Meatlessness

Yesterday, Kristof of the NYT wrote a column about animal rights:

So, yes, I eat meat (even, hesitantly, goose). But I draw the line at animals being raised in cruel conditions. The law punishes teenage boys who tie up and abuse a stray cat. So why allow industrialists to run factory farms that keep pigs almost all their lives in tiny pens that are barely bigger than they are?

Defining what is cruel is, of course, extraordinarily difficult. But penning pigs or veal calves so tightly that they cannot turn around seems to cross that line.

More broadly, the tide of history is moving toward the protection of animal rights, and the brutal conditions in which they are sometimes now raised will eventually be banned. Someday, vegetarianism may even be the norm.

Perhaps it seems like soggy sentimentality as well as hypocrisy to stand up for animal rights, particularly when I enjoy dining on these same animals. But my view was shaped by those days in the barn as a kid, scrambling after geese I gradually came to admire.

So I’ll enjoy the barbecues this summer, but I’ll also know that every hamburger patty has a back story, and that every tin of goose liver pâté could tell its own rich tale of love and loyalty.

His colleague, Mark Bittman, gave a talk at TED that had a lot more moral force behind it:

I went for about a year eating very, very little meat. I gained a lot of weight. Although I wasn't 100% strict, since I would partake of fish and seafood on occasion, I certainly felt good about my decision. When people asked me why I was a vegetarian, I told them three reasons:

1. ethics -- I don't like to cause animals to suffer; they feel pain just like we do
2. health -- studies have been done showing that a plant-based diet is very good for your ticker, while red meat has been clearly linked to cancer and heart disease
   
3. the environment -- the amount of our resources diverted to raising animals for food is vast, and the efficiency of this system is low, compared to directly growing plants for human consumption

Now, none of those three things changes whether or not you choose to be a vegetarian, however, after reading Kristof I don't see how he can make the arguments he makes with a straight face while admitting to eating meat. He talks about the increasing role and rectitude of animal rights, and how his own experiences on a farm support that, but then admits to enjoying burgers and goose liver.

I guess it's like religion: they preach perfection while admitting to being imperfect with a straight face.

Back to me for a moment, this summer I've started eating some poultry again. For one thing, I am getting really tired of what we eat; for another thing, I've gotten really fat. Part of the problem is just eating too many damned carbs, but I think the bigger problem for me is the feeling of being full. High-protein foods are very filling to me, while low-protein foods leave my stomach rumbling an hour later.

Unlike Kristof, I'll not preach it if I'm not practicing it, but I don't know how much I did before.

The big issue for me is getting people to wake up to the environmental impact of raising cattle, but I am afraid that won't happen any time soon.