to the author, i just want to note, as you probably already have, the many whitesplaining comments from people trying to dissuade you of your primitive (in their oh so enlightened minds) attachment to your Chinese Malaysian foodways. You were right about the white privilege piece. I'm guessing your editor (or your own self-censorship) turned that line into a joke. But it's a very real part of this story that white supremacy is tied up with the moral absolutism of what you call "casual" vegan conversions. We have to understand this as a puritanical reaction / guilt response that comes from the descendants of a worldview that a) destroyed the planet through imperialism and its fallout and b) destroyed the U.S. food system and the cultural traditions it contained. Among other things!
11
@sojourner It is unfortunate that the mainstream animal rights movement has done such a good job of convincing people such as yourself that veganism is a "white" thing. In fact, white people do not have a copyright on this idea or way of life. Thankfully, more and more vegans of color (such as myself) are speaking out and challenging that narrative.
There is DEFINITELY white supremacy in the movement, but veganism itself is not a white supremacist idea.
10
@sojourner
You might be right about imperialism etc, but that does not mean being vegan or vegetarian isn’t what we have to do.
1
Sorry, but casual conversion to Veganism IS largely a white, first world issue, cause they arguably have the disposable income to make it a choice, as opposed to a necessity.
The issue I find offensive is how they feel so sanctimonious abut it, and are not afraid to insult those who do not agree with them.
Amazing how when you ask a Vegan if they contribute to causes defending children with equal vehemence, how fast they change the subject or revert to their Vegan talking points. Or give you “animals can’t speak for themselves!.”
Neither can children.
49
@ChrisW Veganism is being embraced in huge numbers by the African-American community and the Latino community! Chef Charity Morgan, Chef Babette Davis, Grey's Vegan Thanksgiving video that went viral. Vegatinos covers hundreds of Latino vegan dishes. The list goes on. Google it.
82
I was omnivore. Seeing the suffering of animals before and during the days of the Muslim festival Eid al-Adha (the Festival of the Sacrifice) while I was in Turkey 12 years ago converted me to a vegetarian. I think a lot of people would probably stop eating meat if they visited a slaughterhouse and saw what happened there. Yes, we must eat to obtain the nutrients (protein, carbohydrate, fat, vitamins and minerals) we need to live. However, our bodies do not know and care whether they come from plant or animal sources as long as the sources provide them in amounts and quality we need.
179
As I've become more of an adult who wants less meat in my diet, as opposed to my 21 year old self who took a stand against all meat consumption, I have come to appreciate the many dilemmas around food and tradition. My sensibilities about both the planet and animal welfare have shifted my focus to how the meat is produced. A celebratory pig roast is not a problem. Industrial hog farming is a big problem, though, on so many levels (pollution, animal welfare, quality of meat, impact on smaller producers, etc). So, I say, eat meat, less of it if you can, and use your purchasing power to reject factory farmed meats.
103
The global warming crisis and other environmental crises are not caused by eating meat, they are caused primarily byunchecked reproduction. A larger population could be supported if less meat were eaten, or if alternate energy were used and resource use were better controlled, but ultimately the destruction of the environment is now and will be the result of lack of control of population.
38
It's a choice that will be made for you given the encroaching environmental challenges. We are all experiencing a move away from things that are or were cultural touchstones for individuals, families, and communities which in many cases seems very exteriorly forced. You can and must create your own beachhead by learning to document and cook your recipes and support those who already do that and continue to share your own story and culture. I also think it is important people who do or do not eat meat are not subjected to food drama and that begins with each individual. In a family setting, it may be a difficult or different story but there is not a need to announce what you do and do not eat at dinner parties and restaurants. Eat the items that you can and as someone mentioned and just move on. Being together in a community/family is also what the food is about. aboiut.
25
The choice to stop paying for the enslavement, misery and unnecessary deaths of billions of sentient animals for palate pleasure and "tradition" is one that any of us who choose to live with compassion and justice as our guiding principals have had to make. We don't love our aging parents any less, we don't appreciate our family's cultural traditions any less, and we don't necessarily like the food tastes we grew up on any less. Not sure what this author thinks sets her apart from anyone else who spent years following food traditions, except that she is still looking for a reason to keep doing what she is comfortable doing...even if that means a prickly conscience and a lot of excuses in a world that is ever more embracing alternatives to the bodies and fluids of our animal brothers and sisters. It's never been easier to do the right thing.
188
Wow, people sure do a lot of mental backflips to try and turn something very simple and make it unnecessarily complicated. When you are not ok with ANY of the reasons someone can give or that you could give yourself for the suffering and killing of another sentient being, then you do not eat meat. Plain and simple. Rationalizing the killing of animals is a sick game we play. I know. I used to play the game to. But when I thought about it, really though about it, I just couldn't be part of the reason a life was ended or suffered. Not even because of my culture, health needs, taste preferences or any other reason someone can think of.
139
@Lucy
But what if you raise these domesticated, sentient beings yourself? Our animals are out there right now chowing down, happy to be alive, like me - and in a month they'll be out on pasture, where they may even be happier than me. Hopefully, there's a lot of life for both of us to live before we're pushing up daises. And in terms of environmental impact, where I live eating them is very sensible compared to the other alternatives, including vegetarian ones.
43
The good news here is that some people put so much thought into what they eat these days. That is a welcome change. After that meat tends to become a touchy subject. My approach is to honor all groups who make the journey, do the research, and examine the option to eat meat or not. I also try not to make a judgement of the that person's decision whatever it may be. Eat what ever you want to eat or not, but I recommend not forcing your opinion or position on other people. That is where the righteousness comes in, solves nothing, and can ruin a good meal.
My family raises chickens for their eggs and occasionally a pig. We try our best to provide a healthy and happy life for our pigs and we have complex and mixed feelings about eventually killing them and eating them. However, when I see meat on the racks in the grocery store, or the long lines at a fast food drive through, and know how that meat was raised, I feel like we are doing the right thing. We have learned, first hand and up close, what is at stake. We also have a robust garden and swoon over the veggies we get from there.
Can't really explain it precisely, but the veggies and animals all start to equally share the same profound sensation of the act of growing our own food.
38
The writing and thinking in these opinion pages increasingly read like bad blogging. This reminds me of Whoopi Goldberg defending Michael Vick's dog fighting arrest as being a "part of the culture." If the writer didn't crave meat, she wouldn't go to such cliched and silly lengths to justify it. You like to eat meat - you're not doing it because of your "identity". So embarrassing.
110
@Mike White: OTOH, Humans are evolutionary omnivores. If it not wrong for a fox to eat a bird then why is it wrong for humans to eat meat?
26
@Jeff
Because we have evolved in a way that has allowed us to make choices, and they have not.
93
Come to a slaughterhouse vigil with me and look into the eyes of those baby pigs, six months old, ripped from their mothers, headed to their violent deaths. Their mothers remain confined to crates the size of their bodies called "gestation crates." The males are castrated without anesthesia. Think about that for a moment. All so you can feel authentic about a tradition? Slavery was a tradition. Binding women's feet was a tradition. Chastity belts were a tradition. Throwing virgins to their deaths was a tradition. Tradition is often the excuse used to justify barbarism.
199
Once, it was a commonplace that animals had no feelings, and were not really sentient beings. That has thankfully passed, and now we see plants as non sentient things we can eat and feel morally free to consume and use, while being healthy.
Plants are living things. In our hubris and ignorance we deny that something that grows from a seed, or spore in the dirt deserves considerations or morality. But what if they have an existence, a kind of consciousness that we are simply unable to conceive?
The point here is that to eat one must kill something, whether animal or plant. To make moral distinctions is a rationalization.
33
Sure. Just as people's relationship to their slaves felt "completely authentic." Lots of horrible things feel "completely authentic," including rape and murder. Supposedly, that's why culture was invented. To stop people from being "completely authentic."
58
If we were going to go with tradition, we would not have marriage equality, or inter-racial marriage, and certainly not women voters. Today many are scandalized by the segregationist Jim Crow laws of the past, but when they were enforced, many saw it as part of the "natural order," or deemed those laws unfortunate, but thought, you can't change everyone. Often you cannot see horror when you live in the middle of it, and have grown up in it. We prefer not to think about animal suffering. I truly believe that fifty or a hundred years from now people will be scandalized at the immoral treatment of animals today. They will ask how we could do it, and wonder why we couldn't see how wrong it was.
68
The author writes “But I’ve been awed by the seeming casualness with which they make these decisions (to become vegetarian or vegan. ”
This is such an uncharitable at best (callous at worst) statement... do you actually believe that people haven’t wrestled with this issue and all it’s complexity (yes - including the traditions most of us inherited which promote eating meat)? You just assume that tradition trumps all these other factors (animal suffering, sustainability, the perpetuation of a dangerous belief that we Homo Sapiens are not merely animals but have special status so we can justify anything that makes us happy inside - regardless of the harm it causes others, etc.)?
Everyone I know who has chosen to move toward vegetarian/ vegan diets - has done so without fanfare... but with sincere thoroughly-considered intention.
It seems to me rather that the “casual” approach is the one you have chosen... warming clinging to tradition and not much else to justify your eating habits.
107
It's interesting to think about the fact that prehumans needed to eat meat to develop the brain capacity we have today, which wouldn't have been possible with veganism (look at the primates who are eating plants literally all day to feed their brain with energy). And with this brain capacity we contemplate to avoid meats. Fast forward a few million years with everyone being vegans and we would become chimpanzees again.
20
@Peter I think you are leaving out the invention of cooking. It allows us to eat a lot more food a lot faster than chimpanzees. Some historians consider the invention of cooking to be the key to how we managed to feed our energy hungry brains.
51
I appreciate the writer's introspection regarding the morality and environmental concerns revolving around ingestion of meat. But there is great irony here as well, as the author refers to the fact that the roast pig feast was to celebrate her mother's end-of-chemo to battle breast cancer.
Breast cancer, and the other most common killers afflicting modern mankind, are chiefly caused by our heavy consumption of animal products: meat (including fish and poultry), dairy, eggs and the like. Breast cancer was virtually unheard of in cultures consuming a plant-based diet; not so much anymore, as we've exported to the rest of the world the sad myth that we need meat in our diet.
Michael Greger, MD, recently authored the book "How Not to Die", examining the 15 most common killers (heart disease, cancer, and so on) and how they can be almost completely avoided with a plant-based diet. His non-profit organization's website, www.nutritionfacts.org, is a wealth of information based on thousands of studies, with hundreds of short videos, on how our health is incredibly influenced by what we eat.
A good 70% of spending on medical care is on treatment for chronic diseases caused by consumption of meat and other animal products, so America's sky-high medical costs would plummet if we collectively embraced a healthy plant-based diet. So personal health should be near the top of the list, along with the planet's health, on reasons to avoid that roast pig.
195
@Mark This is shockingly wrong. There is no medical consensus that eating meat is a chief cause of cancer, much less breast cancer. Dr. Greger is notorious for making grandiose claims that distort the evidence at best and mistake it at worst.
While we would all benefit from eating some more veg, eating meat in moderation will not put you in an early grave.
259
@Luke S The World Health Organization considers processed meat a human carcinogen, and red meat a likely carcinogen. Pigs are red meat.
72
@Independent still Yes, but, there is no evidence that everyone going vegan would eliminate (or even substantially reduce) breast cancer rates.
38
Pig roast is culture and social event on the opposite Pacific rim. Vegetarianism is a flaky fallacious hypothesis. The plants lack essential amino acids. Like ruminants, vegan folks will graze all day to get whatever essential amino acids. In contrast, folks who eat some meat there will be extra nutrients and calories to feed the brain. That is why vegetarian Triceratops can not compete with carnivore T rex.
12
My father died of lung cancer at a premature age due to heavy smoking. Berating him about it while he was alive only caused him to smoke all the more. Transitioning people toward vegetarian and vegan diets is a noble goal, but it will take time and deriding those who occasionally eat meat as morally inferior and environmentally ignorant is presumptuous, callous and frankly isn't going to advance your cause.
19
Having grown up a vegetarian since I was born, I never had to make a conscious choice to be a vegetarian. I am not religious by any measure, so I have no religious basis for staying vegetarian, except personal preference and that my notion of food has been defined by vegetarian ingredients. I feel no need to justify my vegetarianism to others, don’t wear my vegetarianism on my sleeve, and don’t pontificate to others on the benefits of vegetarianism (I am sure it has benefits as well as drawbacks) if they eat meat. If the author enjoys eating meat, why try to justify eating meat as culture/tradition? Having said that, I feel there is some hypocrisy involved in meat eating - I am sure everybody is comfortable harvesting and cutting vegetables, but how many would stay vegetarians if they were asked to slaughter their own livestock?
23
I remember the moment I realized that traditions were not eternal. Every one of them started and many stop at particular moments in history among a group of people for a particular reason. Take a moment to trace the history of the traditions you follow. Find out if they were born out of material need, superstition, or maybe even the whims of a leader or monarch of the time. Then, decide if it makes sense NOW. We are creating new traditions all of the time. We deserve to understand why we do and do not do things. Think about ALL of the traditions you have rejected because they DON'T work, or are cruel. I completely understand why the author wants to hang onto something that connects her to her family, but I think she would discover that innovative, creative people have for centuries been leaving behind things that no longer work and willfully imbuing meaning in NEW traditions for centuries. It's one of the hallmarks of a successful society....change...is...survival.
29
My New Year's Resolution for 2020 was to become a "80% Vegetarian," since I knew that, now and again, I would simply have to enjoy fish, bacon, pulled pork, filet mignon and other meaty goodies. My motivation was purely selfish, to improve my health. So far I've only "fallen off the wagon" twice, to enjoy fish & chips. Vegetables have wonderful flavors, more so than meat, which relies on spices to give it much flavor. The beets go on!
26
@tony83703
You'll find that the less you eat meat, the less appealing it becomes and the more your taste buds are awakened to so many other flavors. The thought of chewing flesh at this point is repugnant to me.
28
I strongly disagree with the statement that not eating meat is a deviation from the tradition or histories of our culture. Something that used to be viewed as normal in the past could meet instant disapproval in modern times as the perception of our society progress. Case in point, it was totally normal for a Chinese man to have a harem of concubines up until just around 100 years ago. This is something that is totally impossible in our modern society. If the author wants to find reasons to stay Omnivore, i would suggest to take this off the list. On a sidenote, I presumed the roast pig dish are the ones that I mainly see in Chinese cuisine. If thats the case, you are basically eating a baby pig. I find this hard to stomach when I imagine i'm eating a baby who is forcibly separated from the mother and sent direct to the gallows, devoid of any adulthood.
34
Vegetables are what the food eats.
9
Culture of violence, rape culture, patriarchal culture... everything is cultural. Let’s foster a culture of compassion, respect and love that benefits our planet and all its inhabitants, without exception. Our food choices are one part of it.
38
I am a meat eater, and unlikely to stop (too old/OK boomer). But the worst reason to avoid giving up any practice is that it's "traditional". A lot of immoral practices are traditional. Foot binding . Slavery. Racism. And perhaps, in this day and age, meat eating.
27
At least as important as what we eat is the roughly 1/3 of food that is wasted.
20
I'm an Asian-American who has been vegetarian for the past four years, and I don't think many of us could ask for more than your current stance, which you put beautifully. I do encourage my friends and family to be conscious of their diets--it's easier than many expect to cut down on the amount of meat they eat--but there's a big difference between McDonalds and mindless eating, versus eating to get in touch with one's culture. There are multiple ways to be a conscious consumer, and going vegetarian/vegan is only one of them; I'd encourage some self-righteous vegans to read up on the ethics of their avocado and cashew consumption, which contribute to deforestization and worker exploitation.
22
I really don't understand why believe you should feel guilty about your food choices. Of course there are many good reasons to become vegetarian or vegan as you enumerate. I also appreciate that your food memories and comfort foods are closely associated with meat. That's what diversity is all about - and maybe when you reach that age where you care less about what others think you can let it go.
4
I started to be a vegetarian 2 months ago. Colture and tradition isnt only connected with food..
10
Consumption of meat, especially processed meat has strong links to many forms of cancer, including breast cancer. Our ancestors were 70% vegetarian (the remaining 30% was mostly insects) so we didn't evolve the ability to safely process the large amount of meat most people consume, hence the digestive, cancer and other issues. Here's a link to an article from the World Health Organization on the subject.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cancer.org/latest-news/world-health-organization-says-processed-meat-causes-cancer.html
11
"... a simple decision, to stop eating meat, has a way of alienating us from our histories and our traditions and the people around us."
Here's the issue: it does not. You could say the same thing about smoking, which was "part of our culture" for decades, but is no longer. You could say the same thing about hunting (no longer widely practiced in most of the US), or stock car racing (slowly falling out of favor), or men wearing hats.
What the author calls "culture" is nothing more than her personal preference. A powerful theme in modern-day, culture is the feeling that our environment is being destroyed around us, and meat eating plays a part in that. The central premise of this article is poorly argued and insubstantial, given the fluid and rapidly changing definition of the cultures and traditions around us.
27
Been veg for 40 years, my kids book on it was written in 1992 and still in print and yet many of my friends have no idea I am vegetarian. I chose not to be the food police and when we go out to dinner I always find something to eat (I'm not vegan so eggplant parmesan is often chosen, but there is always an option) and so I don't "look veg" - being veg should be as kind to all of us as we are to the animals. We don't have to act superior and carnivores should not be threatened. The times they are a'changin..when I wrote the book in 1992, The Beef Council wrote about me and called it communism to not eat meat...this change in dietary habits is in the middle of an evolutionary process. But let's be friends while it happens.
15
"... when I wrote the book in 1992, The Beef Council wrote about me and called it communism to not eat meat ..."
I can't find an organization called "The Beef Council".
Could you be more specific about it and about what they wrote? Is it online?
1
Yet another poor defense for eating meat. I suggest the author put herself in the pig's shoes (she could also conduct a thought experiment where she, as a human, is hunted and killed by far more intelligent alien creatures.)
"...Wait, I have to suffer and die so that my eater can feel slightly more connected to her childhood and cultural heritage? Well, she has chosen to live far from (one of her) ancestral homes, and at least my death -- and the deaths of hundreds of others -- would save her the work it would take to maintain her sense of identity through other means."
Please stop thinking so small.
If we keep on with this small, self-centered thinking, the climate havoc created by our meat-eating habits could wipe away the very cultures you are hoping to preserve.
I agree that non-vegetarians, if they are so inclined, would be wise to give up "meaningless" meat before "meaningful" meat. It may hurt less. It may not "fundamentally" change who you are.
Still, how life-affirming might it feel to consciously decide to maintain a link to your cultural heritage through poetry, film, nature, stories, religion, language, etc. rather than through killing. Perhaps "not eating it would fundamentally change who we are" for the better. Plus, I hear there are some great new vegetarian restaurants cropping up in Kuala Lumpur.
27
How could not eating something, (fundamentally ) change "who we are" ?
( That was the last sentence of this article - and that pretty much sums up the thoughts conveyed )
I think we have to de-identify ourselves with a host of things ( whatever it is ) just to remain neutral, unbiased & sane...... & Move forward with no psychological baggage
8
There are a lot of "traditions" we've ended that harmed humans in great or small ways. Animals are sentient beings, let's change the tradition of killing them. We'll live.
27
I have been "alienated" for well over 30 years. It ain't no big deal. I wish I had never eaten one bite of meat.
18
While There is much to admire in your column. , there is also much that is simply horrifying. "What I am saying is that casual conversions to veganism are white privilege." You know, once you say something like this you don't get to take it back because at some level you ABSOLUTELY meant this. But you're also ABSOLUTELY wrong. African-Americans have plunged into veganism with their whole hearts & souls. I also know many Asian-American vegans. And to use the word "casual" is absurd. I became vegetarian after crying day after day about the Gulf oil spill in 2010. I realized that crying for dolphins, sea turtles & pelicans while continuing to eat other animals was hypocritical. Later that year I began to hang out with vegans. My "conversion" was not "casual". It came after a lot of self-examination & the gaining of knowledge about the horrific conditions in which dairy cows & egg-laying hens live. It is the best decision I have every made. You say you "admire" vegetarians & then you throw barbs and jabs in their direction. I have to say "not cool".
34
As a yoga teacher I am often conflicted about my choice to continue eating meat. Part of it is that I have a hard time digesting legumes, one of the best plant-based sources of protein. The other is that my family is from Austria, whose cuisine is heavy on meat, sausages, cold cuts & broth-based soups. There are many vegetarian options these days, and restaurants helpfully label their menus for all types of dietary restrictions. But selfishly, I want my leberkässemmel. It’s a childhood touchstone. Also, I console myself that when we go to the town butcher they know the farmer who raised the lamb we are buying. I see the cows grazing in beautiful, green fields. People make their livelihoods in sustainable livestock farming. In India, I had no problem eating vegetarian meals for three weeks, with a piece of fish thrown in a few times when I felt protein-deprived. I agree with Michael Pollan’s prescription for a healthy diet: eat food, not too much, mostly plants.
8
It's a choice of life style.
What I don't like about vegans is the air they wear.
I'm vegan. I'm healthier. I'm politically and socially correct and I'm superior. Similar to rescue dog owners.
21
A couple of notes:
One, having grown up in a vegetarian household, it is not trivial to become a meat-eater either. It is vastly more difficult, not only because one loses a cultural connection but also, no less, there is a moral angle as well.
Second, Thanksgiving has nothing to do with turkey, nor with native Indians. It is one way my family and I affirm that we are Americans (in a secular way); it has become more and more essential with a President who strikes at the very root of who an American is.
4
The author writes:
"I’ve recently watched so many people around me become vegetarians, or sometimes vegans. They are doing so for reasons — both moral and environmental — I understand and support."
She left out one of the reasons many people are modifying their diets to a more vegetarian track: health. A mostly plant based diet is demonstrably better for you than a meat heavy one. I eat meat, my wife does not. Over the years I've eaten less and less of it, and I've seen my health improve even as I enter my mid 60s. I have no moral qualms with eating a pig. But I do have qualms about the condition of the lining of my arteries. So should we all.
10
Thoughtful and interesting commentary. I am vegetarian and have been for about 15 years. I did not make the choice for moral reasons; rather for health and environmental concerns. I'm rather easy-going about it. If soup has a chicken or beef stock base, that's fine. I taste my husband's meat entree if we're out for a meal. I don't ask for special dishes at friends's dinners; I have been known to pick out chunks of meat from a casserole. My husband casually eats what I don't. I do eat some dairy and I am aware of the enivornmental contradiction. I prepare meat dishes for my family and I eat a slice of turkey at Thanksgiving and ham at Christmas. At age 70 I am comfortable with my choices, feel I'm making a tiny contribution to a better environment and my heart health.
I would not be comfortable with zealotry, but have not really encountered that. I don't know that either orientation needs to be defensive about their lifestyle choices. As with so many life style choices.
14
@Anita If you taste meat or have turkey on Thanksgiving or don't worry about chicken or beef stock, then you are not a vegetarian. You might avoid meat, but you still partake....your choice, but don't confuse others with your definition of vegetarianism.
13
Question: is fundamentally changing who you are a bad thing? Can it not be for the better? Don't mean to imply that not eating meat would be for the better but you seem to be assuming that fundamental change is inherently bad or risky..
4
"The solution is to not be dogmatic, to be adults. We are all capable of understanding the difference between meaningful and meaningless meat."
I'm not sure what the distinction is between meaningful and meaningless meat.
I don't think the animals who were tortured to produce this meat care about this distinction either.
The piece ignores the unspeakable cruelty that occurs to produce the meat that she consumes. Wrapping this up in cultural heritage doesn't justify it. There are many aspects of cultural heritage that have been abandoned in the US - slavery, child marriage, female circumcision, debtor's prisons (mostly), etc.
If she's concerned about upsetting her friends who are offended by her eating choices, she should get new friends who are less sensitive about their guilt over consuming meat.
14
I stopped eating beef in 1980 - not for any principle, but because I just lost the taste for it. I grew up on a farm and beef, pork and chicken were always on our plates, in one form or another. I stopped eating pork around 2002, when my husband was told he had to cut his cholesterol, although we already were eating very little meat; ditto for lamb chops, which I used to like.
Chicken is a different story. My mother raised chickens and my siblings and I had to feed and water them daily. Since my mother sold the eggs, there were quite a lot of chickens. They were not fun to be around, and the rooster would attack us regularly when we went in the coops. When my mother killed a bunch of chickens, sometimes 40-50 at a time to sell, we had to dunk them in hot water to loosen the feathers, then pluck them and clean out their insides. The smell was terrible. Since then I have decided that the best chicken is on your plate. I don't eat it as much as I used to, but I still eat it, preferably organic.
2
Wow. Just wow. What, is every vegetarian and vegan sharing this article? First of all, meat is a necessary nutrient. If you have to keep track of every bit of protein to make sure your diet is balanced, it's not natural. We are part of the food chain, we eat animals, and animals would eat us given the opportunity. Second, the meat portion of agriculture barely makes a dent in GHG. You want to help the environment, shut down factories, stop driving cars. There are things you can do to create change in the environment that will make a big impact and has nothing to do with eating meat. You don't want to eat an animal, that's fine, but don't act like you are morally superior. It is just your choice. No saving the environment, no higher level of living, no ending animal deaths, just a choice.
17
I’m sorry but your facts are a bit skewed. Meat contains proteins that were assembled from simpler units found in the plants that the animal ate. You can do the same in your body if you ate plants. You don’t need to let the animal create the proteins and then eat the animal to get that protein. It’s more efficient to make the protein yourself. Most of the food produced in the world is to feed the animals. Cut out the middle man and there would be plenty of food for everyone. And the amazon wouldn’t shrink every year. Eating less meat and driving less are two of the few direct ways we can help the environment, how do you close a factory ? I thought being a vegan or vegetarian was the morally superior position, she’s arguing against it.
16
@Regina
Sorry, but you are wrong on multiple points.
1. Eating meat is not necessary, as science and vegetarian societies around the world (in India, for example) teach us.
2. Decreasing suffering of other beings and decreasing environmental damage is ethically positive thing. It is a choice, but it is morally positive choice
18
NEJ1945
I also am diabetic, so I changed my diet. I now eat within 8 hours, fasting for 16 hours and eating two eggs, 2 strips of thick bacon and toast for breakfast and not worrying about what proportion of protein or fat I eat and trying to stay under 50 grams of carbs for the rest of the day.
My total cholesterol was recently found to be 181mg; normal is 200mg. HDL is 72mg, far better than 60mg that is protective of heart disease. LDL is 97mg lower than 100mg, which is optimal. Triglycerides is 60mg; normal is 150mg. (I currently take meds for Triglycerides) Glucose level is 108mg; normal is 100mg. That's equivalent to 5.4 A1C.
3
I was surprised to see so much judgment and vitriol in some of the comments here. I am also half Chinese. Food plays such an important role in my family and in our cultural traditions. I live far away from my family and there are times when eating traditional foods, most of which are not vegetarian, gives me a lot of comfort. My cousins and I have often said how it would be difficult to be a full-time vegetarian in our family. After all, who among us would tell our 101-year-old Grandmother that we’re not eating the food she spent all day cooking for us? Who among us would deprive ourselves of all that love?
9
@DCO I am Jewish and food is also extremely important in my culture...and yes, I am vegan for over 30 years and vegetarian since 1984 (when I stopped eating meat, fish and chicken but occasionally had dairy or eggs). And yes, my grandmother was not happy at first but eventually found new ways to cook for me and make vegetarian and eventually vegan versions of family favorites. I held a completely vegan seder at my house a few years ago and all were impressed and nobody felt that the lack of animal products (mind you--no gefilte fish, no brisket, etc.) diminished their holiday. In fact, I spent the next few weeks forwarding recipes.....
