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vegetarianism
I Loved a Sheep and I Also Loved Lamb Chops. Until I Realized the Two Were Not Compatible
We can build a more peaceful and healthy world right now, so let’s start eating for the future we want today.
Jan 21, 2024
I have many friends who adore their pets and regularly post photos of them on social media. Sometimes these same friends also post photos of their barbecues, or rather barbecued animals. My hunter and fisher friends often post selfies with the animals they’ve killed. They hold a fish dangling from a hook and smile unselfconsciously as the fish suffocates. Or they crouch behind the not-yet-cold bear they’ve shot, beaming with pride, with their beloved companion hunting dog by their side.
Our relationship with animals is full of contradictions—contradictions I understand well. I grew up an animal lover in New York City, stopping on the street for every dog I saw, begging for a dog of my own as a child, sobbing during any movie where an animal suffered. In high school, I befriended a sheep at the children’s zoo in Central Park. I named him Wooly Baba and visited him every week. Whenever I’d arrive and call his name, he’d come running up to me and lift his head for a neck scratch. I loved that sheep.
I also loved lamb chops. In fact, lamb chops were my favorite food. But one day, I could no longer pretend that there was some essential difference between Wooly Baba and the lamb chop on my plate. I considered becoming a vegetarian, but the truth was I didn’t want to give up the foods I liked, so I told myself that because the animals on my plate were already dead, I might as well eat them. I didn’t yet understand the laws of supply and demand. I didn’t realize that our dollar is our vote that says: “Good job. Do it again.”
Eventually, I came to understand that my choices had consequences, and that when I allowed my desires to eclipse my values by eating animals, I was actively participating in the suffering of those I claimed to love. My transformation from omnivore to pescatarian to vegetarian to vegan spanned eight years. I was a slow learner. Or rather, I was slow to commit to living more deeply aligned with my values. It’s true that in the 1970s and 80s, there wasn’t a lot of information on the abuses that occurred in modern farming, and few people had heard the word "vegan." Back then, “substitutes” for meat, dairy, and eggs tasted pretty awful.
Eventually, I came to understand that my choices had consequences, and that when I allowed my desires to eclipse my values by eating animals, I was actively participating in the suffering of those I claimed to love.
How different it is now. Many, if not most, people know that there is rampant cruelty in animal agriculture. It takes little time to learn that soy milk has basically the same amount of protein as cow’s milk but without antibiotic residues, pus, and the toxins that get carried up the food chain, nor to discover the terrible abuse perpetrated on dairy cows in typical factory farms. Many have become aware that fisheries are collapsing one after another as we trawl the oceans and net everything in the path, including the dolphins and turtles we are more inclined to love. And whereas it was once challenging to be vegan, now it’s easy.
I’ve heard so many reasons for not choosing a vegan diet, among them:
“I could never give up cheese and ice cream.”
“You can’t get enough protein on a vegan diet.”
“I have the wrong blood type.”
“We are omnivores, and it’s natural to eat animals. Other animals do so, so why shouldn’t we?”
I understand. I’m a CrossFitter, well aware of the protein needs associated with weight-lifting and high-intensity exercise. But the reality is that It’s almost impossible to become protein-deficient on a healthy vegan diet that meets one’s caloric needs, even if one is an athlete.
I also love the taste of meat, cheese, and eggs and know first-hand that it can be hard to give up the foods one loves, even if many of the plant-based alternatives now taste identical to those foods.
I have the same blood type that a naturopath claimed necessitated meat in one’s diet, but because there is no scientific evidence to support this claim, I have happily continued with my vegan diet for nearly 35 years, along with tens of millions of other vegans, and together our health and longevity provide quite a lot of counter-evidence that the blood type claim is bunk.
And I, too, recognize that non-human omnivores eat animals and that my body can digest meat as well as plants. That doesn’t mean I need to cause unnecessary suffering and death to animals just to please my taste buds.
I believe that one day, the vast majority of us will not eat slaughtered animals or force animals to produce milk and eggs for us.
As a humane educator—someone who teaches about the interconnected issues of animal protection, human rights, and environmental sustainability—I know that most people resist dietary changes even after they’ve learned that their food choices cause immense suffering, not to mention environmental damage. Such resistance can fade when we pay attention to, and educate ourselves about, the consequences of our actions. When the inconsistencies between our values and actions become so stark; when the destruction animal agriculture is wreaking on the planet becomes so urgent; when delicious vegan options become so abundant; and when the desire to live more compassionately becomes so compelling, we can and do change.
I believe that one day, the vast majority of us will not eat slaughtered animals or force animals to produce milk and eggs for us. This day will come when enough people have shifted their diets, and food companies have shifted along with them, changing the food production system to meet the ever-growing demand for humane, sustainable, and equitably produced food. When this critical mass causes a systemic shift, the rest of the population will shift, too. We eat what we eat because that is what is served to us at our dinner tables as children, in school cafeterias, and in restaurants and convenience stores. If what’s served is different, we’ll naturally go along with our new and more humane diets.
