We Are What We Eat
All of us are hypocrites. While humans have focused a lot of time and energy on questions of morality over the millennia, we apply those standards haphazardly. I am no different.
I grew up on 160 acres in the Ozark Mountains. My childhood diet consisted of organic produce grown by my family, supplemented with groceries largely purchased at the natural foods cooperative and Wal-Mart (quite the contrast) and the occasional dinner out. For a while we raised chickens and fish, which we occasionally ate. I grew up eating a lot of vegetables and whole foods.
My childhood was not vegetarian: we ate fish and chicken and sometimes drove through a fast food restaurant as a “treat.” Holidays with family centered on a variety of roast beasts. But my immediate family regularly ate vegetarian for days on end, especially during the summer when lunch might be what I grazed from the garden.
When I went to college, I did not much think about diet. I ate from the cafeteria and whatever was on sale at the grocery. For the first time, I regularly consumed roasts and hamburgers and bacon. The ethics of food didn’t occur to me.
Then, in 2002, fresh from a master’s program, I taught ethics for the first time. Researching possible topics and readings, I came across Mylan Engle’s article “The Immorality of Eating Meat.” Then I found Peter Singer’s book Animal Liberation: A New Ethics for Our Treatment of Animals. Engle outlines a syllogism for veganism: people think that a world with less pain and suffering is a better world. The meat and leather industry causes pain and suffering to undeniably sentient creatures. Therefore, consuming animal products is wrong. For the life of me, I could not disprove one of those premises and thus the logic of the conclusion stood. (I have simplified his argument significantly. I encourage readers to take a look for themselves.)
Engle and Singer both touch upon the damage the meat and leather industry does to our environment and fellow humans. Singer compellingly proves that, if even just the United States went vegetarian, we could end world hunger in a single generation. It takes about 20 pounds of grain to produce a single pound of meat and an astonishing 1,500 gallons of water. Producing a single hamburger uses as much water as the average person uses in six months of showers. In “What is the True Cost of Eating Meat?” The Guardian offers a fairly conservative summary of the environmental impacts of the meat and leather industry. This graphic from the World Resources Institute offers an overview of the resources different foods require for production.
After reading Engle and Singer, and doing a bit more digging, I stopped eating chickens and other birds, cows, pigs, sheep, and goats entirely. I cut all the mammals from my diet first. I continued to eat dairy and eggs and occasionally fish. But the idea of biting into something that I knew had lived a sentient life turned my stomach. It felt no different than eating a cat or a dog or a human. The idea of my life directly costing a sentient animal its life became something I could no longer conscience.
Meat is also unhealthy. Most dieticians agree that adult humans need about .8 grams of protein for every pound of body weight; that’s about 46 grams per day for a woman with a healthy BMI and about 54 for men. A nine-ounce steak contains about 75 grams of protein! A vegan can meet their protein requirements with ½ cup of plant-based yogurt with oat granola for breakfast, ½ cup of garbanzo beans mixed with literally anything else – dark, leafy greens are a good option - for lunch, and a cup of lentil soup for dinner. Most Americans are vastly exceeding their protein requirements. And that has risks:
High cholesterol and a higher risk of cardiovascular disease
Increased cancer risk
Kidney disease and kidney stones
Weight gain
Constipation or diarrhea
Harvard Medical School outlines the research and, while admitting that more work needs to be done, concludes that, even if protein requirements are twice what most dieticians recommend, the American diet is still protein rich. So no more asking vegans, “But how do you get your protein?” STFD.
I haven’t even touched on other health risks associated with eating meat. More than 90% of the meat and dairy consumed by Americans has been treated with antibiotics and growth hormones. The effects of long term consumption of products containing even low levels of these additives is still being studied.
But meat is big business. It is marketed to us and those advertising campaigns are effective. Evidence can be found in that “But how do you get your protein?” question. People who have not done their research think that we have to eat animal products to be healthy. In fact, the opposite is true. For example, diabetics are told to reduce simple carbohydrates and increase protein intake to manage their illness. So many people increase meat consumption. But diabetes.co.uk and WebMD agree that going vegan is one way to improve diabetes care.
In the twenty-first century diet has become a matter of propaganda. “Beef. It’s what’s for Dinner” is just one example of advertising that promotes meat consumption as part of a “healthy” diet. Furthermore, meat consumption is linked to perceptions of manliness. According to a survey of 400 university students regarding about two dozen different foods, The Journal of Consumer Research researchers found that steak and hamburger were most closely associated with "maleness," and write, “To the strong, traditional, macho, bicep-flexing, All-American male, red meat is a strong, traditional, macho, bicep-flexing, All-American food." (“You are what you eat: Why do male consumers avoid vegetarian options?”) There’s a whole advertising campaign linking meat consumption with masculinity. Consider the “Manwich,” a product that turns sloppy joe sauce into a meat-filled sandwich of masculinity.
Or Burger King’s marketing that visualizes a meat-filled sandwich as a penis.
Nowhere in my life has this link been made more explicit than when I said, “I don’t eat meat” only to have a friend reply, “I feel sorry for your husband.” “Meat” is slang for “penis.”
In the paper “Of Meat and Men: Sex Differences in Implicit and Explicit Attitudes Toward Meat” authors Love and Sulikowski write, “Across Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas, men consume more meat than do women and across Western societies women are twice as likely as men to be vegan or vegetarian. Furthermore, vegetarianism is seen as a relatively feminine trait.”
