Chad Love: Take a Vegan Hunting Day

[Vegan Joe]

http://www.fieldandstream.com/blogs/hunting/2010/03/chad-love-take-vegan-hunting-day

 

If not for the ill-advised decision by Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm to declare Saturday as "Michigan Meat Out Day" I would have had no idea that "Meat Out Day" was anything other than one ag-state politician's stupendously bad idea .

 

And as usual when I bet against the inherent stupidity of people, I would have been wrong.

On (or around) March 20, the first day of spring thousands of caring people in all 50 U.S. states and two dozen other countries get active to host educational Meatout events. Activities include colorful festivals, lectures, public dinners, feed-ins, cooking demos, food samplings, leafleting, information tables and more.

 

The occasion is Meatout, the world's largest and oldest annual grassroots diet education campaign. Meatout 2010 is the 25th Anniversary! Every spring, thousands of caring Meatout supporters educate their communities and ask their friends, families, and neighbors to ...

[Cold Fission]

When will it end.Hunters are so pathetic.

[Mikey]

I think it's funny that hunting is supposedly an eco-friendly, sustainable, food source. Really, if everyone decided that they would become hunters for their meat and there weren't any farms, I'm sure we would probably have killed off almost everything in our prairies and forests by now. We did it to the buffalo, and that was with way less people than there are now. A no meat day is such a good idea, even David Suzuki said so (yeh yeh I know lots of people have beef with him). What would be super awesome to see is more community and backyard urban gardens, then we could see real eco-friendly, sustainable food sources.

[veginator]

I think it's funny that hunting is supposedly an eco-friendly, sustainable, food source. Really, if everyone decided that they would become hunters for their meat and there weren't any farms, I'm sure we would probably have killed off almost everything in our prairies and forests by now. We did it to the buffalo, and that was with way less people than there are now. A no meat day is such a good idea, even David Suzuki said so (yeh yeh I know lots of people have beef with him). What would be super awesome to see is more community and backyard urban gardens, then we could see real eco-friendly, sustainable food sources.

 

It's certainly true that large-scale animal consumption of any kind is not ecologically sustainable, the obvious example being what's happening to fish stocks.

 

As for a "no meat day" being a good idea or something that vegans (or supposed "animal rights" organizations like PETA or Vegan Outreach that are listed as co-sponsors of Meatout) should in any way support, I disagree. Nothing says "I don't take my ethics seriously" like promoting people giving up meat (but not other animal products if they don't feel like it) for one day. Can you imagine slavery abolitionists supporting a promotional campaign in favor of slaveowners giving their slaves Sunday off? Or anti-racist activists promoting "Lynching-Free Wednesdays"? Most vegans are vegan because in one way or another we think it's unethical for people to hurt or kill animals (or pay someone else to do so) for absolutely no good reason. Urging people to give up meat, but not any other use of animals, for one day does not convey this message at all.

Edited April 10, 2010 by veginator

[Fallen_Horse]

"In the long run it might be more productive to engage those with philosophical differences than it is to simply disparage them, and I say that as someone who admittedly does a whole lot of the latter. The world changes one mind at a time, and showing a willing Vegan what hunting and fishing is truly all about might be the best way to help that process along."

 

Hahaha

[medman]

As for a "no meat day" being a good idea or something that vegans (or supposed "animal rights" organizations like PETA or Vegan Outreach that are listed as co-sponsors of Meatout) should in any way support, I completely disagree with you. Nothing says "I don't take my ethics seriously" like promoting people giving up meat (but not other animal products if they don't feel like it) for one day. Can you imagine slavery abolitionists supporting a promotional campaign in favor of slaveowners giving their slaves Sunday off? Or anti-racist activists promoting "Lynching-Free Wednesdays"? Most vegans are vegan because in one way or another we think it's unethical for people to hurt or kill animals (or pay someone else to do so) for absolutely no good reason. Urging people to give up meat, but not any other use of animals, for one day does not convey this message at all.

 

I respectfully disagree. I think doing things like encouraging someone to give up meat for a day can, for example, show them that it's possible, or even easy, to incorporate into their own lifestyle. As for giving up "other uses of animals" - how could someone (for example) give up leather or wool for a day, when they already own those things? Throwing away a pair of leather shoes is a far greater waste of an animal than wearing those shoes until the end of their lifetime. I don't see anything wrong with encouraging people to spend a day exploring a meatless lifestyle...it might convince someone they could make the change.

 

Keep in mind there are vegans out there who do not take a philosophical approach to the lifestyle. My brother won't eat animal products, but doesn't have an issue with buying leather shoes because, in his experience, the non-leather alternatives wear down much faster, require more frequent replacement, and are often made of petroleum byproducts (he has a more environmentalist than animal rights approach to his veganism).

[JãoP]

I promise to observe HomicideOut and experience the non-sycho world for one day if normal people in turn are willing to experience mine.

