The Vegetarian Dilemma
January 29, 2003
Anyone who knows me can tell you that I’m
an animal lover. When I worked at Microsoft all you had to do was walk
into my office at work to figure that one out. Not only did I have
pictures of my own dogs all over my desk (more pictures of my dogs than
my husband, much to his chagrin), but I had plenty of dog stuffed
animals, dog figurines and pictures of other dogs I just thought were
cute. I even had a Pets.com sock puppet on my shelf. Now I work full
time at the Humane Society spending my time caring for and finding homes
for dogs, cats, and a host of small animals (rabbits, birds, guinea pigs
and gerbils, among others). Although it’s true that I have an extra
special place in my heart for dogs, I do have a love for all animals.
In fact, I would have to say I have an appreciation for all living
creatures. I kid you not; I sincerely feel a twinge of guilt whenever I
squish a spider or swat a fly. Whenever possible I’d rather catch the
critter and release it outside than to smash it and flush it down the
toilet.
So here’s the rub – someone like me
should be a vegetarian, right? Well yeah, I suppose I should be, but
I’m not. I will be the first one to admit that I’m a hypocrite about
this. Throw me into a jungle with no provisions and I honestly don’t
know if I would have it in me to kill a bunny for food. I’m more likely
to make the bunny my pet and survive off of berries and twigs. But I’ll
tell ya, I have no problem walking through Safeway and buying meat.
There’s something about a steak wrapped in plastic that just doesn’t
seem like a cow to me. Horrible, I know, but I’m just being honest
here.
More recently, though, I have been giving
the vegetarian thing more thought. Ethically I feel it’s my duty to
consider it more seriously. If I really love animals that much, can’t I
make the sacrifice and switch from hamburger to tofu? It would be
tough, but I think I
might
be able to do it.
Yet as I’ve pondered this issue I’ve
tried to figure out how I really feel about killing animals for food.
Is it wrong? After much thought I’ve come to the conclusion that no,
it’s not wrong. After all, animals eat each other. It’s part of the
natural order of things. The gazelle eats grass, the hyena eats the
gazelle, and the lion eats the hyena. You know, the whole circle of
life bit. Our entire ecosystem and evolutionary process relies on this
predator/prey process. How can there be survival of the fittest if the
weak gazelles aren’t getting gobbled up by the hyena? If we take man
completely out of the picture and look to nature for our answers, then
eating animals for food is not wrong, it’s natural. (Now don’t give me
the bit about human teeth being flat which means we are supposed to be
grass eaters and not meat eaters. Lions eat hyenas because they can;
humans eat animals because we can. We might use forks and knives to do
so, but the fact remains that we have the ability to be predators. Just
because we don’t have pointy teeth doesn’t change our ability to be
where we are in the food chain.)
Okay, so if eating animals is natural
what is still bugging me about this? As I dig deeper, I realize that
it’s not the killing so much as the mistreatment of animals. You can
kill an animal quickly and painlessly and they would never know what hit
them. They don’t have to suffer to be on our dinner plate. And yet,
they do. I drove by some dairy farms not too long ago and I was
disturbed by how those cows were crammed into their corrals. There was
barely any room for them to move! And this was a small farmer. I’m
sure that commercial dairy farms have even worse conditions. The
animals aren’t treated as living creatures that feel stress and fear,
animals are big business. That really bothers me. A LOT. I believe
strongly that all living beings should be treated with kindness and
respect. I don’t think it is ethically right for us to cram them into
horrific living conditions so that they can live miserable lives just
for our benefit.
Feeling this way makes it easier for me
to consider vegetarianism. But there is another problem. If my issue
is with the mistreatment of animals then I really should be a vegan, not
just your standard vegetarian. For those of you not up on vegetarian
lingo, a vegan is the most extreme type of vegetarian. This means they
don’t eat eggs, or cheese, or milk, or any other dairy. They won’t eat
anything that has any animal ingredients at all.
We’re talkin’ they don’t even eat cookies made with butter.
When I consider this I don’t know how in
the world I could ever become a vegetarian. No cheese? No butter? No
milk? Good Lord, I can’t live without milk! I absolutely looooooooove
milk. What in the world would I eat? I can’t subsist on tofu and
salad. And I’m sorry; rice milk or soy milk just doesn’t cut it. Soy
milk on Cheerios? I don’t think so. Even if I could learn to choke
that down you simply can’t have pizza without cheese. Or garlic bread
without butter! …I gotta stop – I’m making myself drool.
Okay, so I’ve determined that I have to
draw the line on certain foods I am not willing to give up. But again,
if my problem is with the mistreatment of animals and not in the
killing, then what is the point of going vegetarian at all if I can’t be
vegan? Sure, I could give up meat and that would make the chickens
happy, but what about those dairy cows I was talking about? If I can’t
give it all up then it’s almost pointless to give up any of it. I might
as well eat my steak and enjoy it.
But there’s one thing I’m forgetting.
I’m forgetting about how I feel. Regardless of how I rationalize it,
the more I think about the issue the more guilt I feel biting into that
juicy bratwurst. There has got to be a solution to this vegetarian
dilemma I’m having.
Free range. That’s the only compromise I
can think of. Short of raising my own chickens and cattle the only way
to have my chicken pot pie guilt free is to buy free range products.
Free range organic is even better. That way the chickens and cows and
pigs can live out their days in an open field, enjoying the sun and
chomping on some grass. No one is pumping them with antibiotics or
cramming them into a little pen with a bazillion other chickens.
There’s no reason they have to suffer miserable lives just to wind up on
my barbeque grill.
Of course, I’ve never visited a free
range farm. I have a bad feeling that the picture is not as pretty as
the one I have painted in my mind. Better than commercial farms,
perhaps, but I don’t think the cows are having as much fun as I’d like
to think. But hey, what can you do? Vegan is not for me so as far as I
know this is the best I can do. It may not be the perfect solution but
every little bit helps. It’s a move in the right direction, at any
rate, and the more consumers buy free range products the more prevalent
they become. Changing the world doesn’t happen all at once; it happens
by each little step we take.
So pass me the milk jug. Free range
organic milk, of course.