Jim posted a thoughtful response in the comments of my previous entry (“Who Are You?”) that naturally caused me to write a damn novel in response, so I’m posting it as a separate entry. And yes, I disagree with Jim on this. But I think he makes reasonable points that I want to address, at great and tiresome length, but also, I hope, convincingly.

Jim wrote:

I’m not sure there’s a most basic, elemental aspect of existence. But if there is, I’m not sure it’s food. I certainly agree that corporations aren’t looking out for us. They do produce a lot beyond food, however, and I’m not really sure that turning away from products like bottled water, movies, or alcohol results in any less or more liberation from corporation-influenced culture than turning away from factory-farmed meat. I can see why the idea that eating good food is the best thing you can do for yourself is appealing, but I don’t think it’s the foundation to happiness any more than any other healthy habit is. I’ve known people that are happy, at peace, and with a strong sense of self that have unhealthy diets that could be criticized from 50 different directions. Eating good food is good for you. But I think it’s up to you to make yourself happy with the health benefits you get from it. I have yet to see any indication it’ll do anything for your sense of satisfaction automatically.

Is Food Basic to Our Existence? Pants Says Yes

While I’d absolutely agree that food choices aren’t the only (or, for many people, the dominant) factor in one’s happiness or well-being, I maintain that food is the most basic universal element of human existence.

Yes, there are things like air and water that are more immediately necessary for life. And of course there are things like sex and money that are absolutely pervasive in our culture, social interactions, etc. (And it’s worth pointing out that all of those things can as easily fit into my point about “living your values” as food.)

But I can’t think of anything that is more fundamentally woven into more aspects of our lives — survival, culture, upbringing, well-being, entertainment, and social connections, among other things — than food. You can be asexual, apolitical, or care nothing for material possessions, but even if you only eat to live, you’ve still got to eat. And while I’ve encountered people who have no strong opinions about politics or religion, I have yet to meet anyone who doesn’t harbor some strong opinion regarding food.

Just about every social gathering or celebration or holiday revolves around food. Every culture has food traditions that, in many cases, run deeper than all of its other traditions (as I’ve seen in myself and everywhere I’ve lived, descendants of immigrants who may no longer know the language or customs of their ancestors’ home country still recognize and cherish their food heritage).

One reason why I struggle with talking openly about vegan issues is that food, in proportion to its essentially benign nature, is an incredibly provocative, contentious topic, which I think points to how fundamental a role it plays in our lives. People fight over things like whether Chicago-style pizza is “real” pizza. It’s hard to even state an opinion about food without making someone defensive. Look at the most primal food issue: breastfeeding. I think it’s actually a federal law that any online mention of breastfeeding or mother’s milk vs. formula must immediately devolve into a vicious flame war.

And when you get into the “rightness” or “wrongness” of people’s food choices, that’s when things get really ugly. There are entire weblogs devoted to attacking particularly controversial diet plans. I’m not even going to get into the feuds that go on within vegan and animal rights communities.

Psychological issues with food are pandemic in our culture. Very few of us grow up without some kind of weird food-related emotional complex. Look in any bookstore, and see how many books there are about food-related issues compared to other topics: weight loss, eating disorders, disease-related diet plans, cookbooks, books on alternative diets, etc.

If there’s a subject that is more central to our daily lives, our thoughts, and our relationships with our families and loved ones than food, I simply have yet to see it.

Food and Happiness

There’s a 2003 Gallup poll that animal rights advocates point to often in discussions of Americans’ relationship with animals. Among other things, the poll finds that 96% of Americans believe “animals deserve at least some protection from harm and exploitation.” (25% say animals deserve “the exact same rights as people to be free from harm and exploitation.”) Sixty-two percent of Americans, in this poll, favor passing strict laws concerning the treatment of farm animals.

At the same time, 99% of animals raised for slaughter in the United States comes from factory farms. So it stands to reason that most of those people who are concerned about animal welfare, and who eat meat, are eating meat produced under conditions they oppose.

