why i'm not a vegetarian

So yesterday I read the NYT magazine piece by Jonathan Safron Foer on why he gave up meat. Before I get into anything further, I want to say that I thought it was a thoughtful, well-written piece and, like the most effective arguments for vegetarianism, emphasizes personal choice without being preachy. In addition to that, it prompted me to write about my own relationship to a lot of the ethical issues linked to what we eat.

It's no small secret that meat, at least in the forms most commonly available to us, is unhealthy in a lot of ways: environmentally, socially, and even medically. America's relationship with meat is highly flawed. It starts with the fundamentally imbalanced role meat plays in our diets. Most of us grew up believing that every meal should include some form of meat. Meat, grain or starch, and vegetable is a pretty formulaic approach to dinner that many have a hard time moving past. I must admit that at a very basic subconscious level, there is something about the image of a plate with a steak, mashed potatoes, and a green vegetable like broccoli that just says "balance" to me.

But this idea of a formula for mealtime is unhealthy and incorrect. Every meal need not include some type of meat. Humans are designed to be omnivores. But just because we can eat meat alongside our vegetables and grains does not mean we absolutely have to. The nutritional requirements that meat fulfills, while important, hardly justify our culture's obsession with meat — particularly with regards to the portions we consume. A habit of lunching on 8-ounce burgers or sandwiches loaded with 3 kinds of deli meat followed by dinners of 10-ounce steaks is what makes obesity one of the largest (pun fully intended) problems facing our culture.

This reliance on meat as the foundation of the American diet isn't just bad for our health but it's bad for the environment. As Safron Foer mentions, most of the meat we consume comes from factory farms which have devastating ecological impacts. The factory farms themselves create massive amounts of waste that degrade the environment and the entire system is sustained by a supply of cheap grain (mostly corn) that is possible only because of a massive system of government subsidies complete with its own devastating social and environmental implications. Beyond relying on chemicals and fossil fuels to thrive, industrial farming of corn allows genetically modified super-seeds to exist as a monoculture that triumphs over nature. Fields that should be fertile and teeming with life are sterile and the only thing living in them is the corn.

Socially this is problematic too as the U.S. system of subsidies (along with those practiced by the E.U. and other developed nations) make it nearly impossible for small farmers in developing countries to compete in the international market. As a result of this, local agricultural systems and traditions all over the world are dying. Many developing nations are dependent upon cheap agricultural imports from the developed world. This sets the international system up for a devastating tragedy if anything should affect the massive monoculture-based systems of the world's largest food producing nations and alter the artificially low price of these staple grains.

We've already seen a little bit of this. The demands for corn to be used in ethanol production put stress on the amount of corn available for food causing corn prices to rise to heights that had not been seen in years. In our increasingly globalized world where what happens in one part of the world is closely linked to someplace far away, this caused a spike in the prices of all sorts of foods worldwide. The result of this was a series of food riots, none worse than the ones that eventually toppled the government of Haiti.

Bryan Walsh examines the negative effects of our reliance on cheap food in a recent piece for Time that I think does a good job of offering a look at the interconnected nature of the choices we make at meal time. Eating the cheap meat that is so unhealthy for us props up an agricultural system that is killing fish in the Gulf of Mexico, thereby undermining a crucial source of healthy protein. It's just one example of a vicious cycle.

All of this seems like a compelling reason to give up meat until you examine the problems present within our food system as they relate to produce and grains. While a one-shot solution to the problem of ethical eating like "stop eating meat" would be much easier, that is not really possible for several reasons.

First and foremost, very few people that stop eating meat go fully vegan. Which means that it becomes impossible to escape the ethical conundrum that comes along with non-meat animal products like dairy and eggs. Conditions on dairy farms and in egg houses are just as bad as the conditions for animals raised for their meat. Aside from the living conditions, dairy cows and egg laying hens also are fed the hormones and antibiotics that many people criticize industrial meat operations for using.

If a person gives up meat but continues to eat cheese, they are likely consuming a product made with rennet, which is an enzyme produced in the stomachs of mammals that helps them digest their mother's milk. Used in cheesemaking, rennet functions to help coagulate the milk and separate curds and whey. Most rennet used in modern cheese making comes from calf stomachs that are the by-product of veal production. So buying veal and buying cheese made with animal rennet are not that far apart on the ethical scale of avoiding cruelty to animals. While there are alternatives available and the ingredient labels of many cheeses (particularly at stores like Whole Foods) make clear whether animal or vegetable rennet was used, it's difficult to know in every case, particularly when eating out.

