mEat it

I don’t eat meat.
Years ago, I thought I could “do my part” by not indulging in commercially available meat. A practice that, thanks to the ever growing behemoth of capitalism, subjects innocent critters to a miserable and torturous lifestyle just to be murdered. I judged that despite my extremely limited diet, I could slowly expand my list of “vegetables I can attempt to eat”, and supplement it with plant based meat which had finally lowered to an economically viable price. And luckily, it’s been working out for me.

But these days, I’m not so sure I’m making the most ethical choice.

“But surely, not murdering animals is preferable, right?”. Yeah, absolutely… in the case of factory farmed animals. So as not to get bogged down in more details than I’m assuredly already going to get mired in, I’ll simply state that until there’s a larger shift in social attitudes, and a faster uptake in people rejecting meat, my individual actions have a negligible effect on the industry as a whole. I’m a rounding error, at best.

“But surely you stand as an example for others – that a vegetarian lifestyle is easy to maintain and is morally righteous. Even the smallest ripples, etc.”. Well now here’s where it starts to get a bit murky. Were I confident that I had enough social weight to actually influence even a handful of people, I might consider that a valid point. But once again, I stand (mostly) alone against billions of dollars in manufacturing, farming, and advertising all working together to normalise a carnivore lifestyle. Yeah, I’m definitely “tolerated” – herbivores aren’t such a radical fringe group that we’re still largely accepted in our communities. But it’ll be “tolerance”, and not much more than that. Any given restaurant will have [x] meals containing meat, and maybe [x/10] vegetarian options. Often just the one, which will be some kind of sad little salad.

Oh, and don’t forget the onion. Everyone loves s**t-loads of raw onions in everything right? >_>

And that’s just the primary difficulty when living in what is generally considered an economically and industrially active nation. (I hate using terms like “developed” or “first world”… way too loaded and discriminatory. Hell, even how I phrased it is inelegant, but pretty much the best I’ve got right now).

Which brings me to the next point – a non-carnivorous lifestyle is generally one of privilege. I can afford to eat more expensive protein substitutes because I’m relatively exceptionally fortunate to live in the time and place and circumstances that I do. Not many people around the world can say the same. Frankly, I feel that the “it’s wrong to eat meat” argument is inherently one that ignores the privilege that comes with the freedom to take that stance.

Even amongst the wealthiest nations, there are many who just don’t get the luxury to choose. When you’re living on pennies a day, you make do with whatever’s available and cheap. And some days that’s going to be meat.

I also want to acknowledge the nature of animal cruelty and the human condition.

I like animals. They’re out in the world chilling, trying to make it through the day, and just living as best they can. I’m not like, super obsessed with most of them or anything – but at the very least, it seems incredibly obvious to me that “maybe you shouldn’t go around being mean to animals without a very good reason.”. So it’s a safe bet that since modern meat farming often results in thousands of individuals being kept in disgusting tiny prisons their entire short lives, I’m not a fan. But that scale of mass animal cruelty is a uniquely human construct.

Consider the apex predator. A lion, say. The lion goes out, finds a prey species, chases it down, kills it, and eats it. That’s nature, right? Tragic, but it’s all part of a healthy ecology. You’re not going to come up to a lion and shout nonsense about how cruel and terrible it’s being just be living its life, much as other of it’s species have done, for thousands of year. Millions of years even, if you trace the modern lion back to it’s ancestor species. Until modern humans came along, nobody seemed to care.

Prehistoric primates and hominids operated in a similar way. They were hungry, they hunted another animal for food, they consumed, they survived. A big part of making this natural practice “okay” is that they’re just hunting and eating what they need, when they need it. No ancient ape is going around tending a giant factory filled with hundred of cows.

And I feel like a lot of that nuance is lost when talking about modern, privileged humans.

Not only are we driving up demand for meat products and by doing so, encourage the overloaded meat prisons. We’re at least 2 levels of abstraction away from the hunt, so we can emotionally detach from the acts involved. We’re not the ones having to gather up all these animals, transport them to the slaughterhouse, and killing them en masse. So we think nothing of it. A anonymous plastic tray of animal flesh arrives at a local store, and it is no longer, nor has ever been, it’s own living thing with hopes, dreams, fears, or any of that.

So why do I keep undermining my own argument that this is somehow more “ethical” than not eating meat?

Well it’s simple… were it possible to obtain meat from a source I could be completely certain abides by ethical practices, I would consider it totally fair and acceptable to partake. And therein lies the problem. Eating meat is a natural act. The hunt, the kill, all of it is being done constantly around the world by other apex predators. And we think nothing of it. “That’s just the way nature is”. If I had the time, skills, and effort to continuously go out and hunt for my dinner only as much as was required, and only when nutritionally required of me, I don’t think there should be much objection to that. Provided, of course, I wasn’t using any unfair human advantages like traps or firearms (which is… something I not entirely on board with calling “unfair”, but that’s a whole thing for some other time).

But it’s not something I could reasonably do, on my own, with human society currently set up the way it is.

But from the individual “hunt as required” lifestyle, it’s easy to justify keeping a small pen of “domesticated” prey animals to be used in the future as food. I would intend to treat them humanely – provide comfortable shelter and protection from other, different predators. And when the hunger comes back, one among them is finally killed and eaten.

And that’s where I’m currently stuck in my thinking. Is it more true to the human nature of days gone by that we reject synthetic and mass produced foodstuff to provide for ourselves? Or is it more true to human nature that we give up, submit to the social order, and indulge ourselves with readily available flesh?

(Of course, the obvious follow up is “if you could set up a personal farm for animals, why not simply harvest vegetables instead?”. Which is absolutely a fair point, and most likely the option I would pursue if I were to seriously look into self-sustaining food production. I was merely pointing out that it’s not *un-*natural for humans to want to eat meat.)

I dunno… I thought it was worth considering, if only to remind myself that not everyone gets the luxury of choice, and it’s kinda shitty to condemn them for merely trying to survive. It’s also entirely possible that I’m so thoroughly brainwashed by the meat industry that, what to me seems like a logical discussion to pursue, is glaringly evil and self-justifying to a more enlightened observer.

I’ll stick with my plant based diet for now. Hopefully it continues to be sustainable, and doesn’t turn out to have been “actually pretty bad after all”.