Red Junglefowl, and modern chicken

My last opinion piece up here was about the  ethical meat/eggs/dairy movement. I’m not so sure I said everything I wanted to, so I’m going to continue on that topic for another blog (or two, or three). Today, I want to cover some thoughts I’ve had recently on the cage-free, free-range, certified-humane products, or as I call them, band-aids.

There may be a place for ethical meat (and other animal products- I‘ll refer to it all as meat in this post). I’m actually really glad to see the industry grow. It shows that ranchers, consumers, and entrepreneurs are seeing the horrors of modern agriculture and saying, “there has to be a better way.” It’s a good sign, right? But should we feel good about it?

I believe the progression of information dispersal, scientific breakthroughs, and moral awakening will someday bring us to the point where we will have no justification, as a society, for using animals for food. Yeah, it may be a long way off. But it is one of those inevitable things. There will come a day when we will just stop kidding ourselves, and there will be no defense for breeding animals for unnatural purposes. We will be embarrassed for ever having done it in the first place. Leading up to that time, we will look down upon those who continue to cling to acts of violence against animals. Unfortunately, I think it will be a slow progression. This ethical meat movement is a step in that progression. Having a background in the natural food business, I can throw a guess out there that it is a growing industry. But it is still miniscule, and probably being held up by a few businesses that are trying to lead the way. But are these ranchers, business folk, and yuppie burger-lovers really helping? Or are they making things worse in a way?

The band-aid effect Read the rest of this entry →

This is awesome. Thanks, nice farmer!

We vegans get so high and mighty about our lifestyle, and our cause. Is there a chance that we are a bit misguided? Maybe it’s a little silly to combat animal cruelty by abstaining from granola with honey in it. Bear with me here. You can probably guess what conclusion I’ll come to, given where this blog is being posted. But I think it’s worth it to take another look at ourselves and figure out if we’re making the best choices, or if there are other movements out there that have just as much merit.

A goal of mine since going vegan has been to show others how normal, sensible, and easy it is. A plant-based lifestyle makes perfect sense to me, and it has never been about being punk, being different, or a looking cool. I do have some counter-cultural leanings, but that is not my motivation for making solid ethical choices every day. I consider myself a thinking man. I do my share of finger-pointing, but I believe we should all take responsibility for our consumer choices. If there’s a big floating island of plastic in the Pacific, we shouldn’t just whine and say this government or that corporation should clean it up- we should each make an effort to use less plastic and put it in the right bin when it’s useful life has passed. Same thing for veganism. While we need to do everything we can to make the system better, we can’t just go on consuming animal products and hope Big Food comes to its senses. Our food system is a big steaming mess. My personal solution is to opt out whenever I can: buy organic, local, and independent, and avoid animal products altogether. That feels good to me. It feels like the right thing to do. But maybe it’s not the only route?

Read the rest of this entry →

I was a bit mentally bored this morning at my internship, so I spent about an hour writing some about my thoughts on animal ethics.  It’s nothing you haven’t heard before (especially if you’ve read Singer and others), and it was done while multi-tasking for an hour. With that in mind, please don’t judge too harshly…

To claim that the economic interest of man should always outweigh the life-preservation interest of animals is to advocate nothing more than pure selfish concern. In fact, the claim itself does nothing to resolve the moral question of animal use, nor does it even attempt to. For it equates economic freedom, a secondary interest that can only be conferred upon those already secure in their life and physical/mental pursuits, with the simplest form of liberty that all species are born holding within the natural world, a liberty of thought and movement. Modern science dictates that we consider the existence of physical, mental and emotional pain in animals (if not all of them, at least some) to be an objective truth beyond dispute. Read the rest of this entry →

Image from the Washington Post, 2008

How do you feel about fake?

The debate about whether imitation animal products help or hurt the vegan cause is not new. It’s also no closer to being resolved. Whether we’re talking about “fake meat” or faux fur, there’s much disagreement both within and outside of the vegan community about how those products reflect on our cause.

Does it make us hypocrites to eschew animal products but embrace man-made products intended to mimic them? Are they facilitators or barriers to convincing others to consider a vegan lifestyle? Read the rest of this entry →