Rethinking the Purpose of Cows

“Food must not only be good to eat, but also be good to think.”

The ethics of food arises from the fact that we are omnivores which, unlike squirrels, rabbits and lions, obligates us to choose what to eat. Few among us actually fulfill that obligation preferring to leave such hard work to our mothers and marketing strategists. The highly paid strategists at McDonald’s know that we will return to those few familiar dishes we grow to love as children which is why this blue blooded institution is one of the world’s top toy distributors.

This is but one of the many provocative and insightful ideas to be found among Michael Pollan’s writings and talks. I highly recommend listening to or watching his presentation at the “Food, Ethics and Environment” conference held at Princeton University in 2006 (found on iTunes U) at which time he had not yet published his wonderful book “In Defense of Food”.

Of course the above statements rest on the assumption that we are indeed omnivores. Admittedly most people don’t need to be convinced of this, but because he was talking to the type of people who would attend such a conference, he makes a compelling argument while addressing the issue of how to decide between an omnivorous or vegetarian diet.

We have, he states, a widely held, basic misunderstanding of domestication. “The animals on our farms, if you take an evolutionary view, are not figures of oppression or exploitation necessarily. Most of them have evolved in a specific direction to in effect trade their independence, their wildness, for protection, food and the life that you can have under the roof of human culture. This is not a consensual thing in any kind of moral philosophical framework; it’s simply an evolutionary thing. Many animals and plants have refused to be domesticated. For some of them, strictly by trial and error, no strategy, no intention involved, no consent, have found that this life provided for their interests in a Darwinian sense, which is to say more copies of themselves, more habitat, more of their genes sent into the future. So for these farm animals … the good life depends on the good farm. Far too few of them have the good farm as their habitat and less now than ever before. But these are animals that when they do live on the good farm and have a humane life there, are realizing what they are on this planet to realize. Of course, animals will only be on farms to the extent that we eat them. From everything I have been able to learn … it will be very hard to create a truly sustainable agriculture without animals.”

The basic claim is that if we didn’t eat cows they would not receive our protection and, unable to fend for themselves, would disappear, become extinct, reducing biodiversity and important food chain elements.

This is the first time that I have seen a provocative and more academic version of the typical “…but if we didn’t eat cows, then what are they here for?” argument. I see several problems with this logic.

First, claiming that the purpose of the cow is to be eaten by humans begs the question about other animals. If you argue, for example, that the purpose of the gazelle is to be hunted and eaten by the lion, then what is the purpose of the lion? What is the purpose of the shark or the crocodile? Is it not enough that dogs are companions for humans, should we give them an even higher purpose by making them part of our diet? Of course, cows are domesticated and pretty defenseless while lions and sharks are not but just because humans have exploited willing partners such as the cow for many years does not imply that this is the most natural or ethical action. Custom is not the mother of ethics.

Second, is it impossible for us to concede intrinsic value to a cow? Who are we to decide what the purpose of a cow is? We have enough trouble figuring out what our own purpose is, so why waste good paper speculating about the purpose of cows? If there is one lesson we can take from the ecological disasters that we have caused, it is that regarding stewardship, nature is much more intelligent than we have so far proven to be. Speculating on this matter and getting the answer wrong is much more disastrous than focusing our minds on something more constructive and urgent like feeding the world’s poor.

Lastly, if we do the thought experiment, as Mr. Pollan would say, of imagining what would happen to cows if our diets suddenly excluded them, we are confronted with a situation similar to that of many other species for which we have become stewards. Bald eagles, many types of whales (including the killer whale), seals, turtles, many types of bats, bears, mountain lions, grey wolves, alligators, boa constrictors, foxes, jaguars, kangaroos, otters, clams, snails, insects and even a long list of plants receive special stewardship for being on the Endangered Species Act list. If cow populations became drastically reduced as a result of eliminating them from our diet, would there be one good reason that we couldn’t protect the cow as we do with all of the above plants and animals?

I agree with him that animals are essential elements to healthy farms although I don’t see how that implies making them part of our diet.

Despite several similarly unfounded and self-serving ideas in his books and talks, I definitely recommend reading what he writes, especially “In Defense of Food”, which will teach even the most indoctrinated a thing or two about the history, nature and consequences of “nutritionism” and our current food production system.

The Personal Lifestyle Choice

We hear way too much about factories and industries and changing light bulbs and such regarding global warming. Not that these aren’t important, but on one extreme the average citizen can’t really have any important impact, and on the other we can do tiny but benevolent acts that make us feel good if nothing else. To avoid paralysis of action, we have to look at a third way in which individuals can make a big impact by making a personal lifestyle choice.

