EE2 Final Draft

A Vegetarian Manifesto

It may seem like a rash decision, but the other day I became a vegetarian. I had never really given much thought to the option of being a vegetarian at all before in my life. I had previously thought that it would be fairly easy for me to avoid meat since I have never been a big meat eater, but I never thought I would feel the need to not eat animals. I have known that there are ethical issues involved with eating meat, otherwise why would so many people decide be vegetarians? However, I have also known that almost every food that we buy from the grocery store has been produced in ethically questionable ways. In reality, unless I only eat food I grow in a garden at my house or buy from a local small-scale farmer, my diet will inevitably consist of foods that are grown or processed in ways that somehow hurt others. Since I have known this to be true, I have chosen not to think about my food choices in terms of how they were produced. I have usually chosen instead to ignore the ethics of my food. It has been quite easy for me to choose to eat in ignorance for my whole life. This does not mean that I have never eaten anything grown in my own backyard or bought my food at a farmer’s market, but I have never exclusively chosen to eat these foods over the foods bought from commercial producers in a store. I have never really eaten by following any kind of distinct guideline before.

I believe I have never considered vegetarianism because while I knew that the animals that are raised for humans to consume live in inhumane conditions I never really had to see them in these conditions or actually addressed the problem. The problem was never visible to me so I didn’t feel the need to fully recognize it. Although this is not the right way to view any problem, to ignore something just because it isn’t visible, I still did. The problem became visible to me however after watching the short documentary called Food Inc in writing class. After seeing real cases of the terrible production methods I had to acknowledge that animal cruelty in relation to food production is an issue that is not completely ignorable. The 94-minute long documentary showed vivid images of still living cows hanging by their feet on a production line, chickens barely able to move because of malnutrition, and a group of pigs being crushed by a large piece of metal. While some people may have been able to push these images aside, after watching the movie I really was not interested in eating one of those animals forced to live in misery and killed in very inhumane ways. This is how I became a vegetarian two weeks ago in writing class.

Although my conversion was based largely on emotion, there are many rational arguments for vegetarianism. There are arguments surrounding, not only animals’, but also workers’, rights to humane treatment and to certain freedoms. There are also scientific health reasons to avoid eating meat. You only have to look at the food pyramids that have been produced over the years to see that smaller and smaller portions of meat, especially red meat, have been recommended for a healthy diet in the more recent years. There are even arguments proposing that universal vegetarianism would help combat global warming by reducing the harmful effects that the meat industry has on the environment.

In Michael Pollan’s article, “An Animal’s Place,” Pollan discusses his reactions to Peter Singer’s book “Animal Liberation” and his views around the treatment of animals. Pollan took a slightly different approach than I did when faced with addressing the issue of animal treatment. While reading Singer’s book and thinking about animal rights he was sitting down to eat a steak; he addresses the irony of this, calling it “a good recipe for cognitive dissonance (if not indigestion).” Pollan questions some of the fundamental arguments against eating meat. He notes, for example, that rights for animals and rights for people must be looked at differently because we are biologically different. He also notes that predation is a naturally occurring phenomenon so killing other animals is not simply a cruel human practice. In regards to these differences in rights of humans and rights of animals I think one of the more important quotes from Pollan’s article is this one: “The moral idea is that everyone’s interests ought to receive equal consideration, regardless of what abilities they may possess.’” This quote suggests that just because a chicken does not have the capabilities that a human has, it should still be free from pain and suffering and free to participate in any lifestyle that it wants to rather than be forced to live in awful conditions.

I agree with Pollan when he later discusses the idea that the inhumane treatment of animals for consumption purposes is a fairly new occurrence, and has become a big problem because of the way large production plants are run. I like Pollan’s idea of being a “humanocarnivore,” or someone who will eat meat only if they are certain that during the animal’s life they were treated well, and that they were able to be free of pain and suffering. Food Inc. played on this idea when they compared the techniques that farmers raising animals for large companies used and the techniques that a small independent farmer used. The independent farmer allowed his animals to have a good amount of living space and to eat and live naturally unlike the other farmers did. I like this “humanocarnivore” idea because, like Pollan, I do not think that eating all meat is wrong or unnatural, but I believe the meat and poultry industries act inhumanely and do not want to support their actions.

