A meat-eating friend recently suggested to me that there was something ‘weird’ about vegans being willing to eat commercial products that resemble meat, such as soy-based sausages or burgers, as if to be a ‘real’ vegan it was necessary to overturn millions of years of evolutionary history and suddenly declare that meat was repulsive. This is a ridiculous idea because we are, historically, a meat-eating species and we can’t wish our history away. This doesn’t mean that most vegans aren’t repulsed or saddened by what they see in butcher’s shop windows, because they are. But this is only because they know what those animals had to endure before they were sliced up or ground into mincemeat. So, don’t think there is anything odd about becoming vegan and still liking the idea of eating meat or enjoying the smell of it cooking. Doing so is in your DNA and if you have an itch to scratch I recommend a vegan sausage sizzle occasionally. Those sausages will soon become the only meat-like thing that interests you.
Conclusion
Most of us would agree (I hope) that there is something fundamentally wrong with making the lives of billions of sentient beings (those who are able to feel or perceive things) ones of intense suffering and violent death. A good way to bring a statement like this into focus is to substitute ‘sentient beings’ with ‘human beings’. And although we cannot prove that what the animal-abuse industries do to their victims is wrong, by the same token neither can we prove that the rape and murder of human beings is wrong or that rescuing a drowning child is right. Some things are simply accepted by people everywhere as universal truths and no further discussion is needed. Such truths, when common to all of humanity, may be are referred to as ‘common sense’ and their acceptance can lead to statements confirming their veracity such as ‘it’s obvious’. It’s obvious that we should rescue a drowning baby. I’ll go along with that any day. But if it’s obvious that we should not cause unnecessary pain and suffering to sentient beings, namely other people and the other animals, then surely it is equally obvious that we should, if in this regard only, treat other animals, as we would wish to be treated ourselves? If not, what is the ethical basis upon which we withdraw our concern for all sentient species other than our own?
Thankfully, a growing number of people across the globe have reached the conclusion that the suffering of all sentient beings is as important as their own and they’re doing something about it. According to a 2008 survey with a statistically-significant sample of the US population, between 3% and 4% of Americans identified as vegans or vegetarians.lxxxi A more recent 2017 survey suggests that the proportion of vegans has risen to around 6%.lxxxii These figures must be treated with caution, because self-reported data is notoriously unreliable and definitions tend to vary from survey to survey. But, just for argument’s sake, let us assume that 4% of the US population are vegan; that’s about 13 million people. If we extrapolate this proportion to the 1.2 billion people who live in the developed world, and err on the side of conservatism, we see there are probably about 40 million who are vegan with, perhaps, several million more in the developing world who have access to animal products but have chosen a vegan lifestyle. (And of course there are hundreds of millions who are vegetarian, or close to it, because of economic, cultural or religious reasons.) If the upward trend continues at its current rate, more than 30% of people in the developed world, most of them under 40, will be vegan by 2050lxxxiii. This may sound promising, and it would certainly be a massive improvement on today’s catastrophic situation, but the levels of animal abuse and environmental destruction that would still exist at 30% would be completely unacceptable. If 70% of a larger population is still propping up the animal-abuse industries it will remain a disastrous situation. There is also the likelihood that as the middle classes in countries like China and India become wealthier they will want, mostly for reasons of social status, more meat. I am not convinced this will happen because climate change is going to hit these countries hard and animal products are going to become very expensive as a result. There are also the benefits of education and heightened social awareness to factor in and we could easily see these burgeoning middle classes finding a wiser path.
Given that becoming vegan is so easy and the strength of the arguments in its favour, I can think of no reason why veganism won’t have become the chosen lifestyle for far more than 30% of the population in developed countries by the middle of this century. We are no longer bound to our past in the way we were even a generation ago. Younger people, those now in their teens and 20s or 30s, are critically aware of what is coming down the pipe and they’re hungry for good ideas and veganism is one of the best, if not the best, among them. Today, we have access to information and food choices that were unheard of just 20 years ago. We stand on the cusp of a technological age which can unshackle us from the stale, thoughtless habits of our past and allow us to make personal decisions that have a real and material effect on improving the world around us. The whole question surrounding animal welfare, in all its permutations and tangential impacts, gives each of us the opportunity to change the way we live and how the world operates. It’s high time we seized the day no matter what our age or disposition in this fleeting life.
