Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma: Should We Be Vegetarians?

My favorite part of Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma was the discussion he had on the philosophy of vegetarianism. That whole section of the book is so covered in statements and questions I had that it is hard to reread the original text. Being a vegetarian myself, I continuously get asked why I choose not to eat meat and usually I say it is because of my belief that animals have lives and they deserve the right to live just like humans. The real reason I became a vegetarian is a mystery. It happened when I was six years old when my teacher told me about the reality of meat. Since then, I have not eaten meat. But really, I have lost the desire to eat meat. My body has lived without it for so long, I no longer crave it or even get the slightest bit of pleasure when I hear of it or smell it from afar. i've just grown away from it. But, this book really made me think about why I am still a vegetarian and if it was a right choice for me 14 years ago to give it up completely.

Argument 1: One of the arguments brought up in the book was whether animals deserve to live, just like I talked about before. According to the evolutionary food chain, animals are suppose to eat the animals lower on the food chain. If humans are at the top of the food chain, then they should be able to eat any animals that they like.

However, the opposing argument to this is that animals have lives just like humans. They breathe, eat, sleep, reproduce just like us. Therefore, they deserve to live. A philosopher by the name of Peter Singer wrote a book on the philosophy of vegetarianism called Animal Liberation I. He calls this argument the act of specieism, the act of giving animals the same importance as human beings. By saying this, he means that people who don't eat meat give the same value to an animal life as they do with a human life. Singer describes the problem with this belief. He demonstrates this belief with an example: If we had a chimpanzee and a mentally retarded human in the same room, and if we had to kill one of them, would it be better to kill the chimpanzee who is capable of doing much more than the mentally retarded human? If their lives had the same value to us, then we would chose to kill the one that is least valuable to us. However, humans naturally choose their own species to to survive. Therefore, do vegetarians really value the lives of animals?


Argument 2: Another argument was if our ancestors (hunters and gatherers) ate meat, then it would make since if we continued to eat them now. Meat is the best source of protein and certain vitamins like vitamin B12, therefore it is a good thing to eat meat. Also, are bodies are built to digest meat.

However, the opposing argument to this statement is that humans have evolved to get the nutrients in meat elsewhere. In other words, we no longer have to rely on meat to get certain nutrients. I have said this point to many of the people that have challenged me in my vegetarianism and it has always thrown them back, lost of a rebuttal. Michael further argues that farming animals started as a way of our ancestors surviving in past. But our society no longer needs the meat to survive. Therefore, should we stop consuming meat because of this? Singer also suggests that vegetarians might have a "higher consciousness" than people who still eat meat and are the next generation of humans. He says that vegetarians realize that we no longer need meat to survive and therefore have adapted our diets to live without it. When I read this, it seemed a little too dramatic (but made me feel superior to the average human being moohahaha)! But it's an interesting idea.

Argument 3: Michael also brings up a theory to why humans continue to eat meat. He thinks that people who buy meat from the grocery store (the majority of people in North America) do not associate what they are eating to the animal itself. In other words, a person does not think of the pig that their nicely sliced pork chops came from. He suggests that if more people had to kill their own animals to get meal, more people would be vegetarian because of the gruesome and guilty feelings associated with killing something. John Berger, an English writer, added to this theory saying that the "loss of eye contact" helps humans disassociate their meat with the animals themselves. I thought this was interesting and it totally made sense. I think that people are just accustomed to eating meat because that is what they were taught and what our society believes is acceptable. It's part of our history as human beings. Even I disassociated my Chicken McNuggets and meatballs from the animals themselves when I was younger, but once I began to image the life of the poor animal I was eating, I no longer was able to do it. It's almost like humans somehow have a switch in their brains. They can believe what they want to and then totally shut out other things that block them from having certain pleasures. I definitely think this theory is reasonable and it would be interesting to study more about it.

This theory somewhat brings up another argument talked about in the book. That is, vegetarian fear that the way we slaughter animals cause them pain/suffering/fear. This is once again specieism, where we are giving animals the same humanistic emotions. However, we do not know whether animals actually feel these emotions, or if they do, to what extent do they feel them. For all we know, our feeling of pain might be 100 times strong than with animals. There is no way of knowing exactly what they feel. This further brings up the argument of whether animals feel happiness. Many vegetarians choose not to eat meat because of the torture we put animals through in factory farms. PETA is a good example of the group of people that advocate this. They think that we should treat the animals with more respect, that they should live happy lives. But if animals do not express that emotion, than why bother?

My argument for this is what does it matter? If the only purpose to animals in factory farms is to be slaughtered, then why bother with their happiness. Does it really matter if the cow where your cheap hamburger came from lived a happy life? I don't see why? Their only purpose is to be food. What animal happiness protestors should really be arguing to get rid of factory farms all together, not just letting the animals live a happier life. To me, it just does not make sense why some people will only eat the meat of animals that had happy lives. Why does it matter?

So these are just a few of the arguments made in this book. If I went through all of them, this blog would be 100 pages long! jk. If you would like to hear about more of the arguments, I recommended reading the beginning of Part 3 of the book in which it takes about vegetarianism and veganism. For an argument that I never really thought existed, I highly recommended reading about this. It is very interesting!