Over the two decades since I started practising yoga, I have met a good number of vegetarians. Many of them had given up meat despite the fact that they used to like it – out of commitment to non-violence. But does vegetarianism really mean putting food on your table with no animals being killed in the process? I myself have some doubts on that score. Just because we don't eat chicken, beef and pork, it does not mean we are getting our food entirely without sacrificing other lives.
We don't eat them, we eat their food
There are tens of species classified as pests in the UK only, from the notorious slugs and aphids to the less known carrot and onion flies. The monoculture way we grow our crops these days makes it very easy for pests to spread and multiply. If they had all the food they wanted, we wouldn't get our grains, fruit and vegetables.
We are taking over their habitats
Just by being alive, we are squeezing other species out of existence. We humans are reducing the habitats of countless other species, driving many to extinction. And not only the wildebeests, antelopes, big cats and elephants of Africa. It happens on every continent, in all places where humans live or have economic interests.
The inescapable fact is that being and staying alive on this planet involves a fierce completion for resources – food, drinkable water and physical space. This fact is sometimes difficult to square with our neatly laid out ethical principles. The living world has grown along food chains – many animals eat other animals. We humans are fortunate in our ability to get nourishment from a very wide range of foods. So we don't have to sacrifice other lives in order to preserve our own, but only up to a point. Take a closer look and non-violence is not as straightforward as it first appears to be. Even using disinfectant and house cleaning products means purposefully killing countless micro-organisms. Where does non-violence to other creatures end and inflicting violence on yourself begin?
Perhaps it is easier for us to maintain the view that all life is sacred if we avoid taking the lives of other creatures. The fact remains that in this world a life is often sacrificed in order to sustain another life. I do not think life is any less sacred for that reason. And there is all the more reason to be grateful for being alive. If you've ever watched Bruce Lee's film “The Silent Flute”, you may remember this dialogue:
“A fish saved my life once” says the master.
“How?” asks the disciple
“I ate it.”
We are extremely lucky these days to have the choice of so many foods and be well-fed vegetarians if we so choose. Looking at human history, it seems to me that this is more the exception than the rule. Even today there are parts of the world where life is tough and any kind of food is precious.
My own reason for being a vegetarian – or, I should say “mostly vegetarian” – is that it suits me. I feel better and healthier on a vegetarian diet. The reason for this “mostly” it that, as I've grown older, I have become less of a purist. Years ago, if I was a guest in somebody's house and they took the trouble to prepare a meal, I would have told them I was a vegetarian. These days, if the hosts ask, I will just tell them not to trouble themselves – I will eat whatever there is. And be grateful. True, I am no longer the committed vegetarian I use to be. I may be in danger of crossing the line to an outright omnivorous diet. But there is a silver lining – I am safe from the temptation to look down on non-vegetarians. At least in that quarter, I am delivered from arrogance.
Liking the taste of something doesn't justify intentional monetary support of the torture, rape, and murder of sentient beings. Nor does it justify the destruction of our planet. Nor does it justify the human deaths due to avoidable diseases, famine, or hazardous occupation. I appreciate the contribution your vegetarian friends make. I appreciate your contribution to a better world despite your resolve wavering and being based on purely self serving reasons these days. I'm afraid you've fallen into a questionable line of logic that is in opposition to your spirituality. You are proclaiming that the 100 animal lives a vegetarian saves a year is insignificant as some deaths do still occur. Even the UN supports a plant based diet due to the obvious damage an omnivorous diet causes to our environment(land, water, and air). The UN also supports a plant based diet as it is the only sustainable diet for our current and growing population. No vegetarian or vegan supports monoculture. We seek to educate the public. Every veg I know supports organic farming. I think what you perceive as arrogance coming from vegetarians is an intense idealism most of us were born with. Our importance may seem exaggerated to you but I assure you it's not. My view point is based on 20 years of research.
ReplyDeleteThank you for reading my blog post. I very much appreciate your comment.
DeleteI would not say that vegetarians save no lives, although I doubt the 100 a year figure takes into account the pests that are sacrificed to safeguard the veg, fruit and grains a vegetarian or vegan eats. Organic farming has to deal with pests too. They just use different methods and rely less on chemical pesticides. I grew up on an organic micro-farm and I can tell you with certainty: either the rabbits, slugs and a wide variety of other creatures had free rain on the land OR we had a harvest. You will not have both – you cannot.