The notion that food issues underlie a vast American cultural malaise is sort of a pet theory that I’m still developing. It first occurred to me while I was watching the documentary Food, Inc. (Which, for those who haven’t seen it, is not a vegan film or specifically about meat, but a pretty damning look at our industrial food production system that is a must-see for anyone with any interest in what they’re eating.)

One of the segments in Food, Inc. is about a Latino working-class (or more accurately, “working poor”) family of four, and their struggle to eat healthy food on a limited budget. We see them shopping for groceries, and having to choose between what’s healthy and what’s cheap. (At one point, the daughter puts back a couple of pears and gets ground beef instead, because the beef is cheaper per pound than the pears.) The mother talks about how they end up eating fast food most of the time, because it’s cheaper and more convenient than trying to cook healthy meals at home.

We find out that the father is diabetic, and that they have to spend $400-500 per month on his medications. One of the children, we learn, is pre-diabetic. So they’re faced with a dilemma where they can’t afford healthy food because they have to pay for medications…for a disease that may well be caused by, or at the very least is worsened by, eating crappy food. They’re trapped in a vicious circle, and it’s heartbreaking to watch this family talk about how they are essentially at the mercy of a corporate-controlled food system that artificially makes unhealthy food cheaper (via subsidies) while causing healthier foods to be more expensive (via manipulation of food law).

The cherry on top of this shit sundae is that, as a result of all this corporate junk food consumption, we come down with diseases that we then treat with expensive medications generously offered to us by Big Pharma. We pay companies for the food, then we pay companies for the consequences of eating that food. Our exploitation at the hands of corporate America couldn’t be more complete!

This ties into what I hear all the time from people who are trying to eat healthy and ethically: they’d make better choices if they could, but it’s almost impossible given the situation we’re faced with. We’re essentially at the mercy of the factory food system. If farm animals that were truly humanely raised and killed with a minimum of suffering were widely available at affordable prices, I’d imagine every meat eater would choose that meat. But in our current system, this is a practical impossibility for the average person. Which forces people — even people who might limit or eliminate their meat consumption if it were affordable to do so — to participate in a system that is corrosive to their morality.

So, why is food, more than any other corporate-produced product that we consume, such a dominant factor in our (un)happiness, according to me? The number one reason is, see above: we have to feed ourselves. Name a non-food consumer product category that is actually required in order to live. (Breatharians may disagree with my premise.)

Other corporate-produced products — home electronics, movies, cars, etc. — we can avoid. You can buy some basic clothes from a thrift store and be presentable. We’re not as tied to those things as we are to that thing we actually need to sustain life. The effort it takes to remove yourself from the factory food system is vastly greater than for anything else. The extent to which our culture flows in this direction makes it incredibly difficult for anyone trying to swim in any other direction.

But that’s what makes the sense of liberation greater, when you actually do opt out of the system.

I want to make one thing completely clear: I didn’t become a vegan in order to achieve this liberation. It was a completely unintended consequence. It’s something I didn’t even perceive as a possibility until after I had made the decision, and then began to realize the true depth of the moral implications. But it’s really hard to communicate this to someone who hasn’t made the same choice, because you kind of have to experience it in order to understand it.

And another thing I’d like to clarify is that this is not a health issue, per se. There is a valid debate that can be had about whether or not meat can be part of a healthy diet. That’s not what I’m primarily concerned with in these two blog entries. What I’m talking about is not deriving happiness from improved health, but rather the morality of our food, and the values we apply to our food choices.

We can live perfectly happy, peaceful lives while making incredibly unhealthy choices. But I also believe that our level of happiness is directly related to how consistently we live according to our values. If you’re living in a way that drastically violates your morality or ethics, there’s no way you can honestly call yourself happy or at peace with yourself, unless you’ve compartmentalized your emotions so severely that you only exist in that small space that remains uncompromised.

