local produce
12 Jan 2010
It's Not All Cravats And Croquembouche
New books on ethical eating herald a rise in food consciousness, writes Caroline Hamilton, but easy answers to philosophical questions about food are in short supply
When Jonathan Safran Foer told people he was writing a book about eating animals, "Almost always … they assumed, even without knowing anything about my views, that it was a case for vegetarianism."
"It’s a telling assumption," says Foer. "One that implies not only that a thorough inquiry into animal agriculture would lead one away from eating meat, but that most people already know that to be the case."
It’s clear that the subject of if — or how — to eat meat stirs up some pretty intense feelings. After reading Eating Animals not everybody will be as motivated as Natalie Portman to choose veganism — but many will think more about what and how they eat.
Australians have a deepening fascination with food. If the 1990s were the era of the supermodel, the noughties will surely be remembered for the dominance of the master chef — on and offscreen. Once there were restaurant critics, now there are "food writers". Consumers have a growing fondness for all things home-style or hand-made. Farmers’ markets (and even supermarkets) are stuffed with "artisanal" breads, milks and cheeses. Dietary intolerances and sensitivities wreak havoc on dinner party plans. Peanuts are proscribed. It’s little wonder we can think about anything other than our next meal.
Of course, it is not all cravats and croquembouche.
Politicians and parents worry about kids getting too fat, and sometimes, too thin. Entire suburbs are raised on vitamin-enriched wonderbread while inner-city hipsters wonder about the carbon footprint of their fair-trade, single-origin soy latte. In December, the notion of "food miles" was debunked by the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics. Apparently, food miles — or more particularly, the carbon emissions associated with the transport of fresh produce — are not a reliable indicator of environmental impact of producing and supplying food.
So, while in the 21st century it may be easy enough to recall the five basic food groups, it’s considerably more difficult to make informed decisions about what is good to eat in a more philosophic sense.
Consequently, there has been a boom in books about what might be called "food consciousness". Food consciousness doesn’t just mean thinking about food; it involves thinking about the history behind the food on your plate: Organic? Fairtrade? Macrobiotic? Biodynamic?
More specifically, food consciousness means thinking about the conscious beings that also happen to be food and, in light of this, one’s conscience when it comes to making choices about what to eat. There are a number of books that have been influential in this debate, most notably Eric Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation and Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma. Raj Patel’s Stuffed and Starved tackles similar subjects but from the perspective of global economics and geopolitics.
Each has a different take on the issues at stake, but the central principle remains the same: the model which has allowed food (animal and vegetable) production to operate according to the principles of the factory line has created a horrific system of exploitation. Foer’s Eating Animals is the latest contribution to this discussion, blending straight-talking "stats and facts" with a personal history of eating as a cultural practice.
His is not, he acknowledges, a "straightforward case for vegetarianism". Foer works from an assumption that it might be possible to eat meat with ethical impunity but finds even the most reputable "heritage style" farmers fall short when it comes to animal ethics. Better known as a fiction writer, Foer is also incapable of making a straightforward case for anything. Self-aware subtleties and rhetorical questions abound.
His case is stronger when he contextualises the complications of eating meat with stories from his own life. His dog George provides an opportunity to question why it is that some people eat pigs, but not horses. Why wings, but not ears? Why is it called "animal cruelty" when a human hits a dog with a pickaxe, but it’s called "gaffing" when it’s done to a tuna. And why, of all things, would such a practice have its own genre of chicks-in-bikinis videos?
Impending fatherhood drives the inconstant vegetarian Foer to search for answers to these kinds of questions; to establish a system of beliefs by which his new family can be guided. Family is, after all, the place from which we take our first lessons about what to eat and when. It is also the place from which we learn our first history lessons. Our milestones are most often measured with meals. Foer relates the stories learned from his grandmother, a woman who developed her own homespun nutritional wisdom influenced in equal parts by her early life in Europe and the abundance of her adopted homeland, the United States.
"She taught us that animals that are bigger than you are very good for you, animals that are smaller than you are good for you, fish (which aren’t animals) are fine for you, then tuna (which aren’t fish), then vegetables, fruits, cakes, cookies and sodas. No foods are bad for you. Fats are healthy — all fats, always, in any quantity. Sugars are very healthy. The fatter a child is, the healthier it is — especially if it’s a boy. Lunch is not one meal, but three, to be eaten at 11.00, 12.30, and 3.00. You are always starving."
These domestic philosophies deserve their own book. Almost all of us, animal lovers and meat lovers alike, are drawn to the idea of the home-cooked meal as providing much more than nutritional sustenance. Foer’s point is that the problem with eating animals doesn’t have much to do with which types of animal we eat, or indeed, which parts. The problem with eating animals is everything that transpires before the meal arrives on the table.