A cautionary note…It would be foolish to lose sight of the fact that all people (including the most ethical of vegans) contribute something towards the suffering of animals and the degradation of our environment, despite their best efforts to do otherwise.
If we catch a plane, for example, how many of us consider the greenhouse gases it produces or the birds and insects who may die from being sucked into its engines? Cars, trucks and trains pollute and kill in similar ways, and most of us drive one of them. If we buy an orange, do we consider the birds and bats who have died as a result of becoming entangled in the protection nets that cover the orange trees? Do we consider the numbers of small mammals that die when land is cleared for growing crops? Who thinks about the cost to the environment, and by extension, to the displacement and death of animals, when they switch on electricity, or use petroleum-based products such as phones, cameras, soap, aspirin, fridges, paint, shampoo, bandages, or any number of other modern day necessities?
When it comes down to it, all of us are culpable to some extent, some much more than others, and we all need to be aware of this and humble in the face of it. But that shouldn’t slow any of us down or weaken our resolve because these issues are far too important to be held back by our imperfections. You don’t have to be Einstein to see that through the collective efforts and commitment of millions of people we can turn this thing around on all fronts. The first step in this process is to think carefully about what your shopping list is built upon. The rest will follow.
Afterword
And finally, because I can scarcely match it, I would like to finish with the quote of a quote from the Afterword of Colin Spencer’s excellent book, The Heretic’s Feast.
‘The American naturalist, Henry Beston, in his account of a year in the life of the Great Beach of Cape Cod, The Outermost House, first published in 1928, put his finger on it when he said: “We need another and a wiser and perhaps a more mystical concept of animals.” He rejected the fact that the animal was measured against man and patronised for its incompleteness. Animals have extended senses that we have lost and they hear voices that we are deaf to. Beston says: “They are not brethren, they are not underlings; they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of time, fellow prisoners of the splendour and travail of the earth.”’ lxxxiv
References and Bibliography
References
1 For the purposes of this essay, I define the developed world as being comprised of populations (rather than countries) where the majority of people are overweight; that is, they have a body mass index of 25 or more as only wealthy economies are able to create and distribute enough calories at a sufficiently low cost to make this possible. Elsewhere, becoming overweight is just too expensive for most people to achieve.
i Balcombe, Jonathan P. 2010. Second Nature: The Inner Lives of Animals. pp. 203-204. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
ii Lin, Doris. Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation (CAFO). ThoughtCo. https://www.thoughtco.com/concentrated-animal-feeding-operation-cafo-127713 accessed 18 October 2017.
iii Harari, Yuval Noah. 2015. Part Four. ‘The Scientific Revolution’ and Section 19 ‘And They Lived Happily Ever After.’ In Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind. London: Vintage Books. p. 425. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/sep/11/sapiens-brief-history-humankind-yuval-noah-harari-review accessed 3 April 2017.
iv Walsh, Fergus. 11 December 2014. BBC News. Superbugs to kill ‘more than cancer’ by 2050. http://www.bbc.com/news/health-30416844 accessed 24 October 2017.
v Mead, Margaret. Quote viewed on Brainy Quote: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/m/margaretme100502.html accessed 15 April 2017.
vi Healthdirect. ‘Vegetarian and vegan diets.’ https://www.healthdirect.gov.au/vegetarian-and-vegan-diets accessed 7 February 2018.
vii Animals Australia.org ‘If this is the best, what is the worst?’ http://animalsaustralia.org/features/not-so-humane-slaughter/ accessed 8 February 2018
viii Animals Australia. ‘They stabbed babies’ http://www.animalsaustralia.org/features/they-stabbed-babies/?r=583a767006b901480226416&ua_s=e-mail accessed 8 February 2018
ix PETA Animals are not ours. ‘Meet your meat’, accessed 8 February 2018.
x Capps, Ashley. 30 July 2014. ‘10 Dairy Facts the Industry Doesn’t Want You to Know.’ https://freefromharm.org/dairyfacts/ accessed 8 February 2018.
xi Singer, Peter. 2009. Animal Liberation: The Definitive Classic of the Animal Movement. New York, USA: First Harper Perennial.
