By: Bruno Massé
The author of this article has been a vegetarian for the past seven years and recent extensive bloodwork confirmed no evidence of mineral deficiencies whatsoever. Official Website: www.brunomasse.com
‘Sprout eating motherfuckers’: an introduction
According to the most recent surveys, 6% of the World’s population admits to never eating meat. That’s an easy 360 million people. They’re here, and their numbers are growing. According to the last US health reports, vegetarians and vegans ranked amongst the healthiest strata of population: little to no diabetes, heart conditions, weight problems and overall highest life expectancy.
There are many reasons why people don’t eat meat, for some (ex. India) it’s a question of religion, for others, environmental concerns, empathy towards animals, health matters… or all of the above.
What was once regarded in Western countries as some freak habit of a handful dirty hippies is now taking over sections of your cookbooks, supermarkets and TV shows. Still, as any innovation is bound to meet resistance, the case against meat is still quite a matter of controversy, in the face of animal liberationists, environmentalists and garden-variety popstars, most of today’s predominant values are still intrinsically linked to eating meat and being damn proud of it.
In this short essay I’ll sum up the case against meat and debunk some of the myths surrounding vegetarianism/veganism. I’ve done my homework, I’ve done my research, I’ve walked the walk. Now hear me out.
So what the hell’s wrong with you?
1. Meat is wasteful
The meat industry takes up ridiculous quantities or arable land, water and energy. For example, for every 100kg of grain taken by a cow, only 10kg goes to muscle, which we then eat. This type of agriculture is unproductive, wasteful and destructive. We could feed more people better without it. The UN estimates that with only 10-15% of the grain reserved for the meat industry, we’d have enough to solve world hunger.
2. Domestication
In the vast majority of the meat industry, animals are mutilated and crammed in tight spaces out of sunlight until they get killed. Their domestication is a historical process: we breed them to make new species, bend their bodies to our will. In fact, cows are a human invention. The ancestors were called aurochs, but they’re extinct now, and guess who’s fault that is? It’s an ethical problem, so long as you think we should cause and endure less suffering, not more. Meat does taste like murder, and murder tastes pretty fucken awful.
3. Chemicals
Because of their newly found genetic defects and the fact animals pretty much stand together in their own shit all day, it’s necessary for growers to pump them full of antibiotics to protect their investment. Also, they shoot them full of growth hormones to hasten the life cycle and sell them quicker. All these nice chemicals get into the meat, which gets into our system. The consequences are many, for instance, girls have started getting their period much quicker in industrialized countries, as early as nine years old.
4. Health concerns
Put simply, meat is full of saturated fat, cholesterol and doesn’t provide much in the way of a healthy diet. It’s been linked to heart disease, weight problems, strokes and diabetes. The only useful contents are minerals and protein, but you can get those from much healthier sources.
5. Ecological concerns
The environmental problems of the meat industry are many. Waste from the meat factories pollute rivers and underground aquifer, produces greenhouse gases (such as methane), and the vast fields of monoculture (grain, corn) needed to feed the animals are treated in the same industrial, chemical style (genetically modified crops, insecticides, etc.).
But I hate broccoli!
So we know the arguments against the meat industry, but a lot of people prefer to see the alternative as much, much worse. After all, it’s much manlier to stand strong in the face of overwhelming evidence, and we get critics even inside the environmental movement. So here’s some of the most famous counter-arguments, and a little bit of common sense.
1. “You need animal proteins and minerals to be healthy”
Granted, you do need protein and minerals to be healthy. If you don’t get enough, you can get weaker, depressed and face conditions such as anaemia, immune system deficiencies and your body could heal much slower. But the thing is, you can get proteins from a lot of different foods, that’s not even the biggest concern. The real problem is the minerals. But they exist in natural forms. You have to do some research, because it can get tricky at first (ex. you need to combine vitamin C and iron for your body to absorbe it), and you may not know for sure if you’re eating right for a while, because the B12 reserves in your liver can take years to run out. But there’s tons of guides and how-to’s available.