Are there people who eat factory farmed meat and animal products who are perfectly happy? Of course. But of those people, I would ask: (1) how aware are they of the facts of how their food is produced? (2) being aware of those facts, is the welfare of the animals they consume an issue that is important to them? and (3) if it is an important issue, do they believe their overall well-being, even if it is currently good, could be improved even further by making choices more aligned with their moral priorities?

I really hope this doesn’t sound like I’m trying to judge anybody, because I’m not. This is not about applying my values to other people, but observing how other people apply their own values to their own lives. Some people don’t place a high moral value on animal welfare. Many people don’t invest very much meaning in their food at all, so animal welfare as it pertains to food doesn’t even become an issue for them. While I personally disagree, I can accept that people have a right to their own system of values. My discussion is really more about those people who do care about food in this way than those who don’t.

For me, the most profound realization I’ve had since making the decision to go vegan is that my food choices are inseparable from both physical health and moral/spiritual well-being. A year or so ago, when H and I “went raw,” that was a vegan diet, but my own reasons for doing it had nothing to do with animal welfare. I did it strictly for physical and mental health.

And it didn’t last, because I was constantly plagued, from the beginning, with temptation and feelings of deprivation, specifically centering around meat. So when I was presented with meat-based temptations, I freely gave in, because there was nothing stopping me from doing so but health considerations — and I do plenty of unhealthy things in life, so what the hell?

Since I’ve gone vegan this time around, I actually haven’t felt much temptation at all. And when I do, it’s extremely easy to deal with. Why? Because this time there is a moral and ethical component to my decision not to consume animals or animal products. Because of my constant awareness that I am much happier when I am living consistently with my values . None of the animal-based foods I used to enjoy give me pleasure that compensates for how I feel when I am morally compromised. And the spiritual and moral fulfillment I feel living this lifestyle more than satisfies whatever sense of deprivation I might otherwise feel.

It goes without saying, or ought to, that I’m far, far from perfect, and that I don’t ever live 100% consistently with my beliefs. But going vegan has brought me closer to that ideal than almost any other decision I’ve made in my life.

We live in a society that offers more cheap, easily obtained opportunities for diversion and amusement than any other in history. And yet, so many of us are depressed, unfulfilled, bored, and unhappy.

I believe this is because many of us lack a real purpose in life, something to give our lives a moral and spiritual center.

I believe that it’s difficult to know our purpose or work to achieve it when we’re blocked from our full potential as human beings.

I believe one reason for that block is that we are not living according to our values, whatever those values may be.

It’s almost impossible, these days, to be true to our values, because our post-industrial, commercialized culture is designed specifically to subvert and confuse our sense of ourselves.

If you know who you are, you don’t need some company to tell you what you need in order to be a complete person.

If you know who you are, you don’t need a brand name to give you a sense of belonging.

If you know who you are, you’re less likely to believe that purchasing a product from some corporation will make you happy, make you fulfilled, make you beautiful and healthy and successful.

Corporations hate happy people. People who are happy and living life to the fullest tend not to spend as much money as the unhappy and unfulfilled. They have what they really need in life, which is not a profitable state of being.

So corporations have helped create a world designed specifically to cultivate in people those qualities that cause them to buy products from corporations.

Identity confusion. General dissatisfaction. Unfulfilled desire. Idealized, unattainable fantasies.

And all these things turn around a single axis: you don’t know who you are, what you believe, or why you’re even here.

Having a system of moral/ethical values, and living in a manner consistent with those values, is one way to help establish and maintain a coherent sense of self.

Most people in our society believe industrial animal agriculture is inhumane. It violates their sense of what is right, or moral.

Yet, most people in our society purchase and eat factory farmed meat and animal products.

Which means most people in our society are not living according to their values. And not only that, but the area of their lives in which they are being so profoundly untrue to themselves is food, the most basic, elemental aspect of existence.

When our lives are built on such a shaky foundation, is it any wonder that there’s so much unhappiness and discontent within us and around us?