15
Happy this worked out for you and your family, but what works for some doesn’t work for others. I commented because I relate to the author’s food dilemma, as I have made a similar decision, one that works for me, but that others may not understand or agree with.
7
@DCO
DCO, nobody is a saint here. We all make good and bad choices. However, we should all strive for a better world. Isn’t current affair with “traditional” food and coronavirus showing us we need to reconsider some of the traditions?
7
As long as you can substitute the same nutritional protein in your diet, vegetarianism is OK. Don't insist on it for your growing kids, because they need the protein in red meat, also.
Rice and beans will not do it for them. I've seen stunted kids on inadequate "traditional" diets in other countries among the poor. When they are fully grown, they can make their own diet decisions.
Moderation in all things is the slogan/mantra for me. Americans suffer from a surfeit of gluttony and waste.
Do something about that first. Insist on smaller portions at a smaller price in restaurants, for example. Raise your own vegetables at home or in community gardens. Cut out additives that harm. Teach kids good nutrition by showing them how to buy food at the store (read the labels) and cook healthily at home. Buy kosher or from companies that treat their animals kindly.
I hate my "traditional" foods and did as a child, but it did not make me less ethnic.
9
It is incredibly refreshing to see these types of articles. Thank you
3
"It is incredibly refreshing to see these types of articles."
It would be more informative if you said what about this OpEd you find "incredibly refreshing". We are not mind-readers.
7
The Vegan Police are watching you.....
20
So Alicia, alienation from your tradition trumps getting more civilized. I now understand why some people want to go back to plantations and slavery. Thing again !
13
At 50, at doctor recommendation, I had a routine colonoscopy. Due to the tight curves of my intestines, it was impossible to complete until I was fully anesthetized. In the meantime, the doc recommended a barium enema and virtual colonoscopy. This meant four colon cleanses in 6 months, killing my digestive flora & leaving me bloated & in pain when eating my regular diet. After years of dietary experimentation, I switched to a plant-based, whole foods diet (vegan) which my system seemed best able to handle. The side benefits were weight loss & cholesterol reduction. Arguably I may have suffered more bone less on this diet but just as likely it was the digestive problems & related nutrient absorption problems that caused slightly more bone loss than is average. (I am small boned to begin with.)
Long story to get to this point: it's a good thing to cut back on eating meat, for health & the planet. But don't assume that a person eating a vegan diet is doing so for those reasons. Some of us can't eat meat, cheese, milk. I do well on brown rice and beans, vegetables, oats, etc. Overeating anything still causes digestive woes & junk food in all but minute quantities is verboten. A cautionary note: I had a healthy digestive system before cleanses for routine screening colonoscopy landed me in digestive hell. Before I take a U.S. doctor's recommendation, I now look to see what is done in Europe & Canada where medicine is practiced differently, but with good results.
6
Do vegans and vegetarians who dont eat meat because they cannot stomach killing sentient beings support the killing of the unborn in the mothers womb?
Otherwise there is a huge hypocrisy in that argument. I eat very little meat - for health reasons. Rarely if ever - have milk and cheese - again for health reasons.
It is one thing to value life - our own life included and another thing to only value animal life and give barely two hoots about human life ( especially when that human life is not yours and belongs to a voiceless innocent )
6
@JM
No, there is no hypocrisy. It is not only about life but also about feeling pain, and little speck of few cells does not feel the pain that mature animal with developed neural system feels. Australian philosopher Peter Singer wrote many books about it.
10
I have had the very good fortune of three of the sweetest, friendliest, and smartest dogs you can ever imagine. They were my four legged furry best of friends and slightly mentally challenged children, though smart enough to communicate to me and provide their every wish.
One day an acquaintance bought a Vietnamese Potbelly Pig as a pet. I soon learned that pigs are as smart or smarter then dogs. From that point on the very notion of eating something smarter then my furry friends was forever impossible to imagine. It wasn't long after that I realized eating any living thing with a mother or eyes, regardless of how smart or cute it was or wasn't is something I want no part of.
Not eating any living creature is not about what kind of food you eat but about what kind of person you want to be.
12
Respectfully, the foods someone eats doesn’t define who that person is anymore than the clothes they wear, or the drinks they imbibe. Those selections simply represent personal choices made.
Much has been made about how “tradition”, and by extension “tradition-based actions” like food, drink, or ceremonies somehow “define” a culture. The reality is all “traditions” had a starting point; an action being done the first time, and having nothing to do with the culture per se. Thus, it isn’t “culture” that creates tradition, but rather some amount repetition of a singular action, after which it is deemed “traditional”.
There were many “traditional practices” that were engaged in despite their abhorrent nature, until a strong societal awareness put an end to them, and relegated them to the ash bin of history.
Olfactory sensation is one of the most powerful memory trigger, and taste is inherently tied to that sense, so it is no wonder that food is a powerful evocation of pleasant memories. Indulging pleasant memories venerated by claims of “upholding tradition” shouldn’t be the foundation of our moral, health, and environmental choices, all of which are poorly served by consuming animal products.
By making the choice to leave animal products off your plate, you can better serve your culture by making a strong moral and healthier choice for you and the planet, and perhaps even start a NEW “tradition”...
11
My mother was in her eighties and living comfortably in a nursing facility - less than ten minutes away from one of her children - and I about an hour away --
She had survived a series of mini (silent) heart attacks - lost all her teeth - survived a 40-year, 2-pack-a-day smoking habit - two bad marriages - lifelong struggles with depression and anxiety - while at the same time working almost every day of her life until the age of seventy - while keeping a home and raising three children --
So --
I would call her and tell her my wife and I were going to drive up for a visit and ask what could we bring her as a special treat for lunch and a break from the institutional food she has every day --
She would ask us to bring her a cheeseburger from Wendy's - with French Fries and a chocolate milkshake -- which we were only delighted to do --
We would all sit together and have Wendy's for lunch in the day room -- and if my mother had asked us to bring her another cheeseburger - we'd have jumped in the car and brought her another one --
My mother died at the age of eighty-five -- and I had a cheeseburger, fries and a chocolate shake to honor her memory...
16
"because not eating it would fundamentally change who we are." Yes. That is the point. It is exactly what we need to do, to fundamentally change who we are.
17
I grew up in India in the state of Gujarat where practically everyone was a vegetarian. Photo of a roast pig would have been very offensive in that non-Western place. Now, after living for decades in the USA most of the hundreds of thousands of Gujaratis, including my wife, are still vegetarians. But, I reluctantly started to eat meat 50 years ago in the USA. I love hamburgers, Thanksgiving turkey dinner, pepperoni pizza, and much more.
Eating meat against my traditions and culture doesn't bother me, nor does climate change. You may call me selfish and rebellious but my criteria for a good human being does not exclude enjoying life. I support EPA and regulated capitalism. However, individualism and moderation are equally important.
8
I, too, have tried everything. Loved "Forks over Knives", and the plant based diet, but...found I do like Bison, fish and chicken on occasion, as well as a pork chops with apple sauce and Riesling wine.
It wasn't until I read the Blue Zones and linked all my experiences overseas hiking with locals that I found the Mediterranean Diet works for me. The Plant Based diet works most of the time, but I do not feel guilty at age 83 for adding meat occasionally. And, yes! A bison burger that I buy from Trader Joe's is one of the best items on my menu once a month. And, I am in great shape as I do Pilotes with fifty women and five men three days a week along with Cardio, biking, hill walking, and kayaking. Most of the men I know are on their way out.
So read the "Blue Zones", exercise every day including walking up hills, drink lots of water, and enjoy moderation and common sense eating. Most of my vegan friends are not living into their 80's and 90's in good health. Yes. I know there are exceptions. But...the reality is different in the USA. If you want to live to 100, move to Okinawa and study Japanese.
5
These responses show why we will only protect people with a hard-line, autocratic government. People on their own will opt for “choice,” for “freedom,” and will not make decisions for the greater good.
3
Falling back on tradition is a great justification for preserving cruel habits. As a race we are inhumane towards all other living things, animals and plants. But with animals, we farm them in the most obviously terrible manner and salivate over their young ones. It is not about tradition, it is about greed. Tradition was not one pig for one family, it was one pig for an entire community. There were not millions upon millions of pigs, pig mamas separated from their babies, so the delicious suckling could be speared by salivating humans on a colorful table. This is not an omnivores dilemma, this is a cruel desire to inflict harm on other creatures. There should be no pride taken in eating other species so close to us in emotion and habits. The real reason, vegetarianism or vegan diets do not appeal is the laziness of people to cook and meld tastes. The patience in cooking with love and imagination requires effort and time. Yes eating plants may seem cruel too, but heck I don’t kill the apple tree when I pick it’s apples and I sure treat it with the utmost respect lest it deprive me of its fruit. Eat for a just future. Don’t sell yourself excuses to emulate the past.
20
Interesting thought about the casual conversions to veganism being white privilege (or in some thinking, class privilege). In this country and other wealthy countries, we choose what we eat. People who don't have enough to eat, eat what is in front of them.
10
@CR We're not talking about those that truly don't have enough to eat.
3
Being vegetarian is an elitist thing. It is a way of life for people who have access to much food as well as a large variety of food.
For those people living on the edge of starvation and food shortages, any food meat or plant is welcomed.
I often wonder how proclaimed vegetarians would have fared in ancient or medieval eras when famine was a common occurrence. Would they have been so righteous as to accept a possible death by starvation for their meatless principles?
Just tired of the preaching and proselytizing. Can we eat our meals in peace without some vegan's criticism or judgement of what us non-vegetarians choose to eat.
18
@John Christoff As I mentioned above, we're not talking famine, or ancient times. You're argument is either based on not understanding the article, or you're just being dishonest.
I agree about preachy types, but your meal, if based on industrial meat, has little "peace" in it.
12
@Brian
I understand the article as a apology to her vegetarian friends and to the world why she eats meat. She poses her reason for eating meat as a tribute to her ethnic traditions and as a loss of her identity if she does not. She is trying to propose a defense for not being vegetarian whether she realizes this or not. A defense or apology that in no way is needed.
Our food is in abundance because it is agribusiness based. And without such a basis of production, most of the working class people and the poor and many elderly could not afford to eat.
And let us not talk about "organic" or "locally sourced" food. It is just as elitist to expect people with less means to buy a tomato for 5 dollars as it is to preach vegetarianism.
7
@John Christoff Have you been to India? Rich and poor are vegetarian....it is not an elitist thing. Saying it is elitist, actually is elitist.
11
Tying tradition to cultural identity can lead to regressive, repressive, and dangerous attitudes. In the South, where tobacco was once king, smoking was considered part of a rich tradition, and those who argued about the links to cancer were considered communist. Likewise, in the same region, barbecue has always been a much-treasured tradition, despite the risks to health and the detriment caused to the planet. I am from the South and feel no less connected even as I have never smoked and have been vegetarian for decades.
At one time it was perfectly acceptable, even normal, for fraternal organizations to exclude women, blacks, and Jews. White males deluded swathed themselves in the comfort of tradition--men had always had places of refuge from women and people whose skin color and religion was different from theirs.
My point is, tradition for its own sake is harmful and discriminatory. Be proud of your roots, never forget them, but just as times change, so too your cultural awareness and practices must too, to no diminution of your identity.
13
The protection of culture and tradition have long been used as crutches to support behaviours we prefer to not give up. You admire vegetarians for being thoughtful and ethical..., but you choose not to join them? Admiration on solid grounds without behaviour change is at least a little cowardly. Spaniards, particularly young people, are increasingly opposed to the tradition of bullfighting. It will go. All throughout human history, some people could own and mistreat other people. We now reject that. More and more of us are feeling the effects of climate changes, and science is showing us that animals are not so different from humans. It’s all indefensible.
8
For years I have rarely eaten meat, except fish and shrimp, at home. But when I go out, I almost always order meat as a treat. In addition to cutting my met consumption drastically, I save a ton of money. Have you looked at the prices of meat lately?
3
Traditions are traditions and should be respected as such. But deeper than tradition, far deeper, is our underlying morality and our responsibility to other humans, to other species and to the future generations of living things that will follow us. This editorial is well-intended, I think, but it made me feel a physical revulsion on reading it.
I gave up eating meat because I could no longer live with myself because of the cruelty involved in the food and agricultural industries. Layered on top of that are massive environmental considerations of being a meat-eater. And last, and least, there are the health considerations for myself. I come from a culture with traditions of eating meat. I never even considered that those traditions should play any part in my moral decision on this matter. If you feel you can give up meat, please give it up. If you can eat less meat, please do so. If you think you can give up just beef (the most harmful meat by far environmentally) then please do that. As for the author's citation of 'cultural traditions', remember that most pre-industrialized cultures in fact ate/eat very little meat, and some eat none at all. I am very far from being a perfect human being, but I do expect myself to at least try to move in the right direction, morally and pragmatically. I may fail, but to make excuses is something I try to avoid at all costs. Ms. Wittmeyer, I urge you to heed Mark Twain: "It is never wrong to do the right thing".
12
Hmmmm. I wonder how old that tradition is? Many of the dishes we eat now weren’t around several hundred years ago. Given the changing world, didn’t meat-eating increase over the generations and in the process perhaps create new traditions? Now, our awareness of the world is changing again and we know there are many reasons to become vegan (or change the amount of meat we eat and the way we rear animals): 1) health, 2) reducing environmental damage, 3) recognizing the ill-treatment of animals and 4) reducing disease that comes from domesticating animals. Perhaps it’s time for new traditions? Or if we practice such a tradition on special occasions that would be infinitely different to how most people behave now and would unlikely have the environmental, disease-spreading and ill-health consequences we are currently facing. We could raise less animals, hopefully in a respectful manner and thank them for their contribution to our sustenance
6
The author describes eating the pig in a celebration. In the past eating meat was more for a special meal. People today are eating meat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Certainly this is not necessary or healthy.
Food traditions and sitting down together for a meal tie us together. Hopefully we can all be less judgmental while we slowly or totally cut out meat.
10
Yes eating meat is a social and cultural need not a natural one. Our metabolism developed mainly around vegetables not meat. Meat causes an increase death rate, more dementia, and the damage on our environment is huge,
Many many people cannot afford meat and do fine health wise. Meat ,like fossil fuels, are a threat to our lives and to the planet, traditions are just habits, so I will change traditions rather then continue to damage myself and the world.
5
Child labor and dumping sewage directly into our rivers used to be part of our culture, too. So did denial of voting rights and, yes, institutionalized racism. Some 'traditions' will have to change if we are to build a moral, sustainable culture.
21
What a depressing title in a time of environmental crisis, where billions of farm animals contribute to putrifying our water supplies, deteriorating the topsoil and methane release. You just won't change? No? At this point, your reasons sound hollow and irrelevant. I see what you're saying, but almost all of us came with some kind of food tradition and baggage. They usually included meat. Yet I and my family are changing and seeing that this cannot continue. You're not the only person to struggle with this. But there is so much to gain from seeing a bigger picture and accepting that the entire world is changing, possibly irrevocably. As for me and my family, we will no longer buy the roast pig. (BTW, you want to see an example of someone who became vegan while steeped in a long history of food culture and tradition? Josh LaJaunie from Louisiana. Amazing story.)
17
All those who want to eat cows, pigs and other animals should visit slaughter-houses for one week and then decide the culinary choices. I did that some thirty years ago as a research fellow in a mid-western university.
19
@Jayarama Guntupalli
I worked one summer in a packing plant while in college. I had to miss work a few times because I was arrested for protesting the Vietnam war, so I was not a monster. I was also part of a group that provided free food for farm workers and other poor folks. This included beef from a steer donated by a "hippie" rancher that we slaughtered and a volunteer butcher processed. We still eat meat.
4
@Jayarama Guntupalli I had become an ovo/lacto vegetarian shortly before visiting a slaughter house in Kansas while visiting my dad. (I wanted the hides.) He had begun a cow/calf operation of ~80 head, while I was a Californian from the Coast. The animals died quickly, but I can't imagine what they felt or thought as they were awaiting their fate in a nearby stall while their mates were spilling blood nearby. Thankfully, my dad and the many family members nearby seemed to respect my ways.
2
I just ate grits and sardines for breakfast. (With some tomato paste, onions, and a little hot pepper to add for my spicy side). To me this is "traditional Bahamian." - But I ask why?
Sardines are not indigenous to our islands. They come in cans. As does the tuna in "grits and tuna" - another popular breakfast dish.
What needs to be addressed here is the fact that our fisheries are overfished and unsustainable. Does anyone remember when Queen Conch (Strombus/ Lobatus gigas) used to be a "thing" in the Florida Keys? Yeah.That fishery has been closed in the US since 1986. They have since not recovered...
5
If everyone who eats meat would have to kill the animal with his or her own hands, people would be a lot more considerate in general.
Don't get me wrong: I am vegan but I have no qualms wearing mink fur or crocodile shoes. I don't mind wearing the skin of animals who predate on other animals. But to kill a cow, a lamb, a goat for meat is the most coward human act I can imagine. To go into a supermarket and pretend that the meat there came from a factory is like saying that electricity comes from the outlet.
I never struggle with desires for meat. I simply don't have them. Not even fish is tempting to me. Everybody can go vegan or vegetarian if there is the will to do so.
And it is well known that animal meat production is a leading cause of environmental degradation. So stop it while you can!
You will be rewarded with better health, too.
5
The byline for this article is based on the assumption that one’s traditions are right and good. I can think of a million other traditions including oppression and the theft of basic rights which as it turns out, is a bad tradition.
8
@Ryan Ford nothing personal, but yours is an imprecise analogy. oppression and the theft of basics rights were not a cultural tradition (though I guess one could claim it as such). on a global scale they are part of the economic system that also gave us imperialist genocide, capitalism, factory farming etc, all leading to the gift that keeps on giving, environmental collapse. to tell the cultures most impacted by these destabilizing forces that their foodways are bad traditions is a kind of moral supremacy that starts to sound like....mmm that other supremacy that shall not be named. are the people descended from the ones who got us into this mess, really going to get us out? again not personal, i've had a similar response to other comments on this article finger wagging at the author's attempt to hold onto her complicated identity. i just find the gall of majority culture respondents telling her to *think of her humanity* above culture reveals incredible historical blindspots. it does seem that some vegans feel like they are making amends for the sins of their forefathers, i'm just not sure veganism is going to save us, but it's a good distraction!
4
This essay reads like the carnivore's version of white fragility, trying to mollify your own self-imposed guilt over actions you know deep down are wrong on so many levels. I'm vegan, 100% Cantonese, and eat and prepare food that connects me to my culture—food that I ate as a child growing up with my family—ALL THE TIME. Don't use culture as an excuse.
21
Why does everyone assume that vegetarians are mostly white? Stop being so Euro and America-centric. The country with the largest number and percentage of vegetarians and the most highly developed vegetarian cuisine is India
22
@reader because Hindu vegetarians don't whitesplain their millenia of religious conviction as a morally absolving lifestyle that is going to save the planet.
5
The master wood artisan in Japan goes to the forest to select his tree and before felling it prays for the soul of the tree. Then, little is wasted and the resultant box or chair or chest is resplendent.
We need the same ethos in our relationship with the fauna and not just the flora of the earth. While I do not believe we need to kill and dress our own meat if we should choose to eat it, we cannot continue to believe and teach our children meat is something which comes in a cryovac bag or on a styrofoam tray covered with plastic wrap.
Life is a gift from the planet whether it be a tree or a pig or a human child. It deserves to be respected in every form, shape and color in which it exists.
One must eat to live but one need not kill to eat.
5
There are two peer reviewed scientific articles that I know of, showing much better survival rates among cancer patients when they go vegetarian.
And you connect to your Malaysian culture via your heart and mind. You do not need to sacrifice a sentient creature to accomplish it.
6
Animal protein helps feed cancers. Cancer feed off the meat you are eating. When we kill and eat animals, then they kill us with disease and cancer. Not to mention, the slaughter houses and factory farms are horribly cruel to animals. How on earth can you justify raising chickens so sickly that they cannot even stand up or move around, just so you can eat them>? We all need to stop eating animals, for our health, for the sake of the animals, and for our environment. Meat is Murder. Don't kid yourself. How would you like to live next to a slaughterhouse? How can you justify the mistreatment and murder of animals? I will never eat meat again.
9
I grew up eating meat too. I stopped as a teenager. Nostalgia is a poor excuse for supporting a truly horrific industry. Maybe if you watch some footage of the conditions these animals are kept in and the manner in which they are slaughtered, you'll feel differently about indulging your nostalgia. And that comment you made and took back about "white privilege" indicates that you are approaching the idea of giving up meat from a social, rather than moral perspective.
11
@Diane Strong i imagine the author made and recanted that statement out of self-censorship and because the complications of her own biracial / multicultural identity make it hard for her to enunciate clearly a problematic that is made extremely obvious by the legions of (mostly!) white vegans who descended on this comment section to decry her moral turpitude. people whose culture occupies the mainstream and whose ancestral accomplishments include the planet-devouring fallout of imperialist capitalism have the luxury of abandoning their food heritage (which maybe they didn't have anyway because factory farming and their liberated second-wave mothers nourished them on white bread and Tang). Perhaps, in addition to that luxury they also have an ancestral imperative to help figure a way out of the mess that is their cultural inheritance. I'm just not sure lecturing people about veganism is it!
2
@Diane Strong So, somebody who becomes a health-vegan or even a social-vegan (not one that I heard of before) is somehow lesser than the pure of heart and mind moral-vegan? The goal isn't to eschew eating flesh (or products from it) it is to become smug and sanctimonious?
I don't really care if someone wants to be whatever type of vegetarian or vegan they choose, but I have to say the sentient being argument leaves me a little mystified. Many of those same sentient beings would eat us if we didn't have firearms. (I'm no big gun lover, btw.) Somehow, I doubt they'd be worried that they're eating beings who might become something if they let 'em live.
3
Hmm, tradition. Perhaps we should return to animal and human sacrifices, drawing and quartering, stonings, husbands being able to beat and even kill wives, indentured servitude, slavery, open sewers. Traditions are not by nature good or bad. They are just repeated actions and social relations, mainly done mindlessly, until someone wakes up and points out that there's a better way to be. That's what vegans and vegetarians are doing: Pointing out that a) it's unforgivably cruel to treat other beings with such brutal disregard and b) it's bad for the environment and oh, while we're at it, c) breeding and eating animals is unsanitary and unhealthy, from heart disease but to mad cow disease and most recently, coronavirus. Tradition, indeed.
12
I'm sorry, but your argument is ridiculous nearly to the point of being offensive.
Actually, considering the amount of suffering and environmental destruction that's at stake, it is offensive.
20
If you would choose not to eat meat, traditions aside, I encourage you to consider meat alternatives and plant-based dupes like jackfruit and mushrooms. It's amazing to see how many people are experimenting with vegan/vegetarian cuisine in ways that allow them to preserve their cultural heritage and connection to home. The chicken curry you love may taste just as good with jackfruit instead of chicken; a quick search for "vegan Malaysian food" may surprise you with ideas; and eating the annual roast pig does not make you a bad person.
6
There is only one sentence in this entire essay that is important, "The solution is to not be dogmatic, to be adults". I haven't eaten meat in over 20 years and I don't care what anyone else eats. It's really none of my business.
8
I figure the author is going to get a lot of hatred for this piece. Let me lend a word of support.
In Grad School, my morally superior colleagues would often deride my Middle-Eastern foodways, with many dishes featuring meat. They'd use this tactic, sometimes: if you want to eat meat, you should be able to kill an animal.
So I started hunting. 30 years later, I still do. Thanks, Vegetarians and Vegans!
14
This is a silly article trying to defend the indefensible.
Traditions of all kinds are quite simply a set of random rules passed down generations without scrutiny. Time moves forward and thoughts move forward. If the tradition values no longer fit the current climate (pun completely intended), it needs to die or change.
Factory farming of livestock is against all values of respect for the living animals. While I acknowledge that we all need to consume something to survive, we now have the data and facts to understand why sustainably consuming must be the way forward to ensure a future for the next generations. If the tradition you speak of no longer works with, at least, the survival of our species, then what kind of tradition is that?
7
If eliminating cruelty might “alienate us from our traditions,” then it’s those particular traditions, and not our sense of what’s right, that must be left behind.
I grew up in a culture which served meat at every meal and flocked to the bullfights on Sundays. I was dragged to one such “fight.” The bull ran about the ring terrified and panting, tears streaming from his eyes, blood streaming from cruel knife gashes in his sides and lances stuck into his back. As he grew reduced by wounds, his desperation mounted but his mobility decreased, until finally he leaned against a barrier, vomited blood all over the sand, and collapsed — to be dragged away still half-alive to be butchered. I decided I could belong to my culture without practicing its barbarisms.
Child marriages, forced marriages, thinly-veiled or unveiled forms of slavery, genital mutilation, lethal folk medicines, barbaric rite-of-passage rituals, sanctioned physical abuses large and small: we can all remain who we are without clinging to some peculiarly cruel institution. Arguably, once we drop that learned behavior which allowed us to turn a blind eye to inhumanity, we become even more who we are: more conscious of our intent, more human and more able to feel, and not a mere collection of habitual tics.
I personally like hanging onto folk tales and costumes. Perhaps the author, rather than eat a whole pig, could relearn Malay — now that’d be commitment! But no one‘s identity has to hinge on inflicting suffering.
13
I loved this article, having partly Malaysian parents myself! Regarding turning vegetarian, I do believe (and practice) that we all need to eat less meat. But the human alimentary canal is of medium length, between those of herbivorous and carnivorous animals. Suddenly turning vegan is unnatural at this point in our evolution.
I'll always be bi-vegetarian, like some people are bi-sexual
(you know, vegetarians are so negative and fussy, "I don't eat that, I can't eat that").
I, on the other hand, am positive - I say yes to vegetables, I say yes to meat.
Bi-vegetarian.
7
I became plant based for my health. I do not feel I have given up any part of my Jewish heritage in becoming plant based. Growing up our family table was full of chicken soup, brisket, roasted chicken, and traditional Jewish sabbath and holiday dishes. Choosing not to continue to eat these dishes does not make me less of a Jew, nor feel detached from my upbringing or culture.
7
What I never hear discussed is what are our intentions about these sentient beings we will stop raising for food. Is extinction the plan? I asked a horse veterinarian about what could horses do if we stopped racing, and carriage rides? She said, "Essentially, we would stop breeding them and let them fend for themselves in the wild--until they would either die out or be slaughtered for encroachment in some way." There has to be a reason to raise cattle--or chickens, or sheep. If it isn't for food, then, what? Is this the height of human supremacy: We won't eat meat, but we'll wipe them off the planet?
4
If you can stick with whole roast farm-raised, preferably well cared for during life, killed quickly as reverently as possible, and locally sourced pig, that's great. It's really important to have well regulated food supplies.
3
The appeal to “tradition” as a rationale for eating meat, that’s a new one. And by the way for an Asian, or European for that matter, to assert a roast pig as part of a grand family tradition,implies a historically high position in society. I too, have a similar background (Italian/American) in which grand feasts always involved fancy meats. However, our family which is traceable for several hundred years, surely never had such luxurious quantities of meat before coming to the USofA. On the contrary, maybe one pig a year and thereafter lots of beans and rice and wheat and corn, and oh, did I mention beans.
Bottom line is that we continue to eat meat simply for the taste, for the “gustatory pleasure” of it. And to do so are willing to accept the daily murder of countless living, sentient beings.
And often praying to higher beings in gratitude for our right to do so.
4
My family is half Puerto Rican and half Dominican and we, too, had roasted whole pigs-- ears, eyes, and all-- to celebrate special occasions. I am now a vegan, and I am no less Puerto Rican or Dominican than I ever was. I can still eat some of my cultural dishes that are vegan already, while others I just make one or two simple substitutions and can still get those same flavors and aromas as before.
Becoming vegan or vegetarian does not rob one of one's culture. It merely complements it.
