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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: The ethics of Vegetarianism
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Gracious rebel
Rainbow warrior
# 3523
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Posted
Had a discussion at home yesterday where I came to realise that other people see things vastly differently to myself. It all started with an advert for Quorn products on TV.
Now I enjoy Quorn. I am not a vegetarian, but I have vegetarian sympathies, appreciate that there are many reasons why people may choose to be vegetarian, many of which I can appreciate. The main reasons I can think of (in no particular order) are
- ethical objections to animals being killed for food
- health reasons
- don't like the taste/texture
- Environmental concerns about wasteful food production methods (the argument that it takes far more grain to feed an animal to produce meat than to feed a human directly)
My argument was that a product like Quorn fulfills a useful purpose for people who are vegetarian by conviction (probably due to reason 1 on my list, but may be other reasons too apart from 3) but who do like the taste of meat - why should they not be allowed to eat something they enjoy, without upsetting their ethical standards.
This was met by incredulity by others, who strongly felt that if someone is a vegetarian it is immoral for them to eat anything that looks like/tastes like meat. (or tries to).
Maybe Quorn is more for people like myself who DO eat meat but like to have more veggie food in their diet? If its designed to appeal to vegetarians, what are the moral implications of eating something that tries to mimic something that one is opposed to? I cannot see the problem myself, but other people felt so strongly that this was wrong, that I thought I would see what people here thought.
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Posts: 4413 | From: Suffolk UK | Registered: Nov 2002
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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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Posted
I'm a vegetarian, but I'm not sure if my vegetarianism has developped into a full-blown ethical system. I don't eat much Quorn, it would be hard to get by in Brazil anyway. I do eat these flaky soy protein things, but they don't look or taste like meat very much.
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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)
Posts: 9474 | From: Brazil / Africa | Registered: Aug 2002
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South Coast Kevin
Shipmate
# 16130
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gracious rebel:
Maybe Quorn is more for people like myself who DO eat meat but like to have more veggie food in their diet? If its designed to appeal to vegetarians, what are the moral implications of eating something that tries to mimic something that one is opposed to? I cannot see the problem myself, but other people felt so strongly that this was wrong, that I thought I would see what people here thought.
Eating Quorn and the like is immoral because it looks and tastes like meat? What kind of silliness is that?! I agree with you completely, Gracious rebel; if people are morally opposed to eating meat then Quorn is a great alternative, both for them and for others who might be cooking for them.
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My blog - wondering about Christianity in the 21st century, chess, music, politics and other bits and bobs.
Posts: 3309 | From: The south coast (of England) | Registered: Jan 2011
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Ad Orientem
Shipmate
# 17574
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Posted
Well, it does seem a little odd. My incredulity would be directed at those who call themselves vegetarian but continue to eat fish.
Posts: 2606 | From: Finland | Registered: Feb 2013
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South Coast Kevin
Shipmate
# 16130
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ad Orientem:
Well, it does seem a little odd. My incredulity would be directed at those who call themselves vegetarian but continue to eat fish.
Ah, I'm one of those! I usually describe myself as 'a vegetarian who also eats fish' because not that many people know the word pescetarian.
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Posts: 3309 | From: The south coast (of England) | Registered: Jan 2011
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gracious rebel:
This was met by incredulity by others, who strongly felt that if someone is a vegetarian it is immoral for them to eat anything that looks like/tastes like meat. (or tries to).
I don't see why. Surely the point of ethical vegetarianism is to not eat meat. Quorn isn't meat, even if it tastes like it (a disputed point IMO - I can't stand the stuff!). Therefore Quorn is perfectly fine for a vegetarian, even an ethical one.
It seems to me that some of the people you were speaking to have confused an ethical aversion to eating meat with an ascetical avoidance of meat for the purposes of self-denial or self-discipline. In the latter case eating a meat substitute might be seen to be "cheating", but otherwise objecting to it doesn't make a lick of sense.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Heavenly Anarchist
Shipmate
# 13313
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Posted
Quorn is a mycoprotein produced from a fungus. Sold plain it looks like chunks of chicken and is very easy to adapt with flavours but you can buy it in ready meals.
I was vegetarian throughout my 20s. I seldom ate meat substitutes but if I did Quorn would be the one of choice as it tastes far better than soya based ones, IMO. I certainly wouldn't have objected to others eating it, that seems silly to me, surely anything that promotes less eating of meat would be encouraged.
