Author: Linni Kral, Aidan Lewis, Dean DeChiaro
Linni Kral (senior editor)
Some people think vegans are just elitist snobs out to preach their views to anyone who will listen—or worse, that they’re just trend-whores jumping on the recent bandwagon of soy milk and tofu. It’s these stereotypes that usually cause me to cringe and change the subject when people inquire about my vegan tendencies.
There are times, however, when the tedious explanation is unavoidable, and in those scenarios I throw out two words—factory farming. Picture a warehouse stacked to the nines with filthy cows, pigs, chickens or even honeybees. When one of them gets sick, the bacteria spreads uncontrollably. Luckily for factory farmers, most large-scale animal stocks are pumped with a steady stream of antibiotic chemicals to keep them “healthy.” Does this seem healthy to you?
It doesn’t help that their immune systems are weak to begin with. Cows are ruminants, intended to eat grasses, yet nearly all the cows consumed in the United States were fed corn for at least a majority, if not the entirety of their lives. Imagine going your entire life on a diet of plain starch, without a salad to speak of. Would you consider yourself healthy? Why should we consume nutrients like milk or steak under the guise of forwarding our health when the animal itself was unhealthy?
It isn’t only beef cows—dairy cows work literal overtime, on their feet tied to milking tubes for hours every day. The natural behavioral patterns of honeybees are disrupted to benefit the warehouse output, throwing their stabilizing power structure into turmoil, requiring that various chemicals be introduced to falsely recreate that stability. It’s inevitable that when animals are treated as units of production, their health and well-being get grossly over-looked. We eat this stuff! This should matter to us more than it appears to.
Now don’t get me wrong—I’m no bleeding-heart animal rights activist. I agree with Peter Singer that we can’t justify killing animals for food in a world with a myriad of meat alternatives, and that sensual enjoyment is the only viable justification for eating meat today. But I can’t deny our innate carnivorous tendencies, and I don’t rule out all cheeses and yogurts of the world. If I can be certain that the animal didn’t live in the above-mentioned conditions, I will eat its products in a heartbeat. If I can kill the thing myself, even better. It is not the death that bothers me—certain sacrifices are necessary. It’s the life these animals led that makes me uncomfortable.
Linni Kral is a junior Politics major. She can be reached at lkral@oxy.edu.
Aidan Lewis (staff writer)
Cynics of vegetarianism often complain that the choice to give up meat is merely a fad these days. Thus, anyone who makes the decision is just doing so to become one with a great wave of “green”-ness and activism. They have a case; becoming a veggie does seem to be en vogue. However, speaking as someone who gave up meat for non-fashion reasons—and with great difficulty—I feel I’m in a position to say that it really doesn’t matter what the motive is. Regardless of a person’s moral qualms, health concerns, religious obligations or sense of what is trendy, relinquishing meat is never a bad thing. The cynics can’t deny the benefits.
There are innumerable good reasons to go vegetarian; I will mention just a few. It’s good for people who are trying to lose weight, want to get rid of indigestion, or would just like a fresher, more nutritional way to dine. It’s one of the best things individuals can do for the environment—eating produce rather than livestock is a move that, if popularized on a national scale, would save resources and land as well as dramatically reducing our contribution to greenhouse gases. It’s economically sound. Finally, it eliminates the ethical issues attached to eating animals that are poorly treated. No one can accuse you of being callous or passively supporting an industry bereft of principles.
I’m not trying to convert meat-eaters to vegetarianism, or suggest that meat-eating is wrong. I was a carnivore for seventeen years, and I’ll be the first to admit that militant vegetarians are downright annoying. What I do want to convey, though, is that any complaint against vegetarianism is absurd. Not only does the lifestyle not hurt anyone—there are great benefits, and even if you’re in it just because it’s fashionable, the decision is a good one. I say we leave the veggies alone.
Aidan Lewis is a first-year ECLS major. He can be reached at alewis@oxy.edu.
Dean Dechiaro (opinions co-editor)
Lettuce and tomatoes and onions are pretty cool. However, you know what is even cooler? Lettuce, tomatoes and onions on top of a medium-rare, juicy, Worcestershire-soaked piece of beautiful red meat. Why, as a human being with fangs not unlike a wolf’s and an appetite that no vegetable could ever suffice alone, would I deny myself the pleasure of red meat? It just doesn’t make sense. Vegetarians are not moral warriors, and they’re not equalizing the rights of humans and animals. They’re simply selling themselves short.
I’m sure that there are more meat-eaters on this campus than vegetarians, but it doesn’t seem that way, because meat-eaters don’t brag about being meat-eaters. We don’t go around professing it to people, though if someone wants to engage in conversation with me on the subject of steak, I will not disappoint. But honestly, I don’t want to sit down in the Marketplace with my steak, and be surrounded by four people giving the me the evil eye, simply because they were dumb enough to get the curry tofu for brunch.
Vegetarians and vegans are lovely people. I live with a vegetarian, and most of my friends are vegans or veggies. If people are going to lead this ridiculous lifestyle free of burgers, chicken nuggets, buffalo wings, pepperoni pizza, normal pizza (for vegans), schwarma, steaks, lobster, chicken pot pie, hot dogs and corn dogs, then that is totally their choice. And if they are doing it for religious purposes, that’s awesome, too. And if they’re doing it because they believe in animal’s rights, whatever. I really don’t care that people are torturing themselves as such, but leave me and my meat-loving friends out of it. We can still be friends, but don’t expect any invitations to any BBQs, because you know I’m not sticking any veggie burgers or soy nuggets on my grill.
Dean DeChiaro is a first-year History major. He can be reached at dechiaro@oxy.edu.
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