Steiner argues that even "free range" chickens may lead miserable lives, and that the only truly moral response to widespread cruelty to animals is "to forswear the consumption of animal products of all kinds." But, he writes,

You just haven't lived until you've tried to function as a strict vegan in a meat-crazed society. [...] To be a really strict vegan is to strive to avoid all animal products, and this includes materials like leather, silk and wool, as well as a panoply of cosmetics and medications. The more you dig, the more you learn about products you would never stop to think might contain or involve animal products in their production - like wine and beer (isinglass, a kind of gelatin derived from fish bladders, is often used to "fine," or purify, these beverages), refined sugar (bone char is sometimes used to bleach it) or Band-Aids (animal products in the adhesive). Just last week I was told that those little comfort strips on most razor blades contain animal fat.

In his expression of how difficult it is to lead a truly ethical life, he has an unlikely companion: designer Todd Lynn, who has used fur in his collections. Lynn says,

I don't have a problem with people following their principles, but what bugs me is when people pick and choose. People are really misinformed about the products they wear. Nobody argues with the pesticides used on cotton plants that will kill wildlife. To think that silk or cotton doesn't do damage to the environment is a lie.

The difference between the two men is that Steiner views the sheer difficulty of a vegan lifestyle as a problem with society, while Lynn seems to be excusing fur on the grounds that other products are just as bad. But both underscore the fact that if you want to be a truly ethical consumer, it's extremely difficult to live in the modern world. It's an argument I used to hear all the time when I was a strict vegetarian — that soy cultivation was just as toxic to the environment as livestock, and that if I really wanted to be consistent I would have to eat only unprocessed, unpackaged, organically grown foods. Of course, this argument conflates environmental degradation with morality — if what you really care about is animal welfare, then it doesn't really matter if soy farms use a lot of petroleum. On the other hand, it's absolutely true that if you want your eating and buying habits to be both morally correct and healthy for the planet, your life will be very, very hard.

There are a number of possible solutions to this problem. One is to throw up your hands and not worry about ethics, which The Observer's Elizabeth Day, who interviewed Lynn, says more people are now doing with respect to fur. She points out that former PETA supporter Naomi Campbell now stars in an ad campaign for a furrier. And she quotes a spokesman for a fur trading group who says,

Fur has never been more popular. From 1998 to 2008 there has been year-on-year growth in global sales for fur. People now are more comfortable showing their love of fur.

Given the economic climate, though, fur-love may not be the biggest obstacle to ethical consumption. Rather, many of us may be too cash-strapped and stressed out to consider the larger implications of what we're buying, eating, and wearing. Steiner's solution to the difficulty of living morally — sucking it up, potentially losing friends, and making your life a rebuke to a system that thoughtlessly exploits animals and the earth — is the most ideologically consistent one. But it's also the most difficult one to sell to people who already have a lot of problems. We may need voices like Steiner's to remind us of the problems of consumption, but when it comes to advice for living, we might require a softer touch.

The question of whether radicalism or moderation is better at effecting social change is an age-old one. But in the case of our personal habits, swift, radical change on a large scale may be an unachievable goal. Steiner seems to disdain a dining companion who says, "I'm really a vegetarian - I don't eat red meat at home." This position can be annoying for vegetarians, as it leads them to be served chicken at dinner parties or pressured to eat "just a little" meat. At the same time, people who give up red meat do reduce their carbon footprints, as do people who avoid all meat one or two days a week. For those who believe meat is murder, giving it up sometimes probably doesn't seem like much of a compromise. But people who do so have given some thought to their consumption practices, and may be open to more. They may be the early adopters of a system which, while not perfect, cares more about animal welfare and environmental conservation than the old one that put animal fat in razors. Strict vegans might do well to treat these occasional vegetarians not as enemies, but as allies.

Animal, Vegetable, Miserable [NYT]
Would You Rather Go Naked? Not Any Longer [Observer]

Of course, food is often a touchy subject even in non-vegetarian homes. My desire to eat nothing but plain chicken and bagels throughout my childhood caused plenty of bitter fights, and contributed to my parents' early fear that my vegetarianism was just another form of pickiness. In retrospect, I'm not sure why I hated all foods with flavor so much, but I do know that kids start searching at a relatively young age for ways to exercise their own autonomy, and food choice is one of these ways. So should the children of vegetarians get to choose to eat meat?