[ 02. January 2014, 12:40: Message edited by: Heavenly Anarchist ]
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Jack the Lass
Ship's airhead
# 3415
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Posted
The Silent Acolyte: this is Quorn. Basically a high-protein vegetarian food. It is packaged in meaty styles - fillets, mince etc.
Sometime Quorn-eating veggie checking in. I'm not sure there's a particular moral dimension to it at all for me - I eat it because I need more protein in my diet and it's not meat. I happen to quite like it, and don't think it tastes particularly like meat (one of the main reasons I stopped eating meat in the first place was because, apart from chicken, I didn't really like the stuff). So if there is a moral dimension I suppose that's how I get round it, by seeing it as a source of something rather than a substitute - it's not like any meat I ever did eat so I definitely don't see it in terms of being a substitute, but rather as a source of protein.
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Posts: 5767 | From: the land of the deep-fried Mars Bar | Registered: Oct 2002
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
Quorn is an interesting one. I've eaten it, but don't bother now, mostly because it also contains gluten and whey proteins, and I read labels to avoid those. It also uses egg albumen, so it's not vegan and it doesn't preclude some of the not so great animal production methods*. It advertises itself as using mycoproteins, so protein derived from fungi, which is a futuristic idea.
Milk production requires calves to be born. The male calves will become veal, beef or food for big cats at the local zoo.
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
Posts: 13794 | From: outiside the outer ring road | Registered: Aug 2006
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Heavenly Anarchist
Shipmate
# 13313
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
It advertises itself as using mycoproteins, so protein derived from fungi, which is a futuristic idea.
I watched 1970s Doctor Who 'The Green Death' recently and my reaction to the rebel scientist's invention was 'that's Quorn' ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
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Posts: 2831 | From: Trumpington | Registered: Jan 2008
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Firenze
Ordinary decent pagan
# 619
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Posted
Reminds me if a Vegan I was dining with once who sent back the dessert - the raspberry coulis looked too bloody.
I am of the opinion such people don't actually know what food is. They consume some sort of conspicuous signifier of their identity. So of course it matters whether the thing looks the part or not.
They're not alone in this: there are plenty of other varieties of food snobbery - eg sourcing ('I only ever eat artisanal pasta handmade by a Ligurian nonna from organically-grown wheat ground between millstones of Cimerian basalt. By moonlight.)
Posts: 17302 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Jun 2001
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Grokesx
Shipmate
# 17221
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Posted
quote:
This was met by incredulity by others, who strongly felt that if someone is a vegetarian it is immoral for them to eat anything that looks like/tastes like meat. (or tries to).
I'd be interested to know whether it was veggies or non veggies expressing these opinions. I'm a lapsed veggie and came across this a lot from non veggies who were eager to lecture me on what my ethics and tastes should have been.
Mind you, some veggies can be insufferably priggish on the subject and I was probably one of them.
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For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. H. L. Mencken
Posts: 373 | From: Derby, UK | Registered: Jul 2012
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Og, King of Bashan
Ship's giant Amorite
# 9562
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Posted
I don't see the ethical issue here. You aren't eating meat. I suspect that what you are eating won't taste as good as meat, but if you need something that is close enough for your tastes to satisfy cravings or to feel like you have eaten a full meal, from an ethical standpoint, I think you are in the clear.
That said, it isn't that hard to get your protein from foods that were not created by people in lab coats apparently pumping pure oxygen and glucose into sterile environments to grow a particular kind of fungus that then has to be treated to remove RNA so as not to cause gout, which is sort of how it sounds like they make Quorn. A lot of people in countries south of here who can only afford chicken from time to time get most of their protein from beans and cornmeal. I am not a nutritionist, but if you believe what people say about the importance of eating natural, unprocessed food, I might find a more natural way to get my protein.
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"I like to eat crawfish and drink beer. That's despair?" ― Walker Percy
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Pine Marten
Shipmate
# 11068
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Posted
Mr Marten and I (both ex-veggies) eat quite a lot of Quorn, especially the mince which I much prefer to lamb or beef mince now.
We do eat meat, but are careful to choose free-range or organic meat, never that from confined or factory-farmed animals. I don't now have a problem with meat-eating per se, and the humane treatment of animals is a big reason for our choices.
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Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead. - Oscar Wilde
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Heavenly Anarchist
Shipmate
# 13313
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Pine Marten:
We do eat meat, but are careful to choose free-range or organic meat, never that from confined or factory-farmed animals. I don't now have a problem with meat-eating per se, and the humane treatment of animals is a big reason for our choices.