2. Tofu is not a viable alternative to meat. It’s the Devil’s invention, plus, it’s yucky.
Let me make this clear: tofu is one of the most genetically modified and industrialised food on the planet. However, organic tofu exists and is available almost everywhere. And even though tofu is not the sole answer to meat replacement, it’s a nice addition to anyone’s diet. It’s got complex proteins, which is a must for vegetarians/vegans.
Also, tofu will taste like anything you cook it with. So if it tastes awful, try something more suited to your taste.
3. Meat tastes too good to give up.
Ah, the classic irrational argument. Cause that pork chop is your only reason to live. Sure, there’s no debate as to the good taste of barbecue, but that’s besides the point. Let me repeat that: it doesn’t make a lick of fucken difference what you think tastes good, not when your precious taste is killing ecosystems and ensuring the starvation of millions, so yeah, you might want to pause and reconsider. Vegetarian/vegan cuisine can be bland and plain fucken depressing, but it can also be exquisite and tasty. Get cooking.
Going veg
So you’ve decided to ditch the jerky and become one of us granola pinko degenerates. Nice. What can you expect?
1. Faster digestion. You’ll digest most meals much quicker, which mean you’ll feel lighter and less bloated after eating. You’ll also get more energy, have less digestion problems and be more regulated. Some people experience weight loss in the first few months. You also want to bear in mind that your ability to process meat will decrease as time goes, so if you eat some after a long time, expect some real intense cramps…
2. Faster metabolism. As you get more energy, you’ll also get hungry more often. Some vegetarians feel the need to have four meals a day to compensate. It’s a good idea to carry food with you, such as granola bars, to help you get through the day. Most vegetarians/vegans claim to feel better and healthier than when they used to eat meat.
3. Cravings. It depends on individuals, but most people get intense cravings for meat and other animal products when they change their dietary habits. Don’t panic. Those will go away in time (6 months to a year) and eventually you’ll lose the taste for meat. A good tip is to use sea salt when you’re cooking, as it tastes nearer to animal salts.
Also – and I can’t say this enough – you don’t get any special powers. And you won’t. I’m sorry, that’s just how it is.
Going overboard
It’s good to focus on what you eat. It is, after all, what you are. But there’s such a thing as doing too much. You don’t want to cook all day and think about food non-stop. In the wake of alternative diets and lifestyles critical of meat consumption, psychiatrists have termed a new disorder sometimes developing in individuals constantly bent on their own food intake: orthorexia nervosa, loosely defined as “people who have developed a fixation with healthy or righteous eating”. I’ve seen it, and it’s ugly. Which leads me to my next point.
‘All I do is eat and shit, I’m gonna live forever’ – a conclusion
The whole point about the case against meat is this: as a species, we have to eat less meat, and drastically so. Even if we don’t want to see it, we are responsible for the well being of each other, the planet and the life forms that still inhabit it. That’s a fact.
Moralizing, demeaning or ridiculing people who have different ideas and practices than you is generally not the way to help them or further the cause of the Earth. Sure it feels good, and sometimes you have no choice but to defend yourself and strike back, but see here: reason suffices to prove the case against meat.
Any way we can help ourselves live better lives and act in a more ethical manner towards the land we live in is inherently positive, but always bear in mind that no individual choice will save life on Earth or our species from extinction – ethics of consumption are but a fraction of the solution and we have to enable ourselves to act on a broader scale in the world we want to change.
The case against meat is one part of the problem of Civilisation. That being said, let’s move on…
Great job, Raven. Been a vegetarian for three years and haven’t looked back. You’d think that if you tried appealing to man’s selfishness (and not their sense of guilt) that you could persuade more meat eaters to make the switch. But even that doesn’t work. Mankind just wants to die and take as many other life forms out as possible.