I'm not being facetious here. In the long run it might be more productive to engage those with philosophical differences than it is to simply disparage them, and I say that as someone who admittedly does a whole lot of the latter. The world changes one mind at a time, and showing a willing normal person what murdering is truly all about might be the best way to help that process along.

 

 

 

Oh, seriously.

[strawberryriddick]

Urging people to give up meat, but not any other use of animals, for one day does not convey this message at all.

I will disagree with this because that's what happened with me. I went vegan because of a medical condition. I didn't give a shit about animals. I was the asshole that told vegans that "I like veal...the suffering makes it juicy." I went vegan in October and fully planned on going hunting that Christmas with some friends. Didn't give a shit about the bees, beeswax, leather, fur, wool, animal testing, you name it.

 

About a month later, I started to think about it. "If an animal doesn't have to die for me to eat, then why should an animal have to die for me to wear clothes?"

"If an animal doesn't have to be there for me to eat or wear, then why should it be tested on? That's not fair."

"The bees are hard workers. I hate lazy people, so I should support the hard-working bees by not stealing their shit."

 

That's how it happened for me. I went from a vegan diet to a vegan lifestyle because making the conscious choice to not consume an animal forces you to rethink animals and their "value" to you. Animals have inherent value, like humans. A pig isn't valuable because he supplies bacon, he's valuable because he's part of the environment. A cat isn't valuable because she is owned by a person who loves her, but a cat is valuable because she's part of the environment. Just like us. Someone liking me or not liking me doesn't change my inherent value and link to the environment.

 

I even came to the point where I didn't want to own a dog or cat because I didn't want to feed it a diet that it wouldn't normally get in the wild (all meat), but I didn't want to support the meat industry. I decided that, when I get a home (I'm in an apartment now), I will rescue a pig or two from life in a factory farm and feed it all the delicious slop it loves.

[veginator]

As for a "no meat day" being a good idea or something that vegans (or supposed "animal rights" organizations like PETA or Vegan Outreach that are listed as co-sponsors of Meatout) should in any way support, I completely disagree with you. Nothing says "I don't take my ethics seriously" like promoting people giving up meat (but not other animal products if they don't feel like it) for one day. Can you imagine slavery abolitionists supporting a promotional campaign in favor of slaveowners giving their slaves Sunday off? Or anti-racist activists promoting "Lynching-Free Wednesdays"? Most vegans are vegan because in one way or another we think it's unethical for people to hurt or kill animals (or pay someone else to do so) for absolutely no good reason. Urging people to give up meat, but not any other use of animals, for one day does not convey this message at all.

 

I respectfully disagree. I think doing things like encouraging someone to give up meat for a day can, for example, show them that it's possible, or even easy, to incorporate into their own lifestyle. As for giving up "other uses of animals" - how could someone (for example) give up leather or wool for a day, when they already own those things? Throwing away a pair of leather shoes is a far greater waste of an animal than wearing those shoes until the end of their lifetime. I don't see anything wrong with encouraging people to spend a day exploring a meatless lifestyle...it might convince someone they could make the change.

 

Keep in mind there are vegans out there who do not take a philosophical approach to the lifestyle. My brother won't eat animal products, but doesn't have an issue with buying leather shoes because, in his experience, the non-leather alternatives wear down much faster, require more frequent replacement, and are often made of petroleum byproducts (he has a more environmentalist than animal rights approach to his veganism).

 

Your post equates eating a vegan diet with being vegan. There's more to being vegan than what someone eats. Donald Watson coined the term in 1944 to distinguish between people who avoided animal products altogether (who until that point had been called vegetarians) and those who consumed milk and eggs, who had begun to call themselves vegetarians. The Vegan Society, which he helped found, defined veganism this way: "[T]he word "veganism" denotes a philosophy and way of living which seeks to exclude — as far as is possible and practical — all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose..." In short, your brother is not a vegan. My post referred to vegans. That said, yes, of course people can't be expected to instantly throw away their leather shoes the day they decide to go vegan. I don't think my post implied that. But if they take animals' rights seriously, they won't keep buying them.

 

There are plenty of ways to show people that it's possible (and in fact relatively easy in most parts of the world) to not only incorporate vegan items into one's lifestyle, but actually go vegan--just being vegan, cooking vegan food for people, etc. My point is that promoting things like "Meat Free Monday," softpedaling the ethical issues associated with consuming animal products, giving people the impression that they're doing some great deed by giving up meat (but not even dairy products or eggs) for one fricking day, etc., as the organizations and individuals listed as supporters of "Meat Free Monday" do, communicates that animal rights are not an issue to be taken seriously, in the same way that promoting giving slaves Sunday off would have failed to communicate the idea that slavery was immoral and needed to be abolished. If someone is genuinely opposed to animal exploitation, then the message needs to be "exploiting animals is wrong," not "let's eat fewer animals but let's not talk about how they're treated" (the "Meatless Monday" approach) or "let's treat them nicer so that they suffer less, but let's not worry about the fact that they're exploited (and therefore still suffer lots and get killed at a young age) for no good reason."