860
@Humanesque
Good for you! And I sincerely hope your new-found faith allows you the grace to permit those of us who prefer protein in raw form to enjoy our roast chickens.
27
@Patricia Protein in "raw" form also comes by way of Chickpeas, lentils, etc. I don't shame people who aren't vegetarians, but let's keep things honest.
130
It doesn't have to be all or nothing. One can reduce meat comsumption by 70-80% and still enjoy favorites occasionally, and can eat much less beef in favor of chicken and fish. This reduces one's CO2 footprint considerably without any unhappiness.
6
The human animal is an omnivore by nature, and that fact, quite possibly, is one of the reasons humans have flourished. It is what it is, the way humans evolved (or created, if you prefer). There are farms and ranches that raise and butcher their animals with care and consideration for the animal, more expensive of course, which is a good reason to eat less.
6
Time to make a few NEW traditions, sis. It’s not all or nothing, and it ain’t that hard to replace a couple old ones with the new. This excuse is tired imo.
6
In essence, I am a vegetarian because other people have children. Maybe that goes against traditions and your feeling connected to your past. But then again maybe the future is more important than the past or your comfy sense of self.
6
After the 60 year-scandal of the Proctor&Gamble-sponsored AHA guidelines (grain-based good groups ending in today's type 2 diabetes) it's time to say the scientific method, with peer journal reviews has been a total failure, as has the statin racket fpisted by Big Parma.
Today we have to rely on consensus, and any search of YouTube for the word ketogenic will afford you all the nutritional information from candid health professionals, many of whom were never taught nutrition in med school.
And if you have never heard the word 'autophagy' you owe it to yourself to understand the master healer that is built into all of us. YouTube is our doctor now, the rest have failed us miserably - check your waistline.
1
@Ben, if I am being completely honest, I find the moral high ground that some vegetations/vegans have to be counter to the love and compassion they claim to have for sentient beings, which clearly excludes humans since they seem to hate those who eat meat and prefer animals over people. So which is it? Which sentient being do you love and have compassion for? Call me a murderer if you like, but don’t tell I am a bad person for eating meat because of your love of sentient beings, we are the ones talking to you.
9
People shoud eat what they feel is good for their health and something they can ethically support. What gets me is the scowls and "holier than though" attitudes of vegans and some vegetarians. If you want to teach by example, and eat this way, fine. But if I choose not to follow your example, then the food police should move on. My feeling is that the disapproval of others food choices meets some psychological need people have to be morally superior to others. Some of friends who are most zealous on a specific issue like not eating meat due to environmental issues, travel extensively by plane for fun each year. Others have large gardens that suck up huge amounts of water. This makes me cynical that people like to take up the banner for an environmental issue that is easy for them and trendy. Now, I have a few friends who at great personal inconvenience take public transportation, use gray water for their cactus gardens and take train trips instead of trips to Europe. I am more likely to follow their example since they actually walk the talk.
11
"Modernity is why we can buy the roast pig; ..."
Actually, *economics* explains "why we can buy the roast pig". And economics also explains why "we" can buy a slaughtered pig, and roast it ourselves.
Do a web search for "buy slaughtered pig". They aren't cheap -- one site quotes "$950 based on $4/lb", so you would be better off buying it with a group of friends, and roasting it at a communal event.
"I’ve recently watched so many people around me become vegetarians, or sometimes vegans."
What the author seems to be missing is *a pig roasting party* -- with different "people".
Do an online images search for "pig roasting party" -- you will find a lot of "attached" heads.
See, also, Julia Child's "Roast Suckling Pig" episode in her "French Chef" television series.
Meat and dairy consumption is the largest contributor to adverse climate change and habitat destruction, exceeding all transport combined.
Instead of thinking so much about your ancestors, think about your descendants.
11
This is what people say when they eat pangolins, use rhino horns, hord tusk trinkets, use tiger & gorilla parts - it is part of their tradition. Where are we going to end up? I watched a documentary about pangolins and when the team asked the shops that were selling the pangolin parts what will they do when the pangolins are extinct. They said they will go on to the next species.
Seriously - tradition as a reason to continue does not seem like a valid reason to kill\abuse animals. I feel we can come up with a better alternative & solution to these traditions as thinking sentient beings ourselves.
9
Want to eat meat? Go for it. Whether it’s because of family traditions, because you like the taste and/or because of health needs (for example, as a person with celiac disease whose digestion is damaged, lean meat is one of the foods I can digest easily, as compared to many grains, beans, and legumes, which I can’t). But do try to eat sustainably and humanely farmed meats, at least. And BTW, our adult twin cousins who are half Chinese, half Jewish are vegans. No hand wringing about giving up brisket or dim sum. To each their own.
4
@Julie Zuckman Thanks for a reasoned post. I'm 68 and have been vegetarian for almost 50 years. (And have never proselytized.) This diet works well for me - same wrestling weight as in high school, no medications, etc. Each person should find the diet that works for them. "It's the food I grew up on" or "family tradition" or "everyone else eats this", however, is probably not the best input into the decision. One's dietary impact on the world should be an input.
3
Everyone needs to simply eat LESS beef, pork and Chicken - not eliminate it. By the way, I eat only fish-and no shellfish.
3
I became a vegetarian decades ago, at 12. It was hard and strange for my family, and it was much more challenging being a vegetarian in the 80s (so much iceberg lettuce), but they dealt with it (and I remain a sort of 'keeper' for our family traditions photos, ancestral memories, to connect back to the article...even without meat I am part of my lineage).
Ultimately? I realized that not eating meat is literally the absolute least I can do. It is not hard—you just don't eat it. It is not particularly 'activist-y". I am not an indigenous person who lives in a place where I need to hunt for sustenance, and who has been brutalized by colonialist expansion (I support those folks doing what they need to do, for the record). Basically, in the face of major suffering of sentient beings who are raised for food and treated terribly in our factories, the absolute least I can do is not eat them. Boom.
11
Why does M.s Wittmeyer disparage the choice to become vegan as "casual?" The unthinking option is to continue to eat as one's family has always eaten.
The choice to become vegan is anything but casual. It is driven by concern for the suffering of animals, concerns for the health of the planet and, third and last in my case, appreciation of the health benefits of a vegan diet.
14
i encourage the author to rise up to the challenge to truly modernize her cuisine by making it vegan (and also to look at the connection between cancer and eating meat). i am currently in mexico city where there's an explosion of new restaurants selling vegan versions of traditional mexican food. going vegan isn't easy. it takes a lot of effort. but the damage and destruction animal agriculture does to ALL life on this planet must be stopped. quit making excuses. make action.
6
Well, maybe it's not quite white privilege, but the modern vegetarian movement is apparently made up largely by people who haven't grown up with a 'national' agrarian-based cuisine (i.e. an integral system created on the basis of a country's resources).
In every single traditional agrarian society, meat was produced from what humans couldn't eat or cultivate, and considered an occasional indulgence. It was also part of a system which achieved the best possible nutrition with the resources available. So I don't think there's anything wrong about, say, feeding a pig scraps all year and slaughtering it in the winter. There is a lot wrong, however, with the casual daily ham sandwich/ hamburger/hot dog/steak. Only the latter way of eating requires the cruelty of industrial feedlots.
Our modern problem with meat-eating is due to affluence and cheap production methods, and our ignorance of traditional ways of eating. We are so far removed from the agrarian economy, and have such wildly easy access to all sorts of food, or 'food', that we consume a vast amount of meat (and the grain used to produce it).
Quite apart from the value or otherwise of keeping one's links with one's culture, national traditions very often place limits on meat eating, via fasting traditions, for instance. Industrial society is ignorant of these. It doesn't surprise me that the reaction to overindulgence should be censure, but it needn't be all or nothing.
9
@S North than you for this comment!
also seems worth adding that the vegan industrial complex is full-steam ahead with highly processed and excessively packaged "plant-based meat' (!) which also isn't helping the planet.
the pile-on from mostly white americans who are so completely deracinated from any idea of traditional foodways is really too much!
4
Wow. She could have just saved herself the trouble of this diatribe and said: "I'm going to keep eating meat because I want to."
Instead she wrote ridiculous lines like this one "We are all capable of understanding the difference between meaningful and meaningless meat" to rationalize her decision to herself. (And us.)
Culture is not a good reason to keep doing something that is unhealthy and unethical. If it were, racism, sexism, even slavery could be justified that way.
I don't know if meat is unhealthy. In the quantities it's eaten in the West, it probably is. And the way the vast majority of animals are treated is unethical. And even if the author believes meat keeps her connected to her culture (because I guess keeping up with the language is too hard) the end never justifies the means.
17
@Adele your metaphor is imprecise. Racism, sexism, even slavery are not cultural traditions, they are components of the economic system that has led to climate collapse. Eating plant based isn't going to fix that, and admonishing minority cultures to abandon their foodways sounds like more of the same.
2
I have heard this cultural argument before. Some use it to cling to their right to FGM, abuse of women and children, mythical properties of wild animal parts, and here, the right to animal cruelty.
Unless your family does its own slaughter, or your meat eating habits are the product of your own ability to slaughter an animal, then your are upholding the industrial factory farming practices that cause food animals unbelievable suffering.
Another juicy part is that Corona virus develops in live animal markets as a direct effect of cultural practices.
Some cultural practices must yield to science and compassion for other creatures.
9
We all know now that trees and all things green share consciousness and suffer when killed, and how cruelly mankind has altered all the vegetal life to make it easier for us to consume. What makes you think trees drop fruit for our benefit? Hypocrites draw an arbitrary line when they become vegans and bathe themselves in virtue and self congratulation. Will never forget driving up route 5 in California one summer and saw mile after mile after mile of raised pipes spraying water into the 90 degree air to irrigate the almond trees - what tremendous sickening waste of water, our rarest and most precious resource.
4
@Orange 99 sounds like we should just stop eating
1
No, don’t stop eating. Just be honest. Japan is building 20 coal burning power plants not because everyone there wants to eat meat. Japan is building those plants because it has to feed 130 million cell phones charging twice a day. (And then there’s all the old cell phones leaching poisons into the landfills.) If you really want to make a difference, turn your cell phone off three days a week. Don’t buy a new cell phone every year. Make a real contribution. Don’t tell the world you’re solving the problem and congratulate yourself.
5
How do you convince lions and wolves to stop eating "sentient beings"? How do you convince an Eskimo to plant a garden? My neighborhood is being invaded by coyotes. I can't wait until they start attacking children. But then, the tree huggers will find a way to blame the kids. T.Rex was culling the herd millions of years before humans showed up. The African savanna will always be soaked in blood. It's the way the planet works.
3
It's admirable to be vegan. It's not admirable to be sanctimonius about it.
10
Killing innocent animals who want to live like you and me is just that. I grew up on a farm. I was raised with it. I became enlightened as an adult. Change is possible.
I suspect future generations will look back at this time in human history with the same shame that we do now of the year 1619 and beyond. Traditions and norms die slowly. Meanwhile the abuse continues.
12
@Greg
perhaps enlightenment and shame are intertwined. Morally superiority stemming from dietary choices did always strike me as overcompensation for the sins of the father... imperialist genocide the world over is the gift that keeps on giving, leading right up to climate collapse. If eating vegan while admonishing minority cultures to abandon their foodways is some people's small attempt to repay this world-historical debt, so be it.
2
white privilege?
That I'm fortunate enough to have a choice means I should not exercise that choice? How is it even possible NOT to exercise a choice? When one has a choice one chooses to eat meat or not to eat meat. There's no way around exercising choice.
What am I supposed to do? Pretend I have no choice? Move to some sadly destitute village in the poorest part of the world and die an early death, in order to pretend that I am not the recipient of "white privilege"? Even that hypocritical act would be a choice.
If we are fortunate enough to have choices, then we must choose to exercise that privilege in a responsible manner, by considering what is best for the world.
6
@J Jencks
i totally get that the reality behind her statement is too painful to digest.
because yeah, the choice that allows privileged people of any color to import superfoods like quinoa and avocado that end up destabilizing agricultural systems in the very regions on the front line of climate change (which also happen to be affected by generations of fallout from imperialist genocide), is enough to make one loose their appetite.
and no, the rescue fantasy / self-mortification of dying an early death by traveling to a sadly destitute village is ... well, i'm not sure? i hope you're okay.
unclear that western europeans and their descendants know what is best for the world. that didn't work out so well for us last time.
what else is on the plant-based menu?
3
Pigs are as intelligent and sensitive as the beloved pet dogs who live in homes throughout America.
It is against the law to abuse a dog, but it is okay to cause a pig immense suffering because they taste good. This does not make sense.
Imagine going to a celebration and seeing a golden retriever's corpse being roasted over a fire for consumption.
11
I enjoy a good juicy steak once in a while. No apologies.
9
By extension, should we all kill ourselves to save the planet? Living a moral, ethical life has individual limits for all people and is expressed in different ways. Live and let live, eat and let eat.
6
"Our results revealed that a vegetarian diet is related to a lower BMI and less frequent alcohol consumption. Moreover, our results showed that a vegetarian diet is associated with poorer health (higher incidences of cancer, allergies, and mental health disorders), a higher need for health care, and poorer quality of life. Therefore, public health programs are needed in order to reduce the health risk due to nutritional factors."
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3917888/
1
Anyone who has serious worries about the state of our planet needs to cut down on the consumption of animal products. Anyone who cares about the treatment of animals other than ourselves must cut down on the consumption of animal products. Anyone who cares about their health (cancer patients in particular) should cut down on the consumption of animal products. (The decision by the author's mother to eat roast pig after the completion of her chemo treatment seems ignorant to me.)
I don't believe it is necessary to cut animal products from one's diet completely in order to eat ethically and healthfully. But, please, eat meat particularly, only occasionally. And, when doing so, purchase those products from animals that are ethically raised and slaughtered. It is not difficult to do this. It just takes a bit more money and time to find the right products.
It's healthier too. And you will find that the meat tastes better than the factory-farmed kind.
1
I replied to a writer with some facts. Besides the fact that Humans did not evolve to eat meat (at least not in the quantities that we do now), we are destroying our environment with meat production. I have citations for the below facts.
Animal agriculture is responsible for 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, more than the combined exhaust from all transportation while all transportation exhaust is responsible for 13% of all greenhouse gas emissions.
Livestock and their byproducts account for at least 32,000 million tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) per year, or 51% of all worldwide greenhouse gas emissions.
Cows produce 150 billion gallons of methane per day. Methane is 25-100 times more destructive than CO2 on a 20 year time frame. Methane has a global warming potential 86 times that of CO2 on a 20 year time frame.
Livestock is responsible for 65% of all human-related emissions of nitrous oxide – a greenhouse gas with 296 times the global warming potential of carbon dioxide, and which stays in the atmosphere for 150 years. US Methane emissions from livestock and natural gas are nearly equal.
Fracking (hydraulic fracturing) water use ranges from 70-140 billion gallons annually while Agriculture is responsible for 80-90% of US water consumption. 2,500 gallons of water are needed to produce 1 pound of beef. 477 gallons of water are required to produce 1lb. of eggs; almost 900 gallons of water are needed for 1lb. of cheese. And this is the short list.
4
Civilization being destroyed by fire and flood, because no one will disrupt their routine to combat climate change, will also destroy our traditions.
5
All dietary taboos are a form of religious observance. And, extremes are dangerous. Fad vegan diets for infants reduce IQ, permanently, similar to lead poising. The brain needs a very large amount of fat when growing. Formerly, the circumpolar peoples were very unhealthy (much TB, for instance) and a had life expectancy of about 35 years due to eating only meat and fat.
4
For most people who become vegetarians or vegans, the feeling of superiority is one of the keys. Whatever else happens in their lives, they're better than meat eaters! Got that going for them!
You made a choice for you, that's great. Now mind your own business.
6
Almost all cultures have traditions of eating meat, so you're nothing special in that regard. If you are smart enough to understand the cognitive dissonance it takes to claim to care about animal welfare and still eat meat and consume dairy, then you understand that you can break with cultural and culinary traditions, as I and many, many others have. You can make a choice in the name of compassion, of health and of care for the planet. If you can square your worldview with the way you currently eat, then fine. If you cannot, don't hide behind your culture.
1
Limiting or doing altogether without meat is one big thing.
Same for children. That is where the greenness really is.
A la Fiddler on the Roof: Tradition...tradition, tradition! TRADITION, tradition, tradition!!
Nuff said.
I am a healthy 70 year old who stopped eating meat 50 years ago. My family and friends still question my choice. I don't need to have animals tortured and killed to benefit me. Meat is dead animals. I think eating dead rotting flesh is revolting and don't understand how anyone can consume it.
5
Michelle, Fremont avers, "I love meat, and I love animals. I eat mostly vegetarian, plus some fish and poultry."
Who am I to judge, loving meat is one thing, but eating vegetarians is taking it too far, isn't it? I think it might even be illegal.
2
To go along with my prior post, if you want more moral, ethical, environmental and health reasons to go vegan, watch the movie "Cowspiricy" on Netflix. I don't know how anyone could eat and animal or drink an animal's milk after seeing that movie.
2
Let's not change anything about human life and its traditions. Look how well the world is doing. Pollution beyond belief, billions of cows destroying the environment, war, destitution everywhere, etc. No need to change anything. Please don't change our violent, greedy, fearful ways.
5
Wow. After reading these comments, I don't think she should have taken the "white privilege" part back.
First of all, to disparage the author's cultural traditions in such a nasty and snarky way is just awful.
And when I read these types of comments from animal (and planet!) lovers (I love them both too), I can't help but wonder how many of you walk past homeless people sleeping on the streets, in the rain, the cold, and in oppressive heat and don't give it another thought as you rush home to your vegetarian, vegan, or meat-filled meals. And certainly, I don't imagine many people giving up the “comforts of modern life” (say what?) to make sure destitute people are well taken care of. And no, I don't pretend to be any better.
All things being equal, it probably costs the planet something as well for your out-of-season produce to be shipped around the world.
There is something terribly wrong with this society, and I don't think it's that some choose to eat meat.
13
Yeah...there will be no traditions when the planet becomes uninhabitable due to myriad climate change factors of which meat production is a huge and detrimental part.
5
What veganism and vegetarianism have become is a way for people to say, “I’m better than you.” Most vegans and vegetarians don’t work in occupations that require a lot of physical activity or for them to get their hands dirty. Just ask what they do for a living. They're not plumbers or mechanics or truck drivers. Most have higher than average incomes, they work in white collar jobs or they don't work, and many of them have put their meatless diet near the center of their existence. It's nonsense.
9
Have as little meat as possible.
It's an unhealthy choice for your health.
2
This is one of the most circumlocutory and pompous justifications for killing and eating animals that I have ever heard. In short, you kill other sentient beings and eat them because you think your lifestyle means more than their lives do. That's it. You can wrap it up in tradition, community, ethnicity or whatever else you want, but in the end, it's simply that you think the pleasure eating them brings you is too much to give up to allow them to live.
This is honestly no different than a slave owner justifying slavery by saying he would like to let Africans be free, but sacrificing the family tradition of owning other human beings and all it means to him would be too much to give up.
I am of Lebanese descent and grew up on a diet rich in lamb, chicken, and cow. I have fond memories of the many animal-based meals my extended family shared together. But when I became old enough to understand what it meant to deprive something of its life so I could enjoy eating it, I gave those meals up and never looked back.
9
Could have been a different take. I know I “should” give up human sacrifice to the volcano, but it’s a tradition. Seriously. Specious.
5
Don't forget that most dreadful diseases like Corona virus and flu come from animals for food!
Also in future there is no way to support 10+ Billion people on Earth without going Vegan!
3
The author is free to choose to poison herself in the name of tradition.
But "tradition" is a very slippery slope.
Traditionalism is the hallmark of conservativism.
Humans can't afford to protect people's conservativism.
On the other hand, we can pass laws to take the meat away.
1
The problem is not so much meat as ethical meat. Pigs used to be garbage disposals. They ate all the food and garden scraps and then were eaten. (A school near me is feeding two pigs the lunch leftovers and then eating the pigs.) Same with chickens and other fowl. And my guess is in your culture, much less meat was eaten than is common for most Americans.
Quit feeding cows corn, return the corn fields to prairie and raise wild bison on grass. Much healthier meat for everyone. Much of the US has a real problem with wild pigs. Allow them to be hunted commercially. And by all means get rid of confinement operations. Eat less but better meat.
I’m a vegetarian, but live in a wild, rural environment where I see how animals die naturally. It is brutal and painful, much more so than a hunter’s well-placed bullet.
5
Why should the author quarrel with her elderly and ill mother and cause family misery on behalf of self-righteous people she has never met? Kudos to her for placing the real, immediate needs of a real person over the voracious demands of social media.
5
Iam a born vegetarian and from india.
I have been eating dairy products till now but never eaten eggs and any kind of sea food or meat.
All i want to say is these days lot of vegetarian and vegan cookery books are available and plenty of tasty dishes can be cooked at your home.
If you are vegan then dont forget to take vitamin B 12,vitamin D supplements and walnut /chia seeds /flax seeds/ kidney beans /hemp seeds/ soya oil for omega three fatty acids(any one or all of them).
Apart from above three vegan diet gives all sorts of nutrients your body needs
3
If you want to stay healthy and believe morality and environmental health, simple - go vegetarian
2
When your traditions lead to the destruction of our planet and on a personal level, destroy your good health, it's time to reevaluate your traditions. What places traditions above doing what's right, anyway?
1
The author seems to be saying that her heritage makes it especially difficult for her to be a vegetarian. Whereas other people's heritages (particularly white people's heritages, whatever they may be -- Italian, Finnish, whatever) apparently pose no such problems. Really? Am married to someone who grew up not at all wealthy on a southern farm and whose heritage also included roasting whole pigs, slowly, for hours (the term of art here is "pig pickin'") Also in the US, southern Black people ate a good deal of pork when they could get it and used all parts of the animal. Does the author consider their traditions, created out of equal parts need and creativity, as also more dispensable than her own? There are many arguments to be made for including less or no meat in our diets but insisting that one group's traditions are better, more important, and more, well, REAL than another group's... isn't going to work particularly well for people in the out groups, will it?
2
@Awestruck
the author *never* said that her traditions are better, more important, less dispensable etc.
she was writing a highly personal reflection on this issue, while also calling upon others to be mutually accepting of people's choices.
most of the commenters have found that completely impossible, surprising no one.
1
"Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." Michael Pollan. Eat your pork, just mostly eat plants. You are overthinking the whole thing.
4
You are a thoughtful person. Thank you for your insights. Moderation in all things.
4
"Modernity is why we can buy the roast pig". Well, there is always post-modernity ;-) There is no clear solution for a confused mind. It is not even that you have to renounce meat entirely either. You could decide only to eat vegetarian as a choice -- this would allow you to eat meat whenever required by tradition -- however and whatever occasion you choose to declare so. Consider this: at one time most Indians were non vegetarians. Only after Buddhism and Jainism did many of them become vegetarians. Now some of them would claim they are brahmins and all their ancestors are only vegetarians going back centuries -- yet we know far far back they were meat eaters as well. Just because you decide to follow whoever else came before you/around you now doesn't mean it always that way.
I am so curious to know which other Chinese and Malaysian traditions the author follows devotedly.
5
There’s so many hyphenated vegetarians now, start heritage-vegetarian, don’t eat meat except for heritage events
Umm....so we can't ever change?
I mean -- you could have a "heritage month" or something....eat the pig then! Still about 85% reduction in meat.
At any rate....why bring modernity into it? Yes, it brings about many pluses and tensi, but not sure what it has to do regarding a decision to fund a industry that creates more cruelty than needed to sentient beings.
Listen, so much is a loaded topic nowadays...I'm vegetarian but try not pass judgement on those who eat meat -- as far as potential vices go -- it's not bad at all really. Like you said, so much is cultural and familial and it's not hurting humans (other than the CO2 thing -- but eat meat -- drive a 35 MPG car...you're better CO2 wise than a veggie who drives a Range rover).
It's food! -- we are not going to settle this dilemma easily or ever.
SO MANY other things to worry about....BEAT 45.
1
Morality and the environment have nothing to do with my choice to be a vegetarian. My father and three uncles, as well as my 53-year-old brother, all big meat eaters, all died of colon cancer despite being screened. I would be foolish to eat meat. I've created my own traditions
3
I wonder about the pets, cats and dogs, of all these vegans. Do you feed them meat based diets? If so, isn’t that a huge compromise with your principles?
5
Ironic that traditional Chinese culture didn't eat that much meat, 30 lbs per person per year back in the 80's. It's up to around 130 pounds now. Still no match for the U.S.'s 280 lbs. I wonder if Meg feels equally put upon by the current Carnivore diet fad? Nothing but meat!
Animal sacrifice is still a tradition in some cultures but the reason most people eat meat is because they like the way it tastes. Animals are sacrificed to please their palate not their gods. Some people will only eat creatures they think were raised and slaughtered with love, but that's kind of like putting lipstick on a pig. So what if you loved your pets before you ate them. There's no reason to be self righteous about it. You wouldn't eat baby pigs or lambs if you didn't like the flavor.
Modernity gives us a choice. Do you choose to kill animals?
3
Sorry but if you’re abandoning traditions like wearing a sari, or a yarmicha, then why not try and consider leaving the killing of innocent, feeling animals in the past as well?
We treat animals horribly. I can go on but I’m not here to try and change anyone’s mind. I passed on lamb at Greek Easter personally. No less connection to my heritage. This article irks me.
5
The planet has reached a turning point and the meat industry is a large contributor to methane , destruction of forests for grazing land- aside from the way animals are killed . We as humans do not NEED meat to survive. It's a choice , some species can't survive like that. Being stuck in your traditions says a lot about you. Eating bats (Ebola and Corona virus) and other food traditions have caused a lot of harm to the planet , other animal species, and to the consuming humans.
2
Fiddler on the Roof: tradition for the sake of tradition is meaningless.
Short summary: "My culture requires me to hurt animals even though I know it's wrong. I'm culturally obligated to be a follower on the path immorality than to stand up for what is right."
5
Veganism is not some sort of White fad.
It might interest the author to learn that one of the premier scientific studies demonstrating a link between the consumption of animals and chronic disease, The China Study, was actually conducted in………….China.
Likewise, Dr. Denis Burkitt, a very respected and influential Western pioneer in the plant-based movement, held views largely inspired by his observations about traditional African eating habits (Mostly plant-based) and their concomitant low incidence of chronic diseases.
It’s a shame that both Africans and Asians are now abandoning their traditional diets and adopting Western ways of eating; with the expected increases in chronic diseases common with that meat-heavy diet.
Thanks for nothing, Big Food Corporations.
8
When resisting the slaughter and consumption of highly sentient beings on moral grounds alienates you from your friends, it's time for some new ones.
2
The so-called "moral reasons" for giving up meat are so alarmingly self-centered and willfully ignorant of modern science that they are downright ridiculous. Plants have internal communication systems as well as systems of communicating with one another. This has been well established over the past 50 years. It just happens to be far from our life experience as animals so it is ignored.
Simply because a life form doesn't experience life the same way as you is no legitimate moral justification for you to kill it to consume and survive instead of a pig or a cow or a chicken or a salmon. As animals, by our most basic design we need to feed on, which means kill, other life forms to survive. That's the deal. It's how it works. Feeling bad about this and wanting to be reincarnated as a sunflower is perfectly acceptable. But making up philosophically and morally ridiculous arguments for diet that ignore the basic tenets of our existence is not.
3
I find it amazing that people have to justify their food choices. It’s none of anyone else’s business what you choose to eat. If you like meat, eat the meat, and stop feeling guilty because your vegetarian/vegan friends have a superiority complex. People have been eating meat since the dawn of time. Our bodies are made to process it. What you want to eat is a personal choice. Just have your roasted pig if that’s what you like. I find proselytizing over food just as obnoxious as preaching religious conversion. Everyone needs to mind their own business.