Emily Sohn of the LA Times addresses several issues surrounding this question, including health. It's a common misconception that growing kids need meat to survive. I remember a sort of legend that made the rounds in college about a student who tried to raise her toddler vegan; all the kid's teeth fell out, and had to be replaced with metal ones. The metal is, I think, a dead giveaway that this story was bullshit (although I'd kind of like to get a look at little Johnny Steelfangs), but it's true that vegetarian and especially vegan diets for kids require a few tweaks. As Sohn says, small children may need calorie-rich foods like peanut butter because a vegetarian diet can otherwise fill them up without giving them enough energy. And breastfeeding vegan moms may need a B12 supplement. But horror stories aside, a meat-free diet shouldn't do kids physical harm.

Then there's the psychological angle. As Sohn points out, "school-age children in particular can become anxious when anything about them is different from their peers, including what they eat for lunch." This actually seems like an opportunity for educating kids about differences — after all, children are always going to stick out in some way, and if parents can teach them to stand up for what's in their lunchboxes, they may be better at standing up for what's in their heads.

What seems more difficult to negotiate is a kid's desire to separate herself from her parents — including their dietary restrictions. Of course, many parents exercise some control over what their kids eat, and in some religions, dietary rules have been passed down for millennia. But, as Sohn notes, "resentment can build up if foods are forbidden completely." And at some point, kids are going to have the opportunity to try a hamburger. Parents can tell their children why they believe vegetarianism is important, and they can make only vegetarian foods at home. But when it comes to the big, bad, omnivorous world, probably the best they can do is teach them to make informed choices and not to let anyone else think for them — including mom and dad.

Don't Make Food A Conflict For A Vegetarian Child [LA Times]
Nutritional Guidelines For Vegetarian Children [LA Times]

I can't tell you how many times I've said, like Portman, "I love food, I love eating, I'm pretty adventurous with different flavors and cuisines, and the one thing is, I'm a vegatarian" — and watched people's faces fall. Being "adventurous" and being vegetarian really aren't mutually exclusive — because cutting out meat forced me to vary my diet more, I now eat a much wider variety of foods than I did when I was omnivorous. And I'm a lot less "picky" than some of my meat-eating friends, many of whom turn up their noses at vegetables — I often say I'll eat anything as long as it isn't meat. As I've written here before, I do eat seafood now, so my family and friends are a little less freaked out, but some omnivores still seem to find my diet mysterious. Yesterday's Top Chef may explain why. Below are four common myths about vegetarian cooking, as illustrated on the show (and yeah, also some spoilers).

— Vegetarian food lacks protein.

Only if you do it wrong — like, say, the hapless Mike, who thought some undercooked leeks shaped like scallops could be a main dish. The point of vegetarian cooking isn't to make food look like meat or shellfish — as in all other cuisines, it's to make delicious and satisfying dishes. And while a vegetarian can get by with a breakfast of fruit or a salad lunch sometimes, everybody needs some protein to feel full and be healthy. Luckily there are a bazillion vegetarian sources of protein. Many vegetarians still eat cheese, eggs, and milk, but for those who don't, there are lots of protein-rich beans, nuts, seeds, and grains, and these can be combined into dishes that are a lot more tasty than some scallop-shaped leeks. For instance, I like to cook up a bunch of quinoa (quite proteiny, and pretty cheap if you can get it in bulk— if you can't, couscous or brown rice would work), add sauteed red peppers, spinach, olives, walnuts, and spices, and then wrap the thing in a tortilla and call it a burrito. I usually add a bunch of goat cheese to this, but for vegans, some truffle oil will do the job, or just plain old olive oil. An important note: mushrooms don't actually have all that much protein, though they often appear in lieu of meat on restaurant menus. Which brings me to my next myth.

— Vegetarians need a "meaty" substitute.

This one has a grain of truth — it is nice to eat something with a little savory, umami flavor, and mushrooms do provide that. I also like soy-based fake meats like MorningStar "bacon" and veggie crumbles for this purpose, even though a lot of vegetarians disdain them. Yes, they're a little pricey and not so great for the environment, but I tend to treat them the same way many cultures treat meat — as a seasoning, not a main dish. A little fakon in chili makes it taste like a whole different dish, which can be good if you're cooking for yourself and end up with a lot of leftovers. But all that said, I was kind of troubled to notice that so many of the chefs rushed for either eggplant or mushrooms to serve as the centerpiece for their dishes. I guess it's a texture thing, but these two foods appeared as the "vegetarian option" in my college dining halls more times than I can count, and while they can be tasty, they're not the be-all and end-all. Vegetarians don't need every meal to include a slab of something meat-like (and unfortunately, those college portobello mushroom sandwiches were often just that: a slab). One of my favorite dishes lately is a bunch of dandelion greens wilted with onions and garlic and olives and rosemary. I usually eat this with scrambled eggs and toast, but vegans could add white beans for an equally tasty protein kick — no meat "substitute" needed. And if you don't have dandelion greens, spinach works.