Foer’s book could easily be retitled "Hurting Animals" since its pages are filled with often gruesome accounts of what happens before animals become drumsticks, rib-eyes or rashers. Whether fish, flesh or fowl, all are guaranteed to be involved in an unholy trinity of suffering, sickness and shit.
Foer describes the baseless cruelty witnessed at a slaughterhouse (recognised as a Supplier of the Year) supplying chickens to KFC in the United States. Workers trample the animals to death, or spray paint on them for amusement. Others are observed tearing the heads from live birds. Other instances of suffering are more systematic: animals are subjected to "stunners", "bolts", electrocution, live flayings, dismemberment and open wounds. By no means is this treatment limited to the factory farm. As Foer rightly points out, "You can torture your meat all day long and still call it organic."
Almost all animals bred for consumption have been created to produce the maximum amount of meat in the minimum time. Not only does this make them genetic monstrosities, it also makes them unwell from birth to death. Each year in the United States, livestock are fed over nine times the quantity of antibiotics doctors prescribe to humans. International health organisations acknowledge the practice directly contributes to the creation of resistant germs, or superbugs.
Unsurprisingly, tales of sickness link in rather neatly with those about shit: animals over-fed with vitamin-enriched swill leave behind huge, unmanageable quantities of manure. Excrement is not only part and parcel of the killing and butchery of animals, it also contaminates the environments where humans and factory farms are forced into close proximity.
While Foer’s book grapples with the problem of environmental sustainability in the farming of animals for food, his motivation is a search for sustainability of the philosophical sort. In the end, he never provides a definitive response to the problems that come with eating animals. Unlike philosopher Peter Singer whose book Animal Liberation compares the subjugation of animals to slavery, Foer declines to make a strident call. He concludes that vegetarianism is probably the best option, but he doesn’t venture into the thorny territory that comes with this broad designation. Vegetarians are a catholic bunch: lacto, ovo, pescatarian, etc. Many vegetarian eating habits may still involve animal suffering — free-range eggs may be widely available but hand-milked cows are harder to come by.
Is veganism the answer?
Ultimately, after all the arguments about grain-fed, free range and local food which can be employed to soothe the conscience, Foer returns to the much larger questions of desire, gratification and sacrifice. "Two friends are ordering lunch," he writes. "One says, ‘I’m in the mood for a burger’, and orders it. The other says, ‘I’m in the mood for a burger’, but remembers that there are things more important to him than what he is in the mood for at any given moment, and orders something else."
Foer never explicitly connects his own family’s history of suffering and sacrifice with this resolve to look beyond the desires of "any given moment" to larger guiding principles but it’s apparent that the hypothetic burger eaters are playing out a scene reminiscent of the book’s most memorable story: Foer’s grandmother, on the run from the Nazis and close to starvation, is offered a piece of meat by a Russian farmer. She refuses. It is pork; not kosher. Foer is astonished. "But not even to save your life?" She replies, "If nothing matters, there’s nothing to save."
Delicious
Digg
StumbleUpon
Reddit
Newsvine
Facebook
Twitter
Discuss this article
To participate in the discussion Sign in or Register
With reference to ABARE’s purported debunking the notion of ‘food miles’, that’s not quite correct.
ABARE (like the once-neutral CSIRO) has become more and more attuned to supplying information suited to the business interests it is largely serving, so it is utterly predictable that the organisation would be wary of supporting a concept that gives weight to gardening and local self sufficiency - apropos agribusiness.
That notwithstanding, if one cares to read between the lines, ABARE’s report is couched in terms of ‘food miles’ competing with a number of other factors that define the sustainability of the make the food we eat. And they are correct about that.
But if it is critical that consumers of food re-establish close links with the producers of that food (as enunciated in fine style in Michael Pollan’s writings) then proximity of food to consumer is not merely part of an energy equation it is fundamental to the sociology of healthy eating and western consumerism.
In strict energy terms, a leaf of refrigerated lettuce that arrives on our plate from a distant state has consumed perhaps over 250 times the calorific value of the food product itself - in transport, packaging and refrigeration. Not even ABARE can debunk such fundamental, self evident, equations.
It goes without saying that this has to be a major factor in the ethical eating dilemma, but, yes, ‘food miles’ is just one part of the jigsaw.
I haven’t read Foer’s book yet, but certainly will as it sounds complex and thoughtful. However, regarding the increasingly strident calls for universal vegetarianism/vegnism,
I pass on without comment an exchange I had during the week with a friend who is an organic farmer of grapes and olives.
He and his family belong to an organic co-operative in a part of NSW where there is still a pretty severe water shortage. There is one block for sale in the co-op. In mentioning this he said “I hope we don’t get an offer from a vegetable farmer.” When I asked why, he said “because they use so much water.”
I wonder if anyone has done the modeling on vegetarian planet in terms of land and water usage.