That is my current situation too, we even eat our own grown chickens on occasion. I still eat lots of veggie food though, often lentil based.
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moonlitdoor
Shipmate
# 11707
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Posted
I don't normally eat quorn because it's very expensive but I don't mind eating soya mince and am not sure what ethical principle it might break.
I don't eat meat for two reasons, one because I feel uncomfortable that animals have to die on my account and prefer to keep their numbers to a minimum, and two because I think producing meat is an ineffective way of utilising the world's resources and makes it harder to produce enough food for everyone. Eating meat lookalikes doesn't clash with either of those ideas.
I also don't use leather or eat food with gelatine in it - ought my shoes to look completely different from leather shoes ? Should I not eat things that have been set with other gelling agents ?
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Posts: 2210 | From: london | Registered: Aug 2006
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Pomona
Shipmate
# 17175
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Posted
I'm not vegetarian but my mum is and eats Quorn/other faux meat regularly. She's veggie because she doesn't like meat, the faux meat doesn't taste like meat to her at all and is there to provide protein and some heft to the meal.
I believe some very strict Hindu vegetarians avoid red vegetables like beetroot because the juice resembles blood.
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Consider the work of God: Who is able to straighten what he has bent? [Ecclesiastes 7:13]
Posts: 5319 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2012
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Gracious rebel
Rainbow warrior
# 3523
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Grokesx:
quote:
This was met by incredulity by others, who strongly felt that if someone is a vegetarian it is immoral for them to eat anything that looks like/tastes like meat. (or tries to).
I'd be interested to know whether it was veggies or non veggies expressing these opinions. I'm a lapsed veggie and came across this a lot from non veggies who were eager to lecture me on what my ethics and tastes should have been.
Mind you, some veggies can be insufferably priggish on the subject and I was probably one of them.
Well these people are definitely not veggies, far from it! When I mentioned the ecological argument (scarcity of world food resources) for vegetarianism, they said they had never heard that before, and that if was the reason to change someone's behaviour about what they ate, they also should behave ecologically in every other aspect of life as well, no half measures. This seems unduly harsh to me, as I believe that every little bit helps.
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Doublethink.
Ship's Foolwise Unperson
# 1984
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Posted
I suppose if you don't eat meat because of the world resource issues, you might want to check how much resource it takes to produce quorn per kilo. But otherwise I don't see the problem.
I think your friends may be confusing vegetarianism with a penitential fast, in which case going to extraordinary lengths to make your deprivations less irksome would undermine the enterprise.
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All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome. George Orwell
Posts: 19219 | From: Erehwon | Registered: Aug 2005
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
IMHO vegetarianism as it currently manifests itself poses a very fundamental issue for Christians, which most of the time we aren't aware of or are too polite to mention. I also realise that what follows may upset some people.
ISTM that it is OK for a Christian to be a vegetarian for genuine medical reasons, because they don't like the taste, or even, as someone once said to me, 'because I don't like eating my friends'. However, being vegetarian because one believes that it is more ethical or because of a belief that not eating red meat, any meat or any other food item will somehow cause one to be a better, cleaner or more wholesome person, is not open to a Christian. It is to fail to understand quite what a revolutionary statement Jesus was making at Mk 17:14-23.
Not just Judaism, but most other religions, before then or since, have had a strong sense that there are foods that are taboo, that eating them pollutes, and that abstaining from them makes one holy. The prevalence of these ideas implies that they are deeply rooted in the human psyche. Those of us that have grown up in Christian or post-Christian secular cultures just do not appreciate how revolutionary a statement Jesus was making when he said that all foods are clean, that it's what comes out of the human heart that defiles, not what goes into the human stomach.
A widespread motivator for people taking up vegetarian, vegan, macrobiotic or even many slimming diets, whether for simple dietary reasons or because of the collateral implications for the planet, is that somehow it will make one a better, more wholesome person, i.e. the secular equivalent of being more holy without actually having to admit to or mention religion.
Also, of course, however difficult or inconvenient it might be to eat a restricted diet, that effort can disguise from one how much more difficult it would be to change one's heart, to eschew not just the twelve horrible evils Jesus mentions, but even their lesser companions.
So I'd say it's entirely OK to eat Quorn, or any other vegetarian food. I'd also class it as fasting food. But it's no more OK to be a vegetarian for reasons of conviction, than it would be to fast every day and all the time.
