Let Them Eat Meat

"What unmitigated, speciesist nonsense."

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 15:02:17 -0500

“What unmitigated, speciesist nonsense.”

- Gary L. Francione

Is Veganism "The Next Logical Step"?

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 09:10:00 -0500

When I went from vegetarian to vegan, I often told people that “Going vegan was the next logical step.” I guess I visualized meat-abstaining life to be a two-stepped staircase. Once I was on that first lacto-ovo step, what was I going to do, just stare stupidly at that second vegan step forever?

Apparently, I’m not the only one who visualized ever-increasing dietary restrictions as a logical, linear path to finding meaning in the universe…

Helsinki910: One of my good friends became a vegetarian in January (new year’s resolution) and today she sent me a facebook message saying she wants to be vegan! I told her how great that was and asked how she came to this decision and she said: ‘well, i just think it’s the next logical step’

designedtobekind: When I first switched to veganism, some people in my family wondered why, but I just told them it was the next logical step for me.

greenkiwi: I was veggie for 10 years. I guess I always knew that veganism was the next logical step to take.

Steve: Raid was always a band that promoted vegetarianism. Shortly after our demo was released the band all became vegan. It seemed like the next logical step.

riotxofxwords: I was a pretty strict vegetarian prior to aspiring to veganism, so the transition was so gradual it was almost unnoticeable. It just seemed like the next logical step.

Arktoi: My brother’s girlfirend and I got to talking about Mad Cowboy and being vegetarian and how veganism was obviously the next logical step.

Scarlet: Over the past few weeks I’ve strongly been considering becoming vegan. I’m already a vegetarian so becoming vegan is the next logical step. My food intake is so limited anyway I really doubt it will make any drastic impact.

Emily223: If you became vegetarian for ethical reasons, becoming vegan is the next logical step.

The Red Star: I was and have always been very strict but i have only been vegan for just over a year. It took me that long to realise i was vegetarian and the next logical step was to become vegan. After all, vegetarians are just vegans in waiting!

Nicole at Vegan Body Builders: I was already a vegetarian since about age 14 and veganism just seemed like the next logical step.

The Occidental Weekly: A lot of the vegans on campus were vegetarians first and then became vegan because it was “the next logical step.”

Marcel: Meat is not necessary for healthy living — in fact, it’s quite the contrary — and the most logical step for me was to stop eating meat. One year later I informed myself about veganism and found it to be the most cruelty-free lifestyle. So the next logical step for me was to turn vegan.

Rose Elliot: Indeed, numerous other studies have come up with similar findings that there are huge health benefits to be gained by becoming vegetarian and then taking the next logical step and becoming vegan.

Nick From Columbus: There are benefits outside of the health benefits here too, such as not murdering millions of defenseless animals. But cutting all animal products from my diet seems like the next logical step once I’ve mastered vegetarianism.

Being Vegan: When people are drawn to vegetarianism for nonaltruistic purposes, such as improving their health, it is often hard for them to understand or appreciate what motivates others to veganism… Conversely, when people choose vegetarianism for reasons outside themselves, they are able to view veganism as the next logical step.

ShawnT: For educated people who are truly against animal cruelty and become vegetarians, veganism is simply the next logical step.

For The Birds: These are the folks we need to focus on most, it seems. As they may already be in a place where veganism is the next logical step.

Moochbabe: It seems like whenever someone starts to make a change for the better, they want to continue the change all the way. When I was little, I didn’t even understand vegetarianism, let alone veganism. Then I started eating less meat, and then made the transition to no meat/flesh. From there it just seemed like the next logical step to go vegan.

The Tropical Vegan: Theresa is a PhD student, studying Aboriginal activism and social movements. Veganism was the next logical step in her critique of capitalism and exploitation.

Resurgence, Volumes 5-7: Tyson hopes that his newly converted lacto-ovo vegetarians will feel able to take the next logical step and abstain from animal products altogether.

monperebabar: I’ve been a vegetarian for three years and decided to make the next logical step. As of right now, I’ve just finished a tidy little shopping excursion full of quinoa, sesame oil, tofu, falafel, couscous and earth balance!

Ruby Rose: Like many of us, you’ll look back soon enough and wonder why on earth you stayed veggie so long without taking the next logical step!

Bryan: Now that [Lisa Simpson] has been vegetarian for a few years, it would make sense to have her go vegan. Since Lisa is a “compassionate” character, this is only the next logical step.

Kamaniya: VEGETARIANS, PLEASE TAKE NOTE: … Please take the next logical step & GO VEGAN!

Don’t think this doesn’t apply to you too, world. The staircase of logic doesn’t end with one small step for vegan (wo)man…

Codebug: A vegan world is the next logical step for mankind.

Vegan Quote of the Day

Mon, 08 Mar 2010 17:25:54 -0500

Sniveling Child: I find that almost offensive that you compare a woman who chooses to end a fetus’s life out of some need to someone who eats a clam. What good reason could someone possibly have to “need” to eat a clam?

Interview With an Ex-Vegan: Elise Kendall

Mon, 08 Mar 2010 14:42:00 -0500

Elise Kendall was born into a vegetarian family. She was lacto-ovo vegetarian for most of her life, vegan for two years, then vegetarian again, and now an omnivore for the past year and a half. You can read her blog entry about it here.

