PETA, Vegans, and what are we really afraid of?

Great Debates
1

I’ve been thinking about this topic a bit lately, as I’ve been changing my diet to try and control my blood sugar a little better. I’ve been trying various foods, and looking at a lot more meatless products, and receiving some great suggestions from board vegetarians and others.

I sat here today and realized that maybe a lot of the reason that many people react so negatively to PETA speciically and vegetarians in general is the fear of a slippery slope. I’ve had a couple long e-mail exchanges with others over my fear of a slippery slope w.r.t. gun control, and lately I’ve realized that that concept is at the heart of a lot of my negative reaction towards PETA, and animals rights activists.

What I mean of course is a scenario where laws are passed first restricting certain methods of raising animals and preparing them to be eaten, then barring eating certain types of meat or animals, then barring whole classes of animals and meat, and finally a ban on meat altogether?

I worry what happens if one day the mainstream liberal media decides that the elimination of meat (and fur, and animal testing) is now their new cause of the decade. And then we start getting bombarded daily with Peter Jennings et al clucking their tongues and smirking as they broadcast story after story along the lines of “A 60-year old man died of a heart attack today in Scranton - most likely from eating meat, sources allege…”

PETA says a lot of things that are hard to argue with. Few people want animals to suffer needlessly, or at all. Few people IMO want to eat animals that are essentially kept as “bio-factories” in tiny pens, gorging on hormone-laden swill until death. I would support them, and many other groups like them, if I knew there was not going to be the inevitable slope towards a total ban on meat.

Because I like meat, I like it a lot. But I think PETA and animals rights groups and vegetarians would connect with more people if the fear of the slippery slope was not there - just like, IMO, many firearms enthusiasts would support some gun control measures if they were not really leading towards the inevitable ban and house-to-house sweeps by swat teams.

Is there a debate here I guess, or is this IMHO? Is the slippery slope what we meat eaters really fear the most, and not really PETA’s advertising, or their protests, or their message overall?

And PLEASE! Please let’s not make this another “Those PETA whackos are screwed!” thread! We have way to many of those, and the point has been made! I just want to know to what extent the feeling of meat eaters are based on the fear of the future, as opposed to dislike of the present.

And since my premise might be weak, here is a second thought for vegans.

In many cyberpunk and sci-fi novels, there is often the concept of “vat grown” meat, which is essentially meat cloned from cells of living animals, then grown in organic vats to produce meat product. I understand that several Japanese companies are conducting experiments along these lines as well, although they are 10-15 years away from yielding anything. Vat grown meat could potentially open huge opportunities for supplementing diets (and allowing people to eat all sorts of different animals - imagine Buffalo Penguin wings, or Lion steak - with no animals killed or injured?)

So the question to vegans is - if vat-grown meat existed, with “starting cells” harvested from animals with insignificant or no discomfort to them, would you eat it?

2

Not really addressing your question about “vat meat” since I’m not a vegan, or even a vegetarian, but I don’t buy your slippery slope argument. And I see slippery slopes pretty much everywhere else.

I think that alcohol could fall down the slope. I think that fatty food could be atumblin’ too. But beyond some meats’ association to being bad for you in some cases, I can’t see the justification. I don’t see logical carryover from any other accepted cause to banning meat. Everybody has to start from somewhere, and while “no fur” is a popular movement, I don’t think anyone wants it to go further than that. I don’t even see much popular support for banning animal testing, which would be the next thing to slope-slide.

So, maybe in a hundred or so years we’ll see some movement on this. But I definitely don’t believe it’s imminent.

3

People object to the WAY that PETA (and of course the ADL and others like them) go about trying to make their points.

Not the points themselves.

Yer pal,
Satan

I HAVE BEEN SMOKE-FREE FOR:
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4

If it tastes like meat and has the same (or better) nutritional value then hell yes, I’d eat vat meat.

