What won't you eat on moral, ethical or environmental grounds?

I wouldn't eat fois gras (sp?) or veal though. Not that that's ever been an issue for me. I guess my morals are pretty thin on the ground.

I have just thought of the too-cute factor as well. I wouldn't eat a kitten unless desperate.

I won't eat veal because the thought of eating something that's spent its entire life sitting in diarrhea gags me. (Exceptions made for kitten veal, natch.)

hippies crack me up, they will whinge endlessly about their organic, free range macrobiotic tofu, yet then they will pick up any old crap, put it in a pipe and smoke it. you explain this to me!

on the other hand i do eat foie gras; in fact i love it and am really looking forward to going over to france at christmas and eating loads.

Tim, how will you make it through Christmas?

that's no sacrifice! they had the shittiest produce i've ever seen! i do think it's cool that they try to grow as much of their own stuff as they can, it's just a miserable climate for farming, i think.

I don't think anyone wants Africans or anyone else to starve. A lot of the opposition to GM food stems from fears that tinkering with familiar crops could have unanticipated consequences. For example, one project spliced nut tree DNA into some grain. The GM grain turned out to be producing the same allergens that trigger reactions in those people who are dangerously allergic to nuts. Based on reports like this, I am deeply skeptical about GM crops.

Two other issues: 1) the likelihood that international corporations will take out patents and demand royalties on their "supercrops," and 2) reports that these modified plants have been designed to be seedless -- desirable in the case of oranges, but a burden on farmers who previously would have set aside a portion of one year's crop of annuals to provide seed for the next.

But no, fish was hard to give up. Only though because I was in love with fried shrimp. But that was a decade ago - Jesus, I'm old!

especially when said vegetarians are SEVERELY ALLERGIC TO SEAFOOD.

also no nescafe (and v little nestles full stop, the occassional kitkat perhaps...), not sure if they are still killing babies, but you can get cafe direct everywhere now anyway.

i understand all of the co-op's own brand chocolate is to go fairtrade soon , good old co-op :)

Food is more than just a commodity.

I don't eat meat, and find the "fish aren't animals" thing totally incomprehensible. I might become a vegan one day.

Mark's is the best line, but it does remind me a bit of comedian Stewart Lee saying that he would eat anything significantly less intelligent than he is. He points out that he is a graduate of Cambridge, so he regards graduates of (his example) De Montfort University as fair game. I went to both of the places he mentions, so I am unsure where that leaves me.

my moral, ethical and environmental concerns come into play when eating out. after reading "fast food nation" a year and a half ago, I have not spent a single penny at a fast food place. besides concern over the food, my problems with these establishments extend to their predeliction for advertising to little kids, and willingness to literally tear down establishments in their own empire in which the workers have attempted to unionize.

i have a problem with most vegetarians and vegans I have met (present company excluded) because they seem to desire being in some sort of group, and to declaim wildly the moral shortcomings of others who do not belong. It is only necessary that people in the West eat a whole lot less meat and poultry to reverse negative environmental trends. anyone who would put me, who eats (responsibly raised and slaughtered) meat once a week at most, in the same category as a person who frequents mcdonalds every day... well, that is when I start to realize the extent of the rot eating away at liberalism in the United States.

In America, there is a huge problem with obesity. I am not as concerned, however, with the wealthy stuffing themselves as much as what is taking place amongst the underclass, especially those in urban areas, which involves epidemic levels of obesity, partially due to the fact that fast food is one of the cheapest food sources available.

What does this have to do with vegetarianism? Well, one of the arguments that is advanced in the incredibly informative book "Why Americans Hate Politics" is that, during the quest for civil rights, liberalism stopped concerning itself with the problems of poor people in general because of the necessary focus on the problems of African Americans. As a result, many poor whites switched to the Republican party. Maybe some did this out of pure racism, but others may have felt that in the quest to gain equality for disadvantaged blacks, liberals had forgotten about disadvantaged whites.

