Thanksgiving arrives every year with a heated debate over how to best cook that plump and juicy turkey. But the idea of a tofu turkey (also known as a “tofurkey”) has gone from a joke a couple years ago to a reality for many. While vegetarianism has been practiced for over a thousand years in some countries, it is a relatively new concept in the West. And so, with the question cropping up more and more often, should we eat meat?
Rutgers University School of Law
I would like to clarify the question or at least explain the
context of my thinking.
We often make a distinction between eating meat and eating
other animal products, such as milk or eggs.
We cannot justify any such distinction.
Animals used in the production of dairy products and eggs
are often kept alive longer than ‘meat’ animals; they are subjected to as
much if not more suffering; and they all end up in the same slaughterhouse as
do their ‘meat’ counterparts after which we consume them as ‘meat’ anyway.
Moreover, the dairy and egg industries involve immediate death as well. Male
calves become ‘veal’ because they cannot produce milk; male chicks are
suffocated or crushed because they cannot produce eggs.
There is as much suffering and death in a glass of milk or a dish or ice cream or pancake as there is in a steak—perhaps more.
Therefore, I do not distinguish between meat and other
animal products. We cannot morally justify eating any of them.
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