Posted by The Dean of Cincinnati

Photo courtesy of here.

With more awareness spreading about the potential for upcoming food riots, it’s time to emphasize, once again, that there exists no ethical justification for eating animals.  Meat-eating may have served an evolutionary purpose in overall human development, but our civilization has advanced to a point where animal eating is now a choice and not a necessity.  Given the overall destruction the business of food production has on Earth, it’s time for everyone to re-evaluate their meal-planning strategies. 

Let’s dispense of the trite and silly appeals to ridicule that so many make when avoiding the real arguments about eating animals.

1.  If we aren’t supposed to eat animals, why are they made of meat?

I have a stock response to this stock argument seeking to make a joke of those who dare to question animal-eating:  your mother is made of meat, so why don’t you eat her?  Enough said.  This line of thinking is no argument.

2.  The Bible says that God gave man dominion over the animals, and Jesus ate meat.

Fine.  If we presume there is a God, and if we presume he gave “dominion” to humans, that does not mean that through our dominion we should take actions that ultimately seek to destroy the planet.  And secondly, when Jesus was alive, the population of the whole Earth was smaller than America’s current population.  Civilization, then, had not advanced to the same point as now.  So the issue should not be what Jesus ate then, but what he would eat now.  Would Jesus engage dietary habits that destroyed life on Earth?  No.  (Unless, maybe, you are one of those nut-jobs who thinks Jesus is about to return and leave the rest of us behind—if so please get on with it, get out of here, and leave me behind so I can continue without your interference.  I would like nothing better than to be left behind by you.)

3.  If we don’t eat meat, the animals will go wild and take over.

Firstly, cows and pigs are nothing like Hamilton County deer.  And those who hunt and eat deer can hardly be held as analogous to corporate agribusiness. 

If every American stopped eating beef, we would not be taken over by wild cows.  The only reason we have so much beef is because we manufacture cows, with the aid of growth hormones that accelerate their development to a point that would be similar to imagining a six foot tall, 200 pound five year old human.  It is disgustingly unnatural.  We are producing these cows so quickly because we eat them faster than they are naturally capable of reproducing.  We do not have a problem with wild cows getting ready to take over America if we don’t eat more 99 cent hamburgers.  To think so is totally absurd.

The American beef industry feeds its cattle enough grain to feed Earth’s population.  But we don’t do that.  We feed cows, so we can then feed ourselves off a totally inefficient food production system that puts the planet at risk.

Now, are you ready to move things up a notch with your ability to reason about food production?  Read this.

Thank you for reading (and printing from) The Cincinnati Beacon.