The Meat Paradox by Rob Percival - A Response
This a response as I would like to argue against some positions laid out instead of a book review or summary. To start with some positives, (which many more niceties could be written about the Meat Paradox) this book was such a stimulating and fun read, I was compelled to reread it and write out my thoughts. I appreciate reviewing both sides of the animal farming debate and calling out the bullshit on each side. Percival does a splendid job at taking you on a journey while constantly tying new knowledge back to subjects already discussed. The bibliography itself is massive as Percival draws from a variety of sources adding to the richness of the writing. I highly recommend anyone interested in the debate around animal farming and the environment to read this book.
Intro
Percival starts out by linking animal farming to the destruction of natural habitats and species, a story repeated often in the book. In the opening pages, we learn about how a new medicine called dicolfenac was an anti-inflammatory for cows ended up being poisonous for vultures that normally fed on the cow's body after the cow passed away in India. Beyond the eradication of the vulture population, with no vultures to eat the cows, cow bodies filled the streets leading to illness and disease ravaging the local human population.
The next example involves America's jaguar. The destruction of the Amazon rainforest for cattle farming is driving the jaguar to extinction due to a lack of livable habitats. Our appetites are directly killing off our most majestic native species.
One would think with such powerful and dire opening statements, Percival's solution to the problem of degrading habitats, environment destruction, and climate change would be to do away with the need for farming animals and dramatically alter our food intake. But like all modern environmentalists, he wants his cake and to eat it too*.
The Meat Paradox was defined by a group of researchers in 2010 as the cognitive and emotional tensions inherent in our relationship with meat. That is, why we as a society can say we are against what happens in slaughterhouses and the deletion of a healthy ecosystem, yet continue eating animals as we do. The meat paradox is the cognitive dissonance we use to justify the continued consumption of meat while simultaneously being against the cruelties involved with consuming meat.
Percival tells the story of our evolution and diet. He admits we were never carnivores or herbivores. The human diet varied across the world at different times as humans were forced to be flexible in different climates and among different resources.
The solution to all the problems listed throughout the book is regenerative, organic farming (Note: Percival lives in Britain, and their rules around what is and is not organic may differ from the US). We should allow animals to freely roam, eat grass to fertilize the soil with their manure, and not use chemicals to enrich the soil. Ruminant animals like cows can add to soil quality naturally. Percival says this approach allows the ecosystem to remain in balance and healthy while we enjoy nutritious plants and animals.
I have two issues with this approach:
We do not solve the fundamental ethical issue of exploiting animals.
This solution looks to the past for solutions instead of exploring and promoting the future we want.
Exploiting Animals
The problem with using organic animal farming as a solution is that it does not address the fundamental moral concern around killing a being that has a family, a subjective experience of life, and does not wish to be killed. We can have ruminant animals on an organic plant farm adding to soil quality such that the animals peacefully live their lives. Why must we kill these animals to eat as well?
To build up justification, Percival lays out the case that we need to eat animals. We evolved to eat animals, and nutrients found in dense quantities of animal flesh and secretions allowed humans to grow larger brains. The irony is not lost that this justification plays right into the meat paradox, which to Pervical’s credit, he readily admits.
One reason to support the continued consumption of animals is that animals provide important nutrients that many people across the world are lacking. Page 100 goes into the most detail on why it is a priority for many people across the globe to consume meat as it contains a variety of essential nutrients. Meat is a dense slab of nutrients like vitamin B12, iron, zinc, and fatty acids [pg. 3] that while found in plants, are harder to get adequate quantities of.
What is not laid out is how the malnourished across the world will get organic meat raised on a regenerative farm. We don't even send our cheap factory-farmed meat to the hungry, so why would we send the expensive good stuff? Furthermore, if meat is suggested as a vitamin of sorts for essential nutrients, why then not suggest an actual vitamin? This would be easier to create, and ship (smaller and no refrigeration or fear of rancid meat), and without requiring the mental gymnastics of the meat paradox. Percival seems fundamentally against any form of chemicals and drugs, so I assume the idea of vitamins as a pill is not suggested for this reason. But what is more important: the allegiance to organic farming or helping to get essential nutrients into the malnourished?