— Vegetarian food is just a "collection of sides."

Natalie Portman complained that vegetarian options at a restaurant often feel like side dishes, and I see where she's coming from. I don't really have a problem making a meal of sides, especially on Thanksgiving at my grandparents' house (I haven't officially told them I don't eat meat; I'm still letting them process the fact that I work for a "blog"). But sometimes I do want something main-dishy, not just a heap of kale and a bowl of beans and some bread (although this is pretty good). And just because you can't center a vegetarian meal around a hunk of meat doesn't mean you can't center it at all. A good solution to the problem, especially in fall and winter, is roasting, since nothing's more main-dishy than a roast. I like to chop up a bunch of red potatoes, sweet potatoes, green and red peppers, garlic, and onions, and stick them in the oven for an hour with rosemary and feta. Vegans could ditch the feta, add something else for extra flavor (like maybe hot chiles), and serve the whole thing with hummus on the side. This dish is real easy and cheap and great for potlucks.

— Vegetarian food can't be filling.

Kevin won the challenge with his dish of morels and turnips, which Portman and the other judges found both delicious and satisfying. Morels are, as you may know, fucking expensive, but the point is, it's possible to make a vegetarian meal just as filling as a meat-based one. It helps to remember the protein (though Kevin didn't actually seem to include much of that), but it's also important — at least in my view — not to be too afraid of fat. For some people, vegetarianism is synonymous with abstemiousness, and these are the same people who think a vegetarian meal always has to leave you hungry. I'm not saying you have to add a cup of sesame oil to everything (as a vegan housemate of mine used to do before we finally set him straight). I'm just saying that some olive oil, butter, cream, goat cheese, Earth Balance, or even avocado adds flavor and body to a vegetarian meal. For instance, brussels sprouts: they're okay if you boil them, but if you cut them in half and saute them in some butter or Earth Balance (plus garlic and rosemary and pepper), they're way more delicious. I like to eat this with Annie's mac and cheese from the box, which probably would not appear on Top Chef — but that doesn't mean it's not awesome.

Portman reiterates a lot of the points Foer made in his New York Times Magazine essay a couple weeks ago, namely, that "food is symbolic of what we believe in" and that when we teach children how to eat, we are teaching them values as well. She argues persuasively that factory farming leads to not just animal but also human suffering — the phrase "copious amounts of pig shit sprayed into the air" may be all that's necessary to put some people off of mass-produced pork. None of this is new, but all of it is thought-provoking, whether you eat meat or not. Where Portman starts to bother me, though, is here:

I say that Foer's ethical charge against animal eating is brave because not only is it unpopular, it has also been characterized as unmanly, inconsiderate, and juvenile. But he reminds us that being a man, and a human, takes more thought than just "This is tasty, and that's why I do it." He posits that consideration, as promoted by Michael Pollan in The Omnivore's Dilemma, which has more to do with being polite to your tablemates than sticking to your own ideals, would be absurd if applied to any other belief (e.g., I don't believe in rape, but if it's what it takes to please my dinner hosts, then so be it).

I too find the idea that vegetarianism is "unmanly" sexist and obnoxious. But Portman — and Foer — lose me a bit when they discount the importance of consideration. Part of this, I have no doubt, is personal. As I've said here before, I'm very nonconfrontational in person — I don't mind spewing my beliefs on a blog, but I absolutely hate telling people what to do in their own dining rooms. And I hate refusing meat at people's homes (though, except for fish, I still do it), because I feel that I'm implicitly criticizing the way of life of someone who's showing me hospitality. I completely understand people who don't cook meat themselves, but are willing to eat it when the host serves it, and I constantly struggle with the conflict between politeness and vegetarianism.

There's an element of sheer cowardice here — I don't want my friends to think of me as that annoying, proselytizing vegetarian. I've heard all the jibes Portman mentions ("What if you find out that carrots feel pain, too? Then what'll you eat?" and "Hitler was a vegetarian, too, you know"), they make me upset, and I try to avoid hearing them again. Portman would probably say I should just suck it up, that my concern for my host's feelings and for my own is nothing compared to the suffering of animals. Thing is, I don't like Portman's example. It would of course be "absurd" to say to oneself, "I don't believe in rape, but if it's what it takes to please my dinner hosts, then so be it." But eating meat is not the same as rape.