5
Eating animals is the end result of animal abuse that a person is directly responsible for. If you eat animals you are complicit. I don’t know any nice way to say that.
2
I'm sorry, I'm confused. Essentially you are saying there are meaningful dead pigs and so there are also meaningful 6,500 mile flights which are unlike unmeaningful bacon we thoughtlessly consume on a Sunday morning which we could just as easily have taken an unmeaningful 6,500 mile flight to get back home for. What's the difference except self-justification; I eat dead pig because I want to, I take 6,500 mile flights because I want to. Modernity is why the planet is heating up like a baked potato. If we want it to stop, maybe we should fundamentally change who we are.
2
From the comments I think she should have left it at talking about white privilege. And what Americans think of as "traditional" food is absolute junk anybody would be happy to give up. McDonalds, hot dogs, processed foods? They have no clue what she's talking about because they've never experienced actual food. And, of course, many demean such cultures and are holier-than-thou about it.
Would that they'd turn such wrath on the party which has destroyed their country.
3
@David F thank you for your clarity...
1
I'm a (mostly)vegetarian on the dl. I do it as an ethical choice but don't want to be publicly identified as one because of the self-righteous/self-congratulatory baggage that too often goes along with it. Enjoy your roast pig in peace; it's still America and you can eat what you want.
3
None of this argument seems supportable when all the data is considered: animals suffering horrific lives and deaths because of your. . .traditions? And NOT eating that pig would fundamentally change who you are? I think you --and anyone like you, who are, unfortunately most of "Modernity"--need to think a little more clearly about what makes you who you are and why you keep those suspect parts so well fed and justified.
3
We like to congratulate ourselves that we are the country with all these freedoms, and liberties, and blah, blah.
Here’s an idea—how about we have the freedom to choose what we want to eat, be it vegetarian, vegan, meat, garlic, or candy diet...and choose without the guilt trips.
1
being a vegan or vegetarian, electric cars, or re-cycling all your trash are nice gestures, but won't make one bit of difference as long as population continues to grow at current rate.
3
traditions hold people in place and often ruin lives.
2
I stopped eating animal products over ten years ago and have never looked back. Factory farming is cruel and dirty. I should not have read this. The mental picture of the writer's pork chops unpleasant to say the least.
1
It would be of great service to the health of the planet and the suffering of animals if meat eating was correctly labeled for what it truly is, mammal eating.
I'm amazed when people, who eat mammals, wring their hands and complain about climate control, "...even as climate control becomes ever more urgent."
Go ahead eat mammals but you can't have it both ways. You can't be for saving the earth and enjoying your pig.
4
A spiritual, social and healthful vegan author that writes about the practical aspects of a vegan lifestyle is Colleen Patrick-Goudreau, founder of Compassionate Cooks. She sites in an older book of hers, “Vegan’s Daily Companion” (2011) many traditions we were all raised with, no matter where we live in the world, with historical references to culture, food, language and practices.
A quote in her intro I like: “...The problem isn’t that we wake up in the morning wanting to contribute to cruelty or violence. The problem is we don’t wake up in the morning wanting to create more compassion, peace, and nonviolence. If that were on our to-do list every day, imagine what we could accomplish. Imagine what our world would be like...”
4
Killing innocent animals who want to live like you and me is just that. I suspect future generations will look back at this time in human history with the same shame that we do now of the year 1619 and beyond. Traditions and norms die slowly. Meanwhile the abuse continues.
5
It is ok to abandon traditions that have outlived their usefulness.
4
I've been a vegetarian for more than forty years. It's a personal decision and it never bothers me if people around me eat meat or talk about meat. I don't think you should worry about what other people think. If it bothers them enough, they'll tell you, and no harm done.
But it's funny that you mention Malaysia. Penang is one of my favorite places to go because it has an amazing concentration of vegetarian restaurants. There are about sixty vegetarian or vegan restaurants in the area around Georgetown. It's a vegetarian paradise. Maybe you want to try the mock pig next time you go... just for fun.
4
Why admire vegetarians? There is no real evidence that it is either healthier per se, or that it has any impact at all on a better environment. Most vegetarians are smarmy, arrogant middle-class dupes, who simply like to brag and play shame games, as they compete for attention and cocktail gab, against vapid fellow middle-class competitors showing off their yoga arms. If it was just a "personal choice" and they kept their mouths shut, they might be amusingly tolerable cranks. Instead they brag and attempt to browbeat with fake claims about noble results. I'm looking forward to my next rare ribeye steak. And no, I'm not going sort my trash, so that the "recycling" company can dump it on some Third World country. I send my old batteries to Napa not Thailand.
3
The SCIENCE confirms that your health is damaged by eating animal products. Plant based foods will lower your risks of all the major diseases. So in addition to the environmental and so called moral issues, it is the health of the human family that is of concern. Animal based diets are dangerous, unhealthy, and expensive for the human family. After carefully reviewing the SCIENCE if you still do not go to a plant based diet, you are just slowly killing yourself.
1
I stopped eating animals initially due to health concerns, but for sure I also got off on feeling morally superior for both helping the planet and for not participating in the killing of sentient beings. Among the challenges to remaining meat-free are NY Times features and restaurant reviews of ethnic - particularly Chinese - dining, often in Queens, where I used to live.
But can't the writer enjoy the rich tradition of Chinese vegetarian cuisine? I recall dining at such a restaurant in Manhattan's Chinatown when a group of Buddhist nuns with shaved heads came in to eat.
2
Watch the film "Earthlings", narrated by Joaquin Phoenix. Then make your decision.
3
Not long ago, I realized that vegetarians have something in common with private pilots. Each wants you to know. The first vegetarian I ever met was a horse. He was great. But we never discussed his diet.
6
Have you seen the in humane videos of millions of animals (including pigs) and birds being burned or being buried alive or being crushed under heavy equipment in China? The authorities are worried that they may be infected with Coronavirus. This is Wrong!!
2
The point of this piece is admittedly lost on me, regardless of how I try to interpret it. If you have the slightest qualms about eating meat but refrain from altering your diet based upon cultural traditions, you’ve placed yourself in the same position as those who defend such time honored practices as bullfighting, blood fiestas and Spanish greyhound hangings at the end of the hunting season.
5
"for reasons — both moral and environmental — "
Hmmmmm, how about your HEALTH? By not eating meat you have a drastically better chance of avoiding heart disease and cancer. Even in the animal kingdom herbivores far outlive carnivores.
2
I think there probably as many opinions on food and what to eat, as there are folks who read the NYTimes. That's why this is a place where people can comment, respectfully. Thank you, for this column about traditions and food. Too much emotion is wrapped up in the foods we eat. But this was a beautiful peace.
1
I'm an Alabama native who made a decision a year ago to become a vegan, and I do feel what the author is saying: it can get very lonely when your whole family and culture is carnist. Food connects us. When you reject meat, people tend to react as if you're rejecting them personally. It can get awkward when a friend invites you to lunch and your food choices become the first topic of conversation—"But you can eat cheese, right?" "Is this a health thing?" or the ever-dreaded, "I used to be a vegetarian, but then..." Answering the question "so why did you become vegan?" is twice as thorny when it comes up over a holiday meal: do I tell them now about baby chicks being thrown into grinders, or wait until after they've finished their drumstick?
So yes: when you choose vegan, you are in fact forced to turn your back on tradition and the community that made you. You open yourself up to charges that you're standoffish and aloof and virtue-signaling and pudding-headed, acting like you're better than everybody because you're thinking about murder while everyone else is enjoying their Christmas ham. I can live with it because I know I'm not doing it to reject anyone. I ask myself how that pig feel about my "tradition" and the decision is simple. If we can turn away from cultural traditions like bullfighting and fox hunting, then maybe compassion is a better tradition to embrace.
656
@Thomas If it makes you feel any better, you are far from alone. I, too, grew up in a meat and potatoes family (as did so many other people I have talked to who later became vegetarians). I grew up on a farm and have many fond memories of the farm animals that I made friends with when I was little. I found that horses, dogs, cows, chickens, and goats are all intelligent beings with very distinct personalities.
So imagine how I felt as a young girl when I walked around the corner of the barn one day and saw one of my cow friends being slaughtered. I thought it was a horrible and cruel thing to do to an animal that had never done anything to my parents (other than willfully give its milk). From that point on, I refused to eat meat, although I would eat cheese and eggs (I still do).
My parents, believing I was judging them and looking down on their lifestyle, were enraged by my decision. We spent the next ten years fighting each other to a stalemate over it. When I was in my late teens, they finally realized that it wasn't a phase I was going through. And they let it go. Now, I'm still a happy, healthy vegetarian. My parents died of cancer many years ago.
Over the years, I've gotten a ton of grief from meat eaters about my eating choices, though I've never once judged their food choices. I've learned a good script that I use whenever I get questioned about being vegetarian: "Oh, it's really not that interesting. Let's talk about something else." And then change the subject.
76
I understand that it’s not easy, but some traditions deserve rejecting, don’t they? I assume you agree since you have chosen to reject meat and dairy, but isn’t it a fact? Spaniards are increasingly opposed to the tradition of bullfighting. It will go, and it won’t be long. All throughout human history, some people could own other people, and we all now reject that. More and more of us are feeling the effects of climate changes, and science is showing us that animals are not so different from humans. It’s all indefensible. Culture and tradition have long been used as a crutch to support behaviours we prefer to not give up.
83
@Josa: Of course you were judging your parents and their lifestyle. When you take the position that eating meat is morally wrong, the meat eaters around you are quite aware of your condemnation of their choice. Reread your own comment with the "horrible and cruel" statement.
25
We are meat eaters because we're designed that way a million or more years ago. We kill to eat because we have learned not to eat animals that live and resist. In Louisiana now it is beginning of crawfish season, a wonderful dish when done right. Typically, we gather crustaceans by the hundred, wash off the mud, dunk them all at once into boiling water which kills, some fast, some slow, i guess but all dead within seconds. Abattoirs with walls of glass don't apply here; the dying crawfish don't make a sound; the taste is wonderful. This is just life, and the sustaining of life through death. Completely normal and synced with nature. When humans stop killing each other, we might, just might stop killing other animals.
133
@Greig Olivier The most powerful animals in the world, the ox, the elephant and the gorilla....do NOT eat meat. Man is a grass eating animal, just like horses and cows. We were not meant to kill and eat animals. Meat eating feeds cancers and causes other horrible diseases. It is just a cruel and horrible thing we are doing to pigs, cows and chickens. I was raised to eat meat every single day and now I will never ever eat an animal again. They deserve to live just like we do. They suffer and have feelings just like we do.
114
@Greig Olivier maybe if we began by not killing animals....the world would be a more peaceful place and humans would quit killing each other.
94
@jimfaye I've been a vegetarian since I was 16---so for 45 years. humans are not all designed the same--contrary to some posts here. the Dalai Lama almost died when he emigrated to sub-tropical India from Tibet and tried to become a vegetarian. his DR. said his illness was caused by NOT eating meat. (this is in his auto-bio). so now he eats meat one day--and is veggie the next.
some cultures eat meat because it is the ONLY option. Eskimos--Tibetans, and others who live where food plants do not grow (or gorw in minute amounts.)
Thus over tens of thousands of years--they have adapted to a mostly meat/milk/ and egg diet. we are not all the same. but I agree with you--that IF one can become vegetarian---then it is worthwhile, despite "culture." why? because it is way healthier (when done right) and "meat is murder." kids should have to take field trips to slaughterhouses and modern "meat
factories" to see the grotesque suffering involved. who wants to eat that? NOT ME!
24
I'm half-Vietnamese and half-Caucasian, and think it's possible to retain cultural ties in more ways than through meat-eating. But even if it weren't, I don't think that sentimentality should outweigh the obvious: murdering a sentient being for your pleasure is wrong. Furthermore, raising animals for food spells disaster for the climate. You may be honoring your ancestors, but how about future generations? Some traditions are best abandoned.
583
@hannah
Murdering a sentient being is wrong in your opinion. Not mine. Our industrial agriculture is inhumane and we do not need to eat the quantities of animal and protein & fat that we do; however, I reject your moralistic equivalencies.
20
@Rick agriculture is the same inhumanity as slaughtering animals? wow. we humans are masters of justification. because this is an absurd viewpoint.
27
I heard she was a vegetarian, but I'd never seen herbivore.
4
While this heartfelt piece is ostensibly about food it is actually about connections and memories that revolve around food- in this case triggered by a very wonderful celebration- the end of chemotherapy. The sensual memories and ties that the author makes could just as easily be threaded through green beans and fish, Brussels sprouts and rice. The list of foods are a catalyst and while nostalgic, new memories can be created around new, and equally memorable dishes. I think that we frame things the way we want to frame them until maybe we don't have a choice, or we perhaps just look at things through different lenses.
1
As I read this column, it surprised me to see that there are those who feel morally superior to others, simply owing their abandonment of omnivorous biology. That said, I too consider myself a vegetarian, as I only eat herbivores.
3
Note how many comments this op-ed has so far compared to the other op-eds. Over a thousand comments! Perhaps readers are tired of politics, identity politics -- all the -isms that involve humans. I am only interested in speciecism/animal rights. And I am so happy that so many people commenting are vegans/vegetarians. It tells me that there are many folks like me who really care about the torture and suffering of animals on factory farms and in those barbaric slaughterhouses. There is nothing more heartbreaking. I became a vegetarian/almost vegan 30 years ago and the suffering of animals was the reason why. As an added bonus, it is great for the environment and my health. But animals come first -- our brothers and sisters. Eating meat is unethical/immoral and cannibalism in my opinion.
6
The writer INVITED all the comments with her poorly defended jabs at vegetarians. Most vegetarians go about life eating what is healthy and sustainable and responding to questions when asked. Americans are much more influenced by big Ag and advertising than by vegetarians "preaching".
Mostly what we do is role model.
7
Deciding that eating meat is an important way to stay connected to your historical roots is a stretch I am not willing to make.
Things are so different now from when several generations of our ancestors walked the earth. They did not realize then that mass promotion of consuming meat would ultimately contribute greatly to the destruction of our global environment and ultimately adversely affect every living person. This would have been inconceivable to them then. However, we know know that to ignore the ramifications of flying on planes, eating meat, and especially consuming fossil fuels is expending resources that are non sustainable. Therefore it seems prudent and fair to those in the future that we can imagine becoming vegetarians.
3
I wonder what it is like to be the type of person that will decide what to eat based on what other people think? I really can't imagine.
2
If God aka Mother Nature had intended for humans to be vegetarians then we would have not evolved programmed by our biological DNA genetic evolutionary fit nature to crave fat, salt and sugar by hunting and gathering for the first 290, 000 years of our existence and farming by the last 10,000 by being omnivores. Humans are not natural carnivores nor vegetarians.
3
Ha! This is pretty hilarious. The mental acrobatics we do to justify our actions. Slavery, the subjugation of women, child labor---all at one time acceptable "traditions". Part of the culture. But somehow we have found them to be unacceptable and many illegal. Lifestyle changes is VERY hard, personally and politically. As some other commenters have cited, just accept that you don't care enough to change.
9
Why bother with it? Humans are omnivores. We eat both meat and veggies.
2
First, I don’t get this part “What I am saying is that casual conversions to veganism are white privilege.” “J/K!” What? Why is this funny or even in the article?
Second, humanity is undergoing a huge evolution right now, and has been in continual evolution since the beginning of time. Saying “this is the way it’s always been done, so who am I to question or change it?” no longer jives. This is what those in power want us to practice as well: Pipe down and let the old white men steer the ship. Don’t rock the boat.
We need to be open to integrating new traditions and practices in order to evolve now more than ever. Our survival as a species depends on it. I daresay this process will generate a renaissance of new traditions (mixed in with the old in a creative, enlivened way) that are special and meaningful too.
4
Eating meat, if you think about it, is actually eating a dead body or corpses or carcass. Just this one thought is enough to keep me away from my once favorite Chicken Curry. :-/
4
You should read the book “Eating Animals” by Jonathan Safran Foer. He discusses exactly these traditions and what it means to break from them. It’s a beautiful book, very honest and clear.
5
We are defining the debate. Every few months the nyt oped page has to put out one if these mea culpas where some traditionalist makes excuses. The fundamental logic of veganism is now common sense, and thinking people know it. They can’t kill and pollute without agonizing over it. This writers internal angst is a victory for isms and utopians.
1
i understand, as a Korean- American-i understand what you're saying about a link to your traditions - but you have to understand how wilfully closed minded you sound in clinging to these harmful traditions
. people reexamine their traditions all the time - & must discard &modify them when times change when more facts come to light. i stopped eating meat the minute i finished reading Jonathan Safran Foer' s book- EATING ANIMALS. he beautifully writes about his connections to his Judaism & grandmom &how she expressed her love with chicken -& how hard it was for him to "reject " that -please read it .
5
I am certain that if I went inside a slaughterhouse I would never eat beef, pork and probably chicken again. There is no way it is humane. So with that certainty I just gave it up. Some things you don't need to see. However, after a long break I did eat beef and pork over two days. What happened -- nothing big, but a vague, innocuous sense of something different going on in my stomach. I went back to my old ways. (And, not a deal breaker but -- you have to floss all the time! If you can't get it out of your teeth what is happening inside.)
1
A perfect example of the Naturalistic Fallacy.
1
“Traditions” in food are also transmitting novel viruses from exotic wildlife to humans in Chinese culture and others ( HIV and Ebola- game meat in Africa to humans, SARS- bats to Civet cats to humans, COVID-19 pangolins to humans). How sustainable do you think is the practice fo continuing to eat these kind of wild animals and game meat? When the world is changing around you (climate change, factory farming if animals, wild life species mass extinctions) think of the costs of continuing to sustain such “traditions”? New food traditions can be made easily, but there is no Planet B.
6
The author seems tied to tradition. What a pity. Marcel Duchamp said, "Tradition is the prison in which you must live." You could do so much to help alleviate animal suffering and help the natural world by eschewing meat. Remember that foot binding, slavery, and other abominations were once traditions. Free yourself from blindly following what once was.
6
A study by Johns Hopkins found that eating some meat was actually better for the planet. Google "Eating some meat is better for the environment than going vegetarian"
1
@NorthXNW Maybe reading even the summary of the search results would have informed you that they were comparing dairy to small amounts of meat. Some define vegetarian as including dairy and eggs.
My vegetarian daughter does use a lot of dairy alternatives, she especially likes oat milk.
1
This strikes me as both inauthentic and somewhat disingenuous. If you want to eat meat, just do it and stop trying to justify it to yourself or anyone else with such specious arguments. I just hope you're not also using traditional Chinese medicine that involves the poaching of endangered species to feel more culturally "authentic".
10
Ok, but you realize 50% of the CO2 can be stopped by no meat, right. Just make sure you tell your nieces, nephews etc your decision. Really we can live with 80% of our lives, we must start making these 20% touch decisions for human beings.....the planet will be fine.
1
The lives of our fellow creatures are more important than our traditions.
Sorry. Not sorry.
4
I am an immigrant who comes from a country where meat is part of most meals. There are many ways to keep my culture and traditions without eating meat!
such an irritating piece!
5
Now we must know how a baby in the womb feels about being killed. When we are more upset about killing an animal than an embryo or fetus, we have lost our way. This is so sad.
1
KMW, please explain how humans who practice slavery, wage war, inflict unspeakable damage to our only home, Mother Earth, are more deserving of compassion than animals who are living their lives without harm to us?
We humans have brains big enough to conjure up all manner of technological wonders, but such an underdeveloped moral core that we cannot bear to confront the evil that results, and a too highly developed sense of self importance to humble ourselves in atonement.
I, for one, am in favor of any means that will limit human population and the damage we cause.
Human history is full of "traditions" that are cruel, hurtful, and destructive. The racism that prevented Asians from immigrating to the United States prior to 1965 is one such traditional view that should be abolished (alongside animal cruelty).
1
I've been a vegetarian since 1983; no loved ones alienated, no family traditions lost. (also, for balance -- family gatherings where i got on a soapbox: 0.)
there's a super-simple solution here: only eat meat when it's super-important … bet your intake is reduced by 80% -- any reasonable person'd be satisfied with that. why does Privilige drive people to overthink things??? (Not kidding.)
1
Yes eating animals most who suffer terribly before being slaughtered can alienate us from our tradition of putting our unexamined selfish habits before others, before the welfare of the earth.
4
What I ask of fervid meat-eaters is the honest to god proof of their love of meat conviction.
I dare a carnivore to walk hand in hand with her six year old son through a modern factory dairy where the milk cows are literally milked to death and then that evening drink a glass of milk with him.
I dare the goose hunter to explain why the male goose will fly, facing the goose hunter’s shotgun blast, into the hunter’s blind to be with his just shot dead mate.
I dare the meat-eater to slaughter his pet dog as the Chinese do and barbecue rare dog steak for supper.
This list is endless—chickens, lambs, pigs, horses, doves, through the whole animal kingdom.
Few meat-eaters can withstand the sight of what goes on in a real slaughterhouse. I think this rose colored glasses view speaks to their subconscious fear that meat eating is wrong.
1
@David Thomas : my brother-in-law is a dairy farmer in Northern Ohio.
He has several hundred head of cows -- don't remember exactly.
When a dairy cow is now longer useful for milk or breeding, they slaughter that cow for meat.
They do it themselves or send it out to a slaughterhouse and get the meat back.
Their children, for 120 years and probably 7 generations, have been raised on that dairy farm and seen cows go through the life cycle form calves to dairy cow to hamburger.
They seem pretty normal to me.
The example of a pet dog is absurd -- we don't eat dogs because we keep them as pets. But Asians very much DO eat dogs, and see them as livestock.
4
I've read a few commenters who say that the animals have happy lives in the fields and then are killed humanely. This is not what happens to cattle. Drive by that huge feedlot near Amarillo, Texas and you'll see what the last days of cattle's lives are like. The feedlot is along the highway and must be a couple of miles long. It stinks so badly you have to hold something over your nose as you drive by to keep from gagging. The cows are standing in solid manure and there are mountains of manure piled up around them. They are made to eat an unnatural diet to fatten them up before they are loaded into trucks, bawling, screaming, and having diarrhea, and driven to the slaughterhouse to be thumped on the head. They don't always die from the thumping and sometimes get slaughtered while still alive. There is nothing humane about the way cattle are raised and killed for meat.
6
So how long will you hold out with this argument? What stage of environmental collapse will we need to reach for you to think of letting go of family traditions? Or does your attachment to your identity supersede everything?
5
If you cannot bring yourself to eat no meat, eat less meat. Integrate some vegetarian and vegan dishes in your regular meal planning. Make meat the exception instead of the rule.
Eat beans. Really.
You can eat healthier for yourself and the planet.
4
Malaysia is about 60% Muslim and 20% Buddhist. I'm betting none of them eat pork. Buddhist veganism is oh about 2500 years old. Maybe the author can start a new tradition in her family and highlight it with Malaysian history .
5
In fact coming to think of it I have been to Kuala Lampur and there are a lot of vegan and vegetarian restaurants that even serve their food on banana leaves. I am thunking maybe they belong to minority Hindus? At least the one I visited was an Indian restaurant.
6
So many of our traditions seem pretty ridiculous in today’s world, maybe it’s time to alienate ourselves.
1
So. Clinging to traditions is more important to you than doing all we can to save the Earth?
5
"What I am saying is that casual conversions to veganism are white privilege."
But there are plenty of vegetarian/vegan traditions in non-white cultures. Buddhists, Hindus, Rastafarians. The Chinese have long been innovators in fake meats. Just because it's not your tradition doesn't mean it's not someone else's.
6
Why identify as "a vegetarian", "a vegan", "an omnivore", "a carnivore"? It's the purity issue that causes cognitive dissonance and makes people revert to their default (comfortable) behavior. Just try to eat the majority of your foods as plant based but don't be dogmatic or feel guilty about eating meat on occasion if you want to. You'll feel better physically and emotionally. The guilt of "slipping" is stupid. With practice, you'll appreciate the variety of vegetarian/vegan foods and not miss meat....appreciate the "rare" burger, bacon, chop or fried chicken. I hunt and eat what I kill, but most of my diet is plant based - no guilt.
1
They say “ You are what you eat”. Think about how animals are treated before they become meat. People are now being treated that way by corporate culture.
I view people who eat dogs as barbarians akin to cannibals.
Why do people eat man’s best friend?
2
Blame modernity for your indifference? You are trying to exonerate your indifference to animals suffering and your flying around the world by linking it to Grandma and Grandpa's farm life?
Whatever that is, the link to traditions has gone a long time ago.
Go kill the pig after you have named her and grown her up from a baby. That might be a tradition on your ancestor's farm.
I know for certain that your traditions don't support the brutality and sped up violence the capitalist pigs insist on.
The occupant in the WH just sped up the slaughterhouse speeds on workers who were already stressed and poorly paid. I read 10 billion animals slaughtered here in the states every year, and the waste stream is run off in our rivers, keeping death circulating downstream into the ocean where it creates dead zones.
I eat meat once in a while, and plan to fly this year after two years off.
But I'm deeply ambivalent about both, knowing what I know about the sixth extinction, about our carbon pollution growing every year and the increased suffering and brutality toward animals raised for meat.
You have a big heart and a family, too, I can tell. A family with hopes and dreams for another generation is another reason not to brag about your indifference for their future.
The machine behind the killing keeps justifying itself, and you've mistakenly gotten caught up in defense of indefensible. This is us as a species hurtling toward extinction. Eat mostly plants anyway.
3
What a collection of illogical statements. This is like saying: let’s not strive for piece in the world since we need to preserve the long traditions of wars, since wars are part of who we are. Nonsense!
2
If we're somehow morally obligated to our traditions, then are we free?
2
You can eat that pig and make some meat dishes to retain your cultural and family connections.
But does that have to include 3 meals a day of mediocre meat that adds little to your nutrition or the flavor of your food ? Using industrial animal farming that pollutes, abuses animals, and consumes perfectly good plant matter that you could eat?
Does that have to include this article which just is adding to the hostility against vegetarians, vegans, and lots of good people who are willing to eat less meat for the good of our planet (And their own health).
If we give up gratuitous meat for breakfast that's significantly less meat produced and consumed. If we eat meatless on Mondays or for lunch or maybe all week long, that's a lot of meat. No meat on weekdays (but lots of BBQs and suckling pigs on weekends) would be 70% less meat consumed.
As Alicia herself mentions, it is the chili sauce, not the chicken that makes the dish. Subsitute one of the many, many meat substitutes or beans or vegetables and at worst you have a riff on a traditional dish.
The odds that your ancestors ate meat all the time are near zero (and culturally not common in Asia, other than perhaps Korea). That pig in the barn was served for special occasions .. not for every morning bacon.
5
One day I went to a local organic farm to buy the best eggs I had ever had and noticed a group of pigs. I went over like you would in a petting zoo and immediately made eye contact with this particular pig. It was exactly like looking into the eyes of an extremely intelligent, happy and emotionally connected human being.
I stopped eating meat.
6
Sorry, but this is all very lame. You want to maintain old traditions? Fine, then go back and hunt the animals, slaughter and skin them and proceed. Just to be really traditional, don't use any metal tools to hunt or skin the animals. After you do that, you'll have my respect. Until then, all this is a lame excuse for laziness - intellectual and physical.
4
I am an unabashed omnivore. I kill a lot of soybeans and other pulses but I do eat animals and sea going insects and if the world reduced itself to the level of my consumption of animal products then it would be better off. A pig to celebrate a life changing event is no crime. What do vegans feed their pet dogs? Are fungi sentient ? I cant tell any one how to live.