I also do not want to support the meat and poultry industries because they not only remove animals’ freedoms to a happy and healthy life, but these industries can be extremely unhealthy for the workers as well. The article “Foul Trouble” by Christopher D. Cook discusses the dangers found in poultry production plants for the workers. The workers are at risk of disease through exposure to salmonella, bacteria, and blood. Exposure to these substances is made even more dangerous because workers often have cuts from the birds or from the tools they use. I found it to be very disturbing that in some plants the workers have to kill the birds themselves by hand. Another disturbing fact Cook brought up was that “OSHA also found that most employees in the plants it surveyed were required to buy their own protective boots, gloves, and aprons, necessities that many poultry workers- who typically earn only $6.50 an hour- simply did without.” Not only are these workers underpaid, they are not even given protective gear to attempt to avoid the many diseases and injuries that their jobs put them at risk for.

Aside from the health and happiness of the people and animals involved in the production and the eating of meat, the industry’s effect on the environment, and on the world food supply, are extremely significant. The amounts of carbon dioxide and methane that raising and processing animals for consumption requires are excessive. The article, “Fight Global Warming by Going Vegetarian,” gives a statistic that in itself proves the inefficiency of the industry: “Producing one calorie from animal protein requires 11 times as much fossil fuel input- releasing 11 times as much carbon dioxide- as does producing a calorie from plant protein.” In the article “Holy Cow: What’s Good for You Is Good for Our Environment,” Pan et al also discuss the environmental impacts of the industry, stating that: “the animal agribusiness generates more greenhouse gases than all forms of transportation alone.”  As we have been attempting to solve global warming by using public transportation, switching to more energy efficient light bulbs, or driving hybrid cars, the meat industry has been largely contributing to the issue and many people have not had any idea to what extent. The inefficiency of the industry is hurting the environment by taking up huge amounts of land, causing deforestation, and emitting large amounts of greenhouse gasses. This is undoubtedly another very good reason to avoid eating meat.

After researching the meat and poultry industries further, I know there are many more reasons to be vegetarian besides the emotional reasons for which I decided to try vegetarianism. I do not believe that people should never eat meat, or even that I should never eat meat if the animal was humanely raised and killed. I do however, believe that the meat and poultry industries as they exist today partake in many wrongdoings. They are contributing to too many moral and global injustices for me to support. I also know that these industries are not the only food industries doing harmful things; the seed industry, and specifically the Monsanto seed monopoly, for example hurts many farmers. Choosing to acknowledge this one issue by avoiding meat is at least a start. I think the industry could be reformed drastically to continue to cater to people’s eating needs but in a much more humane way. In the article, “Is Universal Vegetarianism Feasible,” Professor A. E. Taylor argues that it would be impossible for the whole world to become vegetarian simply because we do not have the technology to produce enough plant calories agriculturally to feed the entire world. While this may be true, I think that we could at least decrease the amount of animals consumed, since we have learned that meat consumption should not be a huge part of our diets, as we once believed. With a decreased need for meat these huge plants that are inhumanely raising and killing animals could be replaced with smaller farms which treat their animals as living beings and not as items on a production line as the small farmer in Food Inc. did. This might not happen anytime soon however, so being vegetarian, or at least being what Pollan would call a “humanocarnivore” seems like the best way to avoid to the meat industry for now.

Works Cited:

Cook, Christopher D. "Fowl Trouble." Harper's Magazine Aug. 1999: 78-79.

 "Fight Global Warming by Going Vegetarian." PETA People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. Web. <http://www.peta.org/issues/animals-used-for-food/global-warming.aspx>.

 Food Inc. Dir. Robert Kenner. Perf. Michael Pollan, Eric Schlosser, Richard Lobb. 2008.

 "Is Universal Vegetarianism Feasible?" JAMA The Journal of the American Medical Association. American Medical Association, 18 Jan. 2012.

<http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?doi=10.1001/jama.2011.1912>.

