Because Of Our Behavior, Yo!

Like most people who have read Fast Food Nation—or, in my case, part of it—I did a stint as a vegetarian. I was a bad vegetarian. I made allowances for fish (I overdosed on salmon that year; the sight of it nauseates me to this day[1]), I gained weight from eating so much bread and cheese and, like, zero vegetables (who gains weight when they become vegetarian?), and I hadn’t thought all that deeply about my decision.[2] I hadn’t done my homework. I did not draft a position paper justifying my shiny new lifestyle choice; nor did I have pithy retorts for those who sought to tear it down.[3] I was an easy target for self-righteous carnivores and self-righteous vegans, alike. Sure, I was concerned about the cruel treatment of animals and the environmental effects of mass meat production, and I had a vague suspicion of vegetarians’ moral superiority,[4] but I think my choice had as much to do with the sort of California-chic appeal of vegetarianism. It wasn’t as easy as ordering a Beach Club at Jimmy Johns (“The real deal,” proclaims the menu, “and it ain’t even California!”), but it still seemed like a bargain to me. With this one decision, I was dialing up a whole new world—an exotic world filled with mango groves, sun-bleached surfers, and the sprouts of that most noble legume, alfalfa.

Will power isn’t my strong suit; otherwise, I probably would have dabbled in vegetarianism sooner. Ever since watching Bambi and barely weathering the death of Bambi’s mother, I liked the idea of not eating animals—especially cute ones. We’ll call this the “Bambi Effect.” Because of the Bambi Effect, I do not eat deer, horse, or rabbit to this day. I also liked the idea of treating animals well, even if they were being raised for slaughter; in practice, however, I only drew the line at veal. I would not eat baby cows that had been crammed into tiny crates and exclusively fed milk so that their muscles atrophied and they shat themselves around the clock, but I would consume a steady diet of chicken mcnuggets. It wasn’t until I lived in Romania between my junior and senior years of college and avoided meat per the U.S. Department of State’s suggestion (the website also advised me not to drink tap water—advice I totally ignored[5]) that I discovered I was capable of abstinence. Thus began my year as a vegetarian. Well, my almost-year: I caved the following spring—grilling season—when the irresistible scent of steak filled the air. Juicy, delicious, diabolical steak.

I’ve been eating meat ever since.

I cross my fingers and hope that the animals I eat are raised in humane conditions. I still don’t eat veal, venison, horse, or rabbit. I like the idea of buying free-range chicken and cage-free eggs, but I don’t always do it. Like my metaphoric Native American ancestors, before eating the metaphoric deer that I’ve metaphorically slain, I offer up thanks to its metaphoric spirit.

Or else I turn off my brain altogether, focusing exclusively on the orgy of the senses that is, say, a deep-dish pepperoni and sausage pizza. This is easier. In fact, since it’s no more difficult for me to buy a package of boneless, skinless chicken breasts than a box of Pop Tarts, it would be easy enough to never think about where meat actually comes from. I don’t look at those chicken breasts and see a bird; I see a manufacturing plant. This disconnect is dangerous. While I don’t approve of hunting for sport, I do think there’s something to being able to kill one’s own dinner. I’m not about to deck myself out in camouflage and learn to wield a rifle, or anything, but I do think that if I plan to eat something that was once living, then I should be forced to confront the idea of taking its life. Anything less feels hypocritical. Which makes me a huge hypocrite, because I’m pretty sure I would not be able to wring a chicken’s neck with my bare hands if my life depended on it. Well, maybe if my life depended on it.

In general, though, I’m uneasy about the fact that I eat meat. An acupuncturist once told me I should stop eating chicken because they are restless birds, and in consuming them, one consumes their restlessness. Now, let me go on record: I think that’s a crock of shit. Let’s just call a spade a spade. But maybe consuming chicken does make me restless for another reason—namely my subconscious guilt at taking a life.

