Flaming on the CBC! I flames! (Not really, I was very polite)

CBC has a little food blog, and one of the writers wrote about whether falling in love with carnivore will influence a veggie to give up vegetarianism. Naturally opinions on vege-ism are being posted, including the mandatory Self-Righteous Vegetarian. I ignored the SRV, but did respond to two others:


By Johnny Ramsoda: "I agree with your [previous person's] comment, except for one tiny thing. Humans are not omnivores. That is a myth perpetrated by the food industry. It's true, we can survive on meat (example: Eskimos can live on whale blubber and polar bear meat), but they would thrive if their diet was strictly vegetarian. Just because we humans are "opportunity eaters", doesn't mean we are not designed (evolved, if you like) to eat only plant material. The plant world has everything we need."

Dear Mr Ramsoda (I love your last name, by the way) -- anyone who can digest and get nutrition from meat has evolved to eat meat. That's not a myth, it's just logical.

It's true that we can choose not to eat meat, though it's not much of a choice if you live somewhere in the world where you take whatever calories you can get. (I'm a vegan, and I count myself very lucky to live in the Land of Abundant Canned Chick Peas.)


By Nathan: "I was vegan for a number of years; during that time I felt well, and I was healthy. But in retrospect, many of the socio-political reasons for being a vegan stripped my enjoyment of food. Politics has no place in the bedrooms, or on the tables of the nation. By the by, my conversion moment was in a restaurant in Beijing when I had turtle (that arrived intact - head, feet etc.) and pigeon. Also intact."

Dear Nathan: I absolutely sympathize with the idea that we should take pleasure in food, and most vegan cookbooks today emphasize this. But I won't live my life blocking out the suffering of others, human or animal, just so they won't spoil my day. Everyday we make choices that hurt others in this world--surely it's not wrong to want to minimize the harm we do? If politics doesn't belong in the bedroom or at the table, surely compassion does?