Here I am teetering on the edge of vegetarianism, and people are talking about blowing meat chunks off spines to extract that last bit of cash, and workers inhaling aerosolized pig brains.
Might be the push I needed!
Might be the push I needed!
Pro/Anti-meat aside, there is a huge segment of the population for whom "just eat steaks" is not actionable advice. They've already killed the animal. Why not be efficient?
Although in this case getting parts of the spinal cord/fluid/brain in with sausages also sounds like a hazard.
Is this true? Plenty of humans are reaping the benefits of this industry existing. While beef, dairy et al may be disturbing from multiple points of view, few industries are as subsidized as the corn industry in the united states.
If there was a single vulnerability to be used as an entry point to tear apart the elaborate farming empires and thoroughly tackle waste with respect to output, it'd be corn. It just doesn't make sense, irrespective of animals.
If you're talking about money waste instead, it works pretty well. But while corn may be over-subsidized, I'd rather eat it than starve.
Grazing is also better for biodiversity than planting crops.
the meat industry is a horror show, tbh, and they don't maximize product extraction because they want to save every last piece of protien, they do it for the cash.
By soon I mean not I our life time, but Certainly the few coming generations. We've been eating meat for millenia. I give till the end of the century.
I'm not convinced that a vegetarian diet that includes factory farmed dairy involves much less cruelty than an omnivorous diet. Maybe more, if the omnivore were to avoid factory farmed meat and dairy.
That said, I'm not a vegetarian myself, because I don't believe it's in my rational self-interest.
If you believe that factory farmed dairy is just as cruel, then don't consume factory farmed dairy.
I don't believe its in my rational self-interest
Unless you count the environmental impact, it shouldn't be about your self-interest, but rather doing something that some see as cruel and unethical treatment of other living creatures.
(PS: I'm not vegetarian either, so I'm not attempting to change your opinion)
This might clarify my position a bit: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rational_egoism
Can I politely suggest you uncurl from the solipsistic ball you've tucked yourself into? It's nice out here...
Seriously, there is nothing about adopting a philosophy of rational self interest that implies solipsism. In fact, solipsism can clearly be shown not to be in one's own rational self interest :)
The question is then one of how you separate the edible part from the inedible part. Given that you can never do this precisely, you're going to end up either playing it too safe and leaving edible meat behind, or going too far and extracting inedible cowbits. Then the question is: is it a bigger sin to run the risk of harming humans, or to leave behind a fraction of a percent of the cow as a safety margin? Thought about in those terms, the edible meat left behind would be used, just not as food.
My personal tips & notes:
* If you otherwise enjoy meat, there are a lot of meat-substitutes out there and more being developed. These tend to do a great job of mimicking processed meats and a terrible job of mimicking "real" meat. They also vary greatly. Quorn, Morningstar, and Boca (for example) all have very different tastes and textures, so if you don't like one try a different one. (I personally prefer Quorn for chicken-substitutes and Morningstar for beef-substitutes). OTOH, some vegetarians never had a big attachment to meat, and this is not an issue. (I am very jealous of these people).
* Eating out is by far the hardest. In areas with many vegetarians (say, Seattle), you tend to have multiple options, things tend to be clearly labeled, and waitstaff is used to getting questions. In other areas (say, Georgia), you have fewer options, no labels, and people act like you've accused them of something evil if you have questions. Either way, though, the majority of the menu becomes inaccessible to you.
* If you are trying to be mostly strict, be cautious when dealing with regional/cultural boundaries. While Indian food tends to follow the same vegetarian definition as I do (Jainian food is even more strict than I am), others don't (Chinese and Japanese tend to not consider fish or other seafood as animals, thus you'll find oyster sauce on the "vegetarian" menu, or dishes that have oyster sauce or some sort of animal-based broth that isn't called out as such (oyster sauce, fish sauce, pork, beef, or chicken broth, and/or shrimp paste in some curries). In the American South, pork isn't just a meat, it's also a seasoning. Most purely vegetable dishes (such as "green beans" or "corn") aren't vegetarian there :(
* How strict you want to be impacts how easy life is. Avoiding tangible animal-based meat = easy. Avoiding broths and lard = not as easy. Avoiding animal byproducts, such as most gelatin, use of bones in filtering, animal-based rennet in cheese , insect-based dyes and glaze = quite a bit more effort. Find a level you are comfortable with, because for most reasons, it is still far better to be a not-entirely strict vegetarian than a failed attempt at a strict vegetarian. I myself avoid gelatin and known insect products (no more Junior Mints :( ), and when cooking at home I get animal-friendly cheese and sugar, but when I'm out I don't worry about where they got their cheese, but will ask about broths and seafood-sauces.
