Lambs Are Not Food
There, I said it. Ah, the sweet relief to finally be blogging about something that some people may disagree with. But I just couldn’t keep it in any longer. Seriously, there would have been a nosebleed or something soon.
I went vegetarian sixteen years ago. And, goodness, I’m not dead yet! So I guess that debunks the whole “you need meat to survive” theory. That is utter nonsense. You don’t need meat to survive (duh!). You need food to survive. I have not been living on wild berries and mud for the last sixteen years. I’ve been eating solid food, just like a real life, normal person!
Today’s fashions and attitudes are, in the main, overwhelmingly against animal rights activists. Every time animal rights comes up on a TV series, I groan inwardly because I know the one-sidedly negative portrayal that’s surely coming. Quite frankly, I find this offensive. It’s like portraying any Muslim character as a religious fanatic. This sort of stereotyping is simplistic, insulting and - let’s face it - blatant prejudice in a particularly insidious and ugly form. Grey’s Anatomy is the first show I’ve seen in a very long time to portray the animal rights issue intelligently. They were on dodgy ground for me with the pigs at the start, but they redeemed themselves with Izzy’s speech at the end (go Izzy!). They handled the subject sensitively, and they showed both sides of the argument (and clearly there are two sides to this thing).
But, usually, animal rights activists on TV shows are always portrayed the same way - basically, as mad terrorists. For the record, I would like to say that we are not all mad terrorists. I’ve been a staunch proponent of animal rights all my life and I have never yet blown anyone up. I have never vandalised property, or committed arson or armed robbery, or whatever else it is that people think all animal rights activists do. I have given out leaflets on occasion, and now I am clearly ranting (or lecturing people, as the critics would say) here on my blog. But that is the extent of it. I’ve never even thrown a brick through someone’s window. Indeed, I like to think of myself as a fairly balanced, sane sort of person. I favour peaceful re-education as a method of change because I believe - or at least try to - that many people hurt animals unwittingly. That they are simply not aware of the suffering an animal goes through before it ends up a sausage on their plate, or before that animal-tested shampoo ends up in their basket. I’d like to think that if people were better informed about the issues, then cruelty to animals would not be so disgracefully deep-rooted and widespread. The car bombing activists are the ones who give the rest of us a bad name. They harm the cause far more than they help it. But they are only a very small percentage - a definite minority. Most of us do not have bombs in our pockets - honest.
If animal rights activists aren’t portrayed as terrorists then we’re usually portrayed as wimpy, wet do-gooders. It’s interesting to note that abolitionists in the nineteenth century faced similar charges from slave owners. Fortunately, that didn’t stop them from opposing slavery. The problem is that genuine compassion just ain’t cool, whereas an affected disinterest very often is. Fortunately, I have never been very cool. Indeed, I was hopelessly uncool and unpopular at school. But if being cool means that you can’t care about the welfare of animals, then it suits me just fine to remain this way. Personally, though, I believe that you can be an animal rights activist, and, like Izzy Stevens, still be an intelligent, balanced, peaceful, beautiful person. You can, in short, be very cool indeed.
With the exception of my grandmother (who is a wizard cook, by the way), no one else in my family is a vegetarian. Practically all of my loved ones are, therefore, meat eaters. I am in the minority in my views at home, as well as in general life. I accept that other people eat meat. I do not generally run amok at family gatherings seething with outrage about the dead animals that everyone else is consuming (although I admit I’m not above the odd cutting remark if provoked). People differ in what they believe to be ethical, and I try hard to respect that. What I cannot condone, however, and have no patience for, is when meat eaters refuse to minimise suffering where they can. This means that they should always - but always - buy organic meat, and free range eggs. I do not believe there can be any justification whatsoever for buying battery eggs and meat. I wish the supermarkets would refuse to stock these things altogether. I also do not believe that people should eat babies. Even during the brief period that I was a meat eater, I was horrified and appalled by the very idea of eating lamb. For anyone who is unaware of what a living lamb looks like, here is a picture:
Er . . . am I missing something here? I mean, honestly, could you cut this lamb’s throat? Blood gushing out everywhere, all over the straw etc? If the answer is no then, I’m sorry, but you have no business eating lamb. These are babies that have not even had the chance to live. So I repeat what I said before - if you really must eat meat, then it ought to be free range and organic.
But, please, whatever else you do, don’t eat the lambs.
(For anyone who’s interested, there’s more info at http://www.savethesheep.com, although this deals more with the horrors of mulesing and the wool industry.)
Tags: Veggie stuff
June 1st, 2009 at 6:03 pm
Alex, I was wondering what your view is on bugs? Is a bugs life worth just as much as a lambs life? If you found your kitchen crawling with ants would you squash them or carefully carry all 67 of the outside?
June 1st, 2009 at 8:25 pm
Wilfred - very good point, and I’m glad you made it.
I’m very careful with bugs. I help spiders out of the bath, and I have an ethical bug catcher thing (from Germany) for getting mozzies out of the house. A dab hand I am at catching them too. I would never intentionally hurt a bug, and I try really hard not to hurt them by accident.
The point, though, is that if I were *completely* committed to not hurting bugs, not only would I never get in my car, but I would actually kill myself on the spot (because of stepping on them etc). I’m not prepared to kill myself for the bugs. But I do everything I can to avoid hurting them, and would never kill one deliberately.
