Meat Eaters Without The Guilt

This is what some animal advocates are concerned about: Meat eaters will cut down on their consumption, restricting it entirely to "ethically-raised" and slaughtered animals. While this clearly is a step in the right direction, it does represent the real possibility of a difficult-to-budge plateau in altering the American diet, while some parts of the world are back-sliding altogether as they adopt the standard American diet as their own.

The article does bring up the ethics of killing animals at all, saying that "there are people who find that unacceptable under any circumstances," but it doesn't really delve into that notion, which shows just how marginal animal rights is in an article that deals with veganism head-on.

The piece not only references Michael Pollan (search AAFL for more info on The Omnivore's Dilemma) and others who call for eating more locally and sustainably (keeping in mind the farm cycle that incorporates livestock use into production), but even reaches to justify this sort of system by calling on animal liberation inspirer Peter Singer:

Even animal rights hard-liner Peter Singer, in "The Way We Eat" (co-authored with Jim Mason), can't condemn "the view that it is ethical to eat animals who have lived good lives and would not have existed at all." He concludes that it's "more appropriate to praise" this relatively enlightened view than to criticize it for not being the veganism he prefers.

Well, sure. If you're trying to cut down on the worst practices, you'll encourage anything that ends them. But clearly the best practice is not just to eat "happier" animals, and in smaller (more sustainable) quantities, but to consider enjoying a lifestyle that celebrates life instead of death, rather than giving in to some false sense of "moral high ground" because animals killed unnecessarily for your enjoyment had a better (unnaturally) short life.

Tags: carnism | meat-eating | ethical eating