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VEGETARIANISM: A BIOETHICAL IMPERATIVE
By Dr. Michael W. Fox*
The singularly
most damaging environmental footprint upon this planet is caused by our collectively costly and damaging appetite for meat.
Some 3.2 billion cattle, sheep and goats are now being raised for human consumption, along with billions more pigs and poultry.
These extensively and intensively farmed animals produce less food for us than they consume, and compete with us for water.
Their numbers and appetites result in an increasing loss wildlife and habitat, and of good farmlands and grazing lands. Linked
with deforestation, loss of wetlands, over-fishing and ocean pollution, our appetite for meat is the number one cause of global
warming/climate change.
We can no longer continue to regard meat and
other sources of animal protein as a dietary staple because of the enormous costs and harmful consequences of such a diet.
Vegetarianism is an enlightened choice, and all people should at least become ‘conscientious omnivores,’ treating
food of animal origin more as a condiment than a staple. According to The Economist,
(Dec. 2nd 2006, p. 88), over 50 billion animals are killed for food every year, which comes to almost 100,000 a
minute 24/7. In the past 40 year meat consumption per person has risen from 56 kg to 89 in Europe, from 89 kg to 124 in America,
and from 4 kg to 54 in China, in spite of the nutritionally inefficient conversion
of grass or grain to meat, some 10 kg of feed being needed to produce 1 kg of meat.
It is surely a bioethical imperative
not to kill animals for their flesh when no less nutritious foods of plant origin are readily available, more affordable,
and more sustainably produced. Ironically, the shift toward ‘improved’ animal-based diets correlates with increased
incidence of so called Western diseases in developing countries, and with an increasingly dysfunctional, unhealthy environment.
These correlations support the karmic truism
that when we harm others---animals and the natural environment---we harm ourselves. Hence obedience to the Golden Rule---of
treating others as we would have them treat us, is enlightened self interest. This core bioethical principle is embraced by
the animal rights and environmental/deep ecology movements that have been demonized by antidisestablishmentarians who have
succeeded with the Bush administration to have both movements seen as potential terrorist organizations under the Bioterrorism
Preparedness Act of 2002. Homeland Security and the protection of vested interests are one and the same, the continued, economically
justified exploitation and suffering of animals, and environmental desecration, being protected under the law. U.S. animal industries have gained additional protection with the so called Animal Enterprise Protection
and Food Disparagement Acts that criminalizes certain conduct aimed against companies engaged in animal production, research
and testing.
The economy of the Western industrial
consumerist paradigm is non-sustainable, and because of its global reach, is wreaking global havoc, as predicted by Jared
Diamond+ and many other visionaries and critics of these times. For instance, much livestock feed is imported by the multinational food industry oligopolists from the
impoverished third world, thus contributing to mass malnutrition in poorer countries. This problem is compounded by what is
called ‘dumping’ of surplus, heavily subsidized, animal and other agricultural products/commodities on the third
world, from chicken legs and powdered milk, to corn and wheat, often under the guise of emergency food aid. This only serves
to enrich a corrupt few, and undermines the economic viability of indigenous farmers and once sustainable rural communities.
So we can no longer continue to regard meat and other sources of animal protein as a dietary staple because of the enormous
costs and harmful consequences of such a diet. Vegetarianism is an enlightened choice, and all people should at least become
‘conscientious omnivores,’ treating food of animal origin more as a condiment than as a dietary staple. At one
time, when our numbers were few, the killing of wild animals for food and raw materials was ecologically sustainable and bioethically
acceptable. This ‘Paleolithic’ diet was natural, and our ancestors had no other choice in most wild places they
inhabited. But such a diet today, and the raising of animals just for their meat, is non-sustainable; it is bad for the planet,
bad for animals wild and domesticated, and bad for the health of those who can still afford a high meat diet. For a sedentary,
affluent sector to have to forcibly exercise and then take various drugs to treat the consequences of a meat-based diet is
absurd and hypocritical, for indeed, as Mahatma Gandhi said, ‘The cattle of the rich steal from the poor.’ Poor
and rich alike could be better nourished and enjoy healthier and longer lives by becoming vegetarians and conscientious omnivores, more mindful of what they eat, and knowing how to cook nutritious meals
themselves and families, a subject yet to be taught in most schools and colleges, and adopted by hospitals and other food-providing
institutions
and agencies.
* See www.doctormwfox.org for more documentation
+Diamond, J., ‘Collapse: How Societies Chose to Fail or Succeed.’
New York, Penguin Books, 2005.
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