Two High School Students Debate the Pros and Cons of the Vegetarian Diet

The debate teacher Mr. Horowitz sat down at the round table and said, “I suppose this was inevitable. I assume everyone knows that Jesse is a vegetarian. It’s time we test his debating skills against Maggie’s. I realize our eating habits are profoundly personal and I hope we do our best to engage in this debate on the intellectual plane.” He looked at Jesse and said, “Can you do that?”

“I’ll do my best, but I can’t promise.”

“You and Maggie are friends. You can handle this, right?”

Jesse shrugged. Horowitz turned to Maggie. She said, “Bring it on.”

“Very well,” the teacher said. Now turning to Jesse, he said, “What are your arguments for being a vegetarian?”

“People think slaughtering animals is normal because they’re used to it. They’re numb to the horror of it. No one wants to see what happens to chickens, pigs, and cows in the slaughterhouses because it’s more than unpleasant. It’s a gruesome nightmare watching animals being tortured, watching them scream, watching the look of fear in their eyes. But package all those dead animals and put them for sale at the supermarket and suddenly it’s okay. It’s normal. We’re fooling ourselves if we think it’s ethical to inflict cruelty against animals that feel pain just like we do. That’s not acceptable to me.”

“Anything else?” Horowitz said.

“Of course there are environmental and health concerns, but to be honest with you, they don’t compare to the cruelty factor. For me, avoiding cruelty is the foundation of being a vegetarian. Everything else is almost irrelevant.”

“Okay then.” He turned to Maggie and said, “Any problem with his cruelty argument?”

“Let me first say that I respect Jesse’s choice to be a vegetarian and I agree that a lot of the treatment that animals suffer is unacceptable and that I would like more regulations on how animals are killed for our benefit. There is an ethical factor that has to be considered. But there are other factors that make the issue far more complex. I’m talking about survival and the food chain and digestible proteins. Our intestines seem to be designed to absorb nutrition from meat. It appears we’ve evolved to be omnivores. Also, there are B vitamins that we need that can only be received through meat. Then there is the problem with iron and anemia. I doubt any pedestrians would recommend a vegetarian diet, or worse, a vegan diet, to pregnant women or their babies. Do many of us overeat meat? Yes. But is the other extreme, going off meat entirely, in our best interests? I doubt that. Of course, Jesse doesn’t talk about the Eskimos and other people who have no other eating choices than meat. We eat meat to live. Some of us do more than others. Jesse doesn’t factor that into his argument. Animals eat other animals. It’s not an ethical issue. It’s a survival issue. He may feel better for being a vegetarian, but his argument doesn’t stand up to the nutritional and survival issues I’ve just raised.”

Horowitz looked at Jesse, a big kid, over six feet and over two hundred pounds, and said, “Jesse sure doesn’t seem to suffer nutritionally for being a vegetarian. I’m a meat eater myself, but just to play devil’s advocate, one could say it’s possible to choose vegetarianism and still be healthy.”

Maggie said, “He takes supplements, he knows how to combine plant proteins so that he can absorb them. Yes, you can make vegetarianism work, you can be healthy on a vegetarian diet, but that doesn’t mean it’s the optimum diet. Who knows? Maybe Jesse would be three inches taller if he ate meat.”

“Or fifty pounds heavier, like in fat heavier,” Horowitz said.

“The point is,” Maggie said, “Jesse’s diet works for him, but that doesn’t make it the best diet for most people. It’s fine to cut down on meat and eat a healthy diet. But the more fanatical one tries to push a vegetarian diet, the less the diet stands up to argument. And that’s the problem I have with most vegetarians. They aren’t flexible. They act as if their diet is absolute truth. You’re either with them or against them. And that is an oversimplification of a very complex issue.”

Horowitz looked at Jesse and said, “Maggie says your diet doesn’t stand up to the complex issues of eating and nutrition. What do you say?”

“It’s very complex, of course, but no matter how much you break it down, at the end of the day millions of animals are slaughtered and tortured when most of us have the option to not eat them. Either you have empathy for them or you don’t. I do and most people don’t.”

Maggie said, “And there’s the problem of being a vegetarian. You have empathy and meat eaters don’t, so you’re morally superior. That’s the simplistic position that doesn’t conform to the complex facts.”

Horowitz looked at Jesse. “How about it? Do you think you’re morally superior to us meat eaters?”

“That’s a loaded question. I don’t go around thinking I’m morally superior. I’m not arrogant about being a vegetarian.”

“But you have to be,” Maggie said. “If meat eating is such a moral failure, as you say it is, and vegetarianism is the moral answer, then by definition you must feel morally superior to us.”

