Eighth Class University Essays 8 The Ethics of Nonviolent Eating by Helen Nearing The Animal Rights Position by Tom Regan Respect for Animals interview with Isaac Bashevis Singer Animals, my Brethren by Edgar Kuper-Koberwitz A Vegetarian Sourcebook by Keith Akers CLASS OF NONVIOLENCE ”Terrorists” for Animal Rights by Colman McCarthy Class of Nonviolence - 16-Week Course 1 2 Eighth Class The Ethics of Nonviolent Eating By Helen Nearing I wonder of what sort of feeling, mind, or reason, Nature has provided man with an that man was possessed who was first to pollute abundance of food for full nourishment his mouth with gore, and to allow his lips to touch instead of putrefying corpses, which repugnant the flesh of a murdered being; who spread his table diet decent folk would abhor if generation with the mangled forms of dead bodies, and claimed upon generation had not, through use and as daily food and dainty dishes what but now were custom, habituated themselves to the ghoulish beings endowed with movement, with perception, practice of making their stomachs the burial and with voice? ground for dead bodies. Plutarch, On the Eating of Flesh. 70 A.D. The word “vegetarian” derives from the Latin “vegetus” — whole, sound, fresh, This book on simple food is lively. The meat humans eat is neither whole, vegetarian, of course. It is the simplest, sound, fresh, or lively. It is dis-limbed, tainted, cleanest, easiest way to eat. I take it for granted decaying, stale and dead. A diet consisting that to live on plants and fruits, seeds and nuts of green leafy vegetables, root crops, grains, is the way for rational, kindly and perceptive berries, nuts and fruits supplies all the people to live. By the time mankind has fully body needs for strength and well-being. It is advanced from complex back to simple living, healthful food, aesthetic, economical, harmless flesh will have been dropped from the diet to our brother animals, easy to grow, to prepare and that cruel costly fare will be left to the and to digest. carnivores. The readers of this book may be Flesh-eating by humans is unnecessary, beyond that repulsive custom, but for those irrational, anatomically unsound, unhealthy, who are not, I set down what I consider unhygienic, uneconomic, unaesthetic, unkind legitimate arguments for a vegetable diet. and unethical. May I elaborate? However, I realize in advance I shall make little dent upon the general public, long-time Unnecessary confirmed in its savage custom. Meat is not a necessity, but a The sight of slabs of flesh should cultivated want. We need not butcher our horrify and disgust any sensitive person if fellow creatures for food. Millions of people they exercised their inborn compassion. throughout the world and through the ages Habit has dimmed their native kindliness. have lived their whole lives on plant food Their palates have become abnormally and been none the worse; in fact, they have corrupted and conditioned by a taste for dead probably been in better health because of food, its flavoring and odors. People who their abstemious diet. I had the good sense to eat slaughtered creatures every day find it be born in a vegetarian family and have lived hard to imagine what to substitute for meat, into my seventies in good health and strength, not realizing that meat is the substitute for without meat. Scott became a vegetarian in vegetables. his mid-thirties and has lived into his nineties, hale and hearty, with plenty of brain and Class of Nonviolence - 16-Week Course 3 brawn, and without meat. It is obviously not pet cat or dog’s quivering flesh. Many who necessary to eat cooked flesh. learn to love animals and have them for pets A vegetarian friend, Henry Bailey would lever kill and eat their own Bunny Boy. Stevens, wrote some Rhymes for Meat-Eaters, But others’ pets, other animals’ offspring and from one of which I quote: parents that have been murdered by others, With lentils, tomatoes and rice, olives can be put into the stew pot and callously and nuts, and bread, consumed. Why does a man care to gnaw a slice of Most meat-eaters have a squeamish something bleeding and dead? limit beyond which even they will not go. They will not eat worms, slugs, garden snails Irrational (though they are said to be an excellent source The argument is frequently made that of protein), or insects, mice, rats, cats or dogs, if we did not kill and eat animals, the creatures horses, or human beings. “The Samoans, who would take over and cover the earth. This ate dogs, despise eggs and chickens. Similarly, is not necessarily so. The process of natural the Qitoto of Brazil, who eat rats, frogs, lizards, selection would intervene