Maybe it's just a particularly bad day for comparing things to rape, but Portman's words make me angry. Women are not the same as pigs, and while I wouldn't befriend a known rapist, most of my friends eat meat, and I consider them good, moral people. Many ethicists believe that animals should have the same rights as human beings, and that hurting an animal is as morally repugnant as hurting a human. Their arguments have a strong basis — the capacity of animals to feel pain and psychological suffering — and they deserve hearing. At the same time, I cannot hear meat-eating and rape in the same breath without feeling that the enormity of the rapist's crime is being minimized. I know this was not Portman's intent; I know she isn't trying to trivialize sexual violence (although the fact that she signed a petition in support of Roman Polanski does call into question whether she takes rape seriously in all cases). Still, I think the morality of meat is more complicated than she lets on.

Yes, animals suffer. Yes, factory farming (which is, it's important to remember, not the only option for the cultivation of livestock) is bad for human beings too. And yes, some scientists believe that we need to eat far less meat or even no meat at all if we want to stop global warming. But there are greater and lesser evils in this world, and I believe that eating animals is a lesser crime than sexually assaulting a human being. Portman writes that Foer "unites the two sides of the animal eating debate in their reasoning" when he argues that humans are different from animals, and thus have different responsibilities. But if we truly want to unite the two sides — and, I would argue, if we want to reduce meat consumption the world over — we would do well to avoid demonizing the large majority of people who don't yet agree with us.

Jonathan Safran Foer's Eating Animals [Huffington Post]
Expert: Meat Consumption Causing Warming [UPI.com]

Foer writes eloquently of his early attempts at vegetarianism, his re-commitment when his son was born, and the moral underpinnings of his choice ("Try to imagine any end other than taste for which it would be justifiable to do what we do to farmed animals"). But what stood out for me about his piece was the descriptions of food he'd given up. He writes,

Some of my happiest childhood memories are of sushi "lunch dates" with my mom, and eating my dad's turkey burgers with mustard and grilled onions at backyard celebrations, and of course my grandmother's chicken with carrots. Those occasions simply wouldn't have been the same without those foods - and that is important. To give up the taste of sushi, turkey or chicken is a loss that extends beyond giving up a pleasurable eating experience. Changing what we eat and letting tastes fade from memory create a kind of cultural loss, a forgetting. But perhaps this kind of forgetfulness is worth accepting - even worth cultivating (forgetting, too, can be cultivated). To remember my values, I need to lose certain tastes and find other handles for the memories that they once helped me carry.

It's true that not every tradition is worth preserving, and plenty of things that we now consider abhorrent were once happy memories for some. At the same time, Foer is more honest than many vegetarians about the personal cost of not eating meat. For me, becoming a vegetarian didn't involve jettisoning a lot of beloved foods. I was such a picky kid that my favorite foods were toast, apples, and ice cream, and although I enjoyed a brief food renaissance when I went to college, I didn't really become emotionally attached to meat. Giving it up at the age of 20 was easy.

But I got sick. Vegetarianism led to near-veganism led to an obsession with "healthy" food (combined with a summer on a very strict beans-and-broccoli budget) that left me underweight, cold, and anxious all the time. I was never diagnosed with an eating disorder, but my friends were concerned, and my doctor sternly told me to gain weight. Which I did, in part by eating seafood again.

I still do it, and I'm still not completely proud of it — while I don't share Foer's ethical fervor for the vegetarian cause, I do know that fishing can be as bad for the environment as factory farming. I think of my eating style as a way to eat less flesh and use fewer resources than I would as an omnivore — which it is — but it's also a way of honoring good memories and keeping bad ones at bay. Being a pure vegetarian or a vegan still reminds me of a time when I was sickly and scared and not taking good care of myself. Eating the occasional clam linguine or California roll reminds me of getting better, of feeling physically and mentally healthy again. I know that many, many people thrive on animal-free diets, and I believe that, with the right preparation and the right frame of mind, I could too. And I don't believe, as some do, that vegetarianism is just another eating disorder. But I am afraid of how easily my ethics can turn into self-denial, my self-denial into self-punishment. And I don't want my diet to remind me of my summer of beans.

Foer says that when his grandmother made her chicken and carrots, she "wasn't preparing food, but humans." And it's true that food is rarely just food — it's also the stories and the values that surround it. For me, for now, a can of anchovies tells a story about healing myself, and it's not a story I'm willing to give up just yet.