“Maybe I do,” Jesse said. “In fact, it pisses me off that so many people have to slaughter animals for their own unnecessary eating pleasure. Yes, I’ll come right out and say it. It disgusts me. In fact, I’m appalled that so many people lack the imagination to comprehend the suffering animals go through. It sickens me all the time.”

Maggie crossed her arms in triumph and said, “I rest my case.”

“Who’s arrogant now?” Jesse said standing up. “Who’s arrogant now?”

Comments

[Jesse Menn]

Oddly enough, I'm reading a book now called "The Lives of Animals" by J.M. Coetzee and a bunch of articles dealing with the treatment of animals/food in literature... I have to give an interpretation on Pride and Prejudice through this lens of "Animal Studies."

[herculodge]

Wow, what an esoteric angle of reading Pride and Prejudice. I've read Coetzee's book. Is it still in print?

[Jesse Menn]

I don't know, I got it from a friend in class who knew I was doing a presentation on this treatment of animals in P&P. What are your thoughts on the book (not the Austen...)

[herculodge]

Since I'm a vegetarian, it's safe to say I find the book's arguments, and other books I've read including The Face on Your Plate, convincing.

[KR]

Due to Herc's recommendation, "Face on your plate" arrived in the mail yesterday. I also ordered that one and I can't recall the title. the animal god didnt make or something like that. I appreciate all Herc's books suggestions and try to buy and read them when possible.

As far as vegetarianism goes, I've been off the wagon since 1999, but before that I was pretty good for 6 years and now I want to get back on the wagon.

What turned me, I guess 16 years ago, was driving home from work on the interstate and pulled off on my exit and there is a live chicken in the exit ramp. I guess it fell off of a chicken truck. I stopped and tried to get it out of the road, to no luck. But then as I thought about all the chicken trucks I saw each day it reminded me of train cars to Auschwitz or something like that for chickens. Anyhow, I don't think you need meat to live and/or perform athletically. I see no difference in performance on either diet, so why kill things.

[Jesse Menn]

I find appropriating the familiar comparison between Jews in Europe being slaughtered at Auschwitz and the slaughter of cattle to be slightly reductionist. Effectively it reads as "Jews died like cattle, therefore cattle die like Jews." If Jews were treated like cattle, it does not necessarily imply that cattle are treated like Jews. I find it insulting to the memory of dead Jews, as well as a cheap rhetorical strategy.

[KR]

Jesse, I agree and take your point and could have phrased that differently. But that was my personal thought at the time: death trucks.

Definitely the Auschwitz metaphor is overkill. I guess "chickens checking in but they don't check out" would have worked.

My apologies to anyone offended, period.

[Jesse Menn]

I'm not offended, it takes a lot to really actively offend me, but a lot of people -do- find it offensive. This argument, over the use of Auschwitz is actually brought up in "The Lives of Animals" I'm reading now. In fact, both your initial use of it, and my annoyance of its use, was nearly word for word from that book. I haven't seen how the main pro-Vegetarian has responded yet, or if she even will.

[herculodge]

For me, the slaughterhouses are bad enough. I don't need to or want to compare them to Auschwitz or anything like that. The suffering of animals is sufficient without making outrageous moral comparisons.

The complexity of vegetarianism for me is that I know some people who don't feel well on such a diet. They feel better eating meat.

[Jesse Menn]

Dietary habits, vegan, vegetarianism, omnivore, alone are complex. Social, cultural, economic, religious differences all come into play. Not to raise a flag here, but I don't have too much problem eating raw horse (if I could find a place I felt safe doing it in Los Angeles county), but I won't eat Chilean Sea Bass.

Like everything else, we (as people) generally will pick up and attach ourselves to one political/social/religious/whatever aspect or movement and then adhere to that without considering the other aspects. Environmentalism and the "green" movements are a pretty decent example.

[herculodge]

Well said. I wonder if I'll stick to it. For now, the contemplation of animal suffering is enough motivation and the abhorrence of eating the meat. But my memory centers from my youth may cling to steak fajitas, cheeseburgers, etc. You have to "die" to meat to be a vegetarian and dying to anything can be scary.

[The Atomizer]

Who doesn't love a website devoted to radios and being a vegetarian?

Seriously though, I enjoy the radio banter, the rest, well, whatever...

I'm a hunter, a farmer and raise animals for food, I guess you'd better kick me off this website now...

[herculodge]

I'm in no position to kick anyone off. Currently I'm reading the Vegetarian Myth, which challenges a lot of vegetarian doctrines. More on this later.