Why I am not vegetarian
When did primates begin to eat meat? Perhaps after they learned to harness fire and were able to cook meat so it became soft enough for uncured teeth to masticate and digest. In some areas of the world there isn’t much of the vegetable world to choose from. The tribes who lived in the Arctic had a short season to gather fruit, seeds and roots. If there was game all around them, and they observed carnivorous species surviving on meat, their logic must have led them to try meat on it’s own. Certainly a plentiful sources for meat was the sea, and with a hereditary knowledge that humans needed some fat to thrive, they added fish to their diet and found that they survived.
Meat eating probably developed from a need to use what was available to combat hunger. Vegetarians contend that we are more advanced that these primitive people and don’t need meat. In the richer countries there is a ready access to a variety of food groups, making it possible to live healthy without eating meat. Many people in the world don’t have the luxury of these choices. Somehow vegetarians believe themselves superior to meat eaters - hopefully this superiority only extends to those of us who have a choice.
I choose to eat meat, having passed many periods of a strictly vegetable diet, because it is a ready source of good protein. I was born with a digestive system that can make good use of the fat and protein for energy. I choose not to deny my biology.
There are those who don’t eat meat because they believe that killing animals is cruel. Depending on how the act is done this is more or less true. Death for any living thing is tragic but inevitable. We all die, animals die, and plants die.
Humans perceive life on a fairly limited level. Dogs experience the world differently from than we do, and so does every living thing. I subscribe to the hypothesis that just because we can’t sense something with our limited faculties, doesn’t mean that the thing doesn’t exist. We can carry on munching carrots deluding ourselves that nothing died and nothing suffered in order to feed us. But the carrot died, we interrupted its life cycle in harvest, pulling it up in the best of health. I accept that things die so that we can live. This is true whether I eat meat, or vegetables, or both.
I silently say grace with every meal to say thank you for everything which gave up its live so I could live. I don’t argue that vegetarians should change their ways, but I believe they are somewhat misguided. However, if being vegetarian keeps these people’s bodies and consciences clean, they are welcome to their folly. In all aspects of life it is important to remember that whatever we do or eat, we should do it in moderation, with an ever present awareness of what we are doing and why.