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Posts: 7610 | From: Bristol UK(was European Green Capital 2015, now Ljubljana) | Registered: Nov 2008
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Heavenly Anarchist
Shipmate
# 13313
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Posted
I did not become a vegetarian because I believed I should not eat meat, I believe that God gave us a responsibility to be good stewards to the earth and that animal welfare is part of this. However, other Christians choose not to eat meat for other reasons, as is their right. I have never met any vegetarian Christian who thought their decision not to eat meat in any way made them holier than meat eaters, or were not consuming meat because it was 'unclean'.
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Posts: 2831 | From: Trumpington | Registered: Jan 2008
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Grokesx
Shipmate
# 17221
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Posted
quote:
and that if was the reason to change someone's behaviour about what they ate, they also should behave ecologically in every other aspect of life as well, no half measures.
I used to get that sort of thing all the time. "But you wear leather shoes..." was a popular complaint. I'm not sure my hypocritical footwear choice was the important issue, though. I reckon it's the hating in others what we most fear in ourselves thing. My daughter is a veggie for much the same reasons as I was at her age and I find myself getting irritated with her on occasion. "Come on, there's only a tiny bit of animal rennet in that pesto, what difference could it make? You're being unreasonable making me prepare separate dishes..."
I'm not angry at her, of course. Well, I am, but only because she is living how part of me thinks I should still be living and I don't like being reminded of it.
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For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. H. L. Mencken
Posts: 373 | From: Derby, UK | Registered: Jul 2012
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Gee D
Shipmate
# 13815
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gracious rebel:
My argument was that a product like Quorn fulfills a useful purpose for people who are vegetarian by conviction (probably due to reason 1 on my list, but may be other reasons too apart from 3) but who do like the taste of meat - why should they not be allowed to eat something they enjoy, without upsetting their ethical standards..
If people eat quorn because they want to be vegetarian but like the taste of meat, they must have been eating pretty awful meat. Eating quorn is a sort of penance; we tried it a few times 30 or so years ago, and it was dreadful - no real texture and an off taste.
And Firenze, you forgot to add that the pasta has to have been picked by Chinese virgins underwater, then carried across the burning desert sands on the thighs of dusky Nubian slaves.
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Not every Anglican in Sydney is Sydney Anglican
Posts: 7028 | From: Warrawee NSW Australia | Registered: Jun 2008
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LutheranChik
Shipmate
# 9826
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Posted
The OP reminds me of reading, several years ago, about a rabbi who argued that it was wrong for the faithful to eat Tofutti (a soy-based frozen dessert) with a meat meal because even if it is vegan, it is designed to taste/feel/look like ice cream...so in a way it's doing a sneaky end run around the Jewish dietary laws. I'm guessing, though, that this is a minority opinion, and a rather tortuous legalistic stretch.
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Simul iustus et peccator
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Posts: 6462 | From: rural Michigan, USA | Registered: Jul 2005
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The Machine Elf
Irregular polytope
# 1622
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Posted
As a biblical imperative, vegetarianism for me is closer to the example of Noah rather than the food prohibitions of the OT. Noah was the first human given permission to eat meat because he saved the animals from the flood. I don't see that level of compassion in industrial farming or fishing - no-one's standing against the masses to preserve the species. Jesus did fulfil the law, but did not require us to lose compassion. I have gone vegan for fasts, but that's a temporary choice to go without a good thing (cheese) rather than anything to do with ethics or mercy.
TME
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Elves of any kind are strange folk.
Posts: 1298 | From: the edge of the deep green sea | Registered: Oct 2001
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Gee D
Shipmate
# 13815
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by LutheranChik:
The OP reminds me of reading, several years ago, about a rabbi who argued that it was wrong for the faithful to eat Tofutti (a soy-based frozen dessert) with a meat meal because even if it is vegan, it is designed to taste/feel/look like ice cream...so in a way it's doing a sneaky end run around the Jewish dietary laws. I'm guessing, though, that this is a minority opinion, and a rather tortuous legalistic stretch.
Was he opposed to smoked salmon and pastrami then?
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Not every Anglican in Sydney is Sydney Anglican
Posts: 7028 | From: Warrawee NSW Australia | Registered: Jun 2008
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LutheranChik
Shipmate
# 9826
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Posted
I'd assume he'd be against pastrami topped with cheese or washed down with a glass of milk. (I don't know if fish counts as a meat when it comes to the no-dairy-with-meat restriction.)