* If you are a picky eater such as myself, be warned that many places decide to make vegetarian dishes more "exciting" by putting in every form of vegetable/grain they can think of. Like a supreme pizza, some people are glad for the variety, but most have something in there they don't like. (I myself can't stand green bell peppers, which is in, like, 90% of commonly available vegetarian fare :( )
* I first went vegetarian cold-turkey (ha!) in college...but after 6 months I stopped because I was seeing stars constantly. (It's actually pretty easy to get all your nutrients as a vegetarian, unless you're living on a diet of rice and mac&cheese like I was) I had, however, lost the taste for red meat (suddenly felt oily and flavorless), and noticed that certain salads I had disliked I now enjoyed. A few years later I tried again, but this time I did it slow. I dropped a category of meat each year, giving myself time to adjust my diet and make sure I had a variety of options. I believe I dropped beef (from the first stint), then pork, then poultry, then all forms of seafood. The next year I dropped leather products as an ethical choice, and I've been this way for over a decade without too much effort. Some extra food costs, a limited range of foods, and limited eating out options, but not so much that it's hard. Dieting, for example, is much harder.
* You will learn to hate the preachy, judgmental vegetarian-types that make life hard for us. Most vegetarians (in my experience) do what they do for reasons they consider good, and think it'd be great if others did the same, but feel no need to look down on others that don't, nor to inform them of their "evil ways". I mean, most of us ate meat for a long time and didn't switch the first time the thought occurred to us, so why judge others for being the same? Still though, people get very defensive and often assume you're one of the preachy types until you prove otherwise.
* ...You will also learn to hate how defensive people are in general. This is not restricted to vegetarianism. If you say you're on a diet, people will talk about how awesome their chocolate cake is. Mention you have diabetes, and they'll list the sugary foods they adore. Say you're vegetarian, and they'll talk about how animals just taste so good, or how happy they are to shoot Bambi. I've collected a few vegetarian jokes to help break the ice and show I'm not a jerk about it. (My favorite: 'Vegetarian' is actually based on an old (insert culture here - I tend to say 'Native American') word, meaning "lousy hunter")
* Oddly enough, holidays tend to be the EASIEST times. Everyone talks about the turkey, but a traditional big feast (at least in America) actually involves lots of non-meat dishes. I found this a good way to relax my family and friends - I provide a big meal that doesn't contain "weird stuff". Some of the more skeptical people still bring meat dishes, but even then they end up seeing that as a part of the whole, as opposed to be a contrast between "weird food" and "normal food".
If you decide to take the leap, I hope this helps!
Curious how people arrive at "their" vegetarianism.
I do. My gradual elimination of meats was done on a roughly sliding scale of animal awareness - pigs seem more aware than turkeys seem more aware than chickens, and most fish come in below that. I based this mainly on my understanding of there general awareness of the world, which is hardly a strict scientific method, but I was trying to acknowledge the concept you're describing, figuring that while it was all bad, if I wasn't going to immediately do totally right, I should choose to do it in the least bad manner.
Insects are actually a point of confusion for me. My general rule of thumb for whether I think I should kill something to eat it (or have someone else kill it for me to eat) is based on my instinctive empathy: If I saw the animal injured, would I feel bad for it? land-based animals - Yes. Fish - Yes. Eggs? No. (lots of issues in the egg industry, but the base concept didn't bother me). Bacteria? No. But this leaves insects in a weird place. I will kill an insect that is a pest to me without much concern. Mosquitos are dead if I get a chance, houseflies are welcome to leave, but if they don't, I can swat them without guilt. Ants, while an absolutely favorite creature of mine, also fall prey to my self-centeredness. BUT - the idea of hundreds/thousands of insects getting ground up DOES bother me. I _think_ that's because I don't empathize with the bugs the way I do with animals, but I don't like what it says about us to kill in such numbers even if I don't empathize directly, Regardless, while I don't have a solid answer, it was easy enough to give up the few foods involved. (Pretty much Junior Mints, in my case)
I am okay eating animals, they are tasty. They think, they die, they go to my tummy. I try to eat grass fed and "humane" local stuff these days precisely to avoid issues that occur at mass produced meat factories (antibiotic needs, etc.). This makes meat cost more, which makes me eat less.