Not to be confused with here, which is where you’re about to read her ex-vegan interview.

Some vegans think that being raised vegetarian or vegan is the best thing that can happen to a person. Having tested that theory out, do you agree?

I have never grown up eating more typical food, so I am not sure “what it was like growing up” that way. If I ever do, then I will report back and compare!

I lived in a very hippy/new-age sort of town and I went to a Waldorf School there. Honestly I don’t think I often thought (when I was growing up) about not hurting animals. It was just the food that my family ate. As I grew older I felt proud that I was vegetarian and that I always had been, although I never felt like it made me better than people who weren’t.

Did you ever resent the restrictions or feel alienated?

I didn’t feel like I was forced into it, because I wasn’t. My parents had split up by this point and they’d both left the Transcendental Meditation movement that they’d been involved in when we lived in Sydney.

I’m not sure exactly when my mum started eating meat again but for pretty much my whole life she would have ham or chicken if we went out for dinner, although she didn’t cook it at home. I did try chicken a couple of times when we came down to visit my Grandma. They gave me chicken breast and it was really gross. I may have tried other meats at other times and it was always really disgusting. I just started off vegetarian and was convinced that I hated meat.

I didn’t feel alienated at all because, going to the school I did in the town I did, being vegetarian was pretty normal. It wasn’t like my diet was the most restrictive — there was one girl who was not allowed any refined sugar at all. She used to steal my sandwiches out of my schoolbag because she was so hungry and jealous of my delicious jam or Vegemite sandwiches. I’d actually class my diet as being one of the less restrictive! There were a lot of kids who were sugar-free or wheat-free on top of being vegetarian or vegan.

A Vegemite sandwich? Only bread and Vegemite?

Just Vegemite and bread. Delicious! Vegemite sandwiches are very common and not at all restricted to vegetarians. In fact, the more hippie kids would not eat Vegemite and my sandwich-stealing friend was not allowed Vegemite or wheat bread. She had miso on rye bread instead, which is not nearly as delicious.

Did you ever know of any vegetarian or vegan kids to trade for meat from the meat eating kids?

I think it was probably fairly common. We used to have soup days where the class would all get together and make soup. There was ordinarily one vegetarian soup and one chicken soup - then we just ate whichever soup we wanted to! I am pretty sure that our dietary restrictions were much more important to the parents than to the kids.

Every vegan parent’s worst nightmare. Did being raised vegetarian instill those veggie values into you more strongly, or were you less committed because you were born into the beliefs and didn’t choose them yourself?

Looking back and looking at myself now, I think that I am not a very committed person. I don’t have that… fervency. I am someone who seeks comfort in familiarity and routine, but I am not a believer in anything and I don’t think I’m the sort of person who becomes one.

Some people seem to go from fanatical Christianity (for example) to fanatical anti-religion atheism… I’m not sure that it’s possible for me to get that worked up about something, or that committed to a cause. I have always been able to understand multiple sides of a problem and all through my life when people are fighting around me, I really don’t get why they don’t see what the other person is trying to say.

I could never be an activist because I would sympathise too much with ‘the enemy,’ I think.

Have there been any reactions to your veg*an betrayal?

I was talking to someone recently and I mentioned something about how I used to be vegetarian, and he asked what made me decide to “go back to” meat. I said it wasn’t “going back to” so much as “going to” and he remarked that becoming an omnivore after being vegetarian from birth was very unusual. I have no idea how unusual it actually is but people’s attitudes seem to be that they can grok why someone who used to eat meat would want to go back to it… but someone who had always been vegetarian wouldn’t have a reason to start eating meat.

The few early encounters you had with meat weren’t very promising. What was your reason to start eating meat?

Well I’d been thinking for a long time that introducing a bit of meat into my diet might be a good idea for health reasons. I wished I could eat meat, but felt like I couldn’t because I always just found the thought of eating meat to be really really gross. It’s the flesh of a dead thing. That was why I became vegan - not because I thought that it made any real difference to the world, but because when I thought about where milk and eggs came from… EWWW! But veganism proper was pretty unsustainable for me. I just couldn’t get enough protein for my needs and had to go back to eggs and dairy. So I just kind of suppressed that disgust, I guess.

I began to suspect that beans and lentils were triggering my abdominal pain. I had absolutely no desire to eat tofu (which didn’t seem to trigger me as badly for some reason) three times a day, and I don’t really like dairy products very much. I enjoy cheese a lot, but I really didn’t want it to become my major protein source!

My boyfriend refused to eat tofu at all, which made things slightly inconvenient. There was some talk of having tofu for dinner one night, and I teased him about avoiding tofu for no good reason. “I’ll eat steak if you eat tofu,” I challenged him, and I was totally thrown when he agreed immediately and happily put away a large bowl of tofu hours later. He even enjoyed it and now has no problem eating tofu! I think until that point I didn’t realise how inconvenient he found the fact that I refused to eat meat. So we went out to a steakhouse and I got the vegetarian meal (and tried some of his steak!).

How was it?

I pretty much just had one bite. I don’t think that the experience of actually eating meat was mind-blowingly good or anything, but I was optimistic about it getting better once I did it a few more times.

