Let Them Eat Meat

8/11/2014
Let Them Eat Meat
LET THEM EAT MEAT

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July 23, 2014 11 21 AM
The Argument from Enlightened Future People

Will future people look back on us with scorn for eating meat? Click on the headline to see
my take on this at Ethos Review.
An ex-vegan on veganism. By Rhys

Southan
letthemeatmeat [ at ] gmail [ dot ] [
com ].
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July 13, 2014 5 20 PM
Why Vegan Diets For Infants Are Controversial, Part

Four: Could an Animal Rights Ethic Bias Vegan
Nutrition Experts?
If you want the hunting and farming of animals for food to end, it would help your cause if
it turned out that humans could healthfully thrive on a vegan diet. So lets say there are
some dietitians who want the hunting and farming of animals for food to end, and theyre
telling you that humans can thrive on a vegan diet do you trust them?
For some reason, vegan dietitian Ginny Messinas short blog post Safety of Diet for Vegan
Babies which is about how veganism was nothing but an incidental detail in the recent
case of a vegan parent endangering the life of her infant inspired me to write multiple
related posts in response. This will be the last one.
In the comments to Messinas post, I said that vegans cant really argue that veganism is
the best for babies, and that it didnt help vegan dietitian credibility that so many vegan
dietitians arrived at veganism through ethics rather than health. Messina disagreed,
writing:
Rhys, if there is no health argument for veganism, then how can it be problematic when
vegan dietitians are motivated by ethics? Id be far more likely to question the credibility
of someone who insists they know the one and only healthy way to eat. And if there is
more than one way to eat to support good health, why not promote the option that is
most ethical? I dont see that as a problematic stance.
What Messina says here makes some sense, but shes overlooking the concern people may
have that if your ethics have you wishing for the entire world to go vegan, you potentially
have an incentive to present vegan nutrition in the best possible light. Thinking merely
that veganism is the healthiest diet without caring whether the world goes vegan or not
seems to come with less risk of an incentive to exaggerate veganisms positives.

What Messina is getting at, though, is that the people who do end up pushing a vegan diet
purely forFollow
its health benefits, and who might not care about the ethical or environmental
aspects of it, often end up being less credible and science-oriented than the ethicsmotivated vegan dietitians. The people who promote veganism as the healthiest diet and
only care about human health are often married to a specific form of the vegan diet, and
that gives them a marketable ideal diet to sell. Build your career on that marketable diet,
and science becomes something to cherry pick when it defends your diet and to ignore
when it doesnt.
The ethics-motivated vegan dietitians, in contrast, want the world to go vegan, but they
dont necessarily have a patentable vision of how this veganism should look. They want
vegans to be healthy so they can stay vegan and they want outsiders to view veganism in
general as not detrimental to health, but theyre not stuck arguing that a low-carb/lowfat/all-fruit/macrobiotic or whatever else veganism is clearly the healthiest diet in the
world. Therefore, they can acknowledge studies that look bad for say an all-starch diet
without destroying their careers.
Not that this eliminates all possible incentive for pro-veg bias. Even if vegan dietitians
arent pushing a specific kind of veganism, they do still want humans to stop consuming
all animal products. What prevents vegan dietitians from saying, All animal products are
highly detrimental to health and in general most plants are good for health, so as long as
you dont eat only vegan junk food, youll be healthier if you go vegan and
coincidentally the animals will be better off too?
This is essentially what the vegan MD Dr. Michael Greger does, or at least thats how I and
some other people see it. Greger went vegan for animal rights reasons in 1990, and he
began his veg activism by hyping the dangers of mad cow disease and possible link
between beef consumption and Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease. Now he makes nutrition videos
and speeches that review studies showing the harms of all animal products, the benefits
of many plant foods, and the harms of some plants. If you watch enough of his videos, it
becomes clear that eating plants has a ton of advantages while animal products are close
to 100 percent bad with the possible exception of insects.
Greger isnt selling a particular form of veganism, even though he does see some problem
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plants that should be avoided, like coconut meat and oil because he opposes saturated
fat. Still, I doubt well ever hear anything good about animal products from him, no matter
what the science says, and as obsessed as he is with antioxidants and phytonutrients, if
the research started showing them as useless or harmful, I would expect him to find a way
never to accept that. Harriet Hall at Science-Based Medicine seems to feel the same way,
and Joe Schwartz, Director of McGill Universitys Office for Science & Society, wrote a
bemused and not entirely negative post about Gregers fixation on all the negative things
about eating animals.
I havent watched anything close to every one of Gregers videos, so its possible that
theres more nuance than Ive seen. Or maybe there is no nuance and Greger is giving a
fair representation of the science, which happens to be that its universally harmful to
consume animal products. I of course have my own biases, but what it looks like to me is
that Dr. Greger is using nutrition as a form of vegan outreach, and that might be
influencing the sorts of studies he finds and discusses.
However, dietitians Jack Norris and Ginny Messina are themselves evidence that Messina
might be right that we can trust ethics-motivated vegan dietitians. Together they wrote
Vegan for Life, which I thought provided such a good overview of nutrition science that I
recommended it to a non-vegan roommate who wanted to learn more about nutrition. If
Id thought they were blinded by their pro-vegan bias, I wouldnt have done that. Messina
and especially Norris dont seem to be using their nutrition work as a form of outreach. As
much as they would like more people to become vegan, their audience is primarily vegans
who want to keep up on the science behind plant-based nutrition, and stay vegan; Norris
and Messina are doing inreach rather than outreach, and the incentive for pro-vegan bias
might be weaker with inreach.
Its not that Norris is adverse to outreach. He co-founded Vegan Outreach with the goal of
racking up as many vegan conversions as possible. But he got into nutrition because
during his activism work he heard from a lot of people who experienced health problems
as vegans and went back to eating animal products. He became a dietitian so he could try
to do something about this. If the goal is to prevent vegans from feeling unhealthy and
running back to animal products, it doesnt work to just say, Veganism is the best diet,
you cant go wrong with it. You actually have to pay attention to the science and figure
out what vegans need to do to stay healthy. That seemingly frees Norris to look more
honestly at the research and see what it says about veganism, good and bad.
Messina was already a dietitian when she became vegetarian and then vegan for ethical
reasons, but she now seems to largely share Norris nutritional philosophy, which is
basically that even if veganism isnt necessarily the healthiest diet conceivable, its healthy
enough that health concerns shouldnt override the ethical obligation to be vegan. They
cant exactly say, you should raise your child vegan because thats in the best interest of
your child. Instead they have to say, you should raise your child vegan because thats in
the best interest of non-human animals. Fortunately this need not entail any health
sacrifices on your childs part, and it might even come with some health bonuses, though
we cant be sure. The point is that the consequences of changing your diet between nonvegan and vegan are supposed to be largely ethical, not nutritional. Thats good news for
those who want animal farming to end, if not the very best news, which would be that
animal products kill us the second they touch our mouths.
When the goal of nutrition research and writing is to keep people vegan rather than to
make new vegans, it seems like potential for bias is less of a concern. But as I discussed in
Final Thoughts on the American Dietetic Association/Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics
Vegetarian Position Papers, the potential for bias in vegetarian and vegan dietitians
sometimes does lead to biased results. A classic case of vegan dietitians being too eager
to ignore veganisms possible risks was when they said vegans didnt have to worry much
about calcium because a lower-protein diet was better for retaining calcium. This is from
a 1991 Vegetarian Times article called, Six Steps to a Balanced Diet:
There is also evidence, says [vegan dietitian Reed] Mangels, that vegetarians may not
need as much calcium as meat eaters because people who eat lower protein diets
excrete less calcium than people who eat high-protein diets. The RDAs for calcium were
made for people consuming typical American high-protein diets, Mangels explains. For
those whose protein intake is lower but adequate, or whose protein is from nonanimal
sources, calcium intakes below the RDAs are probably adequate.
The bottom line for vegetarians is if youre going to eat diary products, you should use
them as a condiment, not an entre, says [Suzanne] Havala.
This was a common belief amongst vegans at the time. In 1990, Messina wrote to the New
York Times, A high-protein intake, especially a high intake of animal protein, is linked
with loss of calcium from the body. Our love affair with protein may be increasing our risk
of osteoporosis.
The argument that vegans didnt need to worry about calcium because they didnt eat
animal protein had real consequences, as Reed Mangels herself later noted in a comment
on Jack Norriss blog:
Ive been troubled for some time by emails from long-term vegans who are now in their
60s and have (to their shock) osteoporosis despite weight bearing exercise and plenty of
fruits and vegetables (but very low calcium, protein, and vitamin D). The situation
reminds me a bit of where vitamin B12 was at one point. Some people were saying that
you didnt need much and that stores could last a long time and, basically not to worry
about it. Then, vegans started experiencing B12 deficiencies. More people seem to be
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aware of vitamin B12 this days. Perhaps the same awareness is warranted for calcium,
vitamin D, and adequate but not excessive protein.
Some vegans would blame Mangels mistake on the state of osteoporosis research at the
time she was telling vegans not to worry about calcium, yet Mangels was already getting
called out for being too easy on veganism in the same year she told Vegetarian Times that
animal protein was the big culprit in osteoporosis. In 1991, also in Vegetarian Times,
Brian Ruppenthal (co-author of The New Laurels Kitchen) wrote:
Of course, Mangels is not a disinterested reviewer, and her summaries occasionally
reveal her pro-vegan bias. For example, her section on osteoporosis features studies
that concluded that American vegetarians tend to have better bone structure and less
osteoporosis than nonvegetarians. What she doesnt point out is that these studies
looked at lacto-ovo-vegetarians, not vegans. Or shell omit the negative studies;
virtually all studies of the reproductive performance of vegans (which includes the
health of the mother during pregnancy and the infant) up until the Farm study were
quite discouraging, for example, but Mangels mentions only the Farm study in her
summary.
This isnt to say that a vegan diet isnt healthful; in fact, the Farm study shows that it is
possible for vegans to have healthy pregnancies and healthy toddlers, but that such
results depend on a level of commitment, common sense and knowledge of nutrition
like that of the Farm community. But most people pay very little attention to their diets.
For those who adopt a restricted diet and arent attentive to nutrition, this can lead to
problems. Mangels easy confidence in veganism as a healthy diet for all people
therefore left me uneasy.
This doesnt mean we can never trust Mangels again, but it does seem to be one example
of a belief in vegan ethics leading to unfounded nutritional conclusions in veganisms
favor. Fortunately, it does look like vegan dietitians have learned from specific mistakes
like this; if theyre making new mistakes because of bias, I dont know what they are.
Theres also bias potential when religion and dietetics mix. Seventh-day Adventists
believe that God told their prophet Ellen G. White that vegetarianism was the most suitable
diet for humankind. Perhaps not coincidentally, Seventh-day Adventist dietitians have
been leaders in showing that vegetarianism is one of the healthiest diets for mankind.
Even Ginny Messina used to mix religion and dietetics, as when she and her husband
wrote that soy was a miracle from God and that Genesis describes all the foods that we
need, which happen to be vegan. Potential for bias is of course different than definitive
documented bias that does in fact misinterpret research as a way to peddle ideology; in
itself, it proves nothing. Its just something to keep in mind.
My ongoing frustration with some vegan dietitians is that they pretend like this potential
for bias isnt there, which makes this potential seem more serious than it might really be.
Mostly Im thinking of when vegan dietitians cite the Academy of Nutrition and
Dietetics/American Dietetic Association vegetarian position papers without ever saying
that its vegans and vegetarians who author these papers.
It makes sense that vegetarians and vegans write these papers, because theyre generally
going to be the most familiar with the science on vegan and vegetarian diets. My main
complaint is that vegans often use these papers as a way of saying, Look, its not just
people who believe in an ethical obligation to be vegan who say that vegan diets are safe
conservative mainstream dietary organizations are saying it too! It could sound a little
less impressive if they added, By the way, its the ethics and religion motivated vegans
and vegetarians at those organizations who are saying this. I would like to see vegan
dietitians talk about their involvement in these position papers and explain why we
shouldnt worry about bias there, because they could probably make a plausible case if
they ever got around to acknowledging this issue.
That its convenient for ethical vegan dietitians if veganism is acceptably healthy doesnt
mean vegan dietitians are skewing the science it could in fact be the case that a wellplanned vegan diet just happens to be acceptably healthy.
7 Comments
5 notes
July 10, 2014 3 54 PM
The American Academy of Pediatrics on a Vegan Diet