After the victories of the Civil Rights movement, the Democratic party, and liberalism in general, failed to re-establish a connection to the concerns of poor people, regardless of race. The focus became the "hearts and minds" of the middle-class. As such, many critiques advanced by those on the left still bear this situation out. Reading a liberal journal like Adbusters, for instance, it is quite apparent that the concern of many writers is the conspicuous consumption of middle-class conservatives. The arguments adavnced, therefore, can sometimes consist of moral appeals, and display a generally self-righteous attitude. While these tactics may or may not work to convince others to change their ways, the sometimes abstract nature of these critiques do not help to solve the practical problems faced by those who need help the most.

So when I hear a militant vegan rattling on about their own moral superiority, I can't help but wonder why such self-aggrandizing assholes think they are going to actually make the world a better place, and I feel sad.

Or were you just joking around, Martin :-)

I'm vegan, but a pragmatic one. I'll make an effort to let restaurant staff know my preferences, but I won't refuse a dish at a restaurant due to a sprinkling of cheese, as the damage is done in the purchase and preparation of the product.

I suspect cruelty free eggs and dairy might be possible, but there are none available at any store within 10 miles of me. For what its worth, I'd much rather see people eat grass-fed beef than any chicken product, as in the U.S., poultry are specifically exempted from animal welfare law, and the conditions egg-laying hens live in are easily the worst for any animal at a concentrated animal feeding operation.

An amazingly large fraction of college-age Americans (something like 14-18%, depending on poll) are veg*ns or non meat-eaters. Should that cohort maintain their diet further into adulthood, that will markedly improve things for older veg*ns, who now must examine every processed food label intently for animal products hiding in innocuous seeming food as gelatins, albumin, caseinates, stearic byproducts and the like. In the UK I understand there's just a big green "V" certification.

one of my goals in life is to always cook and eat respectable wholesome fresh food. i fail at this on almost a daily basis. being a harried father of two i will often go the frozen fishstick route out of laziness/tiredness/etc. i'll get there someday!

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Like, most mass-produced meat products are a dishonor to that animal's life (e.g. "chicken" nuggets).

that chicken liberated iwo jima and all you can do is put him in breadcrumbs. for shame, america. for shame.

I often go the frozen fishstick route out of nomnomnomnom

Should that cohort maintain their diet further into adulthood,

lol. they won't!

it's true about chicken. it has become something else. it isn't even meat anymore. it's just some processed protein that often resembles sawdust in texture and taste. the cheapness of it is sort of alarming.

i would rather eat a chicken than beef because cattle are smart and funny and chickens are just dumb and annoying

they do make a pleasant sound though, chickens

"I often go the frozen fishstick route out of nomnomnomnom"

my kids are the same way! but i could buy a fresh piece of fish and bread it and cook it for less money and in probably the same (or less) amount of time. stuff like that...

I love fish but sometimes a fish finger sandwich is just what you need.

haha just saw an ad for foie gras on the tv (during a rugby match); I love this country's shamelessness.

In the UK I understand there's just a big green "V" certification.

Most foods have to have this, yes. Hate that it isn't on drinks though, as some stuff (fanta for example) isn't vegetarian (certain e number colouring iirc).

idk about copenhagen but why we keep overfishing is beyond me, and it seems a more realistic thing to stop than co2 emissions.

When I tried to be a vegetarian, I got glandular fever even though I was 'doing everything right' plus my mom kept leaving pastrami and mustard in the fridge on purpose, so I shifted my priorities to making sure everything else I consumed was cruelty-free instead. I don't buy intensively farmed anything, be it fruit, vegetable, egg or meat. It's a little bit harder to gauge seafood; will still eat cod if it is sustainably sourced and I don't like to buy prawns from halfway across the world.

Wine has to come from Spain, France or Italy, produce must not come from Israel or be out of season in Europe. Most of my produce comes from within 100 miles of London and so does most of my lamb, beef and pork. Veal doesn't creep me out if it's organic or Dutch - come on, I eat lamb. Game is awesome: my freezer has pheasant, venison sausage and pigeon casserole in it right now. American and Mexican ingredients are things I buy only when they're going in my suitcase back to London. I don't like glands (kidneys, liver) tripe, sweet potatoes or canned tuna to the point of makes-me-hurl (although giblets in stock/gravy don't bug me).

