I mentioned in a previous post that the next great social change arising from ever-heightened empathy might be an end to the mass killing of large animals for food. A reader contributed the following, off-line:
Mr. D.: Removing “mass slaughter of large animals for food” leaves us with replacement protein sources of
1) vat-grown meat (technologically a ways off, and unproven in terms of taste and completeness of nutrition – animals that have led happy, active lives just taste better than the ones living in the same box their whole lives; that needs to be figured out before vat meat will be a workable alternative)
2) mass-produced eggs and/or dairy products (probably as morally objectionable as mass slaughter)
3) beans and similar plant protein substitutes
The type of person who argues that killing animals is morally wrong will probably also argue that a switch to vegetarianism or veganism is the only way out. To which I respond with two points.
First, vegans tend to be distinctly unhealthy. The human body simply is not designed to subsist on plants alone. We are designed to eat meat. That’s just the way we are. Moral objections to this are equivalent to morally objecting to continued existence, and arguing that suicide is preferable to existence at that cost. Those who have the moral strength to take the highest road here will merely remove themselves from the playing field.
Second, one of the less-reported phenomena of modern living in recent decades has been an increase in certain digestive system disorders, such as Crohn’s or celiac disease. According to the most recent research trends on this subject that I’ve seen, this appears to be allergic type reactions brought on by a lack of exposure to worm parasites that were once common – an excess of good health. In my case, and that of my father (we aren’t 100% sure that it’s genetically linked but there seems a good chance) it takes the form of an intolerance for digesting any seed or product made using seed-derived ingredients, whatsoever. This rules out bread, beans, chocolate, wheat extract, vanilla, beer, coffee, pepper, corn syrup, that annatto-derived orange dye in American cheese, and a vast multitude of other modern industrial food products.
This intolerance appeared around the age of 30 for both my father and I, so we’re familiar with the delights of pizza and chocolate. The physiological effects it produces are unpleasant enough that as much as I love chocolate, I can lean over and smell a fine Swiss dark chocolate and know with crystal clarity how it would taste and not be tempted in the least to try eating it. Dad didn’t die before figuring out what was going on, but it was a close-run thing (the doctors were totally lost).
In other words, anyone who tries to convince me to switch to vegan protein sources is literally trying to kill me. Some corners, you don’t want to back people in to, no matter how enlightened your intentions.
Meat eating is going to be with humanity for a while, and one size fits all solutions for anything never work.
On the plus side, I do all my own cooking, and I’m doubtless healthier for it.
Why make a teleological argument for the verifiable empirical claim that “vegans tend to be distinctly unhealthy”? Evidence please.
Well, it’s anecdotal, but having lived for many years in Austin Texas I’ve known my share of vegetarians and vegans. I was vegetarian for five years. ALL the vegans I knew were very unhealthy, though they constantly reminded you (whether you wanted to hear it or not) that they were the only truly healthy folk around. They tended to be runway-model thin, gaunt, and tired all the time. One had her baby on a vegan diet. The last I heard the child was taken by Child Protective Services, but I don’t know why.
I always assumed that being a vegan wasn’t INHERENTLY unhealthy, but rather, that the young people I knew just weren’t doing it the right way. After all, young people tend to muck a lot of things up. But it’s worth pondering whether the human animal can live a healthy life on such a diet.
Here’s a start. But I assume you can google and search as well as I. Why don’t you give it a try?
http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/uncategorized/veganed-to-death/
I don’t care overmuch about the substance of this guy’s argument one way or the other, but I had to chuckle when I read his first objection. Anyone else find it odd that, on the SECULAR Right website, someone asserted that humans are or aren’t “designed” to do this or that?
@Handsome Dan
Evolution *is* a design process, albeit an unguided and inefficient one. Hence the “The Blind Watchmaker”.
So no, his assertion isn’t really that odd at all.
The American Dietetic Association (not in any way a vegan activist group) published a position paper stating that “[i]t is the position of The American Dietetic Association (ADA) that appropriately planned vegetarian diets are healthful, are nutritionally adequate, and provide health benefits in the prevention and treatment of certain diseases.”
Source: http://www.eatright.org/cps/rde/xchg/ada/hs.xsl/advocacy_933_ENU_HTML.htm
So the commenter’s first point is groundless. While you may have known unhealthy vegans, (a) anecdotes are not data, and (b) knowing an unhealthy vegan doesn’t demonstrate anything inherent about veganism, any more than knowing an unhealthy omnivore proves anything inherent about eating meat.
In addition, the commenter seems to begin by attacking the idea that there may be an ethical argument (the initial argument made by Bradlaugh) for the cessation of meat consumption and then never tries to argue on moral or ethical grounds that Bradlaugh’s assertions were unsupportable.
He goes on to engage in some serious special pleading and introduces his own personal and seemingly wholly physiological argument against vegetarianism.
The argument about the social and moral considerations of modern farming practices are a fascinating subject, and while there are many vegan/vegetarian activists to whom no other outcome but complete vegetarian conversion is acceptable, you will find many mainstream advocates of placing limitations on animal-derived foods for both moral and ecological reasons.
Please, make moral arguments to moral questions!
The question is not whether most vegans tend to be unhealthy, but whether it is possible to be a healthy vegan, and it certainly is. I was a vegan for a spell, and I knew many, and some were in excellent physical and mental shape, including two Professors of medicine(!)
I can certainly believe that some vegans are unhealthy on account of their diet, because there are certain things which need to be taken care of, and it requires some thought. But presumably, in a vegan future society, everyone would know how to do that. (Vegans today are a tiny and, frankly, slightly eccentric minority).
As for people who for medical reasons can’t stomach a vegan diet, well, that’s different and exceptions need to be made. But to take that as an argument against veganism or vegetarianism as a general policy is like saying that because some people really like hot weather, we shouldn’t worry about global warming.
Finally, a topical note and nothing to do with food – the abolition of animal farming would all-but eliminate the risk of a catastrophic zoonotic epidemic such as hybrid influenza; the 1918 flu pandemic is believed to have originated on an American farm thanks to the close proximity of humans, fowl and pigs, all carriers of different strains of the flu virus; more recently, it is thanks to some lucky accident of biology that the Nipah virus is something you haven’t heard of rather than something that you died of in 1999. If the virus were more readily transmitted between humans, it would not have been a pretty sight.