Question: Hi I'm Joanna I am a strict vegetarian, and one of the most frequent things omnivores bring up is that it is Mother Nature's way that we should eat meat, however I disagree because the methods of slaughter are inhuman and why would we have developed feelings and morality to make the choice to stop cooking and eating flesh. What do you think? Also, do you feel you own that llama/alpaka and finally have you ever been likened to Harry Potter (lol) xxxxx

Leo Garcia answered on 17 Jun 2010:

Wow – a bunch of interesting questions here. Where shall I start?

>> it is Mother Nature’s way that we should eat meat

Firstly, the concept of ‘Mother Nature’ is not a scientific concept – there is no evidence for such a being. I suppose, though, that it is used to describe the general way in which life on earth behaves. In this context then it is a fact that our ancestors were omnivorous, which means they ate both meat and plant matter. However, some of our closest living relatives on earth, namely gorillas and orangutans, have herbivorous (I suppose what we would call vegan) diets. Although, it’s important to say that any herbivore is a herbivore simply because it is genetically programmed to do so – there are no ethical decisions to go vegan in any other animals (that we know of) except humans!

So there is no doubt that the diet that our body is ‘expecting’ (that is, the diet that our ancestors had) is omnivorous. However, there is evidence to suggest that we did not eat nearly as much meat as we do today, and that the meat part of a healthy diet should be composed of lean meats, rather than lots of red meat.

Whilst it is a little controversial, I think that it is possible to eat a vegetarian (or, if you are very careful, a vegan diet) and remain healthy, so long as the nutritional content of what you eat has been well thought out and planned ahead. Also, this is a personal decision. Under the assumption that you won’t make yourself ill by eating a vegetarian diet (and depending on how old you are), that decision is yours to take, and your friends should respect you enough to accept that.

>> the methods of slaughter are inhuman

That’s a really interesting choice of words – because you are right that it would be unthinkable for us to treat humans in the way that we treat our factory farmed animals. I believe that factory farmed meat should be avoided, and that the regulations governing how those animals are treated should be tightened to improve animal welfare. There are (more expensive) alternative, more ethically sound, sources of meat, like ‘free range’ and, generally, ‘organic’, for people who want to eat meat, but want to ensure the animal had a high quality of life.

>>why would we have developed feelings and morality to make the choice to stop cooking and eating flesh

That we have developed a sense of morality and conscience certainly gives us the choice to take up a vegetarian/vegan diet. However, your question implies that the two are linked – but I don’t think that they are. Our evolution of morality is based upon other factors (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_morality). In fact, you could argue that, because life consuming other life is an extremely common method of survival in the world, that our empathy towards the food we eat is a misfiring of emotions which evolved for other purposes. What good could there be in evolving a feeling which actually limits the amount of nutritionally important food that you eat?

>>do you feel you own that llama/alpaka

Not at all! He is his own llama. He lives in Surrey and his name is Pandu.

>>have you ever been likened to Harry Potter

Yes, several times by different people, some of whom I didn’t know. I really think I could have played Harry Potter in the films!