From that point on I made a conscious effort to try to learn to like meat. I ate small amounts at a time. It didn’t taste bad, like I’d remembered from childhood, but it just didn’t seem like something you should be eating. I would be sitting there chewing and it was like eating some kind of deliciously flavoured and textured cardboard or paper or something.

But after a few months of practice, meat started to taste like food and I was able to cut down on the beans. My stomach is still causing problems, but I really notice it if I eat beans and lentils (which is a shame, because they are delicious!). I’ve also recently been placed on a fructose-free diet which seems to be helping. I’d really hate to be wheat-, onion- and fruit-free if I was also trying to be vegetarian or vegan! And if I was trying to do that while minimising my legume intake? Yeah.

Then meat exceeded the low expectations you had for it?

I’m not really sure what I expected, but I didn’t expect that other things I’d always hated would suddenly become palatable. I used to really hate chicken breast - even when I ate chicken I would only ever like the thigh and leg or the wing or something. After I started to like red meat, I also started to like chicken breast.

I never expected that I would be the sort of person who would really love eating a huge chunk of meat. I know a lot of people who do eat meat but they like it to be smooshed up and well cooked and disguised by other things. I’m not as disturbed as I thought I would be by just eating a big steak or something. I really love steak!

Have you had any memorable encounters with vegans as an ex-vegan?

Well my housemate’s friend’s girlfriend’s vegan social group were at a vegetarian pizza place, which is just around the corner from my house. So we went down there to say hello and while I was waiting for my pizza there was a guy there who, ah, made it clear that he would like to get to know me a little better. When he discovered that I was no longer vegetarian it became obvious to me that he divided the world up neatly into three groups of people:

1. Vegans.
2. People who don’t care (ie, Bad People).
3. People who don’t know any better.

Unfortunately for him I didn’t fit into any of these categories so he did his best to re-convert me to veganism, lest his psyche shatter. He kept trying to “find a solution” for me which did not involve me eating meat. “Have you tried…” he kept trying to ask me. I found it really difficult to express to him the fact that eating meat was just one of many MANY things that I have tried and that it seemed to be working pretty well.

I also went to a vegan pancake event recently and had a similar conversation. I tend to easily get into conversations with vegans talking about veganism … just talking about what fake cheeses taste the least awful and what vegan restaurants are any good. Then I feel like I have to come clean when they ask “so how long have you been vegan?”

These people were less rude about it but it was obvious that they had never considered that someone may not be able to be vegan for health reasons. The vegan = healthy connection is just so strong that they had difficulty comprehending it and were pretty dumbfounded.

Do you think something could be physically bad for us — veganism, say — yet still be the right thing to do?

I have difficulty believing in absolutely right and wrong things for everyone. For me, my health and physical comfort (ie, not being in pain or having an upset stomach all of the time) is a very high priority. Maybe other people find that ethical discomfort is more painful to them than physical discomfort.

Like a lot of veg*ans do, you blamed yourself for issues like not having the stamina to exercise or being sleepy all the time. Why is it that vegans prefer to blame something inevitable about themselves rather than something they can change, like their diet?

I think that part of it is a reaction to the attitude that a lot of people have, which is to blame all of a veg*an person’s problems on their diet. Whenever I went to see a doctor and mentioned that I was veg*an, they’d immediately pounce and look at my eyes and my fingernails and then, almost disappointed, would remark “oh you’re not anemic”. Like that would be an easy answer for whatever ailment I happened to be expressing.

And I don’t want to be like those doctors and put every problem I ever had before the age of 25 down to the lack of meat in my diet. I am pretty sure things are not that simple! My grandmother has never been vegetarian and she has chronic digestion problems the same as I do, for example. Meat hasn’t been a cure-all for me at all.

Even though every doctor I ever saw wanted to blame all of my problems on my diet, after the blood tests came back, they overwhelmingly told me that my diet was NOT the problem and that I ought to be perfectly healthy. Even when I told them that I was open to the possibility of introducing meat into my diet, I was always told that it was not necessary.

But for the first time in my life, now that I eat red meat about 3 times a week, I have low iron. Like really low. I have had to take iron supplements which I’d never had to take before. So I am pretty sure that our bodies are super complicated and we really don’t know everything.

Is there anything you miss about veg*anism?

One thing that I did miss, which is very silly, was that when I was veg*an I rarely had to make a decision about what to eat when I went out to a strange restaurant. Because there would be so little to choose from! “Luckily” I’m now on a different set of diet restrictions (low fructose) so I’m back to having that problem!

I never really got into any veg*an social groups or anything that I’m now excluded from. It turns out that everyone I live with was vegetarian at some point and none of us are now. So we enjoy eating vegetarian food pretty regularly. We generally eat meat 2-3 times per week at home.

So really it’s all been gains! I’m hoping that my stomach will get better enough that I can relax my fructose-free a bit when I go out. It really is fantastic to be able to leave the “special dietary requirements” field blank on wedding invitations!

Living Vegan: “The monk in the picture saved those cows from...

Mon, 08 Mar 2010 14:03:08 -0500

Living Vegan: “The monk in the picture saved those cows from slaughter. And after he saved their lives, this was what one grateful cow did. I think this is more than sufficient to show that animals do not just behave instinctively, have no emotion, and are meant to be meat and milk machines to serve us. No doubt some people do not even have gratitude like this cow.”

