First post: Was Hitler a Vegetarian?
One of the favorite things for people to criticize is one’s diet. If you are a meateater, some vegetarians will launch into you. (In India it can have fatal consequences if you deal with slaughtering cattle). If you eat fish, vegetarians (who use dairy products, which are not neutral to animal welfare) object. Vegans don’t approve of anybody who is not vegan. Meateaters excoriate anyone who does not eat meat because they pose a threat.
After all, the system of animal factory farming, as illustrated in the epic documentary “Food, Inc.” (watch free here) is indefensible. One can, perhaps, make an argument that free-range animal husbandry is ecologically sustainable. But one can not make an argument that it is just.
Certainly, people with little opportunity to have other forms of protein, let alone food, need to eat meat. That argument is grounded in reality. ♻︎
But to feed large amounts of GMO soy to animals, as expertly set forth in the DW documentary Soyalism (watch free here) is absolute insanity. To exploit foreign workers (and even endanger their health in the time of Covid) is heinous. Yet, all of this is blissfully ignored by the masses of meateaters, who never met a vegetarian, pescatarian or vegan that they
One of the favorite tropes of meat eaters when they circle the wagons is to cite the “fact” that “Hitler was a vegtarian.” However, this was not true!
As Carrie Poppy sets out in this essay, Hitler was more of a picky eater than anything else. There is that one reported incident of him dining on squab. But there is also the fact that one has a hard time imagining him empathizing with anything or anyone. He was too much of a sociopath for that.
So, meat eaters, please go out and slaughter an animal before you turn sanctimonious about it. It is true that there are hunters, who relish killing, but does one really want them for a friend, lover or mate?
Eating has consequences. Many of these we do not have any control over because we do not raise or grow what we kill or exploit.
But let us not pretend that these consequences do not exist. Or that meat is necessary for survival. After all, until the era of refrigeration, meat was a luxury. And today millions (if not billions) are involuntary vegetarians.
Every caring person should think about joining them on a voluntary basis. We do have to recognize the difference between right and wrong, even if we choose the latter, out of convenience or simply unthinking predeliction.