His reasoning would seem to be that a kosher Tofutti eater is really, deep, deep down, longing for a forbidden food; therefore, even though Tofutti is technically non-dairy, in this instance the diner is wishing for dairy, and his/her desire thus makes the Tofutti indistinguishable from dairy, from a moral standpoint.
Again, I think that's a stretch. I often eat plant-based meals, but I'm not a full-time vegetarian for many reasons, one of which is a matter of taste; it's hard to find foods with the savory/umami flavor profile and texture I enjoy when I eat meat. When I do come across a vegetarian food that provides these palate-pleasing qualities, my thought isn't, "Oh, this is just like meat," but "Oh, this tastes good." So I don't think that someone trying to keep kosher is congratulating himself/herself for cheating on the Jewish dietary code by enjoying non-dairy ice cream with a meat meal.
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Simul iustus et peccator
http://www.lutheranchiklworddiary.blogspot.com
Posts: 6462 | From: rural Michigan, USA | Registered: Jul 2005
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Kaplan Corday
Shipmate
# 16119
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ad Orientem:
Well, it does seem a little odd. My incredulity would be directed at those who call themselves vegetarian but continue to eat fish.
I am not a vegetarian, though I often feel I should be, and might be one day.
My beef (pun intended) about fish is the pleasure which is taken in deliberately prolonging the suffering of the creature before it dies, particularly in the case of so-called “game fishing”.
If anyone treated an animal of similar size and nervous system, such as a cat or small dog, in the same way – ie hid a barbed hook attached to a line in some food, and then “played” the animal when the hook was stuck in its mouth or throat before drowning it - they would be not only prosecuted but vilified.
At least in Western countries, every effort is made to make sure that animals killed for food in slaughterhouses are dispatched as quickly and painlessly as possible, and even hunters aim at a clean kill with a single shot.
Posts: 3355 | Registered: Jan 2011
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
Where I live the plant growing season is less than 100 days a year. The ideas of eating local and vegetarian would restrict diet to lentils, dried peas and grains, all cooked in canola oil. Therefore we eat domestic animals, mostly raised on local grain and hay put up for winter, and animals we kill ourselves.
What I am saying is that ethics re food also depends on where you live.
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Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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Pomona
Shipmate
# 17175
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet:
Where I live the plant growing season is less than 100 days a year. The ideas of eating local and vegetarian would restrict diet to lentils, dried peas and grains, all cooked in canola oil. Therefore we eat domestic animals, mostly raised on local grain and hay put up for winter, and animals we kill ourselves.
What I am saying is that ethics re food also depends on where you live.
Absolutely. Wild game is often a very ethical meat to consume, because hunting them is a way of pest control - eg deer and rabbit in the UK, and kangaroo in Australia. Far more ethical than say, quinoa, which is the native food of Bolivian people but has been co-opted by many who are 'ethical' eaters - so many Bolivians cannot afford their native food anymore.
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Consider the work of God: Who is able to straighten what he has bent? [Ecclesiastes 7:13]
Posts: 5319 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2012
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
I find it interesting that ethical vegetarians don't have a problem with dairy products.
Milk production requires pregnant or lactating cows, so calves. Bull calves become veal or beef, or if there's a local wildlife park, lion food. Only one bull is needed a herd, if the farmer keeps their own and doesn't get the sperm from the local AI centre. Female calves can be (but aren't always) kept to restock the dairy herd and continue the cycle.
I'm in the don't really like the taste of meat camp, so don't eat much meat. But having grown up in farming areas I have ethical misgivings about farming methods. What meat I did eat, I made sure I knew its provenance - lots of local farms with farm shops in that area.
I went fully vegetarian for a number of years after living near what was the biggest calf market in Europe and seeing what happened to calves of a few days old every Monday. We lived next door to a dairy farm for years and were regularly kept awake by the separated cow and calf on Sunday nights before market.
Where we lived before that the farm opposite reared turkeys. But the intensive farming for any animal isn't great. I've lived near enough to see chicken and pig farming too.
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
Posts: 13794 | From: outiside the outer ring road | Registered: Aug 2006
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Grokesx:
... My daughter is a veggie for much the same reasons as I was at her age and I find myself getting irritated with her on occasion. "Come on, there's only a tiny bit of animal rennet in that pesto, what difference could it make? You're being unreasonable making me prepare separate dishes..."
Is your daughter taking this line because she's being dogmatic and expects you to fit in with her dogma, or because she believes that the tiniest bit of animal product will pollute the purity of the pesto and contaminate her, make her secularly non-kosher, if she eats it?
