noimmunity
scratch my niche
I think a lot of the reactions in this thread boil down to the defense of historical privileges enjoyed by populations at the profit-end of the nexus between capitalism, colonialism, and territorial appropriation--high consumption of meat, not to mention luxury foods in general, being one of them.
The more attached those populations are to those historical privileges, the more violence, destruction and damage we can expect as the world changes.
The question isn't whether or not change is coming, but rather whether or not we can manage the transition peacefully together, and how much violence will there be?
I'm sure that I could find better links, but here are a couple:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jun/02/un-report-meat-free-diet
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/apr/13/less-meat-prevent-climate-change
The more attached those populations are to those historical privileges, the more violence, destruction and damage we can expect as the world changes.
The question isn't whether or not change is coming, but rather whether or not we can manage the transition peacefully together, and how much violence will there be?
I'm sure that I could find better links, but here are a couple:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jun/02/un-report-meat-free-diet
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/apr/13/less-meat-prevent-climate-change
Roger Hicks
Veteran
Is the high meat consumption of a successful hunter/gatherer tribe an 'historical privilege' deriving from "the profit-end of the nexus between capitalism, colonialism, and territorial appropriation"? I think not. Again I'd point towards evolution, not ethics. Food is probably (I'd need do do a lot more research) pretty low on the list of problems needing to be solved for a sustainable future, though it does seem very likely to me that meat & chicken need to be significantly more expensive if we are to reduce cruelty (battery chickens/pigs/calves), environmental impact (feeding animals grain to fatten them) and health concerns (antibiotics and growth hormones in animal feed).
Cheers,
R.
JoeV
Thin Air, Bright Sun
Some thoughts:
1) I noticed most meats I do eat come from "vegetarian" animals (ok, they're herbivores, mostly); I don't eat meat-eating animals like cats, dogs or lions - not that I know of, unless you count the street vendor meat-on-a-stick in the Philipines, which remains a mystery, but darned good after a beer or three.
So, does eating "vegetarian" animals impart some vegetarian-like benefit indirectly? Swine are omnivores, they'll eat whatever you feed them, including meat, or other small animals in the wild. I mention this because there's this Judeo-Islamic traditional prohibition against eating pork, derived from the Torah.
2) I never could understand the atheist vegetarian's dietary logic, perhaps someone can enlighten me. If life evolved based on survival of the fittest, and eating animal flesh is a superior source of highly concentrated proteins, then what's the beef? ( Er, poor choice of words!)
That is, absent some theological dietary dictate, isn't the highest moral yearning to merely save oneself, to eat as well as possible? Otherwise, it is to violate the evolutionary "prime directive" to survive over others.
Which opens up a can of worms (there's a pun there, somewhere) about how unselfish behavior could ever have "evolved" in a purely Darwinian process - unless group behavior, social systems, provide a superior mode of survival over the loner going it by himself. Which implies that there's some valuable lessons our civilization has yet to learn, about the power of "socializers" over "lone gunmen," so to speak.
3) Soylent Green is people!
~Joe
1) I noticed most meats I do eat come from "vegetarian" animals (ok, they're herbivores, mostly); I don't eat meat-eating animals like cats, dogs or lions - not that I know of, unless you count the street vendor meat-on-a-stick in the Philipines, which remains a mystery, but darned good after a beer or three.
So, does eating "vegetarian" animals impart some vegetarian-like benefit indirectly? Swine are omnivores, they'll eat whatever you feed them, including meat, or other small animals in the wild. I mention this because there's this Judeo-Islamic traditional prohibition against eating pork, derived from the Torah.
2) I never could understand the atheist vegetarian's dietary logic, perhaps someone can enlighten me. If life evolved based on survival of the fittest, and eating animal flesh is a superior source of highly concentrated proteins, then what's the beef? ( Er, poor choice of words!)
That is, absent some theological dietary dictate, isn't the highest moral yearning to merely save oneself, to eat as well as possible? Otherwise, it is to violate the evolutionary "prime directive" to survive over others.
Which opens up a can of worms (there's a pun there, somewhere) about how unselfish behavior could ever have "evolved" in a purely Darwinian process - unless group behavior, social systems, provide a superior mode of survival over the loner going it by himself. Which implies that there's some valuable lessons our civilization has yet to learn, about the power of "socializers" over "lone gunmen," so to speak.
3) Soylent Green is people!
~Joe
noimmunity
scratch my niche
I was expecting commentary from the "caveman" diet people, not you, Roger.
There is so much research on the increase in meat consumption among what are euphemistically called "modern nations" that it's a moot question.