Against Meat [NYT Magazine]

[Kuala Lumpur, September 2. Image via Getty]

An activist from the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) promotes vegetarianism while clad in full lenght gown made of lettuce leaves in front of a shopping mall in Kuala Lumpur on September 2, 2009. AFP PHOTO / Saeed Khan (Photo credit should read SAEED KHAN/AFP/Getty Images)

[Tokyo, August 3. Image via Getty]

Members from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) Asia-Pacific wear outfits made out with real lettuce leaves and hold signs that read 'Save the Planet, Go Vegetarian,' as they greet passersby in downtown Tokyo on August 3, 2009. PETA said that switching to a vegetarian diet is the most effective way that anyone can do to fight climate change and reduce environmental destruction. AFP PHOTO/Kazuhiro NOGI (Photo credit should read KAZUHIRO NOGI/AFP/Getty Images)

• Scientists say anorexia may be related to autism. Sufferers of both disorders struggle with rigidity and obsession, and people with anorexia can develop the motor tics and difficulty reading emotions that are considered characteristic of autism. • Caylee Anthony's autopsy report has been released — it shows that her body had been in the woods for about three months, and that someone put duct tape on her head before or just after she died. • Research shows that kids learn emotional control from roughhousing with their dads. Close father-child bonds also help children form strong relationships later in life, and even delay menstruation in girls. • OJ's ex-girlfriend is writing a tell-all in which she accuses him of trying to separate her from her friends and family, constantly comparing her with Nicole, and threatening a friend of hers with a gun. • Hillary Clinton has had surgery to repair a broken elbow, and doctors expect her to make a full recovery. • Glamour editor Sheila Weller is into three-ways: she wrote Girls Like Us: Carole King, Joni Mitchell, Carly Simon and the Journey of a Generation, and now she's writing a book about Katie Couric, Diane Sawyer and Christiane Amanpour. • A British school is considering asking all girls to wear pants because their skirts have gotten "ridiculously short" and "too revealing especially on staircases." Headteacher Jane Holland says she might consider relenting if girls promise to keep their frocks knee-length, because "girls look smart in skirts." • Two people with swine flu got married in Chicago. No word on whether Pat Robertson thinks this will destroy the institution of marriage. • The inventor of the Magic Fingers vibrating bed has died at the age of 92. • Both houses of Congress — but not Ron Paul — voted to condemn Iran's crackdown on protesters. • Some residents of Pasco, Washington don't want a Planned Parenthood opening in their town, because they're worried about how antiabortion protests might affect local schools — even though the clinic won't actually provide abortions. • Watch Barack Obama order General Odierno to shave Stephen Colbert's head here. • Obama wants the 2010 census to include data on same-sex marriages and partnerships. Previous censuses tried to include same-sex unions by "altering the gender of one member of a same-sex couple" — we're not sure how that worked. • Oklahoma Senator Jim Inhofe refused to meet with Sonia Sotomayor, saying that his voting against her was "a foregone conclusion." • Roland Burris will not be charged with perjury for statements he made about his appointment to Obama's Senate seat. • A man claiming to be an aide to Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud says Mehsud planned the assassination of Benazir Bhutto. He also claims Mehsud was acting on behalf of the United States. • Economist Ian Ayres suggests that people use "commitment contracts" to pledge to forego meat one day a week — and pay a bounty if they don't. •

In answer to the first question, the Slate's Nina Rastogi says: go ahead, chow down on some bacon. Well, kind of. The greenest meat is actually poultry, because it's so efficient: a calorie of chicken protein requires only 5.6 calories of fossil fuels, as opposed to 20 to 40 for beef. But pork is also somewhat more environmentally-friendly than beef, because pigs fart less and breed more than cows. Methane gas expelled by livestock contributes to global warming, and the more offspring an animal has per year, the fewer resources expended on breeding. Sadly for hamburger lovers, beef is the worst offender. It's bad for humans, as underscored by a new study (although, to be fair, this study also fingers hot dogs, which everyone knows are made of lips and assholes), and it's also bad for the planet. Cows use the most land, cause the most global warming, and contribute most to a kind of water pollution called eutrophication, which can kill fish.

Speaking of fish, how should we feel about eating them? According to a new report, fish feel pain, possibly in a way similar to humans. Fish who received morphine before being burned seemed chilled out (sorry) throughout the procedure and afterwards, while non-drugged fish showed "defensive behaviors, indicating wariness, or fear and anxiety" after their watery torture.

But Ariane Sherine, in an excruciatingly punny piece for the Guardian, says this news won't matter to most people. Sherine uses herself as an example: "fish don't elicit the same emotional response as mammals and birds," she writes, "and because of this, I've always eaten them but rarely meat." Ok, confession: though I used to be a vegetarian, I too eat fish. I don't do it because I think they don't feel pain — I'm sure they do. I do it for the selfish (or, as Sherine would say, "shellfish") reasons that I was having trouble staying healthy and eating with friends and family as a pure vegetarian. I pay attention to sustainable seafood guidelines, because my initial vegetarianism was an environmental, not a moral choice. I don't feel as virtuous as I did when I was a beans-and-tofu girl, but I can exercise again, my cholesterol is lower, and I don't get in fights with my dad when I go home.