When corporations create the culture that dictates who we are and what makes us happy, is it any wonder that we turn to corporate-produced meat-based products for pleasure?

Or that we turn away from the very choices that offer us liberation from that culture?

Let me say up front, so you know where I’m coming from, that I’m not the child of San Francisco hippies, raised on sprouts and tofu. I’m a lifelong meat eater. Veganism is something that has not come naturally or easily to me.

As a little kid, I loved hamburgers. Now, I know it’s nothing special for a kid to love hamburgers. But how many kids do you know who, in first grade, had their teacher call their parents in for an emergency conference because, when they were asked what they wanted to be when they grew up, said they wanted to work at McDonald’s?

So, when I became a vegan, it wasn’t because I hated the taste of meat and cheese. In fact, I’d say that my love of dead animal flesh motivated me, in a big way, to find reasons to not give it up.

Believe me, I’ve gone through all the arguments.

I went through the whole “animals exist for us to eat them” argument and the “farm animals would go extinct if we didn’t kill and eat them” argument. I went through the “let us honor the majestic beasts by raising them with love and hugs before we slaughter them and pray and weep over their roasted flesh with a side of creamed spinach” argument.

I tried to think of any plausible rationale to keep forking the flesh into my gullet, and none of them could stand up to the facts.

In the end, it wasn’t a great epiphany that finally brought me over. Not that there haven’t been epiphanic moments over the years. By the time it finally happened, I was primed to switch. Ultimately, what it came down to is that I just plain ran out of excuses.

Bottom line: there was no plausible rationale. There was only my desire, built into me from birth from a hundred different directions. And my fear of change.

And in the other direction, the direction towards veganism and compassion for animals, there were dozens of good reasons, reasons I couldn’t deny.

We live in a world that is in pretty shitty condition. Polluted air, water, and earth; global climate change; a society rotting to death from cancer, heart disease, and other “diseases of affluence;” global hunger; and a nation in which big business keeps getting bigger and more powerful while the poor schmucks who work for big business keep getting shafted.

The realization I came to, after I stopped looking for reasons not to give up meat and started looking to find out what could happen if I did, was that giving up meat was the single most effective action I could take in order to improve the world and my own physical and emotional wellbeing. This one simple act, of not eating animals or animal products, could achieve more than any number of other things I wasn’t doing to save the world.

And, you know, I’m a compassionate guy. I care. I hate the fact that the world is going down the tubes. But I’m also an extremely lazy guy. I am not the kind of guy who installs solar panels on his roof, or builds his own electric car from a mail-order kit. I am not the kind of guy who goes to save-the-planet rallies or stands around college campuses handing out leaflets. I am not an activist.

So, when I discovered that I could, in fact, make a significant difference just by — get this — not doing something, my heart leapt (well, lurched) for joy. Now here was something I could get behind. How often do you get to ease suffering in the world and improve the lot of your fellow Earth-based organisms by just sitting there in your underwear? (Shocking answer: not often.)

I helped save the world today. I did it several times, in fact. I saved the world when I drove by Whataburger and Wienerschnitzel and didn’t drive through and buy a burger or hot dogs. I saved the world when I went to the supermarket and walked past the dead animal aisle to buy a sack of oranges. On the way home, I figured I’d save the world one more time and didn’t stop at 7-11 for a bucket of nachos.

Here’s what I did: I didn’t contribute to the suffering and death of animals. I didn’t put money in the bank accounts of industrial animal agriculture companies that are drowning the country in toxic waste and paying desperate humans low wages to work in hellish conditions until they lose their minds and souls. I didn’t help suck every last living thing out of our oceans. I didn’t ingest substances that corrode my body until I have to seek treatment I can’t afford from a broken health insurance system run by evil, greedy assholes.

All that, just by not doing one simple thing.

Veganism: It’s What’s for Dinner, for Lazy Sacks of Crap…Who Care.

I’m not an ass, honest. I’m just passionate. I’m very aware that I was a full-on meat eater not that long ago. Even when I knew better.