Vegans React: UK Anti-Discrimination Law May Treat Veganism as Religion

Mon, 08 Mar 2010 12:45:00 -0500

Is veganism a religion? Adherents.com categorizes it as such. And at least one vegan has sued for religious anti-discrimination protection. But as Vegan Outreach explains, this is a line that vegans must walk carefully:

Because “religion” is a sort of trump card in areas of law, under certain circumstances, it could prove beneficial to have the courts and government respect veganism as a religion. However, in the interest of promoting veganism to the public, we believe the animals are best served by avoiding the label of religion.

So a proposed interpretation of an anti-discrimination law in the UK that would include vegans naturally has drawn divided reactions from the online veg community:

voiceofraisin: There’s a new Equality Bill under discussion in the UK. At issue is whether veganism, and belief in climate change, and non-belief in God, are worthy of protection under the law. Lurking in the background is the question of whether such beliefs can be equated with religious belief for legal purposes.

I’ve never had any trouble playing both sides of the fence where the “religion?” issue is concerned. When vegan-hostile people say that veganism is (or is like) a religion or cult, I think they’re generally full of poo. On the other hand, I do find it inconsistent that some people who would respect the religious-based dietary needs of guests in their home (who serves a ham to someone they know keeps kosher?) don’t respect the practices of their vegan friends.

Lizzo: Considering how I’m treated at restaurants by shitty servers just because I’m vegan, yeah, I say it’s worth a shot.

semiautomatic: If veganism is a religion, then it’s the only one I’ll choose. And if there’s a legislation protecting me from discrimination, I’ll take that, too.

Gelert: This is a bad day for veganism, when it’s mentioned in the same breath as Scientology and Harriet Harman.

Heather Mills: She’s obviously thought this very much through, that people have contacted the government and said they feel discriminated against. You know religions are covered and true Buddhists are vegan. So does that mean the Buddhists are going to be fine and they have the rights? Why does someone not have the right not to harm an animal?

Vegan.com: This strikes me as unnecessary bordering on silly, but perhaps there’s merit to this effort. I’d love to see specific examples of discrimination suffered by vegans in the UK.

MrFalafel: This is great and all, but in the 11 years I’ve been vegan in the UK I have never once encountered any discrimination at all. Maybe a few light-hearted jokes over a pint but nothing serious in the slightest.

aubade: Personally, I can easily see parallels between veganism and religion. I think this is especially true of the variants of veganism that consider ANY use of ANY animal at all completely out of the question, even if it doesn’t hurt them — like feeding worms scraps for vericomposting, or picking up sunbleached shells on the beach and putting them on a necklace, both views I’ve seen espoused here.

That seems to be very much based on a fundamental set of beliefs - basically the opposite of the other religious philosophy, that God gave Man dominion over nature to use as he sees fit. I think pretty much everyone agrees that dominion over nature is a religious belief, so I don’t see why the opposite wouldn’t be also.

I do consider my veganism if not a religious, definitely a spiritual belief - it goes part and parcel with my philosophy of nonviolence that I should be as harmless as possible on this earth. I definitely consider it a matter of conscience that I follow devotedly. The only reason I wouldn’t call it a religion is because to me, that implies something organized - whereas I just made my own philosophy from my own experiences and what I’ve read of other religions, so I think that is more “spiritual”. But all of the definitions on dictionary.com don’t really make that distinction, so I guess it could be considered my own personal religion.

UserNumber42: Has anyone ever been discriminated against at work because they were vegan? (Other than when it comes time to order lunch.)

The Daily Vegan Spin: You shouldn’t get fired for being vegan. … Laws that protect people from discrimination based on their beliefs should extend to all beliefs— not just those that were born thousands of years ago. Strange how rights are doled out so slowly over time. Maybe someday there will be some left over for the other animals in this world.

leedsveg: Where the government view on veganism falls down is exactly to do with belief. I can and do think, as a vegan, that ‘being compassionate to animals and not causing them suffering’ is the ethical way to live, but it’s not something that I can actually prove. In other words, it’s a belief.

Similarly, if I am a religious person, I can say that ‘thousands of years ago, God (a supernatural being) gave a series of messages to certain individuals on the ethical way to live, and although there’s nothing provable, I now follow the guidance of those passed down messages.

So how come two groups can both have unprovable, sincere ethical beliefs but followers of a religion get protection against discrimination, and we, as vegans, don’t? All seems a bit discriminatory to me.

harpy: It could be quite useful in contexts like ensuring vegans are properly fed in hospitals and in care homes.

World Vegetarian and Vegan News: If anything, vegans have even more conviction, dedication and focus on their philosophy than many other followers of beliefs. Vegans would suffer the same if not more emotional distress as any member of a religious group if they were punished for their beliefs. Veganism is more altruistic too — there’s no dangling carrot of heaven or vahalla or threat of hell if you don’t adhere.

If you’re Jewish and eat prawn and bacon sandwiches and work on the Sabbath, you’re still Jewish. If you are Catholic and wear condoms, commit adultery, eat bacon on Fridays, kill and maim people and work on a Sabbath, you are still a Catholic. You can’t eat bacon sandwiches any day of the week and still be a vegan! (unless it’s Redwood’s cheatin’ bacon.)