Not much of that gets thrown out the window if I'm a guest being fed and my parameters aren't onerous; if I throw a dinner party, I know my guests' allergies and aversions and don't find accommodating them some massive control issue/problem. The things I can control - not eating GM food of any kind, keeping it seasonal and sustainable - are easy in a big city. I should probably check harder for GM on ingredients from Asian shops but these are the very few imports I do buy, and they're mostly sauces. I feel very sorry for people in America - there's no-GM supermarkets here and corn syrup hasn't inveigled its way into every single food group.

I don't do chains and I have never had a Starbuck's 'coffee drink'.

***or not Dutch. Ewww, let me be clear, Dutch veal and pork are HORRIBLE battery farmed nastiness. AVOID.

how did not eating meat give you glandular fever?

See, that all makes eating sound like a lot of work, instead of pleasure as it ought to be. Eating bad food makes eating less of a pleasure.

I know people like my in-laws who have (what I understand as) Protestant guilt against taking pleasure in eating, so they eat mostly processed foods (so that they can cook very fast and eat without thinking about it). For them, eating is merely an act of sustenance. That's the opposite of my own view.

Euler otm - the pleasure of eating and cooking +++

Combination of factors, but being slightly anaemic from the diet probably did not help - and my health in childhood was just plain unusual.

Euler, what I do is not hard work, it's a fun new form of shopping. And I do like shopping.

if i gave a genuine fuck about treatment of animals (which i really ought to), i think being an activist would be a better way forward than being prissy about what i'm prepared to put down my own personal gullet.

I'd like to know more about being an activist about this sort of thing? Like, if I feel that concentrated pork farming is wrong what should I actually do about it besides not eating the stuff?

working to get the laws changed so CAFO are penalized and not rewarded is a good place to start.

Suzy, I see what you're saying re. "it's just shopping". But depending on how much work it is to attend to the origin (GM or otherwise, say) of your food, it's a pretty work-intensive form of shopping, especially since it's a shopping for a daily necessity rather than for, say, a piece of clothing made by an acceptable producer that you'll get lots and lots of wear of.

We get over this (in the USA) by having a big chest freezer in which we store the quarter of a cow and the side of pork, from local farmers, that lasts us a year. So we only need to think about it once a year (and front the cash in a big way once a year too---this isn't really an option for less affluent people).

I think it was Aimless that claimed (on a similar thread) that since eating meat 'never' and 'almost never' were going to have the exact same impact on the rest of the world, being totally vegetarian was "a religious choice"

i think i am prolly a "religious" vegan by this measure. i just figure if you're going to give a fuck, might as well give a full fuck.

I'm vegan, but a pragmatic one. I'll make an effort to let restaurant staff know my preferences, but I won't refuse a dish at a restaurant due to a sprinkling of cheese, as the damage is done in the purchase and preparation of the product.

i realize it can be a dick move, but i usually send these back to let them know there's cheese on it. the damage is done short term, but if restaurants are more careful in the future because i was being a lil douche, then i'm ok with it (tbh i am super apologetic about it irl).

I suspect cruelty free eggs and dairy might be possible, but there are none available at any store within 10 miles of me. For what its worth, I'd much rather see people eat grass-fed beef than any chicken product, as in the U.S., poultry are specifically exempted from animal welfare law, and the conditions egg-laying hens live in are easily the worst for any animal at a concentrated animal feeding operation.

def true, and it takes something like 200 times the number of chickens to get the same amount of calories from a cow.

poultry are specifically exempted from animal welfare law

I did not know this.

^^Me neither.

Euler, my shopping is not a lot of work at all, because it's knowledge I've built up over time and in this corner of London I'm lucky with easily reachable options.

I think it was Aimless that claimed (on a similar thread) that since eating meat 'never' and 'almost never' were going to have the exact same impact on the rest of the world, being totally vegetarian was "a religious choice"

Rather close, but not quite. My claim was that, between complete abstinence from meat and eating it very infrequently, the impact on one's personal health would be indectectable. Therefore, using health benefits as an argument for pure abstinence was spurious.