for Children
In her recent post about vegan diets for babies, vegan dietitian Ginny Messina wrote, Both
the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics and the American Academy of Pediatrics say that
appropriate vegan diets are safe for babies. (And in case youre wondering, omnivore diets
for babies need to be appropriate as well.) Im used to vegans citing the Academy of
Nutrition and Dietetics (formerly the American Dietetic Association) to establish that
theres a mainstream nutritional organization that is okay with veganism, but this is the
first time Ive seen the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) used in the same way. That
inspired me to look into what the AAP has said about vegan diets for babies.
I emailed Debra Burrowes, who is the Manager of the Division of Technical & Medical
Services for the AAP, and asked her if the AAP states that appropriate vegan diets are safe
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for babies. She responded, The AAP does not have a specific policy statement on the
vegan diet; however AAPs Pediatric Nutrition Handbook, 7th edition, includes a chapter
on the nutritional aspects of vegetarian diets. Some information regarding vegan diets is
included within the chapter.
Here are some excerpts from that chapter, called Nutritional Aspects of Vegetarian Diets.
I left in the source numbers of sources that Ill refer to:
Vegetarianism is a way of life for many individuals for various reasons. However, there
can be potentially serious implications for the growing pediatric and adolescent
population as a result of self-imposed or misguided limitations of the vegetarian diet.
Therefore, pediatricians should proactively ask and assess the nutritional status of their
vegetarian patients to ensure optimal health and growth, as well as provide anticipatory
guidance to prevent any potential deficits.
As with any dietary pattern, the degree of adherence to vegetarian patterns varies, and
thus, overall nutrient intake differs from one vegetarian to the next. Most dietary
patterns can be accommodated while fulfilling nutrient needs with appropriate dietary
planning based on scientific principles of sound nutrition. Most vegetarian parents
welcome such advice. However, when goals are zealously pursued and nutrition
principles are ignored, the health consequences can be unfortunate, especially for
infants and young children. Overall, it is possible to provide a balanced diet to
vegetarians and vegans13.
Position papers of the American Dietetic Association and Canadian Paediatric Society
state that appropriately planned vegetarian diets are healthful, nutritionally adequate
and provide health benefits in the prevention and treatment of certain diseases14,15. A
vegetarian, including a vegan, diet can also meet current recommended daily
requirements for protein, iron, zinc, calcium, vitamin D, riboflavin, vitamin B12, vitamin
A, n-3 omega fatty acids and iodine. In some cases, use of fortified foods or
supplements can be helpful in meeting recommendations for individual nutrients. Well
planned vegan and other types of vegetarian diets are appropriate for all stages of the
life cycle including pregnancy, lactation, infancy, childhood and adolescence. Vegetarian
diets in general have lower levels of saturated fat, cholesterol and higher levels of
complex carbohydrates, fiber, magnesium, Vitamin C and E14 carotenoids and
phytochemicals16.
There have been concerns that vegetarians, and in particular vegans, have lower than
adequate intakes of vitamin B12, vitamin D, calcium, zinc and riboflavin. A Polish study
suggested that prepubertal vegetarian children had lower levels of leptin, a polypeptide
which plays a role in bone growth, maturation and weight regulation, in comparison to
their omnivore counterparts, which may contribute towards reduced bone growth and
development in childhood. A vegan diet may also put children at risk for vitamin A
deficiency and subsequent keratomalacia, anemia, protein and zinc deficiency if a proper
evaluation of the diet isnt performed and the family isnt given appropriate information
of the potential dietary deficiencies relevant to the vegetarian diet. However the overall
belief that individuals following vegan or vegetarian diets suffer from nutritional
deficiencies may be exaggerated, as reports of specific malnutrition in these populations
are rare.
The study they cite for the line, Overall, it is possible to provide a balanced diet to
vegetarians and vegans is C Jacobs and Johanna Dwyers 1988 paper, Vegetarian
children: appropriate and inappropriate diets (Am J Clin Nutr, 1988; 48:811-818).
Dwyer and Jacobs are friendlier toward vegetarian than vegan diets in the study,
concluding:
An appropriate vegetarian diet can adequately provide for each phase of growth in the
child. The nutritional needs at each stage vary. In general, it is difficult to achieve normal
growth following a vegan-like diet unless care is taken to ensure that the diet is
sufficient in calories, protein, vitamin B-12, vitamin D, and Fe. Well-planned lactoovoand lactovegetarian diets for children, on the other hand, can provide adequate
nutrition. Further, they may help establish healthful patterns that will continue through
all the stages of life.
The third paragraph I excerpted from the AAPs Nutritional Aspects of Vegetarian Diets
chapter appears to be a paraphrasing of two main sources, one of them being the most
recent Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics (formerly American Dietetic Association)
position paper on a vegetarian diet from 2009 (source 14). The authors of that position
paper are Reed Mangels, who is vegan for ethical reasons, and Winston J. Craig, a
Seventh-day Adventist vegetarian who believes that God told the Seventh-day Adventist
prophet Ellen G. White that a vegetarian diet was the only appropriate diet for humankind.
I bring this up because vegans often cite the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics position
paper on a vegetarian diet as proof that a mainstream organization agrees with them, and
Ive never seen them mention that its vegans and vegetarians who write these position
papers. Ive even seen vegan dietitians cite one of these position papers to establish
mainstream cred for veganism without admitting that they were one of the authors on that
specific paper, or of a similar one from a previous year.
The other main source for that third paragraph I quoted from Nutritional Aspects of
Vegetarian Diets is Vegetarian diets in children and adolescents by Minoli Amit of the
Canadian Paediatric Society (source 15). The introduction of Amits paper states:
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The concept that a well-balanced vegetarian diet can provide for the needs of a growing
child and adolescent is supported by Canadas Food Guide, the American Dietetic
Association and Dietitians of Canada, and the American Academy of Pediatrics. There is
sufficient evidence from well-developed studies to conclude that children and
adolescents grow and thrive well on vegetarian diets that are well designed and
supplemented appropriately.
However, certain components of these diets and some required nutrients may be in
short supply and need specific attention. This is particularly true in the case of strictly
vegan diets and other very restrictive diets in which significant medical consequences
could result from inattention to nutrient needs. The present statement highlights some
of these areas and recommends appropriate interventions.
By referencing this paper, the American Academy of Pediatrics is using the Canadian
Paediatric Society as support for the claim that a well-balanced vegetarian diet can be safe
and in return, the Canadian Paediatric Society references the American Academy of
Pediatrics as support for the claim that a well-balanced vegetarian diet can be safe.
The Canadian Paediatric Society paper goes on to list some concerns they have with a
vegan diet, which includes that younger vegan children are at risk of not getting enough
calories if they eat too many foods that have low energy density and a lot of fiber. It says
that parents of vegan children need to pay special attention to DHA, B12, calcium, and
Vitamin D.
The paper concludes:
Well-planned vegetarian and vegan diets with appropriate attention to specific nutrient
components can provide a healthy alternative lifestyle at all stages of fetal, infant, child
and adolescent growth (7,8,22). Appropriate education of the family and follow-up over
time are essential. There are many useful tools and excellent guides to assist families
and professionals.
The cited papers there 7, 8 and 12 are: the 2003 vegetarian position paper by the
American Dietetic Association, which Ginny Messina, Reed Mangles, and vegan
dietitian Vesanto Melina co-authored; the 6th edition of the AAPs Pediatric Nutrition
Handbook; and a paper called Considerations in planning vegetarian diets: Children, by

Ginny Messina and Reed Mangles (J Am Diet Assoc. 2001;101:6619).
For the most part, the rest of Nutritional Aspects of Vegetarian Diets looks at the various
pluses and minuses of vegetarian and vegan diets as far as obtaining particular nutrients.
The AAP doesnt seem to be worried about vegan children getting enough calories,
protein, fat, fiber, vitamin A, riboflavin or folic acid. They are more concerned about vegan
children getting enough B12, vitamin D, calcium, iodine, zinc, iron and DHA, but they
dont think its impossible for vegans to get these things. They also mention carnitine and
taurine commonly being low in vegetarians and vegans, but they arent bothered about
this because they dont know of any adverse effects this could have.
My impression from reading this chapter is that the AAP certainly wouldnt suggest a
vegan diet to anyone who doesnt see ethical or religious reasons to be vegan, but that
they also dont believe that its unworkable. Overall, it is possible to provide a balanced
diet to vegetarians and vegans seems to sum up their attitude.
However, just like not everyone at the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics seems very
accepting of a vegan diet, not everyone at the AAP appears to think that a vegan diet is a
decent option for children. On page 303 of the AAPs Caring for Your Baby and Young
Child: Birth to Age Five by American Academy Of Pediatrics (Fifth edition, 2009, edited by
Steven P. Shelov and Tanya Remer Altmann), it says:
For some children, however, supplementation may be important. Your child may need
some vitamin and/or mineral supplementation if your familys dietary practices limit the
food groups available to her. For example, if your household is strictly vegetarian, with
no eggs or dairy products (which is not a diet recommended for children), she may need
supplements of vitamin B12 and D as well as riboflavin and calcium.
A post on Jack Norris RDs blog in 2011 noted that the AAP was thinking of promoting red
meat as the best first solid food to introduce to infants, quoting AAP Committee on
Nutrition member Frank Greer as saying, Red meat is the nutrient-rich food that
biologically may be best as the first complementary feeding for infants. The link Norris
used is broken now, but I found a story about Greer making a similar claim in 2009, called
Rice Cereal Can Wait, Let Them Eat Meat First.
According to the AAP paper titled Use of Soy Protein-Based Formulas in Infant Feeding
by Jatinder Bhatia and Frank Greer, there is one definite instance in which they feel a
vegan infancy may not be workable: when a prematurely born infant doesnt have access
to breast milk. They wrote,
On the other hand, soy protein-based formulas are not recommended for preterm
infants. Serum phosphorus concentrations are lower, and alkaline phosphatase
concentrations are higher in preterm infants fed soy protein-based formula than they
are in preterm infants fed cow milk-based formula. As anticipated from these
observations, the degree of osteopenia is increased in infants with low birth weight
receiving soy protein-based formulas. Even with supplemental calcium and vitamin D,
radiographic evidence of significant osteopenia was present in 32% of 125 preterm
infants fed soy protein-based formula. The cow milk protein-based formulas designed
for preterm infants are clearly superior to soy protein-based formula for preterm
infants.
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As Messina pointed out to me in a comment on her blog, soy protein based formula isnt
vegan either, because it contains vitamin D3 that is derived from animals. But she implied
that this was a better option for vegans than cow-milk based formula, which is even less
vegan.
Overall, though, its not ideal, but well work with it seems to be the AAPs unofficial
implied motto in regards to vegan diets. Thats the sense I get from an article called
Vegetarian Diets for Children on the AAP website Healthychildren.org:
If your child is following a vegetarian diet, you need to guard against nutri
tional
deficiencies. There are various degrees of vegetarianism, and the strict
ness of the diet
will determine whether your youngster is vulnerable to nutritional shortcomings.
Children can be well nourished on all three types of vegetarian diet, but nu
tritional
balance is very difficult to achieve if dairy products and eggs are com
pletely eliminated.
Vegetarians sometimes consume insufficient amounts of calcium and vitamin D if they
remove milk products from their diet.
Also, because of the lack of meat products, vegetarians sometimes have an inadequate
iron intake. They may also consume insufficient amounts of vita
min B-12, zinc, and
other minerals. If their caloric intake is also extremely low, this could cause a delay in
normal growth and weight gain.
Vegetarians may also lack adequate protein sources. As a result, you need to ensure that
your child receives a good balance of essential amino acids. As a general guideline, his
protein intake should come from more than one source, combining cereal products
(wheat, rice) with legumes (dry beans, soybeans, peas), for example; when eaten
together, they provide a higher quality mixture of amino acids than if either is consumed
alone.
Other planning may be necessary. To ensure adequate levels of vitamin B-12, you might
serve your child commercially prepared foods fortified with this vitamin. While calcium is
present in some vegetables, your child may still need a calcium supplement if he does
not consume milk and other dairy prod
ucts. Alternative sources of vitamin D might also
be advisable if there is no milk in the diet. Your pediatrician may recommend iron
supplements, too, al
though your child can improve his absorption of the iron in
vegetables by drinking citrus juice at mealtime.
A Zen macrobiotic diet usually presents many more problems than a vege
tarian diet.
With a macrobiotic program, important foods (animal products, vegetables, and fruit) are
severely restricted in stages. This diet is generally not recommended for children.
Youngsters who adhere to it may experience seri
ous nutritional deficiencies that can
impair growth and lead to anemia and other severe complications.
Given all this, does Ginny Messinas claim that the AAP says that appropriate vegan diets
are safe for babies hold up?
I think it holds up well enough, with the exception of premature infants who dont have
access to breast milk. The AAP may surround much of their talk of vegan diets for babies
with negative words like difficult, but thats not the same as saying unsafe.
Even when Caring for Your Baby and Young Child: Birth to Age Five says, For example, if
your household is strictly vegetarian, with no eggs or dairy products (which is not a diet
recommended for children) its not clearly stating that vegan diets are unsafe for
children. They seem to be suggesting that a vegan diet is riskier for babies, maybe, or
more challenging, or just not the first recommendation they would make. But thats not
exactly the same as saying unsafe.
I doubt that very many people at the AAP are crazy about vegan diets, but I dont see
anyone from the AAP overtly calling them dangerous.
1 Comment
9 notes
July 6, 2014 4 29 PM

