Wildlife: Should We Eat Them?
A few hours ago I sat down to write my piece for our EcoWorldly Wildlife Week. I have to admit that I know little about animals. I live in a city – I can’t even remember the last time I saw a real animal. I do remember my insurance salesman mentioning that I should buy an additional car insurance against an animal called a Martin, which has a habit of chewing through pipes in the engine, but other that that I’m clueless. With this confession in mind I make limited apology for the fact that this post may sway off topic.
Having waited all week for a relevant wildlife related idea to pop into my head, I ventured onto Google to look for information on local Swiss animals. I was surprised to learn that the chief animal topic in Switzerland does not relate to rare alpine species becoming endangered due to de-glaciation, or to urban foxes, or squirrels, or other wild animals, or to any thing else I might have guessed, but is principally related to the fair treatment of animals used in meat production.
The Swiss are proud of their happy animals, who spend their lives between birth and the slaughterhouse (the animals, that is) being well looked after, free from growth hormones, battery farming, over crowding, excessive road transport and other mass production practices which are counter to animal welfare. Swiss cows in particular lead a happy life, grazing on the fresh alpine grasses and herbs that give their milk a distinct flavour and makes their meat taste delicious.
This leads me to the fundamental question of this post: should we be eating animals in the first place?
I’d like to briefly explore this topic and invite your feedback, since it is a question which surfaced in my mind several weeks ago whilst standing in line for a veal bratwurst. Having been a relatively care free meat eater for most of my life, I suddenly recalled a recent conversation with my vegetarian fiancée regarding a visit to a slaughter house that crossed meat off her menu forever. At this moment the image of a young cow being executed filled my head, and I had to change my order in a sudden traumatising moment of animal compassion.
I’ve been psychologically challenged as an omnivore ever since. Cows and lambs seem to be a complete no-no - I have great difficulty eating them now that I’ve started viewing them as creatures with feelings, rather than just tasty things to eat. I appear to have less sympathy for pigs and chickens, but I think this is changing too. I cut do
Somebody has just suggested to me that it is impossible to become a vegetarian and stay vegetarian due to the fact that bacon sandwiches exist. He may be on to something here..
Vegetarians, please come to my aid with your advice!
Should we make animals that eat animals stop eating animals? Anybody own a cat or dog they eat meat biproducts which come from that very same slaughter house. This is just a personal question of preference there isn’t anything wrong with killing an animal for food. If we didn’t have such an abundance of food this wouldn’t even be a question though. You can’t eat anything that didn’t have to end somethings form of existence.
mark -
I’m not a vegetarian, but like you, I’m trying to eat less meat. Here in the States there is a huge environmental impace CO2-wise from these feedlots.
You might want to Google the term “flexitarian.” It’s something for those of us who’d like to be vegetarian, but just aren’t there yet.
From wikipedia:
Flexitarianism is a term used in the United States to describe the practice of eating mainly vegetarian food, but making occasional exceptions for social, pragmatic, cultural, or nutritional reasons. There is a wide range in the circumstances and outer boundaries of their dietary practices, which resist easy classification.[1] The term semi-vegetarianism is used to convey roughly the same meaning as flexitarianism.
-Jason
http://www.screamtobegreen.com
absolutes do not belong on the menu..there is a slow evolutionary process taking place in the nutritional arena.
can man survive on bread alone? meaning grains, legumes and veges? possible yes, desirable? maybe, but probable? not entirely. some blood types require the full omnivorous range to provide complete nutrition.
ovo-lacto would offer a reasonable peaceful solution to the conscientious almost vegetarian. if it’s a question of seeing those big brown eyes when you chomp down on a delicious steak, then?
by all means eat a fabulous cheesecake made of happy Swiss cow milk. now don’t you just feel…satisfied?
Mark,
I feel the zeal for one path vs another are all justified. I adore all types of food; plant, animal and sea and I feel best when I eat a bit of each. I have tried one way vs another over the years and always come back to exactly that, a bit of each - clean and organic as possible.
Take a slice of provolone cheese, add it to a dry hot pan and heat it until it’s crispy and bubbly — tastes just like bacon !! I swear!
Mother Earth aka Karen Hanrahan
I really like the open, honest, questioning nature of this post.
I married a vegetarian. I thought it strange at the time, but now he says I’ve “evolved.” This is because he does all the cooking! I still do order non-veg items sometimes in restaurants, but it is true that if you stop eating meat you lose the taste for it and sometimes can’t even digest it.
I will say that visiting Ireland and seeing all the lovely lambs at pasture made it very hard to stomach seeing lamb on seemingly every restaurant menu in Ireland!
I haven’t eaten meat or fish for 30 years. I don’t bother with any special foods. I don’t eat that meat lookalike stuff if I can help it. I don’t plan my diet, I just eat whatever comes along.
It doesn’t seem to have done me any harm, in fact, I think I am heathier than most who are in the last throes of their 50’s.
If you order the veggie option in a restaurant, the results do vary wildly. Sometimes it is fantastic, other times awful. You have to be prepared to take a chance.
Try it. You might like it!
quite simply, no, i do not believe we should be eating animals. we live in a time and place of abundance, which gives us the option to make the compassionate choice to leave animals (and their secretions) off our plates entirely — while still enjoying a wonderful variety of delicious and nurishing foods. really, there is no reason *for* eating animals, besides that of taste. is that a good enough reason to enslave and slaughter innocent, living, feeling beings? just because you “like” to? if someone simply “liked” to kill dogs, would that be ok? and how is that any different than someone “liking” a bacon sandwich? it’s just a matter of perception. we need to open our eyes.
Mark, thanks for the thoughtful post. While it’s hard to answer all your questions, I’ve started a series on vegetarianism that tries to.
If you’re readers are interested, they can read about it here: http://eatdrinkbetter.com/2008/03/20/consider-cutting-the-meat-out/
Thanks for your inputs everybody - all very useful thoughts.
I’ve continued this topic, together with a poll, here in our forums: http://discuss.greenoptions.com/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=453