Looking for something?

• Links
• Home
• About
• store

Deconstructing Meat Propaganda

April 23, 2008

After reading Mary Martin’s and Erik Marcus‘ reactions to the NY Times article about vat meat, I’ve decided to deconstruct the article myself here. I’ll take it piece by piece, but I’m telling you right now, the best stuff is towards the end:

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals is offering a million-dollar prize for the “first person to come up with a method to produce commercially viable quantities of in vitro meat at competitive prices by 2012.”

PETA is very good at creating publicity. This is likely just one more of their stunts. I can see both sides of the argument and I’m just not going to weigh in on it here, because I already did here , here, and here.

“In vitro” and “test-tube grown” are not ideas one usually associates with meat.

This is true. Many vegans have known about this for years since the issue comes up every so often, but for lots of omnivores, the idea is new.

I worry about the connotation of “in vitro” because I think many people associate it with in vitro fertilization, human pregnancy, adoption, abortion, and related issues. Too many people already associate pro-life/ anti-abortion movement with the pro-animal movement and I think it’s extremely important to make sure those two are not strongly correlated. They are very different issues and there’s no strong correlation between animal rights and abortion. Like many pro-animal people, I am pro-choice.

So, on that note, I’m grateful that the Times explained the term by stating “test-tube grown” instead of assuming average readers would know what “in vitro” meant.

The meat-substitute niche is currently occupied largely by soy in all its miraculous if slightly disappointing forms.

I have a few reactions to this:

First, as a nearly life-long vegetarian, I don’t view new foods that happen to taste like meat “meat substitutes.” For me, they are not substitutes, they are new foods. They are new inventions, new recipes, new technologies and as such, I think it’s best to highlight their essence, the new.

Naming these foods “meat substitutes” claims meat as the default and as normal. It marginalizes vegan. The vegan’s food choices are vegan and should not be named by their relation to meat foods. They should be named by their relation to vegan foods.

Second, soy foods are not “disappointing” to people like me, the ones who like them and appreciate having the variety of foods soy products allow. Moreover, people from cultures that consume a lot of soy probably wouldn’t appreciate their soy foods being called “disappointing.” See the comment from glt here for more on that. Only someone who tries soy foods with the expectation of a particular meaty taste would be disappointed in the flavor. Someone who tastes the foods without expectation simply likes the flavor or dislikes it; they would not describe it as “disappointing.” Once again, the statement marginalizes the vegan.

On that note, I always remind omnivores when trying new vegan foods, to try to appreciate the food on its own and to not try to expect certain flavors. And, for this reason, I dislike restaurants that use meat names to describe dishes. For one, it’s confusing to people like me who read meat words and assume they aren’t vegan. But also, for omnivores, they try new foods with an unrealistic expectation of taste and often conclude that the vegan food isn’t good because it doesn’t taste like meat. Of course, vegan food is not bad, it’s just different, and if they had tasted it the way they might try other new cuisines - without expectation - they might come away with a different response. Their prejudice - their preconceived notion or expectation - against vegan foods determines how they respond to that food.

Lastly, the “meat-substitute niche” is only a small niche when described as a meat substitute. When described as a new food, the “niche” is as big or small as marketers make it.

The announcement has apparently caused strife in PETA’s offices, where workers are debating whether they might ever eat animal tissue that has never been part of an autonomous animal.

The promotion of vat meat is indeed controversial amongst pro-animal people. I’ll just leave it at that for now.

They’ll have some time to decide. So far, only a small amount of meat tissue has been grown in petri dishes — and it remains to be seen whether consumers will ever like the idea.

The Times is right here. Vat meat is probably not going to make it to the supermarket in the near future.

We are disgusted by the conventional meat industry in this country, which raises animals — especially chicken and pigs — in inhumane confinement systems that cause significant environmental damage.

What about cows and bulls? The HSUS video was about dairy cows, not chickens or pigs. Is veal not inhumane, too? Did dairy farms magically become more humane and I just never heard about it?