 Pan Et. Al. "Holy Cow! What's Good for You Is Good for Our Planet." Www.archinternmed.com. American Medical Association, 29 Apr. 2012.

<http://blackboard.du.edu/bbcswebdav/courses/2017.201230/Holy%20Cow%20-%20Ornish.pdf>.

 Pollan, Michael. "An Animal's Place." New York Times Magazine 10 Nov. 2002.

Reflection

I have learned that eating is not a simple thing, that it involves many decisions that we might make subconsciously but that are informed by the media, the economy, science, and culture. I have learned that the way humans eat has changed over time and differs between cultures and between individuals. I think it was very interesting to look at the way people write about food and research different issues surrounding health and eating, and the food industry. The things I learned in this class are important because now I am more interested in learning about food production and reading about food related issues.

Vegetarian Manifesto, first draft

It may seem like a rash decision, but the other day I became a vegetarian. I had never really given much thought to the option of being a vegetarian at all before in my life. I had previously thought that it would be fairly easy for me to avoid meat since I have never been a big meat eater, but I never thought I would feel the need to not eat animals. I have known that there are ethical issues involved with eating meat, otherwise why would so many people decide be vegetarians? But, I have also known that almost every food that we buy from the grocery store has been produced in ethically questionable ways. In reality, unless I only eat food I grow in a garden at my house or buy from a local small-scale farmer, my diet will inevitably consist of foods that are grown or processed in ways that somehow hurt others. Since I have known this to be true, I have chosen not to think about my food choices in terms of how they were made. I have usually chosen instead to ignore the ethics of my food. I have been able to choose to eat in ignorance quite easily for my whole life. This does not mean that I have never eaten anything grown in my backyard or bought at a farmer’s market, but I have never exclusively chosen to eat these foods over the foods bought from commercial producers in a store. I have never really eaten by any kind of distinct guideline before.

I believe I have never considered vegetarianism because while I knew that the animals raised for humans to consume live in inhumane conditions I never really had to see their conditions and actually address the problem. The problem was never visible to me so I didn’t have to fully recognize it. Although this is not the right way to view any problem, to ignore something just because it isn’t visible, I still did this. The problem did become visible to me however after watching the short documentary called Food Inc in writing class. After seeing real cases of the methods involved in meat production I had to acknowledge that animal cruelty in regards to food production is an issue that is not completely ignorable. The hourish long documentary showed vivid images of still living cows hanging by their feet on a production line, chickens barely able to move because of malnutrition, and a group of pigs being crushed by a large piece of metal. While some people may have been able to push these images aside, after watching the movie I really was not interested in eating one of those animals forced to live in misery and killed in very inhumane ways. This is how I became a vegetarian two weeks ago in writing class.

Although my conversion was based largely on emotion, there are many rational arguments for vegetarianism. There are arguments surrounding not only the animal’s, but also the worker’s, rights to humane treatment and freedoms. There are also scientific health reasons to avoid eating meat. You only have to look at the food pyramids that have been produced over the years to see that smaller and smaller portions of meat, especially red meat, have been recommended for a healthy diet in the more recent years. There are even arguments proposing that universal vegetarianism would help combat global warming by reducing the harmful effects that the meat industry has on the environment.

In Michael Pollan’s article, “An Animal’s Place,” Pollan discusses his reactions to Peter Singer’s book “Animal Liberation” and his views around the treatment of animals. Pollan took a slightly different approach than I did when faced with addressing the issue of animal treatment. While reading Singer’s book and thinking about animal rights he was sitting down to eat a steak; he addresses the irony of this, calling it “a good recipe for cognitive dissonance (if not indigestion).” Pollan questions some of the fundamental arguments against eating meat. He notes, for example, that rights for animals and rights for people must be looked at differently because we are biologically different and that predation is a naturally occurring phenomenon. In regards to these differences in rights I think one of the more important quotes from the article is this: “The moral idea is that everyone’s interests ought to receive equal consideration, regardless of what abilities they may possess.’” This quote suggests that just because a chicken does not have the capabilities that a human has, it should still be free from pain and suffering and free to participate in any lifestyle that it wants to rather than be forced to live in awful conditions. I agree with Pollan when he later discusses the idea that the inhumane treatment of animals for consumption purposes is a fairly new occurrence, and has become a big problem because of the way production plants are run. I like Pollan’s idea of being a “humanocarnivore” because I do not think that eating all meat is wrong or unnatural, but I believe the meat and poultry industries act inhumanely and do not want to support their actions.