Look at page 73 of the following CSIRO report on water used in the Murray
Darling Basin:
http://www.clw.csiro.au/publications/consultancy/2004/MDBC_stage2_report…
Vegetables 156,000 million litres … sounds like a lot doesn’t it!
Dairy 4,194,000 million litres … yes, that’s 26 times more water than the vegetable
sector … add in fruit and the dairy industry still uses 9 times more water than fruit
and vegetables combined.
So, yes jnewton, the modeling on a vegan planet is easy. 700 million tonnes of
livestock consume 58% of the biomass that is harvested or grazed and provide
just 17% of global calories … plant foods comprise 12% of the global biomass
harvested and provide 83% of global calories. A vegan planet would be
swimming in food … now. Reforesting the worlds savannas which are currently set
ablaze annually to keep forests from regrowing would assist in fighting climate
change (not a solution, but definitely a help).
See, for free:
http://bravenewclimate.com/2010/01/05/boverty-blues-p1/
Or buy my book (plug!), which has plenty more
detail: http://perfidy.com.au
I cannot understand how the vegetarians and vegans can somehow come to terms with their own anatomy. Sure, you can survive on a non-meat diet, you just have to be extremely careful as to how you obtain some of your required nutrients, an option not always available to the less trendy or wealthy members of the human species. And who nows (certainly not Darwin) how they explain their teeth. Look in your mouth mate, the things at the front are incisors. Yep, designed specifically for the eating of meat. Shock, horror!!! You may, if you wish, feel appalled by your own biology. But my reaction can only ever be amusement at your folly.
Gollum, our teeth, compared with canines and felines, makes me think that they were not made for eating meat, just not for eating grass. A bear has a pretty versatile diet, look at their teeth. Biting into an apple may be a little difficult with just molars… draw your own conclusions.
Back to the article though, this mentality our grandparents and some parents and even some of us have grown up with due to extreme political and economic conditions is a sad old story, which I’m happy is not so prevalent anymore. Being conscious of what one eats and the production process involved in getting that meal to us could just be another aspect of the BS lies fed to our society, all in the name of progress and economics.
Some believe that the abstinence from eating pork is actually an age old tradition as spoiled or unprepared pork can carry disease. The Chinese word for meat is the same word for pork, perhaps they had better methods for meat preservation. So not eating meat, based on religious tradition or instruction, may truly be outdated. But from a sustainability point of view, the amount of resources we consume for meat production compared to vegetable and fruit production, plus the amount of abuse we exercise, without general public knowledge concerning the ‘farming’ of animals, makes me wonder whether a vegan diet is what we eventually will have to and should adopt.
I’ve been allergic to fresh milk all my life. As a baby my parents were quite concerned but our doctor reassured them that cow’s milk was not a natural product for human consumption. Was meat ever?
Necron99, A little research please. Your front teeth are called canines. Not too difficult to determine the origin. Was meat ever a “natural product for human consumption”? Surely you jest. Point me to any culture ancient or modern that is vegetarian by choice. If that is insufficient evidence, feel free to examine your earliest cultural roots. The famed cave paintings, our earliest known artistic expression, are not renowned for featuring leeks and brocoli, but animals that were hunted for meat.
People are omnivores … which means they can and do live on an extraordinary range of
diets. They can choose. Similarly, we can choose the natural response to
many infections (painful death), or the unnatural and vastly superior
response (antibiotics). A vegan diet isn’t natural, can be much better than that. For
example, the US Institute of Medicine recommends that all people over the age of
50 use B12 supplements. Why? Because many people have absorption problems and
the B12 made in labs is better (ie., easier to absorb) than the natural stuff in meat.
Gollum is largely correct, we are omnivores – virtually all human societies eat meat, our taste buds, teeth, digestive system and cultures all reinforce this fact.
That’s where the arguments of some strident vegetarian advocates fall down, an incorrect assertion that we are not meant to eat meat. This can’t be sustained by science or anthropology. More importantly, it turns people off from the message that they are trying to deliver, so its bad science and bad PR.
Despite this blindspot, the call for vegetarian living (or rather a dramatic reduction in our meat intake) is a sensible one for a wide range of reasons, including our own health and the health of the planet.
Whilst human numbers were few meat eating was a sustainable option and not an unhealthy one. But the sheer resources required to supply meat to billions of heavy meat eaters is another thing altogether. In terms of greenhouse gas emission abatement it’s probably the biggest factor of the lot.
Restoration of sustainability does not require a full conversion to vegetarian or vegan eating, it does mean getting things back into balance. Holistic agriculture needs animals, to aid soil fertility, and many human habitats (such as that of Australian Aborigines) would not have been habitable if it were not for meat eating. The story is not black and white.
If we can take some of the religion out of the vegetarian debate we can bring many more people on side with sensible diet reform.