Being a proponent of animal rights is to embark on a constant battle not to be a hypocrite. I even forgo red wine in pubs now for this reason - and, believe me, that is some sacrifice on my part. Everyone has a different limit. A bug’s life absolutely *should* have the same value as a lamb’s but it’s hard for humans to see that(because they’re not cute and fluffy, I suppose).
But, to answer your question, I most certainly would carry the 67 ants outside (and have done something like this on several occasions in the past, albeit on a smaller scale). Hence the funny looks I get from people on a regular basis.
June 5th, 2009 at 2:38 pm
FINALLY! I’m not the only one in the world who feels like this!
I knew I should have waited and married a woman who does not grab for the vacuum cleaner every times she sees a bug…they do exist!
I’ll have to settle on buying one of your books I guess. This is probably the first time somebody sold one of their books by being nice to bugs.
June 6th, 2009 at 2:36 pm
And there I was thinking you were trying to catch me out with the bugs question!
Nothing would induce me to hoover up a bug, Wilfred, nothing! And if you were to buy one of my books for being nice to the creepy-crawlies, this is what we would call Instant Karma
June 7th, 2009 at 2:06 pm
I have a humane spider catcher Alex, are you proud of me? No more of my brother torturing spiders in this household!!!
June 7th, 2009 at 2:14 pm
Well done, hun. I’m very proud.
June 8th, 2009 at 4:22 pm
Respect to you m’dear, for you draw the line far higher than I. I just go by the ‘only willing to eat what I’m willing to kill’ principle. So no to lambs, but yes to salmon (and bugs, in theory, though I’ve never eaten one deliberately).
Last week there was a piece on Radio 4′s morning news program about viable alternatives to animal testing and I was delighted when the case was allowed to be put without the usual attempt to equate a concern for the rights of animals with extremism and terrorism. I sometimes think that if the Home Office figures on the number of animals tortured and killed in labs in the UK each year (upwards of three MILLION) were brought to the attention of the public, attitudes might change. But of course, there’s a lot of money to be made breeding lab animals, so that’s unlikely to happen.
June 8th, 2009 at 11:11 pm
Jaine, I can only respect that. And I wish more people thought that way.
In some cases, though, I do not draw the line higher than you, for I am not above frequenting McDonalds as long as it is to buy a veggie burger - my reasoning being that I am supporting the cruelty free side of their business.
Re the Radio 4 programme, I saw a TV thing once that said if slaughter houses had glass walls, everyone would be a vegetarian.
June 15th, 2009 at 10:07 am
How is NEEDING to drive your car different from NEEDING to eat tastey baby sheep?
I draw the line at ‘potential for communication’ myself, communication to cover aliens, and potential to cover babies/people in comas etc.
But perhapse it would be more honest to choose ‘might rebel against their human masters’ which would mean my ethics would automaticaly shift once there were sufficient militant animal rights activists
June 15th, 2009 at 11:10 am
Fundamentally, it’s no different. Although my argument would be that it would be hard to function in a modern world without a mechanical mode of transportation. But it is possible to live a happy, ordinary life without eating lamb (Quorn lamb is divine).
And I suppose your other point depends on what you mean by “communication”. Animals communicate with each other. Dolphins, I understand, have quite an advanced system of communication. And I can communicate with my dog (and cats) far better than I could communicate with, say, a Japanese person, seeing as I don’t speak a word of Japanese (although I *can* say hello and “I have a cold” in Chinese . . .) Communication does not have to involve language.
But everyone has to draw the line somewhere, and we all have different lines. Which is why I don’t think anyone should be so convinced in the rightness of *their* opinion that they think bombs are a good idea.
June 18th, 2009 at 1:00 pm
Slightly off the subject, but I was wondering what your views are on the culling of certain animals for conservation purposes. Take for example grey squirrels and the American signal crayfish, both invasive species (and coincidently both American in origin), that pose a direct threat to the survival of the native British species.
June 19th, 2009 at 2:13 pm
I don’t know a lot about this, so I don’t have a strong opinion about it. However, the thought of grey squirrels being captured in traps, and then shot in the back of the head, does not sit at all well with me. As far as I can see, so-called conservation culling is not very different from consistently freeing flies from a spider’s web. Yeah, you saved the flies, but the spider will die instead. I’m not sure how you justify killing one animal in order to protect another. So I would have to say that, without further info, I’m against it. This is why I don’t free the fly from the web, even though I really want to.
November 11th, 2010 at 5:20 am
I’m glad I’m not the only one who feels this way..i just cannot understand it..
When i have children if they tell me they want to eat meat i will want them to witness the slaughter of the animal and then i want them to tell me that they still want to eat it.
November 12th, 2010 at 10:12 am
Amen to that.
May 9th, 2011 at 3:05 pm
Hi I’ve been a vegetarian for 13 years (I’m 24), and went through my adolescents and early twenties just fine without eating meat). I often get the question ‘Oh, ar you a vegetarian? Why is it because you don’t like killing animals, or because of the taste?’. Well it’s both. The thought of putting a living creature through torture and death so that I can have a meal and the rest of the animal can be thrown away - I find appauling.
It’s nice to see that more people are becoming veggie though!! )