At first I have to admit I was more than a tad disappointed in this article; I was drawn by the excerpt that stated that 6% of the world’s population had never eaten meat – a gross and lurid underestimation, I felt, of the global percentage of practicing lesbians today. It didn’t take long to realize my error, but continued to read anyway. You do present good points to being vegetarian, and quite well define and counterpoint the arguments an omnivore like myself would present, with the exception of one: While vegetarianism may be healthier but the consumption of meat saves lives – most notably the Donner Party. You can bet your biffy that no one would have even known about them if they had only what grew on the land to sustain them during the hard lean times on their journey.
It is a bemusing oddity the vehement arguments for and against the eating of meat, it’s as polarized as the smoking issue. What I question though is how healthy is vegetarianism in natural terms I live in a rural area, the majority of the farmers used genetically enhanced seed to weather the tumultuous growing season. In the grocery stores I’ve seen things called “Tangoranges”, halt tangerine and half orange. The ‘healthy’ alternative seems to have suffered scientific muddling as much as the meat industry has. I contend that if something has been modified, you simply can’t call it organic and then proceed to charge 40% more for the same item in the next bin that was mass farmed in the ‘traditional’ production ways.
As you pointed out if there was 10 to 15% of the grain reserved for meat, it would solve world hunger – perhaps. The land used for domesticated meat animals would only go on being created to make larger farm lands for crop production. Why? The grains loosed by not going to animals would be bought up by bio-fuel companies looking for cheaper prices for their production. It’s a no win situation, though you present a good argument about vegetarianism – though I still contend that vegans are stick figure Martians who have come to earth to mate with our virginal hockey sticks…
I’m a non-vegetarian who became a vegetarian, and after five years of vegetarianism, returned determinedly to non-vegetarianism. Today I am an aggressive anti-vegetarian. I have my reasons which would probably fill a book:)
Meanwhile:
Meat is wasteful
False argument. Vegetarians should ask why we don’t shift to rabbit eating, for instance, since they are both much faster growing, more prolific, and have less fat in their meat, besides being more efficient meat producers.
Meat factory farming is bad, true; but vegetarian crops are not, in any way, any more natural than meat farms, and are as chemical-dependent as meat farming. If you want to dump factory meat-farming, you are hypocritical if you don’t dump factory vegetable-farming as well. If you allow natural vegetable farming,you must allow free-range meat farming.
Girls are getting periods as early as nine even in non-industrial countries, and in vegetarian families too. Can anyone prove that it’s meat-eating that’s causing this, instead of environmental pollution or the effects of a better diet? Forget about periods; even the schedule of tooth eruption is accelerated, and people are growing taller. What’s your point?
Meat, as I said, depends on the creature it comes from. The healthiest meat would be from farmed insects like grasshoppers and crickets, which many cultures already eat – no fat, pure protein. Why don’t vegetarians suggest eating them?
All in all, I have a question: why, for vegetarians, is it always “My way or the highway”?
It’s untrue that meat takes longer to digest; it’s a fallacious and illogical argument. Vegetables, like all plant matter, have cellulose cell walls which have to be broken down by grinding and bacterial action (this is why most herbivores either must eat constantly or are gigantic animals which can store a very large amount of food inside them), while carnivores have short intestines and are much more efficient.
As for cruelty: suppose tomorrow it’s proved once and for all that plants have feelings, will vegetarians stop eating completely?
Sorry; I do get on my soapbox against vegetarian moralising.
I lament the basic disregard for healthy, balanced agriculture. One robust, naturally fed cow can produce milk for five families. A few goats can supply all your dairy needs and require very little maintenance. With a flock of twenty hens and a rooster, no stimulants or hormones, you can produce enough eggs to see several dozen a week and still have plenty for your home supply. It doesn’t take much of a mathematician to figure out how much profit is being made from the ridiculous squander of arable land, the oil based chemical fertilizers, the hormones, the stimulants, the unnaturally crowded conditions attached to corporate farming.
I believe in controlled agriculture; rotating crops, home vegetable gardens, livestock compatible with the environment. When managed correctly, there is no need for unnatural fertilizers and stimulants. The livestock provide it. There is a need for culling because animals have babies. Rabbit reproduction is prolific to say the least. Chickens reproduce like spontaneous combustion. Herd animals only allow for one male.
