AAaaaaargh! Is it immoral to eat meat and fish and do we care?

[Natsku]

Sorry but the "humans are herbivores" argument is a complete myth, albeit a very popular one amongst vegetarian/vegan circles. Whilst those comparisons may look very convincing to someone without a scientific background, they have absolutely no ground in ecology or physiology.

Intestinal length is not an accurate way to determine dietary characteristics, although our intestine is actually mid-way between most herbivores and most carnivores. Surface area, cell type and structural specialisations give a far more accurate view. Humans completely lack the fermenting vats that almost all herbivores have. Our stomach produces hydrochloric acid, whilst herbivores do not. The human pancreas produces a full range of digestive enzymes for both animal and plant foods.

Human teeth are most similar to omnivores and human molars and premolars are often confused with various classic omnivores when found in archaeological dig sites. Saliva and urine data vary depending on diet rather than taxonomic group.

Basically the list of comparisons posted above simply proves that we are not carnivores, which is true. However it fails to mention all the other evidence that shows we are not herbivores either. Biologically, humans are true omnivores and there is no basis in anatomy or physiology for the assumption that humans are herbivores. Of course, there are still plenty of good arguments for a vegetarian/vegan diet in terms of ecological, ethical and health reasons.

Personally, I enjoy eating meat but I try to reduce the amount our family eats and buy only organic/free-range meat that has been farmed in an ethical manner, preferably using traditional methods. I think the supermarkets are to blame for a lot of the issues in meat farming, for example buying intensively-reared chickens for 10p and selling them at a ridiculous profit, making sustainably farmed meat even more expensive by comparison.

Somebody who knows the difference between herbivores, carnivores and omnivores!

Well said!
Thank you!
I have no problem with anyone choosing to be a vegetarian or a vegan ( I was a vegetarian for 6 years myself), but when people start bringing really bad science into the argument, it makes my omnivorous teeth set on edge.

As for the OP, I do think the question of ALL our food, hell, all our consumption is a huge moral question. Tracking the ecological footprint of just about every aspect of our lives in exhausting, but it has to be done. There's no other way to educate yourself and minimize your impact on the planet.
For me, that means something like the "Hundred Mile Diet" is far more beneficial to the planet than adopting vegetarianism. Basically, this means that I strive for my food to be ethically and locally raised. In my case, I live on the North American prairies. This is literally the land "where the buffalo roam", (well, where they used to roam before we drove them to extinction in the wild). This grassland is far better designed to support large herds of hoofstock than a soybean crop. In fact, there is a lot of ecological damage done by crops, so choosing vegetarianism does not necessarily lower your impact as much as you might think.
But here's where things get really screwy. We produce a lot of grass-fed beef in Alberta (ie. the cattle are free-ranging and eating graze, rather than spending their entire lives in a feedlot). Ideally, that should be a very logical food for us Albertans to consume. However, we export most of it to the States, and import something like 50% of our beef from New Zealand (???!!). Talk about heavy ecological foot print! How on earth did our global markets get so screwed up?
So, I guess the moral of the story is to do your homework. Every time you buy something, source it. At least that lets you vote with your dollar. And let the grocers know why you are choosing to buy one item over the other. Take the time to send them a note, etc. It's a slow process, but it does have effects. There have been lots of good news stories on our planet, as well as the bad news. We have to keep reminding ourselves of that and creating the world we want to live in, one grocery shop at a time.

The hundred mile diet sounds good to me. I don't quite do that because its hard to find food thats just within the very local area but I make an effort to try and only buy food thats from my country at least (although I have to admit I buy foreign tomatoes and cucumbers in the winter because the local ones are unaffordable)

Factory farming of animals is pretty damn disgusting and the world would definitely be better off without it and I guess the only way for it to end would be if we ate less meat. I eat meat every day usually but I would prefer to not eat it every day but I'm crap at cooking vegetarian food.

 

[PeanutBean]

Interesting thread! And yes, I do think meat consumption is an ethical problem with regards the environment. (I am veggie and also think humans are omnivores. )

For me, as a marine biologist, I think a lot about the state of the fishing industry. IMO it is far too late for the stocks we currently exploit and we can only hope that the overall effect on the marine ecosystem is not too catastrophic. I have always been surprised by my fellow marine biologists who love a bit of fish and don't seem to care where it comes from. Were I not veggie I am pretty sure I wouldn't eat fish now anyway. Don't be conned into thinking farmed fish are better either, they are pretty much universally much worse! Here is a good resource for what fish are sustainable: https://www.fishonline.org/

It's fair to say that if we were all veggie across the world there would be more food to go around. Of course whether environmentally, geographically, economically, politically...that could be possible is a whole other argument but the closer we are to the bottom of the food chain with our consumption the better the energy conservation. Likewise locally produced is going to better because of the impact of transportation but I know I eat a fair amount of processed soya veggie foods that I love and for sure there must be some environmental cost in that...