It’s quite right that human rights and anti discrimination law should protect a group who are dedicated to selflessly trying to protect people, animals and the environment.

Mollfie: A big positive to me is that veganism is being recognized as an actual belief and not just something silly or weird that people choose to do. It’s being viewed as something serious, and those who chose to be vegan should be taken seriously.

michelleg: I think this is great. I always find it odd when people try to insult veganism by comparing it to religion. Yes, and? It’s a belief system that helps organize my life, helps me understand my place in the universe, is a code of ethics for my behavior, a source of community…this sounds like the best of religion.

Customer: Does this honey baked ham contain real honey? Employee: Yes, it’s a honey glaze. Customer:...

Sun, 07 Mar 2010 17:01:58 -0500

Customer: Does this honey baked ham contain real honey?

Employee: Yes, it’s a honey glaze.

Customer: Oh, I won’t get it then. It was for my daughter, she’s vegan. She can’t have honey, as she doesn’t believe in eating any animal products.

— The Customer is Not Always Right

As long as humans keep “loving one [dogs & cats] and...

Sun, 07 Mar 2010 15:08:01 -0500

As long as humans keep “loving one [dogs & cats] and eating the other [farm animals],” the “other” will stop at nothing to fool us into loving them too. As The Daily Mail tells it, this chicken was so desperate to save her own hide that she concocted what is sure to go down as one of the most hair-brained schemes of the 21st century — pretending to be a dog!

Well played, ma’am, well played.

The irony is that the owners always wanted to keep this chicken as a pet anyway and never intended to slaughter her, so Chicken Little here is betraying her own species and making a fool of herself for nothing.

"Food is so many things: it is vital to life, it is a source of nourishment and of pleasure as well..."

Sun, 07 Mar 2010 09:39:01 -0500

“Food is so many things: it is vital to life, it is a source of nourishment and of pleasure as well as an outlet for creativity. It fosters cultural identity and comforts those far from home. But no matter how ethical it may be, or how many antioxidants it contains, it will not save us. When we season our food with dogma and self-righteousness, we give it an unhealthy power over our ability to rationally consider its already vital place in our lives. If what you eat has become your religion, take care to serve up your message peacefully and palatably.”

- grist.org

Lunch with the FT: Jonathan Safran Foer

Sat, 06 Mar 2010 12:20:20 -0500

Lunch with the FT: Jonathan Safran Foer:

Kind of a hilarious description of a journalist’s lunch with the author of Eating Animals. Culled from the vegansaurus link-o-rama.

Vegan Quote of the Day

Sat, 06 Mar 2010 12:15:37 -0500

Provoked: Tomorrow is my best friend’s birthday. Tradition: Every year we go out to eat - her husband/mine/me. I was vegetarian for a long while but now as vegan - I doubt seriously there’s much on my plate at all. Compound this with my husband who is now vegetarian AND her husband on this low/no carb atkins diet. What a pickle, huh? At this point, with what I now know (which made me vegan), I don’t think I could stomach watching someone consume flesh - it’s just gross. Any suggestions?

ahisma: Saw this one too late … how’d it go?

Provoked: I have procrastinated to embarrassment. I emailed a happy birthday, I called - but nothing else. I have a card/gift that I intend to drop over tomorrow. I’ve really blown this one. I am what I do not eat: chicken.

Why Eating Meat-Shaped Vegetarian Food Is Like Having Sex with a Blow-up Doll

Sat, 06 Mar 2010 10:31:48 -0500

Why Eating Meat-Shaped Vegetarian Food Is Like Having Sex with a Blow-up Doll:

I found this through Soul Veggie. Based on the title, I thought it would just be a rant against mock meats, but it’s actually an interesting and well-researched article. I particularly liked its take on growing up vegetarian:

As the Analogue Epoch rolls into its second generation, more and more babies are being born into meatless households. They grow up never having tasted the stuff, their memory banks lacking all trace of that particular bloody crunch, those opalescent beads of fat, those glistening tubules, those hot fluids that feel almost alive. They do not share with nearly their entire species, dating back into prehistory, those happy-birthday hamburgers and Mom’s meatloaf and fresh-fish cookouts coded to condition us to crave and cherish flesh. These creatures of a true new age know not the dinner-table surgery that entails shearing skin and fat from flesh and flesh from bone and shell, the rib-holding hand rendered lustrously, shirt-spoilingly greasy.

Are Humans Carnivores, Omnivores or Herbivores?

Sat, 06 Mar 2010 09:34:00 -0500

I’m going to estimate that at least a slim majority of vegans believe humans are omnivores. Obviously that doesn’t mean they think that humans must eat animal products along with plants. Just because humans can eat meat doesn’t mean they should. Carnivores have no choice — they have to be blood-thirsty, evil bastards to survive. Omnivores on the other hand can get away with acting like herbivores because our bodies make due with whatever we toss in ‘em.

There’s a flaw in this logic, though. If the omnivorous nature of humans allows us to be pure vegetarians without a hitch, then humans could exploit that flexibility in the other direction and just as easily be pure carnivores. Yet almost no vegans believe that a human can be carnivorous healthfully.