"An equally robust body of science says that we have been eating animals alongside plants for well over a million years, and we are biologically adapted to benefit from both. If ... animals have a role to play in our farming system, then it seems we would benefit nutritionally from eating them" [pg. 18]. Again, we look at the situation only from the human benefit side, not the animals we are consuming. Could we benefit nutritionally from eating some animals? Probably. Could we benefit nutritionally from eating only plants? Probably. Only the latter does not require invoking the meat paradox. Why not focus on a plant-based diet then? Instead of spending resources researching and promoting organic meat, why not spend those resources on optimizing a plant-based diet?
If we remove the idea that we need meat and understand there are other avenues to pursue essential, quality nutrients, then we understand we no longer need to farm animals. The meat paradox can vanish from modern society and become something only historians study.
Veganism
Percival says "veganism is an ethical stance which typically entails the exclusion of animal foods from the diet" [pg. 13]. While true, it is important to note veganism is an ethical stance against exploiting and causing suffering to non-human animals. Veganism goes beyond a mere diet. So while Pervical's book is about food, it is important to understand a vegan is against more than farming animals. Talking about veganism only in reference to diet dilutes what veganism is about and what a vegan lifestyle entails.
He does give a fair account of veganism quoting at length scholars such as Jeremy Bethnam and Peter Singer in Chapter 2. In fact, Percival gives grotesque imagery involving his time at a slaughterhouse watching animals die and their bodies mutilated. He later cites the inherent harms for humans both mentally and physically with working in slaughterhouses. While this chapter gives an accurate view of veganism (if not a case for veganism), organic meat does not solve any of the points veganism brings up. The killing, exploitation, and suffering still exist on an organic animal farm, even if it only produces less killing, exploitation, and suffering. Why bother making an evil act less evil instead of doing something good?
The dilemma is whether we use ruminants to fertilize the soil or mine minerals like phosphorus using fossil fuels to enrich the soil artificially. "If we are to end our food system's reliance on fossil fuels and unsustainable inputs - as we surely must - then animals will have an important role to play". Given Percival works as the Head of Policy for Soil Association, I am going to assume Pervical knows what he is talking about when it comes to soil quality and sustainability. So let's assume animals have a role to play in allowing us to grow crops without the use of mining, transporting and spraying fertilizers. Why must these animals be consumed then? Why not let the animals live on the land where their manure fertilizes the soil, and go about their natural lives? We can have organic vegetable and fruit farming without the slaughter of animals, thus avoiding the meat paradox.
"I witnessed a murder. I use these words deliberately, for that is what I saw. I did not witness an illegal act, but her death was a murder." [38] Again we are confronted with the immoral action of killing animals, yet this does not sway the author from his stance on organic animal farming. He is essentially saying we have to be immoral even though he agrees with vegans: "I believe they are correct, these vegans. I think they speak the truth." [pg. 22]
Percival sums up his rejection of veganism: "PETA, Earthling Ed, and Kip Andersen are not marginal voices. The reimagining of meat, not only as unethical, but as pollution, plutonium, and toxic to our health, runs through the vegan movement, a distorting influence amplified by the purity domain. The reality - that meat is natural, nutritious, and can even be necessary - is rejected because it can arouse dissonance and disgust. The truth - that we are empathetic omnivores, creatures characterized by evolutionary contradiction - is felt to be unpalatable, leaving a foul taste upon the world-be herbivore's tongue." [104]
History is full of subjects that get reframed as unethical (slavery, eugenics) or as pollution and toxins (tobacco, fossil fuels, lead paint). Evolving from our past is not necessarily a recipe for doom. This dissonance created in us should be a red flag. Something is wrong, and our brain is seeking to make sense of the contradictory information it is receiving. If we are empathetic omnivores, then let us face this dissonance and rid ourselves of this tax on our minds.
Solutions in the Past
The backdoor out of agreeing with "meat is murder" is making the case that humans are required to eat some animal flesh in order to be healthy. Between pages 40-41 Percevial begins distancing himself from the ethical issue by suggesting meat is sometimes necessary, and therefore not murder. A variety of examples of past and present cultures, such as the Eskimos, are given as examples of those of us that require the consumption of animals. Many animal rights scholars and activists are able to let the Eskimos pass on this moral dilemma of eating animals, but Percival uses the Eskimo’s habitat of limited food to justify what we purchase in the supermarkets. If an indigenous culture does not have a choice, leave them alone. If we do have a choice then we enter the realm of morality.