xii Lymbery, Philip, and Isabel Oakeshott. 2014. Chapter Five. ‘Fish. Farming takes to the water’ In Farmageddon: The True Cost of Meat. London, UK: Bloomsbury Publishing.
xiii Safran Foer, Jonathon. 2009. Eating Animals. p. 229. Australia: Penguin Group.
xiv Simpson, Lynn. 2 September 2017. ‘Live export vet: Animals were ‘cooking from the inside.’ http://www.animalsaustralia.org/features/lynn-simpson-a-life-live-export-stories.php accessed 7 February 2018.
xv Eisnitz, Gail. A. 2006. Slaughterhouse The Shocking Story of Greed, Neglect, and Inhumane Treatment Inside the U.S. Meat Industry. Original publication by The Humane Society, 1997. New York: Prometheus Books.
xvi ABC News McGrath, Pat 1 November 2017. ‘Chickens boiled alive at Star Poultry Supply abattoir in Melbourne, secret footage reveals. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-11-16/chickens-boiled-alive-inside-melbourne-abattoir/9157186 accessed 8 February 2018.
xvii Wikipedia. ‘Recent African origins of modern humans’. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recent_African_origin_of_modern_humans accessed 26 October 2017.
xviii Ranger, Nicola. 2012. How will climate change affect food production? The Guardian online https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/sep/19/climate-change-affect-food-production accessed on 26 October 2017.
xix Craig W J & A R Mangels, 2009, Position of the American Dietetic Association: Vegetarian Diets. Journal of the American Dietetic Association, Volume 1099, Issue 7, pp. 1266 – 1282. https://www.vrg.org/nutrition/2003_ADA_position_paper.pdf accessed 24 October 2017.
xx Norris, Jack, RD. updated April 2014. Omega-3 Fatty Acid Recommendations for Vegetarians. http://www.veganhealth.org/articles/omega3 accessed 24 October 2017.
xxii People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. https://www.peta.org/ accessed 24 October 2017.
xxiii Animal Liberation. 2013. ‘Cows in Feedlots.’ https://www.animal-lib.org.au/ accessed 24 October 2017.
xxiv The Australian Dietary Guidelines (2013) https://www.nhmrc.gov.au/guidelines-publications/n55
xxv ibid.
xxvi Wikipedia ‘Feedlots’ https://en.wikipedia/wiki/Feedlots accessed 19 October 2017.
xxvii Animal Liberation. 2013. Cows in Feedlots. http://animal-lib.org.au/campaigns/animals-for-food/cows-in-feedlots accessed 21 June 2017.
xxviii Safran Foer, Jonathon 2009. Eating Animals p.229. Australia: Penguin.
xxix Heinz, Gunter & Thinnarat Srisuvan. 2001. ‘Effects of stress & injury on meat & by-product quality’ Chapter 2. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific. RAP Publication 2001/4http://www.fao.org/docrep/003/x6909e/x6909e04.htm accessed 15 April 2017
xxx ibid.
xxxi People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) Fish Feel Pain. https://www.peta.org/issues/animals-used-for-food/factory-farming/fish/fish-feel-pain/ accessed 21 June 2017.
xxxii Reebs, Stephan, G. 2010 Social intelligence in fishes Canada: Universite de Moncton
xxxiii Planellas, Sonia Rey. 2016. Do fish have feelings? http://theconversation.com/do-fish-have-feelings-maybe-54291 accessed 22 June 2017.
xxxiv Lymbery, Philip., and Isabel Oakeshott. 2014. ‘Chapter Five. Fish. Farming takes to the water’ In Farmageddon: The True Cost of Cheap Meat, London, UK: Bloomsbury Publishing
xxxv ibid.
xxxvi Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific (FAO). 2016. The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture 2016: Contributing to food security and nutrition for all. http://www.fao.org/3/a-i5555e.pdf accessed 21 June 2017.
xxxvii Lymbery, Philip, and Isabel Oakeshott. 2014. ‘Chapter Five. Fish. Farming takes to the water’ In Farmageddon: The True Cost of Cheap Meat. Bloomsbury Publishing, London UK. 2014.