These days, the thorn in this carnivore’s side isn’t the issue of cuteness, but that of animal cognition.[6] Probably a function of my increasing awareness of my own mortality, I’m more sensitive to that awareness in others. Unfortunately, it’s sorta tricky to determine just how aware animals actually are. Until they learn to talk[7] (or we find the portal to Narnia, or a magical bedknob), we won’t know exactly what’s going on in their minds. Nevertheless, we’re learning more and more every day—and by “we” I mean a bunch of nerds at research institutions whose findings I will likely bastardize throughout the course of this post—about how intelligent other species can be.

Jeffrey Kluger ably summarizes many of these findings in his August 2010 Time article, “What Animals Think.” He does such a good job, in fact, that I’m going to quote a big chunk of it:

“Humans have a fraught relationship with beasts. They are our companions and our chattel, our family members and our laborers, our household pets and our household pests. We love them and cage them, admire them and abuse them. And, of course, we cook and eat them.

Our dodge — a not unreasonable one — has always been that animals are ours to do with as we please simply because they don’t suffer the way we do. They don’t think, not in any meaningful way. They don’t worry. They have no sense of the future or their own mortality. They may pair-bond, but they don’t love. For all we know, they may not even be conscious…For many people, the Bible offers the most powerful argument of all. Human beings were granted “dominion over the beasts of the field,” and there the discussion can more or less stop.

But one by one, the berms we’ve built between ourselves and the beasts are being washed away.”

Thanks to the mirror test, we know that apes, dolphins, and elephants are self-aware. There’s a fairly general consensus as to the value of conserving and protecting these and other notably intelligent species. We’ll call this the “Flipper Effect.”

Whether other nonhuman species are conscious is less clear. Steven Pinker, a Harvard psychologist and the author of The Stuff of Thought, notes, “It would be perverse to deny consciousness to mammals. Birds and other vertebrates are almost certainly conscious too. When it gets down to oysters and spiders, we’re on shakier ground.” Peter Singer, a Princeton bioethicist and the father of the animal-rights movement, argued that the ability to suffer is a great cross-species leveler, and even he acknowledges that “there’s very little likelihood that oysters, mussels, and clams have any consciousness, so it’s defensible to eat them.”

Ok, so obviously I won’t eat dolphin—either directly or indirectly, via fish whose industries contribute to the demise of dolphins, like tuna back in the day or catfish in the Amazon—and I can probably still sleep at night if I eat oysters. Fair enough. But what about all the species that fall somewhere in between?

What about cows, for example? Kluger says that herd animals, like cow and buffalo, exhibit little intelligence. Psychologist Jonathan Balcombe, author of Second Nature: The Inner Lives of Animals, disputes this claim, citing a 2004 Cambridge University experiment showing that young heifers exhibit behavioral expressions of excitement when they solve a problem. Not that it matters, in his opinion: “Intelligence aligns poorly with sentience,” states Balcombe, “so even if [herd animals] were less smart than other creatures, it wouldn’t follow that they can suffer less or feel pain less acutely.”

Well, shit. Not only are cows not necessarily the dimwits I believed them to be, but they almost assuredly experience pain. Hell, even pigs have feelings, according to a recent U.K. study showing that pigs raised in a comfortable environment exhibit optimism—as if Babe and Charlotte’s Web didn’t already make it hard enough for me to enjoy my bacon. And if they can feel optimism, then they can probably feel fear.

Knowing this, it’s pretty tough to get behind the way livestock is treated. According to Kluger, “In the U.S., food animals are overwhelmingly raised on factory farms, where cattle and pigs are jammed together by the thousands and chickens are confined in cages that barely allow them to stand.” And from what I can recall of those few pages I read of Fast Food Nation, that’s the Walt Disney version.

So what do I do? Do I boycott meat and lobby my congressmen for more humane laws? Do I move to Europe, where animal-welfare policies begin with the premise that animals are sentient beings and must be treated accordingly? Where my cow/steak will be properly stunned before being killed, so that it won’t feel terror as it queues up in the slaughterhouse and witnesses the death of its comrades? And even then—even if my cow is stunned and the feelings of fear and pain are diminished—am I really comfortable with the idea of taking its life?

Christ, I don’t know. I really like a good hamburger now and again.

But I am uneasy.