Three: People Are Suspicious of Non-Nutritionally
Motivated Dietary Restrictions For Kids
One of the reasons veganism becomes more controversial once children are born into it is
that its a philosophy that potentially has nutritional consequences without necessarily
having nutritional intent. In other words, the point of veganism is to foster an ethical
relationship between human and nonhuman animals, yet practicing this ethical
relationship means humans might have more trouble getting certain nutrients that are
more prevalent in animal foods. (Or, if theyre lucky, they might instead end up
healthier.) Whether it grievously harms animals to raise them to be our food tells us
nothing about whether its healthful for us to eat animals or not. So if parents are raising
their child as a vegan to reduce animal suffering, it impacts their kids diet without the
kids wellbeing serving as the primary motivator.
In contrast, when health-conscious parents, say, starve their children of carbs, they are at
least inspired by nutritional concerns, however misguided. Raising a child on an unusual
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diet for health reasons is controversial too, but only because most people will assume the
diet is based on questionable science. The objection is not that parents are tinkering with
the childs diet out of concern for the childs health, but that because the parents have
these weird, likely uninformed nutritional ideas, theyre accidentally harming their children
more than helping them. Vegan parents unless they are motivated purely by the belief
that veganism is the healthiest diet for their children are in the more awkward position
of intentionally restricting the diet of their children for non-nutritional reasons. In that
sense, ethical veganism for babies is kind of like putting your baby on a hunger strike in
protest of working conditions overseas.
But there are all sorts of behaviors that have nutritional consequences without nutritional
intent. When financial issues limit dietary options, nutrition is compromised out of
necessity. Eating pizza instead of vegetables because you like pizza better has nutritional
consequences, even if those consequences are an afterthought or not thought about at all.
One difference between this and animal rights veganism is that to the extent pizza vs.
veggies is a conscious, considered choice, its generally a selfish cost-benefit decision:
Would I rather have a meal that might make me feel better in the long run, or do I want a
meal that gives me pleasure right now? In ethically motivated veganism, the deliberation
over (non-vegan) pizza and vegetables isnt to do with financial necessity and its not
exactly a choice between two different selfish options; its more like choosing between
selfishness and altruism. Most people are fine with adults choosing altruism over their
own wellbeing, but are less okay with parents choosing altruism over their childs
wellbeing. (That there is an actual conflict between a childs wellbeing and their being
vegan is of course up for debate, but for those who believe theres something healthy or
just delicious about animal products, there is at least a perceived conflict.)
Some people wouldnt use altruism the way I just did, because they dont think altruism
even exists, since everything we do ends up being selfish the reason we choose to help
animals instead of eating pizza is because it feels good to do so, we avoid guilt, we get to
feel proud of our ethical beliefs, etc. I dont have strong feelings about this claim either
way, but it gets at something that makes veganism seem like an especially raw deal for
infants. The parents of vegan children win because they get to feel good about
perpetuating their ethics through their children, theoretical future farm animals win
because they get to escape being born to become food, but what does the vegan child get
out of this? Maybe later the kid will be proud to be vegan from birth, or then again, maybe
not. That makes infant veganism a bit like religiously motivated infant circumcision as far
as the childs wellbeing is concerned: not so great before personal identity and ethical
beliefs are formed, but something the child may get into later if their personal identity and
beliefs converge with wanting to be circumcised/be vegan.
Another comparison might be to religiously motivated dietary restrictions like kashrut or
halal, but most people arent going to see it as a major health worry if a child can eat
cows, chickens, lambs, and fishes, but not pigs. (Interestingly, though, non-religious
vegans have a little more flexibility than kashrut-observing Jews in one regard: they can
arguably eat oysters and mussels.) The more foods that a religious or ethical system
demands you sacrifice for your higher cause, the more concerned outsiders will be for the
children whose diets are constrained because of it.
This is why there is so much pressure on vegans to convince the world that theres is no
significant nutritional difference between veganism and omnivorism, or that veganism is a
nutritional plus. (Kind of like the arguments that infant circumcision isnt that harmful,
and may even be beneficial.) That way, veganism for infants allows the parents to live their
ethics and for potential future farm animals to not be born, while imposing no health cost
on the child. But outsiders are going to have trouble siding with vegans on this when
people often link dietary restriction and nutritional deprivation, when babies sometimes
need non-vegan medications, when infants have a reputation of being worse at
weathering nutritional deficiency than adults are, and when people are suspicious of
dietary restrictions that come about from non-nutritionally-related ethical beliefs.
Because of all this, its easy for non-vegans to lump ethics-based veganism for babies
into the category of health-impacting non-nutritional beliefs that include Christian
Scientist parents who withhold medical treatment from their babies for religious reasons
no matter what the science actually says about vegan diets for babies.
Part four will look at the issue of vegan dietitian credibility in light of the ethical motive for
wanting veganism to be nutritionally sound.
1 Comment
4 notes
July 5, 2014 5 48 PM

Two: Dietary Restriction and Nutritional Deficiency are
Intuitively Linked
In her recent blog post Safety of Vegan Diets for Babies, vegan RD Ginny Messina
criticizes journalists who are quick to label vegan diets dangerous when a baby who
happens to be vegan dies or gets sick. I wrote about that post and the latest controversy
surrounding irresponsible vegan parenting yesterday. But Messinas entry made me think
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about a couple of other things, one of them being, Why is veganism so easy to blame
when a vegan child gets sick or dies?
Messina wrote:
Why is it that journalists cant [figure out that veganism itself isnt to blame when a
vegan child dies or gets sick]?
I see two issues here for vegan activists. First there is no shortage of bad nutrition
information floating around the internet. It creates the potential for people to make poor
choices for themselves and their children.
Second, veganism is still pretty unusual in our society. Our diets are regarded with some
suspicion and they give rise to lots of questions. This means its always more newsworthy when a vegan child gets sick than when a child in a meat-eating family develops
deficiencies.
I think Messina overlooked a third issue, which is that veganism is a form of dietary
restriction, and many people automatically link dietary restrictions to a decrease in
nutritional variety and thus an increase in a deficiency risk. Babies and children are
thought of as particularly vulnerable to nutritional deficiency because they are notoriously
picky and yet need plenty of nutrients to grow, which if you believe that restriction
means an added risk of deficiency implies that significant dietary restriction is chancier
for them. Plus, being babies and children, they have limited control over their diets, so
even if they dont feel like theyre getting what they need from whatever their parents are
allowing them to eat, they cant necessarily try a non-vegan approach the way nonthriving vegan adults can.
People who tend to link dietary restriction with nutrient deficiency risk will already worry
about babies and children having their dietary options tethered because of veganism, so
when they hear about a vegan baby who died from a nutrient deficiency, theyll
unsurprisingly assume that the dietary restriction of veganism is to blame.
Its not only vegans who have to deal with this. The Salon article that Messina criticized as
a typical instance of journalists unfairly bashing veganism also linked to a story
expressing concern over actress Gwyneth Paltrow starving her children of carbs because
Paltrow doesnt feed her children pasta, bread or rice. People are generally suspicious of
restricting the diets of babies and children in unusual ways, and thats a significant PR
problem for any version of veganism that frames itself as a dietary restriction.
Of course restriction and deficiency arent inextricably linked. If you banish candy and
alcohol from your diet, the main consequence is likely to be an increase in nutritional
diversity by freeing up space for healthier, nutrient dense foods. But you cant make a
direct analogy from anti-sugar-and-booze-ism to restricting all animal foods, since
animal products can be relatively dense in some macronutrients, vitamins and minerals
that are less prevalent in whole plant foods.
When a vegan babys death is due in part to a deficiency of a nutrient that is prevalent in
animal foods and less so in whole plant foods, vegans tend to steer the debate toward the
fact that a particular babys death didnt have to happen within a vegan framework. Those
French vegan parents Sergine and Joel Le Moaligou were inexcusable fools who didnt
believe in supplements, mistrusted doctors, and breastfed their child for too long, and
that rather than veganism is why their baby died. Whatever the nutritional problem in
question, it is usually possible to address it in a vegan way. Or, if its not like in the
case of a desperately needed non-vegan medication or formula all reasonable vegans
will realize that they should make an exception there.
The problem is that ethics-inspired veganism as a restriction on animal consumption is a
negative rather than a positive philosophy. I dont mean its pessimistic, I just mean it tells
you what not to do rather than what to do. Vegans cant purchase and consume animal
products because that contributes to animal suffering and exploitation. Thats the main
rule. Most (not all!) vegan health experts encourage vegans to supplement important
nutrients like B12, but doing so is not a necessary aspect of vegan ethics. When vegans
restrict animal products from the diets of their babies and children and fail to supplement
those diets to make up for whatever is missing because of that, they are obeying all vegan
musts while ignoring helpful (but optional) suggestions from vegan nutritionists. They
have not in fact violated veganism. They have, rather, practiced veganism in a way that
unfortunately may harm or kill their children. This never has to happen because there are
vegan B12 pills and most vegans would make an exception for non-vegan medical
interventions in an emergency, and these parents may be foolish, but that doesnt mean
their parenting choices somehow fall outside the realm of veganism. Being reasonable is
not a requirement of veganism.
Messina told me in the comments of her last post that Sarah Anne Markham the vegan
mother who recently refused non-vegan medication for her near-death baby should not
have refused non-vegan medical treatment for her baby.
I wouldnt expect someone to risk their childs health for veganism (or their own health
for that matter), she said. So yes, if there was truly no other alternative, then a
responsible parent would choose a medication that isnt vegan. A case in point is soy
infant formula. Its not vegan because it contains animal-derived vitamin D. But for vegan
parents who cant breast feed and who dont have access to a milk bank (which is very
expensive), then this formula is the only option.
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Well the only reasonable option, but not the only option! Anyway, its only the bizarre
vegans who take the no animal products ever rule that seriously. Of course its okay to
give your child medicine that has been tested on animals and contains animal products if
your child really needs it, and we can simply discount the ridiculous vegan extremists who
dont.
As I said in my last post, Im not convinced that this is an obvious and necessary stance
for vegans to take. Vegans often chide other vegans for being unseemly exceptionhunting opportunists or not real vegans if they find and exploit exceptions to the no
animal products ever rule. For an example, see this thread on Messinas Facebook
page that started with a link to Diana Fleischmans post defending oysters as an ethical
food source for vegans. Based on what we know about oysters, theres no reason to think
theyre any more sentient than plants, but while some vegans are okay with the
consumption of these non-sentient animals, most of the vegan commenters seem to hate
that any vegans would embrace this seemingly benign exception to the prohibition on
eating animals. So I find it difficult to believe that all vegans can agree that non-vegan
medication is sometimes okay.
The big problem for veganism in these cases of child neglect is that its not entirely
convincing to say that if the parents of a child are vegan, and they raise their child vegan,
and the child dies of deficiencies of nutrients that readily exist in animal foods and less so
in whole plant foods, that this has absolutely nothing to do with veganism.
Its true that death in infancy is not anything close to an inevitable outcome of raising kid
as vegans, since supplements exist, the nutrition research is out there, and parents are
free to make exceptions for non-vegan medical interventions, and no vegan has to feed
their child only soy milk and apple juice. But veganism often does play some role in these
cases, no matter how much the sciency vegans may wish for all vegans to be reasonable,
pro-supplement, and open to non-vegan exceptions in emergencies. Thats why the
connection between veganism and the cases of severe nutrient deficiencies in vegan
children will continue to be an all-too-easy one for outsiders to make.
1 Comment
9 notes
July 4, 2014 8 32 PM