3
This was a horrible article to read, and I'm not even vegetarian (though I don't eat much meat and am reducing it all the time). This woman does not have her priorities straight. Eating meat, especially beef, is consigning everyone on the planet to a future of suffering. I always appreciated Anthony Bourdain's show because it did not sanitize what eating meat entails. If I could never eat turkey again at Thanksgiving, you know what? It would not be the end of the world!
2
When my son was 4 years old, while eating steak, he asked me where the meat came from. I replied that it came from a cow. "Do they have to kill the cow?" he asked. When I said yes, he said, "Poor cow! And dad, can I have another piece of steak?"
3
Sorry to say the comments here are exactly what I expected.
Vegans self-righteous scolding and finger-pointing make them as tiresome as the Trump-loving evangelicals.
Nothing but nothing seems to escape this country's pathological puritanism.
10
It's OK to become alienated from some traditions. (Bat soup anyone?) Change is uncomfortable, don't use traditions as an excuse for your own unwillingness to make changes.
"Tradition" -- it was always done that way/my predecessors did it that way -- is a flimsy excuse for rejecting current information and changing your behavior: it sustains racism, homophobia, and capitalism's destruction of the earth.
1
Hogwash.... (literally)! Most folks who live in America are descended from cultures that historically ate meat.... There are PLENTY of ways to connect with your heritage besides gobbling down slabs of protein. And unless you are a manual laborer or ultramarathon runner, you don't need it to survive and thrive; any more than a little bit is doing you more harm than good.
4
The problem is not so much meat as ethical meat. Pigs used to be garbage disposals. They ate all the food and garden scraps and then were eaten. (A school near me is feeding two pigs the lunch leftovers and then eating the pigs.) Same with chickens and other fowl. And my guess is that in your culture, much less meat was eaten than is common for most Americans.
Quit feeding cows corn, return the corn fields to prairie and raise wild bison on grass. Much healthier meat for everyone. Much of the US has a real problem with wild pigs. Allow them to be hunted commercially.
Eat less but better meat.
1
All I can say is: Traditions were meant to be broken.
If the author wants to bring up the term "privilege," they might want to do a quick google search of the term "speciesism."
The “traditions” of torturing, killing and eating animals is the problem, as is any form of mass killing. Alienation from that tradition is the solution.
1
This is a real lame article. People don’t become vegetarian just for fun. Please do some research on how meat-eating has become a factory process and how inhumanely the the animals are treated by most “farmers”. You have the right to eat whatever you want but there is no need to trivialize the people who are on the other side.
6
"... by Western standards, the photo might be deemed a little graphic: The head of the pig was still attached, its cheeks sliced open."
Actually, Roast Suckling Pig is a "Western" classic.
Do a web search for "Cook with Suckling Pig Albert Anker". Anker (1831-1910) was a Swiss painter.
And Julia Child did an episode on "Roast Suckling Pig" broadcast on February 12, 1966 (per Wikipedia article, "The French Chef"). And, yes, the head is "still attached".
A web search for "Roast Suckling Pig" will find numerous photos.
1
How many of you vegetarians and vegans own dogs or cats. Dogs and cats are carnivores. They either eat meat or they die.
We are carnivores. We either eat meat or we die. Vitamin B12 comes only from meat. Without it, we die of pernicious anemia.
All your self-righteous congratulations mean the end of the Earth's carnivores - all those lions and tigers and others whose habitat you feel so good about saving. What you are saving is a place for them to hunt and eat other animals - because those are the only meals that will nourish them.
Vegetarianism isn't saving Nature. It's a denial of nature. And Mother Nature bats last.
5
You must mean vegans. Vegetarians generally consume dairy and we all know that dairy is produced by cows and that cows are killed by the millions. Don't believe me?? What do you think happens to the male babies of a dairy cow? You guessed it, killed early in life for veal and baby beef. What do you think happens to older non-producing cows? You guessed it, hamburger and sausage. If you are not vegan, you are a part of the killing machine.
3
We are all economic migrants, moving to where we can support ourselves and our families. Keeping one's history and traditions is nourishing. Having pig meat on a special occasion is a okay. What is best for us and our planet is evolving daily. We can look forward at the same time.
We did fine alienating ourselves from the tradition of slavery.
1
My ancestors slaughtered other human beings who worshipped a different deity. Gosh, I feel sooo conflicted about giving up that practice.
1
Ms. Wittmeyer: For you, myself, and all 'food' animals, my aim is a gentle reply; the first Reader Pick by Cheryl encourages honesty, as well. In short: Traditions are no excuse for cruelty & environmental degradation.
The thought of such equivocation prompts some scattered points: as a half-Greek vegan, I was pleased to discover http://thegreekvegan.com/ ; and there are THOUSANDS of ethnic prepared foods & recipes, for those who value (as I do) tradition.
As a lacto-ovo vegetarian, I visited Animal Place (Grass Valley) where I learned that all boy cows have their heads cut off, and all little, easter-card-cute rooster chicks are ground alive or suffocated or just tossed to starve/dehydrate to death, I tried for a while to find really good free range (cage free are crammed disgustingly) eggs..then made do with really good egg substitutes.
See also United Poultry Concerns: https://www.upc-online.org Karen Davis's (her PhD is in English, not philosophy or ethology) has spoken eloquently of *crying* when she decided she had to give up cheese (well, now we have Miyoko's & The Herbivorous Butcher's cheeses, but you get the point).
OK, it's difficult, b/c tradition matters. But, look at the animals. Is your tradition more than their lives? Can your tradition not embrace chicken substitutes? Here I hesitate to sound righteous, but I think these questions matter, for all traditions:: are those like genital mutilation & dog-meat worth keeping just b/c they're traditions?
A bit of gaslighting humor:
"What I am saying is that casual conversions to veganism are white privilege.
Just kidding! I am not saying that."
The author clearly has mixed and strong feelings on the subject highlighting as she does an emotional "defense" to being a meat-eater. Who is judging is my question?
1
Mark Twain is reputed to have said “don’t lie any more than you have to.” I suggest the same approach to eating meat (by which I mean cows and pigs). Don’t eat more of them than you feel that you have to based on social pressure and the like. 100% purity in ethical dilemmas is hard to achieve, so do the best that you can under the circumstances.
1
So what is the author saying -- if based on cultural norms, it is OK?
Eating shark fin soup, using bear gall bladder as medicine and elephant tusk carving are all based on cultural practices.
6
The white privilege joke succeeded - it wound me up and instantly released me. So glad you weren't saying that. I agree with your thesis that what we eat is important to us, but it still doesn't seem like a strong enough argument - one's projects and identity doesn't cease to change until death - one can have an even richer life as a Vegetarian or a poorer one - it is not dependent on the food.
Re: "not eating it would fundamentally change who we are"
Its interesting that the converse applies to Indians who have been vegetarians for generations. If they don't stay pure vegetarian, they lose who they are. Interestingly, veganism is unheard of except for White people, so perhaps their is an element of privilege there...
@Ram What you said about white people is not true. Many countries around the world have vegan restaurants. Vietnam has very many of them, and non-vegan restaurants let customers choose if they want beef, chicken or tofu in their dishes. I've heard that the larger cities in Mexico has a good number of vegan restaurants, and I've seen African vegan restaurants online.
In general, the people in less-prosperous countries eat smaller portions of meat.
2
Pigs were feral and invasive in the remote location I lived in Hawaii. They would come in and root up the yard at night, but when they began threatening me during the day, I called in a great pig hunter. He set out a large strong trap, with the trap not set, and baited it for weeks. When the pigs became comfortable following the macadamia nut trail into the trap, he set the spring and trapped four pigs. He was out of town on the capture day and the pigs would growl and throw themselves against the cage when I'd leave or come back to the house. The next day when he came back, they were quiet as mice. Until he started shooting them, and then they were screaming. His small son sat in the truck and calmly played with a toy car during the slaughter. I, who only ate seafood for decades, cowered in the house. The hunter loaded the dead pigs in his truck and left, he was going to butcher two and freeze for his family and use two for traditional Lūʻau, roasting the whole pig in the ground. Culturally different and not something I would do, but somehow symmetrically and completely correct.
Now back on the mainland, I'm horrified and disgusted by our factory farming methods.
130
@JessiePearl I am horrified by your eager willingness to kill and eat flesh.
9
I would be happy if I could just have a civil debate with a vegan. When I defend my choice to eat a little meat, it is too often viewed as a personal attack, and we never get a chance to discuss the carbon footprint, water usage and working conditions of the people growing and harvesting the foods in a vegan diet. These are legitimate issues to be dealt with, not brushed under a sanctimonious rug. That avocado on my plate may be less harmful to the planet than a steak, but it used a lot of water as it grew and it took a long flight in a jet before it reached my table.
7
if "who we are" depends on eating a piglet, then there is not much in this "we". Just a poor defenseless piglet.And a poor "we".
4
You can honor the memory of your mother is whatever way you find most respectful. I think someone who wishes to honor the heritage of their parents differently is totally within their rights to do so. To claim that subscribing to a dietary restriction that may slightly change the way we eat is to "fundamentally change who we are" is silly.
1
What a collection of incoherent illogical statements. How about: let’s not strive for piece in the world since we need to preserve the long traditions of war which is a part of who we are. Nonsense!
4
I’m a super vegetarian. I eat concentrated vegetation in the form of meat. Preferably ribeye or lamb or duck or fresh caught fish.
I’m happily insensitive to the comments posted in response to this opinion. I find it a shame the author feels guilty for her flesh fetish. Hopefully, she will continue to overcome her guilt and continue to savor roast pig.
Besides, how do you think the pig feels? By not consuming the pig with gusto, vegetarians and vegans are discriminating against the poor animal that gave up its life for your gastronomic enjoyment. Furthermore, killing the pig saves countless plants, which vegetarians claim to love, ........ by eating them.
In case you don’t understand, plants, hate herbivorous animals, including vegans and vegetarians (at least they would if they had a brain). That is why the majority of wild plants are well defended, packed full of toxins designed to kill anything stupid enough to eat them
2
A rather feeble article, I thought. She says that following ethnic traditions may legitimately stop you from doing what is right.
I hate to think what consequences could come from that maxim.
5
Yeah, I'm from cattle country, surrounded by meat eaters and if my family can do it, so can you. If you want to, that is. No pressure. But the excuse presented in article is a weak one.
5
Why do many meat eaters continue to be insensitive to animal suffering? I guess they love to play semantics in order to justify their immoral choice. For example to witness a pig turned upside down squealing in pain while bloodletting should disgust anyone. Sadly our civilization is not ready to make hard choices. Instead lets just attack those that feel that animals should not suffer in order satisfy our palate.
4
At least the author is eating pork rather than beef. Beef destroys the planet much more than pork does.
I've decided to go vegan because I can't stand animal abuse. I really see it as murder. It's not that hard and "tradition" is not worth the torture and abuse of helpless animals
4
Anti-Meat-Eating: Addendum
PRO: Your gaseous expulsions are generally less unpleasant when you consume only plant-life (certain legumes excluded).
How does that go? "...rum, sodomy and the lash." Or, if you prefer, atherosclerosis, oncology and bariatric surgery. Thankfully, some are not rigidly bound by the traditions of our forebears.
1
It isn't meat. It is flesh.
1
A society which sends their children to war to be killed, slaughtering animals for food is not very surprising. Just shows what an uncaring and brutal society we are.
3
It is without question barbaric to raise and kill animals for meat. This is unarguable on any level by any logic or morality. If it were traditional to eat humans, would that make it acceptable? Our planet can’t sustain our barbarism or selfishness. My husband, a lifelong carnivore became Vegan to our delight and relief, and now he cannot imagine what took him so long to stop his hypocrisy.
3
Actually, in some tribes in Paula New Guinea, cannibalism was practiced at least up until the 70s “mutually” ie: it was considered “fair game” to capture and kill an interloper. This was “acceptable” to them. The book “Savage Harvest” by Carl Hoffman provides much information.
1
I ate meat until I saw what goes on in a slaughterhouse. I cannot write about it. There are laws that prohibit me from putting anything of what I witnessed into any kind of print. These laws prohibiting writers from reporting on what goes on were laws dreamed up as pacts between meat producers and state legislators. One funds the other. The arrangement is immoral and corrupt.
Like killing animals on an industrial scale is immoral and corrupt.
Have you ever read an article in the New York Times that rips the veil off the killing, the sounds, the screams, and the blood. No, you have not. Have you seen the photographs. No, you have not. Did you know that animals get what is happening to them, and I have seen the animals physically oppose the killers. It's shocking. But the animals can fight back. They do not win those confrontations.
Have you ever seen a horse gutted and still screaming as it is being picked up by a metal hook, the horse still kicking. No, you have not.
It is an ethical issue. We have never been killing animals in a humane way. That is simply rhetoric.
You are not supposed to know what goes on in a slaughterhouse. Because you would stop eating dead meat.
I had to stop eating dead meat. But first I had to vomit over what I has just seen.
Dead meat eaters are chemically addicted. Withdrawal in stages does not work. Understanding what slaughterhouses are works in no uncertain terms.
Lambs. You cut them, gut them, and eat the young.
Humans are predators.
4
So let me get this straight. You say "combating climate change is urgent" and acknowledge the connection with diet... And then what? You leave it other people to do what you think is "the right thing," so you can preserve your heritage?
3
To heck with traditions.
The 'tradition' of shark's fin soup has driven many species to the verge of becoming endangered.
The 'tradition' of buying exotic live animals for meat brought us SARS and now COVID-19.
There are 'traditions' of genital mutilation, forced marriage and even forced child marriage. Apartheid and segregation were justified by 'tradition'.
Same sex and interracial couples were illegally barred from the equal protection of marriage laws because of "tradition'.
4
The list of "traditions" that need to come to an end would consume all of cyberspace.
3
Animals have parents also. Well, now that’s settled have a nice day.
3
Your traditions are part of the problem darling - Pangolins, Tigers, Rhinos .. the list goes on. What is the point of holding on to a tradition that decimates the planet's diversity for your tastebuds ?
4
Archaic practices must die. What are you teaching your kids — that it’s acceptable not only to eat an animal, but to lay it out bare in its original form and then “enjoy” the meal? Pigs are far more intelligent than people would like to give them credit for.
There’s human need - calories and nutrition. There’s greed, preferences of tasty meet, and what’s shown here is beyond greed — killing an animal and serving it in its original form just to satisfy a “tradition”. Second amendment supporters use the same logic. “Tradition”. In both cases, impact on fellow humans in this world is staggering.
Vegetarianism and veganism has caught on not just because of its potential to reduce global warming. It’s tasty, healthy and nutritious. Be an anarchist. Break that tradition, or create a better tradition.
4
Two words: Ruth's Chris
1
if we were all vegetarians farm animals would never be born. Is it better to be alive and then die a violent death, or to never been born? If we were pigs, what would we choose? That's the dilemma.
Do you truly believe that being "who you are" lies in your genome or do you believe that all of ethnicity x remain committed to ethnicity x diet generation after generration?
You belong to the only race, the one called Homo Sapiens by a Swedish naturalist a long time ago, the one now shown by your genome and my genome that we are all in this together.
You are not half anything. Complete analysis of your genome will show as Swedish scientific journalist shows in her book, My European Family - 54,000 years back in time, you trace back along many lines of descent.
Muslims do fine without eating pork, so too do Jews, at least if we are referring to those who truly believe. You might have at least done a little research to see if anyone has studied the transformation of diet in various ethnic groups. Here in Sweden it is easy to see that each ethnic group has made Sweden a place with a far more varied diet available than the SD party would prefer. They even made it a far better place for me to retire to 23 years ago. Not that we ever lived on a Swedish diet when I was growing up even though were the Hokanssons and the Lundgrens and the Jaederqvists.
I see no connection at all between modernity and roast pig, but if believing that is important for you, fine. My ideas of modernity are concerned with other matters.
Only-NeverrInSweden.blogspot.com
Citizen US SE
Beautiful.
I wish our human celebrations didn't have to include dead animals.
4
People commenting raise interesting issues. I am enjoying reading these more than I enjoyed reading the article. I found it confusing, unfocused and rather poorly written.
4
The tension you feel is guilt, which is a natural reaction to doing something wrong. Go vegan.
4
Traditions. You can substitute. There are bigger issues at stake here. Climate change, firstly, as far as human survival goes.
I’m 50 years old and became a vegan for ethical reasons 27 years ago: to alleviate the suffering of animals, to do my part to heal the planet and for my health. I can’t think of one tradition I’ve had to give up. Thanksgiving- fake turkey. Easter- fake (delicious) ham.
“Jesus is alive! Kill a pig!” Makes zero sense.
No tradition is worth animal suffering and kicking the environmental can down the road. Next!
4
argh, what a weak article. these are not reasons based on respect for something, they're rationalizations based on self pity.
4
I think this needs to be read in the context of the piece in this same issue about how Australians need to give up THEIR ENTIRE CULTURAL APPROACH if they want to survive. I don't think giving up roast pig will be too great a sacrifice.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/15/world/australia/fires-climate-change.html
3
Vegetarians, for the most part, don’t care what you eat. Methinks the lady doth protest too much.
Eating meat is primitive.
3
The romanticization of cruelty to animals is extraordinarily offensive. To participate in the torture and maiming of sentient beings to satisfy traditions is immoral. Ignoring the great body of information regarding the destruction of this planet resulting from the propagation and slaughter in holocaust like conditions for a tradition is so self-indulgent that it is sickening. We have become the scourge of the earth with this reasoning.
5
I guess if killing animals to gorge on them is a tradition then enslaving, honor killing, crusading, lynching, etc. should also be traditions.
A diet is not a tradition. A ritual could be a tradition. But, any tradition that harms this planet and consequently the creatures living on it then that tradition is not kosher anymore. By all means, banish those traditions.
3
Eating meat is a choice. You do it if you want it. No need to explain.
Posting a photo is a choice. You do it if you want it. No need to explain.
If someone knows you don't eat meat, don't expect to see a picture of a roasted pig on your posting web site of choice, and decide to never look at your posts again because of it, it's his/her choice. If you get upset - it's your problem.
Of all the arguments for killing and eating something, doing it because it's one's identity has got to be the least defensible. And to blare it out and tell the world seems to say that the author made a moral choice and by talking about it wants others to make her feel less bad. If you kill and eat, live with it. THAT is who you are.
4
Meat kills. Earth, Air, Water. Everything!
Humans don't need meat. Never did. Their greed wants. Greed kills.
The word isn't vegetarian. It's vegan.
Go the distance to save the planet, or get the heck out of the way!
3
To paraphrase Home Simpson
“If we aren’t supposed to be eating cows, why did they make them out of food”
2
"I was hesitating, ... because a giant roast pig is so ostentatious — so flagrantly, flauntingly meaty."
So get a book on slaughtering and butchering your own meat. This one is completely forthright:
"Basic butchering of livestock & game" by John J. Mettler, Jr., illustrated by Elayne Sears. (No photos, just illustrations.)
That doesn't mean you have to do your own slaughtering and butchering, but it does help readers to confront the facts of traditional meat production.
"... what seems like such a simple decision, to stop eating meat, has a way of alienating us from our histories and our traditions and the people around us."
If that's intended to paraphrase Michael Pollan, it's very misleading, because he never mentions "alienation".
And that argument is an example of the fallacy of arguing from tradition, which is used to justify female genital mutilation, for example.
For more about that fallacy and many others, see
"With Good Reason: An Introduction to Informal Fallacies" by S. Morris Engel.
1
Pork is not good for you post chemo.
Perhaps the writer of this piece should read "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" by Ursula Le Guin. Of course, burying heads in sand in a common alternative.
1
Trees communicate with each other and form communities that are are mutually beneficial. Stop all wood production?
Trillions upon trillions of insects would have to die to provide lands in order for 7-8 billion to become vegan. Billions of small animals would need to die as well. Stop all food production?
The oceans are savage worlds for all sentient being when viewed through human eyes. It’s ruthless with no mercy shown to any being. Shall we stop harvesting the savages of the seas that prey upon the smaller savages?
Should we kill all the predators on the planet so no sentient being suffers from becoming a meal for another sentient being?
Do vegans drinking fruit juices and wines realize that billions of wild rodents need to be killed in order to protect the mass production of trees that produce smoothie juices and those organic wines?
Billions of people go to sleep in a state of starvation. They don’t have the luxury to pick and choose what they will allow themselves to eat. Perhaps work on feeding all people first before being so deeply upset with a first-world problem?
Vegetarians are the biggest hypocritical foodies going - dairy products are fine because being a beast of burden for many years is better than instant death that comes with becoming a steak?
Vegans, why aren’t all plants sentient beings? Scientists recently gave a compelling argument that plants scream when pruned or consumed. Why should any living thing be killed so that you may live?
5
@JR
Agreed. It's quite annoying when those with plenty preach how and what to eat towards everyone else especially those who have little. All life requires the death of other organisms. And yes, humans need meat.
4
Everything in moderation.
excuses excuses....killing an animal is wrong.
Every being human or animal wants to live.
I've been vegetarian for many years. there's no excuse for eating an animal. in this day & age (we're no longer cave people) after all the informatiion out there & not counting what it is doing to the planet is just a selfish, cruel act.
sorry but there's no getting around to the fact an animal feels pain & senses it will be killed. they are sensitive sentient Beings.
Pigs are affectionate & intelligent.
If you wouldn't eat your dog why eat a pig? Please I've heard all the excuses. rationalize it all you want.
eating animals is wrong...
4
1971
That was the last year that I ate meat.
I never tell people not to eat meat, but.....
My friend had a sick cow. The veterinarian diagnosed his bovine with stomach cancer. He suggested my friend take the cow to the slaughter house soon because the meat house won't take an animal that can't walk in.
1
So keep eating meat, then, but maybe stop posting pictures of dead animals, and be content with your choice instead of trying to justify it in a long article. If the moral argument ever wins you over, then write the article.
4
If who you are is tied so tightly to eating pig (an absurd contention to my opinion) then by all means, change (infinitesimally) who you are. What is the big deal? But, seriously, isn't this just a rationalization so you can hold on to your beloved pig meat?
3
To reject moral and environmental reasons is illogical and I might add stupid. Eating meat is also unhealthy in general....for people and the planet.
To resort to 'tradition' is the same as accepting racism and mysogeny. If we can't develop better thought processes to improve ourselves and our world, we are doomed.
5
Dumb. Every cuisine has food that isn’t meat that can serve as a cultural touchstone.
Also, almost a parody of lefty competitors: my purported cultural identification trumps your environmental and animal welfare concerns, or I get a pass on eating meat because I can invoke the “cultural identity” exception.
It’s okay to just admit you like eating meat.
I like animals. they are tasty and they keep us warm.
I also like hunt and fish and will eat what I kill.
6
Torturing and killing animals is immoral. END
4
Traditions are peer pressure from dead people.
Give us the meat without the horror. It can be done. Meat with every meal is a new and absurd twist pushed by these obscene agri-businesses. Meat should be more expensive to ameliorate the horror, which would in turn force many to choose plants based options, just like our forebears did for most meals, with meat reserved for specific times, maybe only with dinner. We have incisors in our palette for a reason, but that does not mean three times a day, every day. Never mind the industrial poisoning by way of processed meats. Let's hope the labs can start producing pain-free meats that are good sometime soon, because the poor cloven hoofed one's shall have their revenge in the form of toxic flatulence and the wasting of increasingly precious arable lands for feed.
1
This article is a great example of how we still hold a woefully impoverished view of other animals. Our dominion over other animals is justified by nothing other than sheer power. If your roast pig had been able to stop you from murdering her, she would have. The reason humans eat meat is simply because we have the strength to. Horrific traditions abound that we have moved on from: the keeping of catamites, chattel slavery, marital rape. Eating meat is next, and this article will age like so much rotten meat.
4
As a diabetic, I have to eat protein - it's usually eggs but sometimes it's chicken, or other protein sources in small amounts. I can't fill up on all the foods that vegans and vegetarians eat - no potatoes, rice, pasta or other forms of carbs for me. If I eat the very tiniest amount of carbs, my diabetic numbers say within high, but safe limits. Otherwise my numbers are off the chart .Now I think one of the problems is portion size. Sometimes I watch a TV show where the diners seem to specialize in enormous portions. Enough meat to feed a village. As for vegans being more pure - they eat a lot of almonds and products made with almonds which suck up enormous amounts of water. Ditto for rice. Eery diet has issues regarding the environment and health but mindful eating is one of the major keys. Also, not insulting those who eat differently - either because of health or cultural reasons. An acquaintance screamed at me because I don't eat potatoes. I ate a baked potato and showed her my numbers just to prove that I know what works for me. Didn't matter than having numbers that high would kill me sooner with terrible health problems.
164
@nej1945, Vegans don't worry about being pure, and we are not the only people who eat almonds and rice. Keep in mind that cows, chickens, and pigs eat and drink too. When you eat meat, eggs, and milk products, the plant foods the animals ate and the water they drank all goes into the formula. Much of what these animals eat goes to maintaining their metabolism, so that's a complete loss in terms of food. No other industry uses anywhere near the amount of water and land than does animal agriculture.
50
@nej1945 I probably don't have to mention this to you because you probably know it already, but lots of veggies have very low glycemic indices, particularly greens, and some root vegetables even, like beets, and some pulses. I live with and cook for a man who is diabetic. Eating vegetarian meals most of the week, meat only once or twice, with a minimum of whole grains, works well for him. If you like spicy food try learning to cook Indian style dishes. The cuisine has lots of delicious vegetarian options focused on vegetables and pulses.
58
@nej1945
The argument about almonds and water use is specious, spread around by the dairy lobby.
Milk from cows requires far more water to produce. Water to grow the food the cow eats; water the cow consumes (thirty gallons per day); water to process the milk...
71
I'm sorry your mother is ill and hope she recovers to live many more years to enjoy her family and be enjoyed by her family.
It is always difficult to come to realization of mortality. It is so uncomfortable that we hide from it until we no longer can. Everyone handles it differently but don't worry, you will not forget who you are and all those people who are part of yourself.
Roast a pig or have a pork chop or eat an avocado, and I promise you will still be the person who has inherited the DNA of all your ancestors. Live your life with the best intention of making your ancestors proud. That's the best that any of can do.
111
i don’t agree with your thesis. “not eating [meat] would fundamentally change who we are”...? nah. you’ll be fine. you’ll survive with your identity intact, really. i’m exhibit a, a filipino-american who grew up in new jersey. i am the one filipino in my immediate and extended family who is vegetarian. sure, i don’t eat the same foods that everyone eats at the gluttonous holiday parties. i have my own vegetarian versions of what is good filipino food. but am i fundamentally different from the rest of my family? no, i feel one with them. i partake in many other aspects. i am aware of what’s going on in their lives, aware of the social issues in the philippines. i was a member of filipino-cultural groups. i participate in the line dancing during every filipino party. etc. if i’m not physically in contact with other filipinos, i don’t feel that not participating in filipino traditions is changing who i am as a filipino.
to sum up... not eating meat does not mean i am not a filipino. i am slightly different from the rest, but not fundamentally. and that’s insulting for you to try to justify your love of meat in this train of thought. the fact is ... that you just love meat. which is you. the love of meat does not define being malaysian. don’t say you’re continuing to eat meat to keep up malaysian traditions. there are other ways to do so, but you choose to eat meat because you like it! simple as that.
368
@lv amen!!!
16
I think Americans have become food obsessed, placing too much emphasis on food as it relates to relationships and happiness, living to eat instead of eating to live. Could be one reason we're such a fat, unhealthy nation. A (mostly) vegetarian or vegan diet is very healthy and can be delicious, too. It does take a little more work but is worth the effort.
