Former Vegans Explain Why They Eat Meat: Are You Convinced?

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I became a vegetarian when I was a teenager. I didn’t have the most well-formulated reasons, but I had convictions. I had learned about the slaughtering of baby harp seals for their fur and felt appalled at such inhumane treatment of animals; I was troubled to learn about how unhealthy fast food is. The thought of eating dead animals — certainly the pork that is frequently found in the Cantonese cooking my grandmother made – simply came to bother me.

To this day, I don’t miss meat. I’ve never minded foregoing the Christmas roast or the Thanksgiving turkey. In a recent article in The Atlantic two former vegetarians and vegans explain why they have again chosen to eat meat; a vegetarian of many years explains why she supports other’s choice to eat meat. The last-mentioned individual, Nicolette Hahn Niman is a livestock rancher, environmental lawyer and author of Righteous Porkchop: Finding a Life and Good Food Beyond Factory Farms; her husband, Bill Niman, is founder of Niman Ranch, a “natural meat company.” Tovar Cerulli is a deer hunter and author of The Mindful Carnivore: A Vegetarian’s Hunt for Sustenance. Joshua Applestone is a butcher, an instructor, and co-author of The Butcher’s Guide to Well-Raised Meat.

Arguments For Eating Meat

All three describe becoming vegetarian around the age of 20 or so, for ethical, religious, moral reasons, after learning about how beef-raising practices were deforesting the Amazon, about the Buddhist teachings of Thich Nhat Hanh, about the less than pretty practices used in rearing and slaughtering cattle in the beef industry. What changed two of their minds?

Niman, while remaining a vegetarian, notes that, in her work as an environmental lawyer, her study of ecologically-based farming showed her how essential animals are to sustainable farms as they “increase soil fertility, contribute to pest and weed control, and convert vegetation that’s inedible to humans, and growing on marginal, uncultivated land, into food.” Cerulli recounts how living in a rural community showed him that raising all sorts of food comes at a cost:

From habitat destruction to combines that inadvertently mince rabbits to the shooting of deer in farm fields, crop production is far from harmless. Even in our own organic garden, my wife and I were battling ravenous insects and fence-defying woodchucks. I began to see that the question wasn’t what we ate but how that food came to our plates.

According to Cerulli, adding eggs, dairy, chicken and fish back into his diet also led to an improvement in his and his wife’s health.

A vegan for 15 years, Applestone says that he “overcame [his] aversion to consuming meat” after seeing farmers raising animals “sustainably and ethically”; he realized that he really had a “problem with the inhumane practices of the commercial meat industry.” Indeed, it is the practices of industrialized agriculture that come under critique by all Niman, Cerulli and Applestone. “Eating animal-derived foods” is not, in and of itself, a health risk, they say; it is over-consumption that is.

Health, the environment and ethics are often cited as arguments for not eating meat. Niman rather calls for a “new ethics of eating animals.”

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Photo by qmnonic

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ii q.

8:43AM PDT on May 22, 2012

send a green star

8:42AM PDT on May 22, 2012

Robert K.

6:53AM PDT on May 22, 2012

PETA is entirely populated by well meaning fools who don't understand what they stand for.

Sorry if I stepped on any toes, but in this instance I'm totally right.

Lynda H.

3:44PM PDT on May 19, 2012

Beth K - could you please be a little more specific? Please pick one of my “justifications” that you disagree with, and allow me to direct you to an objective source of information. I’m always willing to discuss things further.

Yes, I am “pro-meat”, after 2 decades of being a sick vegetarian and another 2 decades as a less sick pescatarian. I think I gave it a real good try. I’ve put some serious study into nutrition, biochemistry and animal behaviour since then, along with the hidden agenda behind ‘animal rights’, and I think it’s important to share that with others. Isn’t that what we’re here for? Or are these threads merely a safe opportunity to insult and hurt others to prove your righteousness?

Pego R.

10:58AM PDT on May 18, 2012

I am not sure where anyone has read "Eat Steak" from any of us. I'm rather fond of eggs, myself. More "stop listening to propaganda and get the occasional blood test" We should all be doing that anyway. This isn't novel or unusual health advice For the rest of it, I am with you, we need to look at where our food is coming from. We need to be looking at sustainable systems, getting rid of fossil fuels everywhere possible, shrinking farms to the sizes that allow farmers to tailor their crops to the land and to the weather they are dealing with and allow them to produce more varied crops, less vulnerable to weather upsets. I like Permaculture-designed farms and systems, which don't exclude vegitarians at all. The Dervaes family has farmed like this, as vegitarians for decades; http://urbanhomestead.org/

Beth K.

10:08PM PDT on May 17, 2012

Lynda, where do you get half this stuff? I know you guys are trying to paint the vegans as the nutty ones, but after reading the "pro-meat" posts, I think it may be the other way around. Some of your justifications are just out there.

Dale O.

9:57PM PDT on May 17, 2012

Interesting article. In the end individuals are just going to have to live with the choice that best suits what is healthy and comfortable for themselves. Many vegans and vegetarians do well on the diet chosen, others have troubles with health issues or the cost. It doesn't really matter, follow the path you chose and do not worry what others think. Vegans and meat eaters should stop insulting each other and accept that there are differences. You will not convert many to your side in either faction.

Both sides always be present arguments as to vegan/meat eating has detrimental health effects. So does breathing in air depending on where you live. Instead of citing websites backing whatever side of the fence you support, do what you want and let the "other side" alone. We don't need the constant "Go Vegan!" or "Eat steak!" thrown at each other.
In the end we all feed on organics be they plant based (yes, rabbits/wildlife die harvesting veggies getting cut up by harvesting equipment/trucks bringing veggies from A to B).

Organic solutions are the best solution: no more GMO, veggies/fruits without tons of toxic chemicals, meat without hormones/toxins/factory farms.

Until Mother Nature redesigns life on Earth where we all survive by eating rock pate we all survive eating what once was a living entity.