Coming to the rescue are vegans who argue that humans are in fact herbivores. According to this assertion, vegans aren’t taking advantage of the plasticity of human dietary needs; rather, they’re observing the true and natural human diet. This vegan subset feels it’s a better bet to frame veganism as a physiological requirement. If you allow meat eaters the choice of whether or not to keep eating meat, most of them will choose incorrectly. It’s more effective to argue that not only should we not eat animal products, we cannot.

To make their points, “humans are herbivores” vegans compose charts comparing human traits to the characteristics of established carnivores and herbivores (omnivorism is dismissed as a mildly modified carnivorism in such charts). These charts always conclude that humans are obviously herbivores.

Here’s an example on GoVeg.com. Here’s an elaboration by Dr. Milton Mills.

GoVeg links to a supporting article by John Robbins. Robbins gave up the Baskin Robbins fortune to advocate veganism, so you better believe he’s going to take the hard line approach. He points out how difficult it would be for a human to tackle a deer and bite its head off. Then he quotes nutrition author Harvey Diamond as saying, “You put a baby in a crib with an apple and a rabbit. If it eats the rabbit and plays with the apple, I’ll buy you a new car.” Incidentally, Harvey Diamond later repudiated vegetarianism.

Also referenced on the GoVeg.com page is Dr. William C. Roberts, M.D., editor of the American Journal of Cardiology:

[A]lthough we think we are one and we act as if we are one, human beings are not natural carnivores. When we kill animals to eat them, they end up killing us because their flesh, which contains cholesterol and saturated fat, was never intended for human beings, who are natural herbivores.

Chilling stuff. But check out this sneaky little equivocation from Dr. Roberts:

Question to Dr. Roberts: “Are human beings herbivores, carnivores, or omnivores?” Answer from Dr. Roberts: “Although most of us conduct our lives as omnivores, in that we eat flesh as well as vegetables and fruits, human beings have characteristics of herbivores, not carnivores.”

Did you catch that switcheroo? Because that’s often how “humans are herbivores” vegans address the question of omnivorism. They don’t address the question — they substitute “carnivore” for “omnivore” and hope you don’t notice.

Now he’s an interesting bit of gossip for you. I know someone who used to work at Baylor Heart & Vascular Hospital, where Dr. Roberts still works, and he thought he saw Dr. Roberts eating chicken there. “Doesn’t he talk about how humans are herbivores?,” my source asked a co-worker. “Yes, but he eats fish and chicken,” the co-worker was rumored to say. Does Dr. Roberts not care that the saturated fat and cholesterol in that flesh is killing his gentle herbivorous body?! And if not, doesn’t he care that he’s frightening people away from foods that he enjoys regularly?

Still, a vegetarian leader not following his own advice doesn’t make us omnivores. If humans are herbivores and thus unable to properly digest animal products, I’ll have to clarify that the “Them” in my blog name refers to actual carnivores and omnivores, not omnivore pretenders like humans. But I don’t want to have to do that. So I decided to create my own chart that would prove humans were at least omnivores and were maybe even carnivores.

Unfortunately, reality is not a clay to be molded any which way I like. During my research, as I increasingly encountered inconvenient facts and figures contradicting everything I had set out to prove, the bitter ex-vegan devil on my shoulder whispered, “Who cares if you’re wrong?! You have to crush veganism at any cost! You must destroy those who strive for compassion over violence! If you have to lie to do that, then lie your fucking head off, man!”

But guess what? I shooed that anti-vegan devil away. I am a truth seeker — even if that means admitting that everything I have ever said, thought or done is 100 percent incorrect. This wasn’t easy for me. But for the sake of intellectual honesty, I present my “Are Humans Carnivores, Omnivores or Herbivores?” chart.

Let’s start by comparing humans to the typical carnivore…

CELL STRUCTURE
CARNIVORE: Rigid cell wall, non-motile, chloroplasts, plasmodesmata.
HUMAN: Soft cell wall, motile, lysosomes, centrioles, flagella.

AVERAGE WEIGHT
CARNIVORE: 3 lb., including pot and dirt.
HUMAN: 170 lb., including clothes.

NUMBER OF STOMACHS
CARNIVORE: Zero.
HUMAN: One.

METHOD OF REPRODUCTION
CARNIVORE: Seed.
HUMAN: Doing “it.”

SKIN TEXTURE
CARNIVORE: Leafy.
HUMAN: Fleshy.

LAND OF ORIGIN
CARNIVORE: North and South Carolina.
HUMAN: Africa.

MAIN PROTEIN SOURCE
CARNIVORE: Insects.
HUMAN: Gardein Home Style Beefless Tips.

ADDITIONAL ENERGY SOURCE
CARNIVORE: The sun.
HUMAN: Amy’s Non-Dairy Rice Crust Cheeze Pizza.

DIGESTION TIME
CARNIVORE: 10 days.
HUMAN: 2 days.

LENGTH OF INTESTINES
CARNIVORE: Not applicable.
HUMAN: 28 feet.

SOURCE OF CHOLESTEROL
CARNIVORE: Flies.
HUMAN: Self-produced.

COLON CANCER AND/OR HEART ATTACK RISK FROM ALL-MEAT DIET
CARNIVORE: No colon or heart to attack.
HUMAN: With both a colon and a heart, risks to these organs may exist.