Perhaps THE personal lifestyle choice, the one that dictates all others, is diet. As our bodies change we are literally eaten by the earth and in exchange we get to choose how we would like to eat it. Of course, much of our diet choice is culturally influenced and most people don’t ever get beyond what they are sold by their local marketing strategists and fed by their mothers. However, diet is ultimately a personal choice that is possibly the most intimate way of establishing a relationship with our Earth. Living as part of our Earth is an important spiritual lifestyle choice and this spiritual development refines the balance we need between us as individuals and the rest of life. “The more spiritually evolved we become, the more we are aware that we are also a part of everything outside and beyond ourselves; we are just a tiny piece to a greater whole. We become more selfless.” (Balance Point: Searching for a Spiritual Missing Link)

Just as important is the practical side to all of this. According to the UN/FAO’s report called “Livestock’s Long Shadow”, “The livestock sector emerges as one of the top two or three most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global.” It contributes over 18% of all greenhouse gasses, more than transport. These are emitted in the form of Co² and other more destructive gasses such as methane, nitrous oxide and ammonia. The report suggests a series of solutions including cover crops, manure management, forestation, reforestation, developing methodologies for soil carbon sequestration, and above all, improving livestock diets.

Regarding effects of the industry on water, the report states the following:

· The livestock sector is a significant source of overgrazing, compaction, erosion, acid rain, acidification of ecosystems

· The livestock sector is a key player in increasing water use, accounting for over 8 percent of global human water use…

· It is probably the largest sectoral source of water pollution, contributing to eutrophication, “dead” zones in coastal areas, degradation of coral reefs, human health problems, emergence of antibiotic resistance and many others.

· The major sources of pollution are from animal wastes, antibiotics and hormones, chemicals from tanneries, fertilizers and pesticides used for feedcrops, and sediments from eroded pastures.

· Livestock also affect the replenishment of freshwater by compacting soil, reducing infiltration, degrading the banks of watercourses, drying up floodplains and lowering water tables.

It is also a leading contributor to the destruction of biodiversity. “Indeed, the livestock sector may well be the leading player in the reduction of biodiversity, since it is the major driver of deforestation, as well as one of the leading drivers of land degradation, pollution, climate change, overfishing, sedimentation of coastal areas and facilitation of invasions by alien species.”

As the topic here is climate change, I thought about saving a discussion about health issues for later. However, can we really consider ourselves and our health separate from our environment? We can consider obesity, numerous types of cancer, hypertension and a variety of other meat-intake related diseases as part of our current environmental disaster if we consider ourselves as part of the environment, which is only logical.

Both environmental and health disasters are a logical consequence of deviating from our natural diet on such a large and now nearly uncontrollable scale. Medical science is gradually demonstrating that our natural diet consists of that which grows out of the ground. Realizing this, wouldn’t it make more sense to start making significant changes to OUR diet instead of pouring large amounts of unavailable energy and time into changing livestock diet? Gradually adopting a grain, vegetable, nut and fruit-based diet could possibly be the most accessible and powerful change possible for each individual who is concerned about the future of our planet.

Knowledge vs. Power

A recent concern of my wife's has sparked a series of conversations and investigations that are noteworthy. Our first two children (we have 3) are small in stature and quite thin. They have always been on the bottom rung of the growth curve, although their growth rates have been constant and otherwise healthy. Several pediatricians have explained to us that this is quite consistent with our height and weight and as long as they don't decline in their growth rates, there is nothing to worry about.

Unconvinced, my wife has recently begun seeking other culprits and solutions. She came to settle on the fact that because I am vegetarian we eat no red meat in the house, and relatively little chicken and fish. Otherwise their diet is well-balanced with lots of green leafies, whole grains, fresh fruit, nuts, a decent amount of carbohydrates and relatively low sugar intake.

In her quest to understand the issue better, she has asked a couple of well-known nutritionists and doctors about this matter, and according to her, they have all answered that children must eat red meat and drink cow milk in ever greater portions to grow normally, be strong and healthy. The other day we were at a social gathering with an otherwise well-informed and experienced homeopathic/acupuncture doctor, who promptly responded in this same vein. I politely asked if he was a nutritionist or had any studies in nutrition to back-up such a claim to which he retorted that this is common knowledge.

Sensing no room for discussion, I refrained from answering and tactfully changed the subject. My very well-intentioned wife is now properly armed for her meat and dairy campaign and I am beside myself with wonder at the facility with which our health authorities proclaim ideas about which they are essentially ignorant.

In fact, I am thoroughly convinced that recognized authorities in nearly every field of human endeavor are responsible for cultivating cultural norms that sustain the status quo. Health authorities prescribe reactive chemical medicine that usually creates more imbalance in the body than already existed; religious authorities resort to antiquated dogmas, meaningless rituals and fear tactics to appease seeker's desire for truth; educators force feed culturally dominant ideas in an environment of "child-centered discovery"; farmers and ranchers spray and inject chemicals and hormones that seep into and disrupt our bodies; development and economic experts convert human fulfillment into inaccessible and brainless formulas; and hold me back from articulating what way too many politicians do.

We the people, then, hold much responsibility. Primarily, our responsibility is to educate ourselves and empower others to search for truth, although this carries with it a corollary responsibility: to accept truth when it is found. Seeking truth is common to most everybody, even to all of the leaders mentioned above, but detaching oneself from material and ideological comforts to live by the truth one finds is where most fail.

My attempts to commit to this principle have caused me many apparently significant difficulties, but none as big as feeding my kids liver and milk to help them grow. In this lies our other great responsibility: to understand the process through which humanity, and each human being, matures, accept it, gently and knowledgeably prod it along and most importantly, get a good laugh out of it.