Of course, a very tiny percentage of the population (i.e., the nobles) in various premodern kingdoms and empires consumed at rates probably very similar to what is common to all but the poorest in today's high consumption nations.
To take the example of hunter-gatherer as a point of reference for today's populations is, well, silly, unless people are seriously proposing both 'population management solutions' (i.e., killing off billions) that would return population density to previous levels and reforestation projects that would return most of the planet to first-growth levels.
Agriculture (including non-foodstuff production) actually is one of the top priorities for sustainable stewardship. It is currently responsible for a very significant part not just of industrial environmental pollution, but also of erosion, desertification and land loss.
Roger Hicks
Veteran
You have, I fear, missed my point. We evolved to eat as much meat as we could get. This is not a 'silly' argument. I do not deny that it is wise, probably essential, to reduce meat-eating levels. I'm just saying that it's less to do with 'historical privilege' deriving from "the profit-end of the nexus between capitalism, colonialism, and territorial appropriation" and more to do with evolution.
Also, agricultural technique (industrial environmental pollution, but also of erosion, desertification and land loss) is not quite the same as food production. Again, I completely support sustainable food production. I just suspect that some other environmental concerns may rank rather higher in a list of priorities, though I concede that 'pretty low' is a serious overstatement.
Cheers,
R.
noimmunity
scratch my niche
If we are going to talk about evolution, we will certainly not want to lose sight of the fact that humans, unlike other animals, are not milieu and niche specific. Humans have adapted to any countless number of different ecosystems, and, as a result, have developed many different kinds of diets.
Evolution however has scant little to do with the ways in which historical populations from premodern fiefs, empires, kingdoms, etc. have clothed and fed themselves. Generally speaking, meat consumption (and overall food consumption) was significantly sometimes massively lower than what it is in the high consumption markets of today.
"Hunger remains a massive problem today. Globally, nearly 870 million people—1 in 8 of us—live with 'chronic undernourishment.' Meanwhile, obesity stalks us, too—about 1.4 billion people worldwide count as overweight, 500 million of whom are full-on obese.
The scourge of lingering hunger amid rising obesity is notoriously complex and difficult to solve. It raises knotty questions about our shockingly unequal global economic system, about European and US farm policy, about the rise of global agrichemical/GMO firms, about global commodity markets and land grabs." (source: http://www.motherjones.com/tom-philpott/2013/05/hunger-obesity-hacker-3d-printed-meal )
Evolution has little to do with it.
sevo
Fokutorendaburando
Or massively higher. See e.g. the Massai or Inuit with their animal only diets. After all, humans inhabit all climatic zones due to the extreme adaptability they have in the choice of food sources.
But as many of the plants we eat needed extensive breeding or need technical preparation (cooking, baking, milling, pickling) to render them edible, eating plants doubtlessly is more of a cultural advance than eating meat. Many of the processes necessary to eat plants are only possible if they can be taught across generations - we can assume that we evolved from dominantly meat diets in pre-language days to our current state (where we have technologies that enable us to survive on a purely vegetable diet).
Which does not mean that a return to a paleolithic meat diet would improve our health - for one, at their short life span they did not have to be concerned of eating habits that weren't sustainable past forty, for the other, we doubtlessly have evolved a lot since then.
noimmunity
scratch my niche
Higher only on a per capita basis. The density of those tribal populations was only a fraction of what we see today.
The argument about inhabiting all sorts of different environmental milieu was exactly my point: this is why it isn't very meaningful to point to historical human communities from only one specific milieu as evidence of prescriptive or normative diet.
One other thing the 'caveman' or 'hunter-gatherer' crowd doesn't like to mention, beyond the social inequities and environmental impact of massive animal protein consumption, is the relative unavailability of food sources, and the high likelihood of regularly missing 'meals'.
So to summarize, there are ethical/religious/metaphysical questions associated with "animal products", and then there are environmental/economic/political questions, too.
I guess that part of the challenge comes from being able to see beyond the individual self.
A lot of people are motivated in their approach to food, if not film and everything else, by self-oriented egotistical concerns. There are plenty of vegetarians whose motivations are deeply self-centered, perhaps more so than many people who eat meat.
What I liked about the OP was the idea that "my pleasure" isn't necessarily top priority (much less the source of true happiness).
sepiareverb
genius and moron
skipping meals is actually a regular part of the game once switched over to the paleo-type diet. And the social inequities are not necessary there for everyone. Where I live sustainably grown, very low environmental impact beef, pork, lamb and chicken is readily available at a minor premium from small farms run by farmers who are living well. Admittedly this is not the case for everyone, but neither is it a given.
