We Are Omnivores
Plants provide all of the protein we need. To state we need only animal flesh for our amino acids is akin to stating we need kiwi, and not oranges, for vitamin C.
One way people casually dismiss suggestions to drop meat from their diet is by hoisting up the fancy word omnivore. “But we’re omnivores,” they state with a hefty, steak-sauce covered dollop of pride. ”We must eat these animals. That’s what omnivores do.” It sounds very scientific, doesn’t it?
Omnivore does not mean “must eat meat” any more than it means “must eat cockroaches.” It is laughable (to us, certainly not to the cows and chickens) to suggest that omnivores, who by definition can eat nearly anything, must eat one particular thing: flesh.
Being omnivores, we’re highly adaptive. It means we can obtain nutrients from both plants and animals. It does not mean that we’re enslaved to a particular type of fruit or creature for nutrition.
Because we can does not mean we must.
Plants provide all of the protein we need. To state we need only animal flesh for our amino acids is akin to stating we need kiwi, and not oranges, for vitamin C.
Our status as omnivores, in fact, is exactly the perfect argument in favor of a plant-based diet. We have a buffet of food choices. To restrict our intake to one particular item, flesh, when more affordable, compassionate alternatives exist, is blind, wasteful and cruel. To pretend that the buffet does not even exist, that we are trapped into eating but one source of protein, is not just incorrect, it is insane.
read moreThe Hidden Vegan Agenda
The hidden vegan agenda: having fun and being kind.
People say “veganism has a hidden agenda.”
Every aspect of animal consumption and slaughter takes place with a hidden agenda.
Starting with our children, we hide the truth about what the animals feel. We tell them that animals are meant for us to kill, that we are showing the animals “respect,” that the animals don’t feel anything at all. We tell our children that it is okay to murder other children, just not human ones. We hide the videos of dairy cows butchered because their tired glands cannot produce milk at a profitable rate any more. Our agenda is teaching children to eat meat and dairy and, to teach them this, we must hide the truth lest it trigger their natural feelings of disgust, sadness and horror.
A child who pleases himself by burning dogs with a blowtorch[1] is considered highly troubled and possibly insane. A child who pleases himself by eating chicken nuggets is considered normal. Who created this illogical schism? We did.
As a slightly more risque comparison: for good reasons we do not want our children to have sex. We would never show them sexual videos. Likewise, we hide videos of animal slaughter from our children. The difference is we want our children contributing to the slaughter, we just don’t want them knowing that’s what they’re doing until they’re too set in their ways. This is indoctrination, and is the most obvious kind of hidden agenda.
From the animals as babies, we hide our intentions behind a lifetime of feeding and tending. But as we pet them and guide their faces to their food, we give no hint about their grisly fate. Maybe in some perfect world with unlimited resources and space, we could populate the thousands of square miles it would take to hold the billions of Free Range Animals. And even in those rolling hills, with their perfect weather and clean, fresh water, we would be hiding the agenda of killing them. Every. Single. One.
Maybe, in the dark, jammed, hellish corridors of factory farms, these animals have a good idea. But even then, likely they do not know what’s in the next building. In the slaughterhouses, we hide the upcoming rooms from the animals with twisting, angled chutes. We do not want them causing a ruckus and damaging the product, their flesh, or the machines which grind them into it. Our agenda, as always, is profit.
For the final act, we hide our agenda of clumsily missing with an underpowered stun bolt, skinning the animals alive, horse, cow and bear. We hide what’ saround the next corner, becasuse if the animals knew, they’d run[link to youtube turnaround vid] in rightful panic. Run as far as they could, at least. And maybe someone would be there to “rescue this brave little guy”[2].
From the public, we hide the lagoons of shit that leak bacteria and diseases into the water supply. We cover up the sources of E. coli and salmonella, nearly always from animals, and claim that there is an “outbreak” in tomatoes, spinach, or whatever other crop was unlucky enough to be near the factory farm run-off[3].
From the public, we hide what goes on behind the factory walls. We hire illegal migrant workers and abuse them, knowing there is little to no recourse they can legally take. From the workers we hide our trump card: turn them over to INS if they so much as squeak.
Most obviously, the slaughter is done in secrecy, hidden from the delicate and refined senses of the consumers, for as Paul McCartney says, “If slaughterhouses had glass walls, everyone would be a [vegan].”[4] (He says vegetarian, I say vegan).
The killers themselves are the modern equivalents of slaves forced to do the dirty deeds[5]. They must shield their psyches from the disgusting and unnatural acts they commit. Nearly all workers report that they “can’t think of it like a living being, it’s just an it, just a machine that makes noise, because otherwise you’d go crazy.” These are adults, and they must hide from themselves what they are doing. The agenda? Staying sane while making a dollar. If we did not demand meat, we would not create jobs for butchers.
As consumers, we even try to hide the reality of the products we claim to want to ingest. We cannot, at every meal, with every bite, sanely contemplate the source. So the body parts come packaged in little red and pink squares, de-boned, de-veined, bloodless, not too fatty, salted, cooked, and spiced. They are shaped into nuggets, patties, hot dog tubes and McRiblets. Even their names are hidden. It’s not a baby, it’s “veal.” It’s not mentrual cycle excess, it’s an “omelette.” Pork, poultry, beef, and so on. We don’t want to remind each other of what it is, where it came from.
At the most basic psychological level, we don’t even want to admit that it was a who.
Contrast this with eating a plant-based diet. There is nothing hidden about veganism. Everything we grow, everything we eat and discuss, is quite literally out in the open with anyone at any age.
Things to See:
These aren’t all strictly citations, as some just expand on the point I made:
- Simon the Sadist
- Typical article about escapees.
- Google results for factory farm runoff lagoon
- Paul McCartney video
- Blood, Sweat and Fear, from Human Rights Watch. Jump to about page 165.
Soymilk is So Strange
Let me get this straight. We artificially inseminate cows. We steal their babies and hook up machines to steal their milk. We pasteurize the milk, ship it across the country in chilled trucks to prevent curdling, feel sick to our stomachs when we consume it, must take pills to prevent gastrointestinal upset when digesting it, wouldn’t dare drink it if it sat on a counter for a day straight, and we think this is natural? Meanwhile, we see plant-based creams (soy, almond, rice) as strange?
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