In terms of impact on the animals themselves and on the environment generally, it is important to distinguish between the means and methods for raising the animal and the eating of it. The act of eating has no impact on either the animal (it is dead) or the environment. However, that fact doesn't excuse or condone using cruel methods, or environmentally destructive ones. Such humane and sustanable methods exist and must be patronized.

Also, a large amount of the earth's surface is not conducive to raising crops, but is perfectly able to support a modest amount of grazing, so that making use of these lands does not reduce the available food for humans, but increases it. And if it is done correctly, does not degrade the land or crowd out native species.

None of these arguments undermine the moral or ethical stance that animals should not be eaten, because it is bad for one's soul or troubling to one's conscience. That is a religious matter.

Nor are they arguments that elevate meat-eating as being more moral or ethical than vegetarianism. They simply point out various weaknesses in the argument that one must not eat meat at all, apart from the religiously-based ones, or as a matter of personal taste.

Which is a fancy way of saying that vegetarians should not get on their high horse and condemn all meat-eating out of hand as absolutely harmful to one's health, cruel to animals and environmentally execrable, since none of these outcomes are inescapable, even if they are fairly common.

The act of eating has no impact on either the animal (it is dead) or the environment.

Buyng a chicken creates the demand for one more chicken to be produced, so it does impact the environment.

I met some people recently that are vegetarians for envirnmental reasons, and they also do dumpster diving. They make an exception for "dived" meat as it produces no consequent replacement demand. I've been diving with them and there truly is a wonderland of good food out there.

I'm an omnivore, though I haven't had veal for probably 20 years because of how the cows are raised. Always liked regular beef more, so it's no sacrifice.

I went vegan three years ago for ethical reasons. That after having been a vegetarian since I was about 20. Had always been quite sympathetic towards animals but had never really thought about going vegan at all. Weirdly it was reading a random post on ILX that initially got me thinking about it, then I started doing a bit of research and probably went vegan about a month after that. Went through the angry vegan stage for about a year and was probably a pretty insufferable guy on the whole, but I'm quite chilled about it now. Think I'd previously dismissed veganism as a huge drag beforehand, but really it's not such an arduous way to live.

Other than that, I try and make a habit of avoiding food that's travelled halfway round the planet, but I guess I do a far from perfect job with that. Try and steer clear of palm oil too because of the associated deforestation, but tbh it's totally fucking impossible to completely dodge that stuff cos it just gets put into everything.

I just have to basically admit I'm completely selfish because I agree with vegetarianism for lots of reasons, but to me food is real, real pleasure and eating delicious meat is a big part of it. I don't drive, do drugs or have many vices but this is one of them.

That said, the best meat usually comes from the best-raised animals. I accidentally ordered a really expensive piece of lamb once and me and my husband just sat in silence as it was the best thing we'd eaten. So the only thing I won't eat is due to me finding it icky- usually weird bits of sea food (or veal or foie gras).

However, moving to the US I'm finding it hard to buy food in some ways - I'm just not familiar with what everything is. Is 'cage-free' the same as 'free-range' when you buy eggs? I didn't realise the thing about the chicken. My nearest shop is Whole Foods so you might think the meat is well raised or whatever, but I don't think any of the chickens say 'free range'. Their big thing seems to be 'not raised on growth hormones'. I'm finding it hard even buying a normal loaf of decent bread that isn't sweet or really sour.

Er, not meaning to say that eating meat is a vice per se. It's just one area of my life where theoretically I agree with the veggies but obviously don't care enough to change my ways...

Cage-free doesn't mean free-range - those birds would probably be kept indoors in a huge barn instead of a cage.

And a free-range label doesn't mean what you think it does either. Legally, it only means that the birds "have access" to the outdoors.

Buyng a chicken creates the demand for one more chicken to be produced, so it does impact the environment.

I agree that buying the chicken does have an impact, based on how the chicken was raised. However, the impact would be the same whether you ate it or buried it. You apparently agree with this, too.

Again, my arguments are solely aimed at correctly dividing up the various components of a complex act (how food is raised, distributed and eaten) and isolating out the degree to which it is necessary to be a strict vegan or vegetarian in order to be healthy, moral or minimize harm to the environment.