Either way, ISTM that this exemplifies what I said in my previous post.
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Posts: 7610 | From: Bristol UK(was European Green Capital 2015, now Ljubljana) | Registered: Nov 2008
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Badger Lady
Shipmate
# 13453
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by LutheranChik:
The OP reminds me of reading, several years ago, about a rabbi who argued that it was wrong for the faithful to eat Tofutti (a soy-based frozen dessert) with a meat meal because even if it is vegan, it is designed to taste/feel/look like ice cream...so in a way it's doing a sneaky end run around the Jewish dietary laws. I'm guessing, though, that this is a minority opinion, and a rather tortuous legalistic stretch.
Walkers Smokey Bacon flavoured crisps were (and probably still are) labelled as 'suitable for vegetarians'. I have a strict Jewish colleague in chambers who said that he would not eat these crisps for much the same reason.
Posts: 340 | From: London | Registered: Feb 2008
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Firenze
Ordinary decent pagan
# 619
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Posted
Whereas I would be disinclined to eat them on the grounds that the flavour was something produced in a laboratory and had never been within three parishes of an actual pig.
It's this thing again of food as concept vs food as actual food.
Posts: 17302 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Jun 2001
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Badger Lady:
quote:
Originally posted by LutheranChik:
The OP reminds me of reading, several years ago, about a rabbi who argued that it was wrong for the faithful to eat Tofutti (a soy-based frozen dessert) with a meat meal because even if it is vegan, it is designed to taste/feel/look like ice cream...so in a way it's doing a sneaky end run around the Jewish dietary laws. I'm guessing, though, that this is a minority opinion, and a rather tortuous legalistic stretch.
Walkers Smokey Bacon flavoured crisps were (and probably still are) labelled as 'suitable for vegetarians'. I have a strict Jewish colleague in chambers who said that he would not eat these crisps for much the same reason.
It's the ascetic approach rather than the ethical approach, as I mentioned earlier. For them, the point is not to avoid eating meat but to deny oneself the pleasure of eating meat.
It's like if someone had taken a vow of poverty but due to having millionaire family members had the ability to live in absolute luxury without ever owning a thing. Some might say that their vow was being upheld, as they never actually owned anything so were therefore poor. Others might say that such an approach may technically fulfil the wording of the vow, but is missing the point by quite a distance.
It's all about what the actual point is. Is the point of the vow to never own anything oneself, or to actually deny oneself the pleasures of a lavish lifestyle? Is the point of vegetarianism to never eat meat oneself, or to actually deny oneself the pleasures of meat eating? Is it, in short, about the thing being abstained from or about the person who does the abstaining?
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Grokesx
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# 17221
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Posted
quote:
Is your daughter taking this line because she's being dogmatic and expects you to fit in with her dogma, or because she believes that the tiniest bit of animal product will pollute the purity of the pesto and contaminate her, make her secularly non-kosher, if she eats it?
I'd ask her, but she'd probably say something like, "Take your false dichotomy and shove it up your arse."
As I said before, our reactions to such things says more about us than anything else.
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For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. H. L. Mencken
Posts: 373 | From: Derby, UK | Registered: Jul 2012
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Doublethink.
Ship's Foolwise Unperson
# 1984
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Posted
I think you have a problem if you publicly claim 'meat is murder' and then wear leather shoes. Because, clearly, you don't really believe what you are saying.
If you don't eat meat for health, resource, or taste reasons - then mostly managing to avoid it is defensible, every little helps. If it's murder, and you really believe that, then a little is not OK - in the same way a little child porn it is not OK.
What is so irritating to many of us, is that almost nobody - including teens making dramatic statements - really does believe meat is murder. You can tell this, because they do not behave in a way consistent with that belief - either in terms of meat and meat industry product avoidance or in their social conduct to those who eat meat. What you get irritated with is a) hypocrisy and b) sanctimoniousness - in the absence of both, people are less irritated and less inclined to argue the point.
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All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome. George Orwell
Posts: 19219 | From: Erehwon | Registered: Aug 2005
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Og, King of Bashan
Ship's giant Amorite
# 9562
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by Ad Orientem:
Well, it does seem a little odd. My incredulity would be directed at those who call themselves vegetarian but continue to eat fish.
I am not a vegetarian, though I often feel I should be, and might be one day.
My beef (pun intended) about fish is the pleasure which is taken in deliberately prolonging the suffering of the creature before it dies, particularly in the case of so-called “game fishing”.