One: Kids Sometimes Need Non-Vegan Medication
In the most recent highly publicized case of vegan child neglect, a vegan woman was
arrested because her 12-day-old baby was dehydrated, and she refused the doctors
advice to give her baby the proper treatment. According to a Salon article with the
misleading and irresponsible headline, Is veganism child abuse?, Sarah Anne Markham
wasnt interested in the medication the doctor prescribed for her kid because it contained
animal products.
As far as I know, theres no reported instance of totally mainstream vegan parents who
believe in science and supplements who lose a child to overt nutritional deficiency. In all
the cases Ive heard of vegan babies being killed or endangered, theres always some
weird thing about the parent or parents that led to their restricting care for their child
more drastically than basic vegan rules demand. This time it was that Markham is a
Seventh-day Adventist and wanted to raise her child in some sort of naturalistic way, and
she didnt seem to care very much about science or the advice of medical professionals.
Vegans tend to get snippy and defensive when stories like this come out, and they focus
on the point I just made, that the families are always peculiar in some additional way and
put too much faith in the worst, most debunked vegan myths, like that vegans dont need
to worry about B12 because its in tempeh, or our guts or the air or whatever.
While its true that the neglectful vegan parents all seem to exist in the delusional or just
uninformed extreme of veganism, Im skeptical of the claims some vegan apologists make
that cases like this have zero to do with veganism, and that we can file them all under
general bad parenting and completely ignore the fact that the parents and child happened
to avoid all animal products. In her recent post on the Markham case, Safety of Vegan
Diets for Children, vegan RD Ginny Messina wrote:
Vegan diets arent dangerous. However, people with irrational ideas about nutrition are.
The stories of vegan parents who starved their babies because of mistaken beliefs about
infant feeding are clear proof of that. It is horrible and its heartbreaking. But it has
nothing to do with veganism.
I agree with some of what Messina says in her post, but I cant see how this has nothing to
do with veganism. Certainly it doesnt have everything to do with veganism, but nothing
cant be right either. Its not like Markham is a mother who happened to be vegan and
dropped her child, and now everyone is saying its because she has slippery vegan hands.
One of Markhams major sins was that she refused to give her child non-vegan
medication. But from a vegan perspective, thats exactly what she should have done, isnt
it? Dont purchase or consume something with animal products, especially if it was also
tested on animals right?
Well, I guess that depends. If your baby is about to die, it might be time to make an
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exception. In the comments of her post, I asked Messina whether she thought it would
have been okay with the animals and with veganism if Markham had given her child the
medicine that certainly appeared to violate vegan ethics. Messina responded:
I wouldnt expect someone to risk their childs health for veganism (or their own health
for that matter). So yes, if there was truly no other alternative, then a responsible parent
would choose a medication that isnt vegan. A case in point is soy infant formula. Its not
vegan because it contains animal-derived vitamin D. But for vegan parents who cant
breast feed and who dont have access to a milk bank (which is very expensive), then
this formula is the only option.
That seems reasonable of course, but is this something all vegans must agree with?
Messina wouldnt expect someone to risk their childs health for veganism, but maybe
shes just not as committed as some vegans are. Could it be that Markham took veganism
too literally and too seriously, when all the mainstream reasonable vegans would have
known to back off and forget their ideals a little bit until their child was safe enough to go
back to avoiding the products of animal exploitation? Or was there actually something unvegan about Markhams potentially sacrificing her child for the sake of the animals?
Until it becomes an established and generally agreed upon thing in veganism that nonvegan medication and formula and whatever else are allowed in an emergency and that
in fact, using them to save yourself or your child is actually required by vegan ethics, and
that theres no glory at all in sacrificing your child for animal lives Im going to have a
hard time believing that all of these vegan child neglect cases have nothing to do with
veganism.
2 Comments
6 notes
June 16, 2014 3 30 AM
Interview With an Ex-Vegan: Erim Bilgin, Three Years

