Views from a Meat-eater's Stall

Over the last few decades, attention to food diets has increased drastically. In the beginning of the twenty first century, an even more discerning preferential food class sprang up - vegans who will not have any animal product in there life... meats are passé, even honey or milk.

I am sure our great grandfathers never thought about the amount of poly or unsaturated fats they were downing when they partook, in wholesome quantities, of the Christmas Turkey or a whole pound of cream with fresh strawberries. They also never questioned the ethics or immorality of slaughtering a calf for that veal that went so well with caramelized onions. Whatever development may have done to us, it is a fact today that we are far more discerning eaters, and like to make informed choices. But the result has been needless arguments that have split the human world horizontally -to eat or not to eat meat.

We can study some of the broader arguments in favor of meat eating here, and then follow it up with arguments for not eating meat.

The foremost argument that vegetarians put forth is the horrendousness of killing an animal by slitting its throat, skinning it and cutting it up in chunks of meat. While most people can buy and eat meat, not all can go through this process with a strong heart. Another argument is that the pasturage used by livestock could be put to better use by cultivating food grains for starving millions in the third world. Tempting though this simplistic argument sounds, it is not a very clear picture. First of all, there is no shortage of food grains per capita on the planet, the problem is unequal distribution of income or purchasing power to buy the grains, and that will not be set right by increasing production. Besides, almost two-thirds of the earth's surface is unsuitable for farming, and more people becoming vegetarian will cause more strain than well-being. Mass farming will itself lead to problems like agrochemical use, soil erosion, cash cropping, prairie-scapes, besides conditions like those in ancient Sumeria, where excessive wheat farming has made the soil into salt flats that are barren even today, five thousand years later.

Emotions and figures aside, there are many nutrients that cannot be assimilated for human use from vegetarian or vegan food. For instance, Vitamin D, Vitamin A and B 12 are almost exclusively obtained from animal products. No, Vitamin B 12 is not found in certain algae, yeast nor tempeh, it is found only in lacto or lacto-ovo foods (milk and eggs if not meat). Similarly, Vitamin D obtained from sunlight is not enough for our bodies. In its full complex form it is only found in animal fats and in traces in foods like sunflower seeds, alfalfa and avocado, but a completely animal product free diet can cause strong deficiencies of this nutrient in our body. Similarly for Vitamin A, which in its true form can be found only in animal fats and organs like the liver. Though beta carotene found in some vegetables can be converted to Vitamin A, it is not the same thing.

Soy products, while very healthy in themselves, are not a meat substitute. Besides in societies that traditionally eat soy foods as condiments, traditional methods of cooking like soaking, grinding etc make the food easier to digest and healthier nutritionally; but the off the shelf packaging does not do it the way grandma did. These may actually harm more than help. In fact soybeans, like all legumes, are deficient in cysteine and methionine, vital sulphur-containing amino acids, as well as tryptophan, another essential amino acid. Furthermore, soybeans contain no vitamins A or D, required by the body to assimilate and utilize the beans' proteins. This may be a reason why Eastern cultures typically do not LIVE OFF soya products, but always have fish and meats as a part of the diet.

Vegetarians and vegans claim that consuming non-vegetarian food increases one's risk of osteoporosis, kidney disease, heart disease, and cancer. There is, however, no historical or anthropological proof for these claims. Let us see:

1. All the diseases mentioned are primarily 20th century occurrences, yet people have been eating meat and animal fat for many thousands of years.
2. Several aboriginal people around the world (the Inuit, Maasai, Swiss, etc.) have been living on a meat rich diet for thousands of years, yet show a very low incidence of these diseases.
3. As for osteoporosis, recent studies have shown that increased animal protein intake contributes to stronger bone density in men and women, and not the other way round.
4. Although protein-restricted diets are helpful for people with kidney disease, there is no proof that eating meat causes it.
5. There is very little scientific proof to support the idea that meat-eating leads to heart disease. For example, the French have one of the highest per capita consumption of meat, yet have low rates of heart disease. Perhaps it's their wine!!!! In Greece, meat consumption is higher than average but rates of heart disease are very low.
6. When one says meats cause cancer, it has to be specific. It is processed meats like cold cuts and sausages that may be harmful and not meat per se. Besides, added chemicals to the meat and the cooking methods are to be blamed, not the meat itself.
7. Studies of meat-eating traditional people show that they have very little incidence of cancer.

Anthropologically speaking, no human culture seems to have been entirely vegetarian, at any point of time in history. The idea was always hunter-gatherer. In fact pre-historic man almost certainly hunted some animal species to extinction. Besides, in pre-historic times, it would not have been possible for humans to survive only on vegetarian diets because they could simply not derive enough nutrition from plants, they did not know the use of fire, cooking methods (for instance, how to cook grains or legumes to render them digestible - even edible). Many of us do not know that a lot of cooked foods we eat today are completely indigestible, even poisonous in its uncooked state.

Some claims say that the human body is not designed to eat animal products. This too, has no biological basis. While it is true that our bodies possess grinding teeth and longer intestines like herbivores, our digestive chemistry more than adequately equips us to eat, chew and digest a whole range of foods, both animal and plant products. We may have longer intestines than complete carnivores, but we also do not have multiple stomachs like herbivores, so in effect the human system is an omnivore, which is actually quite like our nearest cousins, the gorillas, who do enjoy tender shoots but occasionally chomp on a small animal too.

Coming to the moral issue, a certain feeling of uncleanness is associated with non-vegetarian cultures, and it stems more from prudish snobbery than anything else. The strictly vegetarian Brahmins of India look down upon other castes because they consider anyone who eats meats as unclean. This is baseless, since their insides also behave and look like the meat eaters, and as human they are no different (except perhaps in their minds). Buddhists are strictly against eating meat because they consider it polluting, but dairy products are allowed. Many cultures slaughter animals as part of religious festivities, and this cannot be considered pure or impure by any standard. Spiritual inferiority or superiority, therefore, does not even merit any study or logical explanation.