Vegetarianism may be sufficient to achieve these goals, but in my estimation it is not necessary, as the same goals may be reached by other means. The Vegists often fail to understand this and take an absolutist position I find faulty.

Jaq, what exactly would it mean to "work to get the laws changed" - write to my congressman/MP maybe? Is there anything else I can do?

Which is a fancy way of saying that vegetarians should not get on their high horse and condemn all meat-eating out of hand as absolutely harmful to one's health, cruel to animals and environmentally execrable, since none of these outcomes are inescapable, even if they are fairly common.

Aimless, the thing you're missing here is that a lot of veggies that I know would view the taking of a life as a cruelty in itself. Not trying to mount a high-horse here, just maybe filling in a piece of the puzzle.

In which case, it appears to me to be a religious conviction.

Jains often wear gauze masks to avoid inadvertently inhaling a gnat and killing it. I have no problem with that, so long as the action is identified as religious in origin, and therefore a matter of personal conviction rather than an absolute requirement and a moral law.

It's not religious. You don't have to be religious to think it's wrong to kill something, it just boils down to ethics.

Jaq, what exactly would it mean to "work to get the laws changed" - write to my congressman/MP maybe? Is there anything else I can do?

Find out first what the laws are where you are and identify any groups that are currently working for change and see if you can buy into their arguments and methodology. If so, add yourself to their course of action. If there aren't any existing groups you agree with, glean what you can from the actions of other organizations, leaving what doesn't work for you behind and focusing on the practices you see as effective and consistent with your ideology. Then do those things, and see if other like-minded people will join you in those things. For me, one of the most important things is throwing my support behind those farmers/producers that don't have terrible husbandry practices, trying to do what I can to make their choice a viable one and getting others to buy from them as well, so they can stay in business.

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Perhaps you are right and this is not religion but ethics. So, how do you decide which killing is unethical? E.g. the gnat you inhale by accident? The spider you squish in the bathtub? The dust mites you wash off when you bathe? How do you form the rules for this brand of ethics?

i think most vegans/vegetarians, if pressed, would concede that complete abstinence from animal use is not an absolute moral imperative. that some environments are inhospitable to vegetation but do allow for grazing means some on this earth would be unable to survive without such animal use and would necessitate animal consumption. i just don't think this context applies to most in "the west" for lack of a better descriptor. the ability to reliably transport and raise a plentiful food source i believe renders that argument moot in post-industrial societies.

i do think that mere animal welfare concerns have practical shortcomings as well. to clarify, this can include "humane" animal husbandry among other activities that seek to minimize animal suffering but to do not wish to eliminate the practice of animal use.

as the case has been in the last few years with "cage-free" or "organic", you can see something akin to campbell's law at work. the more popular this particular descriptor is, the more corrupted and less meaningful it becomes as more firms attempt to capitalize on the burgeoning market. so let's say as the conscientious egg consumer, i want chickens to have a standard of living that allows them natural movement and space and not to be separated from offspring or any number of factors that spring to mind on some idealized farm. short of visiting the farm i'm buying from and doing a thorough inspection, i really have no way of determining if such an environment exists. the producer can label within some limits whatever they choose, even if any of those criteria are not met (indeed, it is unlikely any of them are met at all).

what's more, i seriously doubt the ability of agriculture to bring humane farming to scale, at least at present levels of consumption. agribusiness will fight tooth and nail against any measures that will impact their ability to efficiently raise and slaughter animals at the lowest cost possible. even if there was sufficient political will to bring about meaningful change to farmed animals' lives, it would require a strong enough regulatory body to enforce them and the usda is a well-documented stooge of large agribusinesses. even still, let's say that laws pass and get enforced effectively. this will almost certainly send the unit cost of animal calories soaring and substantially reduce the number of animals raised and killed per year. a good thing! but it requires a lot of political muscle that is not there, and likely never will be so long as farmed animals are treated as commodities.

i want to be clear (lol obamaism) that i do not see veganism as a panacea and i certainly can see that 10 people choosing to eat meat one day fewer a week will have a greater utilitarian impact than just one person abstaining all week. but considering the moral worth of animals, if the sum of their experiences is something worth protecting, why not the entirety of their lives? i feel like the "humane" meat notion is an attempt to have your beef and eat it, too.

aimless, i think we can agree that some amount of killing is part and parcel of being and staying alive. it's the extent to which something is an avoidable daily practice where the issue most concerns me.