Even if you avoid dairy products and eggs, there are many issues with the fruits, vegetables and grain available to us that have heavy ethical implications. Perhaps most obvious is that conventional produce and grain is usually cultivated using large amounts of pesticides and fertilizers. The pesticides used to produce the perfect red delicious apples we see at the store have devastating implications for the environment. They often kill living things beyond the pests they are intended for such as birds or helpful insects. The fertilizers that make it possible to grow grains on the same plot of land year after year with high yields are fossil fuel intensive and are merely one more component of an industrial food system that is largely founded on oil.

Beyond the chemicals needed to grow these items, some of the produce and a lot of the grain we consume is the result of genetic manipulation. While this has been going on for centuries as farmers would carefully cross plant breeds to achieve better specimens, the agricultural biotechnology industry has taken this to levels never seen before. Tomatoes have been engineered with properties from the DNA of fish that allow them to last longer on the shelf. While that is scary enough (if there's fish DNA in your tomato, is it really still vegetarian?), the most disturbing trend in agricultural biotechnology is the engineering of seeds to be resistant to specific herbicides and pesticides. The primary advantage of these seeds is that you can blanket the land with chemicals to kill all life forms that threaten your crop and the only thing that is able to survive these deadly chemicals is the crop itself. That makes it possible for farmers to achieve staggering yields and to turn the process of farming into a sterile and highly mechanized endeavor.

But even looking past the environmental implications of produce and grains that are cultivated through introduction of deadly chemicals into the environment there is the issue of supporting the larger industrial agriculture system. There are a handful of companies that own the technologies for the seeds and they also own the technology for the chemicals. Buy genetically modified (GM) Round-up Ready soybean seeds from Monsanto and you can plant them and be assured that they will survive a blanket application of Monsanto's intensive herbicide, Round-up. This has created a system in which there are fewer but larger farms and, despite being owned by the farmers in theory, our food supply is largely under the control of a few large companies like Dow and Monsanto (the same people who brought us napalm and Agent Orange).

And while it would stand to reason that these companies would have a vested interest in the success of the American farmer, they really don't. Monsanto has sued farmers for saving seeds that they did not plant the previous year and using them the following year arguing that this violates the farmer's technology agreement with Monsanto. These companies have gone into developing nations, taken seed varieties that were created through hundreds of years of cross-breeding by farmers, patented the seeds, and, in many cases, sold these seeds back to farmers at a much higher price.

One way to avoid some of these issues is to buy foods made from non-GM ingredients. Many companies that refuse to use GM crops label their products to indicate that. Unfortunately, the US government (on the strong urging of the ag biotech industry's powerful lobby) has refused to require mandatory labeling for foods that contain GMOs (genetically modified organisms). USDA-certified organic foods are prohibited from containing GMOs so that's one outlet. But even organic food is laden with its own issues.

For one thing, many "organic" farms look very similar to "conventional" farms. While they may not be using the same pesticides and fertilizers, they do cultivate foods on a large scale. To do so without the use of pesticides often requires quite a lot of human labor, usually supplied by workers (often immigrants) who are poorly compensated and not always treated fairly.

Another problem with even organic produce is that one must still contend with the issue of food miles. Because we live in a culture that has us conditioned to be able to eat whatever we want whenever we want it, much of the food available to us in the produce aisle is grown quite far from where we are. Unless you live in the southern hemisphere, chances are the organic strawberries you're buying in November come from a place quite far away. And a number of exotic fruits and vegetables don't even come with local alternatives. As much as it pains me, I will never be able to eat a locally grown avocado. One of my favorite foods ever is incapable of being grown in the climate where I live and so I every time I pick one up at my grocery store in DC I am picking something up that has traveled many fossil fuel-consuming miles to me from California, Chile, Mexico or another warm climate where the trees thrive.

The way around this is to become a locavore and eat only items that were produced locally (although even within the locavore movement there is a lot of division on what the term "local" should include...how many miles away is local??) thereby also ensuring that you are eating within season. So by becoming an organic, locavore, vegan one can avoid a lot of the ethical issues associated with the simple question of "what's for dinner?"

But that is not where I am personally. I feel that if I can obtain meat, dairy, and eggs from locally-raised, humanely treated animals then the only thing difference between myself and a vegetarian is the question of whether or not it is ethically responsible to eat another living creature. Scientifically, humans can eat meat. We are designed as omnivores and have the capacity to chew, digest, and nutritionally profit from meat. Our bodies require a number of nutrients that are difficult to obtain without animal products (difficult, but not impossible). Ethically, however, that question is not so simple to answer. Some people feel it is wrong to kill and eat another living thing. Based on the structure of interactions among animals in the natural world (the food chain), I personally do not think that it's morally wrong to eat another animal.