As for eliminating all lab use of animals for reasearch purposes, I’d easily agree to do that as well if “vat reasearch animals” provided equal or better alternatives. Until then, sorry, it’s open season for reasearch on animals. Of course, I can be convinced to entertain the idea to use some particularly virulent PETA members as research subjects… on a strictly voluntary basis you understand.

5

My thoughts:

  1. I do not supporting the banning of eating meat, and would not support an organization that does.

  2. I do support the dissemination of information on the health benefits of vegetarian diets and on the treatment of animals in the farming, consumer product testing and medical research sectors.
    2a) I support using economic power to convince companies to engage in more human treatment of animals.

  3. I like meat too. I didn’t stop eating it because I don’t like the way it tastes.

  4. I hardly think slopes are “inevitable.” If they were, than infanticide and euthanasia would be legal, and we would all be Southern Baptists.

  5. I would eat such vat-grown meat.

6

So the question to vegans is - if vat-grown meat existed, with “starting cells” harvested from animals with insignificant or no discomfort to them, would you eat it?

(caveat: I’m a vegetarian, not a vegan. While I think that most people eat more meat than is really healthy, I wouldn’t dream of telling them they shouldn’t eat it at all.)

My immediate response is no. I gradually ate less and less meat over the years and eventually decided to make it official because I was becoming increasingly repulsed by the meat on my plate. I realized I was eating it because I thought I should, (I grew up indoctrinated with the 4 food groups) not because I wanted it. Giving myself permission to not eat meat gave me a great sense of relief.

But the question remains, where did this revulsion come from, after a life of meat-eating? Part of it may have been reading about the increasing problem of food contamination. Learning that the chicken in my supermarket had to be dipped in a bleach solution to make it edible and that one reason raw egg dishes have become more dangerous is that the bacteria that used to only live in the chicken (making cleaned, unbroken eggs safe) has mutated and now lives inside the egg as well certainly had an effect. (See the book Spoiled: The Dangerous Truth About a Food Chain Gone Haywire by Nicols Fox for more information.) But I am also aware that I am probably just as likely to get e. coli poisoning from my salad as from your burger, and I have had no problems eating properly washed lettuce.

I have wondered if it is more a function of meat, these days, being generally less healthy. It is much more likely to contaminated with bacteria, much more likely to have been produced with the aid of hormones and antibiotics. Perhaps my body rejected the contaminants, not the meat? Perhaps I could be retrained, after regularly consuming vat-grown meat, to perceive it as healthy?

7

Hmmm…the anti-fur movement?
Didn’t fur start out as a necessity, in sub-zero tundra type climates, such as Siberia?

Anyhoo, I don’t think meat will ever be banned, per se…after all, what about cats and dogs? (I don’t care WHAT PETA says: cats cannot live on a vegan diet!)…
Although, there was an episode of SeaQuest DSV that I remember where this guy got an illegal cut of beef to make a hamburger…real meat was outlawed.

Personally, I think cigarettes and alcohol are way worse than meat. But that’s just me. (NO, I"m not a prude-but alcoholism is heavy in my family and several relatives have died from it…)

8

You know, in Japan, Kobe beef cattle are fed beer to fatten them up. Now all we have to do is teach them to smoke and we could have three bad habits in one.

9

I mostly eat meat because its much cheaper than veggies.

robinh id say its all in your head. For one thing theres all those pestecides on the veggies. Workers from strawberry fields generally get huge rashes on their hands from picking strawberries and the pesticides used on the strawberries is only legal because its in such small amounts.

10

I would guess the vast majority of PETA members are childless women. I think they transfer their “mothering instinct” from the children they don’t have to animals.

11

I am actually indifferent to the conditions on factory farms. According to my spiritual views, animals are not (fully) sentient. Specifically, the frontal lobes of their brains (which are responsible mainly for higher thought processes and emotions) are usually not developed enough for them to experience emotions (especially complex ones) anywhere near as complex as the ones we experience. Therefore, treating animals (especially stupid ones) as objects is fine according to me.

