advice to a meat-eater from a vegetarian

As I’ve mentioned before, I’m vegetarian. After a lifetime of eating meat, I chose to stop about 2 years ago. It was a gradual process that started with giving up beef about 10 years ago and slowly spread to other types of meat, until it ended with fish. I still eat eggs and dairy, though I try to go with organic and free-range, and I’m always willing to try out vegan options.

While I will fully admit that I do not condone the meat-eating lifestyle, I do not condemn it either. I don’t have a problem with people eating meat, but I do have a problem with our meat industry.

I will also confess that I am not strict about my vegetarianism - a handful of times out of the year, I do eat meat. I’ve observed a few things in these moments, and thought I’d share with the regular meat-eating crowd.

Meat has never been a main course.

In anthropological food language, meat is a fringe food, like oil and fat. The bulk of the diet for most of human kind has been produce - leaves, fruits, seeds. 10, 000 years ago, when we discovered agriculture, we added grains and dairy to our diet. But both prior to and after that moment, meat never took center-stage. It was either too energy-consumptive (ie, hunting down game) or not cost-effective (eggs are a more sustainable source of protein than the chicken).

We eat too much protein.

Americans worry about their protein intake. They shouldn’t bother. We get far more protein than we need in our diet - the real problems are refined foods, such as sugars, and too much fat.

Cheap meat is bad meat.

For years, meat was a delicacy. The fast food industry changed that for us, and now meat is relatively cheap. But with that drop in price also came a drop in quality. Factory-farmed meat is, in a word, terrible. There is a considerable difference in taste and healthfulness between free-range and organic meat vs industrial meat.

Excess meat consumption leads to health risks.

Our rates of obesity and heart disease have increased. This is partly a result of more meat consumption, and partly a result of other aspects of our diet (processed foods). It’s also a result of lowered exercise levels. In China, which is currently undergoing the nutrition transition, we are seeing the increased rates of disease first hand. As Neal Barnard put it: “If beef is your idea of ‘real food for real people’ you’d better live real close to a real good hospital.”

Industrial animal production is cruel.

It’s no secret that animals suffer in the process (and in particularly horrific ways). What we are less aware of is who else suffers. For one, workers in meat processing facilities tend to be illegal immigrants working at far below minimum wage with little to no benefits (including health care). They also suffer one of the highest rates of occupational injury. Two, communities in which concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) are located tend to suffer from economic decline and poor health. Three, this industry is little regulated and is now the largest source of industrial pollution (beating out petrochemicals). Manure from CAFOs run into our drinking water and infects us with pathogens, many of which are displaying antibiotic resistance.

We are eating ourselves to famine.

A billion people in the world do not have enough to eat. It takes seven times as much as farmland and energy to produce a cow, than to produce wheat. We make meat cheaper for ourselves, at the expense of those who go without any type of food.

There is no transparency.

You don’t know that McDonalds receives huge subsidies to train workers that never get trained. You don’t know that IBP lies on its inspection reports. You don’t know that USDA doesn’t really have a clue what happens in this industry. You don’t know that industrial animal production is unnatural, every step of the way, which has a profound effect on your health. You don’t know that your tax dollars (and your spending dollars) are fueling the cycle.

So what’s a meat-eater to do?

I’m not going to advocate giving it up altogether - that’s a personal choice that we all have to make ourselves. But consider this - studies have shown that organic diets lessen allergies, vegan diets prevent diabetes, and small farms support local economies (and pollute much less). If you ate less meat than you do currently, you’d be happier and healthier, and arguably, skinnier.

The Meatless Monday campaign is based on this idea. Healthy People 2010 is aiming to cut saturated fat consumption by 15% and the largest source of saturated fat in our diet is meat. 15% is about 1 in 7, or 1 day a week.

And those days you do eat meat, consider spending a little more for quality. It’s one thing to get a cheap cut to make broth, it’s another to actually claim that store-brand chicken thighs are actually any good. Organic and free-range are better, and better for you. Even better still is locally raised on a small independent farm. These are people who take pride in their product, resulting in a better item for your consumption.

At the end of the day, your life is your life, and only you can take responsibility for it. But many of us stumble through life without awareness of our actions and their repercussions. We fail to think about what we’re eating, where it came from, how it got to our plates. As a vegetarian, if there is one thing I’d wish for a meat-eater to do, it’s to consume with mindfulness.