Sherine says, "no matter how much pain creatures we view as 'food' are scientifically proven to experience, 94% of us will go on fuelling demand for them, sticking our fingers in our ears and yelling, 'la la la, they taste nice, so shut up and let me eat them!'" I don't think that's entirely true. I think articles like Rastogi's show that people are looking for ways to balance their desire to eat some animal products with their desire to not live in an all-Katrina-all-the-time global-warming hellscape. And if, as Michael Pollan says, Americans going meatless just one night a week would be like taking 30 to 40 million cars off the road, I'd rather champion Meatless Monday than wage a war for universal vegetarianism that, frankly, I'm never going to win.

The Kindest Cut [Slate]
Study: Fish May Feel Pain Much Like Humans [UPI]
Are Fishes' Feelings A Red Herring? [Guardian]
Paying A Price For Loving Red Meat [New York Times]

What differentiates Phillips's experiment from the legion of others of its ilk is that Phillips and her husband decided to "eat conscientiously for a month, not just on our regular grocery allotment but on the government-defined, food-stamp minimum: $248 for two people in our hometown of New Haven, Conn." They started with zero food and bought "the SOLE-est products available — that is, the sustainable, organic, local or ethical alternative." They made dal, chili, and biryani, and finished the month with $1.20 left over.

But what exactly does "they" mean here? It's possible she's just using the first person singular for simplicity's sake, but it sounds like it fell to Phillips, not her husband, to implement most of the changes. "I relied on the sort of reasonably flexible schedule that is a luxury in far too many households," she writes, "and I started with some basic cooking knowledge" [emphasis ours]. She also refers to "my Chinese fried rice and Italian risotto." She mentions only one contribution from her husband: microwaving his own oatmeal, after she shows him how. One Salon commenter sums up the apparent inequality this way:

Now women are being called upon not only to manage the eco-cleanliness of their families domiciles, but also to manage the ethical qualities of their families food choices: a leftist version of "Better Homes and Gardens".

Not every household where the woman does the cooking is an inequitable one, but from personal experience it seems to me that the current pressure to eat locally, organically, sustainably and well weighs much more heavily on women. My ex was into bike-riding and recycling, but he thought farmers' markets were lame — if I wanted us to eat local tomatoes, I had to go and get them by myself. And my dad, an environmentalist and general bleeding-heart who has always done half the childcare, cleaning, and cooking, used to refuse to cook for me after I went veggie.

This imbalance happens because women still cook and shop for groceries more than men, but also because some men — even men who are otherwise progressive — look down on sustainable eating, or the work that goes along with it. Plenty of guys still agree with Jessica that vegetarians are sissies, and riding a bike or even retrofitting a car to run on vegetable oil may seem cooler than picking out locally grown fruit. So while eating sustainably benefits everyone by slowing climate change, right now it may also make things harder on women.

There's hope, though. Vegan Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson and his foe, omnivore/sustainable food advocate Michael Pollan, are both dudes. And my dad, once a die-hard meat-eater, recently purchased a vegan cookbook as part of his new project to "eat lower on the food chain." Perhaps caring about food miles and pesticide runoff will one day be considered manly. For those of you who think about such things, do you notice a gender gap in ethical eating? And what do you think we can do to close it?

Can We Afford To Eat Ethnically? [Salon]

Earlier: Can Female Vegetarians And Male Carnivores Ever Find True Foodie Love?

Masson says omnivores make fun of vegans "because of a bad conscience. I think to some extent people think: 'You know, they're probably right, but, boy, would it be inconvenient for me.'" And according to Masson, omnivores should have a bad conscience. Of milk, he says:

I feel that it's not ours to take. The milk is there for a calf, not for a human. We're the only species that drinks the milk of another species.

Think about it: You couldn't get within 100 yards of a wild cow to take milk. The bull would gore you to death. The cow herself would run away. They don't want to be milked. It's really a false conceit to say, "Well, they don't really mind." Of course they mind. It's just that we breed them to be docile, and we put them in stalls, and we make them artificially pregnant. It's totally unnatural.

When Salon's Katharine Mieszkowski asks "wouldn't you do more to reduce animal suffering by advocating ending the worst factory farms than arguing that we should all go vegan," Masson replies: "Reform has never been my strong point. I really like to think along the edges — a more radical approach." He goes on to critique the idea — espoused by Michael Pollan and others — that farm animals can have good lives.