POPULATION IN 1992
CARNIVORE: 35,800.
HUMAN: 5.5 billion.

MEANS OF COMMUNICATION
CARNIVORE: Intricate network of underground root and chemical connections.
HUMAN: Language.

GUILTY CONSCIENCE FROM EATING SENTIENT CREATURES?
CARNIVORE: Never.
HUMAN: Sometimes.

NUMBER OF HEADS
CARNIVORE: Often seven or more.
HUMAN: One.

MEANS OF TRANSPORTATION
CARNIVORE: Swaying in breeze.
HUMAN: Legs.

BODY OR STEM?
CARNIVORE: Stem.
HUMAN: Body.

If humans are indeed carnivores, then, we must look something like this:

Does that seem right to you? Are we carnivores? Before you give me your final answer, let’s see if humans can find a little more common ground with one of nature’s most notorious omnivores:

What a disgraceful creature. But are these miserable omnivorous scavengers anything like humans?

AVERAGE WEIGHT
OMNIVORE: One third of a pound.
HUMAN: 170 lb.

METHOD OF REPRODUCTION
OMNIVORE: Laying eggs.
HUMAN: “The nasty.”

ABILITY TO STALK PREY FROM AIR AND SWOOP DOWN FOR A SURPRISE ATTACK
OMNIVORE: Able.
HUMAN: Unable.

LAND OF ORIGIN
OMNIVORE: Asia.
HUMAN: Africa.

MOUTH TYPE
OMNIVORE: Sharp beak for biting carrion.
HUMAN: Soft lips for nibbling fruit.

FAVORITE HORSE-RELATED ACTIVITY
OMNIVORE: Eating horses on the beach.
HUMAN: Riding horses on the beach.

SIZE OF INTESTINES
OMNIVORE: A few inches at best.
HUMAN: 28 feet. Not inches. Feet.

METHOD OF OPENING NUTS
OMNIVORE: Dropping nuts in the street and waiting for cars to run over them.
HUMAN: Purchasing unshelled nuts.

AWARENESS THAT ONE ANIMAL SHOULD NOT EAT ANOTHER ANIMAL
OMNIVORE: Seemingly unaware.
HUMAN: Sometimes aware.

FAVORITE MOVIE
OMNIVORE: The Crow.
HUMAN: The Shawshank Redemption.

FAVORITE EDGAR ALLEN POE STORY
OMNIVORE: The Raven.
HUMAN: The Tell-Tale Heart.

FAVORITE FABLE
OMNIVORE: The Crow and the Pitcher.
HUMAN: The Little Mermaid.

MEANS OF FLIGHT
OMNIVORE: God-given wings.
HUMAN: Fossil fuel raped from mother earth.

APPENDAGES
OMNIVORE: Sharp claws for ripping and tearing flesh.
HUMAN: Soft hands for gently picking fruit.

So it seems that if humans were omnivores, this is what we’d look like:

You still think humans are omnivores, Mr. Michael “I try to eat humane meat but I’ll eat factory farmed meat if it’s more convenient” Pollan? Wait, don’t say anything yet! We still have to examine the most moral, distinguished and civilized of the groups… the herbivores:

AVERAGE WEIGHT
HERBIVORE: 170 kg.
HUMAN: 170 lb.

LANGUAGE
HERBIVORE: Sign language.
HUMAN: Sign language, et al.

BLOOD TYPE
HERBIVORE: B.
HUMAN: B and some others.

LAND OF ORIGIN
HERBIVORE: AFRICA.
HUMAN: AFRICA.

REPRODUCTION
HERBIVORE: “The wild thing.”
HUMAN: “The wild thing.”

FETAL GESTATION TIME
HERBIVORE: 8 1/2 months.
HUMAN: Around 8 1/2 months.

FAMILY ACTIVITY
HERBIVORE: A day in at the zoo.
HUMAN: A day out at the zoo.

DISTINCTIVE DENTAL FEATURES
HERBIVORE: Sharp canine teeth that are not for eating meat.
HUMAN: Sharp canine teeth that are not for eating meat.

NUMBER OF HEADS
HERBIVORE: One.
HUMAN: One.

INTESTINE SIZES
HERBIVORE: Small and large intestine.
HUMAN: Small and large intestine.

OTHER SIGNIFICANT BODY PARTS
HERBIVORE: Legs, arms, lungs, fingers, eyes, one brain and one heart.
HUMAN: Legs, arms, lungs, fingers, eyes, one brain and one heart.

Putting all that together, this is what we might expect a human herbivore to look like:

So which is it? Are humans carnivores, omnivores or herbivores?

Well, the evidence is all there. The rest is for you to decide.

"Why I Will Not Advocate Vegetarianism"

Thu, 04 Mar 2010 10:23:28 -0500

"Why I Will Not Advocate Vegetarianism":

A vegan blogger spells out why lacto-ovo vegetarianism is a worthless compromise that is, at best, equivalent to “part-time murder or part-time child abuse. … Thinking that shuffling out this or that animal product is ‘enough’ is like telling onself that it’s alright to beat the hell out of one’s child on Tuesdays as long as one refrains from doing so the rest of the week.”

