Musing on our place in the Food Web
It seems food issues have been emerging among my circle, here, on facebook, and in real life over the past six or eight months or so.
Looking at it from The Top down, we have evolved to be omnivores. Now, if we assume some kind of a Higher Power, what does that say about the rightness (or allrightness) of eating animals? Because the whole ecology depends on animals being eaten by other animals, whether homo sapiens or not.
[There is a bit of Christian myth that says that in the Garden of Eden, all the animals were veg until the Fall. This rarely seems to lead to anyone going vegetarian themselves, however. Rather, it seems to stem from a need to blame all pain and death on human sin because it couldn't really have been God's fault.]
Of course, this issue with the Higher Power and the Food Web is just one aspect of the whole question of why there is pain at all. Which is unanswerable, so I'll just leave it at that for now. Of course, if you are an atheist this is a complete non-issue, but as far as I know, most of us are coming from some sort of religious background.
In other words, most of us grow up thinking omnivorism is not only perfectly natural, but good for you.
My own journey toward vegetarianism moved beyond vague thoughts when I began to learn "too much" about factory farming. One of my friends posted a link to Food Inc when it was briefly available for viewing on PBS's site, and one of my daughters had begun talking about the things she'd learned from one of her vegetarian friends. Last summer I became a pescetarian, thinking that at least the fish and other sea creatures got to live normal lives until they were eaten.
But as readthisandweep once said somewhere on her journal, we can be aware of what we are doing when we eat, and we can choose. My mind kept returning to that thought.
What finally led me to at least try to approach veganism was a video that packs a lot of information in under twelve minutes, called Farm to Fridge. It is quite violent, but when you realise that profit is just as much the main priority for the farm industry as any other industry, you see how it would inevitably have come to this.
I don't even miss eating meat. Physically, I actually feel much better without it, not to mention the happiness aspect. And it's not so much about eliminating guilt as it is feeling solidarity with the animals and the whole environment.
Looking at it from The Top down, we have evolved to be omnivores. Now, if we assume some kind of a Higher Power, what does that say about the rightness (or allrightness) of eating animals? Because the whole ecology depends on animals being eaten by other animals, whether homo sapiens or not.
[There is a bit of Christian myth that says that in the Garden of Eden, all the animals were veg until the Fall. This rarely seems to lead to anyone going vegetarian themselves, however. Rather, it seems to stem from a need to blame all pain and death on human sin because it couldn't really have been God's fault.]
Of course, this issue with the Higher Power and the Food Web is just one aspect of the whole question of why there is pain at all. Which is unanswerable, so I'll just leave it at that for now. Of course, if you are an atheist this is a complete non-issue, but as far as I know, most of us are coming from some sort of religious background.
In other words, most of us grow up thinking omnivorism is not only perfectly natural, but good for you.
My own journey toward vegetarianism moved beyond vague thoughts when I began to learn "too much" about factory farming. One of my friends posted a link to Food Inc when it was briefly available for viewing on PBS's site, and one of my daughters had begun talking about the things she'd learned from one of her vegetarian friends. Last summer I became a pescetarian, thinking that at least the fish and other sea creatures got to live normal lives until they were eaten.
But as readthisandweep once said somewhere on her journal, we can be aware of what we are doing when we eat, and we can choose. My mind kept returning to that thought.
What finally led me to at least try to approach veganism was a video that packs a lot of information in under twelve minutes, called Farm to Fridge. It is quite violent, but when you realise that profit is just as much the main priority for the farm industry as any other industry, you see how it would inevitably have come to this.
I don't even miss eating meat. Physically, I actually feel much better without it, not to mention the happiness aspect. And it's not so much about eliminating guilt as it is feeling solidarity with the animals and the whole environment.