Later
A few years ago, I interviewed Erim Bilgin. After subsisting on a low-fat raw vegan diet for
three years, Erim turned his back on 30 Bananas a Day and objective morality for meat,
nihilism and anti-civ primitivist thinking. Though he still ate plenty of fruit, he disdainfully
saw veganism an inevitable extension of societys drive to impose order and crush
passion, to erect more limits and further civilize humanity and nature.
Erim got in touch with me to update us on his perspective where he still agrees with his
angry, fresh-out-of-veganism self, how hes changed, and whether veganism is still the
inevitable path of human society.
Vegans and meat eaters alike usually think its weird when ex-vegans dont
immediately stop thinking and talking about veganism once they start eating meat
again. Its been over two years since you quit veganism. Why are you still interested
in this?
Yeah, it is weird. My brain just keeps telling me, Dude, its just food. Youre treating it
like a high school crush. I mean move on, jeez. And part of me does want to move on, to
no longer spend energy on these bizarre topics like whether or not morals exist
independently of individuals, the social value and feelings of a cow or the level of
sentience of a plant and spend that energy more productively. I mean sure, you go
through that initial phase of, What the fuck was I thinking, oh god, and you start
attacking veganism because its just your new outlook attacking on your now outdated
old identity. Thats natural. To keep at it for years afterwards, though, you need
something more. The last two years presented me with a lot of real life challenges, and I
feel like going through those made me more practicality oriented, and I was like, What
does debating on all this stuff even accomplish? We can figure out EVERYTHING about
veganism and still its not like when the time comes for the world to turn a major eye on
this deal and try to figure out an ultimate answer, its not like theyll turn to us and say,
Oh hey look, these guys have been debating this stuff for years and they know all about
it, lets consult them! No. Ultimately itll be left to the preference of individuals and the
influence of the media above anything else, so it felt kinda pointless.
Enter fanaticism. After our interview, I did of course get a lot of emails and such from both
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vegans and meat eaters about a lot of things. What I wasnt expecting was to see the
vegan emails keep coming, even after two years. I still get contacted at least once a week.
I even figured out a kind of accurate system of how it tends to work: a semi-intellectual
commentary once a week, something at least mentally stimulating once a month, death
threat every two months and if Im a really good boy, every three months or so Ill get my
favorite kind: the ones with the weird spelling and the voodoo language talking about the
universe and peace and our chakras where even the email smells like marijuana. At first I
was trying to reply to the more intellectual ones, but it got tiresome. I was also at first
getting some emails from anarcho-primitivists, but quickly realized most of those guys
were total weirdos and idiots who just seemed mostly interested in buying a whole lot of
guns and shooting at stuff in the woods. All in all it was pretty bizarre. What it did though
was it kept some of these issues on my radar.
So every once in a while Id still think about objectivity, ethics, social systems, ideologies,
violence etc. And of course I myself have come a long way from the angry, foolish
adolescent I was back then. Now Im just angry and foolish. So some of my views changed.
And Ive found that veganism is sort of a very effective beacon for philosophizing; you
can start with vegan topics and think on them to get deeper insights into various aspects
of existence. Its certainly very fertile ground for discussion to blossom.
Do you still believe nihilism is the best argument for meat eating?
This is complex, and it was a blind spot in my original argument. I still believe, objectively,
that nihilism is the way the universe operates. There is no such thing as inherent meaning;
its our primate brains that brand things good and bad. So when youre going for ultimate
truth; yeah, you can always argue that theres nothing wrong, or rather, false, about
eating meat. From an objective standpoint, all you can say is its possible to eat meat,
so its possible. We can do it. Its doable.
But thats about all you can get from an objective viewpoint like nihilism. You cant really
use it in human discussions. Because what I didnt realize back then was that we humans
have an alternate reality that we live in. Were not fully rational, objective creatures.
Were mostly emotional animals. Thats not a good or a bad thing, thats just what is. Our
brains are hard-wired to experience reality that way. So telling someone that eating meat
is okay because nothing ultimately matters in the universe is not considered an effective
strategy. Its true, but it does nothing. Because its almost like youre not telling the truth
in the human language. Youre arguing on facts, not human values. And society isnt
really built on facts. Its built on human values. Nihilism is the truth, but its not our truth.
Its the truth of galaxies, solar systems, elements and energies. But it doesnt apply to a
system of neurons and hormones.
The discussion needs to happen within the human parameters. Which is exactly where
everything gets murky. But we have to go there. Otherwise its just ivory tower
philosophizing.
What are some ways in which your views on veganism, ethics or whatever else have
changed over these two and a half years?
This question covers a lot of ground. Lets get started.
For veganism; Im no longer angry at vegans, I no longer feel used or anything. Im over it.
No bad blood between me and veganism anymore. I dont partake in it, but I have no
problems with it. I also no longer consider myself anti-vegan. I think its better to define
yourself by what you love, not what you hate. What youre for and not what youre against.
Im a meat eater, not a vegan. And Im not even against veganism anymore. I just do
happen to eat some meat. Simple.
Now, probably the biggest change I went through was in regard to primitivism. In my
original argument, I sided with the primitivists. Not with their methods (bombing and
sabotaging shit and murdering people), but with their idea that human nature is too
complex for us to claim we can understand it completely, so we shouldnt try to change
our nature, and instead allow our nature to tell us how to live. I personally preached more
of a passive primitivism, so instead of forcing the whole world to follow their nature
with us, I said lets just do it ourselves and let everyone else do their thing.
I later realized something: My rationale for siding with primitivism was that
experimentation let us down, so we should quit trying all together. That was wrong. I
think the main thing that got me there was the feeling of failure with veganism, and me
showing that veganisms value system is in accordance with the core values of the modern
human society. What I said was, the core values of veganism dont actually go against the
core values of modern society, even though it seems like a fringe movement from the
outside; and since veganism a product of human ideology trying to replace human
nature let us down, its a good example of why our whole social evolution will let us
down. This view was too simplistic. I guess in my anger towards veganism and myself for
being dumb enough to believe in it, and my excitement about finding new stuff out, I
didnt consider the whole picture.
What helped to broaden your view?
Some time after our first interview, I was climbing a mountain, and had an accident. I
ended up with some serious injuries. At this point, I was living an extremely high octane
lifestyle, and exercising heavily and regularly was a major part of how I kept myself happy
and functional. When I got the injuries, it was like a kiss of death to me and my dreams. I
got really depressed.
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It seems that unfortunate events in life always lead to one of two things: defeat or growth.
After a brief period of useless self-pity, I decided to tackle my situation. The first thing I
realized was that my body most likely wouldnt heal from all the injuries by itself. There
goes the illusion of trusting your nature to always do the optimal thing; out the window. I
quickly learned that my biology could very well betray me when the situation became dire
enough. I remembered what I had learned before: the human body, like anything else in
the universe, is no more than a bunch of molecules put together in a specific fashion. If
one part fails, you can, in theory, replace it with external stuff. Theres no shame in using
technology to help you achieve what you will.
While I was going to physical therapy, I met some new people. Amputees. Injured. Sick.
Old athletes who had to leave their careers because their bodies betrayed them one way or
another. As I met these people, saw how amazing some of them were, and saw the tricks
mother nature had played on them, how their bodies broke down and betrayed their will, I
started to feel like one of them. My nature had betrayed me. My dreams were too much for
nature to accept. Nature had rejected us. But how? I previously held the view that we were
our animal bodies; and whatever happens to our body or mind was just what we deserved!
So why was I feeling like something was wrong now? If all was well with the universe (one
primate made a mistake climbing a mountain and physics happened), why did it all feel so
wrong?
I came to a new realization: We are not our bodies. Were not our minds either.
We are the will.
The idea, the raw desire that makes the mind think; the inner thirst that makes the body
run. We are the courage that stands up to fear, the discipline that can rise above bodily
urges, the hopes that keep the whole system motivated. The only thing within us thats
unchangeably us is that little will that drives us. Anything else is replaceable. You can
disregard ideologies that dont serve you. You can drop entire identities in a day. You can
change your name, change your body, change your mind patterns. The body isnt you;
the animal isnt you.
So I stopped following my nature. I focused solely on my will. Everything else was
changeable. For my amputee friends, sometimes this meant replacing their natural useless
legs with inorganic prosthetics that sometimes allowed them to sprint faster than
healthy humans. This was fine for them, because ultimately it was serving them. You can
see how this kind of thing shaped my philosophy into something else.
The human condition was no longer something final for me. No longer stable. It was free
to change as we wanted as much as we could. Nature was a joke. I started identifying
more and more with transhumanists. I went back to my medical textbooks to try and cure
myself. It took about half a year, but with the right concentrated disciplines, I managed to
heal myself until I was finally even better than how I was before the accident. Today Im
fine, but I owe that to the findings of the hundreds of thousands of brilliant scientists that
worked to gather the information I used to better myself. I dont owe it to nature.
So the biggest thing was I dropped the primitivism. Intelligence is one of humanitys
greatest gifts, and all throughout our evolution this is what weve been doing taking
control. Instead of letting the universe handle things chaotically, the human force has
been trying to control nature, reshape it into its will, rearrange things more to its liking.
And this isnt even going against nature since humanity itself is a force of nature. We are
just another manifestation of the universe, so even if we end up destroying everything, a
naturalist cant really argue with things because thats just like when a sun goes
supernova and fucks shit up around it. Its just the ebb and flow of nature. Humanitys
just another cool and interesting form of the same deal.
What does this mean for your take on veganism and meat eating?
Well, another mindset Ive dropped since our last talk was the just kill em all, who cares
mindset. I was very pro-hunting, and I still am, but now for very different reasons. I think I
used to be pro-hunting mostly just to spite vegans and show them that one can, in fact,
enjoy murdering their precious little animals and pay no price for it. I could taste the
delicious vegan tears every time I saw an animal get killed, so turning that activity into a
hobby was perfect for an anti-vegan like me.
Once the anger washed away though, I could see more clearly. Yeah I know, vegans are
lame and so are their arguments most of the time, but screw veganism, we really are
hurting these animals, and they DO feel pain. Theres really no glory in enjoying hurting
them. So now I still support hunting, but only because most of the time it provides the
least painful death for the animals. Im still going to kill them and eat their meat, but I
want them to suffer as little as possible.
Which is also why Id support this whole 3D-printed meat deal, if it was perfected. If I can
get a steak that is absolutely the same as the real thing nutrition and taste-wise, and I
didnt have to cause any pain to get it, of course Id prefer that.
So in terms of outlooks, those are what has changed. I still want to eat meat, I still value
individual freedoms over anything else, but I want as little pain caused as possible getting
there.
Still eating a lot of fruit?
I do, but not nearly as much as I used to. Through much experimentation Ive finally
figured out how my body works best: I increase my carbohydrate intake as I increase my
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level of physical exertion. The more intense my workouts, the higher the percentage of
fuel coming from fruit.
Otherwise its animal foods and vegetables. Works like a charm, and you dont need
supplements. My physical performance is higher than its ever been, and I have zero
health problems. I also enjoy the fruits I eat way more this way, when Im not stuffing my
face with them 24/7. Ive also benefited greatly from intermittent fasting. If anyone out
theres thinking about giving that a try, I say go for it, see how you do with it.
You were vegan for health, not ethical reasons. Have you started thinking more
about the ethics of animal killing and exploitation since quitting veganism?
Interestingly, thats exactly whats happened. I think I care about animals more genuinely
now than I ever did as a vegan. I dont know why exactly that is. A vegan would say its
because Im trying to deal with the subconscious guilt I must be feeling for eating all that
sinful meat of eternal pain and universal suffering. Some people would say its because I
can think and feel more healthfully now because a meat-based diet is better for your brain
neurotransmitters and so on. I personally think its because I matured a bit and let go of
the anger I felt towards veganism for betraying me. So now, my attitude towards animals
is no longer an extension of my relationship with veganism, but just a genuine, direct
realization of being a part of this planet.
When youre hurting an animal, youre not hurting veganism, youre not spiting vegans, as
much as youre just hurting an animal who did nothing to you. So thats fucked, from a
human perspective. From my more objective perspective in our last interview, I put it
more like, Be it plant or animal, everythings ultimately alive, so youre always killing. And
from an even more objective perspective, nothing really IS alive, so fuck it, nothing
matters. But as I said I believe now, that objective view, while that is the truth, it isnt how
we humans operate. So compassion IS a real thing for us; it is an actual feeling and its not
that you MUST feel it towards everything compassion has degrees, I suppose but I
feel like my personal outer desire in life is to reduce overall suffering for people and
creatures I interact with. That must be balanced with the inner wants like various ego
gratifications and bodily needs. These are all subjective values and considerations that
each individual has to decide for themselves. Most people have it decided for them by
society, but yeah, thats how it works.
Most people try to find some balance in their lives between caring for themselves
and caring about others, and veganism is one way that some people choose to
balance their selfishness and altruism. Some vegans think that its an objectively
correct and necessary way, because of logical consistency, anti-speciesism,
intent or whatever else. It sounds like youve got your own balance, with hunting
being the ideal way to get meat. Do you see your approach as being on an ethical
continuum with veganism, or is it something totally different?
Over the years, youve done an amazing job on your site of deconstructing those various
reasons vegans presented for claiming veganism is necessary and showing how they all
fall short one way or another. This is because reality IS there, and its not good or bad or
right or wrong, but it just IS. So when people try to say one thing is logically and
objectively correct or necessary and its not already happening, theres got to be a
reason. Anything that really is objectively correct must already be occurring in the
universe. Because from an objective standpoint; correct can only mean true, real. When
you say correct from an ethical standpoint, youre no longer arguing objectively, so
theres no point in arguing at all since any interaction between two different minds is
never going to be like your subjective perception of the universe.
Ive got my own personal balance, yes, but I dont see it as anything that must apply to
anyone else. Because its not an objective thing. I still dont believe in objective ethics.
Ethics is not like some sort of universal system that we each tap into. I always
communicate this best with a computer analogy: Its not like ethics are a server
somewhere away and each individual is a different computer with a connection to that
outside ethical system. Its more like each individuals own ethical system is in their
mind only part of their own hard drive and not something external. You can get ideas
from the external, sure, but once you get them they are, again, in your head.
Because think about this: What if I snapped my magic finger and every individual in the
universe, including me, died this instant? Would there be any right or wrong then?
Would it be wrong or beautiful for a tree to shake and bend in the wind? Would an
erupting volcano be a natural disaster anymore? Would it be horrible anymore when a
bear, ultimately a system of chemicals, kills a fish another system of chemicals and
eats it?
Things would be stripped of all meaning, labels, definitions, collections. Thats because
those dont exist externally from the individual mind. Whatever exists does exist, but that
objective information is not perfectly available to us. So there can never be objective
ethics. We can still have social rules and mutual respect and all that, but lets not fool
ourselves into thinking any of it reflects objective facts of how the universe operates.
Therefore I dont believe there can ever be an ethical continuum. My approach is my
approach, and veganism is its own approach. The ONLY problem with veganism here is
that IT doesnt realize this, and tries to enforce its approach on all of us. Its not right or
wrong or deluded in itself. Its just trying to dictate external things thats the problem.
But I do think that we as humans would do well to find some new methods to obtain our
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meat. Like I mentioned, some of the fake meat ideas arent half bad, but well see how
all that turns out. In the meantime we can also work on making it easier for farm animals
to both live and die, by not treating them as products without feelings as they live, and
killing them extremely swiftly and painlessly when the time comes. We have the means to
do both of these things, so why not do it.
Overall I think I take a more humanist approach in practice. I still think its foolish to be
working to make life better for animals when we still have humans suffering in the world,
and ultimately I place human freedom above the happiness of animals. But if there are
methods that can make life easier for animals without taking much away from humanity, I
have no qualms about meeting veganism somewhere there in the middle.
Once I removed my stupid primitivism mindset out of the picture, things became a lot
easier in my mind. We can use technology cleverly to make more parties happy and reduce
suffering. So why not? Because we want to live up to some arbitrary ideal of nature?
Thing about nature is that its consistently changing. So theres no human default we
can revert back to anyway. The only human default is perpetual change and increasing
freedom. Its been like that all throughout our history. Increasingly, weve become more
free from our environment, free from kings and queens, free from our own biological
limitations, from our mental barriers. Its cold? Invent fire. Cant reach the fruit? Use
sticks. Cant see in the dark? Invent the light bulb. Death? Put your brain in a fucking robot
and live forever, I dont know! All I know for sure is that nothing is going to be a
permanent problem as long as we stick to our human curiosity and ingenuity.
Is the world becoming more vegan?
Yes, without a doubt. My original views on this still stand; veganism is modern and in,
and meat eating is soooo 8000 BC. Veganism appears to be for compassionate, intelligent
people who care about animals, care about suffering and care about the environment
more than their own carnal desires. In the mainstream view, the concept of veganism
evokes images of upper-class white people with perfect teeth and perfect lives biting into
that fresh green apple that makes that crunching sound which translates into English as
My life is perfect. Viewed from that perspective, meat eating is bizarre; we kill animals
and theres blood and guts everywhere then we skin them, burn them and eat their
charred corpse, and the corpse clogs our arteries for revenge. That versus the green
apple. You can easily tell which ones going to appear more feasible to a mainstream
society of people who dont know what the hecks going on behind the curtains. I actually
think that with all these considerations and meats public image nowadays, that all wellread, thoughtful people consider some form of vegetarianism at least once in their
lifetimes. Ive seen this more often than not.
As an example, I think it was last year when a friend convinced me to watch the Scott
Pilgrim movie and it had a character in it that had vegan powers, which basically made
him cooler for being vegan. I couldnt help but think that was a pretty good example of
how veganism works socially nowadays.
Heck, in the three years since we did that first interview, even Turkey started to see its
first few vegan organizations and restaurants and whatnot. Someday, these issues WILL be
talked about in senates. Someday, we might be prosecuting people for murdering and
eating the corpse of mooey the cow. It will sound horrible to the socially-conditioned
ears of our children. And, dare I say it, perhaps it should. But only if we find better
alternatives, and solutions to the possible problems such changes may bring.
Our social values nowadays support veganism so well that even the most dedicated meateaters, when you ask them about it, will still say things like, yeah I know its not good for
me, BUT I JUST CANT STOP EATING IT, so even those who defend it only defend it as an
addiction and not as a choice. Health or personal freedom are rarely mentioned as
reasons. Let alone questioning the very idea of having to defend meat eating as a habit.
One thing Ive noticed lately though is that the paleo movement seems to be growing. So
that may be a major opponent to veganism in the near future, but its hard to say. If I were
to guess though, Id say the worlds probably going to end up eating 3D printed meat or
some kind of product of science instead of real meat in the end. This, if perfected, would
make everyone happy, I think. Except hunters. Meat eaters get something thats identical
to real meat, vegans get "people not eating meat", and, uh, major corporations get to
control our food supply even more strongly, I guess. But yeah, everyone whos into these
issues knows the current systems not sustainable long-term so something's going to
have to give. It's just difficult to predict how exactly things will play out.
A lot of the world seems to be becoming less religious. Could that help veganism
become more popular?
Thats a very interesting question. I do agree that religion is becoming less popular as
science and rationality are on the rise. Personally, Im very happy about this. But ultimately
I think it can help veganisms cause.
A lot of meat eaters will be quick to use the argument because god says its okay to
defend meat eating. Im not going to waste any time explaining why thats an invalid
statement. I think it does help the majority uneducated of meat eaters be okay with their
meat eating if they ever do tend to question it, so ultimately it creates the same result
with understanding the complex logical facts behind meat eating and eating meat with an
informed attitude so to speak, like you and I do. Though Id actually rather see someone
think logically, even if they think without all the facts and end up thinking meat eating is
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logically incorrect, Id still prefer hanging out with a vegan who doesnt eat meat because
he has half a brain and can think critically about things than with a meat eater who
doesnt give a fuck either way because he just follows what god tells him to do.
All that said, I dont think the abolishment of religion will be the final nail in meat eatings
coffin. There are plenty of us non-religious meat eaters. A lot of us still use other shitty
arguments to defend our meat-eating, and in time veganism will defuse those arguments
as well, until ultimately the discussion will be stripped down to just the basic facts.
The world becoming less religious WILL help veganism, but if we had to use religion to
keep veganism at bay, Id rather let veganism take over. Thankfully we dont have to.
In the last interview, you said you were neither a speciesist nor an anti-speciesist.
What are your thoughts on speciesism now?
I dont believe in species. Now, lets get some stuff out of the way: I do understand the
concept of species. I know its a useful system of categorization that we need in order to
understand the world around us. Ive read my stuff, count on it.
So what do I mean?
Lets say Im a geneticist. And Ive got a machine here, well call it Erims Machine. Now
Erims Machine has the capacity to change a creatures genetic makeup into any sequence
I want. So I can take, say, a monkey, and edit its genes until I get a human. I can edit the
genes of a human zygote and make it grow into a banana instead.
So draw a continuum. One one end, place a chimpanzee. On the other end, place a
human. Some readers will pick up on what Im getting at here just by this mental image.
Lets say I use my nifty little machine and start editing the chimpanzee and bring him
closer and closer to human, inch by inch.
The question is, at what point would the chimp end and the human begin?
Now luckily, when I first came up with this crazy idea and I was discussing this with a
friend, he recognized it and guided me towards further reading. Apparently other people
are aware of this issue we have with the concept of species. Its a bit of an arbitrary
concept.
One point that comes up in some debates about racism is that race is a social
construct, and not one that can clearly be defined. Ta-Nehisi Coates talks about that
here. Yet racism still exists, based on socially constructed concepts of race. Since you
dont believe in species, you might consider species a social construct as well, but
that doesnt necessarily tell us what to do about this social construct. It would still
be possible to be speciesist or anti-speciesist in reaction to the concept of species,
even if its an artifice. What are the implications for meat eating and veganism if we
do away with species as a valid concept?
Yes, I do view species as a social construct. And, like I said, it is a useful one for sure. Im
not saying we should STOP using this concept, Im just saying that we need to be aware
that its not hard reality. But if we hypothetically did away with it? Then the entire ideas of
veganism and meat eating would also be gone. Because, what even IS meat eating
when you cant define what meat is? Is meat the dead body of an animal? What is an
animal? Why is the dead body of a plant, then? Cellulose meat? If we go strictly by facts
and not human categorizations, then everything we see around us, the entire universe, is
just a bunch of molecules. Some of those are gathered up in a fashion that create what we
call animals, some of it as plants. But those are both species, reliant on more human
constructs. Remove the philosophically arbitrary separations between animals and plants,
and you no longer have a vegan ideal to live up to.
It seems that a lot of people only manage to stay meat eaters because they dont
think about the death, gore and suffering involved in meat production. Do you talk to
other meat eaters about meat eating? If so, does your perspective on it ever disturb
them? Are there any vegan arguments that you would throw at them?
I do think that most meat eaters, especially in first world countries, would stop eating
meat if they were more in touch with how they get it. I find it almost infuriating when my
meat eater friends say hunting is cruel and dont see supermarket meat as an actual dead
body of an animal but just another product that they buy neatly packaged, cleaned of
all the blood and the nastiness, up to your hygienic standards. Even the meat itself they
eat is the nice stuff. People rarely eat organ meats anymore. Its all just white, clean,
bloodless chicken breasts and tuna. Nice, clean muscle fibers and vibrant colors. Compare
that to bone marrow, heart, brains etc. Even Im squeamish about eating some of that
stuff, and Im not a very squeamish guy. Compare ripping open supermarket plastic to
ripping open the dying body of an animal. I bet most people couldnt do it.
Is this a sign that humans werent designed to eat meat? I dont think so. I think its
mostly just a sign that were living too protected lives nowadays. Even a house cat will be
hesitant when you present it with a live mouse. I remember when I had a cat who had lived
his entire life feeding on packaged cat food, and when he saw prey of any kind, he maybe
toyed with it a bit but he rarely killed it, let alone eat it. And a cat is supposed to be like
the epitome of predatory viciousness.
In any case, what we were designed to be doesnt matter one iota. We werent designed
for a lot of things. But the thing about humanity is that weve pretty much broken free
from nature to an extent where we can now decide how we live and how we eat, and were
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progressively becoming more free as we gain understanding and control of the universe
around us. What nature dictates has no bearing on us, at least on the subject of food.
But yeah, meat IS murder. If youre a meat eater and youre not okay with that, then you
gotta either be okay with being a hypocrite, redefine your sense of murder, or stop
eating meat. I think most people fall into that second category; they simply dont care
about animals, or theyre aware of how they get their meat but choose to create a selective
mental blind spot there to be okay with it. I cant really blame them. We have so much shit
we deal with every day, people dont want the added stress of having to think about the
ethics of what they eat. Thats why I pointed out that you tend to see this stuff more in
first world countries. People starving in Africa dont care about the global moral
implications of what they feed their kids to make their ribcage less visible on their torso;
but us bored well-off folks sitting under our anti-bacterially filtered ion-enhanced a/c
units with an electrical blanket to keep us from getting too cold behind a computer screen
waiting for a new facebook notification to pop up to entertain us, we tend to wonder
whether meat is murder or not. Thats not something wrong about us specifically though.
Put the starving man in Africa in our position and in a few years hell be doing the same,
and put us in his position and the morals of meat eating will quickly become less
important as we hear our stomachs grumble. I know many vegans who say theyd rather
starve than eat meat; I could respect that view if only I just once actually saw them make
that choice.
What does it mean for a meat eater to be okay with meat being murder? Does this
require devaluing human life too?
I dont kid myself. One thing I did retain from veganism has been the realization that the
meat we eat is, undeniably, the dead body of an animal. We killed the animal to consume
that meat. For me personally, I feel better to acknowledge that and make an informed
decision, rather than just see the supermarket product of meat, that distanced product,
that idea of meat. But once I allow myself to accept the realization, Im not bothered by
the rest of it. Yes, the meat I eat is the result of an animals death. The animal had a
consciousness, and I killed it. I consider that murder. Its merely accepting a fact rather
than trying to avoid it.
The value thing is subjective. If you could ask an animal, I think all of them would say that
from their subjective view, their lives are at least as important as any human on the
planet, if not more. What they think doesnt matter though, what matters is what each of
us thinks. Personally, I roll with the good old individuality here. Just because I decide I care
little enough about one animal to kill it, doesnt mean I have to feel that way about the
rest of the species, or about other species. Its just like how it is with humans. There are
some humans I love dearly, and other humans I wish would just die. That doesnt make
me a hypocrite, it just means that I deal with creatures individually. I dont have a right to
kill the human I dont care for, because hes still part of my society, and I have empathy
towards him. Right now, cows arent part of our society, and vegans want them to be.
Thats the whole issue here. Meat eaters want to keep considering animals the others,
and vegans do not.
Practically it makes no difference. But thats why devaluing animal life doesnt necessarily
require devaluing human life. Because we choose not to. Its not a logical inconsistency,
when you realize that you CAN choose to act on an individual or group basis. Its not
illogical, just possibly unethical. And thats what the vegan argument should stick to. My
point is that something rational and objective like logic cannot be a point in an argument
like this thats really all about emotions and morals. Theres no right or wrong in logic,
only true and false. You cant start with societys drive for human preservation and
then logically take the next step and extend it towards how bad animal suffering is.
Youre in favor of reducing suffering, but allow your personal desires for freedom to
ultimately trump the interests of other animals when theres a conflict between the
two. Some utilitarians might say that selfishness of this sort is arbitrary, since
theres no reason to think of your own life and suffering as more important than the
lives and suffering of other animals. Why care more about yourself than animals?
Simply because youre you and you can?
Exactly. The same reason we dont directly apply the objective facts of the universe to our
daily lives, we also dont just submit our own life to simply be subject to the checks and
balances of existence. What we understand and what we do can APPEAR to be two
different things, but not if you see the whole picture. The key is to realize the difference
between objective and subjective understanding. We talk objectively when discussing
social issues, because society is comprised of many individuals, so we cannot depend on
subjectivity. Subjectivity is only a valid way of thinking for issues only concerning one
individual. Objectively, I can understand that ethics exist only in each individuals mind,
that categorizations are human constructs, that theres no such thing as justice or rights.
At the same time, I can acknowledge that I am me, that I consider myself belonging to a
group of other individuals categorizing ourselves as humans, that we form a society,
that the society operates within certain established rules. So why do I care about myself or
humanis in general more than other animals? Because I am me, so of course I will have a
bias. Animals are not part of human society. My subjective consciousness is what rules my
actions. Recognizing that I am me, I can do the things I can do.
So in human terms, of course we care about animals. But they will have to come second.
We want to help them, we want to reduce their suffering but not at the expense of
humans. Those of us who disagree and see humans and animals having the same value
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are vegans!
If you had the possibility of being born into a vegan world or a non-vegan one, and
didnt know what sort of lifeform you would be, would you vote for a vegan or for a
non-vegan human society?
A vegan society of course! No need to overthink that one. With all the different species in
the world, what are the chances of me ever being born human? Very little. Any species
other than humans is going to prefer a vegan world. And the benefit for choosing a nonvegan world for the off chance of being born a human is slim compared to the danger of
being born anything other than human in a vegan world. I wouldnt risk that gamble. And
sure, youd look at that and say, Well there you go then, youve just said the benefit you
get from meat eating is very small compared to cost animals pay for you to get that little
benefit. If you realize this and still choose meat eating, youre just, to put it simply,
selfish.
But these kinds of what if? questions rarely represent how the real world actually works.
Actually, we DONT have a sense of being anything other than a human, we dont have
that objective approach to making such choices. You were born a human, so thats all you
are, all you were, and all youll ever be. All that matters once youre born is your
subjective perception of things. I think this whole what if you were something else idea
is just a remnant of the old idea of spirit or soul. It implies that the you that you
identify as yourself is something separate from the body its in. When actually its a
manifestation of the body that IT IS. I happen to be a subjective perception that has a
sense of myself because of a particular arrangement of molecules formed a brain and now
the tissues they formed create a sense of self within them.
Its not like I happened to inhabit a human body. Rather its the other way around; the
human body gave birth to the sense of I. Without this body, I wouldnt be assigned to
the role of something else. I wouldnt be a cow. I simply wouldnt be. It would be a
different I. Existence does not function via eeny meeny miny moe.
A few answers back, you said, Meat eaters want to keep considering animals the
others, and vegans do not. Why should we in contrast to vegans want to keep
non-humans out of our in group?
Im not sure that wed want to keep them out. Like I said, if we had the option, I think
wed all prefer not hurting animals, to be one with them, to be earthlings one big
happy family, a perfect reflection of an entire generation brought up on advertisements.
But there are complications in the real world. For instance, animals cannot understand the
rights of others, nor can they understand their own. How will that work?
If a dog comes into my house and hes trespassing and I shoot him, what will societys
stance be on that? Im sorry, but things just arent so simple, as much as I wish they were.
These are the kinds of questions that inevitably come up, because as much as we
philosophize and we think that everything must be determinable with clear-cut solutions
if only we had enough debate, or education, or whatever you want to say, the fact remains
that were trying to fit something chatoic and uncaring like nature into rigid structures
such as laws and these kinda big public opinions. Throughout history, humans just
intuitively knew beasts were to be controlled, fought against, or used. Much of our
modern lifestyle is built on values and ideologies that, while nice, sometimes dont fit with
nature. This doesnt mean that we should throw them away. It means that were
sometimes going to have to fight nature to uphold these values. Im all for that, but it will
require effort.
When we ask questions like how can we still keep eating meat in the face of rising social
awareness towards the ethical invalidity of meat eating, its obvious that we on some level
acknowledge that meat eating may not be a perfect practice. Again I think the best
solution would be the perfection of lab-made meat. As long as its healthy, cheap, and
perhaps even healthier and cheaper than conventional meat, really the only valid objection
anyone could have would be regarding personal freedoms. Someone could say, animals
arent part of human society and I want my right to be able to hunt animal meat, and
right now, until we find better answers, I could respect that opinion.
Animals simply do not fit in well into human society, for the same reasons they didnt fit
in the past millions of years. But with technology and culture comes change. And it is in
this change that we can hopefully create a new kind of social structure where we can both
not harm animals, and not suffer for it ourselves. But its going to take ingenuity, effort,
and cultural shift. It wont happen overnight, and perhaps humanity will just end up
deciding its not worth all the effort.
Some vegans or quasi vegans are okay with eating non-sentient animals like oysters.
This follows the same ethical logic of veganism, but offers more options. Are you
more sympathetic with this sort of veganism than the zero animal product sort?
Im sympathetic to both equally. They both start off with good intentions. To not hurt
sentient beings. Thats admirable, even when its a bit uninformed. Id certainly prefer
eating some non-sentient animals if I were a vegan.
The only thing that truly matters in the entire veganism debate is the concept of
sentience. The only real problem with meat eating is the sense of pain we inflict on the
consciousness of the animals we kill. Without sentience, anything that ever happens in the
universe is just good ol molecules changing arrangement. Sentience is what makes the
act of killing an animal a questionable thing rather than just a mechanical act. Cutting a
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tree is a mechanical act. Peeling an orange is a mechanical act. Cutting horses head off is
more.
This however brings up another question: If sentience is what makes an act morally
questionable, then what if we could remove sentience before it has a chance to register
the removal?
Since all we have is our perception of existence, if the only bad part of killing a cow is the
pain we inflict on the cows perception, then what if we could do it so fast, so instantly
that it never even has a chance to register? Then the consciousness is removed instantly,
and from the cows subjective standpoint, which is the only one that matters to the cow, it
would be like it never existed. There is no lingering suffering. There are no afterthoughts.
It just was, and now it isnt, and it wont be around to feel bad about it. We have the
technology to be able to do this. To kill animals instantly, to shock the brain into not
registering the perception. Thats what I currently advocate doing, until we can
manufacture meat in labs thats on par with the real thing. And when you look at history,
youll find that a lot of tribes did try doing this to the extent that they could. I think very
few people would actually PREFER to inflict pain unnecessarily. Ironically, thats exactly
what a lot of the animals were obsessed with trying to protect have no problem with.
As uncool as it sounds, face it, the stinky humans that everyone loves to talk shit about
nowadays are the only ones who actually have moral codes. We only seem more
destructive and cruel than other animals because we have more power. So any moral
choice we make is magnified in its effects. When we decide to destroy, we can really fuck
shit up. But when we decide to build, we can also turn pain and starvation into ease and
abundance. People always say animals would never do things like holocausts and torture,
but lets not forget that humans are nothing more than just another species of animal. If
lions were in power, would THEY even consider having these arguments about whether
they should eat weaker species? The problem is that folks look at the damage and
destruction some humans cause and then label the entirety of humanity evil, when in fact
MOST people are actually quite nice and dont want to hurt anyone or anything needlessly.
Im on team human. Go humans!
In some ways veganism is forward looking, in that a lot of vegans are in favor of
technologies that could replace animal husbandry by creating meat from nonsentient material. But animal rights philosophy still is in essence a restriction,
something to rein in human freedom. Could you see animal rights philosophy being
a problem for technological and human progress in some ways? Could it end up
clashing with transhumanism and futurism and this sort of thing down the line? And
could it be worth worrying about animal rights philosophy now for that reason?
Absolutely. For instance, animal testing. People have no idea how useful it is to be able to
test drugs and such things on animals. It is useful, and it is painful. Again, I dont want to
be running away from the truth. Its a painful truth, and this is one of the burdens of
humanity: To know what we need to do, and to know what we must do. I dont want
animals to be hurt, but if someone I loved had a terminal illness and I had to kill a million
cute pink bunnies to get to the cure, I would do it with my bare hands without batting an
eye. One thing I aimed to focus on in this interview is that things are not always as clearcut as wed like them to be. And this is just another one of those points where well all
have differing value judgements. I personally think that we need to take care of humans
before we turn to animals, but it doesnt mean that were doomed to choose between one
or the other. I think the ultimate would be a situation where maybe we could simulate life
and run our tests there.
The issue is one of sentience and structure. And in existence, there is always a way. The
universe is such that any structure can be created, you just need to find a way. Animal
testing will not always be the only way to test substances. Perhaps some day well be able
to simulate structures and creatures at the molecular level, and just run all sorts of tests
in those computer generated environments just as effectively, without hurting a single
sentient thing. In theory, it seems possible, so who knows.
The point is that the world simply isnt at that place yet. As our technology, information
and education increase, so will prosperity, peace, and understanding. I believe that we will
leave animals alone as soon as we get the chance. Because honestly, I dont think
humanity is doing it just to be cruel. We test drugs on animals because we need the
results. We eat them because we need their meat. But it doesnt mean were not open to
alternatives. Give humans a pain-free way to get the same meat, and the majority will
want to switch to that and end the needless suffering.
See, this is what I mean when I say that the majority of the world is already in the vegan
mindset. The majority of us DO have empathy towards animals. And I know this is hard for
vegans to see, but if youre a vegan reading this, think back to when you werent vegan.
Were you walking around and kicking dogs in the face for no reason all day? Were you
mean to animals all the time just because you ate meat? Of course not, and neither are the
majority of the meat eaters you see out there. We care, we do love animals. Every meat
eater I know, when they have seen cows, either pet them, joke around with them, or at
least say, hey cow!. Most people, if they saw a cow in pain, would feel for it and try to
help. But right now, we are able to live with the fact that we both empathize with animals
and also end their lives and eat them. Its not something we love, its not something we
dont think we can improve, but it is what it is. And I think we ARE looking for a change.
But the world isnt changed by taking things away from people. Its changed by giving
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people better alternatives.
Things like lab-made meat, algae products, simulated scientific experiments these are
those alternatives. But we need to arrive at those points in development to be able to
enjoy their benefits. The problem with a lot of forward-thinking people, including most
vegans, is that they get disturbed and understandably so at the gap between what they
know is possible, and what they live in right now. We dont have worldwide respect for
animal life yet, because were just not at that stage of human development yet. We dont
have 100 percent green technology everywhere, because it simply hasnt become the best
choice yet, in a general sense. But they will come. Respect for animal life WILL grow, but
you cant expect that awareness to jump out of nowhere. We need to accomplish some
milestones so change can become commonplace. Once we can have lab-made or 3Dprinted meat thats exactly the same as the real thing, but only cheaper, how many more
people will never want to kill animals to eat meat again? That would have a better vegan
conversion rate than all the overblown factory farming videos combined!
So the future you dream of IS coming. It will be good. But it will not come out of nowhere.
It will not come out of peoples love and understanding. It will not come out of smoking
joints and dreadlocks in your hair. It will come out of hard science and efficient, useful
technology. So if you truly care about animals, if you truly want to help them no matter
what, then help create better alternatives for people. That 3D printed meat is going to
save a million times more animals than any stupid PETA ad. The people who are vegans by
not consuming animal products dont change anything. Its good that they dont
contradict their ethics with their lifestyle, I can respect that, but they dont change
anything significant in the world by doing it. If you just want to be a vegan for yourself,
then, to be honest, I think youre just doing it to feel morally at ease. If youre doing it
because you honestly, truly care about saving the lives of animals, then you need to be
more active.
And as a meat eater, I think the world of tomorrow needs you to be active. But in the right
way. Dont try to take peoples choices from them. Thats not going to work, and even if it
does, I will fight you if you do that, because youd be opposing freedom. Instead, give
people MORE choices, BETTER choices. The world WANTS that. The world is READY for
that. Lets all work on developing alternatives that are just as good, if not BETTER than the
current choices.
What havent I brought up that I should have?
I think these kinds of discussions usually forget to bring up two things: Some civil and
intelligent dialogue and unification between vegans and meat eaters, and, some practical
ideas on what we can do with our newly discussed issues.
First, the unification thing. Because, come on, lets get the cutesy stuff out of the way. I
know everyone wants to fight and chew on each others intellectual gristle.
But if someones reading sites like yours, be they vegan, vegetarian, meatatarian, or
whatever they put in their faces, they probably care. I know vegans want to point fingers
at the meat eaters and say theyre ignorant and most of them are! and the meat eaters
want to call vegans dirt worshipping hippies and some of them are! the fact is that
probably those who read discussions on these issues rather than just spamming simpleminded propaganda on facebook, and instead arguing about ethics, social issues, rights,
the very definition of species and the like, are part of the solution. If youre one of the
vegans or meat eaters who are currently reading this and thinking about such issues, then
what the hell, RELAX! The people youre arguing with are probably very similar to you! The
guy who pissed you off on some internet forum because you disagreed with him on how
pets should be defined legally is probably someone youd really enjoy hanging out with in
real life! Seriously, Ive had stuff like this happen to me, thats why I know!
If were gonna get anywhere with this whole thing, without half-witted politicians and
special interest groups who dont know what the hell theyre on about making the
decisions for us, we gotta put our damn heads together and figure something out. We
gotta get some friendly dialogue instead of all these vegan haven and meat haven
websites and meetups and all this shit where we just ban the opposing view and stay in
our closed little comfort zone. Stay in an intellectually closed loop and youll never
challenge your ideas. Thats not a smart, confident thing to do.
So the person youre arguing with, unless their screen name is
Sunshine_Peacegoddess139 or xXx_BaldEagleWarHero_xXx, theyre probably a decent
human being, like you. Be open to the possibility that they may not be a stereotypical
redneck barbecue dude shooting shotguns into the air or a crystal chakra lady with veins
on her neck. Perhaps theyre just normal people. Be nice to them, try to understand them,
and even befriend them. You may find much to learn. I myself am certainly open to
meeting all kinds of new people, hearing new ideas, first hand experiences, and most
importantly, ideas about what we can do.
Which brings me to the second point: We talk about all this, but what can we do? All the
discussion in the world wont do us any good if we just use it to sit back and eat our diet
of choice in peace for ourselves. We gotta discuss, agree, and take action on these issues.
I think one thing each of us can do is first of all really get to know our personal sense of
values intimately. Do you care for hunting or do you think were ready to move past that?
Where do you think animals should stand in society? What do you think about the concept
of species? Do you have any problems with killing and eating an animal? Dont let
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propaganda decide these things for you, decide for yourself. Ask yourself these questions.
Then, we can see if there are others who think like us. For instance, I support the idea of
choosing 3D printed meat thats virtually the same as the real thing over animal meat. So I
can find various ways I can support 3D printing. Just something simple as letting my
friends know about these brilliant new technologies is something. I can donate to science,
study, offer opinions, bring people together to work on these issues.
I dont like what factory farms are doing, so I can decide not to buy any of their products. I
can spread awareness.
On the other hand, I dont like it when laws and governments get involved in upholding
peoples ideals, so I wouldnt be taking any actions to get legislation or anything
regarding any of these issues. Id much rather just inform and let everyone make their
own decisions.
So we should do more real-world, human-to-human, heart to heart TALKING. Lets talk
about these things, understand what everyone wants, lets not consider our own ideals
superior to those of others. For a while, let us all consider ourselves an ignorant pupil, and
the people were talking to wise teachers because they are. If someones arguing with
you and trying to get you to understand their point of view be they right or wrong the
simple fact that theyre trying to make you understand, rather than just ignoring you and
your conflicting views and just going their own way anyways, shows that theyre probably
a person worth talking to.
Humanity will be facing difficult questions as technology changes more and more how we
exist, and what it means to exist as we do. The answers wont always be clear cut they
rarely are. The worthwhile answers are usually difficult to come up with, but hey, I guess
thats why were all here, huh?
8 Comments
20 notes
April 1, 2014 12 59 PM
Questioning The Efficacy and Desirability of Veganism

