My Vegetative State: Part 1

Three times in the past few weeks I have been asked why I am a vegetarian. (For the record, I eat dairy products and seafood, but not mammals or reptiles. I could go either way on amphibians.) Since I do not believe I have ever recorded an answer to this question, I will do so here, in a short series on the subject.

Part I: The Moral Imperative

A. Be nice to animals. I don't think it's necessarily wrong to kill animals for food. I just think it's better not to. It seems to me that if you had to look the live creature in the eye and then watch it butchered for your meal, you would more often than not choose a grain, fruit or vegetable--anything without eyes and guts. Most of us intuitively believe that it's better not to kill animals needlessly. We disapprove of the child who takes the life of the squirrel for the experience, or the hunter who lets his kill rot in place, or even the big game hunter who shoots and kills for sport and trophies. Why? Because we respect all life, and these deaths were unnecessary and wasteful. But if we have perfectly healthy dietary alternatives, isn't it equally wrong to create demand through a carnivorous diet? And generally we do have alternatives, and they are almost universally healthier.

This logic is made all the more compelling by the inhumane conditions most animals face in today's farms. When we eat a chicken, we are responsible for genetically engineering a creature whose life experience was in a crowded cage in a darkened building with its beak cut off and fed a steady diet of hormones for quick growth and a short life. And cows don't have it much better. If I treated a dog that way I would get arrested. So why do we let industrial farmers do this to their "product"? (For more on this in a very humorous, animated fashion, go to www.themeatrix.com.)

Now to be fair, the same argument can be constructed concerning seafood, which I eat regularly. And I plead guilty as charged. But I truly believe that fish are less sentient than fowl (which are less sentient than mammals). And insects farther down the sentience scale, followed by vegetables I suppose, which are alive but not at all conscious. I think it would be better not to eat seafood either, and I don't defend where I've drawn my line. I'm just explaining my logic.

There is an old Jewish tradition that prior to receiving our eternal reward, animals will sit in judgment of us for how we treated them as our stewardship. If that's the case, I like my chances better if I haven't eaten the jury in a previous life.

Next Blog: The Moral Imperative, Part B