And yet the game fisherman knows much better than the kid eating fish sticks that the fish he is eating was once a living creature. Speaking as someone who has spent many hours chasing trout, I can tell you that being out in nature, trying to cast the lour or fly just right, being quiet for hours, and if you are lucky, reeling in a fish, gives you a respect for the fish and their habitat that you don't get from going to your local fish and chips joint for lunch. Not to mention the fact that you are the one who actually has to stick the knife into the fish and gut it. I wonder how many people would opt out of meat altogether if they had to be the one to slaughter and butcher the cow for that cheeseburger. It is an experience meat eaters should have.
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"I like to eat crawfish and drink beer. That's despair?" ― Walker Percy
Posts: 3259 | From: Denver, Colorado, USA | Registered: May 2005
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Ad Orientem
Shipmate
# 17574
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Og, King of Bashan:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by Ad Orientem:
Well, it does seem a little odd. My incredulity would be directed at those who call themselves vegetarian but continue to eat fish.
I am not a vegetarian, though I often feel I should be, and might be one day.
My beef (pun intended) about fish is the pleasure which is taken in deliberately prolonging the suffering of the creature before it dies, particularly in the case of so-called “game fishing”.
And yet the game fisherman knows much better than the kid eating fish sticks that the fish he is eating was once a living creature. Speaking as someone who has spent many hours chasing trout, I can tell you that being out in nature, trying to cast the lour or fly just right, being quiet for hours, and if you are lucky, reeling in a fish, gives you a respect for the fish and their habitat that you don't get from going to your local fish and chips joint for lunch. Not to mention the fact that you are the one who actually has to stick the knife into the fish and gut it. I wonder how many people would opt out of meat altogether if they had to be the one to slaughter and butcher the cow for that cheeseburger. It is an experience meat eaters should have.
True. I always eat the fish I catch unless, of course, they are undersize. I would, however, question fishing purely for sport, that is, catching the fish with line and hook and then releasing. It does seem unnecessary.
Posts: 2606 | From: Finland | Registered: Feb 2013
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Jason Zarri
Apprentice
# 15248
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink:
I think you have a problem if you publicly claim 'meat is murder' and then wear leather shoes. Because, clearly, you don't really believe what you are saying.
If you don't eat meat for health, resource, or taste reasons - then mostly managing to avoid it is defensible, every little helps. If it's murder, and you really believe that, then a little is not OK - in the same way a little child porn it is not OK.
What is so irritating to many of us, is that almost nobody - including teens making dramatic statements - really does believe meat is murder. You can tell this, because they do not behave in a way consistent with that belief - either in terms of meat and meat industry product avoidance or in their social conduct to those who eat meat. What you get irritated with is a) hypocrisy and b) sanctimoniousness - in the absence of both, people are less irritated and less inclined to argue the point.
I'm a vegetarian, and I don't think meat is murder. But I'm still a vegetarian for ethical reasons--because of resources, sure, but primarily because of the horrible ways that animals are treated on factory farms. I don't think that animals have moral value in the same way that persons do, but I still think their lives are valuable and that they ought not to be mistreated. What bothers me isn't the fact that they are killed (though the *manner* in which many of them are killed is bad, and that *does* bother me), but how they are made to suffer throughout their lives. So I think an intermediate position is possible. If one can really be assured that some meat (or other animal products) came from animals that were raised and killed in a humane way, I don't have a problem with it. It's just that I think such assurance is very rare in practice.
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Check out the free studying resource Open Source Study Notes, where anyone can contribute their study notes: http://www.scholardarity.com/?page_id=1942
Posts: 19 | Registered: Oct 2009
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Doublethink.
Ship's Foolwise Unperson
# 1984
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Posted
Yes, that seems fair - but - if you insist on ethical meat, I'd expect you to insist on ethical animal products also (including leather).
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All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome. George Orwell
Posts: 19219 | From: Erehwon | Registered: Aug 2005
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Og, King of Bashan:
I wonder how many people would opt out of meat altogether if they had to be the one to slaughter and butcher the cow for that cheeseburger. It is an experience meat eaters should have.
This makes a nice sound byte, I believe Gandhi had a similar quote. But it denies how humans work. The reason urban dwellers can be squeamish is lack of exposure, not a fundamental issue of our nature.
The same reason Colorado would not be a good place to locate a restaurant serving dog.