This necessity extends to wild animals. When a population is low, i believe in leaving the animal alone. However, when a species becomes prolific, it can damage crops, destroy homes, endanger other animals or even human lives. As much as we have encroached on the wilderness, it now encroaches on us. We haven’t left them vast areas to roam in, and the wild establishes large territories.
What it boils down to is this: Either we accept that in order to have animals sharing the earth with us, the numbers have to be controlled because they reproduce, and to throw away the useful parts is a waste of renewable resources, or we must ultimately make a choice of not really having any animals at all except a few pets and enslaved creatures at a zoo.
I’n not crazy about vegetarian factory farming either. But I know there’s no blood, fecal matter, deadly viruses or hormones in vegetables. There probably is pesticide in grocery vegetables. I wish I had other options, and I’m fairly sure that all “organic” food is a scam. But I think eating mutant vegetables is still more natural and less dangerous than consuming mutant cow and chicken meat. I think meat would be worse than factory vegetables if for no other reason the fact that along with the meat, you’re taking in the pesticide-ridden vegetables the animal ate, trace amounts of the hormones the animal was force fed and trace amounts of shit, piss and blood. I don’t like eating any one else’s waste. I guess it could be argued that plant fertilizer is part waste, but i can rationalize it, since i’m not actually eating the waste. more like an extract of the waste or a byproduct of the natural cycle.
I’m not entirely convinced that people are growing faster because of meat consumption. That could be environmental effects or just something to do with evolution. I was given the opportunity once to eat grasshopper cookies and passed on it.
I’ve heard conflicting opinions about how long it takes to digest meat. From what I gather from this source http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:74QYr3dk2eQJ:www.kinginstitute.org/health_news_updates/hnu-06-2008.pdf+does+meat+take+longer+to+digest&hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESj4plnGDLhuVyMjXwYUtm7rczwve-4UcTaFAq-KPneVNzbJiKpW4gFyWyZERls-B6mAzpcJv5rFsJIdW7cv0lG1IYNxAqHV-jMQoMh4BIeThWrUbuYf2K2LDLx7FxClN2eU-WdM&sig=AHIEtbTNNnyTbJ4xDTAT71c2EfgS42GO7Q it takes meat slightly longer to digest than vegetables, though the dietary habits of the individual are more important than the digestible item itself.
I think what bothers me the most is knowing that a piece of meat is rotting inside of my intestines.
I think I’m in the minority of vegetarians because I believe in karmic justice rather than vegetarianism for morality or health. I don’t necessarily believe humans are any better than animals, and I know many types of animals eat each other animals relentlessly. I don’t put man on a pedestal, and suggest that it’s man’s right to consume animals. But I don’t think man necessarily has an obligation to be peaceable towards animals, since man is merely a top of the food chain beast.
I personally am a herbivorous creature after 30 something years of eating meat without caring. I figure, regardless of morality, I’m just not comfortable consuming anything that once had a brain, a nervous system, a heart (or something like a heart) and anything comparably human. Regardless of how I feel about it, I have to acknowledge the fact that I am taking in and assimilating with the spirit of this animal.
I don’t want to eat anything that had thoughts foreign to me, or that was living in fear and pain for most of its life. I guess I believe in “you are what you eat.” It’s for the same reason I wouldn’t want a blood transfusion or an organ transplant. I don’t like mixing my body with other people. (I know what you’re thinking Neo, and ejaculating inside someone is not really the same thing as assimilating a foreign body. The vagina is just a receptable. Hi Honey!)
As far as evidence goes, I see none that suggests that plants feel pain. Plants do evolve, and try to ensure their longtime survival. However, there is no evidence to suggest they have any human organs. They don’t exhibit fear or show any intelligent thought. (Yes, I think some cows are intelligent…i.e. A Cow vs. Lindsay Lohan, I think the cow would win)
It’s been proven that eating plants is healthier than eating meat. So just because humans have to eat something to survive, doesn’t necessitate that I should eat intelligent living things, just because I eat un-intelligent living things.