 

[fantastica]

Yes I think it's immoral in a society where we don't NEED to eat them to survive. It simply does no good. That said, I used to be an awful, pushy veggie...but now I wouldn't push it down anyone's throat..each to their own and all that, but my stance could never be shifted.

And about humans being omnivores (I don't know enough to agree or disagree btw)...to quote a pathologist my auntie knew 'if you saw what I saw...you wouldn't eat meat'....a lot o meats we're actually incapable of digesting, it just lingers. In fact, it was a health decision to go veggie for me, which rapidl turned into a moral one.

 

[flubdub]

Who was it that said, "If slaughter houses had glass walls, we would all be vegetarian."

 

[Natsku]

a lot o meats we're actually incapable of digesting, it just lingers.

Where did you hear that? And what meats? Cos I'm pretty sure thats not true

 

[PeanutBean]

There's some statistic that the average middle-aged meat eater has x amount of undigested red meat sitting in their digestive system. I don't remember what it's supposed to be...

 

[Laura2919]

I watched a programme on TV where they slaughtered animals and it did make me feel a bit sad and a bit sick but I still eat meat. Maybe if I was made to do that to an animal I would be a vegetarian. I dont know. I dont eat meat all the time but when I do I enjoy it.

I was told that some meats are hard to digest and can sit in your stomach. I dont know how true it is.

 

[Natsku]

I just googled it and it says its around 5-8 pounds you're supposed to have undigested in you. You'd be in an incredible amount of pain to have that much undigested food just lingering in you.

 

[Natsku]

I guess I can prove this right or wrong tomorrow as I'm getting a colonoscopy done. I'll be sure to ask if there's any undigested meat up there! Seriously though, if the doctor speaks English I'll ask about this cos if anyone should know about meat digestion it'd be a gastrointestinal doctor.

 

[tallybee]

Sorry but the "humans are herbivores" argument is a complete myth, albeit a very popular one amongst vegetarian/vegan circles. Whilst those comparisons may look very convincing to someone without a scientific background, they have absolutely no ground in ecology or physiology.

Intestinal length is not an accurate way to determine dietary characteristics, although our intestine is actually mid-way between most herbivores and most carnivores. Surface area, cell type and structural specialisations give a far more accurate view. Humans completely lack the fermenting vats that almost all herbivores have. Our stomach produces hydrochloric acid, whilst herbivores do not. The human pancreas produces a full range of digestive enzymes for both animal and plant foods.

Human teeth are most similar to omnivores and human molars and premolars are often confused with various classic omnivores when found in archaeological dig sites. Saliva and urine data vary depending on diet rather than taxonomic group.

Basically the list of comparisons posted above simply proves that we are not carnivores, which is true. However it fails to mention all the other evidence that shows we are not herbivores either. Biologically, humans are true omnivores and there is no basis in anatomy or physiology for the assumption that humans are herbivores. Of course, there are still plenty of good arguments for a vegetarian/vegan diet in terms of ecological, ethical and health reasons.

Personally, I enjoy eating meat but I try to reduce the amount our family eats and buy only organic/free-range meat that has been farmed in an ethical manner, preferably using traditional methods. I think the supermarkets are to blame for a lot of the issues in meat farming, for example buying intensively-reared chickens for 10p and selling them at a ridiculous profit, making sustainably farmed meat even more expensive by comparison.

Somebody who knows the difference between herbivores, carnivores and omnivores!

Well said!
Thank you!
I have no problem with anyone choosing to be a vegetarian or a vegan ( I was a vegetarian for 6 years myself), but when people start bringing really bad science into the argument, it makes my omnivorous teeth set on edge.

As for the OP, I do think the question of ALL our food, hell, all our consumption is a huge moral question. Tracking the ecological footprint of just about every aspect of our lives in exhausting, but it has to be done. There's no other way to educate yourself and minimize your impact on the planet.
For me, that means something like the "Hundred Mile Diet" is far more beneficial to the planet than adopting vegetarianism. Basically, this means that I strive for my food to be ethically and locally raised. In my case, I live on the North American prairies. This is literally the land "where the buffalo roam", (well, where they used to roam before we drove them to extinction in the wild). This grassland is far better designed to support large herds of hoofstock than a soybean crop. In fact, there is a lot of ecological damage done by crops, so choosing vegetarianism does not necessarily lower your impact as much as you might think.
But here's where things get really screwy. We produce a lot of grass-fed beef in Alberta (ie. the cattle are free-ranging and eating graze, rather than spending their entire lives in a feedlot). Ideally, that should be a very logical food for us Albertans to consume. However, we export most of it to the States, and import something like 50% of our beef from New Zealand (???!!). Talk about heavy ecological foot print! How on earth did our global markets get so screwed up?
So, I guess the moral of the story is to do your homework. Every time you buy something, source it. At least that lets you vote with your dollar. And let the grocers know why you are choosing to buy one item over the other. Take the time to send them a note, etc. It's a slow process, but it does have effects. There have been lots of good news stories on our planet, as well as the bad news. We have to keep reminding ourselves of that and creating the world we want to live in, one grocery shop at a time.