That said, I am thinking of giving up eating pork products. I don’t really like bacon that much, cured ham is something that I wouldn’t mind eating only a few times a year, and I just plain don’t like uncured pork (I prefer beef). Recently, one of my friends told me that he used to have a job slicing meat for cold cuts, and that he would find a lot of CANCEROUS TUMORS in pork; way more than in other meats. The thought of eating flesh that was only a few inches away from a tumor grosses me out, so no more pork for me.

I would definitely eat vat-grown meat, as long as the price is similar to authentic meat. I’ve even been thinking about whether animals genetically engineered to be acephalic (with only a brain stem, which regulates breathing, heartbeat, etc.) would be practical to raise. If veal calves aren’t allowed to move around, then they don’t really need a brain, do they? After all, livestock animals only need brains so that farmers can herd them and feed them and such. If veal calves don’t need to move and are practically fed intravenously, couldn’t acephalic calves work just as well for veal production, but without any moral implications? I assume that the engineering process behind it (they did it with a frog, right?) is expensive to the point that it wouldn’t be cost effective, though.

12

OK, but there is no “slippery slope” in this: Peta is against ALL testing of drugs on animals, no matter how important the drug is. Ie, the lives of a few labrats are more important than those of thousands of kids. WE could live without meat, and without a significant reduction in quality of life. Furs, even easier. But, when they DON’T come out with that cure for arthitis, MY personal quality of life, and millions more HUMANS is seriously impacted. Same with cancer, alzheimers, AIDS, etc. I want cures for these things, no matter how many labrats have to be bred & die. So, PETA, your platform supports the pain death & suffering of HUMANS, so screw Peta, AND the rat the rode in on.

13

As a Vegan, here’s where I stand:

  1. I personally don’t enjoy any particular type of meat (I never really enjoyed the taste, actually), but don’t dare condone those that do. Every person has their own unique diet - and I have mine :slight_smile:

  2. I don’t believe that my being a Vegan will lead to the inevitable elimination of meat products - I don’t think dead cows will ever be taken off our store shelves, as a matter of fact. It’s become much like a tradition - red meat, red meat, the other red meat…However, standing behind my personal beliefs, I DESPISE certain useless animal product testing just for financial benefit of a major corporation. (cold pricklies…grr…)

  3. I’m generally a very loving person,however, many commonly refer to me as a plant-hater. This is true. I hate plants and am currently on a mission to eat them all…I’d watch your veggies if I were you…BWA HA HA HA HA HA… :slight_smile:

14

I’ve seen no reason to believe that logic has anything to do with the motives of the Liberal/Fascist type lobby movements out there such as Greenpeace and PETA. I don’t know if we have PETA in N.Z. ( I don’t recall digging such signs out of the grill of my car, anyway), however N.Z. has, in the past few years, changed from glass bottles to cartons for milk, and from normal to unleaded petrol for cars. Both of these changes have come from the efforts of various so called evironmentalist groups, in direct contradiction to the good of the environment.
These people (or their leaders, anyway) are not interested in what they claim to support, but rather political power. I’m not the conspiracy theory type generally, but what I’ve seen indicates to me groups organised by the very industrial areas they claim to be fighting to stop. If you don’t believe me, try reading “All the Trouble in the World” by P.J.O’Rourke.

15

I suppose you have cites to support that assertion, right?

Max: Is it OK if we treat severely retarded humans as objects, too?

16

I agree with several of the posters (specifically Satan - and I did love typing that!) that it is not the message that PETA is delivering that I have a problem with, it is their delivery method. I am a very open minded person, and I encourage others to follow whatever they believe to be true (but they should be aware I will attempt to debate things with them).

As for vat grown meat - sign me up! … I eat meat as it is (and love it!) but I am also a technologist.

