Do carrots feel pain?
Natalie Portman is giving up eggs and milk. She writes on HuffPo:
Jonathan Safran Foer’s book Eating Animals changed me from a twenty-year vegetarian to a vegan activist. I’ve always been shy about being critical of others’ choices because I hate when people do that to me. I’m often interrogated about being vegetarian (e.g., “What if you find out that carrots feel pain, too? Then what’ll you eat?”).
With that kind of radical anti-pain attitude, the next thing Portman will oppose is probably abortion. Seriously. I’m still figuring out my own position on pro-life issues, but it sure is strange when Hollywood stars tell you that the one issue they get evangelical about is the mistreatment of animals.
Coincidentally, I was friends with Foer back in high school and college. (Yes, I am name-dropping.) I am a huge fan of his first novel, Everything Is Illuminated. In case you were curious, he is just as funny and clever in person as he is in writing.
You can get the flavor of his latest book from his recent essay in the Wall Street Journal, suggesting we may as well eat our dogs.
It’s hard not to be ashamed by the casual, pointless cruelty often inflicted on various animals on the way to our tables. But if you fundamentally believe that we have a right to kill and eat lesser creatures, even by the million, then it’s hard to treat their suffering as a priority. I get more worked up about human rights and healthcare reform.
But I haven’t read the book yet. So I’ll order a copy and see if an old friend can change my mind.
Cross-posted at Conventional Folly
13 Responses to “Do carrots feel pain?”
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Make the meat taste better
I don't care. I still like Natalie Portman.
Just don't tell her I'll be trying to put venison in the freezer next week.
Not all of Hollywood is that way. I see nothing wrong with being against animal cruelty, but being a militant vegan is quite another. The food chain is just nature at work. And while some may choose for themselves for whatever reason to go vegan, only a minority are foolish enough to suggest to their peers that they're horrible for eating meat. My cousin, in particular, stopped eating meat after watching a video on slaughter houses. It just grossed her out that much.
For ever Natalie Portman, there is an Eliza Dushku who not only eats meat but also kills it herself. She just gets less press, I suppose.
Personally I do what I can as a member of PETA…..
People
Eating
Tasty
Animals
“These are the cries of the carrots,
the cries of the carrots.
You see, reverend Maynard, tomorrow is harvest day
and to them it is the holocaust.”
Does this make Maynard Keenan a prophet?
Not many vegans around here, it seems.
Are you referring to people from Las Vegas, or from the Alpha Lyrae star system?
I'm a vegetarian, but not because of animal pain. I object to the practices of big ag for mostly selfish reasons: they pump up the meat with hormones and puss and salt water, and it's really gross. I don't want that crap in my body — and I'm a smoker! Another reason: raising meat for eating is nearly as destructive to the environment as driving cars and burning coal.
I guess what I'm saying is that I'd like to see this country use meat as a small supplement to our diets instead of meat being the main banana. I'd also like to see a lot of changes in big ag — easy, cheap changes can be made to improve the lives and deaths of animals raised for meat (if anyone's interested, I'll try to sniff around and see what I can find online). I probably wouldn't start eating meat if these changes were implemented, as two of my main reasons (gross additives and environmental impact) are more difficult and expensive to deal with. Plus, after 15 years of being a veggie, I really don't miss it at all.
Since I was raised in a rural area, I can give you little insight to get you started. Cows' stomachs are best suited for digesting grass, which is almost entirely fiber. When cows are raised in fields, grass and hay are their main food sources. To raise them in smaller spaces, they're fed mostly corn, which has very little fiber. That messes up their digestive system and weakens their immune system, so they have to be fed antibiotics to make up for it.
I've seen advertisements bragging that they use 100% corn fed beef. That isn't a good thing.
Almoderate–
I wouldn't classify Natalie Portman as a radical vegan– she isn't preventing others from eating meat or dairy products.
As a vegetarian myself, I can tell you that unthinking people get critical of my choice all the time. No one is holding a gun to your head and forcing you to put down the Big Macs!
I totally respect Vegans' food choices. That's their boat to row.
I do not, however, understand their logic. Plants have everything that animals have except locomotion. Plants have a circulatory system, a respiratory system, a nervous system, and move in accordance with food supply and sunlight. Why do Vegans feel that “murdering” a plant is any less humane than “murdering” a cow?
Can someone enlighten me on this one?
JD- It is not about logic it is about empathy. We wouldn't eat dogs and cats- because we see something of ourselves in their behavior. The same feeling translates to farm animals for a lot of vegans.
Just don't feel any empathy for that salad, LOL.