Ethics of Eating Meat - We Need to Factor-in Sustainability

Whether eating meat is ethical or not is a subject that arouses passion and interesting debate (see and comments).  What is lacking in most such discussions is the realisation that ethics is not a fixed entity but evolves to encompass the changing values of the society.  For background on ethics, please see - particularly the section on behavioural ethics. (In this blog, I shall assume that ethics and morality refer to the same thing)

Humans are omnivores - meat and plants have always formed their diet.  It is only recently that we have questioned the ethics of eating meat. Ironically, the control of fire increased meat consumption that resulted in the human brain to outgrow brains of other animals, allowing us to ask questions about ethics and morality of eating meat.  
What people ate in the past, while a worthy subject for discussion, must not be the reason for deciding what we should be eating in the future. Life is very different now than what it was even 100 years ago, and looking forward, we need to appreciate the new reality of the 21st century, and develop the ethics of what we eat including meat accordingly. 

What is the new reality?  With reference to food - in rough proportions-   

(1) 15% of the world population is undernourished, while 40% is overweight or obese.  
(2) A third of the agricultural produce is wasted/destroyed by failure to efficiently manage our food resources.
(3) We have switched, in a big way, to animal-farming that is 10 times more inefficient than harvesting plant-based nutrients.
(4) A good proportion of corn and soya crops are used to raise cattle.  This could be used to feed the hungry people in the world. Bio-fuels take away further food resources.
(5) Agriculture has gone big - 'agriculture is the way by which oil is converted into edible food' and in that process is doing serious harm to the environment and climate.
(6) Population numbers keep growing and are expected to reach more than 9 billion by 2050.  Coupled with increased consumption per capita, much more food will be needed in the future.

We ignore these realities at our peril.  The ethics of what we eat has to be decided by what is sustainable - essentially what type of the world we want to live, and leave for future generations? That is the moral/ethical question.  I have addressed this in my recent blogs (1, 2, 3).  Reducing red meat consumption is a definite conclusion from these analyses.

I can already hear the howls and shrieks from some that without eating meat human body cannot survive  - not enough protein, not enough B12 - we shall become weak and be not able to fight diseases.  That will be the end of human race.

The situation is not that way at all.  Apart from 4 years in the 1960s, I have been a vegetarian, I do not ever take supplement vitamins, kept a constant weight (with BMI of 23) for the past 40 years and visit my doctor once a year for a blood test.  I might have considered adding meat to my diet but the current methods of meat production and processing flag a clear message to me to stay away from eating meat.  

So far, this has been a rational discussion - taking some prudent steps, it might even be possible to solve the food crisis the world is facing.  But that is where life gets more complex - humans love power, have a selfish streak to their nature and there are some who can just not tolerate others do better or even equally well. Then, there is the human mind which can be irrational some of the time (actually I should write - quite a lot of the time).  Essentially, what I want to say is that those who have power will exercise it to grab far more than their fair share.  The so-called developed world has done so (imperialism  and slavery in the past; waste and overconsumption now) and the new 'developed' countries like China and India are following the OECD example. 

Pseudoscience is also raising its profile.  Our political leaders no longer care to set examples that we can follow.  Lying in the face of evident truth is almost acceptable - thanks to our great new leader.  
I must say that I do not feel much hopeful that our moral compass will define a sensible, viable route for the future.

Thanks for reading...