Is a Vegan Diet Really Animal Free?
Animal Rights Activists and Philosopher, Gary L. Francione recently decried the development of the Happy Meat movement as a significant blow to the animal rights movement (http://www.opposingviews.com/i/why-we-must-reject-the-happy-meat-and-fle...). The Happy Meat Movement says that killing an animal does not violate its rights in itself, only the infliction of suffering would.
The topic raised the question for me, namely, "Is veganism free of killing animals?" My point is that animal rights activists claim that vegan eating is cruelty free because eating plants doesn’t harm animals. Really? Then what about the claims of an article in Frontiers of Ecology and the Environment 1:7(Sept, 2003):367-375 entitled “Mice, Rats, and People: The Bio-Economics of Agricultural Rodent Pests” by Nils Chr Stenseth, Herwig Liers et al. which says “In Asia alone, the rice loss every year caused by rodents could feed about 200 million people.” To be clear, they meant 200 million people could be fed for almost an entire year. Now if you think that Asians don’t know how to kill rats, you are sadly mistaken. The point is that they lose this much food each year even though they do kill rats and mice.
Think again if you believe this rodent problem to be just an Asian problem. Rodents cause significant losses to food production throughout the world. This doesn’t even begin to discuss how other types of animals harm crops, such as birds and ungulates. The fact is farmers do a lot of animal killing in the protection of their crops. So my question for animal rights activists who espouse a vegan lifestyle is simply this? Is the diet still vegan even though the crops have been protected by killing of untold numbers of animals? Or is this yet the next phase of vegan ideology namely certifying crops as no animals purposely killed in the production of these plants? (I will leave aside how many rodents die during the harvest process for now anyway).
Stephen M. Vantassel is author of Dominion over Wildlife? An Environmental-Theology of Human-Wildlife Relations (Wipf and Stock, 2009) and is an expert in wildlife damage management.
You can read more of his work at http://www.stephenvantassel.com or visit his blog at http://eco-theology.blogspot.com/
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I don't ID as 'a' vegan , though I eat that way mostly... so my 2 cents may be neither here nor there, in this discussion...
But I'm wondering: what is your underlying goal, in raising these issues? Is it that you're actually concerned about trying to live a kinder/ less violent life? In that case, I'd say you raise some thought-provoking points, in the context of looking for ways to support no-till and organic farming, towards the goal of doing *the least harm POSSIBLE* to other living things while still respecting humans' nutritional needs. I think it's also important to look at the ways that cattle ranching has affected the ecosystems of the midwest -- for example, the wolf and coyote killing done to protect ranchers' investments, combined with pollution and overgrazing and excessive water use and such... meat production (even using best-practices farming) also causes collateral deaths . So on the one hand , you've got 'incidental death plus deliberate slaughter;' on the other, 'incidental death.' The veggie foods still seem less harmful overall, to me...
Is it that you like eating meat , and want to find reasons for it to be a good idea to do so? If so, I'd have to say that conclusion-first reasoning is typically unimpressive.
Or, is it that vegans annoy you, and you feel like they need a philosophical 'poking at'? That's kinda what it sounds like... if so, go for it, I guess! Arguing can be interesting & fun, as I'm sure everyone on this site would agree... in some cases though, argument for its own sake is unlikely to change the world in a positive way.
For myself, I think your point that there's no such thing as absolutely-NO-impact human food is a valid one... on the other hand, I think the argument that a field of tomatoes is inherently more violent than a slaughterhouse is a tortured bit of logic. What it comes down to, I suppose, is that if people are interested in food ethics , they need to think it all through & decide for themselves what seems like the 'least harm' option. Personally, I'm gonna stick with the plants.
...about veganism and AR. Because it's "anti-Christian." Or he's got his underwear on backwards. Or something.
There's never REALLY any real concern for nonhumans expressed in any of this. If there *were*, we'd stop tapdancing around the truth and *stop using them.* Period.
There does seem to be a willful blindness in veganism when it comes to admitting its own footprint in the world, particularly when it comes to the claim that no animal was kill "on purpose" by the vegan lifestyle. When vegans plant and cultivate crops it displaces animals from the parcel of land used to grow that food . For most of those animals, displacement results in death .
Another shortcoming of vegan philosophy is to clearly define what is meant when it refers to sentience. Where, exactly, does veganism draw the line between sentient and non-sentient? If the insects of Kingdom Animalia are included in the sentient category, and PETA seems to think insects are sentient, then the harvest and consumption of food crops by vegans most assuredly causes untold numbers of insects to perish.
Peta aside, if an animal has a central nervous system and can feel both physical and emotional pain/suffering, it is sentient. Mammals have well developed sensory systems and brains and can suffer greatly. We commit egregious harms against animals in the name of convenience and taste preference. Vegetarian and vegan diets are a means of harm-reduction.
I take it that you agree that veganism does kill animals . It is just that if those animals are non-sentient, you think it less harmful if they die.
Well, we are all entitled to our opinions, but defining sentience is hardly as simple a matter as you make it out to be. Consider this research paper, which studied the response of prawns to painful stimuli:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/bryantpark/images/2007/11/study.pdf
Invertebrate animals such as lobsters, prawns, and shrimps have nervous systems of about the same level of organization and complexity as those of insects.
If you are saying these animals are non-sentient, with what proof do you support your claim?
With specific reference to the question of insects and their ability to feel pain, I refer you to the following:
Eisemann, WK et al (1984). "Do insects feel pain? — A biological view". Cellular and Molecular Life Sciences 40: 1420–1423.
Eating vegan meals is the LEAST harmful choice. Vegans are clear on this and not self-righteously deluded as you suggest.
This sadly lame topic above and the typical comments that support it only illustrate, yet again, a lack of logic and well-researched scientific facts. Though it has been repeatedly debunked, happy meat people keep using it to try to shift focus from the catastrophic environmental damage caused by all animal agriculture.
Please look at this chart http://www.animalvisuals.org/data/1mc / and see exactly how much damage is done by eating meat . See the basic mathematics that prove vegan meals do the least harm to the earth?
In your book you say the bible doesn't mention anything directly about animal rights . No kidding. :) But animal agriculture is still not sustainable. That's just a scientific fact, regardless of animal rights or any holy scriptures.
Do enlighten me about Vegans are CLEAR about how their diet does kill animals . I keep hearing how it is cruelty free, which by isn't true by their definition of cruelty.
I doubt you have read my book . If you did you would know that I take on the issue of the alleged less harm argument made by vegans in my fifth chapter.
You would know that vegans/vegetarians regularly confuse eating meat with the energy requirements of factory farming. Again a common confusion of definitions.
For all practical purposes, for the vast, vast majority of humans, eating meat IS consuming the products of factory farming. Like many a happy- meat apologist before you, you're inflating - massively - the impact of happy meat in the market.
MOST - the vast, vast majority - of animal products consumed are produced by factory farming, and decades of happy meat advocacy on the part of the animal welfare movement haven't changed this one teeny, tiny little bit. Factory farming is not in any sense in decline; it's getting bigger, and worse, every single year.
That a handful of unethical humans eat animals killed one way instead of another doesn't change this.