1
My family tradition of food is southern. My grandma, who was the center of our family. cooked fried chicken, chicken fried steak, sausage biscuits and gravy, hamhock and collard greens, etc. My grandpa raised the meat the family ate. I am vegan and completely honor my grandmother and the tradition of our foods while not harming animals, my health, or the environment, which my grandmother would be totally supportive of, if alive. It becomes much more imaginative and creative to tweak the recipes, sub the protein and liquid smoke is a miracle. Maintaining cultural/family traditions is not an argument, imo, for not becoming vegetarian or, yes, even vegan. If you want to eat meat, fine....but I don't think cloaking it in tradition is valid. Things change, the world changes. When we know better, we should do better.
5
For eight years I managed a social service foundation in rural Latin America and was often given a meal of chicken or roasted guinea pig by a poor family as a heartfelt expression of gratitude for the benefits they had received. In recognition of this kindness and appreciation from these lovely humble people, I accepted and enjoyed the meal.
I have been a "no rules" vegetarian for 40 years. In essence, I have learned to "listen" to my body. There are times when my cells definitely cry out for meat. On my part, I make a conscious effort to be sure that the innocent creature was raised in sane conditions and treated with basic respect. I see the beef cattle here raised on the green, lush mountainsides and know that this meat is exceptional.
So three things, 1) acknowledge that your body exudes exquisite intelligence and if you pay attention will guide your nutritional needs 2) take care about food combinations, i.e. not mix fruit with starches, meat, etc. 3) choose meat that has been raised and killed with some consciousness and eat it in gratitude.
1
It's our abundance that's the problem. Eat meat and dessert only on holidays, and you'll reduce your carbon footprint and feel more connected to the traditions of eating meat and the people with whom you celebrate these important cultural traditions. It makes every holiday that much more meaningful.
3
I'm writing as someone who has been gradually moving toward a plant-based diet. I'm sorry that so many commenters are piling on top of this writer. I think Wittemeyer is trying, in an honest and nuanced way, to address an issue that is quite complicated for many people. It matters that so many of our social traditions -- American Thanksgiving, Kwanzaa, Christmas, Chinese New Year, Passover, Easter, Iftar, 4th of July, Canadian Thanksgiving, to name just a few! -- are steeped in meat. Changing the menu means adjusting our ideas about what holds us together. It may well be that we need to evolve beyond the meat-based diet. But sanctimonious judgments and dismissals don't help at all.
18
If the climate crisis calls for anything, it calls for redefining transportation, GDP, nationalism, reproduction, and consumption. While I'm a vegetarian I probably eat meat about once a month when it's just easier in some social situation but one can be a vegetarian nearly all the time without offending anyone else. It's just one of many ways to honer the future of the world, with all its species.
Mary
1
All traditions are made up.
Make up a new one.
5
Quick question: are you willing to slaughter the pig yourself? If you're willing to do so - if you want that tradition so badly that you're ready to take it's life and butcher it - than all the power to you. If you can't, and are only willing to outsource the killing, then that's moral hypocrisy. Face the music, or turn it off.
3
"What I am saying is that casual conversions to veganism are white privilege. Just kidding! I am not saying that."
Oh really, Alicia? You just did say that! Nothing was lost in translation as you attempted a diversion into humor. You meant every word. We see you, hear you, and got the message.
5
'Ever'? I go vegetarian two out of three times a day: breakfast and lunch. It just ain't that hard. Do the planet, and yourself, a favor. And still pig out, when it matters to you.
Traditions are destroying our planet and cruel ones, like factory farming , need to be revisited and ended! Lazy thinking.
5
You are what you eat. So why would anyone ingest suffering and death?
5
Just watch some slaughterhouse videos. End of discussion.
5
If you can go to a slaughter house and are fine with that ,then eat away. If what you are doing is picking a sanitized package out of a refrigerate shelf. then look in the mirror. where all delusion start and die,
3
Pigs are as intelligent, they say, as some small children. That's enough for me to keep them off my dinner plate.
5
If you love your traditions so much, you should catch and kill what you eat. That's what our ancestors did.
3
Why is eating meat a big part of your cultural hero but not speaking the language?
1
Snark alert: because learning the language takes effort!
1
If you've ever witnessed a pig being slaughtered, even "humanely" slaughtered, I guarantee you will stop eating pigs. I say that because the sensitivity you display in your article will make it impossible for you to separate the end from the means. Your concern will be less for your cultural identity, more for the unfortunate pig's fear, confusion and pain.
4
I am vegetarian for my health and for the health of the pig you happily devour.
Do not apologize for eating foods that keep you and your family alive and healthy. Do not feel bad when people who have plenty of resources preach to you about how and what you should eat. Categorically disregard when those with plenty preach to those with less how and what they should eat. To feel hunger, to not be able to afford shelves of options, these are things many of the wealthy class do not understand. The nerve to speak down and proclaim moral superiority to those eat meat. Paalease. Spare me.
4
There must be tens of thousands of Chinese Malaysian vegetarian recipes. Why not honor that tradition?
4
You know why there are AgGag laws on the books? It's because if people actually saw how that turkey6, ham, or roast got to them, they just might not be as keen to enjoy it. In fact, they might not use as much meat or even back away completely. Horrors!!
https://www.aspca.org/animal-protection/public-policy/what-ag-gag-legislation
3
You are not fundamentally changing your culture if you make the decision to stop eating roasted pig. You are changing yourself.
Maybe it's because I live in California that I've been around various levels of vehement vegetarians for over forty years.
The arguments against eating meat grow more urgent and true regarding its health effects, and most disastrously, damage to the environment. All fact.
However, like most of us I am not prone to strict, radical moves in my life. I've found that eating meat maybe once a week or enjoying the annual turkey dinner with new or old friends is an experience I still relish. When dining at someone else's home, I eat whatever the host has invested their time, energy, love and money in preparing.
Vegetarians might have more success with convincing others towards their outlook if they would start with proposing a meatless day a week for them, as well as introducing carnivores to other ways to shop, cook and eat out. Once they discover the alternatives, you'll have better luck with seeing them move to less frequent carnivorous meals and finally, maybe they'll get to your exalted status as a complete vegetarian or vegan.
We have enough combative tribalism in this country as it is. Don't be so rigid about demanding others switch to an instant all-or-nothing diet. Leave the "purity tests" for the Democratic Party.
6
@Entera
I just saw one of those survival shows and three men had to share a muskox for 30 days.. their concern was muskox meat is exceptionally lean- with little or no fat. From the program, I learned the human body needs fat in order to survive or the brain shuts down. They were lucky to have caught a huge lake trout and that kept them alive until the end of the 30 days.
2
Our decision to become vegetarians was gradual. We're retired, and have the time to make most of our meals from scratch (eating out once a week, at the most). My husband and I realized we were bored with chicken, no matter how it was prepared, and our doctors' orders are "no red meat." We analyzed what it was that we already liked about our meals, and it was the vegetables and seasoning. We now eat meals based around a melange of vegetables and beans or lentils, and quickly discovered these meals can "lean" toward any ethnicity based on the seasonings we use. Ex: Sweet potatoes can be grilled or baked using maple balsamic vinegar, ras el hanout, cinnamon, or even an Italian blend, and taste entirely different with each. It's all like having an artist's palette. And I don't miss meat at all. My annual blood labs two weeks ago show absolutely no nutritional deficiencies.
3
Eat whatever flesh you want but spend the extra cash to ENSURE you're eating flesh that came from animals who were respected, fed and housed truly comfortably, never subjected to cruelty or abuse. There are plenty of places to buy certified humanely raised meat products.
I honestly don't care if you want to eat dogs, pigs, horses, eels, fish, whatever. Just don't support the industrial meat farming industry. And refuse to support torture of animals in any way.
Go hunting. Kill your own animal protein. There's a lesson for you. Get a small flock of hens. Eat one of those occasionally.
188
@Donna V Thank you for this reasonable comment. Yes, we can eat some meat and make sure it comes from a responsable source.
20
@Donna V Isn't killing them subjecting them to cruelty and abuse? I don't understand how "certified humane" can ever mean murder. It's a great PR lie. If you want to eat meat, just own it and don't attempt to cloak it with an argument of "humanely raised." I do agree, for the sake of the environment and overuse of antibiotics, stay away from all factory farmed animals....but there is nothing humane about any process of killing other sentient beings, imho.
28
@Kelle Yes death is never painless. Hunting though is much better than the slaughter houses that sell these animals bred in captivity to big stores. My family hunts deer and that is what I eat. There are problems with overpopulation of white tail deer and disease control. They had a good, natural and wild life, did not contribute to climate change, and I am helping with problems in the deer community. Maybe it is not 100% humane, but it is the closest you can get.
29
Spend one day in a slaughter house and see if you feel the same way about eating meat. Or go kill a cow yourself and see how it feels. If these things don't bother you, then you're being honest with yourself. If they do, you need to stop having someone else do your killing and go vegetarian.
4
Your ham sandwich was a child that loved its mother.
4
There really is just one word for this article.
3
I hope my dog/cat doesn’t see this op-ed!
What a shame that the vegetarians/vegan community has gotten so nasty and judgy-judgy in these comments. The author wrote a thoughtful piece on why she won't become a vegetarian only to be attacked online by vegetarians!
How is it all these people claiming they don't eat meat because it's cruel are the same people attacking the author for something she clearly thought a lot about? Like all animals including Ms. Wittmeyer!
Like gay marriage, abortion, eating wheat products... if you don't like meat don't eat it and shut up.
In closing, how can you tell if someone is a vegetarian/vegan? Don't worry, they'll tell you.
9
Yeah, if you don't like the ecologic collapse of the planet, and torture of sentient beings, just shut up about. May I remind you, the author of this article invited the feedback which needs to be brief and pithy in this format. Most of us are gentler and nuanced in interactions with family and freinds.
But shut up about it? Sorry. No.
4
I find it sad that some people feel they have to abuse, kill and eat animals in order to feel a connection to their heritage.
4
Do the pig's traditions, thoughts, feelings and life matter?
4
Quitting meat alienates us from our most disgusting traditions.
4
Alicia, are you trying to convince us or yourself? You do what you think is right, same with the rest of us. You have make it up with your own conscience not with us.
4
Of all the arguments against vegetarianism or veganism, this one is by far the most ridiculous. Part of my culture also includes bull fighting, and I readily reject it as well. Tradition is not an excuse to stop yourself from thinking about practices that need to be adapted.
6
I wonder what the comments would be like if the writer waxed eloquent about a culture where eating dog, rather than pig, is an important tradition. Would an article about the culturally necessity of killing and eating dogs ever appear in the New York Times? Pigs are as intelligent as dogs. Westerners are just used to thinking of them as food.
4
So, eat your pig a few times a year, the rest of it..... you know what to do. I hope pigs are raised in a more sustainable fashion in Malaysia, because how they are raised here, and the environmental costs are both reprehensible.
2
That pig was smarter than your dog or your toddler. Do with that information what you will.
There’s a reason most of the world’s religions forbid pork consumption: it’s cruel towards an intelligent being.
1
Two Cannibals are in the middle of eating a clown for dinner when one of them turns to the other and says --
"Does this taste funny to you...?"
3
I became a (99% - I do stray occasionally) vegan about a year and a half ago. I think it's the best choice for my health and the health of the planet. Nonetheless, as someone who spends a lot of time in Mexico I completely understand what the author is saying. The cultural import of traditional animal-based dishes in Mexico really can't be appreciated by those like myself who grew up in the U.S., where traditions are few and made to be broken. If I told the average Oaxacan that he needed to forever stop eating pollo con mole negro, which is served at every wedding, I doubt I would get a very good reception.
2
I completely understand the sentiment, albeit from the opposite direction. Most of my (South Indian) family cook and eat only vegetarian food. While I have always cooked only vegetarian food, my (African American) husband becoming vegan soon after our son was born became a flash point for us, because so much food that was culturally or emotionally important to me had ghee or yogurt. I now cook largely vegan Indian dishes, but I also struggle with the idea of truly becoming vegan because I don't think I can give up yogurt rice or ghee with rasam and rice. Likewise, I grew up with a love for Singaporean and Malaysian food and cannot give up the occasionally opportunity to have seafood or chicken when I'm eating out even if I've begun to favor largely vegan food. My take away is to moderate and reduce my consumption of dairy, seafood, and meat, and to carefully consider my sources for those items when I do eat them.
1
Sigh. As I read through the mental gymnastics delivered by the author, the following quote comes to mind, "Throughout history it has been the inaction of those who could have acted, the indifference of those who should have known better, the silence of the voice of justice when it mattered most, that has made it possible for evil to triumph."
Evil is a strong word there, but you get the idea. And you know better, which is why you felt compelled to write this article to justify it. Tradition is simply someone with old, often wrong ideas telling you how to live your life. They are meant to be broken. Or evolve. New, better ones created. I promise you that shifting from chicken to tempeh in a Malaysian dish isn't going to fundamentally change who you are. And if it does, we all may be a bit better off for the change.
6
Eat meat, cherish your traditions and honor your cultural legacy. We are inextricably moving toward less cruel and more environmentally sustainable meat production. Buying meat with this in mind moves the needle toward that goal much more effectively than opting out of the relationship.
I just want to add that, essentially, being a vegetarian is not really better than not being one. Calves are taken away from their mothers so the mothers milk goes to humans. Bob calves are then loaded on a truck/trailer and slaughtered at as slaughterhouse. Female calves, if not subjected to the same fate as the bob calves, are chained to an igloo like plastic "house" until a certain age when they can rejoin the herd.
4
My dad is from Spain, my mother from Germany, and the food of both cultures is very meat focused. I am vegetarian, and find ways to connect to that food. When we visited the ancestral village in Spain, we ate chicken that was raised in the backyard, no cages. I think it’s worth keeping in mind that it’s not just about what we eat, but where it came from. I would still eat that chicken, but not chicken from a factory. And I wouldn’t want any old chicken dish, I want the chicken with fideos that my aunt made. I also search for dishes that are either vegetarian already or can be made vegetarian. Even in Spain where they seem to sprinkle jamón on everything, I have found quite a few. I grew up eating chorizo, and dishes made with pimentón are a good enough reminder. And the smell of olive oil takes me back to my grandmother’s kitchen no matter what it’s being used for.
When people emigrate they already have to make compromises because they can’t find the foods they grew up with. When I was growing up in Milwaukee there were German groceries. But for my mother it just wasn’t the same. We could find German sausages, but German bread was much harder to find. And now I can buy or make vegetarian sausages that are pretty close.
If the author wants to eat chicken, I am not going to stop her. But there are many ways to connect with your home culture through food.
I have never commented on a person's decision to consume animals, and I am sure that the only times that I have ever silently criticized it (silently, in my mind) is when the person was so obviously beset by health problems caused by poor diet and lack of exercise, and exhibiting of gluttonous behavior overall.
Furthermore, I have never spoken a word about my decision to not eat meat, and far less have I ever proselytized about it.
However, I cannot begin to count the number of times that I have been verbally assaulted and ridiculed when I have declined a meat dish and was compelled to say why (i.e., merely that I am vegetarian, and not to check off a litany of arguments regarding a "lifestyle").
If people wish to eat meat, then let them. But they demean themselves and the intelligence of others when they claim that forces beyond their control (such as tradition) compel them to do it. As if they have no free agency. As if they wish they did not have to, but alas they must. It's a tired excuse to justify all manner of things. Live your life, do what you want, but please at least own it.
2
This is a lazy argument. All around us, every day, we modify our behavior as new information becomes available and circumstances in our world and our cultures change. To cling to outdated, cruel traditions is to refuse to evolve. The author doesn't want to give up meat, okay, whatever. But putting it in this context to justify it doesn't work.
Some traditional Asian families not all that long ago (not necessarily the author’s, of course, i am stating this as an example) Perhaps felt the same when their daughters’ feet were not bound or She selected her own spouse. Onward March.
8
Eat meat. Just do it rarely and know the source. It is not the sustainable farm that is a problem for our environment, it is the industrial meat industry. Meat on our plates should be a special occasion.
4
Leaving all the personal and environmental ethics aside, hundreds of studies, outlined in books like How To Not Die, The China Study, and others, outline the serious health risks involved in eating animal products. In How to Not Die, he compares the health value of quitting animal product to that of quitting smoking. Would we believe someone who said they wouldn’t quit smoking because it’s their culture? Should we pay for their healthcare?
5
I was delighted to see Michael Pollen's "The Omnivore's Dilemma" referenced here. But rather than portray Pollen's views on eating meat as outdated, I would like to see more attention paid to the difference between feedlot/factory farm meat, which should be banned for its cruelty and health hazards, and grass-fed, humanely-raised meat that can justify, as it did for Pollen, continuing to eat meat. If animals like pigs, chickens, and cattle are "happy," that is, that they live their lives in pastures, never feedlots. If they aren't forced to eat grain when they are ruminants. If they aren't given hormones and antibiotics made necessary by conditions at factory farms. If they live and die humanely. That's a big deal. So this discussion about eating meat should at least include the difference between the humane, healthy way of producing meat and the cruel feedlot and factory way of doing so. This difference should be studied and discussed in terms of climate change as well. So far, the lobbyists for agribusiness are winning that argument, but I don't trust their research. They also say that it's too expensive to raise animals humanely. That only the elites can afford it. I don't believe that either. When well-informed consumers demand healthy, humanely-raised meat, the price adjusts accordingly.
6
i can't say that i admire vegans, or really anyone who makes a religious or moral gesture by what they put in their mouths.
animal welfare should concern everyone -- as a lover of various pets and wildlife, it concerns me quite a lot -- but welfare while alive doesn't touch the topic of harvesting the animals for food.
meat = cruelty is not a law of nature but a fact to investigate and prohibit in the food industry.
meanwhile, god is just about the most cruel dude i know, since he seems to enjoy animal suffering and predation in the natural world. he merely brings it to our dinner plate as his favorite dish, and is quite happy to see us enjoy it.
2
Wise words. The first rule of eating--and of civilized society--should be to say thank you to your hosts, eat what you are served (unless you have a food allergy), and participate in your family's traditions. Make your own meals vegetarian if you choose, but be flexitarian about it. Your relationships with the people who love you are far more important than the fact that a forbidden morsel might occasionally cross your lips during a family meal.
4
As I learned during my slow evolution from Omnivore to vegetarian to vegan, the last one for over 20 years now, food choices which seem so part of us that they must be genetic, are actually, learned cultural choices, that with effort, can be unlearned.
This idea that the authors friends make easy switches in their food choices probably speaks more to the depth of friendship than to the reality of the situation. I'm guessing a few soulful conversations about the transitions going on around her would reveal all kinds of angst, conflict with loved ones and necessary compromises, that a casual acquaintance may not be privy to.
Certainly in my case my own internal battles, and the pressure of "loved ones" over these decades of non-meat eating could fill pages. Some things have gotten easier, like ordering protein at Burger King and some compromises I don't want to make.
I admit that once a year, I eat gefilte fish and a hard boiled egg, with my chicken broth based matzoh ball soup, but I still avoid the brisket at Passover. And anytime there is a birthday, I share the cake if it is offered. And, anything predominantly chocolate gets a pass, when I am dining out.
I still call myself vegan. At home, which provides 98% of my food since I rarely eat out, there is no animal product to be had. I invite friends for vegan meals regularly and I make a vegan Christmas morning brunch annually. When dining out I eat what looks most vegan on the menu.
5
Aside from saying, "Never say never", I find your descriptions of the way you interact with family, friends, food and life in general so D-licious that I can only applaud.
I just looked at a photo of a downed dairy cow from the organization "Compassion". Perhaps you should too. It might make you rethink how important your "heritage" is to you. Often we think that culture or our traditions define us. But what defines us is in the end our humanity, our compassion and treatment of all creatures.
11
It looks like few if any commenters are defending this writer. Part of the solution to the environmental costs of meat production is to be better stewards of the land and to not abuse the animals. Not everyone is going to go vegan or vegetarian, By sharing her thoughts, unfortunately, Ms. Wittmeyer has opened herself up to bullying from self-righteous vegans.
5
@Barbara No not at all. Killing a sentient being that wants to live (and that includes dairy and eggs) is abuse. Period. Make your choices but own them.
4
I became vegetarian 18 years ago. I did it for several reasons. I felt it was morally wrong for me to eat something I could not kill myself. My daughter had started giving up red meat after she saw the lambs at the university farm when she was 4. By age 8 she had stopped had stopped all meat . I thought if I joined her she would eat something other than pasta. I also noticed she did not start her periods until age 13. I had started at age 10. I realized it might be due to all the hormones in meat. My family medical history has lots of people in my mothers generation with reproductive cancers in it. My mother had died of breast cancer at age 64, her sister of ovarian cancer at age 42. All of my mom’s 3 first cousins had breast cancer. Their parent’s generation did not. For me this is a highly personal decision that I would never force on anyone else. My husband and son eat meat. Over the years they have added more non meat meals to their diet.
4
Thanks for the article. I can't eat herbs or many veggies and look for ways to not feel dissed/cancelled.
Thank you for your thoughtful article. But, with all due respect, by this reasoning, humanity should never evolve. As we are confronted with the consequences to the planet, oursleves and needless cruelties, it seems unthinkable to dismiss personal adaptations that would alleviate cognitive dissonance. "Traditions" are born in much different times. They should be fluid to account for knowledge and awareness and modern alternatives.
5
I feel like some of us may have missed the point of this article. Wittmeyer is not arguing that we should all abandon veganism and vegetarianism in order to preserve our culinary traditions; that we should prioritize culinary traditions over animal welfare and the environment.
What she is arguing is that making space for some meat is important. For many families, particularly those that didn't grow up in places where eating meat at every meal is considered normal, meat is a special occasion. They roasted a pig to celebrate a huge milestone in Wittmeyer's mother's life. She is not suggesting we eat whole roasted pig, an "expensive indulgence", every day. She is suggesting that we make room for traditions even while we stop "picking the options with meat in them at lunchtime fast-casual restaurants."
Also, those of us who have given up meat altogether and can still be entirely connected to their culture, we are quite fortunate. We can maintain our connection due to the many other cultural touchstones available to us to affirm our identity. But for someone like Wittmeyer who has roots halfway around the world, perhaps we could afford her a little sympathy and let her buy the occasional chicken breast to prepare a traditional recipe.
I believe in the importance of reducing consumption of meat for both moral and environmental reasons, and I think that by viewing meat as food for connection and special occasions, we may find some balance and some benefit.
9
Tradition over animal welfare? I might explain that animals do not belong to us. They belong to themselves. We act as if we have dominion over everything which is why our planet is being destroyed on a daily basis. Animals don’t want to die or be hurt for tradition. That thinking is primitive.
12
First off, I am wholeheartedly against the factory farms and CFOs where a lot of the meat and eggs consumed in this country come from. However, I raise sheep and chickens on my own land for my family’s own consumption. The thing is, if we weren’t eating them, the lambs and baby chickens would not be born at all. Overpopulation happens REALLY quickly for animals in an environment where food, shelter and protection are provided every day, and within one year we would have more than our land could support and we would have to stop breeding them or they would all starve. So the question is: Is it better to exist, to have a happy life and be cared for, and then have one bad day? Or not to exist at all? Thoughts?
2
And killing a sentient being that wants to lives makes this OK? Not in my book, but we all have to make and own our choices.
2
I have been a lacto-ovo vegetarian for 45 years & I want to assure the author that at no time did I seek or need anyone's approval over my choice. Nor did I proselytize. She, I'm afraid, is assigning too much importance to how she feels about others eating habits and how they affect her. Live and let live !
11
Correlation is not causation. For example, there could be a common genetic source for both longevity and a taste for vegetables. It could also be the source of problems with basic statistics.
Is vegetarianism related to eating disorders? There seems to be a literature on this, though a similar statistical critique may apply.
1
I’m honestly a bit surprised that more people haven’t resonated with the (half-joking?) part about vegetarian/veganism being linked to white privilege.
Firstly, I didn’t get “everyone who chooses vegetarianism/veganism does so casually “ from what she wrote, but it seems absurd to think that this isn’t frequently the case. It is absolutely for some people a trend, a fad, a bandwagon. I see it frequently and yes it’s always a white and affluent person with easy access to everything such a diet requires. That doesn’t detract from the mreasoned positions that many (maybe even most, who knows) have for their choices. To which they are entitled.
Any yet, I see no real engagement whenever someone brings up the simple fact of our -as human beings - members of the animal kingdom.
Animals eat other animals as part of the food chain and humans are not evolved differently. With our advanced brains of course we can (and I would argue should) choose to minimize unnecessary pain and suffering while also making healthy choices with regard to the plant portion of the diet. As pointed out, the farming involved in grain production etc kills lots and lots of creatures - just not the ones we think of as “having a face”...
Yes, to me many of the arguments for demonizing meat smack a bit of privileged cultural smugness - so if meat is murder, the millennia of indigenous peoples globally who *have only perpetuated the human race by eating other animals* - were really murderers?
3
4 things have become my tradition. One: do no harm- that means how animals in the meat industry get raised and harvested but also our (my) own health benefits- healthy heart, colon and avoidance of meat additives . Two: environmental footprint- the toll it takes on the environment and consequently ourselves- well documented. Three: conscience and economy- it you have to give up one thing for the most benefit- meat might just it and the relief it offers to ones own conscience when peering into the industry and its treatment of animals - not to mention looking forward to your children's best planetary investment. Four: the trifecta of sustainability of health, conscience, environment and economy- which together is a beneficial gesture easily offered in the greater sustainable interest of the global and personal senses of humanity.
4
My husband and daughter are vegetarians. I am not. However, I prepare vegetarian meals most days of the week. Since I'm fundamentally lazy, I don't prepare meat for myself. After years of veggie meal prep, I have to say that I don't feel deprived of meat, or of the traditional meat-based meals I grew up with. There are many delicious ways to eat vegetarian, and the clean up is much less greasy.
6
Not eating meat might “alienate us from our traditions” but it just might save the planet.
In addition to the methane gas released by the cattle industry economists have shown that you can produce forty times more protein per gram from plant based sources than you can derive from the meat produced as a secondary by product from whole grains.
In addition, for every pound of meat we must expend 2,500 gallons of water. In other words we cannot cut down enough forests and use and pollute enough water to continue to feed ourselves from animal protein.
The alternative that we see in the pork and poultry industry are factory warehouses where sentient beings are raised and slaughtered in the most cruel and inhuman conditions.
But they’re not “human” you argue, and they are not. But their brains and nervous systems are no different from your pet cat or dog. And just like your family pet they experience the same range of emotions.
One would never think of slitting Lassie’s throat and hoisting her carcass onto the Thanksgiving day table. Yet that’s exactly what we do with creatures that from a biological standpoint are no different from your favorite pet.
Whether you believe in the right of all sentient beings to the life given them by whatever creative force you believe in or not, animal consumption is simply no longer environmentally sustainable.
If we fail to act it will be at our peril.
17
@Drspock
Look up all the essential ingredients you only get from meat. There are other ways to save the planet than degrading and killing off our species. The reality is that we are animals and animals must kill to survive. Not sayin' I like that fact.
It seems ironic to me that a readership that so strongly advocates and defends choice, especially for women, is so reluctant to do so for our sustenance.
4
This is an opinion piece..however the advantages of less meat consumption for the health of the planet is obvious..same with Planned Parenthood.
3
I worry about how this choice is so frequently portrayed as an all-or-nothing decision, which I think makes it much easier for people to change nothing at all. There's a pretty simple solution: eat significantly less meat. You can still partake of traditional foods and once in a while get to pep up your iron stores or enjoy a Thanksgiving turkey. If everyone who really didn't want to be vegetarian limited their meat consumption to, say, once a week or for those who find that too much, once a month, that would already be a HUGE difference from what we are seeing now and a significant reduction of the environmental impact from meat. It would also probably be closer to the tradition of many of our ancestors, who couldn't afford meat every day.
4
Once a beloved pet entered into my life, I came to realize that all animals have an emotional life. When that sank in, I decided to stop eating them. That was 11 years ago.
