Thanks for your reply, I think most of your points are pretty fair. I guess I interpreted the essay a little differently. I am used to being received with hostility when people find out I am a vegetarian. By this I am not just counting the times when I have been argumentative, but also those times when I have politely refused a food item, saying I don't eat animal products. Many people do not take kindly to that, and find it insulting.You say there is no need for "wallowing in the precise details of what is involved by those who already know in depth." I would reply by saying most people do not know in depth what occurs. Furthermore, people have developed a defense mechanism which allows them to temporarily deny or dissociate from the brutality of a slaughterhouse (or from other meat industry consequences [see below]) while eatin' a big honkin' burger. I have seen this in myself and in others jsut about every day of my life. In many cultures it is common to be grateful and recognize the sources of one's food before dining. In our culture this is not commonplace. Some of us may thank a higher entity, or the bounty of the land, but rarely do we thank the sentient beings involved (including the food-producers.)
Scrooge: "On a totally different tack I'd like to know what the reasons other than distaste for flesh are for vegetarianism/veganism since that was what my original post was about."
My list of reasons are, in no particular order:
-cruelty to animals in factory farming
-opposition to the proprietary/stewardship mentality which allows animal domestication
-habitat destruction in the world's most biodiverse region (curiously, ill-suited to pasture-lands)
-the above leads to soil erosion, massive species extinction, global warming
-land-grabbing from subsistence farmers to meet the demands of greedy north american diets
-mentality (most prevalent in north america) that animal products are necessary in your diet, or even that they are healthy at all in the quantities we consume them
-inefficient use of grains and arable land when a third of the world is undernourished
These are a few of my reasons. I now have an aversion to meat, though if I am in a room with people eating meat, I try to cope... sometimes. The smell nauseates me, and if I ate any animal products, I would likely get quite ill. (My body has stopped producing the enzymes needed to digest such foods.) I don't allow most animal products in my house, and I prefer not to have to see or smell them, but I cope, since otherwise the world would seem even more non-inclusive of my needs than it already does. Most vegetarians and vegans I know try to cope and accommodate as best they can, as is usually the case with minority populations.