Near the end of the interview, Masson says things are changing for the better. Part of his evidence: "I just heard a fantastic statistic that at Stanford University, a quarter of the undergraduate student body is vegetarian." I was a vegetarian undergraduate at Stanford, and while the percentage of vegetarians may have changed dramatically in the four years since I graduated, I remember the figure being about 11%. And we did get made fun of. Partly, I'm sure, because of meat-eaters' "bad conscience," but partly because we were perceived as self-righteous. And sometimes we were.

Masson says "you could never pass a law that you can't eat cheese. Never, ever. That will never happen. [...] It feels like, I think falsely so, but it feels like it's my God-given privilege to eat whatever I goddamn please." This makes cheese-eaters sound like entitled assholes, but really food is a central part of almost all human cultures (except, say, breatharians), and to ask people to give up something their mothers, their grandmothers, and their great-grandmothers not only ate but also, as Masson acknowledges, developed rituals around, is actually a very big deal. We may be the only animals who drink the milk of another animal, but we're also the only animals who refrain from eating certain things for moral reasons, and to say that being vegan or vegetarian is more "natural" than being omnivorous is a total crock.

When I was at Stanford, a lot of vegans and vegetarians used our commitment to the cause to disparage American food culture, deriding bread and milk as disgusting. I remember one girl turning up her nose at some cheese, labeling it "bacteria food" — we had to point out that the tempeh she was eating was also fermented. The way Americans eat has lots of problems, to be sure, but telling people that the historical basics of their diet are gross and unnatural isn't the best way to get people to change. Maybe if Masson were more interested in reform, he'd recognize that, as much as animal life deserves respect, so does human culture. It's reasonable to ask people to eat less meat and dairy — it's even reasonable to ask them to go completely vegan. But we have to understand that this represents an enormous shift for people, a break not only with habit but with history. Sometimes it's good to break with history, but it's always hard, and animal rights advocates need to recognize that.

Don't have a cow! [Salon]

Earlier: The Ethics Of Eating: Veganism, Food & Fashion

"Vegetarianism is an eating disorder," Coren writes, "It's a better eating disorder than many others, because at least it doesn't make you fat, and in general it doesn't cause you to wither away and die. But it does make you pale, and flaky, and unbelievably tedious to be around." First of all, no. Vegetarianism is not an eating disorder. Yes, it is true that many people with eating disorders will claim vegetarianism as a means to cut out several foods from their diets and excuse themselves from meat-laden meals, but to lump vegetarianism, a CHOICE, in with anorexia and bulimia, which are full-blown mental illnesses, is a bit offensive and ultimately ridiculous.

If Coren's argument was that vegetarianism, in certain cases, can be a symptom of an underlying eating disorder, I'd say he was right. But Coren argues that all vegetarians are simply attempting to adhere to a vegetarian lifestyle as a means of putting up a giant finger to the world: "It's why so many vegetarians have tattoos and exotic piercings (you know it's true). It's why anarchists, squatters, G20 protesters and art students are usually vegetarians. Frustrated that they cannot, and never will, control the world, or anything else of any significance, they starve themselves and carve holes in their bodies." Coren also notes that most vegetarians are girls, "because vegetarianism is a way of controlling one's food intake without drawing attention to one's vanity."

Coren argues that vegetarianism (as well as food allergies) is just a means of drawing attention to one's self, and states that maybe we'd all be better off if we stopped making a big deal about what we were eating, and just had a little meat now and then. He also pulls out the extremely tired (and debatable) "Hitler was a vegetarian, and he was crazy!" argument as a means to tie not eating meat with being a sociopath of sorts. "Meat tastes good. It carries vitamins and minerals with a unique efficiency that is critical to the maintenance of a healthy life. And it gives pigs, quite literally, a reason to live."

Perhaps Coren has never met a vegetarian who is sane, eats a proper amount of food, and maintains a healthy, meat-free lifestyle. Or maybe he didn't bother asking any vegetarians why they don't eat meat, as many people don't eat meat for religious reasons, or because of their stance on animal rights. The moral, spiritual, and ethical reasoning behind vegetarianism goes far beyond Coren's view that all vegetarians are attention-seeking tattooed anorexic anarchists who would rather ruin society than eat meat. Albert Einstein, on the other hand, once said, "Nothing will benefit human health and increase chances for survival of life on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet."

I think I'll go with Einstein on this one. Thanks anyway, Giles.