14
It is refreshing to read such a thoughtful and thought-provoking article on the trendy subject of diet choices. Alice P.Q. Wittmeyer recognizes that for most people the choice to become vegetarians and even vegans is a serious decision made for ethical or environmental reasons.
For those of us who, like Ms. Wittmeyer, are unlikely to make that meatless decision, it is a matter of courtesy that we respect the dietary practices of others. We believe that humans, both by tradition and by our physiological makeup, are omnivores. We should be grateful to vegetarians for making us more responsible and balanced omnivores.
1
Good thought and sort of encapsulates the moderate approach to the subject. A few years back I was exposed to an eat out Thanksgiving dinner in a terrible restaurant where the turkey came out cold and like shoe leather. To compound my discomfort I had to eat with some family members who were vegetarians. To the point of this article which I never could adequately articulate, I felt totally divorced from my background as I watched them “yum” about their pathetic sweet potatoes or a seriously yucky soy non-food substitute.
Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday for many reasons including the traditional foods but also because it has no political or religious affiliations. Mostly just family/friends enjoying and to have that once a year experience ruined to me was unforgivable and not to be repeated which it hasn’t. However, thanks in part to the vegetarian/ vegan awareness I do eat less meat and have gotten to enjoy vegetables much more....just not on Thanksgiving!!!
132
I, too, read the book The Omnivore's Dilemma and one thing he promoted throughout the book was that you have not 2 but 3 choices - 1)become vegetarian,2) choose to not examine how the meat got to your table OR - and this is what he was trying to promote- 3)choose meat that has been raised and slaughtered humanely. It is more expensive to buy pasture raised beef or chickens, etc, but it does support those farmers who do this. I also am moving toward vegetarian (I think it helps to do this as a process) and found one interesting thing - when vegetables are not just the "side dish" to the meat, you are willing to put more thought and effort into the recipe and I have been re-energized with all the delicious and beautiful vegetarian recipes so have found it easier to decrease meat - now just fish once a week and maybe chicken every other week. It also isn't really as hard to get protein - beans, pea protein milk, legumes, etc as I thought. Just as an aside - I found so many wonderful vegetarian dishes in the NYT Cooking section I bought a subscription and boy, was it worth it!
2
Rabid vegangelicals alienate those around them who might otherwise have been motivated to explore this way of trying to live in greater harmony with the Earth and its denizens. Fundamentalism, in any and all its forms whether religious, linguistic, dietary or political, is often the resort of the insecure and those obsessed with control. Plant-based eaters who wish to see an increase in their numbers so that the Earth can better survive would be well advised to eschew overt proselytizing. It would also be helpful if they brought a big dish of their favourite meal to their next family and friends celebratory meal for others to enjoy without an accompanying harangue. If they really want to bring others into the fold, make the recipe available by bringing it with the dish but don’t make it a big deal. They could set a quietly powerful example in these situations that might ultimately accomplish more than a sermon.
9
Excellent article! I find myself in the same dilemma. I know that eating meat is bad for the environment, but I also like to cook, and I like to try new dishes, and, of course, I like to eat meat. In my life, I've been a vegan, and it was fine, but I missed milk and cheese. I became vegetarian, but I missed a good hamburger or a piece of fried chicken. When I traveled, I wanted to share the culture I was in, and a lot of that was food. Cutting myself from that experience seemed absurd. Why travel to another culture and then reject it? Might as well stay home and nibble on a carrot. But I still thought about the environmental impacts of meat. In the end, I made a compromise: I became a weekend carnivore. I don't eat meat during the week. All week it's mostly beans and salad and lots of fruit. On weekends, however, I eat what I want. I don't always eat meat even then. I am able to retain all those recipes and those traditions while at the same time substantially cutting meat consumption in our household. If everyone did that, we would be a much more healthy society, both physically and environmentally. While I respect vegans and vegetarians, I don't believe we must be so extreme. We can make meaningful changes without the need to completely eradicate our traditions. If we just reserve meat for special occasions, as we traditionally had before industrial agriculture, we could have our cake. . .and eat it too.
5
I look in the mirror, smile and see my two "eye" teeth. Those teeth evolved not to tear into carrots, but meat. I also know that life feeds on life. Nonetheless, I don't eat pigs or cows or sheep and only rarely do I eat chicken. I think what concerns me most is how we treat animals. I cannot imagine what goes on in a slaughterhouse. It's becoming harder to eat farm raised fish because I have seen how they are treated as well. I don't have the answer for everyone, I just try to make it better in my world.
5
This is a bit of a (pardon me) bone of contention with some of my vegan friends--some of them think, and say, that it's "easy" and "simple" to "just" stop eating animal products. I'm happy for them if they have indeed found it so. However, for various reasons, I did not find it so--and telling them so doesn't change their stance. It was "easy", or easy enough, for them, so it must be easy for everyone else as well. They lost weight eating vegan or vegetarian, so everyone else would as well. They feel better than they ever have, so everyone else would too, and people who claim to have experienced adverse effects are lying, deluded, or both. Basically, this issue such a matter of faith, or maybe doctrine, for those particular friends that it trumps other people's right to their own experiences--as is so often the case with matters of doctrine.
I love and admire my vegan friends, and I gladly credit them with helping me move more and more to a plant-based diet over the years. My household now eats fewer animal products than we ever have, I'm a fairly competent vegan cook these days, and I'm very happy about both of those things. Still, I have issues with absolutism of most kinds, and this is no exception. One person doesn't GET to tell another person what her experience is or what it means, no matter how strong the belief system. But the comments here are a testament to how very few people really accept that premise.
6
Interestingly, a huge Ag industry does get to tell people what to eat, for huge profit. Ponder that.
2
Just to round out the choices why don’t we have a new presidential approach to diet with over cooked steak or fried chicken, French fries and a double scoop ice cream dessert. Vegetables/ fruits...what’s that? Then compare the health histories. Maybe then we will find out why he is on high doses of Statins while claiming he is the most healthy president ever. How he has survived physically to this age is to me a medical mystery. Politics aside, this is some role model for our kids and to top it all he is against exercise! The only exercise he gets is swinging a golf club while cheating at golf! Maybe he is on to something...NOT!!!
2
@Doc I do. Often. It's why I'm plant-based. And yet, I do not accept that the appalling abuses of this industry somehow give those who eschew the animal-based side of that industry the magical authority to dismiss on others' experience as invalid, determine how hard or easy anything is or isn't for those others, or decide for them what that experience means.
I personally don't care about the animal's feelings. I'm not condoning willful cruelty towards animals. However, domesticated animals are domestic. They were bred over millennia for characteristics useful to humans. Their entire existence is engineered to serve a human purpose. You can't blame the cow for being eaten any more than you can blame the dog for herding sheep. That's why they are here.
I do however take issue with the economics of meat consumption. The price of pork does not reflect the true cost of pork. Pig ranchers are externalizing the environmental and health costs. As a result, pork is under priced. Humans therefore consume more pork than they rationally should. In aggregate, the impact of these decisions have serious deleterious effects.
I'm guilty for my part. Not with pork. I don't eat red meat. My vice is seafood. Another product vastly under priced compared to the ecological impact. Not that I would stop eating seafood if the fish were fairly priced. However, I would eat a lot less seafood than I currently do. That's the point I think Ms. Wittmeyer misses.
Traditional foods become traditions because they are rare. With very few cultural exceptions, you're not supposed to eat meat everyday or even every week. Most people are slaughtering a pig everyday. You save the ritual for special occasions. Not surprisingly, this rituals tend to conform to seasonal patterns as well. Winter solstice and Spring equinox. Not the rib special at TGI Fridays.
2
Sometimes, alienating "from our histories and our traditions" or to
"fundamentally change who we are" is the right thing to do.
Ending the arbitrary killing of animals and consuming their flesh is such an instance.
If you cannot do it "casually", then do it the way I did: after great thought and intensive research.
Creating suffering for others so that oneself can have an ephemeral uptick in sensory pleasure is a life philosophy worth abandoning.
8
The correct moral, technical and economic solution to this problem is at hand: in vitro meat production. A single cell from an animal can be cultured to make tons of meat. The meat is cleaner and more wholesome than meat from animals. It has fewer contaminants. It takes far less energy and water to make. It will eventually be much cheaper.
Cultured meat does not yet have the full flavor and texture of other meat, but it will eventually. When it does, there will be no reason to kill animals.
1
I became a vegetarian so long ago, that I can't remember exactly when. I was forced to stop eating red meat for medical reasons. My doctor told me that I shouldn't eat red meat more than once a week. I discovered that I had to return to daily meat consumption or quit altogether, in order to cope. I ate poultry every day for a few years, until I couldn't stand it anymore, and slowly went vegetarian.
That was about 20 years ago. It becomes easier over time until I could never go back. Over time, the reasons for being a vegetable eater grow more numerous.
One reason is that 50 years after graduation, I weigh only 5 pound more than my high school days. I no longer support brutal factory farming, which consumes 80% of annual antibiotics in this country. I wouldn't bore you with the many other reasons.
I'm not fanatical about my choice. On a few occasions, I've been at events where no vegetarian options were available. When I have eaten meat, I realized that it no longer tastes satisfying to me. My tastes have changed and I'm satisfied. We all get to make our own decisions.
4
You can celebrate traditions like Thanksgiving and eat everything but the meat/animal products. I can assure you, most others won’t notice or care what you’ve got on your plate. Whatever dietary choice you make, it doesn’t diminish the connection to family or tradition one bit.
9
Eating animal flesh is not just carrying on one culture but the human culture. But just like other cultural traits we don’t have to carry all those cultural traits “religiously” arguing we are preserving whatever we are preserving. I am a carnivore but constantly in battle with my “choice” given how much I love life, mine and animals’. How about trying moderation in expectation that generations later we will achieve different eating habits? To say that I have to follow my mother’s way of roasting a whole pig is not preserving one’s culture but showing arrogance by doing things because I can.
What I posted on my Facebook page:
In a recent NYT article, writer Alicia Wittmeyer says that while she understands, and is supportive of, her friends’ vegan/vegetarian lifestyle choices, it’s a choice she herself would never make. Alicia and I share common roots: we’re both Chinese from Malaysia & Singapore. We both now live in the West and, for all intents and purposes, are Western in thought and attitude. And we both share a deep connection to the local Asian food from our childhood.
She writes, “My connection to the food...feels completely authentic.” I completely understand how she feels. I’ve lived in the West for nearly 40 years. I’ve gone through extended periods without eating Asian food because, well, it simply wasn’t available. I’ve adapted to Western foods, become attached to my favorite ones, and am adept at cooking and baking Western dishes and desserts. That all said, local Asian food from my childhood occupies a special place in my heart. As Alicia says, “These foods are precious to me.”
Perhaps only people from Malaysia and Singapore, where food plays an enormous part in the culture, feel the way Alicia and I do. Perhaps only people who’ve moved far away from their childhood home can understand this yearning. Or perhaps it’s a basic human attachment to the simple, comforting memories of our past. Whatever the reason, our connection to childhood foods is deep and real, whether the food be a peanut butter sandwich or nasi lemak.
1
I have been vegan for about two years. I understand the nostalgia for lifelong habits of eating certain meat dishes, like a good hamburger, or other cultural traditions. That's why it's so great that there are now more and more "fake meat" alternatives, that offer the same gustatory experience without the cruelty to animals. Now when I crave a hamburger, which isn't too often, I go for a Beyond Burger. It tastes the same, and that provides a certain continuity with the past.
6
The Earth's Climate Crisis was caused by the few and benefited many but not all. Apparently it will be the all who will suffer as the climate worsens OR the all will take consistent and meaningful steps to save the planet. Apparently the few with their greed and false ignorance are unwilling to be held responsible. Change from the individual will occur by self limiting our own transportation and consumption due to their direct link to the Climate Crisis. The consumption of meat is one of those logical steps. The process of consuming meat for food is the least efficient and most planet damaging process possible in the food cycle. With a growing population and the clash with Climate Crisis, meat consumption will end. Vegetarians and Vegans see this and each has built upon this basic fact with additional cultural variables such as the immorality of the meat consumption culture, health benefits of their diets, and a respect for animals that do know boredom, fear, and pain.
7
I am 83.5 years old and of Italian origin. Pasta, vegetables and a little meat have been my cultural heritage. Giving this tradition up would mean giving up a part of me, not to mention what it would mean to my intestinal flora who might rebel against attempted changes to their identity.
6
As I undersrand the surveys, most people who are vegans are motivated by a wish to improve and sustain their health. There is significant research support for the proposition that a plant-based whole food diet is healthier for the typical person than a diet containing meat and dairy. A "tradititional" (i.e. meaty) diet may be a way to feel the love of family and community. But, perhaps we should find other ways to express that love that will raise the prospects of keeping ourselves and loved ones alive and healthy longer.
3
I'm 57, and after a life-time of trying to sort out the issue of food--both morally and nutritionally--I feel completely tapped out. I'm a vegetarian (5+ years now), yet I seem to have come to a place where I no longer feel good about eating anything if I think sufficiently about how it's sourced, how it was produced, or how and where I bought it.
I no longer want to think about food. If there was a (spoiler alert) non-people version of Soylent Green--or lab blocks--available that was palatable, economical, guilt-free, and nutritionally complete, I'd be on it like brown on rice.
1
I do not harp on the moral or environmental reasons for veganism, as I wonder if that becomes a life long commitment for people. But I have been vegetarian for over 50 years and vegan “For life”.
What I want to do here is praise those close to me. Two groups of very dear friends plan their eating to accommodate my constrained eating habits without a whimper. My direct family are all vegetarian so they go through the same difficulty I have in social circles and just wanting to eat out.
So I have been blessed by many close people, carnivores or not, who empathize with my lifestyle to the betterment of their health as well.
3
People are so polarized about this! I've been married to a vegetarian for 35 years without any problems. We cook all vegetarian dishes and meat is cooked separately and neither of us minds or finds it necessary to explain.
4
You, as a human being, a product of the love your parents feel or felt for one another, are the vessel of tradition. A plate, a recipe, an ingredient, may become some of the cultural symbols we see but they don't define us as individuals, members of a community or cast these traditions in an unbreakable mold. Change and tradition are not mutually exclusive.
I loved your article thank you for your insight. I am 90% vegitarian, and 60% vegan, I eat no Beef, 95% of the Med I eat is pasture raised and 100% is organic I am Mixed raced love soul food and spend hours looking for ways to make vegan version of soul food dishes from child hood. Oh I am 64.
Chuck from Ohio
4
The dairy products that people consume are strongly implicated in the incidence of breast cancer which the writers mother suffered from. Some times it good to cast off cultural baggage.
9
I'm amazed at the self-righteous comments and all the recommendations they have garnered.
I was a vegetarian for 9 years from 21 to 30. I had an unhealthy carnivore phase, and now I am eating mostly vegetarian again. I don't eat beef tacos, I eat beyond meat tacos with no cheese or sour cream. They are seriously not as good, but I do so for multiple reasons.
Once every few months I'll have a pizza with my wife and 1/2 pepperoni. An indulgence. Once a year, maybe, I'll have a filet mignon. I will also eat some fish and some chicken. But mostly I eat vegetarian.
The amount of non-vegetable I eat is so insignificant compared to what I did, it has to have an impact. I believe others can do the same. I do this as an environmentalist. But as a nature lover, I doubt the osprey will stop eating fish unless we completely destroy the environment that is.
5
For most vegetarians and vegans, there is nothing “casual” about the choice to not eat meat. It is no more casual than were the choices to sit at a lunch counter in Greensboro, to march for women's suffrage or to harbor slaves on the Underground Railroad. True: all such choices involve sacrificing something of meaning to the person who makes them. Of course that is a loss. But it is dwarfed by the immense suffering and hardship that these actions attempt to mitigate. You may value your pig roasts, but it is your dismissal of vegetarian or vegan eating that seems casual.
15
Becoming a vegetarian can alienate us from traditions such as Thanksgiving or religious or cultural rituals which have meat central to their celebration/observance?
This probably is the case. And nature over nurture operates most probably at its strongest when it comes to things like food, which is to say there is probably to significant extent a natural resistance to humans becoming vegetarian. We certainly know in the animal world the entire ritual of life, the tradition, is centered around the next meal, and the next meal is often of particular type which suits animal.
One of the glories of being a human is to be omnivore, but this cuts two ways: One can become a relentless eating machine devouring everything in sight, a creature not only snapping up every other creature but snapping up the prey, food of every other creature in a type of reduction of entire world to menu, or one can become very clear thinking and precise and select carefully, deciding food, literally choosing and changing as so many animals cannot do the basis of life, establishing the most intelligent food course and therefore cultural tradition imaginable on the planet.
One of the biggest signs of humans being the worst of animals, and the defeat of nurture over nature, is that our intelligence has not led to the design of an intelligent food tradition but has rather been increased exploitation of fundamental omnivorousness to point of being a creature, form of life which devours entire planets.
I don't admire vegetarians at all. Vegetarians have a sense of smug superiority about their personal eating choice which is very unappetizing. But what's even worse is that they try to impose their eating choices on the rest of us who still like to eat meat. For example only vegan dishes were served at this year's Golden Globe awards. That's very unfair and this vegan/vegetarian only dishes is getting out of control.
12
If you want to change the world you preach to others by what you do and not what you say. I say this as a pescatarian of 35 years. I try to keep this “fact” quiet unless I have to because I want to help the cause. If I am affronting to others, this makes communication uncomfortable because the conflict results in the pushback you are voicing. This is not helping.
We are all social creatures and we respond to social signals from others. If we were not, we would be autistic. The social fabric of society is changing which makes it easier to order humane products. There are many problems with some of the “ progress”. Sometimes it’s just we are making the best choices we can because as human animals we have large brains and large “hearts.” The emotional and the mental are not perfectly aligned. We just do the best we can and try to stay open to others and new information. I still always hope for a better world because I care deeply for this world as well as the humans and animals in it. That is why I think I made that first choice to change my eating choices 35 years ago.
Meat is tasty and emotional. There are social memories tied to food. My mother was upset that she could not make me homemade chicken soup when I came home from college. ( We ended up with a noodle vegetable soup).
We just do the best we can every day. We try to be loving and accepting of others and their choices. What other real “choice” do we have.
2
I went vegan for a six month period almost 20 years ago and I was never more lethargic and out of shape. If anything, now I would go for the carnivore diet before going back to vegetarian or vegan.
8
Thomas Aquinas knew how to fast. Be responsible.
3
Have to agree with the writer in terms of tradition. Problem is we're being influenced by numerous fringe groups to give up long-held tradition, foods and other things to comply with values and beliefs that contradict our own.
Growing up in Nonna's household, Italian soul food was the daily diet, plentiful and and far more healthier than people think. All veggies were grown in the garden w/o chemicals, and a chicken house to provide meat for soups and stews. we used what she either grew, raised or bought from the regular hucksters. Did I mention no one ever got sick or suffered from contaminated or undercooked food?
2
Thanks for sharing your story. The threads of culture, family, traditions and how, when and why we live the way we do. I have a son, 31, who lives in China who has chosen to be vegan. I hate it for a number of reasons. When we get together I don't cook his "favorite" dishes. We dine out and he ordered the avocado toast on unbuttered whole wheat toast and I ask for the medium rare Kobe burger with cheese please. His choices are good ones . . heck I am proud of him but I feel hurt because being his mom means preparing Jim's special foods. Awareness of my emotions regarding HIS food choices has helped somewhat. Glad you can be with your mother for her end of chemo celebration.
I eat no meat. Nobody cares. In fact, finding this out, most who I talk to are inspired to do something to improve their own diets. If feeling included in a family tradition of eating animals makes you feel good then do it. But at least be truthful. You like meat and you want to keep eating it. Do so and be free.
4
I eat meat, fish, eggs, and dairy. I make as humane a choice as I can at the grocery. I eat dairy every day, eggs a couple of times a week, and meat or fish perhaps twice a week. I grew up eating meat every single day in my parents' home. My consumption is probably one-fifth of what it was as a child. Today, 'though, I'm cooking a turkey, which will provide my husband and I with dinner and then sandwiches this week, and then become soup.
I don't argue with vegans -- there's no point. Would they like me to judge them and criticize their choices to buy a fancy car or go on a vacation rather than use those funds to support charity? I don't have any militant vegan friends left -- the kind who frown at my choices, can't refrain from making everything about their veganism, etc. That's okay with me. I don't want to eat elaborately seasoned and prepared soybean products -- the seasonings make me queasy.
I think passionate vegans would advance the cause if there was less judging and more modeling, an effort to suggest people consume less non-vegan foods rather than none at all. Imagine if half of American gradually ate 10% less meat? I assert that that's what's happening to meat sales in the U.S., not that more people are becoming vegan. Except movie stars. To each, his own.
5
I would argue that modernity is exactly what we should all eat vegan. With modernity, we realize and can document the destruction that eating meat has on our only planet. With modernity, we know it is healthier to stop eating animals. With modernity, we understand, and can document, the horrific suffering of our food animals. This argument sounds like it is from a person who just wants to eat animal meat.
6
It's such an American attitude to think that the way to preserve a connection with ethnic traditions is through food. Why not actually learn Cantonese and have a chance to speak to your mother in her native tongue? That feels like it might be equally or more meaningful.
15
Food isn’t purely an American tradition. Every culture has its cuisine. It is part of what makes a culture a culture.
9
@David Here on the Akwesasne Mohawk Reserve, reviving the Mohawk language (along with preserving traditional music, dance, and ceremonies) has become a crucial part of preserving traditional culture and values. But cooking corn soup with venison or pork or preparing Native hash with meat is considered to be equally important. Hunting is also an important part of traditional life and is a vital part of ceremonial traditions. Before Turtle Island (or North America, as it is called by non-natives) became overpopulated by Europeans who brought their traditions of raising animals for consumption with them, there was not a conflict between eating meat or fish and being stewards of the environment. Perhaps there are simply too many people on the planet for traditional ways of eating to be justified anymore, but there is no denying that there is a deep cultural loss for many ethnic/cultural groups when traditional foods and the practices surrounding them are deemed unacceptable by the greater culture surrounding them.
2
@Ben part of what makes a culture a culture also has in the past included slavery, virgin sacrifice and various forms of treatment which modern societies (maybe predominantly western cultures?) consider human rights violations. Not that long ago, the US "tradition" included slavery as the backbone of its economics. So, enough excuses and justifications when it comes to the way we treat sentient beings - pigs, cows, chickens etc - for the sake of "culture". Progress means learning new things and simply "knowing better". Seems to me this article was simply a justification to eat meat. If that's your choice, OK, but stop making it seem as if you're somehow "honoring" your mother, father, dead grandparents or your ancestors by eating meat.
1
I would be ok with this position if the author's mother's celebratory pig had been raised and harvested in the traditional manner of her youth. Those times are past. Factory farming is an indefensible horror, and now provides the vast majority of humans' meat. There is nothing traditional about this way of obtaining food, and participating in the monstrosity taints the very tradition the author seeks to uphold.
24
My admiration to all the Vegetarians and Vegans who were chosen as NT Times Picks - Kat, Melissa, Independent Still, George and Cheryl C. I cannot find one word that you wrote that I disagree with.
I am an omnivore, and yet when visiting my Uncle's farm as a boy, I ran away from my cousins when they were about to slaughter a calf. I stopped fishing with my family at 10 or 11, because I hated killing fish. And the killing - horrific to me as it is - is not the worst. When I read about chicken cages, veal cages, and the way pigs are raised, I get nauseous.
Even if I didn't care about animals and their feelings, I know that eating them adds to global warming and harms so many elements of our beautiful earth.
As these 5 have politely but firmly pointed out:
I need to grow up.
15
I eat very little meat and people think I'm radical. But in reality, I'm eating like people did even 75 years ago. Only recently has factory farming produced excess meat the point we have it every meal of the day. We are at a point in humanity, due to greedy capitalism I argue, where everything we want is a button away. In our over consumed minds, we are suffering if we don't get what we want when we want it. Get out of our first world bubble and see how much the rest of the world truly suffers due to our insatiable lust for everything in excess.
11
I'm reminded of an old joke about tattoos: What's the difference between those with tattoos and those without? Those of us that have them don't care that you don't.
A recent co-worker was a vegetarian and never missed an opportunity to announce it. I say more power to you but you're not special and I don't care.
7
@Warren
Do you know the old joke?
Q: How can you tell if someone is Vegan?
A: Don't worry, they'll let you know!
3
@Warren sadly it's that approach to global consumerism that feeds it: "I don't care".
1
@Warren
I may have a better analogy between tattoos and vegetarians.
People get tattoos so they can say to everyone, "Look at me, I am special."
Same with vegetarians.
1
Sometimes, fundamentally changing who we are is a very good thing....particularly if who we fundamentally are involves claiming to love animals while at the same time participating in their unnecessary torture and killing. Please consider a cruelty-free diet. It's better for our physical health, better for our planet, better for animals, and more in line with how we want to view ourselves: as people who aren't selfish and cruel.
7
When I was a kid I ate hamburgers, steaks, hot dogs, pork chops. At college I became a vegetarian. Never missed all that meat, not even at the beginning. That was 40 years ago.
I would visit my relatives in Massachusetts each summer and they always held a huge barbecue complete with a full pig roasted over a spit. After my conversion I never lectured because why? Adults can make their own decisions.
However I did note as the years passed how my country relatives were much fatter than I and more unhealthy. Then people started having heart attacks. There were certainly other factors involved, but poor diet and no exercise were at the top of the list. And people would talk about this but say I’m not changing, this is how we eat here.
Life is about change. I would rather make my own traditions that keep me healthy and hurt animals as little as possible than chain myself to some archaic tradition that does the opposite.
14
What you're leaving out is the potential connection between that delicious pig that connects you to your traditions and your mother's cancer. I have had to disconnect from my grandmother's gribbenis and stuffed neck and roast duck - the best and least healthy food in the world. I think to myself: I had my share. My mother bought only the best prime meat. I had so much in my childhood, when it ended I was able to say to myself: I had my share and more. I'd rather spare animals. At age 67 I'm adding fish to the list of all the other animals I gave up eating at 34. I have too many on my conscience. Animals are just like our younger brothers and sisters on this planet. It is a very great sin to kill and devour them. To me it is cannibalism. But I wouldn't judge anyone else's choices.
4
Why are you unwilling to judge other people's choices? Would you support discrimination against women or minorities, child labor, animal cruelty? Once an author publishes her views on a topic of such importance as eating meat, it seems that they are a valid subject for criticism.
3
The problem is, there is no middle ground with a vegetarian/vegan. I don’t eat a lot of meat myself, maybe once a week. But to the more passionate among them, they consider me a murderer for eating meat. What gives? Before you point out the barbecue sauce on someone else’s shirt, look at your own shirt to see if it has barbecue sauce on it.
3
Why do you care what other people think about your own personal choices, which according to your own description, are completely reasonable? Or is this post not honest?
1
If you decide to eat a pig, it's your choice. But make no mistake. The vegans and vegetarians made who made their choice did not make it lightly or on a whim. They took that serious decision after a lot of thought went into it. Thoughts which involved their own health and the health of the Planet. Traditions are upheld not by the letter but by the spirit.
6
I live in a rural area surrounded by farms. I was never anti-farmer until I moved and saw how horrible these animals are treated. It is sickening (and I am not a PETA left-winger). Every time I pass those $6 chicken broilers at the grocery I almost throw up. I won’t eat chicken unless I am certain it wasn’t factory farmed. Veal - nope. Cows take insane amount of water and corn so that in our climate changed world it’s socially and environmentally unsustainable to keep eating beef. Pigs are treated just like chickens in factory farms. Climate change will impact how and what we eat. It’s only a matter of time but the way these animals are treated by farmers is just beyond belief. Start thinking about animal cruelty before you dive in. And trust me the meat industry is no different from the medical industrial complex. They own our government and will do anything to keep the gravy train going at any cost.