Men resisting an environmentally friendly diet is linked with larger trends of men avoiding other environmentally sound practices. Scientific American, in the article “Men Resist Green Behavior as Unmanly”, find that “men may shun eco-friendly behavior because of what it conveys about their masculinity. It’s not that men don’t care about the environment. But they also tend to want to feel macho, and they worry that eco-friendly behaviors might brand them as feminine.” Men are literally destroying the planet out of a misplaced desire to be macho. But that doesn’t let carnivorous women off the hook!
Over the last eighteen years, I have continued to minimize animal products. I stopped eating most seafood and fish, starting with clearly intelligent beings like octopus and squid. I still occasionally eat “sea bugs” like shrimp and crab, though the environmental impact of wild shrimp harvesting is catastrophic. (I make sure to eat farmed shrimp on the rare occasions I indulge. Though farmed shrimp is not too great in terms of environmental footprint either.)
I also became more and more concerned about dairy and egg production. Dairy cows are artificially inseminated and kept regularly pregnant so that they will continue to produce milk. Their calves are removed at a young age – watching that separation is heartbreaking. Cows form lasting bonds: they have lifelong best friends and care for their offspring tenderly, evidencing clear emotional attachment. Their offspring become dairy producers if they are female, and most often veal calves if they are male. While consuming dairy is not eating meat, it still perpetuates animal suffering.
Eggs are also concerning. An adult female chicken will produce about five eggs a week, whether the egg is fertilized or not. That doesn’t seem especially problematic. However, hens are hatched from broods that also contain male chicks. Those males are most often ground up, alive, and fed back to the hens as a source of protein. At the very least, they are raised into early adulthood and slaughtered for meat. When a hen stops laying, she is exterminated.
I know that reducing animal products in my own life will not save animals from suffering. I know that I cannot single-handedly stop the carbon footprint of the meat and leather industry. The real problem is the consumption machine that cares only for profit. My tiny voice is screaming into the void of capitalism. A 2017 report by the Carbon Accountability Institute found that just 100 companies produce 70% of greenhouse gasses. Most of them are petroleum and coal producers. My little individual acts are a drop in the bucket. (For a list of those companies and their CEOs see the map.)
But how I live my life is important to me. At the end I want to look back on my life and see that it’s been good. I want to minimize the amount of suffering my life causes as much as possible. This article by Vox, “Can consumer choices ward off the worst effects of climate change? An expert explains.” addresses the importance of individual action. One major takeaway is that individual actions impact global markets. There’s been a huge surge in vegan products in response to the purchasing habits of people like me. My actions matter.
Going vegan is unquestionably the most ethical choice that any one individual can make about food. In fact, changing one’s diet and not having children are the two single most impactful things that an individual can do to minimize their environmental footprint. Jonathan Safran Foer writes, “We must either let some eating habits go or let the planet go. It is that straightforward, that fraught.” (“What if Fighting Climate Change is as Easy as Giving Up Meat?”)
I’m not suggesting that my choices are without fault. I’m not really even vegetarian because I still occasionally eat some fish and seafood (especially when traveling). If there’s a cheese bar at a function, I find it difficult to resist. I sometimes buy eggs (though they do come from happy free range chickens that live out their dotage as named pets).
I should also acknowledge some other bad things I do: I love to travel and airplanes are a major contributor to environmental damage. Though I pay a carbon tax and donate to organizations dedicated to protecting the planet, I still buy those plane tickets. I drive a gas-powered vehicle; though I have an efficient car and ride a very efficient motorcycle, I still regularly pull up to a gas pump.
So I’m working on it. I recently went full vegan to address some minor health concerns and I have to say, it got pretty easy to turn down the cheese and eggs. It feels good to commit to the right thing.
Going more vegan requires some research: some vegan products are terrible for the environment and some companies that produce vegan products are ethically problematic. For example, avoiding leather can lead to the purchase of plastics, another very troubling polluter. Vegans also do need to be aware of nutrient intake, especially vitamin B12.
I’m asking readers to, at the very least, consider the research I’ve presented and do their own. In lieu of going more vegan, please try to make the best choices available. I appreciate people who only eat meat they have raised themselves or hunted. Factory farms, which produce over 90% of the animal products sold in America, are the source of the environmental harm I’ve outlined. Buying from small, local farmers seems like a good compromise (though that meat is often slaughtered inhumanely at the same facilities used by factory farms). Yes, those products can be more expensive, but why not lessen the amount of meat consumed? Some people eat meat with every meal. That seems crazy to me! And unhealthy. Why not eat meat only on special occasions, save up for it, and purchase from a more ethical source? Not only will the animals be thankful, a diet largely consisting of vegetables, whole grains, legumes, fruits, and nuts is SO MUCH BETTER for health. Your heart and kidneys will thank you.
Am I advocating for an entirely vegan planet? On one hand: yes. When I imagine the best of all possible worlds, I see a planet where humans bring the suffering they intentionally cause down to the barest minimum. But realistically: no. Small farms that use milk only when a cow is nursing offspring, and eat eggs laid by happy and free chickens, don’t seem like a problem (though what to do with male offspring must be solved humanely).
Some cultures that live in inhospitable parts of the world rely on animal products for survival. Though the twenty-first century can easily address their needs, entire cultures would have to shift and they need to do that of their own accord. It is not my right to pass judgment on other cultures. But I do get to pass judgment on my own! There is a slow but significant shift toward more humane eating habits. I support this shift and encourage others to as well. There is no planet B.
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Note:
I’ve used fairly conservative sources in this article: WebMD, Harvard Medical School, The Guardian. There are lots of reputable studies out there, both on the health risks associated with meat and dairy consumption and on environmental impacts, that paint a more dire picture.