xxxviii Marino, Lori., and Christina. M. Colvin, 2015. Thinking Pigs: A Comparative Review of Cognition, Emotion, and Personality in Sus domesticus. International Journal of Comparative Psychology, 28 (1) http://www.escholarship.org/uc/item/8sx4s79c accessed 22 June 2017.
xxxix Viegas, Jen. 11 June 2015, IQ Tests Suggest Pigs are Smart as Dogs, Chimps. https://www.seeker.com/iq-tests-suggest-pigs-are-smart-as-dogs-chimps-1769934406.html accessed 21 June 2017.
xl Mahony, Paul. The pork industry in the classroom. The Australian Vegan Magazine, Issue 2, May/June 2017.
xli Growing Meat Chickens http://www.chicken.org.au/page.php?id=6#Feed accessed 24 October 2017.
xlii Pearce, Lara. 2017. This Is What the Government’s New ‘Free Range’ Egg Guidelines Look Like. http://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/2017/04/27/this-is-what-the-governments-new-free-range-egg-guidelines-lo_a_22059101/ accessed 19 October 2017.
xliii ibid.
xliv Medical Advances without Animals http://www.mawa-trust.org.au/ accessed 20 October 2017.
xlv Hyner, Christopher. 2015 A Leading Cause of Everything: One Industry That is Destroying Our Planet and Our Ability to Thrive on It. Georgetown Environmental Law Review. https://gelr.org/2015/10/23/a-leading-cause-of-everything-one-industry-that-is-destroying-our-planet-and-our-ability-to-thrive-on-it-georgetown-environmental-law-review/ accessed 24 October 2017.
xlvi Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies 2017, Industrial Agriculture and Forests Yale University. http://globalforestatlas.yale.edu/theme/agriculture-cattle-ranching-tropical-forests accessed 15 April 2017.
xlviii Sabaté, Joan & Sam Soret. Sustainability of plant-based diets: Back to the future. The American journal of clinical nutrition. 100. 10.3945/ajcn.113.071522. 2014. https://www.researchgate.net/figure/262884088_fig3_FIGURE-3-Protein-delivery-efficiency-in-terms-of-energy-use-as-a-function-of-food accessed 26 October 2017.
xlix Wikipedia. ‘Feed Conversion ratio’. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feed_conversion_ratio accessed 21 June 2017.
l Mekonnen, M.M., and A. Y Hoekstra. Water footprint of crop and animal products: a comparison. Main Report Volume 1: The green, blue and grey water footprint of farm animals and animal products, Value of Water Research Report Series No. 48, UNESCO-IHE. 2010. http://waterfootprint.org/en/water-footprint/product-water-footprint/water-footprint-crop-and-animal-products/ accessed 21 June 2017.
li World Water Development Report 2016. Coordinating the UN’s work on water and sanitation. The United Nations World Water Development Report 2016. http://www.unwater.org/publications/world-water-development-report-2016/ accessed 24 October 2017.
lii Humane Society International India. April 2016. An HSI India Report: The Impact of Diet on Water. http://www.hsi.org/assets/pdfs/impact-of-diet-on-water-hsi.pdf accessed 15 April 2017.
liii ‘6 Problems with Monoculture Farming’ Regenerative sustainable living and personal growth.’ https://www.regenerative.com/magazine/six-problems-monoculture-farming accessed on 8 February 2018.
liv Wikipedia. ‘Permaculture’. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permaculture accessed 20 October 2017.
lv Singer, Peter. 1990. Animal Liberation (second edition). London: Jonathon Cape Ltd.
lvi ibid.
lvii Harari, Yuval Noah. 2015. ‘Part One, Chapter 2: The Tree of Knowledge’ In Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind. pps. 30-35. London: Vintage Books.
lviii Keim, Brandon. 12 April 2014. WIRED. Case for Chimpanzee Rights rejected by Appeals Court. https://www.wired.com/2014/12/court-says-chimp-not-a-person/ accessed 15 April 2017.
lix ibid.
lx Stempel, Jonathan, 30 January 2016. Reuters. NY judge won’t consider bid to free upstate chimp Kiko. http://www.reuters.com/article/us-lawsuit-chimps-idUSKCN0V72P5 accessed 15 April 2017.