The central reason for me comes down to sustainability. Eggs and milk are still not the most humane things to me, but they are sustainable and quite a bit better than killing the animals they come from. They cost way less to produce and eggs/cheese/dairy make a lot of tasty stuff I am less willing to give up than meat.
We can probably sustain the planet if everyone eats a light to moderate amount of dairy/eggs, but based on what I have read we really can't do that with the amount of meat consumption in America (and other places that are meat heavy in their culture.)
Not only that but Americans are used to cheap meats and are very very slowly becoming used to paying for meat at prices where it can be raised more healthily (legitimate free range, zero antibiotics due to much lower animal density, etc.)
tl;dr save the planet, and maybe because I occasionally feel bad animals die for me to live a more convenient life.
edit: also, regarding the fish only "vegans"...honestly... it is hard enough to safely define one thinking meat from another. I think people do a lot of mental twists and turns and narrative building to convince themselves that something like say, fish, are "lesser" thinking meats. Insects? Fungi? Bacteria? How do you define your thinking meat? The philosophy of this is actually fiendishly difficult if you take it seriously and don't just stop when your brain has convinced you that you have it figured out. I also don't think it is even subjective, even though it is a very passionate subject. At some level if you eat animals you have to accept the consequence and can't just rationalize away you are eating the muscles and fats of an animal that had its own thing going on. I just never felt strongly convinced by the whole strict vegan argument given the amount of energy required to live that way (it is actually hard and difficult to be a really strict Vegan, in my opinion that time can be better spent reducing misery of actual humans in a lot of cases)
I'll agree to that. If you have a definition of "thinking/self-aware/conscious/sapient/concept of choice", any given creature either IS or ISN'T. But we can't agree on a definition, and we have no real means to test. So it's a non-subjective fact that we (currently) have only subjective means to determine, and subjective arguments over what we're even talking about.
On the topic of sustainability, I recently learned just how much of the global corn crop goes to feed animals: so much that when people talk about the industry of growing corn, they just talk about animal feed. Corn for human consumption is such a tiny slice of the market it only comes up if you zoom in on certain parts.
Not making an argument one way or the other, just have been thinking about it for myself. So I suppose my only point to the above would be that "there's always a subjective line that needs to be drawn somewhere, rather than an objective one."
What isn't hard is the sustainability argument. That is super simple arithmetic. And that is the one that pretty much seals it for me.
I think a lot of people start from the sustainability angle and then convince themselves of a lot of things that are murky or they themselves didn't really personally decide this, it is just something a lot of other people are doing / have decided and it fits their narrative of "meat is not sustainable". That said I do think there are well reasoned actors out there that have "done the work" to decide eating meat is not for them, but don't dress it up as a philosophical choice until you /have/ done the work and thought it through. It starts and ends with a lot of Why? :)
This may be true, but I wonder how much of the cost of meat is the inability to buy direct.
My family buys all our beef (and considering pork this year) from a local farmer by pre-ordering a quarter steer. The total price I pay is far less than the supermarket price for beef and the only explanation I can come up with is that we're cutting out the middlemen.
Likewise, the bison farmers around here are advertising prices well below the cost of bison at the few stores that carry it.
You make an excellent point about those industries - I originally had a comment about them above, but dropped it as it was getting a bit (more) off topic. My point at the time is that I'm not ethically against the actual act of eating eggs or consuming dairy, but you are correct that those industries, even many of the "friendly" ones, do things that I'm not ethically okay with.
The hardest part about becoming a vegetarian was actually admitting to myself that my actions AREN'T ethical by my own definitions, and that I would have to accept that while not giving up on the idea of improving. Kind of like how we are about charity - we all spend money on our own frivolities that we would spend to help someone in need were they in front of us...but we try very hard to not have such issues in front of us.
It's interesting the defensiveness aspect, I've been guilty of that in the past, although sometimes just for reasons of wanting to debate it... generally a topic I'll let someone else raise first though. I guess people get very passionate about it one way or the other and that complicates having a rational discussion about it.
When I first became a vegetarian all the forums widely advised making your own vegetable broth by boiling down veggies and freezing large amounts for later use, using multiple smallish containers so you never had to deal with thawing more broth than you needed. At the time I was a college student with no freezer (or stove) so that wasn't an option, and I ended up getting used to the bouillon and never trying the recommended option, but it may be worth trying out.
The ones branded as Indian cuisine outside India tend to be mostly a collection of popular dishes rather than sampling of everything. So you will end up feeling that most of them taste similar.