Should we be eating meat?

Andrew D Atkin:

We can make a decisive argument for at least cutting back. In the western world we could cut back to about 20% of the meat that we eat today, and only achieve considerably better health for it.

Environmental argument:

By far the most inefficient way for humans to get their protein is through meat, or at least meat that comes from living animals. You can get about 10x the protein from vegetable matter (directly) out of a given land area farmed, as compared to meat. So meat is terribly expensive in environmental terms. It dictates a great deal of otherwise unnecessary deforestation, and possibly soil degradation.

Health argument:

The human digestive system is capable of digesting meat (and has evolved that way) but it is still overwhelmingly vegetarian in its structure. Our digestive system is virtually the same as that of comparable herbivores.

A carnivores digestive tract is about 3x shorter than that of a vegetarians, and a carnivores stomach acids are many more times as strong as that of a vegetarians. The difference is not discrete. Meat is very different to vegetable matter, and our digestive make-up recognises this.

So why this difference? Though meat is highly nutritious in itself, it needs to be processed quickly because it goes bad quickly. Rotting meat gives off all kinds of nasty toxins. When humans eat more meat than their body's can process and consume (and we don't use about 4/5th's of it, if you're an average westerner) then it literally rots in your vegetarian-type slow food-processing bowels, and likewise gives off toxins that hammer your digestive tract.

It is no accident that (typical) excessive meat eaters have higher incidents of bowel cancer than vegetarians. The toxins from meat must also, surely, affect other organs as they escape into the bloodstream as well.

The idea that most of us should cut back on meat by about 80% is beyond argument from a health perspective. Most of the meat we eat really does just sit in our bowels and rots - working against us, not for us.

We are quite able to go full vegetarian without any negative health impact, though as most of us know the move (if taken) needs to be done conscientiously. There have been champion bodybuilders, for example, who have been vegan (vegan = no animals products at all). That is testimony to the fact that we do not actually need meat to get the nutrients that our bodies require. Bodybuilding is one of if not the most nutritionally demanding activities that we can ever assign to our bodies.

Moral argument:

People often argue that it's ok to kill animals for food because that is what other animals do. This is an argument that claims: "If it's good enough for nature, then it should be good enough for us".

Well, Chimpanzees engage in periodic cannibalism, and so do humans when they are desperate enough for food. But obviously we do not consider cannibalism among humans to be moral, at least not if we don't have to do it to survive. And indeed, if you associate "law of the jungle" with moral acceptability by default, then you can ultimately justify (morally) absolutely anything you want.

My point is that the law-of-the-jungle argument should not be considered acceptable as the moral ideological base for a humanity that is neither desperate nor mindlessly enslaved to ancient instincts (like lower animals are).

The other key idea is that other animals are lower than us, and therefore we have a right to eat them because we are better than them.

Take this scenario: A super clever alien species comes down to earth and starts eating us because we taste a little better that their alternatives, and we don't matter to them because we are lower in terms of the evolutionary hierarchy. I am sure the reader would have a problem with that [hypothetical] alien morality, as I would. My point? Being an evolutionary notch above another species should not give us the right to use and abuse that other species as though their existence is worth nothing compared to our own.

Hence, finally, I do not believe it is moral to eat more meat than we need to eat for our survival and good health. How much meat is that? Usually none, though you could accept an individual substituting a small amount of red meat and fish into their diet for if they are concerned about their nutrition.

Conclusion:

Asking the world to go vegetarian is not realistic. Even if I'm completely right with respect to my moral argument, it's still just not going to happen. But what we can encourage is getting people to cut right back on the amount of meat they eat - this would be a big winner for both the individuals health and the environment as well.

I also think it is best to eat large, mature animals (not lamb) because they have been able to experience most of their lives, and you only need to farm and kill less of them because you get more meat out of each animal (less life taken and compromised).

I also like the idea of developing a kind of black pudding, which would be a vegetable protein base saturated in animal blood. Maybe we could surgically bleed animals (like milking) instead of killing them? Far more efficient, and you can still obtain much of the nutrients (and flavour) otherwise provided by meat. (Much of the flavour in meat comes from the blood that is naturally saturated in it). Also there is the possibility of growing meat in a lab, which is a developing technology.