Oh, and by the way, it’s chickens, with an S, when you’re talking about animals. It’s chicken, without an S, when you’re talking about meat. So, that phrase should have been “chickens and pigs” or “chicken and pork.” This mistake is telling. It represents the Times’s perspective.

There is every reason to change the way meat is produced, to make it more ethical, more humane.

Indeed, there are at least 7 reasons listed here and 6 reasons listed here. Oh yeah, and there are 8 reasons here, too.

But the result of the technology that PETA hopes to reward could be the end of domesticated farm animals.

Oh noes! No more GMOs! What will we do!?

Sarcasm aside, what’s really so wrong with ending the reproduction of turkeys bred to grow so large and so quickly that their legs can’t support their own body weight?

This has often seemed as if it were the logical conclusion of some radical animal-rights activists: better for animals not to exist at all if there is a chance that they would suffer.

Here is where the Times article takes a cheap shot. They don’t clarify the difference between abstaining from breeding animals into existence and euthanasia/killing them. The sentence above is a direct poke at PETA’s history of killing dogs. And by association, the Times smears all animal rights activists.

Moreover, they slap the stigma of “radical” on all abolitionists. And they do this without even fully understanding the concept.

What’s really so wrong about not breeding animals? Why is it considered so right and normal to modify species? And why is it so “radical” to let nature do its own thing and not to interfere?

That statement above is poor journalism, pure and simple.

We prefer a more measured approach.

Because obviously, they’ve done tons of research on the topic and have come to this very reasoned conclusion. Nope, that’s not it. The “more measured approach” they suggest is simply the approach that let’s them keep eating meat. It’s not “measured”; it’s selfish.

Ensure the least possible cruelty to animals, by all means, and raise them in ways that are both ethical and environmentally sound.

The Times uses a different definition of ethical than I do. My definition considers the animals’ interests in living as ethically relevant. Their definition considers only the animals’ interests that don’t conflict with Times writers’ interests in eating them. So, for example, Times writers seem to care about animals’ interests in being able to turn around in their cages and in not being covered with their upstairs neighbors’ excrement. But Times writers seem dismissive of animals’ interests in living free lives. It seems a given to them that animals should live, breed, and die according to human whims. That’s a shame.

But also treasure the cultural and historical bond between humans and domesticated animals.

Like Erik says, “You know: the cultural and historical bond that involves one party cutting the other party’s throat. Yeah, let’s treasure that. And let’s also treasure the economic forces that have guaranteed constant crowding and misery for upwards of 90 percent of all farmed animals ever raised.”

Moreover, when the bond is unilateral, it’s not a bond. The animals don’t “treasure” this “bond.” In fact, they often try to escape this “bond,” hence the need for cages and fences.

Historically speaking, they exist only because of the uses we have found for them, and preserving their existence means, in most cases, preserving the uses we have made for them.

Like the bison?

Humans find ways to exploit things. The human tendency to exploit doesn’t prove or justify anything. It just shows what selfish, power-mongers we are.

It will be a barren world if the herds and flocks disappear in favor of meat grown in a laboratory tank.

Are they serious? They can’t even imagine what a world without domesticated animals would look like? Have any of them ever heard the stories of millions of bison, wolves, and bears on the American prairie before we humans decided to clear them all out to raise cows for profit? Have they never seen a flock of free, wild turkeys? Or heard the grunts and footsteps of wild boars in the night? Perhaps, given that many of these journalists are “city folk.” But that’s not enough reason for Times writers to pretend wild animals don’t exist. (In fact, I recall seeing raccoons in Central Park and reading about a coyote in New Jersey.)

Again I marvel at how well-researched the editorial is.

The Times’s appeal isn’t to ethics here. The Times’s appeal is to the selfish human interest in controlling animal lives.

As Mary Martin wrote, “If the Times understood animal rights in terms of nonviolence and social justice, I wonder what kind of “measured approach” they’d be able to conjure up?”

She and I suggest sending letters to the NY Times. Here’s the email: letters@nytimes.com.

Comments

Important Message:

Order a FREE vegetarian starter kit at GoVeg.com

Copyright © Elaine Vigneault · Legal notice · Contact · OOSHEE · Revolution theme by Brian Gardner