as Boycott and Moral Baseline (Links)
There have been rumors for a while that animal liberator Rod Coronado was no longer
abstaining from animal products, which he recently confirmed thereby inspiring some
heated and insightful discussion on vegan blogs and message boards. These first three
links are to posts that are at least partially about that controversy:
Is There No Room for Rod Coronado in the Animal Rights Movement? The Problem With
Veganism as the Moral Baseline" by Ian Erik Smith.
Should a Meat-Eater Advocate For a Vegan Society?" by Jon Hochschartner. (You have to
scroll down a little bit to find it.)
Veganism in the Occupied Territories: Anti-Colonialism and Animal Liberation" by Dylan
Powell.
Lindsay Gasiks When Durian Isnt Vegan, and What Every Animal Loving Durian Freak
Should Know" looks at all the animal killing involved in harvesting durian. If eating fruit is
murder, should vegans develop a new ethic that prohibits animal exploitation but allows
animal murder? Or should they simply be more demanding with additional restrictions and
improved technology until they figure out how to end the competition for resources
between humans and other animals? Or something else? (via Pythagorean Crank).
Jon Hochschartners What Can Animal Activists Learn from the Free Produce Movement?"
casts doubt on the vegan abolitionist belief that abstaining from animal products is a vital
or perhaps even worthwhile step in the abolition of animal exploitation by looking at the
historical "free produce movement" that tried to attack human slavery through a boycott
of slavery produced materials. (via Pythagorean Crank).
This is a little different, but the newly vegetarian pig farmer Bob Comis has been writing
some interesting stuff at The Dodo about his transition from pig farmer to vegetable
farmer. My Heart-Wrenching Transition From Pig Slaughter To Growing Vegetables" is a
good place to start.
2 Comments
4 notes
March 10, 2014 3 45 PM
What Would Plant Sentience Mean for Vegan Ethics?