As for the slipperly slope thoughts … this has long been a concern for me. Recently, where I live in British Columbia, Canada, they enacted a bicycle helmet law. I agree with the spirit behind the law (that everyone should wear helmets while riding their bikes - to protect their noggins) but I strongly disagree, and am scared by, the justification for making it law. The justification, as it was explained to me by an officer of the court, was that due to the fact that our health care is centralized and subsidized by tax dollars, when someone voluntarily does not wear a helmet, they place themselves at greater risk for a head injury and therefor at greater risk to be a burden to the health care system in general and therefor to me as a tax payer! Does anyone else see the nasty direction this could lead???

Following that logic, one could argue towards a ban of football, addition of salt to food, beer, cigarettes, sex for the purpose of enjoyment (not procreation), driving, and a million other things! All fall equally under the same logical umbrella! Of course I am usually laughed off as being silly when I bring forth these thoughts… but how far from reality am I?

17

This is exactly the thing that bothers me, especially if it is a “media frenzy” issue. All it takes is a political group with a cause, that gets the media on their side, and boing! - another law passed, another freedom restricted.

That was my real point with this thread. Many people who are opposed to meat eating say they aren’t in favor of any sort of restrictions, let alone a ban, on eating meat. But once the ball gets rolling, and the first laws are passed restricting food consumption, then I fear the argument may “morph” or be modified, just as it did for Handgun Control Inc. and as it might be doing so for MADD and SADD.

18

This hypothetical vat grown meat would likely be swimming with sythetic hormones and antibiotics as well. It would be difficult to convince these cells to grow outside of an organism without these chemicals.

I would argue with you that meat is less healthy today than in the past. Antibiotics are added to meat to lower the levels of bacteria which used to be a real problem before antibiotics. Refrigeration also makes meat safer to eat for longer periods of time. One of the reasons people wanted spices from the Indies was because pepper was used to make semi-rotten meat more palatable (Cecil speaks about this briefly here). Nowadays no one, in the industrilized world, eats meat that is the least bit rancid and we are healthier because of it.

I’m not sure why you find meat from hormone treated animals less palatable than meat from “normal” animals. Its not like the animals are given anything they don’t already have. Normal cows have tons of bovine growth hormones running through their system, whats a little more? I mean is 0.25 milligrams of BGH per pound of meat from a “normal” cow OK, but 0.3 milligrams per pound of meat from a treated cow puts you off (I just made up the numbers, of course, but I’d be glad to hear what the real numbers are)?

Sorry about the rant, but I dislike it when people declare some chemicals “natural” and others “unnatural.” All animals produce a myriad of bizarre chemicals and hormones on their own, and any we indroduce will be very similar to those. Plants also produce many types of chemicals, some beneficial while others are not. And, of course, we spray all sorts of fertilizer and pesticides on plants, too. Many of these chemicals are similar to ones found in nature. Some are bad for people others are not. There is no such thing as chemical free or 100% safe, whether it comes from the Brazilian rainforest or a huge corporate slaughterhouse.

Back to the OP: I eat meat and I enjoy it, however I don’t see the vat meat as a legitamite future. I think we will eventually have to give up eating meat. Raising meat consumes too many resources. Cattle (or any animal for that matter) eat ten times the amount of food that they produce. In other words, if you raised enough cattle to feed 100 people, you could have fed 1000 people if you fed the cattles food to the people and skipped the cows entirely. The reason is that animals don’t take everything they eat and turn it into body mass. They need food to move around and do the things that animals do. Only about 10% of the energy they eat is turned into body mass that we can then consume. Presumably, vat grown meat will be more efficient, but if the planet’s population continues to grow we will need all the resources we can get.

19

That’s gray area, in my opinion. It is, however, not pertinent to this thread, so I won’t discuss it here (though I would present my views in a thread on the appropriate topic).

20

FTR, since I didn’t post it earlier - I would eat vat-grown meat over “natural” meat exclusively if it tasted good AND was proven safe.

Until then, I am eating meat. But I respect people like Phil for not eating it, and having better dietary discipline than myself.