetarian fare.” (Eating Animals, page 256)

Today – American food production of 2010 – it doesn’t matter whether or not you think animals deserve rights or simply better accommodations because right now – in reality – BILLIONS of animals suffer torturous lives and deaths regardless. The overwhelming majority of animal products available for purchase today come from factory farms. Anyone who purchases meat, eggs, or dairy from restaurants or supermarkets funds animal cruelty and funds environmental destruction. Simple as that. Unless you go to the “sustainable farm” yourself and you witness the animal “husbandry” firsthand, any claims of sustainability or humane treatment are completely meaningless.

How can Pollan reconcile his promotion of so-called humane and environmentally-friendly meat-eating with the FACT that it simply doesn’t exist?

Where does Pollan get off recommending ANYTHING other than veganism?

I can’t say it any simpler than Jonathan Safran Foer said it:

“Just how destructive does a culinary preference have to be before we decide to eat something else? If contributing to the suffering of billions of animals that live miserable lives and (quite often) die in horrific ways isn’t motivating, what would be? If being the number one contributor to the most serious threat facing the planet (global warming) isn’t enough, what is? And if you are tempted to put off these questions of conscience, to say not now, then when?” (Eating Animals, page 243)

A particular nonvegan blogger (who prefers that I not name her), claims to know all about veganism, not because she is vegan but because she has a partner who is vegan. She felt that she had a right to criticize vegans on the basis that they’re elitist because she frames veganism as a personal consumer choice. Her concept of veganism is rooted in the agency of consumers, not in the rights of animals.

While I may also also frame veganism as a choice issue at times  (because it effectively encourages people to go vegan since they want to cling to their morality of justified “humane” animal exploitation), I don’t truly believe that veganism is merely a personal consumer choice; I believe animals deserve the right to live without being unnecessarily tortured and killed by humans.

Thus, my major point of contention with the unnamed blogger is that we have a difference of opinion over what constitutes “necessary.” The blogger is a nonvegan who appears very capable of choosing vegan options, yet refuses to do so, indicating that there is a level of animal torture and killing that she finds acceptable beyond necessity. She and I couldn’t disagree more.

She couches her justification for her own lack of veganism in an argument about choice and necessity for people who have few choices. She offers the example of a cold homeless person’s need for a warm coat and their acceptance of a donated fur coat as an example of necessary animal product usage. We can agree. I’d never argue that cold homeless people should reject warm coats given to them, even if the warm coats are fur.

But then the blogger unreasonably extends her argument of necessity to include people who are better able to make a free choice. Ultimately, she implicitly extends her argument to herself. Instead of acknowledging her own complicity in animal abuse, she shifts the blame to vegans and demands more from us, nothing from herself. Essentially, she simply argues a sophisticated version of “Veganism is too hard! Make it easier for me and then I’ll stop hurting animals.”

The burden she places on animal advocates is tremendous. We must be everything to everyone. Anyone who doesn’t like us for any reason whatsoever feels justified in harming animals. They eat and wear animals in order to spite us. They justify routine animal abuse by saying that vegans are elitist. They center themselves and whomever they identify with, push animals to the margins, and blame the vegans for all the problems.

I’m tired of it.

—

In my third post, I’m simply going to debunk a few myths about veganism that the blogger presented a false barriers to veganism: Making An Effort.

Last time he wrote an article for New Scientist about the possibility of pain-free farm animals. Now he’s written something on the same topic for the New York Times.

He first describes the science behind the possibility of pain-free or minimized pain-experiences for animals who are treated like meat before and after they die. Then he concludes by saying:

“If we cannot avoid factory farms altogether, the least we can do is eliminate the unpleasantness of pain in the animals that must live and die on them. It would be far better than doing nothing at all.”

Implied is the reminder of the superior option: abolish factory farms.

She was my mother’s cat and she was 18 years old, although you’d never know it to look at her. She seemed a lot younger. Perhaps it’s because she was so little. Still, 18 years is a pretty long life for a cat. And I can assure you she had a good life.

Actually, she wasn’t my mother’s cat at all; she was my sister’s. But mom had agreed to take care of her when my sister moved away to Arizona more than 10 years ago. So even though Rusty wasn’t technically my mom’s cat, she was my mom’s cat.

My mother was crying when she phoned me to tell me that Rusty had passed away. She was heartbroken and she still is. She said Rusty had been a part of her and now that she was gone, she felt like a part of her was missing too.

She told me how she had been petting Rusty the night before she died and how Rusty had been purring. “Oh, how she purred,” my mother had said. Rusty was still warm when my mom found her lifeless body underneath the dining-room table the next morning.

“She was such a good cat,” mom said as she wept.

“I know she was,” I replied. I was tempted to add, they all are, but decided not to.

My mom loved Rusty; of that I have no doubt. And I know she’ll get over losing Rusty in time; the pain and sorrow replaced by fond memories of her. It’s just too bad that my mother couldn’t (or doesn’t) have the same empathy and love towards other animals.

You see, my mother loves some animals and eats others. When she hears of animal abuse on television, she’s appalled. Yet she refuses to make the connection when it comes to animals who are killed for food.

Perhaps if she was able to know the other animals, one from every species, the way she was able to know Rusty, she might feel differently. After all, the cow who was killed for her hamburger was such a good cow. The pig who was slaughtered for her bacon was such a good pig. And the little chicken whose throat was cut so my mom can enjoy her sweet and sour chicken balls was such a good chicken.

Maybe then she’d see that all animals are worthy of compassion; that they don’t need to die or deserve to die or want to die. She might come to the realization that they are all good animals, and the needless suffering and death of any of them is tragic; something to mourn and more importantly, something to stop.

The only way to do this is to go vegan.

Rest in peace Rusty.

And rest in peace all you other good animals.