I also do not want to support the meat and poultry industries because they not only remove animals’ freedoms to a happy and healthy life, but these industries can be extremely unhealthy for the workers as well. The article “Foul Trouble” by Christopher D. Cook discusses the dangers found in poultry production plants for the workers. The workers are at risk of disease through exposure to salmonella, bacteria, and blood, cuts from the birds or the tools they use. I found it to be very disturbing that in some plants the workers have to kill the birds themselves by hand. Another disturbing fact Cook brought up was that “OSHA also found that most employees in the plants it surveyed were required to buy their own protective boots, gloves, and aprons, necessities that many poultry workers- who typically earn only $6.50 an hour- simply did without.” Not only are these workers underpaid, they are not even given protective gear to attempt to avoid the many diseases and injuries that their jobs put them at risk for.

Aside from the health and happiness of the people and animals involved in the production and the eating of meat, the industry’s effect on the environment, and on the world food supply, are extremely significant. The amounts of carbon dioxide and methane that raising and processing animals requires are excessive. The article, “Fight Global Warming by Going Vegetarian,” gives a statistic that in itself proves the inefficiency of the industry: “Producing one calorie from animal protein requires 11 times as much fossil fuel input- releasing 11 times as much carbon dioxide- as does producing a calorie from plant protein.” Pan et al also discuss the environmental impact of the industry stating that “the animal agribusiness generates more greenhouse gases than all forms of transportation alone.”  As we have been attempting to solve global warming by using public transportation, switching to more energy efficient light bulbs or buying hybrid cars, the meat industry has been contributing to the issue and many people have not had any idea to what extent. The inefficiency of the industry is hurting the environment by taking up huge amounts of land, causing deforestation, and emitting large amounts of greenhouse gasses and this seems to me like another very good reason to avoid eating meat.

After researching the issue further, I know there are many more reasons behind being vegetarian besides the emotional reasons for which I decided to try vegetarianism. I do not believe that people should never eat meat, or even that I should never eat meat if it was humanely raised and killed, but that the meat and poultry industries as they exist today are wrong. They are contributing to too many moral and global injustices for me to support. I also know that these industries are not the only ones doing harmful things, the seed industry for example hurts many farmers, but choosing to acknowledge this one issue is at least a start. I think the industry could be reformed drastically to continue to cater to people’s eating needs but in a much more humane way. In the article, “Is Universal Vegetarianism Feasable,” Professor A. E. Taylor argues that it would be impossible for the whole world to become vegetarian simply because we do not have the technology to produce enough plant calories agriculturally to feed the entire world. While this may be true, I think that we could at least decrease the amount of animals consumed since we have learned that meat consumption should not be a huge part of our diets. With a decreased need for meat these huge plants that are inhumanely raising and killing animals could be replaced with smaller farms which treat their animals as living beings and not as items on a production line. This might not happen anytime soon however, so being vegetarian, or at least what Pollan would call a “humanocarnivore” seems like the best way to avoid being a part of the damaging meat industry. 

What to eat

The essays “Unhappy Meals” and “Angels and Vegetables” both highlight the conflicts that Americans face today when trying to decide what and how to eat. They both discuss how American culture has stressed different ways of eating and being healthy over time as scientific research and diet fads have caused popular belief to change. Rather than deciding what to eat based on historic cultural norms like the French or the Italian, Americans try to decide based on current and frequently changing popular ideas about what they should eat.