The hundred mile diet sounds good to me. I don't quite do that because its hard to find food thats just within the very local area but I make an effort to try and only buy food thats from my country at least (although I have to admit I buy foreign tomatoes and cucumbers in the winter because the local ones are unaffordable)

Factory farming of animals is pretty damn disgusting and the world would definitely be better off without it and I guess the only way for it to end would be if we ate less meat. I eat meat every day usually but I would prefer to not eat it every day but I'm crap at cooking vegetarian food.

Locally-grown produce can actually be worse from a 'carbon footprint' point of view than stuff from further afield. Since growing things like that out of season in our climate needs highly heated and irrigated greenhouses, it isn't automatically better than transporting it from somewhere with the weather to not need the heating etc.

 

[Sarahkka]

Tally - the hundred mile diet idea means that you aren't eating out of season. So fresh produce would be replaced by what you have preserved for the winter. A big challenge for our ancestors and definitely a very difficult one for us.
I never said it was easy!

 

[Natsku]

It would be much better to only eat whats in season but winter lasts half the year and not a lot grows in that time

 

[Sarahkka]

Totally true, Natsku. Our growing season in Calgary is quite short, too.
So how did they eat 100 years ago?
That's what you have to explore and adapt to do the hundred mile diet. Not easy at all.
Can you imagine going through our northern winters on dried and preserved fruits? Not eating any fresh produce?
We are completely accustomed to eating out of season. I think it would be harder to adapt people to that than to giving up meat.

 

[Natsku]

Oh definitely, we are far too used to being able to eat what we want, when we want. Would not be fun managing on just dried and preserved fruits all winter. And so many foods wouldn't be allowed at all like rice. Don't know if I would have the strength of will to manage that to be honest.

 

[Natsku]

Well I found out the undigested meat rotting inside us thing is nonsense so we can put that myth aside.

 

[Sarahkka]

Thought as much, Natsku. In fact, cellulose is much much harder for our bodies to break down, so I would think that if there were undigested remnants, they would be far more likely to be plant-based.

 

[BlackBerry25]

Really, we shouldn't be eating grains and dairy products, but I will save that for another discussion.

 

[Natsku]

Thought as much, Natsku. In fact, cellulose is much much harder for our bodies to break down, so I would think that if there were undigested remnants, they would be far more likely to be plant-based.

Yeah exactly cellulose is very difficult to digest. But we'd all be in a lot of pain if we had undigested food hanging around for more than a day or two.

 

[PeanutBean]

Sorry I'm on my phone so can't access the scientific literature but this link is quite interesting https://www.quackwatch.com/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/gastro.html. Seems the myth dates back to practices in ancient Egypt! A few other pages mentioned this but this one seems to give the most details.

One of the main reasons for cooking (veg) is to rupture the cell wall so that the nutritious contents can get out. A nutritional scientist on a radio programme I heard maybe a year or so ago heartily condemned the fashion for a raw diet on the basis that to get sufficient energy we would need to be eating for around 7 hours a day! It was interesting to heat how the discovery of cooking freed up our time, as primitive humans, to develop other skills.

Interesting as it is, this veggie vs meat eating stuff is rather off the point of the environmental impact of meat consumption though...

 

[Sarahkka]

I was going to say the same, PB - the thread really isn't about veggie vs omnivore (although that is always an interesting topic - lots of very passionate beliefs there).
I will say, though, I do find it mildly disturbing how many "fad" diets claim to have based themselves on scientific principles and are so completely NOT.
Eat Right for your Blood Type, the Paleo Diet, Skinny Bitch, raw food - there are so many diets that claim some sort of moral and scientific superiority. And our general level of scientific literacy is so low that they get away with it.

I think the ecofootprint approach to food is a good place to start.
However, I think the politics of our food should be looked at, too. Set aside the cruelty to animals issue that disturbs most of us about factory farming.
What about the habitat loss from coffee and cocoa plantations? Most of us in the wealthier northern hemisphere are happily consuming those products daily, and allowing the ecological cost to be borne by the poorer nations in the south.
Our food system encompasses some enormous inequalities that keep the rich nations rich and poor nations poor.
What about the morality in that?
Is our morning cup of coffee suppressing human rights and promoting poverty?