Do A Pig A Favour! Ban Vegetarianism Now! [TimesOnline]

California's Proposition 2 requires that farm animals have room to move around by 2015, but confinement may be the least of some birds' worries. A new PETA expose has revealed widespread abuse at turkey farms in West Virginia. PETA's video of the abuse (not for the faint of heart) includes workers stomping on turkeys' heads and pretending to rape them. One worker describes punishing a wayward bird by shoving a broomstick two feet down its neck while shouting at the other birds, "Let that be a lesson to y'all."

In more news to make you sad about humanity, yesterday, the Humane Society reported that Petland, a national pet store chain, has been selling customers dogs from puppy mills while telling them the pooches came from good breeders. The mills often keep breeding dogs in cages for their whole lives with no exercise or human contact. Many of these cages are filthy, and sick or even dead dogs are sometimes caged up with healthy ones.

Many of us can agree that stomping a bird or caging a dog with its dead brother are inhumane, but many of us will also eat turkey this Thanksgiving. Bioethicist Peter Singer, however, in a new article in Newsweek, thinks this is about to change. He believes we'll soon come to see animal mistreatment as akin to sexism and racism (apparently, California voters already care more about animal rights than gay rights), and thus our society will eventually become vegan. As a substitute, he thinks we may turn to meat grown in vats from real animal cells. Until that happens, vegetarians (like me) will have to rely on Tofurkey, side dishes (the best part of Thanksgiving anyway), and of course the suspicious stares of grandparents who wonder what weird religion we are practicing now.

Sarah Palin Watches Turkeys Die, For Fun [Gawker]
An Update On A Case Of Alleged Turkey Abuse [LA Times]

Petland Linked To Puppy Mills [Humane Society]
The Rights Of Animals [Newsweek]
A Recipe For A Family Fight [Newsweek]

Related: Sarah Palin's Red-Meat Speech Written By Vegetarian Ex-Bush Speechwriter [LA Times]

Pacelle says Sarah Palin led "a program that promoted aerial gunning of wolves and bears." But California animal farming may be scarier than Alaskan bear-hunting. Earlier this year, a Humane Society undercover investigation of a Southern California slaughterhouse led to the biggest beef recall in US history. Humane Society videos showed cows too weak to stand being dragged by chains and shoved by forklifts. Pacelle says, "I do worry about post traumatic stress disorder with our investigators because they see the worst things that humans do to other creatures."

Prop. 2 would hopefully change things. It requires that pigs, hens, and calves be able to "stand up, lie down, turn around, and freely extend their limbs" by 2015. Seems like the least we can do, but some critics say it's part of a stealth campaign to turn America vegan, or that it will put farmers out of business and drive up egg prices (“Do we want chickens to flap their wings?" asks one farmer. "Or do we want to eat?”).

Pacelle counters that any competent farmer should be able to adapt to the new standards by 2015. And he's not interested in getting Americans to quit eating meat. "We're a pluralistic society," he says, "and we have pluralism when it comes to food as well." As a vegetarian, I can get behind this — there's nothing I hate worse than when meat-eaters assume I want to rip the hamburgers out of their hands. But what do you, vegetarians and meat-eaters alike, think about factory farming and its regulations? Is it enough to treat our animals better, or should we all be going veg?

Putting Animal Cruelty on the Ballot [Time]
The Barnyard Strategist [NY Times]

In typically histrionic fashion, PETA director of research Kathy Guillermo tells Newsweek: "Given the environmental, cruelty and health impact of a meat-based diet, going vegan is best, going vegetarian is good, and being a flexitarian is like smoking two packs of cigarettes instead of ten, beating one pig down the slaughter ramp instead of two, and pouring a pint of gasoline down a drain instead of pouring down a gallon."

I really want to go vegetarian for the environment after that sort of sweet talk! Of course, made in a less obnoxious fashion, Guillermo's has a semi-valid point. The environmental impact of meat can be severe. Mollie Katzen, the author of the amazing Moosewood Cookbook tells Newsweek, "I'm very happy that people can make the definition of 'vegetarian' be a positive statement about vegetables rather than a negative statement about meat—'I don't eat this, and I don't eat that.' I'm sick and tired of the no's. [However] the environmental impact of meat and livestock raising is severe. I'm not against eating meat or salmon, but I believe people should be responsible and limited in their consumption."

To sum up: some people eat more meat than others. "Think how many Americans regularly eat peanut-butter and jelly sandwiches, pasta, bean burritos and cheese pizzas as their main courses," Dawn Blatner tells Newsweek. Really revelatory, Dawn. Our minds are officially blown!

Flexitarians Can Have Their Meat And Not Eat It, To [USA Today]
Part-Time Vegetarians [Newsweek]

Earlier: The Case For Being A "Recession Vegetarian"