Challenging Vegetarian Assumptions

A vegetarian diet is often touted as crucial to nutritional health to environmental sustainability. Many claim that you can't be a true environmentalist if you eat meat. However, much of that has been over-dramatized in an almost cult-like fervor. While many of the arguments in favor of a plant-rich diet are good ones, the issues are far more nuanced than they may seem at first.

Which is better:

A side of beef grown on a local farm, entirely raised on local grasses without any addition of chemical pesticides, oil-based fertilizers or unnecessary antibiotics given to the animal. The manure is used to re-fertilize the pastures and possibly nearby organic crops. It is grown on a small family farm. It is delivered in bulk to your house where you keep it in your energy-efficient chest freezer for the year.

Or:

A conventionally-raised banana, with workers and plants heavily subjected to chemical pesticides on a large, exploitative corporate farm. It is picked un-ripe and shipped thousands of miles (possibly by energy-extravagant air flights). The land is depleted, local ecosystems destroyed and massive fossil fuels burned to get this tasteless and nutritionally-sad banana to your table.

On just about all counts, meat in this case is a superior choice to the fruit in question.

Now, before you all feel vindicated in your meat-eating ways, I have to ask: Is your meat pasture-raised, organic and raised on a humane, responsible farm? The arguments for a vegetarian diet still hold if you are eating the other stuff. The problems of conventionally-raised meats are enormous.

A completely organic vegetarian diet may still beat out a completely organic meat-eating diet, but even that may be in question: Animals are an essential part of any ecosystem, and a properly functioning organic farm is going to need inputs from animals at some point for fertilizer. Some farms can probably get around it, but it may be more trouble than it is worth.

I consume coffee, bananas and avocados, too. We are all going to splurge on something exotic shipped from the four corners. Its almost impossible to eat a perfect diet that satisfies all concerns. However, it is well worth it to make sure your compromises are intelligent ones.

I do think responsible meat eating is a huge part of our environmental responsibility, given the concerns that vegetarians have brought to the table. In light of this, I have decided to pay extra-special attention to my meat purchases: My eggs are local and pasture raised. There is a side of beef and a whole pig sitting in a freezer (you have to buy this stuff in bulk to keep costs down). The pig wasn't as healthy as the cow--finding a pasture-raised pig is not so easy yet, but it will be some day. Occasionally I buy a locally-raised chicken for soup. I splurge once in a while on some wild-caught salmon (one of the more responsible fish choices out there). I love seafood, but keep it to a minimum due to the overwhelming concerns of over-fishing and pollution.

I was a vegetarian for a short while. There is something about that diet that makes you dig in your heels and take an absolutist stance. I surprised myself when I started adopting a rigid attitude, because when I began the diet, I told myself I wouldn't do that. Yet, I couldn't help but sneer while watching folks eat meat. I wonder if there is something about that diet that encourages that kind of personality shift. Maybe forcing yourself to do something unnatural brings out a polarizing attitude.

In any case, we need to thank vegetarians for being some of the best crusaders for food quality out there. Their assumptions need to be challenged, though. A vegetarian diet by itself does not guarantee good food or environmental responsibility. Given the massive nutritional benefits of properly-raised meats and the importance of animals to healthy farms, I think the focus should be on responsible meat eating rather than the exclusion of meats from our diet.