How wonderful it would be to speed this change and not wait and look back regretfully wondering why we held on so tenaciously to cruel systems, petting our dog while feasting on bacon; filling our bird feeders while chowing down on chicken wings. We can build a more peaceful and healthy world right now, so let’s start eating for the future we want today. A more compassionate world is just a meal away.
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“Vegetarian”…Why Not “Planetarian”?
Only with democracy—specifically a living democracy—can we transform our wasteful, destructive food system to ensure everyone’s fair access to healthy, ecologically grown food.
May 22, 2023
"Planetarian. What’s that?”
I am eager to explain. In the late sixties, as I struggled to find my path, Paul Ehrlich’s Population Bomb had just exploded, admonishing humanity for overpopulating the Earth and creating food scarcity. Soon, several friends even pledged never to have kids.
So, I had to know: Was Ehrlich right?
I dug in at U.C. Berkeley’s agricultural library with my dad’s slide rule in hand, asking: Is it true that we’re running out of food?
No. Emphatically no, I soon learned.
We did then—and do now—produce enough food for all. Yet decade after decade we turn abundance into scarcity for too many: Today, 1.3 billion people—1 in 6 of us—lack consistent access to the calories we need. And safe and healthy diets? They’re out of reach for almost 40 percent of humanity, and the crisis is predicted to worsen.
Why?
Simply put, our world’s gross power inequities—political and economic—are the root cause. As the richest 1 percent control about half the world’s wealth, food policies serve elite interests, not commonsense or our planet’s health.
When our dietary habits incorporate environmental, justice, and health awareness as well as animal welfare, might we be "planetarians"?
One result? Staggering inefficiency.
Humans directly eat only about half the calories we produce. And the other half? While some become biofuel, in the U.S. we devote three-fourths of agricultural land to livestock production. And, of every 100 feed calories that cows eat, we get only three calories back in that burger or steak on our plate. With dairy cows, we get less than half the calories they’re fed.
The big picture?
Worldwide, almost 80 percent of our agricultural land produces livestock that give us only 18 percent of our calories.
Other costs include vast environmental harms: Producing animal foods generates greenhouse gas emissions 10 to 60 times greater than producing plant-based foods. Plus, 60 percent of biodiversity loss worldwide is caused by livestock. Moreover, livestock grazing is responsible for almost 40 percent of global deforestation, worsening the climate and biodiversity crises. Natural historian David Attenborough warns us we are facing the 6th great species extinction, which requires a dietary shift toward plant food.
Plus, “industrialized livestock” generate 85 percent of soil erosion, also a major threat.
Next, water. Our heating climate diminishes fresh water supplies; yet to produce just one pound of beef we use 1,800 gallons of water. Globally, “animal agriculture” accounts for nearly a fifth of all freshwater use. Here in the U.S. cattle farming uses more than half the water drawn from the Colorado River, for example, even as area’s current water crisis already threatens many farms and puts dozens of fish species at risk.
Meat-centered diets also directly damage our health: In 2015, the WHO declared red meat a probable carcinogen and processed meat a carcinogen.
In sharp contrast, plant-centered diets have been shown to lower body weight, boost the immune system, and decrease cancer risk, coronary heart disease, and Type 2 diabetes. So, no surprise: A plant-centered diet is associated with “lower risk of all-cause mortality” in U.S. adults.
It makes no sense. Why would we humans—supposedly the brightest species—actively shrink our food supply?
Why?
Because the deeper scarcity we’ve failed to address is that of democracy. On political rights and civil liberties, Freedom House—confounded by Eleanor Roosevelt—ranks us way behind nations we think of as peers. The U.S. comes in 59th between Panama and Samoa. Yet, only with democracy can we transform our wasteful, destructive food system to ensure everyone’s fair access to healthy, ecologically grown food.
Thus, much of my life energies have gone toward what I call “living democracy” in which we each have both economic and political power.
So, how does shifting my diet serve democracy?
In nourishing ourselves we make multiple choices daily. That alone gives food special power. With each choice I know I am sending signals back through the food chain for sane, fair use of our Earth.
Suddenly, my every bite has delicious purpose. As a vegetarian, I’ve loved knowing I was protecting animals and avoiding massive waste. But now I wonder whether “vegetarian” captures the full impact of such food choices. So, what if we reconceive good eating as not just “plant-based,” but “planet-healing”?
When our dietary habits incorporate environmental, justice, and health awareness as well as animal welfare, might we be "planetarians"?
I believe that with every step aligning our lives with our deepest truths, we become more convincing to ourselves and thus to others—and more likely to take our next step and the next…with ever greater courage. And that’s exactly what our planet needs now more than ever.
So, “planetarian” feels great.
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