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RE: a chat about luncheon

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Nick Dippie ? You say that people you know have got health problems from being vegetarian. There are many health problems that are associated with eating meat ? heart disease, cancer, obesity. You can be healthy with either; it involves eating a balanced diet.

Eating a lot of dairy products to make up for lack of meat is not necessary ? if it was, then vegans would be in some trouble.

I fear your argument for meat eating. You say we should ?treat the animals as well as possible? ? but this treatment appears to involve killing them. I can instantly think of better possible ways of treating them.

Hilary ? For the sake of argument, let?s assume that each individual animal life (human, cow, pig, insect, etc.) is equal in value. You suggest eating meat might then we better than crops because growing crops involves killing a lot more animals. This does not seem obviously true. The larger animals that we eat don?t sustain themselves on thought alone. They eat crops. 90% of the energy contained in the food we feed the larger animals is lost. We need to grow a lot less crops if we cut out the middle man, and eat the crops direct. So, even accepting your suggestion that growing crops kills a lot of worthwhile life, we would still be better to eat crops directly than eat the larger animals.

You accept the points, mentioned also by Nick, that suffering is an inevitable part of existence, and so is the causing of suffering to others. You say ?Our responsibility is to minimise unnecessary suffering we inflict but we can never regard ourselves as pure and innocent, much as we would like to project blame only onto others?. I agree with all these points. If veganism/vegetarianism reduces suffering, then we should do it. We all agree with that then. If it doesn?t, then we have no moral reason to do it. We all agree with that. You need to give some reasons for thinking that going veggie will not reduce suffering ? it is totally besides the point that there is lots of other suffering, that we may or may not also be able to do something about.

Nick


From: "Hilary Easton" <hilary.easton@btconnect.com>
To: <BUPS-DIS@bups.org>
Subject: a chat about luncheon
Date: Mon, 2 Jan 2006 18:43:11 -0000

To agree with and add just a little to what Nick Dippie had to say on
this contentious subject, not only is suffering an inevitable part of
living but so is inflicting suffering on others.  Our responsibility is
to minimise unnecessary suffering we inflict but we can never regard
ourselves as pure and innocent, much as we would like to project blame
only onto others.  Growing cereals and vegetables also involves the mass
killing of even greater numbers of animals than livestock farming but
this is not considered by most people in our culture because the animals
involved are not fluffy, cute, pretty and it is hard to really identify
with them because they are beetles, aphids, earthworms and so on.  I
foresee objections based on the assumed lack of emotions, central
nervous systems and so on, but there is really no evidence that such
creatures do not suffer or that their lives are so inferior to ours that
they need not be considered.  The very fact that they take avoiding
action in potentially harmful situations is evidence of their will to
survive.  Many of them hunt for food, search for a mate and rear their
young in ways that suggest a sophisticated awareness of their
surroundings (though perhaps not of themselves ? but that is another
argument).  For all we know their awareness is comparable to ours.
Anyone who has attempted to grow vegetables must have noticed the
carnage every time a fork is put in the ground, to say nothing of the
chemical warfare that commercial farmers have to wage against these
small beings who want to share our food.

Some Tibetan Buddhists say it is better to eat a large animal like a yak
since the death of only one animal can feed many people, than to eat
something like shellfish where many deaths provide one meal, or to grow
a vegetable crop which involves mass slaughter.

Hilary Easton


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