“All in all, I have a question: why, for vegetarians, is it always My way or the highway?”
Actually I think vegetarians are much more agreeable and kind-hearted than meat eaters. The fact that we can see injustice and call people on it (honestly, there’s not much difference between factory farmers and Nazis) isn’t the same thing as nagging.
I personally have been harassed by meat eaters far more often than I have criticized anyone else. In fact I hardly ever bring it up. The meat eater becomes aware of my stand and starts poking me, asking for a fight. In fact my general rule is this: if you’re going to bring it up, prepare to defend yourself. I only wrote my pro-peta piece after we had one or two vegetarian-bashing articles published here.
As for vegans, yeah they’re all pretty much assholes. They can’t eat ice cream or cheese, whaddaya expect. I kinda want to be a vegan myself, but can’t say no to ice cream snickers bars. But I’m such an asshole in all other respects, so it would make sense.
The aim of this article is to “sum up the case against meat and debunk some of the myths surrounding vegetarianism/veganism”. It’s not a thorough analysis, has no references and is otherwise very short.
A.B., I realize that a better researched article would better serve to prove my arguments, but there is already a nebula of information available. It is my hope that any interest triggered by this short piece would be followed with initiative from the individual to learn more, that is my ultimate conclusion: there are facts, and you have to deal with them however you see fit. It is an ungoing debate even in the radical environmental movement and one which I love to partake in, though my training as a geographer leads me to emphasize the issue of world ressources when so much of people’s concerns as dietary and it is a question I am ill equipped to adress…
Bill, though I would be tempted to cross rhetorical swords with you, your reaction is as much a kneejerk as the supposed irrationnal, fanatical and moralist vegetarians you are allegedly at war with. My initial goal, as in everything I do, is to promote critical thought, which often occurs through controversy, and for stepping on the soap box so quick, I applaud you. Good luck with your ‘aggressive anti-vegetarian’ stance, if there’s one threat to life on Earth today, it’s us sprout-eating motherfuckers.
Karlsie, I agree with you for the current situation with animal population control, we humans intervene in nature for reasons. Up North, we club baby seals because the seal overpopulation is making the fish stocks decline. But beyond the rationale of regulating other forms of life as we see fit, there is simply the consequence of domestication. The main reason why the balance is broken is us. Our trying to tip the scale this way or that is just a frantic attempt to keep the ship afloat.
Raven, you are still looking at my illustration from the perspective of profit making industrial sins. There is a great deal of difference between profit making and subsistence use. A subsistence farmer, hunter or harvester is not going to make unnecessary kills. A subsistence fisherman is not going to bludgeon a pod of seals to generate more fish for the community, but the fur for profit trade might see declining fish populations as a good excuse for promoting seal control; i.e., the decimation of wildlife for the sake of profiteering, which topples the higher structure of a food chain that includes Polar Bears and walruses. The controls are needed to divide the lines between subsistence use and corporate mismanagement.
The longest running war in Alaska’s history is between the commercial, the sports and the subsistence fishermen. Between funding cuts for our fisheries and commercial strain, salmon runs have been poor in recent years. Giving sports fishermen some credit, many of them have agreed that they didn’t really need the number of fish allotted for their freezer, and have joined the catch and release program. The commercial industry however, continues to maintain they have equal rights to first harvesting privileges and if their boats consume the allotted number of fish that can be harvested during the season before the village and subsistence fishermen have had a chance to get what they need for survival, that is their problem. Commercial fishing needs to be controlled.
Even the harvesting of wild berries has turned into a problem with commercialism. A berry patch that for centuries, has been enough to sustain an entire community, plus surplus for the bears and porcupine, have been picked clean by commercially invested harvesters. What happens when bears don’t have enough berries and fish to fill their bellies? They become more aggressive towards humans and their delicious garbage cans. Commercial harvesting needs to be controlled.
