I found it highly amusing to open The New York Times this weekend—okay, to browse the ‘Week In Review’ online—and discover an article enumerating the reasons not to eat meat.
I don’t have any disagreement with the content, neither on grounds of data nor ethics. My amusement stems from the simple fact that these reasons are the same ones that led me, and many of my friends, to stop eating meat 17 years ago as teenagers. The negatives of meat consumption haven’t changed; if anything they’ve become more widespread in the United States since 1990. Ill animals crowded together on mounds of their own waste; land and water resources used to grow grain for animals rather than people; huge amounts of fertilizer and—let’s just call it what it is—poop running off and leaching into water systems. Back then, the factoids—’about two to five times more grain is required to produce the same amount of calories through livestock as through direct grain consumption,’ for example—were distributed in photocopied zine-like publications hand to hand; they were what we brandished to explain and justify our choices to those around us who didn’t understand the lure of going vegetarian.
Oops, did I say vegetarian? Silly me! The New York Times managed to run an entire article about the general benefits of vegetarianism—that is what not eating meat is, right?—without ever printing the dirty word, and there I go busting it out in the second paragraph. Well, not quite never: the article’s author takes pains to clarify that he is not one, despite having published a vegetarian cookbook. Which I’d think would make some readers question his authority on the subject of vegetarian cooking, but that’s neither here nor there. My point: it seems odd that an entire article lauding the virtues of meat-free eating would shun the term used to describe such a dietary choice.
It could be that Bittman is simply being exacting in his terminology: if one doesn’t give up meat entirely, then one is not technically a vegetarian. The inverse of this truism—if one is a vegetarian, one also doesn’t eat the less attractive animals like clams—is something all of us have had to explain at one point or another to a well-meaning (and frequently elderly) relative, so it’s possible. It’s possible, but its seems—to my jaundiced sociological eye—that something more is going on here. It may be becoming more hip and classy to eat less meat, but it is just as un-hip as ever to identify as a vegetarian outside of certain established subcultures. We seem to be moving away from a definition rooted in the core ethical foundation for vegetarian choices, and toward one focused on a minute tally of each eating decision. In this framework, nothing less than perfection is ‘allowed’ to label itself vegetarianism, and every imperfect manifestation is open to being lambasted as hypocritical (‘how can you refuse to buy CAFO beef when I just saw you eat that salmon?’). In this way, vegetarian becomes a dirty word, code for a judgmental snob at best and a snarking hypocrite at worst, a label that no normal person in their right mind would willingly take on.
The truth is, though, that vegetarian—like organic—is a word that reflects a multi-faceted philosophy of interaction with the natural world. It encompasses systematic beliefs about resource management, human labor, compassion in life and death, moderated consumption, and respect for the balance inherent in natural processes. Any particular conviction will be of differing priority for each person, but the collective manifestations of holding them are similar and recognizable. They are, generally speaking, visible to an outside observer as the choices recommended by Bittman in The New York Times. Eat less meat, as little as you’re willing to. Buy meat and other animal products from people who have raised and killed the animals humanely, cleanly, healthily, and with minimal impact on the surrounding environment. Don’t waste a lot of other natural resources getting that food to your table. Eat things that improve your own general health, such as fresh vegetables, legumes, and whole fruit.
It would be accurate to say that I am a vegetarian and I eat meat. Fifteen years ago I wouldn’t have been comfortable enough with my dietary choices to be able to say that, nor would it have been accurate; my consumption of animal flesh back then would have been completely accidental. Over the past decade my choices have changed, though, and I’ve slowly incorporated more meat into my eating. Some of the times I’ve eaten meat in the past decade have stemmed from my inability to resist a slice of mouth-watering pepperoni pizza. Most of them, however, have been the result of more purposeful and systematic choices. My ethics and beliefs have never wavered, and the actions they recommend remain the same. However, in the intervening years since I first swore off animal flesh, I’ve gained additional information about my own physiology that has led me to reconsider certain choices.
I still don’t eat beef or pork (pepperoni lapses aside), because I believe the consumption of resources necessary to raise the animals and their generally poor quality of life to be too great a cost for me to be willing to pay. I make a different evaluation about various types of wild fish and chickens raised by my local organic farmer. I choose not to eat soy in order not to exacerbate the symptoms of my thyroid disease, a choice which dramatically limits the prepared vegetarian foods available to me in the United States. I make similar choices regarding where I get our eggs (our farmer) and milk (the Organic Valley cooperative). All of these are within the context of a web of interrelated considerations related to global economics, environmental impact, labor, and animal welfare.
The end result is that every day—ethically, philosophically, and politically—I am still a vegetarian. And, a couple of days a week as an eater, I am not.