I know that if it’s to be anyone’s path, it will happen for that someone when it is time for it to happen.

I’m not trying to force vegan food down someone’s throat. I’m not trying to punish anyone with images of the horrors done to animals.

I just want to tell my truth. I just want to speak for the animals because they can’t speak for themselves. I just want to open someone’s eyes to the truth, to make that lightbulb go “klink” like it did for me. As I mentioned, I have ideas about why it’s so hard to stop believing we need to eat animals. And it’s hard. I have considered what I think are great explanations for why we think we need only concentrated protein and calcium and vitamin D (and to a lesser extent, B12) to live, which, coincidentally, are pretty much the only real nutrients in animal flesh or fluids. I’ve made great leaps in my appreciation of food, real food, that my body recognizes as food…leaps that were impossible to make when I was eating animals.

But I’m starting to realize that I want to share all of this for one reason…wait, there are many “causes,” many “reasons” to be a vegan, that’s not what I mean. What compels me to share is this: I was set free. I’m set free. I didn’t even know I wasn’t free, until I became so. The joy and beauty and freedom and lightness and abundance — no one ever told me about those things being possible by becoming someone who doesn’t eat animals.

Being a vegan seemed like a puritanical sacrifice, one that a truly “good” person would undertake (lie back and think of the chickens). But that’s not how it is. I’m one of the most selfish persons I’ve ever met. If this way of being didn’t make me feel better than I did before, I couldn’t sustain it. I mean, yes, I feel for the sick people, and the drugged immigrants, and those living with polluted groundwater, and for the animals, the poor sad animals whose lives are a platonic ideal of brutality and suffering. But I don’t know if I could keep it up if my soul was suffering instead of rejoicing. But it is. Rejoicing. I’m set free.

I’ll admit it up front, I am the Bad Cop of this blog. I will probably be the Mean Mom who ends up sounding hard and unforgiving. I don’t mean to be this way, but I am kind of a stern person in real life. My normal relaxed facial expression makes people think I’m angry or contemptuous. I don’t smile much, I guess. I can be lectury bordering on hectoring, and I suffer fools poorly. I lack humility, but can at least, after all this time, admit when I’m wrong, and apologize when I’ve hurt someone. I used to not be able to do that. So I have hopes for my personal growth, that I will some day be the warm and comforting force I long to be in the lives of others — instead of the unflinching voice of rational critique that lacks all compassion and empathy.

So how, you might wonder, did I decide to become a vegan for….MORAL reasons? How did my heart swell and break for the animals waiting for me to eat them? Why did I weep and weep in my grieving over all the animals I’ve already eaten? I guess I don’t know, I’m mysterious. Alls I know is that I just couldn’t do it anymore. I just couldn’t be complicit in mass torture and slaughter of innocents. And that’s what it is. Let’s not kid ourselves. The facts are out there. The anecdotes are out there. The videos, the eyewitness accounts, the company reports, the worker confessions, they’re out there. I’m not making this up. Therefore (here comes the Bad Cop) I will not be sugar-coating any of my posts. I don’t know how to speak the truth and not sound harsh, because I feel harsh about this topic. I feel like shaking and slapping people. I wish I could go back and time and shake and slap my own foolish rationalizing intellectually dishonest sleeping self.

I am convinced that there is no need for humans to eat animals or their fluids or secretions. No need. I guess I can respect people who acknowledge that though they know the truth, they simply prefer to continue paying others to kill and prepare the bodies of animals for personal gustatory pleasure. But I have a harder time respecting people who swear that there is a need or requirement for human animals to eat other animals, their fluids, or their secretions. I get frustrated because I believe it is absolutely not true. Whether it was true in prehistoric times of famine does not apply today. We are not cavemen, and the quantity and condition of the animals we choose to eat today, in this country, cannot reasonably be compared to whatever had to happen thousands of years ago.

In future posts I’ll go into why I think we believe we need to eat animals. But I have to start unwavering on this point. We do not need to.