In the essay “Unhappy Meals” Pollan talks about many of the things that American food culture has focused on throughout the years. He first talks about how in the 1980’s food culture shifted to a larger focus on the nutrient content in what people are eating, not just on what foods people are eating. He calls this nutritionism and points to several problems to this approach to food such as the fact that highly processed and well advertised foods often may appeal to the consumer as being healthier than a simple fruit or vegetable. He talks about the focus on a low-fat diet, and on the consequences of this diet, that people simply eat more because they think they can since their foods are low in fat.

Dupuis’ essay goes into the history and social aspects of food culture more than into the scientific aspects that Pollan highlights. He discusses how in the past people have judged what and how to eat on their religion, on figures of authority, on income levels, and also on popular culture. Like Pollan, Dupuis notes that because food and health is so publicized, the way Americans decide what to eat is largely based on conscience rather than tradition. Dupuis writes that “ Rather than making political choices, we pretend, like the vegetarian abolitionists, that our dietary choices will solve our personal and national problems” I think this is an interesting observation which describes how the question of “what to eat” is not just based on what one wants to eat, but on history, popular culture, science, and the economy among other things.  

comments

I think it was interesting how so many people wrote about skipping breakfast and especially about eating cereal as an easy fix to skipping breakfast. I thought it was funny how cereal was described as RTE (ready to eat) cereals in some of the studies, this does not really seem like something that has to be abbreviated to me.

Breakfast

Looking our class' food logs, I noticed that many people skipped breakfast both during the week and on the weekend. I am sure most of us have heard a million times that breakfast is the most important meal of the day and believe that science has backed this statement up however we continue skipping this important meal. Even though a few people seemed to have a schedule in which they did eat breakfast everyday, even in such a small sample size, the habit of skipping breakfast was still noticeable.  Although people know this trend is not healthy, it is interesting to look at why people continue to avoid eating breakfast.

I believe the most obvious reason that people skip breakfast is because their day begins too early in the morning; either their work or school day begins too early for them eat before they become busy. I know that in high school, when school would start as early as 8am or earlier for sports, I physically could not eat before heading to school because it made me feel sick. Like I did, some people choose to skip breakfast because their commitments begin at an early hour before they have any appetite for food. Now, in college, I usually do not have class this early in the morning and do have an appetite before class, but sleeping in or finishing homework before class is often more important than eating for me. I could easily sleep right up until the last minute before class starts unless I set an alarm and plan my morning in order to leave time to get food before class. I think this is the case for many people, and explains why a few people did not list any breakfast foods on their food logs.

Another reason people may skip breakfast is in an attempt to lose weight. Breakfast may seem like an easy meal to skip because you are less hungry in the morning and may seem like a good idea for some people. Research often suggests however, that eating breakfast leads to receiving healthier nutritional value in what one eats in a day and can also lead to a healthier weight and BMI. In a study done on Korean adults it was shown that “breakfast eaters” in general had a higher energy intake, but that their diets included less fats and unhealthy foods than the diets of people who rarely ate breakfast or did not eat breakfast at all. The article noted that “The ‘Rare breakfast eater’ group had an inadequate intake of micronutrients” which supported the idea that skipping breakfast would have negative effects on diet quality. Although people may skip breakfast with the idea that it is an effective way to diet, I think this study gives a good example of how this idea can backfire and actually have adverse effects on health.

Whether skipping breakfast because one values sleep more than eating or because they think it will help them lose weight, this unhealthy practice remains a trend despite scientific evidence that it is not good for the body. I don’t find it is very surprising that people do this even though they know it is not healthy. People do many things they know are not healthy when they seem to be an easier or more exciting alternative to the healthy action and skipping breakfast is just one example.

MIn, Chanyang, Hwayoung Noh, Yun-Sook Kang, Hea Jin Sim, Hyun Wook, Won O. Song, Jihyun Yoon, Young-Hee Park, and Hyojee Joung. "Skipping Breakfast Is Associated with Diet Quality and Metabolic Syndrome Risk Factors of Adults." Nutrition Research and Practice (2011). Print.

observations on food logs

It seems like a lot of people went out to eat, maybe this was because it was the weekend and people were getting off campus to eat more often than during the week. It was also interesting to see foods that people eat like nutrigrain bars or yogurts in addition to the food you can get in the dining halls.