Blame corporate interests all you want for the destruction of arable land. Blame profiteers for the desolation of natural wild life. Blame urban sprawl, blame industrial complexes, blame poor dietary habits, but don’t blame the small farmer or the subsistence village. They have lived in harmony with nature for centuries, understanding what it takes to create a balance between the different species. They live by neither greed nor lofty ambitions to become a savior. They take what they need and let the rest multiply and thrive. They are probably the best chance we have left of keeping an earth rich with the diversity of life.
Oh make no mistake, the article presented itself well, it’s just that I had watch “Porky’s” a few days prior and when I saw “meat” I took the entire affair into another direction totally!
I am much more concerned with responsible eating than I am with who is vegetarian and who is not. I find that too many people take too little time to find out where their food actually comes from, how it is produced and whose pockets the money goes into. All the while they will pat themselves on the back for being a raw food eater, a vegetarian, an organic food consumer.
Let me give you and example. A lot of people both GLBT and not are pissed at the Mormon church for the money their memebership pumped into the anti-marriage campaign. But do these people also know the Mormon church is the biggest grower for Con-Agra? That means if you are eating, corn, rice or products made from these you are putting dollars into the pockets of the Mormon church. And think about things like corn syrup in everything that is not labelled but mostly comes from Con-Agra foods. Some protest.
The same could be said about Nestle who pushed tainted baby formula in 3rd world countries convincing starving people that their bad batches of formula not sellable in the U.S. was better than breat milk. Do you know how many subsidiaries Nestle has? Or what they are?
I agree with Karla, subsistance farming is sustainable and good for the earth. The cycle that begins with 12 chickens provides meat for the table, pest control, natural fertilizer and eggs. I don’t see where that is irresponsible.
I do see where large scale operation are disgusting and aweful in the extreme, but A 4-H cow nurtured by a youth at their home and used by the buyer is not a bad thing. Neither is shooting a deer or elk because you need the meat, not for sport, and use every part of it.
In my mind we need to be making all around better choices about who we buy from and why. And it doesn’t hurt to let companies know that you have stopped buying from them and which of their practices have pissed you off.
Typing a letter to Frito-Lay regarding them pulling Sun Chip bags, those stupid cows.
I don’t really care much about political differences. I don’t agree with the Mormons, but they do perform a service and deserve compensation for it. So that’s just bartering. By not giving money to various organizations for philosophical differences, you are depriving them not only of their political aims but of their livelihood. So it’s not right.
On the other hand if I knew a company was deliberately injuring people or animals in the making of their products, then I don’t think I could buy from them in good conscience. I know most of the Subversify staff is made up of meat eaters, but on the other hand, we don’t actually kill anything to post our articles. When we start making money from the site, it wouldn’t bother me to know that the magazine is responsible for feeding meat eaters, because it is their choice to spend that money on the meat industry.
So that’s how I view this whole thing. I’m okay with bartering, because that’s just the way the world works. I will give you money or commodity to do your thing, and shake my head if you’re spending it on meat, drugs, sex, etc. But it’s your money not mine.
When I am convinced that mankind has proven intellectual superiority over the animals (as opposed to just brute strength) maybe I’d accept that argument. But stupid people are still in the White House and still making movies. I personally think we should eat some prominent members of the Tea Party, they probably go well with cheese and crackers.
Nah, Tea goes good with scones and clotted cream.
you mad freak! That’s brilliant!
Being that we already seem to be sharing factors regarding The Case Against Meat, Good sources of healthy fat are needed to nourish your brain, heart and cells, as well as your hair, skin, and nails. Foods rich in certain omega-3 fats called EPA and DHA are particularly important and can reduce cardiovascular disease, improve your mood and help prevent dementia.
While we are writing about The Case Against Meat, learning the habits of healthy eating can improve your health by boosting your energy, sharpening your memory and stabilizing your mood. Expand your range of healthy food choices and learn how to plan ahead to create and maintain a satisfying, healthy diet.
I have been a vegetarian (and do vegan days) since 1982 and cannot imagine ever eating any other way!