Not really. Agriculture began a hearbeat ago in human evolution.
_goodtimez
Well-known
Wow, I am happy this thread attracted so many interesting replies !
I love to read the diversity of this group, it's seriousness and its humor.
I have very good relationship with my Vegan co-driver and I think we each other respect our mutual points of view in this matter.
I need to ask her if she ever used a film camera when she was younger. Has she still got pictures ? Now I think she only uses her cellphone cam occasionally...
I will keep shooting film big time.
I love to read the diversity of this group, it's seriousness and its humor.
I have very good relationship with my Vegan co-driver and I think we each other respect our mutual points of view in this matter.
I need to ask her if she ever used a film camera when she was younger. Has she still got pictures ? Now I think she only uses her cellphone cam occasionally...
I will keep shooting film big time.
sevo
Fokutorendaburando
The paleolithic is pre-agricultural, by a fair margin.
sepiareverb
genius and moron
Right, meaning that we evolved eating like that, not eating vegan.
noimmunity
scratch my niche
Thanks for the correction. When I researched the paleo diet before I did not see any references to skipping meals, so I must have followed a bad lead.
We have similar kinds of meats available in France.
But the whole point about social inequities is that if they are there for some, they are there for all. I guess that I detect a certain amount of the "gated-community" mentality here, albeit on a large scale and for ostensibly progressive values.
The availability of ethical meats in a local market doesn't mean that we can dispense with the analysis of social, political and economic conditions in an historical perspective. It might very well be the case that local conditions of production are supported indirectly by protections against land expropriation, resource use and capital accumulation that are not present in postcolonial States, and do not have to deal with the present-day effects of large-scale deterritorialization of the population and disruption of land use patterns caused by colonial (mis)governance and handed on down to the postcolonial State.
On the other hand, both France and the United States are seeing more and more policies that enable expropriation of public lands and public resources for short-term private use and non-sustainable gain.
Roger Hicks
Veteran
If you genuinely believe that evolution has little to do with meat eating, I fear we have no common ground.
Cheers,
R.
noimmunity
scratch my niche
FWIW, I am simply arguing that the question of whether or not meat consumption is a prescriptive, normative value for the human species today cannot be answered by referring to evolution.
Scientists have demonstrated that the life span of existing species (such as fruit flies) can be prolonged exponentially through lab-manipulated conditions. This kind of experiment shows us that evolution isn't the story of some irresistible, logical progressive force (what theologians call teleology), but is rather a story about discontinuities and radical jumps. Molecular biology is in the process of completely changing how evolution is understood, as the barriers between species reveal themselves to be less stable than originally though.
Roger Hicks
Veteran
Evolution is neither prescriptive nor normative. It just happens.
Nor would anyone who understands anything about evolution dream of describing it as teleological. To repeat: it just happens.
Cheers,
R.
noimmunity
scratch my niche
Claims about the quantity of meat consumption considered to be natural to the human organism, developed in relation to an evolutionary process, are being put forward here (by you in an earlier post). I do not buy those claims,
Evolution has simply given humans a choice. The species is omnivorous, and individual organisms can eat only meat, no meat, and anything in between. To say that humans have "evolved to eat as much meat as we could get" is to confuse the contingent for the necessary, and then make it normative by claiming it is "natural".
As for the idea that evolution is something that just happens, I suppose we are in agreement, except that I think that idea needs to be supplemented with attention to the ways in which human intervention alters evolution (not that evolution has a 'natural' path beyond species reproduction).
Cheers to you, too.
flip
良かったね！
All is natural. Nature is a construct.
Breeding dogs is natural because it is done.
Lots of plates spinning in this chat. Nice whenever a 'net chat is this genteel.
Contarama
Well-known
This month's issue of Smithsonian Magazine is an issue devoted to food. In one of the articles it talks about how when mankind learned to cook it allowed the brain to evolve into what it is today. Meat as a source of protein was very important perhaps crucial to this development. I seriously doubt 20K years ago there were any purely vegans or vegetarians as survival demanded you took what you could get. One is able to be a vegan or a vegetarian today probably or perhaps solely because of meat eaters. 
shadowfox
Darkroom printing lives
I agree with you with the point above.
Each of us has the one perspective that determines what we believe. Only we can personally choose our own. Obviously, it's advisable to look for the best perspective that you can find to base your system of beliefs upon. Like choosing which ladder to climb.
The key is this: Seek perspectives not for when you are healthy and young, but for when the time comes to face the unavoidable loneliness and eventually death. A perspective that has no reasonable answer that gives you hope when such times come, is not a good one to rely on, keep looking.