There’s nothing new here if you’re familiar with vegan arguments against flesh-abstaining vegetarians who still have a taste for animal secretions, but for anyone who didn’t realize that vegans have such a problem with their butter-licking cousins, this is a good primer.

"This sucks massively: the New York Times just published an article glamorizing condensed milk. It’s..."

Wed, 03 Mar 2010 23:19:05 -0500

“This sucks massively: the New York Times just published an article glamorizing condensed milk. It’s as if everything learned over the past twenty years about healthful and sustainable eating has gone out the window.”

- Vegan.com

I didn’t watch “Paleo Man” John Durant’s...

Wed, 03 Mar 2010 23:15:48 -0500

I didn’t watch “Paleo Man” John Durant’s appearance on The Colbert Report. Well, I started to, but the first few words out of his mouth rubbed me the wrong way, so I stopped. Him representing the Paleo diet was threatening to turn me vegan again. But I liked this skit with him vs. the vegan guy. I think it helped that there’s no talking.

"I became a vegetarian because someone from Vegan Outreach came to my college campus and leafletted...."

Wed, 03 Mar 2010 17:10:00 -0500

“I became a vegetarian because someone from Vegan Outreach came to my college campus and leafletted. I’m really grateful they were there that day and that someone paid to have that booklet printed. It changed my life.”

- Vegan Outreach infomercial

How Being Vegan is Like Being Pro-Life

Wed, 03 Mar 2010 14:14:00 -0500

In my ex-vegan interview with Stella today, she compares vegan ideology to pro-life ideology:

If you truly believe that killing animals (or even “exploiting” animals for their eggs, say) is categorically wrong, then you must speak or act against it. A parallel would be the way in which religious anti-abortion activists believe that a human zygote or fetus, at any stage, is morally a human being and it is therefore wrong to injure, hurt, or kill said zygote or fetus (a belief very few vegans seem to share, interestingly). Since they believe all forms of abortion are ethically equivalent to murder, they must speak and act against it.

This reminded me of my ex-vegan interview with Cory Kilduff. Cory said he quit doing vegan activism when he recognized how similar his anti-fur protest was to an anti-abortion protest across the street.

Vegans are stereotypically civil libertarians who support choice when it involves women and their fetuses, yet vegan arguments perfectly parallel anti-abortion ones when you substitute “animal” for “fetus.”

As Cory’s protest comparison emphasizes, both anti-meat and anti-abortion protesters rely on bloody, gruesome imagery to turn stomachs and change minds. These plays upon emotion are supposedly fair tactics because they are just images from real life. If you can’t stand the sight of a decapitated cow/aborted late-term fetus, then how do you justify eating meat/having an abortion?

To pro-lifers, abortion is never necessary because there are alternatives, like putting the child up for adoption. To vegans, animal products are never necessary because there are alternatives… like wheat gluten.

Pro-life activists give a voice to the voiceless fetuses, who have a right to life and feel pain. Animal activists give a voice to the voiceless animals, who have a right to life and feel pain.

Some pro-lifers cheer the death of abortion doctors. Some vegans cheer the death of hunters or famous meat advocates like Dr. Atkins.

Pro-lifers contemptuously look down on women who who have abortions, calling them immoral for killing out of mere “convenience.” Vegans contemptuously look down on meat eaters, calling them immoral for killing to satisfy lowly “taste preferences.”

Pro-lifers argue that a fetus is not the mother’s property, that it has inherent worth and is an end unto itself. Vegans argue that animals are nobody’s property, that they have inherent worth and are ends unto themselves.

To pro-lifers, the only excuse for aborting a fetus is if the mother’s life is at stake. To vegans, the only excuse for killing an animal is in self-defense or to avoid immediate starvation.

Some pro-lifers compare abortion to the holocaust. Some vegans compare factory farming to the holocaust.

The “My body, my choice” counterpoint to pro-life arguments is the same as the omnivorous retort to veganism — “My body, my menu choices.” The pro-life/vegan answer to both of these arguments is the same: screw your body, what about the other creature’s body that you’re killing?

“Our bodies are more important,” say abortion and meat pro-choicers. But vegans and pro-lifers disagree. The moral status of these respective beings (non-human animals, fetuses) is equal to that of humans and so we should treat them as such. You wouldn’t abort your best friend or eat your mother, would you? Then you better not abort that innocent fetus/eat that innocent cow.

A very funny song about vegan boys from a vegansaurus!...

Wed, 03 Mar 2010 12:39:18 -0500

A very funny song about vegan boys from a vegansaurus! contributor.

"One approach Julie’s been having success with is to focus on how much her family has in common with..."

Wed, 03 Mar 2010 12:11:00 -0500

“One approach Julie’s been having success with is to focus on how much her family has in common with non-veg family and friends. As she puts it, her son ‘was ecstatic when he figured out that ‘‘cow people’’ can eat vegan food too, that grandpa can eat tofu and beans just like we can.’ Julie finds that various ‘course corrections’ are helpful: ‘We still get some pushback from him; he’ll say that he hates people who ‘‘are cow.’’ We’ve had a lot of talks about how he doesn’t hate grandma; he loves grandma and wishes that grandma was vegan like he is.’”

- Vegan Children, Meaty World