Perhaps you are right and this is not religion but ethics. So, how do you decide which killing is unethical? E.g. the gnat you inhale by accident? The spider you squish in the bathtub? The dust mites you wash off when you bathe? How do you form the rules for this brand of ethics?

I try and avoid inhale gnats cos that shit is nasty. I don't squish spiders, I have always tried to move them safely outside. Not spotted any dust mites on me, if I did, maybe I would brush them off? I dunno, I just generally try and avoid hurting things and that tends to work out okay.

also, i don't mean to be combative, but how do you figure the fates of dust mites and gnats are similar to cows, pigs, and chickens?

As stated by Jeremy Bentham and Peter Singer, one critical criterion of a more inclusive utilitarianism is simply the ability to to suffer, to consciously experience pain or emotional torment at the prospect of being extinguished. There's no question all vertebrates possess very similar hindbrains capable of this. Squid and octopi are the most intelligent of invertebrates (octopi have repeatedly squirted water to short aquarium lights interfering with sleep), so these likely have something like consciousness for mentally modeling themselves in their environment.

The greater question arises with insects, crustaceans, and bivalve mollusks. Below some threshold, its pretty hard to distinguish the actions of a tiny cluster of neurons from a tiny processor, and I have no ethical problem at all hitting the off-switch on my computer. Singer himself thinks that scallops likely have so little brain they could be treated like vegetables (and excluded from the moral world).

I wasn't doing the figuring, m bison. But your question seems to assume there are obvious moral differences between killing cows, pigs, gnats and spiders, and I would be interested to understand how these assumed differences can be made both clear and consistent, without recourse to arbitrary boundaries.

I am content to live my own life with a lack of such clarity, but then again, I eat meat and do not try to base a morality on those presumed distinctions between gnats and cows.

Me, I don't eat gnats and I don't eat pigs, I'm consistent as hell.

Derelict, it seems a nice distinction that in order to suffer an organism must be able to recognize the prospect of death and experience emotional torment over this anticipation. To me pain is painful, with or without a mental model of my continued existance.

Most organisms show aversion to stimuli which are capable of killing them, damaging them or incapacitating them. Intelligence is not required for pain and it seems arrogant to assume that the squirming of a nematode when placed in a solution hostile to its survival is not a form of suffering.

x-post that's fair. if it's worth anything i also try to avoid insects if at all possible, although i care a considerable less about them than i would animals due to their inability to feel pain in the same way we and other animals do (i am giving them something of a benefit of the doubt by not squishing them, but i realize this is something of a fool's errand if i am willing to eat plants protected by insecticide).

and again i don't mean to come off as judgmental or to sound so certain of myself as i do grapple regularly with a lot the issues you bring up. genuinely appreciate your posts here and elsewhere on the board.

Me: Buyng a chicken creates the demand for one more chicken to be produced, so it does impact the environment.

Aimless: I agree that buying the chicken does have an impact, based on how the chicken was raised. However, the impact would be the same whether you ate it or buried it. You apparently agree with this, too.

If you buy the chicken and then bury it, yes. But if you *don't* buy it, but procure it from the dumpster, you are not causing a demand for another one. The tossing in the dumpster, in fact, is a message to the supply chain that it's producing too much, and should cut down. Retrieving it doesn't add to the demand.

And note (for anybody's who's squicked by it), the stuff I get from the dumpster is in its original wrapping, and usually in a clean plastic bag. I've never had to clean anything off of any meat. Ocaasionally I'll need to rinse a piece of fruit/veg or a broken egg's inards from an intact egg.

I won't eat at McDonalds, Burger King, KFC, Taco Bell, etc.

I eat meat, but I live in Portland where it's easy to get good meat.