|
|
Vegans and
Vegetarians
"If you think humans are meat-eaters then try eating the animal raw like every other meat-eater on the planet. If something is not palatable in its raw state then you probably shouldn't be eating it."
— David Wolfe
One of our editors has a story about becoming a vegetarian. "Four years ago, a cow kissed me," she explains. "I mean, it looked right into my eyes,  and licked my cheek. It's like...we met. I couldn't go out for a steak after. I couldn't do that to her, and I couldn't do that to her friends." She stopped eating meat four years ago, but she believes, she says, that she has always been a vegetarian. "I believe that eating meat was not ever natural for me, and in fact, is not natural at all. I know that people argue all kinds of points about this, talking about how animals eat each other, and how we need protein, but I don't believe it. We're not animals. Not exactly."
Animals exist in a natural (except to the extent that we've altered their environment) predatory cycle that has produced evolutionary adaptations in each animal giving it certain strengths and weaknesses - that is to say, animals who are not adept at killing often have great camouflaging skills, or make sounds that put off their attackers, or have other attributes that balance the playing field. Animals that are strong are often not fast. Animals that are fast often are herbivores. The cycle works, and it is "fair" in its own way. The environment has prepared  each one individually. We still don't like it. We don't like watching animal documentaries where lions eat zebras. It hurts us. But we know enough not to believe there is any correspondence between that ecosystem and ours. You can't compare a lion chasing down a zebra, with corporations breeding animals in tiny, dark, cold, pens, then torturing and killing them. The, "It's always been this way, it's part of the natural cycle of things" argument is just plain wrong. Hormel carting innocent pigs to their death in a freezing cold or burning hot truck is not part of the natural cycle of things! So far, at least, wild animals have to kill to live. But we don't. We do it because we WANT to.
Well, at Good Intentions, we don't want to.
|
|
|
