A member of another misunerstood and put-upon minority (only 10 million Americans out of more than 300 million) asks for our understanding:
Please don't try to convince us that being vegetarian is somehow wrong. If you're concerned for my health, that's very nice, though you can rest assured that I'm in shipshape. If you want to have an amiable tête-à-tête about vegetarianism, that's great. But if you insist on being the aggressive blowhard who takes meatlessness as a personal insult and rails about what fools we all are, you're only going to persuade me that you're a dickhead. When someone says he's Catholic, you probably don't start the stump speech about how God is a lie created to enslave the ignorant masses, and it's equally offensive to berate an herbivore. I know you think we're crazy. That's neat. But seeing as I've endured the hassle of being a vegetarian for several years now, perhaps I've given this a little thought.
Actually, I'm not all that unsympathetic. Most of the neoPuritans' efforts to get sin out of the world -- smoking bans, anti-drinking campaigns, anti-sex and -gambling screeds -- will fail. It's part of human nature to succumb to human weakness. But I think vegetarinaism will be the norm somewhere in the human future (and this comes from a dedicated prime-rib loving, pork-chop chomping fiend). There is something fundamentally creepy about surviving by eating (in the words of the admirable vegetarian and musician Arlo Guthrie) "the burnt, dead flesh of other animals." As scientists and nutritionists get more adept at producing better-tasting and equally nutritious meat substitutes, the number of vegetarians will continue to grow.
Comments
I tend to respond more to arguments for vegetarianism based on reasons of health or the argument that it takes fewer resources to produce plants for food than to produce animals for food. I raise my eyebrow a little bit at arguments about the moral rights of the animals.
I like the eight word dietary recommendation:
"Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants."
Mostly, I don't follow the advice. But, it's hard to argue with.
Actually, I get closer to that model in the warmer months than I do in the colder months. Eating lots of vegetables from our garden in the summer is a great thing. Store-bought salads don't really do the trick on a dark winter evening -- that's when a nice meaty chili does the trick.
We have the teeth of omnivores. Herbivore species tend to be a little slow-witted. It doesn't take much intelligence to sneak up on a blade of grass.
It's possible to make all sorts of tasty stuff in the laboratory but is it good for you? We know that vitamin pills don't work as well as vitamin-laden foods. Studies at Purdue and Penn State say that diabetes might be caused by a lack of a nutrient that is mostly found in the fat of grass-fed pork and grass-fed beef.
It's not just important to eat foods, rather than something that comes from a laboratory, but it's important that the animals we eat get food, instead of something that comes from a laboratory. (Next time you talk to someone who works at Central Soya, ask him what "Neutral Dry Soap Stock" is - and how they dispose of that waste product.)