For those interested in adjusting their diets sensibly here is a valuable new report from the British Sustainable Development Commission: http://d.yimg.com/kq/groups/19833253/1051151930/name/Setting_the_Table%2…
I have tried at various times in my life to sustain a vegetarian/vegan diet but it is incredibly hard and most people simply can’t/won’t do it, particularly in a society that actively discourages it.
One cannot expect others to conform (even one’s own partner and children) to a strict diet that requires medical supplementation and social ostracism. Who wants to be the mother that denies her kid a sausage when the manager fires up the barbecue after a mid-winter match?
I was never comfortable with the speech i had to make every time someone invited me to dinner. Some people are - and look forward to the opportunity to educate. I wish I was more like that but the reality is that most of us just want to be polite and to accept hospitality graciously.
For this and many other reasons I have come to the conclusion that it is misguided to place all the onus on the consumer. Educated individuals with the physical ability to adhere to a strict diet and the courage of their convictions to stand up to repeated attacks from an unsupportive society can only do so much. Change needs to come through political pressure as well as through individual protest. It concerns me that people who change their individual diet think they are actually making a difference and so their will to do something more constructive is falsely satisfied.
Factory farming should simply be banned. Any practice that imposes cruelty to animals should be liable to prosecution and should be regularly inspected and fined appropriately. There should be amendments to legislation to impose stricter standards of welfare and practice on all farming and we should pay probably double what we pay now so that meat is considered a supplement to the evening meal not it’s main staple. Skilled hunters should be employed with the dual purpose of culling feral animals in a way that renders them fit for human consumption.
It still amazes me the way people anthropomorphise their pets, yet eat the cheapest factory-farmed ham that has lived it’s life in agony and died a cruel death. Instead of arguing about who should eat what, we should be lobbying governments to change the law so that higher standards are implemented and those that breach them are put out of business through the law.
I read somewhere recently someone say that we should be eating the millions of dogs and cats euthanised every year as it’s a healthy meat, they’ve led lives of comfort in most cases and would be good for the environment - it sounds crazy at first but really, why not? If you’re going to eat meat these should really be your only concerns.
“Canine” from the Latin Caninus, means pertaining to a dog or dog-like. The origin of the word is no more than 2,500 years old. Humans have been around for hundreds of thousands years, at least. Until humans were able to achieve the skill of fashioning weapons, I doubt they went around hunting too much. It would have been easier to ‘gather’ their food, hence the term.
Whatever our societies have practised over the past 10,000 years or so bears no relevance over our original dietary habits. Cave paintings may just be showing how humans cooperated to ward off other predators or aggressive, territorial, larger animals. Even today, a bull elephant, rhino or bull will charge you out of its domain.
Considering the fact that we also have only quite small canine teeth and other teeth which resemble most vegetarian animals, our primary source of sustenance would most likely have been vegan. Given all this, we obviously can adapt to eating meat and have evolved our bodies accordingly. It is probably because of this very instigated evolutionary step which makes it difficult for us to become complete vegetarians but as ‘chrisharries’ points out this can easily be supplemented artificially.
The best example I can think of would be right here on our own doorstep. Australian Aborigines did eat meat but not that much and mainly white meat, at that small amount. Bush tucker anyone?
I think the question is not CAN we consume animal products, but SHOULD we consume animal products. Of course our teeth make it easier to consume meat, but this does not mean that we should. Indeed, there are so many things we are all physically capable of doing eg murder of humans, rape etc – but just because we are capable of doing something does not automatically make it right or acceptable.
I also think that the idea of a vegan lifestyle as ‘incredibly hard’ or only for a select few people is totally wrong. I have been vegan for years and am very healthy, without having to be ‘extremely careful’ and without any ‘medical supplementation’ or any other supplements at all the whole time.
A vegan diet allows so many different food choices, and certainly does not require giving up burgers – as the book the article is referring to says. There are heaps of great vegan burgers, hot dogs etc. Of course sometimes there are not vegan options, however, foregoing a sausage/bringing your own food/asking your host to provide a vegan option for you are small “sacrifices” compared with the animals who die unnecessarily for our pleasure, taste and convenience.
As far as being socially ostracised, I don’t see this as a reason not to do the morally right thing. I’m sure in the past people were ostracised for being against racism and sexism, but this does not mean they should give up opposing racism or sexism. Speciesism is similar to sexism and racism – we wouldn’t allow the use of humans the way we use animals. Although animals have no use in the right to vote or the right to free speech – they have the right not to be used as property. Animals are sentient and sentience should be the only requirement to not be treated as property.
Consuming fewer animals is not the answer to the suffering of animals, just like being a little bit racist or sexist is not the answer to these problems. We should abolish treating animals as property (speciesism), just as we should abolish racism and sexism. The way to this goal is to stop demanding animal products by going vegan.
John Mancy
Barrister
Editor, Australian Animal Protection Law Journal
PO Box 552
Beecroft
NSW 2119