I’m 27 years old and have been a meat eater all my life. I’ve always loved meat and I still do. Right up until a few months ago, I would proudly proclaim that I was a “pure non vegetarian” and would disdainfully ignore any vegetable preparation on the table. I would consider my meal to be a failure if I so much as touched a vegetable with my knife and fork.
Till a few years ago, I had always held that animals killed for us would never have come into existence in the first place, since we breed them for food. Therefore (my logic went), we had a right to eat them since our net effect was zero. Something like cutting down a tree if we had grown it in the first place. But I’ve come to realize that this reasoning is false. Once life – and when I say life, I mean conscious life – is created (by whatever means), it belongs to itself. We still don’t know how consciousness is formed and so in a sense, we’re not the true creators of it.
But even if we were, we still don’t have the right to do what we want with life that we generate. Otherwise, my mother could kill me since she’s responsible for my birth. I don’t believe in a divine creator, but even if there was one, he or she would have no moral right over my life since once I am created, I am my own person.
Image Credit: Sandra Mora
But even now, this doesn’t stop me from eating meat. I have no ethical problems with eating animals for food as such. Animals can die to feed others – that is the way of nature. But there is something else that gives me pause. Every life form has the right to defend itself. When a tiger kills a deer, the deer can run and the tiger has to earn the right to eat it. In our civilization however, I’ve come to realize that it’s not fair that animals are mechanically killed and eaten by a person who has never even seen them. They have no chance to defend themselves. Doomed from the day they’re born, they are shown no respect and are powerless. It is this aspect of their death – more than anything else – that has been troubling me for a while.
I feel comfortable hunting an animal for food. If I had a (fair) weapon and the animal had a good chance of saving itself, I think I could kill it and eat it without ethical problems. The key for me is the knowledge that the outcome is not a foregone conclusion. The way we kill animals these days, it’s just not right they have no means of defense.
These thoughts had been building up in me for a couple of years now. I had reached a tipping point, and had decided that on my return to India (at the end of 2009) I would take the plunge and go vegetarian. The thought gave me nightmares. Vegetables! Me, the confirmed meat eater – it was unimaginable. But I knew I had to do it.
Then something happened that hastened my resolve to go veg by a couple of months. I saw the documentary called “Earthlings”, which revealed the systematic torture of animals who are killed for our food, clothing, and entertainment. That was enough to make me stop eating meat at once. I could not be party to something like that. It was out of the question.
So here I stand – Bhagwad Jal Park – former meat eater extraordinaire. I still love meat. I probably always will. And if I can get it in a way that respects the natural laws of life, I won’t hesitate to eat it. There must be no torture, and no foregone conclusion for the animal. The meat has to be earned by hunting and cause swift death. But given the way we currently obtain meat, it seems highly unlikely that I would ever get to taste it again…
Hey Bhagwad…
So u made a choice and I get a feeling that u will stick to it…and u call urself proudly a vegetarian by choice….
Ashes
Welcome!!!
I gave up non veg for same reasons! …better health is an added bonus!
Welcome :)
“I had always held that animals killed for us would never have come into existence in the first place, since we breed them for food.”
This is actually a powerful argument for why we should not eat meat. A veg diet is much, much more sustainable than a non-veg. diet. There just isn’t enough land to raise the kind of meat people are eating. This is true from a food security angle as well as from a greenhouse gas angle. I have nothing against domestic animals. We just don’t need herds of them grazing on land that was once rain forest. Or on corn that could be feeding people.
@jo
Well, let's see! Maybe I'll post a comment here if that happens to me :)
“I still love meat. I probably always will. ”
You’d be surprised at how much your tastes might change. I used to love, LOVE, LOOOOOVE meat, but after being vegetarian for probably only about a year I stopped looking at meat as food. It was just dead body parts to me. Now, 8 years later even the smell of bacon and KFC repulses me.
An animal wouldn't hesitate to eat us if given the choice. That's why I always thought it best to eat them first. I'm just outsourcing my defense to somebody who can do it more efficiently.
Have you ever been in a cow pasture in the middle of the night? I have. And let me tell you, it's pretty frightening. I felt much safer knowing those bovines were off to the slaughterhouse the next day. Though, I did become quite intimate with one of them. Please don't judge me, I had to look for warmth somewhere on the cold, crisp autumn night out on the range.
@the plasticgraduate
Come, you can't really believe that cows are rounded up and eaten because they're a threat. They were bred specifically for being eaten. You must have been joking.
In India we have thousands of cows roaming the streets freely and I've never heard of anyone being harmed by them. There's a reason why being peaceful is also called being "bovine."
Also, even if an animal was dangerous, I have a problem with "outsourcing" their killing for the simple reason that once you make something involving sentient life forms "efficient", they become mere units instead of living beings and one tends to forget that they can feel pain.
I would be much happier if the people to whom the "defense" was outsourced, were made to fight the animals with a fair weapon and try and kill them one by one instead of getting them into a line and painfully torturing them to death en masse mechanically. I basically have problem with efficiency whenever living beings are involved.
Nice read Bhagwad. I also proudly proclaimed of being a “pure non vegetarian” till almost a year back when I turned completely vegan (yeah, no egg as well) for some personal reasons. Though I don’t intend to stay a veggie for very long (a year or two at max) I must say that it isn’t as difficult as it appeared to be then. First few months were a bit tough especially with my roomies going at them chicken wings with full gusto at every possible opportunity but now it has become like a way of life, to the extent where I easily skip the non-veg portion of the menu when eating out.
Anyway, here are my thoughts on the non-veg vs veg wars: http://brownianmotionofthoughts.wordpress.com/2010/03/30/one-mans-meat/
Please do go through it if and when you get the time.
In reply to Siddharth Kumar Singh
Welcome to my blog Siddharth!
You're right. It's not as difficult. If you're in India that is! As soon as I step into the US, it becomes almost impossible to be vegetarian. There's no variety, everything has meant and we're restricted to eating salads :)