While I admire the strength of your convictions, I am not an idealist myself. I like to believe I am a pragmatist. And when I see a vegetarian and meat-eater sitting side by side at a table, I will not immediately assume the vegetarian's life will have less of an impact on the environment. Because it is possible that the vegetarian has two children and the person eating meat has none. I think we will both agree which of these two people is likely to be more environmentally-friendly in the long run.
As we will agree that our impact on the environment is a vital issue – not least because of rapidly growing human population. And it is a very important debate to have. The more people researching the topic and having well-informed views the better off humankind will be.
http://www.peta.org/b/thepetafiles/archive/2010/12/13/vegans-save-185-animals-a-year.aspx Thank you for the pleasantries. It's actually 198 animals for vegans which I am. I haven't had the pleasure of working on an organic farm. I wasn't aware of rabbit casualties. A vegan friend of mine rescues them. Despite the mainly insect casualties you can't throw the baby out with the bath water. I have saved 24,000 animal lives so far and I continue to save lives every time I pick up a fork. I cannot count how many countless insect lives I've saved over the years by watching my feet and fishing them out of water. I have no children. Even if I did my children would be vegan and thus have a negligible impact on the environment. http://www.vegetariantimes.com/article/the-environmental-impact-of-a-meat-based-diet/ I agree the more information we have the better off we all are.
ReplyDeleteDo you really truly believe you have a 'negligible impact on the environment'? I find that pretty extraordinary - the land cultivated each year to provide your vegan food, the place you live in, the fuel and all the perishable goods you use during a lifetime, no mater how they are produced - they are going to take up resources. And their production will require a lot of physical space from which many other species will be excluded. I understand from what you've written that you are making efforts to minimise your impact on the environment, but 'negligible'? Come on.
DeleteRegarding the lives you've saved - Do you rescue predatory creatures a well? I happen to remember taking a praying mantis out of my parent's house last summer. Will you hold me accountable for all the insects that mantis ate for the rest of its life?
Negligible refers to the quantities so small that they can be ignored when studying the larger effect. I think the effect is so large that the quantities that remain are negligible. I think that is a fair assessment. I will gladly supply you info graphics on how little negative impact a vegan has on the environment. I eat vegan, I recycle, I ride a bike, I'm very conscious about the utilities I use, and many people I speak to decide to go veg. The only ways I could leave less of a carbon footprint are already part of my goals which include having a complete organic non-GMO garden (I already have some of my garden)that I rely mainly on that for food. I would also like to live of the grid as soon as I can afford it. I love mantises. I've saved many my self. I certainly wouldn't blame any predatory animal for it's behavior. I don't see lions setting up factory farms to raise their zebras for consumption.
ReplyDeleteYou are doing a lot and probably as much as anyone possibly could. I confess I tend not to trust simple graphs very much in this particular instance. It would take a hugely complex model with lots of inter-linked variables to estimate individual people's demands on the environment. My own opinion – and this is probably going to surprise you - is that current consumption is only the second biggest headache humankind has. The first one is population growth. And the worst thing about it is that there isn't enough awareness of the danger. I think the gravity of this is beyond anything most people can imagine. A few years ago I read a book called System Dynamics. It had a chapter about population dynamics and it opened my eyes to the fact that populations grow and decay exponentially. The drama is that humans have an extremely poor intuitive understanding of exponential growth. Except for trained mathematicians, everyone taking a guess on it always pictures it as linear. I don't know if maths is one of you interests - you may in any case remember exponential curves. A curve like that has a point where it turns sharply - a very gentle slope suddenly changes its angle to a steep vertical. This is the dynamic population growth follows. I have a strong hunch that there will be a crisis before humankind even becomes aware of the problem. There are over 7 billion of us now, there are probably going to be 8 billion of us by 2024. Where is the arable land going to come from to feed all of us in another half century? Even if we all turn vegan there is simply not going to be enough planet to feed us. This might sound absurd, but in a way I think consumption at this point in time is not such a bad thing, precisely because it will precipitate the crisis. The sooner we have the crisis and open our eyes, the better (It's a bit like diagnosing a cancer earlier and I don't think the comparison is over-dramatic). On the other hand if we cut consumption to the bare minimum now, while we keep multiplying at the same rate, when the moment of truth finally dawns on us, there won't be any scope for more thriftiness – our back will already be at the wall. I hope this makes sense – I'm trying to keep it short (she says, having written a half-a-page-long comment).
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