I believe that meat eater should spend time with the animals they eat. See the worst conditions in which they live and the worst of the allowable food handling in the processing of the meat. This might encourage them to push for better treatment of the animals and better standards in the food processing industries.
Or maybe not. I doubt the employees of factory farms and slaughterhouses are largely vegetarian.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Og, King of Bashan
Ship's giant Amorite
# 9562
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Posted
quote:
But it denies how humans work.
Huh?
I don't really see the difference between what you are proposing and what I am proposing.
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"I like to eat crawfish and drink beer. That's despair?" ― Walker Percy
Posts: 3259 | From: Denver, Colorado, USA | Registered: May 2005
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Grokesx
Shipmate
# 17221
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Posted
quote:
Yes, that seems fair - but - if you insist on ethical meat, I'd expect you to insist on ethical animal products also (including leather).
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The essence of being human is that one does not seek perfection, except from them veggies of course - George Orwell
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For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. H. L. Mencken
Posts: 373 | From: Derby, UK | Registered: Jul 2012
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HCH
Shipmate
# 14313
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Posted
I believe there is at least one other motive for vegetarianism: economy at the household level. Meat can be quite expensive. (The same goes for
fish and fowl.)
Posts: 1540 | From: Illinois, USA | Registered: Nov 2008
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Uriel
Shipmate
# 2248
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
ISTM that it is OK for a Christian to be a vegetarian for genuine medical reasons, because they don't like the taste, or even, as someone once said to me, 'because I don't like eating my friends'. However, being vegetarian because one believes that it is more ethical or because of a belief that not eating red meat, any meat or any other food item will somehow cause one to be a better, cleaner or more wholesome person, is not open to a Christian.
I believe it was Andrew Linzey (Oxford theologian and author of Animal Gospel) who argued the reverse, that vegetarianism was not only compatible with Christianity but also the preferred stance within it. His argument (IIRC) is that the initial created order was one where all animal life lived in harmony, and only after the Fall were humans allowed to eat animals. Also, in the vision of Isaiah 11 of the wolf living with the lamb, the leopard lying down with the goat, the cow feeding with the bear etc. we see that in the ideal world (and presumably in heaven) that the state of peace within nature will be restored. Animals eating animals (including humans eating animals) are therefore a mark of a fallen and sinful world. The ideal state of nature for which we were made, and that which we will be restored to, is vegetarianism.
This isn't the reason why I am veggie, I became a veggie before I became a Christian. My main reasons are wanting to avoid hypocrisy - I have more respect for someone who is honest about the blood, pain and death involved, e.g. hunters, than people who are cutesy about animals and think meat comes from neat packages in supermarkets. I also find most commercially available meat is much more demanding on scarce world resources than the plant based nutritional equivalent, and the environmental argument has reinforced my vegetarianism.
But I try not to badger people about whether they eat meat or not. For me it's a personal choice, you make yours and I'll make mine. I think the only people I have lectured on vegetarianism have been militant vegetarians who also eat fish (the hypocrisy thing again).
Posts: 687 | From: Somerset, UK | Registered: Jan 2002
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Galloping Granny
Shipmate
# 13814
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Posted
Jason Zarri said: quote:
What bothers me isn't the fact that they are killed (though the *manner* in which many of them are killed is bad, and that *does* bother me), but how they are made to suffer throughout their lives. So I think an intermediate position is possible. If one can really be assured that some meat (or other animal products) came from animals that were raised and killed in a humane way, I don't have a problem with it. It's just that I think such assurance is very rare in practice.
It's noticeable here that there are increasing quantities of "Freedom Farms" ham available in supermarkets, which means more awareness of this issue, following on from the increase in demand for free range eggs. All has to be certified – and of course it costs more. Some butchers specify that their pork products are from free ranging animals – of course sheep and cattle are pasture fed here anyway.
GG
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The Kingdom of Heaven is spread upon the earth, and men do not see it. Gospel of Thomas, 113
Posts: 2629 | From: Matarangi | Registered: Jun 2008
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moonlitdoor
Shipmate
# 11707
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Posted
I find Enoch's argument hard to follow. I don't think eating meat would make me unclean. But although I don't consider meat to be murder, I don't think killing animals is devoid of any moral dimension at all. I am not sure whether it is justified in order to provide food for me, so it's not something I want to take moral responsibility for. I don't see anything in the words of Jesus that Enoch quoted to say that I have to.
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We've evolved to being strange monkeys, but in the next life he'll help us be something more worthwhile - Gwai
Posts: 2210 | From: london | Registered: Aug 2006
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