Amoeba Rules: Why I Eat Meat

11-6-10

1.1 Having practiced vegetarianism, including macrobiotic and vegan diets, for over 30 years, and now having "converted" to omnivorism, I feel qualified to address the question, Should I eat meat? I realize there is a tremendous amount of smoke, heat, and not always a lot of light in this discussion. It seems that after religion and sexuality, diet causes the most fierce debates.

1.2 First of all, note that word above, "converted", in quotation marks. Did I really have to convert? I have sharp cuspid teeth, a relatively small abdomen-to-cranium ratio (i.e., small guts compared to my brain), and plenty of pepsin, an enzyme for digesting protein. In short, I have the body of an omnivore: an eater of everything, including meat.

1.3 Secondly, I like meat; in fact I prefer it. If you put me in the woods, or out in some field, as our ancestors lived not so long ago, I would automatically hunt for animals. I can survive on meat for a long time, on vegetables hardly at all. I can eat almost any animal with complete safety, but plants I must choose carefully lest the poison me. Meat is the best food for my survival; and I like to survive.

1.4 Thirdly, I need nutrients from animal foods. Complete proteins, amino acids, iron, calcium, Vitamin B-12, and Omega-3 acids are found mostly or only in animal foods. It might be possible to synthesize a diet containing these nutrients, based on plants and fungi only, but why should I do that? I like meat.

1.5 Finally, after decades in yoga, and studying Buddhism, I am tired of hearing that "meat is bad". As I listen to vegetarian arguments, I notice a tone of moral superiority, with which I am very familiar.

1.6 If I study vegetarianism deeply enough, I find its roots go back to the East, to Hinduism. "Thou shalt not kill animals" is a very common interpretation of ahimsa, or nonviolence, an ethical teaching of Hinduism and yoga. Vegetarianism, despite its pretensions to reason, is therefore not science; it is religion, and all of its arguments are based on religious ideas.

1.7 So here is another idea. If I should not kill animals, if per PETA's Ingrid Newkirk, "animals are not ours to eat"- why not? Predators eat prey; omnivores eat meat when they can get it; why should I not?

1.8 Not that I have any spite for PETA people: actually I admire their stand against fur (as well as their unique advertising style). Why should I wear an animal's skin, when I have one already? Unlike eating meat, wearing animal skin or fur is not necessary, but purely an indulgence. Interestingly, while women comprise the majority of PETA, women also are the main fur wearers, and thus responsible for the insensate cruelty of the fur industry. However, back to the question "Why should I not eat meat?"

1.9 Any answer to this question, such as "because meat eating is cruel" or "you don't want to be eaten, do you?" is moralistic and religious, and I reject it. If I, a complex colony of amoebas, should not kill and eat a somewhat less complex colony of amoebas, why not? To avoid violence?

1.10 Consider that the vegetarian's food comes from the ground, from a farm. That farm land was once a field or forest. Now to produce vegetable foods, all the animals have been killed from that land, all the birds driven off, all the trees and herbs destroyed, and poisons applied to kill "pest" animals. All this killing for the nonviolent vegetarian diet.

2.1 Therefore since it tastes good, and within reason is good for me, and suits my omnivorous body, I will eat meat. I cannot escape killing animals, so I will enjoy doing so. Actually, I prefer fresh fish and seafood.

2.2 Now it is true that the people with the longest life expectancy in the world, the Okinawans, eat mostly grain, beans, and vegetables. However, it is also true that about 12% of their diet by weight is fish and seafood. Okinawans are very healthy and happy, as well as long-lived people- and they eat animals.

2.3 The sum of argumentation for vegetarianism, and especially for the PETA-preferred vegan diet, is illogical, unscientific, and essentially magical. Abstaining from meat does not protect animals; it only makes the abstinent feel superior to the animals they claim to protect, while living off ravaged farmland. If I accept being an animal, I can also accept eating like one, with gusto.