Edited April 10, 2010 by veginator

[veginator]

Urging people to give up meat, but not any other use of animals, for one day does not convey this message at all.

I will disagree with this because that's what happened with me. I went vegan because of a medical condition. I didn't give a shit about animals. I was the asshole that told vegans that "I like veal...the suffering makes it juicy." I went vegan in October and fully planned on going hunting that Christmas with some friends. Didn't give a shit about the bees, beeswax, leather, fur, wool, animal testing, you name it.

 

About a month later, I started to think about it. "If an animal doesn't have to die for me to eat, then why should an animal have to die for me to wear clothes?"

"If an animal doesn't have to be there for me to eat or wear, then why should it be tested on? That's not fair."

"The bees are hard workers. I hate lazy people, so I should support the hard-working bees by not stealing their shit."

 

That's how it happened for me. I went from a vegan diet to a vegan lifestyle because making the conscious choice to not consume an animal forces you to rethink animals and their "value" to you. Animals have inherent value, like humans. A pig isn't valuable because he supplies bacon, he's valuable because he's part of the environment. A cat isn't valuable because she is owned by a person who loves her, but a cat is valuable because she's part of the environment. Just like us. Someone liking me or not liking me doesn't change my inherent value and link to the environment.

 

I even came to the point where I didn't want to own a dog or cat because I didn't want to feed it a diet that it wouldn't normally get in the wild (all meat), but I didn't want to support the meat industry. I decided that, when I get a home (I'm in an apartment now), I will rescue a pig or two from life in a factory farm and feed it all the delicious slop it loves.

 

The fact that you eventually went vegan has nothing to do with whether "Give up meat for one day" conveys an animal rights message. It just doesn't, period. I was vegetarian on and off for 10 years before I became vegan, and even after I went vegan it was based on the philosophy of wanting to reduce animal suffering, not on the philosophy that it was just wrong to exploit animals for no good reason, and so not surprisingly given this, I had lapses. The ten years of being vegetarian and another ten or so of being a wishy-washy most-of-the-time vegan would have been avoided had I heard a consistent abolitionist vegan message from the beginning. It's because of the sort of mixed messages that PETA and other welfarist groups like "Vegan" Outreach send out that I've only been a committed, for-life vegan for about 2 years instead of more than 20.

 

I'm not sure what you're saying when you say that you didn't want to own a dog or cat because you "didn't want to feed it a diet that it wouldn't normally get in the wild (all meat)." I assume you mean that you didn't want to feed him or her a diet that WASN'T all meat? Although cats are carnivorous in the wild, wild dogs are omnivores. Dogs' digestive systems are just as well-suited for a vegan diet as humans'. Most but not all cats can also eat a vegan diet and be healthy as long as they receive the appropriate supplements. (Some males can't.)

[TripleH]

Hunters have their place - indigenous peoples who depend on hunting for their survival and only kill what they need and make use of everything from the animal, I really don't have an issue with....but I digress.

 

This is the first I have heard of "Meat Out Day" - it sounds good - all great movements started small - using the MOD as an opportunity to educate the people around us is good start (we all know the saying that every journey starts with a step) and shouldn't be dismissed.

 

We have to remember that the meat industry is huge and the vegan culture pales in comparison (David and Goliath, anyone?) - being a vegan is more than just their eating habits - yes, but that is a start - often we raise our own awareness though unaware of how we arrived at a conclusion. My wife sparingly wears makeup (why cover natural beauty in the first place?), and the products she does buy are organic and free of animal testing... I made the choice of going vegan for my health (never having really 'enjoyed' meat, though did enjoy dairy (butter and cheese particularly)) and through this choice I began researching the subject and as I am becoming more aware, I in turn am raising the awareness of those around me - this circular movement is now spinning off (back to the steps of a journey). The idea of the MOD is simple - which is why it should work - and I am going to encourage my friends and family to do just that... devote one day a month as an MOD...

 

..getting others to take the first step on a journey that can bring about change on the large scale with patience seems like a worthwhile undertaking to me.

[veginator]

Hunters have their place - indigenous peoples who depend on hunting for their survival and only kill what they need and make use of everything from the animal, I really don't have an issue with....but I digress.

 

This is the first I have heard of "Meat Out Day" - it sounds good - all great movements started small - using the MOD as an opportunity to educate the people around us is good start (we all know the saying that every journey starts with a step) and shouldn't be dismissed.

 

We have to remember that the meat industry is huge and the vegan culture pales in comparison (David and Goliath, anyone?)

 

Human slavery was once huge. Does that mean that it would have made more sense to have a "Don't Buy Products Made By Slaves On Monday" campaign than to just say slavery was wrong and we needed to stop enslaving people? That is just one of many examples where history has borne out that taking a principled ethical stand was in the long run effective.