as it does with wild snakes and turtles, eat the eggs of reptiles but animals. If we stopped breeding and cozening despise those of birds.” Bernard Shaw spoke domestic animals, the rate of their population of meat-eating as “cannibalism with its heroic growth would immediately and drastically dish omitted.” diminish. And Bronson Alcott remarked to Animals need not be bred; they need Emerson who was dilating upon the horrors not be killed; they need not be eaten. “But it of cannibalism while carving up a roast: “But is natural for us to eat animals” is the usual Mr. Emerson, if we are to eat meat at all, why remark—”Animals were made for us.” That is should we not eat the best?” I would agree, in hardly logical. Animals were on earth aeons that I have often thought a baby’s chubby arm before man. They waited long before their looks delicious and (if I ate flesh) good enough devourers arrived. to munch on. I have no doubt that it is a part of the destiny of the Anatomically Unsound human race, in its gradual improvement, to leave Animals (and man is one of them) off eating animals, as surely as the savage tribes are structurally and functionally adapted to have left off eating each other. He will be regarded a particular mode of nutrition. The rabbit, as a benefactor of his race who shall teach man to to which a vegetarian is often disparagingly confine himself to a more innocent and wholesome compared, is of the .Rodentia order, feeding diet. Henry David Thoreau, Walden. 1854 entirely on vegetable matter, the pig is Omnivora; its diet is closest to the typical If it were so natural, why not catch human omnivorous diet of today. The and kill your own animal, cut a slice from the domesticated pig is not particular about what carcass or tear a leg off he living beast and eat it eats. Like millions of contemporary humans, it “naturally,” fresh and whole? You could do its diet includes practically nothing edible, of that with a fruit or vegetable, but not with your both animal and vegetable origin. 4 Eighth Class Physiologically, a fruit and vegetable diet is all vegetarian. The camel, also a vegetarian, has more in line with the human anatomy. The long endurance records; the horse and deer teeth, the digestive system, the hands, feet and have speed records. mammary glands of humans resemble the ape A farmer says to me,” You cannot live on vegetable family to a great extent. food solely, for it furnishes nothing to make bones Primitive humanity was, no doubt, like the with”; and so he religiously devotes a part of his anthropoids, mainly frugiverous. day to supplying his system with the raw materials Robert Bnffault, The Mothers. 1927 of bones; walking all the while he talks behind his oxen, which, with vegetable-made bones, jerks him The digestive juices of man are not and his lumbering plough in spite of every obstacle. sufficient to tackle what the carnivores eat. The Henry David Thoreau, Walden, 1854 carnivores secrete hydrochloric acid about ten As to the vaunted necessity for protein times as strong as that of humans and have and the high protein content in animal flesh a very short intestinal tract so that meat is and animal products to maintain robust quickly digested and expelled. Man’s digestive health: protein is certainly required in the tract is three times as long, holds food for two body for growth and repair, but is there not or three days, forming a putrefying mess if on a a maximum as a well as a minimum beyond meat diet. which one should not go? Too much protein The structure of the teeth gives an overtaxes the vital organs. The excess must be important clue as to the natural food of a eliminated as waste or be stored in the muscles, species. Flesh-eating animals have tusks and which become hard and inflexible. One might fangs for tearing and gnawing; herbivores and well ask: How little protein does one require, frugivores have smooth teeth for grinding and not how much does one need? chewing. Man and gorilla both belong to the There is protein in nuts, beans, frugivora family. Our front teeth are for biting peas, lentils, mushrooms, cheese, milk, eggs, and our back teeth for crushing and pulping; wholemeal cereals, and many green vegetables. therefore human diet should be similar to that Practically no common foodstuff is devoid of of the apes: raw fruit, raw vegetables, nuts, some protein. Plants manufacture it from the shoots and sprouts. nitrogen of the air. They make the simpler Unhealthy type of protein, but the same amino acids as in During World War II, Denmark was meat. put on emergency rations and the king called Vegetable protein is the original source for a meatless program for a year.