lxi The Economist 25 March 2017. New Zealand declares a river a person. http://www.economist.com/news/asia/21719409-odd-legal-status-intended-help-prevent-pollution-and-other-abuses-new-zealand-declares accessed 15 April 2017.
lxii Safran Foer, Jonathon. 2009. Chapter entitled: ‘Influence/Speechlessness’ In Eating Animals. The life and death of a bird. p. 229. Australia: Penguin Group.
lxiii ABC News online. ‘Survey shows support for legalised euthanasia’. 16 November 2012.http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-11-16/survey-shows-australian-support-for-legalised-euthanasia/4376524 accessed 22 June 2017.
lxiv Wikipedia. ‘Australian Marriage Equality’. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Marriage_Equality accessed 22 June 2017.
lxv Voiceless the Animals Protection Institute. https://www.voiceless.org.au/the-issues/ag-gag accessed 22 June 2017.
lxvi The Salt: what’s on your plate. ‘Judge Strikes Down Idaho ‘Ag-Gag’ Law, Raising Questions For Other States’. 4 August 2015. http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2015/08/04/429345939/idaho-strikes-down-ag-gag-law-raising-questions-for-other-states accessed 22 June 2017.
lxvii ibid.
lxviii Nazi Germany and Animal Rights 1933 Law on Animal Protection. http://www.worldfuturefund.org/wffmaster/Reading/Germany/Nazianimalrights.htm accessed 24 October 2017.
lxix Ibid.
lxx Patterson, Charles. 2002. Eternal Treblinka: Our Treatment of Animals and the Holocaust. New York: Lantern Books.
lxxii Cohen, Rick. 2015. Non-profit Quarterly. ‘FBI Arrests Animal Rights Activists as Domestic Terrorists’. https://nonprofitquarterly.org/2015/07/31/fbi-arrests-animal-rights-activists-as-domestic-terrorists/ accessed 22 June 2017.
lxxiii Ibid.
lxxiv Wikipedia. Cultured meat. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultured_meat#Growth_medium accessed 15 April 2017.
lxxv Andrew, Anthony. 2017, Yuval Noah Harari: ‘Homo sapiens as we know them will disappear in a century or so’ https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2017/mar/19/yuval-harari-sapiens-readers-questions-lucy-prebble-arianna-huffington-future-of-humanity accessed 15 April 2017.
lxxvi Gebreyes Rahel. 2015. ‘How Lab-Grown Meat May Change Our World’. http://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/entry/lab-grown-meat-in-vitro-ethics_us_56539b38e4b0879a5b0c391b accessed 15 April 2017.
lxxvii Stone, Maddie. ‘The Future will be Full of Lab-Grown Meat.’ 4 August 2015. https://www.gizmodo.com.au/2015/08/the-future-will-be-full-of-lab-grown-meat/ accessed 7 February 2018.
lxxviii Zaraska, Marta. ‘Is Lab-Grown Meat Good for Us?’ 19 August 2013. https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/08/is-lab-grown-meat-good-for-us/278778/ accessed 8 February 2018.
lxxix Gebreyes Rahel. 2015. ‘How Lab-Grown Meat May Change Our World’. http://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/entry/lab-grown-meat-in-vitro-ethics_us_56539b38e4b0879a5b0c391b accessed 15 April 2017.
lxxx Upadhyay, Sheetanshu. ‘Meat Substitute Market is Expected to Reach $5.2 Billion, Globally by 2020’. https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/press-release/global-meat-substitute-market.html accessed 24 October 2017.
lxxxi Vegetarian Times. The Editors. 2008. Vegetarianism in America. Curious about how many Americans go veg? Our study sheds some light. https://www.vegetariantimes.com/uncategorized/vegetarianism-in-america accessed 24 October 2017.
lxxxii Lewis, Lauren. 2017. A New 2017 Report Confirms A 6% Increase In The Vegan Population. http://worldanimalnews.com/new-2017-report-confirms-6-increase-vegan-population/ accessed 24 October 2017.
lxxxiii ibid.
lxxxiv Spencer, Colin.1993. The Heretic’s Feast. Great Britain: Fourth Estate Limited.
Bibliography
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Animal welfare in the 21st Century: the battle intensifies 