Late last year, there were a couple of popular articles looking at the surprisingly intricate
ways that plants interact with their environments, Michael Pollans The Intelligent Plant
and Kat McGowans The Secret Language of Plants. More recent (and brief) was Becky
Ferreiras Plants Are Capable of Making Complex Decisions. None of these articles claim
that plants certainly feel pain or have conscious interests, but they all suggest there is
still far more to plants than we realize.
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Some people interested in food ethics (or at least the food ethics debate) think that if
science declared plants to have a form of sentience, this would complicate things for
vegans without much inconveniencing omnivores. What about plants? is a question that
meat eaters often throw at vegans in this spirit, as if the fact that plants are alive means
its silly to consider the interests of the animals we eat. Vegans break down the categories
separating humans from other animals in a way that makes meat eaters uncomfortable, so
in revenge meat eaters break down the categories separating non-human animals from
plants to try to make vegans feel the same kind of discomfort. Its a shot at beating
vegans at their own game.
Essentially, what about plants? attempts to discredit sentience as a guide to our ethical
decisions by implying that if we respect all sentient creatures, everything we do is
unethical. The problem is that the what about plants? argument typically equivocates
between sentient and alive/responsive and offers no real proof that plants are sentient.
The animal farmer Joel Salatin was a case in point during last years Intelligence Squared
debate about the ethics of eating animals:
And, you know, I find it fascinating that all of the attributes given to animals plants have
too. The DNA structure of grasses, for example, when you introduce a species, it
nativizes its DNA structure to become more climatically nativized to a certain place.
Thats memory. Thats genetic memory and adaptation to a certain place. If that isnt
responding to things, I dont know what is. And I just absolutely dont appreciate this
false dichotomy that when I take the life of a carrot, the carrot doesnt scream.
This is about as weak as the what about plants? argument gets because it utterly fails to
anticipate the vegan response that plants dont feel pain and dont have conscious
interests. With no reference to sentience, Salatin is taking for granted that genetic
sophistication is significant in itself, but makes no allowances for degrees of genetic
sophistication and so is essentially saying, Anything thats alive is all the same.
Meat eaters who use this argument are typically attacking vegans on two contradictory
fronts. On the one hand they say that humans and animals are different, and these
differences explain why meat eating is okay. Then with what about plants? they do the
opposite, linking all of creation together All-One! as Dr. Bronner would say.
Unfortunately, by dismissing the distinction between killing plants and killing non-human
animals for food by linking them together through aliveness, they also erase the
distinction between killing plants and killing humans.
If you think that what about plants? means there is no difference between exploiting
animals and plants for food, then youd have to say the same about exploiting humans for
food, because youre denying that there are different levels of aliveness, or at least
denying that these different levels could justify different treatments or considerations. To
turn around and admit that theres a difference between killing plants and killing humans
in light of this is to grant that there could also be a difference between killing plants and
killing non-human animals. The whole argument just renders itself moot.
But lets pretend for a moment that What about plants? is really onto something. What
would it mean for food ethics if it turned out that plants do in fact have a form of
sentience that was comparable to the sentience of some animals?
This probably wouldnt be a huge issue for meat eaters, who dont tend to care much
about sentience per se when theyre deciding what to eat. The sentience of non-human
animals didnt stop them, so why would the sentience of plants give them pause?
Conscientious omnivores might want assurance that any sentient plants they eat were
treated well, given a natural diet of sunlight, fresh water and organic manure, and were
killed quickly and painlessly, but there would be no qualms about the killing of plants in
itself. For vegans it would have potential to be more of a problem because plants would
suddenly fit the bill of what they consider to be unethical to eat. Never eating again would
be one possible solution, but probably not one most vegans would want to embrace.
Another option would be for vegans to confess to having a more emotional form of ethics
than they sometimes let on, admitting that its not violating interests thats the problem,
but violating interests in a more blatant and viscerally disturbing way. Even if plants were
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sentient, it still wouldnt look horrific to pull them out of the ground; in comparison,
shooting a bolt through a cows brain looks pretty gruesome. Vegans could say thats the
key not that one violates interests and one doesnt (plant sentience makes that
dichotomy impossible), but that one violates interests in a manner that is more
emotionally upsetting to vegans. Even if animals were unfeeling automatons (which
obviously isnt the case) there could still be a quasi ethical argument for veganism, which
would be that the aesthetics of animal exploitation and slaughter disturbed a lot of
people, or that animal slaughter is a dangerous and desensitizing job for humans because
of the visual similarity between killing humans and non-human animals.
But this would be a major compromise for any vegans who like to think they argue mostly
from logic, so I dont think many vegans would settle for it.
The stock vegan response to the possibility of plant sentience is to appeal to suffering
reduction: Well, vegans kill fewer plants than omnivores anyway because the animals you
eat were fed plants. But thats only true when we eat farmed animals. Someone who eats
only animals that they hunt is seemingly responsible for fewer plant deaths than vegans,
especially if they hunt herbivores. So if plants were sentient and had lives worth living, a
hunting-based carnivorous diet would perhaps be the most ethical until we ran out of
non-human herbivores to kill. At that point, humans with vegan ethics would again be in
the position of having to think of their very lives as inherently unethical, coming as they
do at the expense of sentient plants. In-vitro meat would no longer be enough. In a world
with sentient plants, vegans would need to develop in-vitro vegetables: lab-cultured
plant-like foods, made from non-sentient material.
But this assumes no gradations of sentience and interests. Even if plants were sentient,
would this automatically require that vegans try to grant them the same ethical
consideration that they want to grant pigs or whales? That depends on the vegan: some
acknowledge degrees of sentience and some dont. In the former group is vegan RD Jack
Norris, who sometimes encourages non-vegans to eat insects:
A move from people eating mammals and birds to crickets is something I can get
behind. I follow this hierarchy of valuing animal lives differently in my everyday
actions. For example, if I were to see an injured dog, raccoon, or bird on the side of the
road, I would stop and try to get the animal to a veterinarian. I will not do this for injured
insects. In fact, if I thought insects lives were as valuable as mammals, I wouldnt drive
at all because its inevitable that I will kill insects with my car just about any time I drive
(at least during warmer months). If I knew that I would kill a mouse or a chicken every
time I drove my car, I wouldnt do it.
From a scientific perspective, I think there is evidence that insects do not have enough
brain tissue to assume that they have a self-identity and can be aware of suffering. I
might be wrong about this and if so, I definitely need to reconsider my driving habits
[W]hen it comes between a mammal and an insect, Id side with the creatures that we
have a large amount of proof for being conscious.
A veganism that allows this more permissive attitude about eating insects and brainless
sea animals would basically be immune from the additional challenges that sentient plants
would pose for the philosophy, so this would probably become a more popular stance in
the wake of a plant sentience bombshell. If you accept degrees of sentience, it becomes
plausible to see a difference between exploiting brainless sentient plants and sentient
pigs. Where you draw the line becomes somewhat more arbitrary, perhaps, and you
couldnt exclude all animal products from veganism any more, but you could still make a
case for protecting farm animals without extending the same consideration to farm plants.
The more difficult issue for these vegans, I think, would still be all the wild animals that a
vegan world would routinely harm and kill.
The sentience of plants would however pose a special difficulty for the deontological
breed of vegan ethics in that it would become all the more ludicrous to appeal to intent
and to play up the ethical differences between the accidental or indirect killing of sentient
beings versus the intentional and purposeful killing of sentient beings. By eating sentient
plants, vegans would be intentionally killing sentient beings for food, so the idea of their
granting rights based on sentience would be in shambles. Hey, we have to eat
something! would be the argument of last resort, which immediately fails because no, we
technically do not. There is no obligation for humanity to survive, and so if we go on while
knowing that we must violate the interests of non-human sentient beings to do so (both
plants and animals in this hypothetical), we cant plausibly claim to be respecting the
rights of non-humans.
Thats why I think another significant change would be a greater shift away from
deontological arguments for animal rights toward the utilitarian and utilitarian-esque
suffering reduction perspective. (Or maybe eco feminism, or other alternatives like
obfuscating continental-style philosophizing.) What distinguishes vegans from omnivores
in this scenario is a goal of hurting others less, so it could make ethical sense to eat
plants, insects and bivalves even assuming all are sentient if this causes less harm
than eating farmed animals.
Where this would get really complicated is with utilitarian perspectives that are very
concerned with suffering on the aggregate. Here we find utilitarians who think that insect
suffering might be one of the worlds most pressing concerns, because there are so many
of them and they reproduce and die so quickly, which means that their experiencing even
tiny amounts of harm on an individual level adds up to vast amounts of suffering.
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Utilitarian philosopher Brian Tomasik discussed this in my interview with him. If plants
were as sentient as insects, and if we decided to aggregate plant suffering too, it would no
longer be so clear that plants and insects were the right things to eat. (Perhaps it would be
better to try to make plants go extinct and to eat larger beings like whales, for instance.)
Plus with all this extra suffering to contemplate, life could be seen as an inexcusable
nightmare, an unfathomable sea of suffering that cant dry up soon enough. This could
make vegans feel more of a need to align with radical negative utilitarianism, perhaps
lobbying for the end of all life. Or it could inspire vegans to stick with a vague utilitarianesque approach of wanting to reduce suffering, but without aggregating that suffering, so
as to avoid thinking too much of all the suffering there is in the world. That would be fine,
but it still wouldnt allow vegans to convincingly propose many solid rules about what was
okay to eat.
So basically, vegans should really hope that we never figure out that plants are sentient.
This doesnt mean that impressive new discoveries of plant intelligence are anything for
meat eaters to celebrate. If plants are far more brilliant and sophisticated than they seem,
might not the same be true for non-human animals?
14 Comments
6 notes
February 6, 2014 11 50 AM
"Farm Confessional: I Raise Livestock and I Think It

