Threatening the Livelihood of Captive Turkeys

The Goldfish recently posted on one aspect of ethical eating. I was going to leave this as a comment but then decided there was sufficient content to possibly have one or two others accompany me in my state of dietary confusion.

With the option of meat, veganism, vegetarianism, probably as many varieties of these are there are seeds in a pumpkin, and religious observance, choices can be bewildering. I cannot and would not judge anyone else's stance on the morality of their diet. We should be free to make our own choices. For myself, I eat fish (cough, of course not Goldfish, gulp) and almost certainly products made with animal derivatives but I don't eat meat directly. You could say I'm a non-Goldfish, fish eating partial vegetarian.

Perhaps because of the lack of certain key vitamins I'm not always cogent enough to provide an argument on this subject but here are my thoughts anyhow.

As an intelligent, responsible and rational thinking human (these qualities are actually under considerable dispute in my case), I should be able to come to some justifiable conclusion about what I eat, and my fundamental belief is that I must do so and not remain ambivalent. That's not to say I can't change my mind, but there should be a reasoned argument for doing so.

It is therefore slightly galling that my best attempt relies on being comfortable with my own sense of guilt. However in the absence of any actual knowledge about how animals think or experience pain and distress, it's the best I can do.

I eat the flesh of those creatures I can bring myself to kill personally. I took myself out one day and caught, killed and eat fish, therefore although the rationale is somewhat shaky, I do feel reasonably comfortable with the consequence of eating fish. Clearly I can't speak for the scaly ones themselves. I have not been able to bring myself to do this with any other creature, so I don't eat other creatures. That's about it in a baking dish.

Of course, the major failing here is that I don't personally catch all the fish I eat. I caught fish once (albeit quite a few on that occasion) to prove to myself that I could do it, but now, like most other people, I buy fish, neatly killed by someone else, over the counter. I do feel though, that I could go out and kill a fish tomorrow were it necessary. I don't know that I could do this to a chicken, lamb, pig, cow or even mouse. No need to let you know my stance on humans because I don't much fancy the taste.

So what happens when I am invited as a guest to someone else's dinner party? (yes that's can be taken as a hint!!) Well I don't like to burden others with the consequences of my own dilemmas. We have to realise the world isn't black and white and that sometimes we have to do the best we can in each differing circumstance. So when others cook for me, I eat what they eat, including meat (but no snails, euugh!). When I cook for others, they get fish pie or nut loaf or a napkin forcibly inserted down the gullet, depending on preference. This is excepting the ongoing dilemma of the 26 meat eaters I'm supposed to be catering for this Christmas. I don't have 26 napkins you see.

Now I could extend this to putting myself in the shoes (or scales) of a fish and ask myself whether I'd prefer to be killed and eaten by some vast automated process where my individual opportunity to look my killer in the eye has been denied; or whether I'd prefer to be individually speared, knowing that my killer would be my eater. This argument would however be anthropomorphic (I got to use that word too) and unsound. I can have no idea how an anchovy, tuna or even chicken might judge it's own death. Of course, for any creature death by eating is probably not a desirable option, however millions of years of natural selection have made this outcome likely for many organisms on the planet.

So after all that, what can you conclude? Probably that I am at least as mixed up as many others on this issue. But I have at least satisfied my own need to have decided just what flavour of confusion to adopt.

Listening to: NOFX, "Clams Have Feelings Too"  (a lie, I'm clueless about NOFX)
Hoping: you enjoy your next turkey, smoked salmon, or nut loaf (but not snail, euugh!)