Hey Animal Loving Meat-eaters — You Might be the Animal Version of Racist

Dogs are oh so cute, but cows are delicious?

Over a meet-up with some of my closest friends from school, I remember one of my friends bring up a topic I hate to discuss.

She brought up a picture of a pup that was up for adoption — and urged us all to forward the message so the pup would find a home. OK, sure — a lot of people love pets especially dogs, and she’s only doing her bit to help a homeless dog.

Trouble began when the conversation shifted to a broader animal rights discussion.

“How can people be so cruel to animals? The voiceless little creatures — they deserve all the love.”

“If I ever wanted to volunteer, I’d open an animal shelter — humans can take care of themselves.”

“How can certain cultures eat dogs? Horrible. Ridiculous. Totally unacceptable!”

“I was watching this documentary about these animals and the way animals are treated at some farms…aww those poor little things.”

That’s all great talk — but what bothered me immensely is it all happened while she tore into the KFC chicken wings in her hand, while her husband, also my childhood friend, fully supported her views, cutting into his steak. I, incidentally the only vegetarian in the group, kept quiet, as I didn’t want to get into a meaningless debate.

More recently, one of my articles about a wrongful conviction that left a possibly innocent man imprisoned for life received a comment that hinted that the man was rightfully served for the cruelty he’d shown towards his pet cat. Here’s the comment — I won’t tag the commenter here because this isn’t about disagreeing with her point or arguing with her, but about something that triggered me to write this piece that I always avoid writing:

Honestly, his entire story seems like karma at work. If ‘animal cruelty’ were tried as animal murder and the felony it should be, 32+ years in prison for the cruelty and suffering he caused the cat and however many other animals and people he abused during his lifetime seems fitting.

The man has an IQ of 70 and is socially incapable, and has been wrongfully convicted and spent 18 years in jail, and is now in prison for life for a potential second wrongful conviction. But that’s beside the point.

Going by the logic she puts forward — anyone who directly or indirectly “kills an animal” should be imprisoned for life? Got it — we’ll get back to this.

More than 8 out of 10 people in the world eat meat

While the exact data isn’t available, but studies show more than 80% of the world consists of meat-eaters or non-vegetarians.

Not all of these are people that hate animals — in fact, it is more and more fashionable to be a meat-lover. Dogs and cats are obviously the most common pets — but the love for animals doesn’t end there.

Fish, reptiles, and all sorts of animals follow dogs and cats on the list of most popular pets. That is exactly what I fail to understand.

How did we humans decide on the “relative importance” of the life of one animal over another? It is a heinous crime to think about killing a dog, or even leaving one homeless, but it is OK to butcher a cow, or a hog, or a lamb and have them for a delicious dinner?

The goldfish in your aquarium is the cutest thing ever, and you’re sad when it dies, but the salmon and the sushi make mouthwatering delicacies?

So by the logic of my dear reader and commenter — 8 out of 10 people in the world should be imprisoned for “animal killing.”

Speciesism — the animal version of racism

I have been a vegetarian all my life — initially because that’s what my parents were — largely because of religion, but later by choice. I am not particularly religious and don’t believe it is a “sin” to eat meat, but when I have plentiful options of food without needing to “kill” an animal, I’ll stick to what I have. Moreover, I’ve accidentally had a bite of chicken and beef at two separate occasions — and the taste wasn’t enough of a temptation to switch.

However, I have friends and family that eat meat — and I have no problem with it even if we’re having a meal together. You eat your plate of food, I’ll eat mine. I only have a problem with hypocrisy.

When humans — in typical human-style — decide to assign value to one thing over another. If thinking of a white life as more valuable than a black one is racism, what do you call treating a dog’s life more important than that of a cow or a chicken?

Speciesism is what Google tells me this is — a term in philosophy used to describe the differential treatment of different species.

Here is an excerpt on an example of Speciesism:

Many philosophers argue that the differential treatment of cows and dogs is an example of speciesism. They argue that members of the two species share similar interests and should be given equal consideration as a result, yet in many cultures cows are used as livestock and killed for food, while dogs are treated as companion animals.

I couldn’t put it in better words myself — so I’ll not even try.

The food-chain argument is quickly falling apart too

Well, a lot of the times the pretty lame argument I get is — chickens and lamb and cows are bred to be consumed and they’d multiply in numbers and take over the world if it wasn’t for their consumption — all part of the food chain and ecological balance.

The bullshit’s been called on that claim by science already.

It is now a known fact that meat consumption is a huge burden on the resource consumption of the world and will lead to a world that can’t sustain life anymore if it continues. According to studies,

There is a limit to how long we can continue our current diet in western countries. With unchanged eating habits, the world population could be too big to feed itself by 2050 when we will reach a global population of almost 10 billion people.

Americans are far ahead in the consumption of meat vs. any other country. Their per capita consumption of meat in a year is mind-boggling 124 kilos!

If everyone in the world had that kind of consumption, the world would only be able to feed 2.5bn people — leaving two-thirds of the world starving to death.

Well, then it does seem that even the science says turning vegetarian or vegan is probably the way forward?

Oh, and what about nutrition?

Well, I’ll tell you being a marathon-runner and a vegetarian for all 32 years of my existence, there’s plenty of nutritionally balanced food options available to vegetarians and even vegans.

The Vegetarian society even has a page dedicated to giving you an idea about what foods can take care of all the nutrients you need.

There’s also a long list of elite athletes, who are vegan and would be the last people to compromise on their diet. NFL player Tony Gonzalez, F1 champion Lewis Hamilton, arguably the world’s best cricketer Virat Kohli, UFC fighter Nate Diaz and many more.

And I repeat, I don’t intend to change the world’s food habits or advocate veganism or vegetarianism — but all I ask for is to lose the hypocrisy, and not call yourself an “animal lover” when you’re being selective about the animals you think are important vs. others — because that’s just as bad as being racist and saying one human life matters more than another.