Diana Gitig holds a Ph.D. in cell biology and genetics from Cornell University’s Graduate School of Medical Sciences. She’s obviously well-educated and savvy enough about the issues where science and ethics intersect that Scientific American, one of the premier journals of its kind, provided her with a guest blog post on its website.
What she wrote was lucid, thoughtful and totally depressing—not to mention what a downer it is that someone with her credentials, according to her author ID, has the lofty title of “free-lance writer living in New York City.”
Her essay was titled, “Having Your Meat and Eating It, Too?” and the reason for the punctuation is that Ms. Gitig questions not whether we as humans should consume meat, but the production methods that allow most of us to put animal foods on our tables.
“I do not have a problem recognizing that we are at the top of the food chain—I think that it is no more wrong for us to eat meat than it is for lions or wolves to do so,” she wrote. “Of course, lions and wolves do not have consciences or ethics that tell them eating meat is wrong, like we do; but perhaps it is not so simple, or even so ideal, for us to deny our animalistic carnivorous natures.”
So far, so good.
She goes on to assess the validity of so-called “paleo diets,” subtly hinting that all the ravings of ex-carnivores-turned-vegan ought to be greeted with healthy skepticism.
Likewise, the veggie proponents who insist that soy-based processed foods can substitute for meat.
“Soy can provide us with all of the essential amino acids, but some think that its high phytoestrogen content mitigates its nutritional value,” she noted, the “some” in question being most of the scientific community, by the way.
And while fish is a terrific source of protein—one recommended blindly by well-meaning but ecologically clueless nutritionists as a “healthier” choice than red meat, Gitig properly reminds her audience that, “Our current appetite for it has brought the world’s fisheries to the brink of collapse.”
Which, one would have to concede, rules out a wholesale switch from meat to seafood on the center of humanity’s dinner plates.
Same old song
Having outlined a strong argument for the proper place of meat and poultry nutritionally and ecologically, Gitig then slides right down the rat hole of anti-meat industry activism, echoing (with far better diction and grammar) the same arguments that vegetarian advocates offer to justify their demands that the whole world go veggie.
“Although I do not have a problem with the idea of eating meat, I do have a problem with torturing animals to make it cheaper for us to do it,” she wrote. “So I pay more to buy meat from animals that have been ‘humanely and ethically’ raised right up until the moment they are slaughtered so I can eat them. I think of this as the truer cost of eating meat; industrially produced meat might cost fewer dollars, but I will pay for it in other ways—my health, my conscience and the state of the environment.”
Yikes. Where to start?
I respect her concern for animal well-being, but the idea that only producers connected with alternative agriculture get to toss around the terms “humane” and “ethical” is absurd. You could fill an entire library with evidence that so-called “humane” production results in greater morbidity and mortality than conventional production. Is it all right for animals to die from exposure or predators, as long as their shortened lives were deemed “ethical?”
At least Gitig admits that her “humanely raised” fare is priced out of reach for most people—I doubt very many New Yorkers share that awareness—but she tries to put a positive spin on it.
“Since the meat I buy is so very expensive, I definitely eat less of it than I otherwise might. Hopefully this ends up being better for my body, the animals I end up eating, and the planet.”
Tell that to the families in the bottom quintile of the income curve: You won’t be able to feed your family much—if any—meat products, but while you’re going without, you’re helping save the planet!
But when a Ph.D. who’s deemed smart enough to merit a space on Scientific American’s website is mouthing the very same “meat is destroying the environment” mantra that activists use to convince their less-sophisticated followers that they should subsist on the soy-and-seafood diet that she’s just explained is unsustainable, the industry’s messaging is in trouble.
Gitig concludes her essay thus: “With great power comes great responsibility, right? For better or worse, humans are the lords and stewards of this planet and the animals that inhabit it. While I do think it is within our rights to eat them, I do not think it is within our rights to treat them cruelly just to save a few bucks.”
The implication being that only alternative production is viable, only the producers who are permitted to skip the traceability and food-safety rules applied to conventional producers are ethical. That only the small-scale, less-efficient, often less eco-conscious producers can legitimately claim a share of our food dollars and our stomachs.
As has been argued here ad nauseum, we need—and benefit from—both conventional and alternative livestock production. Neither sector, however, has exclusive claim to such labels as “humane” or “ethical.”
The challenge is not only convincing the majority of shoppers in the supermarket who know so little about food production, but the highly educated minority that apparently knows too much.
› To review Ms. Gitig’s essay, visit http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/2012/05/02/having-your-meat-and-eating-it-too/
The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Dan Murphy, a veteran food-industry journalist and commentator.
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