Might Be Wrong" at Modern Farmer
Earlier this year, I came across the writings of Bob Comis, a farmer in New York who has
increasingly questioned the ethics of sending the animals he raises for food to slaughter. I
thought his perspective was interesting, so I interviewed him. Modern Farmer had me put
the interview together in a questionless interview format. The link is in the headline.
2 Comments
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July 23, 2014 11 21 AM

The Argument from Enlightened Future People

An ex-vegan on veganism. By Rhys

July 13, 2014 5 20 PM

Why Vegan Diets For Infants Are Controversial, Part

seems to come with less risk of an incentive to exaggerate veganisms positives.

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July 10, 2014 3 54 PM

The American Academy of Pediatrics on a Vegan Diet

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Handbook; and a paper called Considerations in planning vegetarian diets: Children, by

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Why Vegan Diets For Infants Are Controversial, Part

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Why Vegan Diets For Infants Are Controversial, Part

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Why Vegan Diets For Infants Are Controversial, Part

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June 16, 2014 3 30 AM

Interview With an Ex-Vegan: Erim Bilgin, Three Years

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Questioning The Efficacy and Desirability of Veganism

March 10, 2014 3 45 PM

What Would Plant Sentience Mean for Vegan Ethics?

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"Farm Confessional: I Raise Livestock and I Think It

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