First week of Suffering: Why do you eat meat?

JANUARY 7, 2010

My first week of Suffering already has me experiencing uninvited epiphanies, but it is necessary to see how everything is connected through our moral understanding of animals and food. As a vegetarian, I have not had a very good relationship with food over the past year. I don't cook very much/well, so I often feel my choices are limited. I have had to give up my favorite foods, but I still yearn for them even though I don't really want to eat them. I have had to explain to countless people from all over the world why I became a vegetarian, and I think the following paragraph captures my sentiments perfectly:

"In our culture, it’s difficult to attain adequate perceptions of our circumstances. Since many forms of suffering are hidden, and we are not trained to look for clues to hidden problems, we harbor misunderstandings of common practices. We fail to perceive facts that are directly relevant to values of humaneness, seeing (for example) a counter full of packaged meat or a display of inexpensive clothing as morally neutral, when a more informed observer might see them as symbols of cruel mistreatment. Or we may understand that production of these products entails harm and exploitation, but only dimly, with no grasp of the varieties and extremes of suffering involved. We harbor inadequate and erroneous perceptions of our surroundings" (Kathie Jennie, The Power of the Visual, 3).

In response to the question "Why are you a vegetarian?", in the future I will ask "Why do you eat meat?" I think my rationale has evolved from simply not wanting that animals suffer to feed humans to the idea that eating animals is morally wrong when I have the privilege of living in a culture where I can sustain a healthy lifestyle without eating meat. I have learned this past year that it takes a lot of effort for me to be a vegetarian, but at least I'm following my own moral compass.