13
There is a middle ground here. The problem isn't so much killing animals and eating them. The problem is how we treat animals in captivity to feed our nearly 8 billion. It is not sustainable, for starters, as we head for 11 billion. But worse, the factory farming in this country is not just inhumane, it's immoral. For the improvements made to certain beef slaughterhouses, thanks to Temple Grandin, the pigs that are housed in windowless warehouses that are so toxic people can't enter without wearing gas masks. Mother pigs are held in gestation crates, used to give birth, their babies suckling through the crate then hauled off to be slaughtered. The waste run-off from many of these is no only a hazard to communities right now, many of them much more impoverished than those who consume the products, but with the growing sea levels and storms, it's only going to get worse.
The only thing that is required of us is to care. That doesn't seem hard, right? Care about the animals. Value them. Treat them well. If we do that, it will eliminate the problem, or at least cut it way back. Pigs are intelligent animals. All mammals feel love and pain and bond with their babies.
Regardless of culture and identity, what is so bad about asking people to care?
10
"meaningful meat" ? there is nothing meaningful about eating meat. It is morally wrong.
Modernity is about changing with times. As most of us ethical people have realized that.
You can get connected to your ancestral land in thousand other ways. Slaughtering an innocent defenseless animal
for your pleasure should not be one of them.
12
If I've learned one thing as I've aged, it's a good practice never to say "never" about something you might or might not do in the future
8
I grew up with meat (beef, lamb and pork) in my diet and never thought much about the gruesome process of slaughtering cattle, pigs and lambs. Then some years ago I became increasingly conscious about it with which finally resulted in a sense of repugnance and gradually found myself just not desiring to eat the flesh of those animals any longer. Now I abstain from eating those totally.
6
A whole roast pig is an important thing to my Filipino wife. Some big parties for major life events with her friends simply require it. It took some getting used to, for me. But then, marriage is like that, and marriage across cultures even more so.
I understand how it can be a challenge. But the respect must go both ways. That whole roast pig is important to her, and to her friends, just as much as it might be a problem for others. Important to one vs challenge to others? Mutual respect. Get over it.
4
I have been a vegetarian sine 1976 and have some perspective. The vast nmajority of “us” don’t care what you eat. For example I have never asked anyone why they are omnivore. But I have been asked approx. 1000 times why I am vegetarian by meat eaters. They somehow find my personal diet an affront.
14
Any exageration is bad. Nor only vegan, nor only meat. A sound balance of these two ways to eat is helpful to the body and to the Nature.
It is easy to become a Vegan when you realize how an animal suffers to be on a dinner plate. An animal gives it's entire life for fleeting moments of human taste pleasure. Do you think that is fair? Do you think your food choice has a victim?
6
I am wholeheartedly against the factory farms and CFOs where a lot of the meat consumed in this country comes from. However, I raise sheep and chickens on my own land for my family’s own consumption. If we weren’t eating them, the baby sheep and baby chickens would not be born at all (overpopulation happens REALLY quickly for animals in an environment where food, shelter and protection are provided every day). So the question is: is it better to exist, to have a happy life and be cared for, and then have one bad day? Or not to exist at all? Thoughts?
4
Fair question. My answer is never to be born for others purpose. But I admire the question.
3
Becoming vegetarian and eating artificial meat are of course good for the health of both individuals and the planet. Most importantly, it stops exploitation of defenseless animals. Just look up how many animal lives are terminated EVERY day to feed the 8 billion of us. What gives us humans the right to do that? US has laws protecting abuse of animals. The law however specifically EXCLUDES "farm" animals, meaning that it is fine to abuse them, torture them by putting them in small pens for their entire lives and then kill them for food. The cruelty of mankind to its fellow inhabitants of this planet knows no bounds. There is no excuse for the current state of affairs, especially when equally tasty meat can be produced from vegetable stock.
7
Every wrong thing we choose to stop doing has a tie to a culture that is eroding as a result of more modern perspectives. Remember how wonderful the ante-bellum South was portrayed in Gone with the Wind? In years gone by, I participated in bawdy locker-room conversations; I laughed watching movies like Blazing Saddles, which contained misogynistic and racist humor; I enjoyed attending bloody prize fights. And I ate animals and animal products. All of those things were part of the culture in which I was raised. I now see them as wrong and offensive and I don't miss any of them one bit. The thing I surely would miss, if I were to go back to doing things I came to understand as wrong, is my integrity.
9
Eating meat products within the next 20 years will be akin to smoking cigarettes today. The quality of meat most people consume today is very unhealthy, for the individual and for our planet. Furthermore, meat is totally unnecessary. Those of commerce convinced us that "drinking milk" was good for us, that "sugar" is good for us, etc. To those of you who are currently meat eaters (including chicken & fish), use your noggin, read and discover, then free yourself from that unhealthy burden upon your body, your pocket book and our planet.
5
For environmental reasons. it is a good idea to cut down on meat, dairy and other animal products. My problem is the the moral high-handedness of some vegans. It seems in a post religious world that there is still a need for "purity". Face it, there will always be "pain and cruelty". When our dog kills a rabbit and brings it to us, any remorse he feels is because we chastise him, and he does it again unless we keep a close eye on him. The same holds true when one of our house cats when the kill a mouse. did the rabbit suffer less by being killed by our dog than a domestic rabbit slaughtered for hasenpfeffer?
2
Just FYI, Mr. Rogers said “I don’t want to eat anything that has a mother.” There is indeed something to that, even ignoring that raising animals for food adds a lot of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. So it's also better to avoid meat than to continue ignoring global warming.
5
In 1977, at the age of 13, I made the choice to become a vegetarian. This was long before I knew what a CAFO was or any other ethical/moral decision that we are faced with today. I simply did not like the taste of meat or what it biologically did to my body in processing it.
I come from a traditional Midwest meat and potatoes family. We had a gallon of milk on the table for every meal and every dish was heavily laden with some kind of meat. My choice to go vegetarian created such anger and outrage in my family it seemed that I had committed the ultimate cardinal sin. I was even accused of being mentally ill by some of my family members.
It got so bad at family meals that some of my relatives felt compelled to sabotage the meals by hiding meat products in every food item, including normally non-meat dishes to prove their point that I was still eating meat. I eventually had to start bringing my own food to family dinners in order to guarantee my own health and sanity.
When my adult younger sister decided to join the Peace Corps and go vegetarian, I was promptly blamed for her decision and labeled a traitor to humanity for converting her to the "dark side". This was her own decision that I had nothing to do with but it didn't matter at that point because in my family's opinion, this was all of my fault and I was never forgiven for her choice.
If you want to eat meat, then do so. Please just don't ask me to. A simple enough choice or so you would think.
6
@Beth - I adopted vegetarianism in 1985, married a vegetarian, and we raised our children in a vegetarian household; my teenage son adopted a vegan diet almost 3 years ago. Almost my entire family has been hostile, sarcastic, and abusive about our choices for decades. More recently, a few family members have moderated their criticism and have even cooked and eaten vegetarian food with us. I have never tried to stop or comment on anyone's rib roast dinners; in fact, fewer people eating this means "more for you". The projecting by so many people close to me through the years is sad. How does one hold such a grudge for 30 years?
4
@Jenny - Thank you for your comment. This helps me to understand that family acceptance is not an issue that I alone struggle with. I have found that even now living in a small town in Indiana, people in general have no clue what a vegetarian is. Anytime that I go out to a restaurant, I have to clarify that I will not eat anything that once had a face. Then the waitress will go on to suggest a clam dish since clams do not have faces. Sadly, this has happened to me more than once.
2
Why is there a need to explain ones traditions or eating habits?
We are so divided and constantly feel a need to infringe on others choices.
I don’t care what you choice to eat or which traditions make you happy. So long as you don’t impose your will on mine.
As AT&T said it best in a commercial, “Stay in your Lane”
2
If we all stay in our lane, there will be no road for our grandchildren.
I admit, my gorge went up when I saw the headline of this article. I’ve grown tired of this genre of “Well, I understand all the reasons why someone would go vegetarian or vegan, but it’s not for me bc -insert hook of the piece-.” I feel that anyone who actually does understand the reasons for going vegetarian or vegan would convert to a meat-less or animal-product-less diet.
But, I do think the author of this piece navigates a fraught connection to her heritage and her mother in particular that merits a second thought from myself about the reasons other people would have to keep eating meat. And so I appreciate the hard work, humor, and taste of this writer.
Saying that, I still find myself thinking how it is illogical and unsustainable to eat meat and support the killing or harming of animals for a luxury food product. And so, I’ll just leave that in the comment, because it’s my views, and the writer of this article should feel satisfied that she’s expressed her views, so as Phillip Larkin says,
“But not for me, nor I for them; and so
With happiness. Therefore I stay outside,
Believing this; and they maul to and fro,
Believing that; and both are satisfied,
If no one has misjudged himself. Or lied.”
4
I became a vegetarian soon after I got my green card, so I get where Ms. Wittmeyer is coming from. I realized that as an immigrant, I would lose touch with everything that shaped my cultural being: languages, religion, clothing, footwear. Vegetarianism became a way for me to hang on to a tradition, much as Ms. Wittmeyer imagines that pig-eating will help her be less white, more in touch with her origins.
However, unlike Ms. Wittmeyer, I realize that most claims to tradition are self-deluding (only one member of my original family was actually a practicing vegetarian). I'd be curious to know what other Chinese or Malaysian traditions Wittmeyer hangs on to. Clothes? Decor? Kitchenware? Her defense of meat-eating sounds disingenuous to my ears -- playing the ethnic card. By all, means, eat what you like. I live among deer-hunters, whom I respect for killing the meat they eat. I'd respect Ms. Wittmeyer more were she to go all the way and slaughter the pig herself, as her ancestors must have.
4
I’m not vegetarian but “alienate us from our traditions” seems like an especially indefensible reason. Some cultures had a tradition of slavery or even human sacrifice. Maybe you can find another tradition ? Maybe you can take baby steps away from your tradition crutch and not buy any factory farmed animals. Because I have no defense of that activity.
7
How one can argue tradition as an excuse for this beats me. I am a carnivore i have to admit, much more than i am an omnivore, but not because of tradition. How can tradition be more important, and i do celebrate the brits their keeping of tradition so i don't dismiss its place in our lives outright, than life itself. I hope someone could slip me a veggie burger, not tell me what it is, and i could relish it as much as i do real meat. Then i would certainly seriously consider switching provided it's not laden with chemicals i wouldn't ingest if given the choice. Every time they've tried in the past the attempt failed.
Of the 4 of us, 2 brothers, 2 sisters, 3 did become vegetarians. I was never able and can only assuage my guilt by telling myself it's the course of nature and look at the cruelty the other animals visit on each other in this eat or be eaten world. But kill for tradition? How barbaric.
2
Eat meat if you want, but being self-righteous about eating meat is a lot weirder than the self-righteousness of vegetarians and vegans that many carnivores complain about.
10
Ms. Wittmeyer is so out of touch to say “to stop eating meat, has a way of alienating us from….the people around us”. Does that mean that we must also drink alcohol (which I do, but respect the choice of some of my friends who don’t) and also do drugs (which I don’t)? What if you are not heterosexual, would that alienate you and therefore you perhaps should consider being a heterosexual only?!! What day and age are you living in Ms. Wittmeyer?
Just as much the fact that she grew up with traditions involving eating meat, I come from a culture where we grew up vegetarians, specifically a Hindu tradition from a particular region and a caste in India. Over the years, for me, not being an orthodox Hindu, it has not been an issue to eat meat especially once I moved to Africa and then to the US. However, I somehow never developed a taste for meat and remained a vegetarian for no particular reason other than the fact that I just don’t like the taste of meat. I have never thought or felt for once that I am being alienated. On the contrary, the majority of my circle of friends are meat eaters and they always ensure I have something to eat in social or professional settings and it seems they genuinely get pleasure out of ensuring it!
4
Reading this wonderful piece, I was left with the thought, how come something so bad, taste so good. That is the real dilemma for all non-veg folks like me. I remember when I was a kid my mom showed and made me kill a live chicken for dinner. I could not eat that chicken that night. Did not make me a vegetarian, the taste of chicken just was too tempting to avoid, but I personally never killed the food I ate ever again. Hearing the sound of a squealing pig being slaughtered would make a grown man cry, but bacon tastes so good. Repeat, how come something so bad taste so good.
I just watched the award winning documentary “Earthlings”.
Is is very difficult to watch, quite horrifying, actually.
Went vegan right afterwards....enjoying meals more than ever.
I do not discuss the subject unless someone sincerely wants to learn about it, nor do I lecture anyone about their food choices.
5
Probably few vegans made their decision to stop purchasing animal products “casually”.
In a way, where the world is now with respect to veganism is similar to the period in history when ignorance supported a global belief that the world was flat. Knowledge led the masses, with a few stubborn exceptions, to eventually accept that the planet is spherical.
Personally, while I was ignorant of the suffering of animals in our industrialised “farming” industry, of the many ailments (inclusive of breast cancer) caused in part by a diet of meat, milk, eggs, etc., and of the grotesque impact on the environment, I enthusiastically purchased leather goods, milkshakes and was even the Chairman of the Singapore Steak Lovers’ Association for several years.
Knowledge erased that ignorance, today reinforced by the revelations of the origins of COVIN-19. The informed decision to adopt a vegan diet and lifestyle was not a casual one, however, facts did make it easier.
Meanwhile, for many, ignorance is still bliss.
6
Those who want to eat cows, pigs and other animals should visit slaughterhouses for one week. I did that as a research fellow in a mid-western university thirty years back.
5
It is hard to break the cycle of harmful family and cultural traditions when those tradition provide feelings of pleasure and power.
If flaunting and eating a giant pig wasn't inherently self-gratifying, perhaps the author would have an easier time putting her values before family and tradition?
4
I could not consider myself an ethical, compassionate person if I consumed the factory-farmed, horrifically abused animals raised and slaughtered for "food" in this country.
People are "alienated" from their traditions all the time. I didn't honor the tradition of putting grandma out on an iceberg when she was going downhill. That's a lazy way to rationalize the decision to consume animals that are as smart and sentient as our dogs and cats.
5
If you don't like meat, don't eat it. If you don't like killing animals to eat them, don't kill them to eat them.
But please, stop preening about how you're "saving the environment". You aren't.
If you want to "save the environment", don't have children. It's as simple as that. Eating meat isn't destroying the environment; people are destroying the environment, whether they eat meat or wheat.
You can see what seven billion people have done to the biosphere. Imagine what seventy billion people will do to the biosphere, whether they're vegans, carnivores, or just starving.
4
Going vegetarian may appear to the author as been done casually but it’s not. It may take years of feeling uneasy about eating sentient beings, or it may take one moment or profound realization about the act of eating killed animals. Either way, it’s a deeply felt need to absent from the whole horrid thing.
3
When my oldest child started kindergarten at a newly minted Catholic school, a proud father of the Parish in northern central Tennessee spent the better part of two days smoking half a pig for the very first Parent's Night celebration.
They brought bits and pieces pulled and chopped from the hog in to serve. Most of it was white meat, but a bit of it was still tasty and dark. I thought the dark pieces looked particularly nice. I was right, they were what brought smoke to the meat.
During the hub bub of social-ness, I wandered outside, I watched the red-brown pig still sizzling beneath the propped up lid of a whole fuel oil tank. Being "a yankee," I had never seen such a thing--such a *beautiful,* delicious thing! Pulled pork was fast becoming a favorite. I was learning good from fake. THIS was *very good.*
I asked the man--all three were white men--if I could take a piece right from the hog. Of course. Gingerly, I pulled a piece of dark, caramelized, red-brown flesh. It came away trailing a long white meat tail. The men laughed, "Ms White likes Mr Brown!" I felt a sting of racial-ized discomfort, which white Northern girls in the South knew well. They explained: white meat was called "Miss White," and the dark meat, "Mr Brown." I shuddered. This was not funny.
I make no apology for eating meat, liking it, or craving it. It's what humans are. We do not have to torture animals to provide meat, just as we do not have to enslave other humans.
We evolve.
1
I began to reduce the meat in my diet around the time I had to start taking pills to stave off the damage done by beef, pork and even poultry. The cows, pigs and chickens get even.
My cat has to eat meat to get all the nutrients he needs. He's an "obligatory carnivore". I'm not.
That's nature for you.
1
Why not have some fun experimenting with your family by creating vegetarian versions of these cultural dishes to shake them up a little? Eat meat occasionally, and step it up. Not all customs should be revered for the sake of nostalgia. Especially when they are quite literally destroying our planet. Time to wake up and participate in saving the natural world.
1
A simple way to want to avoid eating dead animal parts is to read "The Jungle" by Upton Sinclair. You'll lose your appetite pretty fast. And things have not changed that much in the 100 years since the book was first published.
7
With due respect to the author of this piece, vegetarians and vegans neither awe nor inspire me. If they want to eat only vegetables, so be it. To each their own. I eat meat, especially slow smoked BBQ (with a side order of slaw, of course . . . a tip of the hat to vegetarians), because it can taste so darned good! This may, or may not, uphold a Texas or Memphis familial tradition, but that's not terribly important to me because I know that Texans and Memphians are not about to stop eating meat because some vegan gave them a lecture on morality. Bless you, Sir Cow, for giving me your sumptuous brisket, and may god have mercy on your eternal soul, Senor Pig, for your heavenly ribs. Now dig in . . .
1
Idea: Being vegetarian most of the time, except when there's an overriding factor. Your family tradition says you should eat a whole roast pig a couple times a year? Amazing. Do it. Just don't eat meat when the only reason is that it's meat. The author hinted at this idea. We don't need to be absolutists to help the environment or reduce the suffering our living in the world causes, we in the 'developed' world just need to do a whole lot better than we're doing now.
Oh please, almost all of us grew up in meat-eating societies. i stopped eating meat after I got out of college and started cooking for myself. I was so disgusted by meat's bloody juices on my counter and cutting board, I knew I didn't want to eat it anymore. It never occurred to me that it was a way of separating myself from any culture, although it surely separated me from the culture that doesn't mind chewing the flesh of dead animals and birds. And I never leave anywhere hungry; there's always other stuff to eat in restaurants and as a guest of friends.
3
We also have a much deeper tradition of breathing, I’ll take that one, please.
My Dad’s Dad was a butcher, as was his father. My Mother and Grandmother were superb cooks and meat featured heavily in our meals. I LOVE the memory of pork roasts with crackling , bacon , roast beef and gravy, roast turkey, fried chicken. But once you really look in the eyes of a pig or steer on its way to slaughter, or terrified of humans because of the way in which they’ve been treated, it changes you. If there were a way to give an animal a good life for all of its days, and have it live and die without fear, I’d still enjoy meat but now a roast pig looks like a cadaver to me.
5
Part of making ethical decisions is acknowledging that you can't get everything that you might want - indeed that it's not all about you.
There is no tension, as the author refers to the difficult of making a decision not to eat meat. There is only conviction, or the lack of it.
2
I used to be one of those people making silly arguments about eating meat while my children became vegetarians and vegans. But gradually I began to cut things out of my diet. First I joked that I was a "cute-atarian," and I wouldn't eat cute animals like pigs and lambs. By doing that, however, the thought that I was consuming a sentient creature became more real, until, finally, eating meat and poultry just seemed wrong. The transition isn't that difficult, frankly, and the defenses of meat eating now strike me a self-indulgent. Today walking by the meat counters in the grocery store is unpleasant, and it's hard to imagine eating animals again, no matter what rationalization you could offer me.
3
The squeals of pigs on the "kill floor" and the cries of cattle being forced into narrow passages on their way to crowded pens made up the background noise of my days growing up in rural West Tennessee. These omnipresent noises came from my father's slaughterhouse behind my family home and were as common to my growing up as as the singing of the choir at our Southern Baptist Church. No living being should be subject to the cruelty that those animals endured. And yet--the cruelty lives on. It is especially confounding that my friends refer to birds in their yards as precious creatures of God and worry that they don't have enough to eat while they, themselves, are feasting on their Thanksgiving turkeys.
6
So let me see if I understand this: you are born into a tradition and when you die, you will, most likely, outgrow that tradition. And you're basing you're permanent decision to eat meat on a non-permanent tradition you will outgrow with death?
1
My ancestors and their cultures ate meat. I don’t. Progress happens.
4
I cannot eat a living breathing feeling animal, period. Living in Iowa amongst these beautiful creatures, the thought of eating their insides for my selfish pleasure makes me sick to my stomach. Not to mention bearing witness to the depressing reality of these animal’s existence in industrial farming. I’m good with giving up my cultural comfort food.
5
I am sorry but how much eat is traditionally eaten in Maylasia? Most traditional diets are not meat heavy. Meat was generally very costly and usually only the wealthiest ate meat regularly. It is likely that the traditions you cling to are only a generation or two old. Diets change. Why not discover how you can add to your traditions so that you might have children and grandchildren to pass them on to.
It is only by destroying the planet that we can keep eating much meat.
3
It’s not the food that is important. Just change the traditional meal to rice and vegetables. You will love it.
1
The Vegan contingency is fond of moralizing about how all of us omnivores are immoral, murderous, and selfish because we are complicit in the killing of animals for our food.
What they do not get, or choose to ignore, is the fact that the Big Agra Farming that produces all their corn, soy and wheat (to turn into all those foods that look like meat, but are not), kills thousands of little critters- rabbits, gophers, squirrels in the combines during harvest. There is an entire career dedicated to cleaning these mashed animals from the machines.
Your vegan Tofurky scrambles do not prevent the suffering of animas. Not by a long-shot.
I consume local-sourced, grass fed meat, and maybe I consume one cow per year.
How many rabbits died for your cruelty-free beyond burger?
3
First of all, Chinese cuisine and southeast asian cuisine has very developed traditions of vegetarianism. If you feel like youd lose grasp on your cultural identity because of not eating meat then your grasp on your own culture is tenuous at best. Learn your language--that is a much more environmentally sustainable way to connect with your identity that doesn't require being a burden to the planet.
3
"To do so, he wrote, would mean losing something along the way that “I’m not prepared to dismiss as trivial”
The life of the pig is not trivial to the pig. It is everything. Life is not trivial to the creature whose life it is.
5
My goodness! It's not such a big deal. Eat what you want. It's your life and you only live once. If you care about your health, make healthy choices as best as you can.
"Modernity is why she can get first-class cancer treatment in Malaysia, at a specialist hospital where they brag about their radiotherapy machine. Modernity is why we can buy the roast pig; it is why we feel that we have to eat it, even if perhaps we should not, because not eating it would fundamentally change who we are."
Then let us change who we are. Because if we do not, we will no longer have a planet to live on.
3
I've always considered sausage to be the perfect food.
1
Please consider that when you are eating meat you are eating another sentient being who was killed so that you could eat him or her. Is this a tradition worth carrying on?
It isn't difficult (in fact it is rather fun) to create cruelty-free versions of almost any food.
How about carrying on our beloved traditions but modifying them when necessary so that humanity can become ever more compassionate?
4
Being vegan has earned me the contempt and disdain of many people. While I loathe their choice (to support the merciless treatment - torture, really - and killing of sentient beings), I keep my feelings about it to myself, whereas they feel free to show theirs.
3
The assumption here is that every "tradition" has inherent value even if it's potentially destructive.
Never mind reason, logic, evidence or thinking.
Honestly, this essay reads like little more than an elaborate rationalization for eating meat. Of course meat consumption is a part of the ethnic traditions of the author's ancestors. That is true of all of us and of every ethnicity. But that is also true of numerous other practices and customs that society has been abandoning over the centuries as our notions of ethics expand and develop. Stoning, animal fighting, slavery, to name just a few: these things, too, mattered in some significant way to one population or ethnic group or another. And yet, history has shown that it is entirely to let go of certain specific practices or customs without committing ethnic self-abnegation or cultural suicide. We can decide what really matters to us as members of an ethnic group and discard what no longer seems necessary in 2020.
5
Who we are is what we eat?
Or, our health is who we are?
I would offer that our health, which grows from how we feed our bodies and minds, determines who we are.
After my open heart bypass surgery in 2015 at age 55, to reduce my cholesterol, and build a healthier cardio system, I transitioned to no oil, vegan based on much data supporting that diet.
I had to learn how to cook again all over. True. Definitely, it was hard work. Definitely, it required a lot of change.
But, I am still me.
My heart sustained quite a bit of damage in the surgery, but, now, five years later, I can snowshoe, exercise, and, I have retired.
I find the millions of veggie recipes from the world fascinating and tasty.
I am still me, but, a new me.
And, it is a LOT cheaper, so far, to eat veggies than meat.
Interestingly, the taste of meat really does not appeal anymore. The freshness of vegetables compared to what, to me, seems like the taste of old meat trucked into the Grocery store??
nuff said.
I say: Try it. See how you feel. See if you vanish, or, if "you" are still there.
4
Respectfully, I have stoppped eating thanksgiving turkey, beef sloppy Joe’s, my recently deceased father’s delicious stewed chicken, McDonald’s hamburgers, kosher hot dogs, and all kinds of other American traditional foods and it has not changed who I am one bit (except I’m healthier and weigh 20 lbs less). I am much more than the food traditions I was raised with — I think everyone can safely say that. Giving up meat and all its attendant cruelty can only make the world a better place and even lead to new culinary traditions. Because all those old traditions were once new. Cheers!
521
@Meg "Giving up meat and all its attendant cruelty can only make the world a better place and even lead to new culinary traditions"
I agree that we should treat animals more humanely prior to eating them. That would make the world a better place.
4
@Meg Unfortunately, due to this toxic world we live in we do need to eat some animal meat everyday. Vegan and vegetarian diets are very high in copper and low in zinc attracting cadmium poisoning to the vegan / vegetarian. We are all already zinc deficient and copper toxic...and we need the zinc and other vital nutrients in meat that just cannot be substituted elsewhere without taking on too much copper which antagonizes zinc. In other words, you may feel better now but long term you are going to make yourself very sick....cadmium toxicity leads to cancer.
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@S This is not true. Legumes contain quite a bit of zinc. And unless you're eating only tofu, you needn't worry about a copper overdose. The only vitamin that vegans need to take as a supplement is B12 (unless they're growing their own vegetables and consuming soil, in which B12 naturally occurs). But animals take supplements of B12, as well.
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Thin, very thin.
Vegetarianism is the best thing I’ve ever done for my mind, body, and spirit.
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I love dogs and will tolerate cats and disapprove of killing animals for sport. That being said, I don’t eat red meat because I don’t like it. It has nothing to do with environment or ethics. But I don’t think I could ever give up turkey. Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday and not because of the pilgrims. Live the way you want, just don’t preach to me. It won’t help anyway. My niece has been a vegan for 20 years. She married a really nice guy who is a meat eater and they are very happily married. So let’s all get along. Vegans and meat eaters unite - and get rid of Trump. That is the best thing we can do for the environment and the current moral decay.
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I continued to eat meat for some time, despite knowing full well I was compensating others to do what I wasn't prepared to. I knew I would be vegetarian if I had to do the 'dirty work' myself. It was the only situation I could think of, where I was paying someone else to do what I wasn't prepared to do myself. Evefy aspect related to my life, I could do if I had to - except end an animal's life for the sake of my next meal. I didn't need the guilt, so I just let go. First went red meat, then chicken, and then fish (I doubted my ability to sustain an immediate dietary change). Its only when you do, that you see meat for what it is. People often ask if I miss meat, and I really don't. In a short space of time, and once the association of it as 'food' has passed, its not food, its the flesh of a dead animal.
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Have you considered the health benefits of being a vegetarian? I became a vegetarian in 1972 and have not been sick with anything since, and I am 83 years young.
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@MEB - I know several longtime vegetarians who have had breast or other cancers. You are just lucky. Correlation is not cause.
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