We spend all of chapter 3 entitled "Hunting" reviewing how ancient and indigenous tribes hunted and their respective rituals around the killing of animals. While I imagine the author wanted to study how ancient cultures handled the meat paradox, throwing it in this book without explicitly saying so makes one feel as if he is using other cultures to excuse the continued exploitation of animals in our current society. What the Inuit, Tukano, and Yukaghir do has no bearing on what the vast majority of us that read this book buy at the grocery store. Are these expeditions into the meat paradox in the past used for nothing more than telling the tale, or are they used to support the continued use of animals?
From the meat paradox perspective, it makes sense to explore other cultures and time periods to understand how they handled the psychological effects of killing sentient beings. However, given this book argues for organic meat, I cannot help but feel these sections are an elaborate "If indigenous cultures can eat animals then so can I," which to paraphrase Earthling Ed "If you appropriate indigenous cultures to justify your continued abuse of animals then I don't think you take morality seriously."
The organic and regenerative farmers interviewed fundamentally believe we need to farm animals. "I believe that farming animals is the right thing to do." from Alex in Wales [pg. 109]. This style of reasoning is like a conservative longing for the better days of the past. As if our future is bound by the systems of animal eating of the past. These farmers want a system that as closely as possible resembles how we ate meat before animal modern animal farming. The reasoning is "it was better back then" instead of "how can we do better for the future?" This logical fallacy is known as the fallacious appeal to tradition.
He discusses the use of fertilizers in crop farming as if all are bad. No discussion of hydroponic farming and only a couple of sentences on lab-grown meat. These systems could use fewer resources rendering the fear of "chemicals" negligible. No paragraphs were given on the fact that much less land is required for a plant-based diet. We would use a lot less resources if we only limited growing crops from the land (https://ourworldindata.org/food-choice-vs-eating-local).
Fertilizers and GMO crops were developed for a reason. Organic farming is not easy. Farmers literally gamble every year that there won't be a drought, flood, plague, insects, etc. coming to destroy the harvest. Again, Percival seems to be more concerned with how we are farming (in that organic is the one true way) than how many people we are helping.
The chapter "Evolution" is interesting in that it develops more around the meat paradox. But once again, given this book is about exploring the meat paradox while also prescribing a solution to farming troubles, I cannot help but wonder if this chapter is to support the idea of eating animals because we evolved eating animals. Is stating our history of eating animals to support the continued eating of animals? And similarly to the previous chapter, this looks at the past for answers instead of envisioning what we want for our future.
Conclusion
The book ultimately has two purposes: one is to examine the history and current trend of how societies deal with the meat paradox, and the other is to promote the idea of organic farming, in particular organic animal farming. These are two separate subjects that get intertwined throughout the book making it seem as if organic animal farming is the answer to the meat paradox. As if we treat animals better, our cognitive dissonance will no longer be required.
In "Emergency", we are confronted with the coming end of times and how not using animals for food would substantially contribute to alleviating the coming doom. Percival says meat eaters need to consume much less meat and of greater quality. My ultimate issue with the book, leaving the ethical concern behind, is why the solution is to reduce and not eliminate. If the issue of climate change is so dire, why settle for half-assed solutions? Many people won't consciously change their diet and many people cannot, so shouldn't those willing to take action not take the most action they can by eliminating animals on their plates entirely? Taking a more "extreme" approach will help balance those that cannot or will not change.
"After decades of environmental campaigning, here we are, staring down the barrel of this century. David has slain Goliath [Goliath being the battle with climate change] in skirmish after skirmish, but Goliath is a many-headed hydra, and with each head lopped, another rises in its place. It is now so late in the day, and the odds are stacked squarely against us. The weight and momentum behind this monster is simply too much. I can reach no other conclusion. I would not bet on a happy ending" [230] - This dismissal view of the future is all the more reason to take the more "dramatic" step of not eating animals at all. The more we do, the better our chances of humanity surviving and thriving in the future.
"The fact remains that we are not herbivores... Many of us can subsist on a plant-based diet, but there are ecological and nutritional barriers to a world in which no animals are consumed, and they are not trivial." [239] - So let's work on the non-trivial making them trivial instead of promoting sub-par solutions to a dire problem.
Footnote
* I believe most of the modern (past 20 years or so) environmental movement has been to discover solutions that allow one to continue consuming the things we enjoy while reducing the impact on the environment instead of calling for the end of frivolous consumption.