I've been a vegan now for about four years. I started partly to protest the victory of Donald Trump, and just to see if I could do it. It hasn't been too hard for me because I've never been much of meat eater (my mother told me that I used to spit out meat when I was a baby). And while sometimes I have backslid into just being a vegetarian (I had to have pizza while visiting New York!), it really hasn't been that hard for me.
There has never been an easier time to be vegan. Just about every grocery store has numerous non dairy milks to choose from, along with vegan cheese, butter, etc. And vegan restaurants are common in big cities (Portland Oregon has some really good ones), and many eateries have vegan options. The ingenuity of vegan chefs is really very impressive, with vegan dishes that taste like mac and cheese or meat loaf using some clever substitutes. And if you google the words "vegan recipe for-" you will see a long list of possibilities.
Now understand, I do not expect most people to be vegan or vegetarian, and I do not consider myself superior to meat eaters. It's just a personal decision I've made. And I'm not an animal rights radical; I'm okay with some animal research (like on cancer and alzheimer's), and everytime I hear some nimrod like Morrissey compare eating meat to the Holocaust I want to scream as much as anybody. I also realize that human beings have evolved to be omnivores, so eating meat is natural. And it's really hard for men to give up meat, probably because thousands of years ago it was men who did most of the hunting and killing. (A recent study found that men often feel a sense of calmness just by looking at a pile of meat!).
But all that said, I don't think that it's unreasonable to say that most Americans eat too much meat. According to the pew research center, the average American now eats roughly 193 pounds of beef, pork and/or chicken a year, which ties us with Australia for having the highest meat consumption in the world. According to Forbes, this is about double the amount needed to be healthy. In the days before covid 19, the number one cause of death in America was heart disease, a condition often linked to high meat consumption. And recently, the World Health Organization found that high processed meat consumption leads to an increased chance of contracting bowel cancer. So, without being hectoring or lecturing, I think it's reasonable to suggest that people in this country should cut down on meat, or least try to choose fish more, which is a healthier choice.
I also think that it's reasonable to look at the conditions of the animals in the slaughterhouses. The often brutal treatment of pigs, (who are at least as smart as dogs) cows and chickens has been well documented in secret videos leaked onto the internet. If we are going to eat animals, shouldn't we at least make their lives comfortable before killing them, instead of crowding them together and mistreating them? And then there are the humans who work in the slaughterhouses. Working in such an industry is one the hardest jobs in America. The person who debones chicken meat on an assembly line, for example, is forced to slice into the meat with a sharp knife over and over, risking a bad cut (or even a missing finger) everytime. And the constant repetitive motions needed to cut the meat can over time result in repetitive stress disorder. Regulating the meat industry to slow down the assembly lines to increase worker safety makes sense.
Now, the downside of making slaughterhouses a better place for both the animals and the workers is that the cost of meat would go up. But, as I just pointed out, Americans are already eating too much meat. Would making meat a little more expensive be such a bad thing? It would make meat a little special, and therefore reduce the amount of its consumption. Which is all I'm talking about. Only around three percent of Americans describe themselves as vegan or vegetarian, so I know I'm fighting an uphill, battle, but in the past few decades Americans have drastically reduced their consumption of tobacco, partly because we've raised the price of tobacco products. Why can't we at least try to do the same with meat?
No comments:
Post a Comment