When it is discovered that I am a vegetarian (okay, flexitarian, which I will explain later), inevitably someone asks me why I adopted the diet. The truth is, it happened kind of accidentally and gradually. Initially, vegetarian options on menus seemed more appealing, then later, cooking vegetables was easier and quicker than making meat-laden meals. It wasn't until I read Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer that I started thinking about food as a choice. So I'd say the question more important than why I started the diet is why I persist with it.
A lot of my reasons are based on information in Foer's book, which addresses the common rationales of ethics, environment, and health. Although I try to stay fit, I think it's pretty clear that third category has little influence on me; I mean, I can eat a whole bag of fully plant-based Doritos in one sitting. The other two categories play a role, but perhaps not in the traditional way one might think. For me, everything comes back to pain.
The most common pain discussed in relation to diet is the pain of animals. A long line of research supports the fact that animals experience physical pain and possibly emotional distress when being killed, which is why European and American institutions provide guidance and guidelines for humane slaughtering. I, for one, never had to be scientifically convinced of this fact. Based on how much it hurts to just bump your elbow at the wrong place, I figured most animals wouldn't enjoy being murdered. It's more a matter of whether you can morally justify causing pain to animals in order to sustain yourself. Many would say that avoiding this pain, simply by not eating animals, would be the obvious ethical choice. But that presumes that plants don't feel pain, which hasn't been proven. In fact, some research supports the fact that trees thrive based on a form of ecological dependence that indicates social awareness. It's not a giant leap from intelligence that involves an ability to communicate to one that includes a sense of pain, especially when you consider how much we are still learning about plant consciousness. Just the other day, scientists discovered a new carnivorous plant -- which is suggesting many plants might not even be vegetarians! So basically, if any food I eat will bear pain by my doing so, the ethical argument for vegetarianism based on animal pain becomes moot.
Then there is the argument about pain for humans involved in animal slaughter. Both crop and meat processing are connected to physical pain: long hours performing repetitive and strenuous actions, possibly in unsanitary or unsafe conditions, takes its toll, sometimes to a fatal degree. Generally, beef, pork, and poultry plants have higher rates of chronic illness and severe injuries than other factory work, including corporate farms. Still, both agricultural and slaughterhouse workers suffer from higher rates of anxiety, depression, and psychological distress than the general population. In both sets of workers, stressors tend to stem from the fact that they are largely migrants or immigrants, documented or otherwise, facing isolation with limited support in an environment full of language, financial, and social barriers. Among meat-packing and -processing workers, research has not consistently found a correlation between emotional pain and occupational risks, suggesting that something more inherently traumatic might be happening in slaughterhouses -- such as, well, the witnessing of constant slaughtering. But still, since this isn't clear evidence that one job is more painful than another, balancing eating plants or meat based on workers appears to be a wash.
Of course, making food doesn't just impact the humans on the economic front lines. Because any industry and consumption affects the environment and society globally, the pain to all earthlings is worth considering. Meat consumption has global-health implications. In particular, a diet high in red meat contributes to kidney disease and some cancers and overall has a negative effect on life expectancy. Meat consumption has been connected to greenhouse gas emissions, deforestation (by fire and timber-cutting), wildlife decimation (beyond just the animals killed for food), water contamination, soil erosion, and land misuse -- all contributors to climate change. The statistics that strike me the most relate to management of invaluable resources. Here's some water by numbers: 2,500 gallons = 2 pounds of meat, but 25 gallons = 1 pound of wheat. More than 50 percent of all water and 87 percent of all agricultural land in the United States is used to raise animals. Those figures just seem out of scale for a world that is slowly marching toward water and land scarcity. Both now and in the future, a meat-based diet, in my mind, clearly causes more pain to humans in the aggregate.
But wait, folks, there's more: specifically, my caveat about pain to individual humans, which is what leaves me lingering as a flexitarian, instead of becoming a full-blown vegetarian. A flexitarian -- or semi-vegetarian, in case you have never heard the term -- is "a person who has a primarily vegetarian diet but occasionally eats meat or fish." For me, these "occasions" are not random or flippant; they are conscious choices made via a calculus of pain, to myself and those close to me. Foer's book helped me understand my need for this "loophole," if that's how you want to describe it.
Although food is mostly thought of in terms of being a need within the realm of physical well-being, for sustenance, it also plays a role in emotional well-being, as it is often a tangible representation of values, to some as essential as communication. Meals can say, "This is who I am," or "I love you." If I refuse a helping of the special oyster stuffing my grandma makes every year for the holidays, I am possibly rejecting her identity and a message she is trying to send me -- and likely causing her pain. And I feel some pain, too, in the form of guilt of insulting someone I love, but also in the pain of not being able to receive her message. This is also why many of my "occasions" occur while abroad. For me, food is a big part of accessing the culture of a destination, and depriving myself of that because meat is involved lessens my travel experience, causing some small amount of pain to my hosts and me.
I must fess up to sometimes "flexing" simply because I want a bite of a particularly delicious carnivorous dish. But this too is a form of pain management. I am willing to forgive myself for infrequent transgressions in the short term, so I do not abandon my diet in the long term. Many people rationalize not making lifestyle changes because "one person won't make a difference." But focusing on sustainability helps me sustain my diet -- generally, any ounce less of meat I eat is an ounce less of pain someone suffers. And to me, with apologies to Benjamin Franklin, that ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
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Up and Coming, vol. 7, no. 9, 1990. JSTOR, jstor.org/stable/10.2307/community.28046061. Accessed 30 Sept. 2021.
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