Once a person has settled that issue for him/herself, the biggest reasons to become vegetarian center around how most of our meat is raised, its effects on the environment, and its effects on health. I think that a lot of those issues are handled by changing the amount and kind of meat one eats. My approach for the last several months has been to eat less meat and to be pickier about what I do eat. I will not have meat at every single meal. I may have it two days in a row but not for the next three days after that.

One way to ensure that I eat less meat is to be more vigilant about what kind of meat I buy. Making a commitment to buy only meat that was humanely and sustainably raised and, whenever possible, locally raised is an expensive and sometimes difficult lifestyle to follow. This means that, just because of the higher cost and more limited availability of meat that lives up to those standards, I buy a lot less meat to cook at home. Additionally, this fosters an attitude of appreciation for meat. Because eating meat happens less often and in smaller portions, it becomes easier to look at it as a treat and to remain conscious of everything that went into what's on my plate.

The same thing goes for produce. I try very hard to eat produce that was grown locally and in season. The easiest way to do this is to shop at the farmers' market. DC has a wealth of farmers' markets, including the year-round FRESHFARM market at Dupont Circle every Sunday and the farmers' stands open on Saturday and Sunday at Eastern Market. These markets offer local, seasonal produce and, in many cases, will also sell local meat, eggs, and dairy.

To bring back the point from earlier about appreciating what's on your plate, few things make this more possible than shopping regularly at the farmers' market. For one thing, you get to know the people who are growing your food. Additionally, as the seasons change, you can become excited about the foods that are available to you now that were not to be found just a few short weeks ago. Another great way to do this is to sign up for a CSA (community supported agriculture) share. A CSA share involves paying a set amount for a weekly box of produce (and some offer eggs and milk) from a local farm.

All of this is great information for eating at home but what to do when you eat out or when you're a guest at someone else's table? Well, this is where I think it all comes down to how you think about food and eating. For me, food is so much more than something that merely keeps us alive and functioning. I have always been taught that food is an experience. It's a sensory experience to be enjoyed and it's a social experience to be shared with friends and family. Most of my greatest memories involve food. And while I remember the food itself, what makes it memorable is the fact that it facilitated great moments with people I love. An extremely restrictive diet makes this difficult. That I may be more restrictive in the kind of foods I put on my table does not mean I cannot enjoy a meal that someone has asked me to take part in that may not conform to my specific ideals.

What all of this really comes down to is something that I think Michael Pollan explores very well in his book The Omnivore's Dilemma. In the book, Pollan examines a number of ways of eating — conventional industrial agriculture, large-scale organic agriculture, "beyond organic" (basically small local farms), and commitment to consuming only those items you grow, gather, or hunt yourself. He helps kill chickens on a farm near Staunton, VA in one chapter, hunts wild boar in another, "buys" a steer from a CAFO (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation) and follows it from calf to steak, grapples with the choice of whether or not to be a vegetarian over a dinner at a steakhouse, forages for local mushrooms, visits a large organic farm in California that produces much of the arugula and mesculun mix we find at the grocery store and much more. After all of this, the conclusion he comes to is to neither condemn nor affirm one way of eating over another.

He readily admits at the end of the book that, despite knowing everything that goes into it, he will likely consume food that is the product of industrial agriculture again. He acknowledges that, while fulfilling, eating only that which you grow, hunt, or gather yourself is not always practical for everyday living in our society. So what was the point of all that work examining the different ways to get dinner on the table? Pollan argues that the best approach is to always be mindful. Whether you are eating a Big Mac, a salad of organic arugula grown on a large farm and shipped many miles to your local Whole Foods, or a chicken from a local farm and seasonal vegetables, it is simply important that you know where your food comes from and what the act of eating it means to you and to the world at large.

It may sound like moral relativism, it may sound like an excuse to avoid making ethical food choices, but I think it's really a call to treat something so fundamental to our lives, food, with the same respectful consideration and thoughtful evaluation as we would the decision of buying a car or voting for a candidate. And after a lot of consideration, I find that I'm comfortable being an omnivore who knows my place in the food chain and endeavors to make the most ethical and responsible choices while still being able to enjoy the experiences and pleasure that food facilitates.